Introduction to my advanced essay:

My goal for this essay is to highlight how foreigners have to adapt to their new lives when they migrate. While doing this they often sacrifice aspects of their old lives so they can make the most of their new lives. This shouldn’t be the case. They should be able to come to new places and not have to change their identity. I’m proud of my analysis because I feel like they turned out strong and supported my thesis.

                    Advanced Essay #3: Adaption

An image shows two little boys riding tricycles in a refugee camp. The refugee camp is located in southern Athens at the old international airport. The boy in the back is wearing white shoes that are too big for him. He’s walking while holding an orange and black tricycle carefully through the road. The boy in front of him is riding a pink and purple tricycle that was meant for a girl. He has no shoes on but is focused on riding the tricycle. The boys are riding the tricycles in what looks to be the parking lot of the airport. In the background, there are two tents. This image, like many others, shows how refugees have to adapt to their circumstances. Refugees leave their lives and are required to start over. Even though the refugees are at a camp they are trying to make the best of the situation and form a functioning way of living. The kids are adapting to their circumstances just by the fact that they are trying to have fun even though they are at an unfamiliar place. As mentioned before, one kid has shoes that are too big for him and another has no shoes on at all. If you ever rode a bike before you know those small things are not the conditions in which you should be riding a bike in, yet the kids are trying to make the most of what they have and still find a way to have fun at a place like a refugee came. What most people don’t understand about this is refugees have to get rid of aspects of their old life to adapt to their new lives. circumstances.

Another example is in the article A Return to Nigeria. The author describes her personal experience of living in Nigeria, moving back to the United States, and then going back to Nigeria. The author describes how moving back to the United States made her change things about her identity. The article says, “Coming of age in foreign classrooms, my sister and I slowly shed our native skins. We let teachers mangle our names then adopted their mispronunciations- introducing ourselves with syllables our own relatives tripped over.” This evidence shows how the author and her sister adjusted to American culture. Instead of correcting the teachers they allowed them to mess up their names and they even accepted the mispronunciations. The girls were trying to adapt to their new culture so they get rid of certain aspects of their identity to fit into American culture. Examples of foreigners changing their names or adopting an Americanized name is common when foreigners migrate to America. The author even points out that their relatives tripped over the new syllables but that didn’t make her change her name back due to the fact that she wanted to adjust to American culture, so life could be easier and they could fit in. The reality of this is if someone wants to make it in America they have to have an Americanized name. Someone’s success shouldn’t be based on how their name sounds.

In the book Behold the Dreamers, we are introduced to a family that is from Cameroon and move to New York for better opportunities. The family is then challenged when their source of income is affected by the financial crisis. Neni enjoyed the New York life. She easily adapted to life in New York. She and her friend Fatou went shopping in Chinatown for designer bags like Gucci (even though they were fakes) so she could fit the new status quo. On Page 11 “Neni said to Fatou as they walked through Chinatown looking for make-believe Gucci and Versace bags.” This shows how Neni adapted to life in New York by trying to look the part. She tried to look the part by getting designer bags because most people who live in America have some type of designer items. Even though the bags weren’t real she still got it to look the part, hence her trying to be like an American. This highlights how Neni wanted to get rid of her old appearance to fit an American’s appearance.

Another example from Behold the Dreamers is when times started getting rough for the Jongas, Jende started taking his anger out on Neni. They would argue more, but Neni didn’t allow him to talk to her how he wanted. Neni and one of her friends talked about it and said how Neni just had to accept things. On page 311 “No matter what women in this country do, she went on we African woman must stand behind the husband and be following them and say yes, yes. That we African women must do. We no gunno say to husband no, I no gunno do it.” This evidence shows how Neni was starting to adapt to American culture. Nani started to stand up for herself against Jende which isn’t something common that African women did. When Jende tries to order Neni around she starts to act like an “American Woman” by challenging what he says, which is something that Africana women weren’t supposed to do. She adapts by adjusting to how America’s family dynamics are and not following how Africans are. She sacrifices her obeying attitude and starts to stand up for herself. This leads to their family dynamic changing.

People tend to overlook the fact that migrants have to adapt. When they do adapt it causes them to have to get rid of aspects from their old lives. Which is wrong because no one should have to sacrifice aspects of their identity to fit in somewhere

Work Cited:

16 Children – 16 Photos: Click the Black Background and Switch on Their Reality. Politiken, 28 Feb. 2017, politiken.dk/fotografier/art5849931/Click-the-black-background-and-switch-on-their-reality. Accessed 13 Jan. 2020.

