...David Schleicher Narrative Essay 5/27/2014 Moving to America Transformed My Life In the past I came across many changes but leaving my country was the toughest change in my life. I had to learn how to live away from people I love and how to start a new life in a new country. Immigration is a life changing experience; learning a new language, adapting to the culture and lifestyle changes are all strenuous things that were thrown at me once I became a part of this country. Even though moving away from my family and friends was a difficult decision, it changed my live for a better. It taught me how to deal with change, how to become an independent and responsible person, and how to feel this country my home. I never imagined living in another country. I remember as it was yesterday when my mom said, “Daniela, I know you do not want to leave Colombia but I have to take you with me, you are my youngest child and I will not let you here” I started arguing with her, saying that how she could do that to me when I already had plans to start college and that I was happy in my country but at the end I gave up and decided to come to America. It was February 10th, 2010, when I left Colombia and was forced to leave my friends, my grandmother, my school, my language and culture to move to this big new country to start a new life. As I took my last look at my home, I remembered all the fun times I had with my mom and sister and friends throughout my life. Tears were...
Words: 1284 - Pages: 6
...Lower East Side Memories : A Jewish Place in America By HASIA R. DINER The Lower East Side and American Jewish Memory I'm Jewish because love my family matzoh ball soup. I'm Jewish because my fathers mothers uncles grandmothers said "Jewish," all the way back to Vitebsk & Kaminetz-Podolska via Lvov. Jewish because reading Dostoyevsky at 13 I write poems at restaurant tables Lower East Side, perfect delicatessen intellectual. —Allen Ginsberg, "Yiddishe Kopf" The poet Allen Ginsberg, born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, returned in his later years to a narrative style of expression, shifting gears from the anger and fire of his early career. In this poem from 1991 he also touched down again, after a long hiatus spent exploring Buddhism and Eastern philosophy, upon some Jewish themes, as a way of remembering the world of his youth. He described that world in one poem, "Yiddishe Kopf," literally, a Jewish head, but more broadly, a highly distinctive Jewish way of thinking, based on insight, cleverness, and finesse. That world for him stood upon two zones of remembrance. The world of eastern Europe, of Vitebsk, Lvov, and Kamenets-Podolski gave him one anchor for his Jewishness. Thai space of memory gave him a focus for continuity and inherited identity, tied down by the weight of the past, by family in particular. The other, the Lower East Side, nurtured and...
Words: 6616 - Pages: 27
...Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact trace@utk.edu. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Leah Rang entitled "Bharati Mukherjee and the American Immigrant: Reimaging the Nation in a Global Context." I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in English. Urmila Seshagiri, Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: Lisi Schoenbach, Bill Hardwig Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Leah Rang entitled ―Bharati Mukherjee and the American Immigrant: Reimagining the Nation in a Global Context.‖ I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in English. Urmila Seshagiri, Major...
Words: 30269 - Pages: 122
...Week 3 Assignment 1.1 \\Eng 115 The author of the essay “Facing Poverty with a Rich Girl’s Habits” is Suki Kim. In the essay, Kim wants to explain her struggles. The essay discusses the struggles she had as a child being in the 7th grade and moving from South Korea to Queens, NY. She went from being rich to being poor basically overnight. Her world as she knew it was changed in an instant. Her father went from being a billionaire to having nothing. Her main purpose is to describe what she faced while trying to adapt to different beliefs and cultures. Kim talks about her life going to a new school where everyone spoke English. She noticed that even Korean American kids avoided her. She had not realized there was much diversity within an immigrant group. There was definitely a separation between the groups. Being a teenager, she was “already rooted in Korean ways and language”. Her soul was not quite American although on paper that is what she was considered. She would rather use her Hello Kitty backpack instead of one that had pictures of the Menudo boys who were popular in the 80’s. She was upset that her parents would not allow her to pierce her ears. Most girls her age had their pierced. It sounds like she struggled to fit in and still keep her Korean culture Her lifestyle changed tremendously. She went from having a chauffer to taking public transportation. She had to get used to being called an Asian when she had only heard that term in school in...
