Immigrant goes to America
A major part of life is finding an identity. The period between childhood and adulthood is the time where a person begins to define themself. Most American Young Adult Novels cover this topic. However identity discovery doesn’t end once adulthood starts. A person defines oneself throughout their entire lives. Self- definition is something everyone deals with, no matter where they are from. Still, imagine a person that belongs to two separate places. That person would have two separate identities and two ways to define themselves. It’s extremely hard to define oneself and find their identity when a person has two different parts to themselves. Immigrants that come to America have this problem. Immigrants have a much…show more content… This novel is a “coming of age story”. Except it is not about regular, white, American-born citizens , it is about an immigrant family who struggles to fit into American society. America is often described as a melting pot for different cultures. However, According to a Historical overview of Immigration “Few serious observers believe, however, that the melting pot image is accurate or adequate”(Historical Overview). The reason most historians do not like the “melting pot” theory is that America has forced immigrants to assimilate for decades.
Assimilation is easier for second generation immigrants as we can clearly see from Sophia. Sophia by far assimilates into American culture the most. Perhaps this is due to her age. Sophia was the youngest when her family left the dominican. She spent the majority of her life in the United States only going back when her parents forced her to. Carlos, their father, had a much more complicated time assimilating because he could not see America as his home. He lived in the Dominican all his life, adjusting to the United States was a challenge for him because everything was