Okoro, Enuma. “A Return to Nigeria.” Opinionator, //opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/a-return-to-nigeria/. Accessed 14 Jan. 2020.

Mbue, Imbolo. Behold the Dreamers: a Novel. Random House Inc, 2017.

Hamid, Mohsin. Exit West. Penguin Random House, 2017.

Introduction:

My goals for this essay was to discuss how we as a society expect men to be strong all the time. My goal was also to discuss how that’s a toxic thing to expect from men. I’m proud of how I was able to write about a hard time in my life. One way I want to improve my writing for the next paper is to reflect better because I feel like some of my reflection is weak.

When I was seven years old I learned that perfect families don’t exist. I always thought that my mother and father would be married forever and that we could live happily ever after. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

My mother and father had issues that a seven-year-old couldn’t “understand”, though I did understand that they weren’t happy. They would argue and yell at each other and I overheard all of it while I hid in a tent I kept in my room. That tent was my safe place where I got away from all of this. Before I knew it, my parents were divorced. My parents tried to sugarcoat things, but I could understand everything perfectly. Then I was given a schedule that consisted of me spending half the week with my mother and the other half with my father.

You would think that after the divorce my parents would be fine but they weren’t. My mom started working long hours to cope. My dad would try to smile through the pain and before I knew it my stepmom appeared in my life. I could tell that at first, my father was using my stepmom as a rebound because I could still see the lack of happiness in his face, but over time he fell in love with her. I wasn’t very fond of my stepmom but I dealt with her for my father’s sake.

My mother and father’s divorce left a dent in me. It changed my thought process and how I loved people. Seeing my mother and father fall out of love made me keep people at a distance. I didn’t want to get too close to people because I feared going through a “divorce”. This toxic way of seeing love didn’t last long because the summer of sophomore year my father and stepmom divorced and I was able to evaluate things.

It was a warm summer night. I was laying in my bed with my pjs on watching “Henry Danger” on Nickelodeon. My air conditioner hummed along with the actors talking on my tv. That was a normal summer night for me until my dad came home from work. I heard a loud noise which was the alarm system going off. My dad’s footsteps were heavy as if he were mad. He hurried up the steps and swung my door open and sat in my computer chair. My dad’s usual joyful smile was nowhere to be found and then he started speaking, “Shawnie me and Fiona are getting a divorce.” I wasn’t surprised for problems were lingering in their relationship for a while. I asked my dad how he was doing and he replied, “ This is nothing.” It was my dad’s second divorce and I could tell in actuality that he wasn’t fine. He was just trying to hold up a front. My dad then got up from the computer chair, kissed my forehead, and continued with his night.

I sat in my bed wondering what would come next. I wasn’t mad because I knew the divorce was the best decision for their strained relationship. I was more or so worried about how my little brother would take it since he was young. I feared that my little brother would grow up and handle his emotions the way I did. I sat in my bed for the rest of the night with my thoughts racing through my brain resulting in me getting no sleep. Then before I knew it, they were divorced.

After the day I found out of the divorce, I had many sleepless nights. I was so afraid of divorce and the fact that I was experiencing another one frightened me, like a monster under the bed. Yet, I came to terms and realized that in life there are two types of relationships. Toxic relationships and stable ones. Both of the relationships my dad were in started off as stable and then turned toxic. It was not one person’s fault, but both in actuality. By me being old enough to understand that I was contempt with things. My father, on the other hand, was not.

Just like the first divorce, my dad tried to hide his emotions. Typically men try to hide their emotions because of what society expects of them. Society expects men to be strong and always be fine. Men are usually taught that showing emotions are weak. When in reality, not showing emotions is weak because you’re not strong enough to confront how you feel. I remember when my little brother would cry and my dad would say, “Son crying is for girls.” That’s the same toxic thing that my grandfather would say to my dad which my dad was now passing on to my brother.

My dad was like a cup overflowing with water. The water, in this case, were his emotions, yet he refused to confront them. Sadly, my dad was never able to come to terms with how he felt because he died not long after him and my stepmom divorced due to a heart attack.

In a crazy way, I feel like if my dad were able to come to term with things, I feel like he could’ve lived a longer life. He had so much pent-up aggression and sorrow that it took a strain on him. The fact that we as a society expect men to be these strong beings is in a way asking for too much, for they are people just like us who need to confront their emotions or else their emotions will comfort them.

If I could go back I would try to be there for my dad more and help take on the burden of his emotions, but since my dad was brought up in a society where men are frowned upon if they show emotions my dad stayed a closed book. We need to normalize men showing their emotions because emotions are an essential part of life that everyone should be able to use to express themselves.