Comparing the New Immigrants - Essay Example

This has led to history books propagating biased information as viewed from a point of view of a certain group, which may have been exaggerating the information to make it more enticing and interesting. This is usually at the detriment of the minority groups, whose sides of the stories are barely heard, hence reconstruction of history to suit the tellers’ views. This can be attributed to the fact that human beings are prone to error, though not an excusable response. The new immigrants’ stories are an example of how a situation is experienced differently by different people, yet the consideration of only one part of the story leads to an incomplete picture of what really transpired in the various situations.

New immigrants are described as people from eastern and southern Europe who moved to America. This migration was led by a number of factors, including the advent of the industrialization era which meant there was less land for the populations, urbanization and need for laborers and sources of raw materials for growing industries, as well as escaping political and religious repression in their countries of origin (Chafetz and Ebaugh 11- 55) . However, these immigrants faced a number of challenges coming into the USA.

Apart from speaking in different languages, being thrust in a new world where they did not know anybody, these immigrants were faced with other challenges such as poverty. In ‘The Free Vacation House’, A. Yezierska tells the story of a young, poor overburdened mother who gets a chance to live in a vacation house, only to get way from her daily burdens. Unfortunately, the vacation house is so strict that she decides it was better to live in poverty than in the house. In ‘My Own People’ Yezierska depicts a young immigrant writer who decides to turn the suffering of her people into writing in order to help them and herself cope with the hardships of being in a new strange country, with very little support from authorities.

In ‘How I found America’, we meet different characters who have realized that the grass really is not green in the USA, as their dreams got quashed and poverty follows them everywhere. However, each of these characters faces a difficult challenge that propels each one of them to rediscover themselves and work hard to pull themselves out of poverty. Apart from physical challenges which dog these immigrants, they are forced to abandon some of their cultures in order to cope. However, most of these cultures give hope to the immigrants, so they seek to keep them alive by practicing them and teaching them to their children.

Poverty is a big challenge to all these immigrants as they work for long hours with little pay and they are constantly evicted for not paying rent. However, older immigrants come to the aid of these new immigrants by setting up charities and homes where the new immigrants could get their basic necessities. With determination, these new immigrants work very hard by doing several jobs for longer hours in order to get out of poverty and start living better lives. The old immigrants are prompted to help the newer ones due to cultural ties and also the fact that they have been in those positions and have faced challenges that the new immigrants face.

Yezierska believed that the new immigrants would not only provide much needed labor for industries, but also bring rich cultures that would be beneficial to America as a whole. In Kayo Hatta’s film, Picture Bride, the storyline revolves around Riyo, a