Words: 517 - Pages: 3
...Where The Gods Fly Imagine permanently moving to a country where the language, the culture... everything is foreign to you. This is the reality of most immigrant parents, who try to raise their children safely in a foreign country, where strong influences can strip a person of their cultural identity. This is the exact situation we are dragged into, in the short story 'Where The Gods Fly' written by Jean Kwok. Here we meet a Chinese mother's unwelcoming approach, towards her daughter's passion for the arts of ballet. The story is told by a first person narrator, from a mothers perspective. Her, her husband and her daughter migrated from China when her daughter, Pearl, was still a child. We notice - while reading the story - that the narrator shifts in the grammatical tense, which is what structures the plot of the story. In the present narrative tense, we find the mother in some sort of religious state of mind where she prays to certain gods and spirits, for example: “Ah, Amitabha, Buddha of great compassion, I whisper...” (P. 1, L. 24). While she finds herself in this state, she is reminded of their, her family's, life since they moved from China to America, these parts of the story are, obviously, told in the past tense. The story begins in the present tense, as a sort of exposition. We are introduced to the narrator's situation, the main conflict of the story: she wants to take her daughter out of ballet school, as she predicts: “I can already hear the protest from Pearl's...
Words: 1294 - Pages: 6
...that he experiences as he flees from his war torn country of southern Sudan. The book paints a vivid picture of the epic journey that the main character in the story, Valentino faces from the time that he flees the country to the time that he finally reaches what he thought would be the “Promised Land” in Atlanta, United States of America. He was soon to realize that even in America, life would not be a bed of roses but it would be marred by unexpected acts of violence and racial discrimination (Dave 28). One striking thing in the narrative is that the author brings out the culture of the Dinka people. For instance, polygamous nature of the Dinka people is clearly illustrated. The myth regarding the origin of the Dinka people is as well demonstrated (Bess). In regards to this origin, the Dinka people are given a choice by God to choose between the cattle and the “What is the What”. They choose the cattle which they understood better rather than “What is the What” which they did not as demonstrated in the line, "—you didn't tell us the answer: What is the What? My father shrugged. —We don't know. No one knows” (Dave 64). Through the narrative, a reader is informed on the historical background of the south Sudanese people. The relative geographical locations of the three African countries of Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya are well described, painting an unforgettable picture in the mind of the reader. The diversity in different cultures comes out clearly in the book as the main...
Words: 2210 - Pages: 9
...call his name. In this poem, identity is not seen as something that is solid and concrete but as something that is situated and constructed by others, a glimpse of poststructuralist view on identity. Recently, language learning has been seen as participation and negotiation of self (see Higgins, forthcoming; Kinginger, 2004; Lam, 2000; Morita, 2004; Ohara, 2001; Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000; and Solé, 2007 among others). The trend is resonated in the growing interest in language learner identity and the studies in narratives. In this paper, a case of heritage language learner will be investigated upon the theoretical frame of poststructuralism. Narrative inquiry will be used to analyze how she negotiates her learner identity. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: First, by looking at the struggle a language learner makes to acquire her heritage language, I reclaim the centrality of identity in defining heritage language learners. Second, to widen the horizons of narrative studies to the cyber space as it provides an ample source of easily accessible data and it has become one of the commonplace media of daily communication. Heritage Language Learners and Identity To refer to the Heritage Language Learners (HLLs), various terms have been implemented such as ‘native speakers,’ ‘quasi native speakers,’ ‘bilingual speakers,’ or, from the dissatisfaction with the prior terms, ‘home background speakers,’ and ‘heritage language speakers’ (Valés, 2005: p. 412). There has not yet been...
Words: 4079 - Pages: 17
...My Antonia is important as a historical fiction because you get a little of life that happened in that particular time period of American history. Around this time, many immigrants were coming to America the home of the free to have the “American Dream”, they were coming from all over Europe. My Antonia had immigrants specifically from Bohemia. America was seen as the land of opportunity and we see this in Cather’s novel. Nebraska had a very low population so families like Antonia’s family would go there and make their living by farming. I believe Cather captures the life of people that went through this and wanted that American dream. We see two sides one being that Jim Burden becoming this New York Lawyer living his dream and then Antonia...
