Traditional Chinese Immigrant example essay topic

American Dream -- -- Compare "Hester Street" and "Eat a Bowel of Tea " Many years ago, people have immigrated to a new world where they can hope for a more beautiful existence, for the wealth, for the freedoms, for the better opportunities and most importantly, for the American Dreams. As each new era of foreigners migrate to America, they face the obstacle of conforming to mainstream America. As "Hester Street" and "Eat a Bowl of Tea" portrayed, immigrants come to this land of opportunities with the hopes and dreams of a better life for themselves or their families. In "Hester Street", Jake, a Russian Jewish immigrant who lived in New York's Lower East Side for five years, leaving his wife behind, and taking up with a new woman and earning enough money to support his dance hall ways. On the other hand, in "Eat a bowel of tea", Wah Gay is a traditional Chinese immigrant who owns a club in Chinatown, and sends all his money to his wife back in China, who he has not seen in 20 years because of the inequitable immigration laws that had prevented Chinamen bringing their women into the country. These immigrants fall within a lower social class, as a result they strive to conform to a more facilitating and suitable lifestyle.

As they begin to build a new life in America, they face the process of assimilation. America holds an idea of a mainstream society; consequently those individuals not fitting this image are left with feelings of abandonment and insecurity. As a result, they feel pressured in achieving the American dream. Let's look at the examples the movies give us. In "Hester Street", Jake, a self-made Yankee, has abandoned the traditions of his culture by cutting off his beard and ear locks, and he has adopted the mannerisms of his new country, including a new girlfriend who runs a dance hall. When his wife Gitl and son Yos sele join him from the Old World, Jake was embarrassed.

He looks down his wife because she retains her religious ways, wearing the wigs and scarves. He even insists on calling their son Joey and trying to modernize them both. Jake is a typical immigrant who wants to be assimilated as soon as possible, once they gain acceptance and recognition, they begin to look down upon the new immigrants coming into the country, sometimes even family members. Its ironic how quickly one forgets the past and repeats history in terms of the mistreatment and hostile hospitality a new immigrant once received. In "Eat a Bowl of Tea", Wah is desperate to see his son, who served in the US Army during the war (the mass of Chinese who had done so causing the laws to be repealed) ever settling down and continuing his American dream.

He sends him back home to marry a friend's daughter, bring her back, take a good job and start a family. Ben Loy is one of the first Chinese men in New York to marry and bring his bride back to America. The old men, most of whom have their wives in China are thrilled. They see Ben's marriage as a new beginning for their aging hamlet. All these pressures, unfortunately, make the young man impotent. It is interesting that the movie is full of images and situations in which Chinese and American cultures confront one another.

For instance, during the arranged courtship in China, the couple's first moment alone on screen is against the backdrop of an open-air projection of an American film. When the couple is on vacation in Washington to try and escape the pressures of community and finally make love, the familiar American landmarks are overlaid with Chinese music. The very real human problems - family, marriage, impotence, work - are shown to be indistinguishable from crises over identity; Ben Loy's impotence, his failure to continue the line is a sign of his inability to unite Chinese and American, public expectation and private desires. I also find it fascinating how differently Gitl and Ben's wife Mei Oi react to the New World. They are both inexperienced new immigrants, but Gitl reveals a quiet strength and determination that Mei Oi lacks. Mei is more of a weak character.

Because of everyone's hopes on her husband's shoulders render him impotent, she is frustrated and forced to take a lover who is a thug and a gambler. She does not stand by his side during the hard time; instead she has an affair and conceives a child. In contrast, Gitl is unwilling to part with traditions so easily, therefore creates a gap in the marriage that is difficult to overcome. When she realizes that life is not depending on other people, but herself, she decisively chooses to divorce.

Her cleverness can be seen when she is bargaining with the lawyer for divorcing fee. She will not be taken advantage of and one suspects that, although she asks for her new husband's advice at the end of the film, she will listen politely and then do exactly as she thinks is best. She has a lot of guts and intelligence that could only come to fruition in America. In addition, these two films both vividly reveal the harsh environments the immigrants lived at that time.

"Hester Street" exposes the sense of the crowded slums and tenements of the time, at the same time as you can almost touch the 1940's atmosphere in "Eat a Bowl of Tea", the dark rooms and gray streets occasionally filtered by cold sunlight. Today, no more immigration laws and acts were made against foreigners, but the problems of the dislocated immigrants struggling to preserve their culture while adapting to a new one still exist. New immigrants who desire to conform still have to deal with the way they talk, dress, and behave. Most immigrants have attempted to learn the English language, with their accents barely noticeable at times.

In addition, they are willing to take any job available to support the family, and they work in many different jobs that are as physically demanding as they are diverse. The American Dream, is about becoming something, to the best way to achieve fulfillment of ones life. The dream is and always has been a reality. The more that Americans and immigrants insist on the dream as a right, and pursue it with determination, the more likely it will be to remain a live option accessible to all.

The dream does not originate from America; it derives from us, the people. If we exert all our efforts, we at any moment in American history are more likely to be what the country had intended to become. With that predicament already visible, every advance we make may very well lead to another, and every realization of the American Dream will evolve.