Jumana Dahleh
The Evolution of America through the eyes of an Irish Immigrant
“Patrick, wake up!” whispered his friend in the seat next to him.
“Dude you really got to keep your eyes open, you don’t want Ms. Gill to catch you man”.
His body suddenly jolted awake for just long enough to catch the end of Samina’s presentation. “To sum up my family story, my father moved to the US from India to go to medical school and there he met my mother who is a native to this country. My mothers parents immigrated from Italy when they could no longer find work and hoping for a better life. Thank you.” proudly stated Samina. This was the first of many presentations that will be told today. The class assignment for this past week was to get in touch with your family’s roots. This entails finding out why your family has ended up in this ever evolving country of America. As George begins to talk, Patrick falls back into a halcyon day dream. This dream transports Patrick’s mind back to the story that his grandfather had told him just the another night for his presentation.
“Listen up Patrick because I'm only going to tell you this once” his grandfather warns. “I’m listening, I promise” half fibbing knowing in the back of his mind his renown ability to day dream.
“It all started with the potato famine. It was around 1845 when all of Ireland suffered severely because our staple crop failed us. Without potatoes many folks couldn’t live. Either because they couldn’t buy any other type of more expensive food, or because they were the farmers who harvested it. This led to a mass exodus. The rich were able to leave relatively easily while as the poor suffered real badly. Now Patrick, I was the oldest boy out of 6 children and in the best of times we couldn’t feed everyone. With our budget tight my mother decided that only one of us was going to go to America and look for a better life. I was the chosen child purely based off of my age being 18 years superior to my siblings. The boat ticket across the pond took every last dime that my family had. It was up to me to make it big, if I didn't the whole family was doomed. The journey was the most abominable experience off my life. I was kept under a bed in the basement of the boat for 3 days. A boat attendant would come by once a day to give me my one meal. This normally consisted of stuffed cabbage or shepards pie. By the time that we touched down on US soil I was so excited to leave the boat that I forgot about the intolerable times that lay ahead. We Irish were thought of as the lowest of the low, scum, uneducated freaks. I was able to find a humble dwelling which I resided in for much of my first couple years here. I took any job that I could find just to scrape by. As a young man I was strong, but one look at my flaming orange hair and the employer wouldn’t want me. I suffered Patrick, my family suffered, and so did all the other Irish immigrants. It wasn’t until communities started to evolve that Irish people were taken seriously. This opened a whole new world to us, because together we were so much stronger than apart. This is when I hit it big I teamed up with a family that you might recognize, the Kennedy's and together we created a booming alcohol business. As time went on I was able to make enough to bring the remainder of my family over. Unfortunately by this time my mother and 2 of my sisters had already been taken by the famine. Look Patrick it has only become recent that being Irish is acceptable, and wearing you name proudly is ok. It took America a long time to come around but the people finally evolved enough to be able to accept other cultures and people. This isn’t only true of the Irish it also happened to the Italians and many other people. Just take your class for example I'm sure its full of all different cultures and...”
“Patrick, Patrick, Patrick” cried Ms Gill.
His body convulsed again and he awoke, immediately looking around at all the different faces of his classmates. Each one symbolizing a different culture.
“Since you have been so attentive this whole class why don't you go next? It might be the only way to keep you awake! Sassed Ms Gill.
He jumped out of his seat, and proudly began reliving his day dream, this time out loud.
I really enjoyed reading this unique short story you based around the idea of the evolution in American exceptionalism. I found a few sentence structure errors that can be fixed with a quick revision of the piece. Also you mention Patrick’s father’s family spending “every last dime” but I don’t think that the Irish use dimes, so you might want to look into the appropriate currency of Ireland for that. A discussion question that I have for your story is, why do you think America began to accept the Irish people into the American culture? Was there a specific turning point, or was it a gradual process?
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your short story as well. It kept me engaged and was a good way of presenting your thoughts, rather than rambling them off in an informative essay. I like how your story shows that no matter what country you originate from, America is viewed as exceptional, and in both cases of the students in the story, their ancestors immigrated in search of a better life. There are some formatting and grammatical choices that I would have done differently, but overall it was a very nice piece. In response to Matt's question, it was a gradual process as more and more people immigrated to the United States (Jumana mentions it towards the end of the story). Do you think this process is still occurring today, and if so, in which aspects of our society?
ReplyDeleteJumana, I really enjoyed your story, it was quite clever how you decided to present Patrick's story without him actually explaining it to the class. I liked how the grandfather mentioned how hard it was to get a job, this reminded me of the signs, "Help wanted, no irish need apply." A couple things confused me, the timeline of your story, when is this taking place? The use of Dude and Man made me think that it was modern era but than you said that the grandfather came over in 1845, and the Kennedy first relatives did not arrive in america until around 1860. Also to answer matts question the currency used in Ireland was the euro.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very realistic piece! I loved the details you wrote about Patrick's grandfather and his journey in America. One thing I liked was Patrick's sense of pride as he was about to tell his grandfather's story. I think it shows his generation's appreciation of their ancestors and past. What happens before we were born shapes us as people by creating a place in the world for us. I think this appreciation is especially evident in a country like America, where everyone's ancestry traces back to a different place in the world. Do you think, in reality, that kids in America take pride and appreciate their past? Why would they? Why would they not?
ReplyDeleteMy favorite aspect of your story was that rather than just recounting Patrick’s family history, you added context to it in the form of Patrick’s history class. This created very powerful contrast between what his family initially was: another worthless Irish immigrant and what he is now: an accepted though lazy student, which was a very creative way to support your argument. Like Matt said there are minor flaws in grammar, especially comma placement, but it doesn’t distract from the meaning so don’t worry. To answers Matt’s question of why America began to accept the Irish, I think it’s because it realized that diversity could be used a source of strength since it ensures a variety of talents.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the juxtaposition of past memories in a modern-day setting and you seem to have alot of knowledge about Irish immigrants. I also agree that it teaches a good lesson about being familiar with the history of one's forefathers because America's exceptionalism and uniqueness are due in large part to the fact that our country is a complex mixture of people from diverse backgrounds. The only thing I would say is the middle paragraph seemed a little long and intimidating at first, so I think breaking it up into more and smaller paragraphs would help with structure and flow.
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