Words: 1667 - Pages: 7
...firstBarrientos has rate: native speakers in charge, no more than six stuwritten for the dents per group. Philadelphia “Conbersaychunal,” he says, allowing the fat vow- 2 Inquirer for more than els of his accented English to collide with the sawedtwenty years. off consonants. I tell him that will be fi ne, that I’m familiar with 3 Barrientos was born in Guatethe conversational setup, and yes, I’ve studied a bit mala and raised of Spanish in the past. He asks for my name and I in El Paso, Texas. Her first novel, Frontera Street, was supply it, rolling the double r in Barrientos like a pro. published in 2002, and her second, That’s when I hear the silent snag, the momentary Family Resemblance, was pubhesitation I’ve come to expect at this part of the exlished in 2003. Her column “Unchange. Should I go into it again? Should I explain, conventional Wisdom” runs every the way I have to half a dozen others, that I am Guaweek in the Inquirer. This essay originally appeared in the collectemalan by birth but pura gringa by circumstance? tion Border-Line Personalities: A Do I add the humble little laugh I usually attach New Generation of Latinas Dish to the end of my sentence to let him know that of on Sex, Sass & Cultural Shifting. course I see the irony in the situation? We selected this reading because This will be the sixth...
Words: 9852 - Pages: 40
...1 Transcending the limitations of diaspora as a category of cultural identity in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neck Dr Elizabeth Jackson University of the West Indies St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago Having begun my academic career, not so long ago, as a postcolonial scholar, I have become increasingly critical of postcolonial theory on the grounds that for an increasing number of literary texts by so-called postcolonial writers, postcolonial theoretical approaches may have outlived their usefulness. One example is the Nigerian-born writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s collection of short stories The Thing Around Your Neck, published in 2009. My paper will examine the ways in which these stories explore the limits of diaspora as a category of cultural identity and move toward a more flexible conceptualization of the impact of globalization on people’s sense of themselves and their place in the world. Although the main characters in these stories are of Nigerian origin, few of them fit easily into the limiting categories of ‘Nigerian’ or ‘Nigerian diaspora’. This is not only because their geographical placement is often in flux, but also because their sense of identity is not based on nationality, national origin, or even a sense of belonging to a Nigerian diaspora. On the contrary, they can arguably be described as ‘cosmopolitan’ – not in the old elitist sense of the term, but in the sense of transcending the limitations of nationality or...
Words: 2763 - Pages: 12
...Arts and the Education of Artists: Art and Story CONTENTS SECTION ONE: Marcel’s Studio Visit with Elstir……………………………………………………….. David Carrier SECTION TWO: Film and Video Narrative Brief Narrative on Film-The Case of John Updike……………………………………. Thomas P. Adler With a Pen of Light …………………………………………………………………… Michael Fink Media and the Message: Does Media Shape or Serve the Story: Visual Storytelling and New Media ……………………………………………………. June Bisantz Evans Visual Literacy: The Language of Cultural Signifiers…………………………………. Tammy Knipp SECTION THREE: Narrative and Fine Art Beyond Illustration: Visual Narrative Strategies in Picasso’s Celestina Prints………… Susan J. Baker and William Novak Narrative, Allegory, and Commentary in Emil Nolde’s Legend: St. Mary of Egypt…… William B. Sieger A Narrative of Belonging: The Art of Beauford Delaney and Glenn Ligon…………… Catherine St. John Art and Narrative Under the Third Reich ……………………………………………… Ashley Labrie 28 15 1 22 25 27 36 43 51 Hopper Stories in an Imaginary Museum……………………………………………. Joseph Stanton SECTION FOUR: Photography and Narrative Black & White: Two Worlds/Two Distinct Stories……………………………………….. Elaine A. King Relinquishing His Own Story: Abandonment and Appropriation in the Edward Weston Narrative………………………………………………………………………….. David Peeler Narrative Stretegies in the Worlds of Jean Le Gac and Sophe Calle…………………….. Stefanie Rentsch SECTION FIVE: Memory Does The History of Western Art Tell a Grand Story?……………………………………...
