journey to America

The journey to America was different for all types of immigrants. Some came from Asia, some from Europe, some from Latin America. Each faced unique hardships and challenges along the way. For some it was an experience filled with trauma, and for others it was an experience filled with hope. This paper will compare and contrast the experiences of six different readings by six different immigrants to explore the nature of the journey to America that each immigrant experienced.
From Vietnam
Vo Thi Tam tells the story of emigrating to America as one of the many “boat people” who fled the Communist takeover of South Vietnam following the pullout of American troops at the end of the Vietnam War. As a refugee, the immigration process was fraught with perils: the threat of pirates at sea, the threat of starvation or death from dehydration, the threats from others who did not take kindly to refugees in the camps that were set up to accept them. Tam’s story is a nightmarish one.
The description of the refugee camps is particularly telling of the types of conditions faced: “There was no housing, no facilities, nothing. It was already full near the beach, so we had to…make some sort of temporary shelter” (42). It shows that for immigrants fleeing a problematic environment, the risks of finding no shelter en route to America were worth it—even if it meant facing the elements and braving threats to one’s very existence.
Crossing the Border
The situation was much different from Marilyn Davis, who described the process of immigrants from Mexico to the U.S.—a process in which the illegal immigrants actually had something of a network of other immigrants upon whom they could rely: family or friends across the border who would assist them with support in their pueblo communities. It was a far cry from the utter desolation and lack of support that Tam found as he and his family sought to escape their home in South Vietnam. For Tam, the voyage was simply about just surviving and trying to keep one’s head above water while one hoped for refuge in America. For the illegal immigrants described by Davis, the experience was different: it was about leaving behind a way of life that was important to one because it was what one knew in hopes of securing a better way of life in the unknown world of America. For them America was the symbol of “opportunity and a new life” (Davis 51). It was something that one wanted if one was in Mexico—and it was something that one felt one could reach out and get with relative ease, compared to the journey that Tam took. Tam, coming from halfway around the world faced monumental travails. The illegal immigrants coming from Mexico faced one big hurdle—getting across the border without getting caught, and from there one’s network could assist with the rest, so long as one had such a network.
Coming to America
Njeri tells the story of the Iranian immigrant who fled persecution in Iran and came to America: Dr. Hassan Shahbaz, “one of Iran’s leading Persian literary scholars and broadcast personalities before the fall of the Shah and the Islamic Revolution” (Njeri 44). Like some of the Mexican immigrants, Shahbaz relied on his family when he came to New York without a penny in the wake of the revolution in his home country. His daughter lived and worked in the States and he made a collect call to her for assistance. This was how he managed to make in America. But not everyone was as fortunate or as resourceful as he was. Without a network of support to fall back upon or to rely on for help upon arrival, many immigrants faced immense pressures and difficulties that made coming to the New World a great burden. For Shahbaz, the problem was that he was forced to leave behind so many of his possessions—his numerous literary works and books, which for a literary professor was like leaving behind a loved one that was cared for immensely. Thus, when Shahbaz told his story to Njeri, the books played a central theme in the story: Shahbaz missed them dearly.
Jasmine
Mukherjee shows that for Jasmine, who “came to Detroit from Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, by way of Canada,” (127) the immigration process was relatively painless: she made it across the Canada-U.S. border by hiding in the back of a van full of mattresses. The plan was for her to hide if the customs man wanted to look inside—but he did not and she made it across simply. Once in America, the goal was to work—just to work—because work brought money and money was needed for one who had nothing.
However, she is vulnerable girl and soon she is taken advantage of by a man who is lured by her body. She gives herself up to the sensations, not knowing what is to come, but she feels she is in a new place with a wide open future ahead of her and it is easier to give in to these feelings than to constantly be worried about the dread of survival and making due. The story shows just how many different facets there are to life—and especially how gender plays a factor in the experiences of immigrants. A pretty immigrant girl is going to have a far different story to tell, especially if she is vulnerable, than a resourceful Vietnamese man who has basically had to fight and struggle his whole way around the world to get to America.
The Promised Land
Antin tells her own story of being a Jewish émigré from Russia, coming with her family to escape Czarist Russia and find a new home in America. The story is the most different of all the others because it is told from the perspective of one who came over as a small child and made it, along with her family, successfully adapting and fitting in with the American culture. There is none of the fear and unknown that is in Jasmine’s story. It is all told from hindsight.
However, it is interesting that the family was able to adapt so well thanks to friends and cunning: they shed their immigrant clothes and their Jewish last names so as to avoid persecution or suspicion in the new world. They adopted names that had none of the hint of Jewishness about them. They became new people, a new family, though still maintaining their Jewish identity.
Thus, in just two weeks’ time, the Jewish family from Russia at the turn of the 20th century was already able to Americanize—the author by taking a new first name, Mary, and the father also by becoming known as Mr. Antin. The story is told with a much greater sense of appreciation and accomplishment than some of the other stories which are told from the perspective of trauma, toil and devastation.
Of Their Voyage
William Bradford writes one of the most unique perspectives on the immigrant, as his comes from the 17th century, when the pilgrims came over to Plymouth Colony. Bradford describes the beauty of the New World and the showering of God’s grace upon the pilgrims who arrived there to take delight and hope in the opportunities that they found spread out before them. Of all the readings, this one is the most hopeful but primarily because it tells the story of the first comers to America. It is not a story about people coming to America to fit in with others who were already there. It is a story about people coming to settle America, to make it their own. It is a much different story and one that really cannot compare to any of the others. Bradford’s story is one in which the narrator feels that God is really giving them great blessings in being able to come to the New World where there is so much promise. But his story is certainly not the same as that of the Mexican immigrants’ or the Jewish people who came from Russia or the Trinidad girl whose future is unknown but not likely to be so promising. Bradford’s account of being an immigrant is not really like any other immigration story because there is no need for him to fit in or to adapt. The land is his: he and his people certainly do have to adapt to a new way of life, but they do not have to change their identities the way the Jews had to change theirs in order to fit in or the way the Mexicans have to hide theirs because they are illegal.
Bradford’s story offers hope because for him the future and the land was wide open. There was no reason to be afraid. There were no worries about who would oppose his entry or how he would get across. There was no fear about who would be there to receive him: he was a governor. He had clearance. He had respect. His place was readied and waiting.
For Tam, who came from Vietnam, this was not the case. For Jasmine, she had to sneak across the border because the America that Bradford came to had changed substantially by the time Jasmine came and there was no hint or even similarity with respect to her coming across the border to his coming to the New World. Bradford’s was unique—but they all had unique experiences because they were all coming from somewhere different at a different point in time, dealing with their own unique challenges.


Works Cited
Antin, Mary. “The Promised Land.” Emerging Voices: Readings in the American
Experience. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993.
Bradford, William. “Of Their Voyage.”
Davis, Marilyn. “Crossing the Border.” Emerging Voices: Readings in the American
Experience. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993.
Mukherjee, Bharati. “Jasmine.” The Middleman and Other Stories. Grove Press, 1988.
Njeri, Itabari. “Coming to America.” Emerging Voices: Readings in the American
Experience. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993.
Tam, Vo Thi. “From Vietnam.” Emerging Voices: Readings in the American
Experience. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993.