Facing Poverty with a Rich Girls Habit by Suki Kim - Essay Example

Facing Poverty with a Rich Girls Habit and the Source of the Essay Facing poverty with a rich girls habit is a novel that was written by a Korean lady called Suki Kim. In her novel, she discusses the effect of language in her life in the United States and how she was determined to fit in her current place of stay. She could hardly speak English as it was not her native language. The only English word she could easily speak was F.O.B. She could not even do her school assignments without support from someone.

The only consolation that Kim had was in English as a Second Language Class where she could get to speak Korean with others like her. It did not take her too long, though, to realize she had very little to share with other students in common. Another key factor that determined the effect of language on the life of an individual was the family background. Kim noted that most of her E.S.L classmates came from poor families who had escaped from the rigid class hierarchy that is dictated majorly by the level of education financial status of a person and the family background.

She realized that most of the wealthier Korean immigrants had settled in Westchester or Manhattan where they could easily take their children to private schools (Duan, Gregory, Glau, & Maid, 2011). To her, immigration was just meant to be an equalizer, but it did not do much in terms or eradicating the class division of the old times. She could hardly forget the distance that existed between her and her fellow F.O.Bs and the occasional English-speaking Korean kids who in most cases tried to avoid them as though they brought some undefined shame to them.

Her attitude Kim found it very humiliating to stay in U.S. One of the facts that took her a lot of time to absorb was the fact that she was an Asian, a term that she could only hear in her class of social studies. She had never thought of her skin color to be of the same shade like those of the Americans. Unlike the Korean schools where the students were taught how to bow every moment a teacher took a turn, the students in American schools could afford to go to class dressed in skin tights and even jeans.

Most notably, she found it very suppressing for the students to kiss one another while in class. Gene, Audience and Purpose Kim has used more of a narrative story to highlight her experience in America. She narrates her life back in Korea and how she moved to America. Kim has responsibly portrayed her family members to the readers. She uses most of her classmates who come from poor families and have escaped from the rigid class hierarchy of the Korean schools as her audiences. Kim writes this novel with the purpose of shading some lights to the entire world on the effects of the language on the life of an individual especially those individuals that are dictated by their levels of education, family backgrounds and even their financial status.

Reference Duan, R., Gregory, R., Glau, B., & Maid, M. (2011). Facing Poverty with a Rich Girls Habits. In S. Kim, McGraw-hill Guide: Writing for College, Writing for Life (2 ed., pp. 18-21). New York: McGraw-Hill.