Creative Writing
Chapter One: My of my parents sudden death forced me to move from my home town of Blackwater, Arizona the population there was fewer than 500 people. So when I was sent to my Grandmother’s, who resides in the projects right outside of Brooklyn, New York, it was a big cultural shock. When I arrived to meet her at the airport I felt like I was in a different world. When moving my belongings in my new room I felt deprived, my old room was spacious and clean, this room was the complete opposite. After dinner, she was telling me about our new neighbors, “They can’t speak a bit of English”, my Grandmother said. This is when I first heard of, I was ten years old. “Don’t you want to go meet them, Rebecca?” I observed them; it seemed as if they were from Mexico. From looking at them I wondered the journey they had to endure to come here. I decided I was going to befriend them.
- When does language interfere with equal opportunity for immigrants? In the novel Antonia’s family couldn’t speak English so it withheld them from being able to have regular jobs. All they could do was farm, and if their crops were bad there was nothing they could do about it.
- How does ones culture pre- destine a person for a specific lifestyle? Many times when one person grows up in a certain culture he becomes like that culture, and when you try to mix with another culture they “spit” you out.
- When characters are able to step out of their pre-destined position? Lena is able to step out of her culture and owning her own clothing business and being able to support herself finically.
- Which characters struggle with their assigned place? Antonia struggles with this because she wants to be more than just a nanny or a farmer, but she feels as if the society won’t let her. She knows they label her and she can never overcome that label.
- Why does Cather allow the reader to see this struggle? He wants the reader to see the truth of immigration.
- How is the apart of the American Dream? Because it shows the struggles and reality that immigrants faced when they came to America. It shows what they were willing to bypass for their American Dream and how bad they wanted it.
- Where do boundaries occur in the novel? Jim has boundaries to stay with his social class and not to become close with the “hired girls”. Antonia has boundaries to stay in her social class.
- Antonia’s family came to America to become wealthy. Throughout the novel she struggles to find her true self, but in the end she realizes that it doesn’t matter how much money you have as long as your happy. Pavel is forced to come here because he committed a crime in his country, he will die unhappy.
