2/21
Language: Carbo, 15, Charara, 231, Chin, 143: RA: Farris, 82, Huerta,
96; CS: Rodriguez 238, Ayon, 34, Bermejo, 39
Family is a different idea than
we know. The childhood, the place.
-
Marilyn Chin’s piece, “Tonight
While the Stars are Shimmering”, remind me of the complexities of being an
immigrant who immigrated young, or perhaps the child of an immigrant. You grow
up learning and believing one thing, being spoon fed that this was better for
you, that this was necessary, that you had to leave for freedom, for survival,
for a better life, whatever. Then as you grow, you realize the grass isn’t as
green as you thought it would be over here in America. Your old home and your
new home isn’t as you thought it was, isn’t as you were taught. You were safely
hidden from the complicated truth, and now you have to unravel it all. “In
Feudal China you would’ve been drowned at birth/In India charred for a better
dowry.” (Chin, 141) These things could all be true. They were what you were
told. But truth or not it was all you were told, your experience simplified, a
basic equation, America = Better Than Where We Were, but is it? Chin writes about
being saved by “that boat of freedom” (Chin, 143) but this creates a situation
where we aren’t allowed to voice the injustices were experience here in
America, because “at least it’s better here than there”. She then writes about
her complex romantic and sexual relationship with a white man as she grows to
learn about racism, white guilt, and the complexities of loving someone who
embodies that white privilege. I think this poem reminds me a lot of how I
learned that my home, both of them, and therefor my family and the things that
they told me, were different than I knew growing up, and relates to the prompt
well on a personal level.
Dani, I really appreciate your "is the grass really greener in the U.S." commentary. I think the story that immigrants are often fed is that of "everything will be better in the U.S." However, the U.S. is the opposite of utopia, here we veil the atrocities we have committed and still commit for the most part. The white immoral majority, in my opinion, holds the belief that immigrants should be "lucky" to be in the U.S. and have no right to complain about anything or have qualms with the U.S. government. This mentality, in my opinion, is an atrocity because it assumes a binary: America should be or is "great" and all other places are less than. This is not the case and a horrible mentality. Thank you so much for connecting your personal experiences to this text as well.
ReplyDeleteHi Dani,
ReplyDeleteSimilar to Bri's sentiments above, the idea that the grass isn't always greener in the U.S. really stood out to me. People die trying to come to America because there's the unspoken promise of hope and success. However, there's always a trade off. The current dangers of home escaped, but what is faced here in the U.S. is cruel, dangerous and risky. Even upon arriving in the U.S. safety is unassured, and job opportunities are scarce. Education isn't easy nor cheap. So what does that lead generations of immigrants to do? Blue collar labor. Then there's this big push for the next generation to be educated, do better, and there lies further problems in the work force and in the education system.
Thanks for sharing!
Tien
Dani,
ReplyDeleteyou made great connections with your colleagues in your study of Chin. I appreciate how you related the subject to your own experience and the idealization of the place, USA, and in the memory of home. It's complicated and not as simple as others believe. More of craft as you go forward?
e