Words: 117240 - Pages: 469
...Whenever I think of the events that have occurred in the past, I always seem to remember more tragic events than the blissful moments. Even in literature, the tragedies are more remembered than other stories. For example, the story of Romeo and Juliet is one of the most notorious plays, despite its appalling ending. Authors have made it a point to sell tragedy in order to make money. However, my perspective on that opinion has been changed. I read The Great Gatsby during my sophomore year in high school as a part of an American literature class. By the end of the book, I realized that no matter what happens in life, it will still keep going and I should only have to look at the optimistic part of it. For some reason, I felt sympathy for Gatsby,...
Words: 2292 - Pages: 10
...NORTH AMERICAN FICTION BRIEF INTRODUCTION: Before starting our study of American Fiction we must understand what American Literature is in itself and which pieces of writing we can include within this label. It is believed that when a piece is written in North America, more precisely in the USA, it would automatically be given this epithet. But it should be taken into account that this idea is quite broad and doesn’t reflect the real essence of the term. However, there is also another definition that gathers this essence: American Literature is the one that represents the Americanism, the singularity of the USA philosophy and culture. This way, instead of focusing on who the author is, it is focused on the content of the writing. In that which concerns Fiction, the following documents are the ones considered as narrative: Speeches Letters Short Stories Essays Political Documents Sermons Novels Diaries 1 FIRST LITERARY EXPRESSIONS The first documents in which the idea of Americanism is very present are the Sermons. They respond to the strict Protestantism settled in the New Continent after the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers and Puritans in the Mayflower (1620) and the Arabella (1630). They established a theocratic community whose main and only point of reference was the Bible. That is why the idea of the ‘city upon a hill’ is still very present in American mentality. As we all know...
Words: 12691 - Pages: 51
...revolutions of 1960s have made fulfilling such a responsibility less daunting than ever. Invaluable references, including Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Evelyn Brooks Higgingbotham, ed., Harvard Guide to African American History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001); Arvarh E. Strickland and Robert E. Weems, Jr., eds., The African American Experience: An Historiographical and Bibliographical Guide (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001); and Randall M. Miller and John David Smith, eds., Dictionary of Afro- American Slavery (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1988), provide informative narratives along with expansive bibliographies. General texts covering major historical events with attention to chronology include John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000), considered a classic; along with Joe William Trotter, Jr., The African American 1  Experience (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001); and, Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, and Stanley Harrold, The African American Odyssey (Upper Saddle River: Printice-Hall, Inc., 2000). Other general texts not to be overlooked are Colin A. Palmer’s Passageways: An Interpretive History of Black America Vol. I: 1619-1863 and Vol. II (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1998), which emphasizes culture; and, Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson’s...
Words: 6155 - Pages: 25
...A TEACHER’S GUIDE TO THE SIGNET CLASSIC EDITION OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON’S UP FROM SLAVERY By VIRGINIA L. SHEPHARD, Ph.D., Florida State University S E R I E S E D I T O R S : W. GEIGER ELLIS, ED.D., ARTHEA J. S. REED, PH.D., UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA, EMERITUS and UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, RETIRED A Teacher’s Guide to the Signet Classic Edition of Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery 2 INTRODUCTION Booker T. Washington’s commanding presence and oratory deeply moved his contemporaries. His writings continue to influence readers today. Although Washington claimed his autobiography was “a simple, straightforward story, with no attempt at embellishment,” readers for nearly a century have found it richly rewarding. Today, Up From Slavery appeals to a wide audience from early adolescence through adulthood. More important, however, is the inspiration his story of hard work and positive goals gives to all readers. His life is an example providing hope to all. The complexity and contradictions of his life make his autobiography intellectually intriguing for advanced readers. To some he was known as the Sage of Tuskegee or the Black Moses. One of his prominent biographers, Louis R. Harlan, called him the “Wizard of the Tuskegee Machine.” Others acknowledged him to be a complicated person and public figure. Students of American social and political history have come to see that Washington lived a double life. Publicly he appeased the white establishment...
Words: 13713 - Pages: 55
