Advanced Essay #2: Home Base

Ethan Friedman English III Mr. Block January 2020

Authors’ Note:

In this essay, I wanted to connect my life and my nostalgia linked to my home with the experiences of people around the world. I wanted to stress how lucky I am to be able to call a place home and be able to experience my 17 years of life there. There are many people in the world who are forced out of their homes, and it’s important for me to highlight the issues in the world when I have the opportunity.

                                 Home Base

As he heard the bells from the departing train, he leaps off of his make-shift cot and scrambled toward the tracks. His limbs clothed in the murky mud from the swamp-like ditch he and his peers had slept in to stay warm. He got to a full sprint as he lept at the perfect time to make it in-between the ultimate and penultimate cars. He ascended the rusty ladder and sat down with his legs crossed facing the newly formed home behind him. That is where the signature picture was taken. He leaves a world of poverty and danger and heads for one with opportunity. I do not live in that same world. My world gives me more opportunities. My world gives me an education. My world provides me with friends of all different kinds. My world even lets me say and do whatever I want. There is a reason that I love my home. Philadelphia reminds me to be strong, to be caring, to be confident, and to bleed green. There will never be another home this meaning fun to me. I do not have to worry about where I am going to sleep, what I am going to eat. I have grown up to understand that there are people on the same planet that I live in who do not have those same privileges.

Some are forced to make a large magnitude of changes in their life to be able to have what I have by default. A Nigerian girl, who’s family moved to New York City to raise her and her sister, did not have the same life. Their names were not pronounced right, they were judged based on their skin, and nobody understood their language. Over time, after her father died, she started to go back to Nigeria and write about her community there. She slowly started to feel like she missed her real home. Just like I feel, you can never replace your true home. She said, “Each time I boarded the plane to return to the states it was with a surprising hint of sadness” (A Return to Nigeria). The problem is, we do not always realize that not everybody has the ability to go back to their home. Sometimes, they are forced out forever. Those are the people that we need to help.

In America, we should be willing to assist refugees. During our schooling and through the news, we learn all about the struggles the migrants and refugees have to endure just to have an opportunity to work and survive. America is most certainly not full. We should be looking for people around the world who need an opportunity. Who cares who is making your clothes? Who cares who builds your cars? Who cares about who where people are from? People are people. As long as they are not causing a problem and are not affecting your life, why does it matter? At the end of the, you never know what could happen to you. In each others’ shoes, you would beg for America to take you in and save your life. We need to understand the damage we are doing by denying immigrants. A significant majority of immigrants want to come to America to work just like everyone else. They want to go to school. They want to be happy. They do not want to hurt anybody.

There are refugees from everywhere on the planet. Not everyone can go home. We think that all of them come to our countries successfully and the struggle is whether or not we want them. The reality is what Enrique said, “Every day, hundreds of families are not as lucky. They are again being torn apart”, in Enqirue’s Journey. There are many groups who become stranded with nowhere to go. We need to look at this issue from other perspectives to understand that home is not guaranteed to everyone. What we take for granted is an incredible privilege.

Works Cited: Nazario, Sonia. Enriques Journey. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2014.

Okoro, Enuma. “A Return to Nigeria.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 Apr. 2014, https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/a-return-to-nigeria/?hp&rref=opinion.