Throughout her book, “Warmth of Other Sons,” Isabel Wilkerson discusses life during the time of the Great Migration. She uses the viewpoints of 3 different interviewees in order to stress the obstacles and burdens faced by many African Americans during the time period surrounding the Great Migration. Besides for the hardship of having to migrate from the places you’ve known all of your life to one which is unknown, these people were burdened with yet another obstacle, their race. Although they were human, they were treated as unequal due to the color of their skin.

Before the Great Migration, most African Americans lived in the Southern States, in extremely tough conditions. As the first excerpt mentions, they lived in a type of caste system, where they worked as slaves, sharecroppers and farmers. Furthermore, they were controlled by the Jim Crow laws, which would take every chance it got to execute and torture them. However, as much as they had to endure in the South, they were forced to face many challenges as they moved to the North as well. From the excerpts we can see that as blacks migrated to the north they were faced with many obstacles. Not only were they looked at as inferior to whites, but they faced many instances of racial discrimination as well. They were discriminated against when it came to the labor force and in many cases they were unable to get certain jobs due to the color of their skin. Furthermore, it was also prohibited for them to live in certain neighborhoods and to eat in certain restaurants.

What was so intriguing about these excerpts was the fact that you can see how much the world has changed in a short matter of time. Although it pains me to look back on the past and to notice all of the hardships African Americans had to endure, I gain a lot of pleasure knowing how much this country has progressed. In this day and age, not only African Americans, but the people of all races and nationalities are seen as equals. There is little to almost no discrimination in the workplace and everyone has the same opportunity as the person next to him. Race does not separate people and does not determine your fact. Instead, each and everyone of us have the opportunity to control our own destiny. As opposed to the time of the Great Migration, race does not control our futures, we do.

One sentence that really had a great impact on the way I viewed life was when Wilkerson wrote, “How did they get the courage to leave all they ever knew for a place they had never seen, the will to be more than the South said they had a right to be?” I found this sentence to be truly amazing because I couldn’t even bare to try and imagine what these people had to go through. Their lives had been dictated for them from the start. From when they were born they were being told how to live and what they could do. Now, they were deciding the type of life they wanted to live and were determined to attain that. Furthermore, to me the idea of moving out of the city and town you had lived all your life to go to a city you had only seen in a catalog is truly petrifying. I feel out of place when I’m in the next neighborhood and all of these people were able to travel across the country to a destination that was foreign to them. The conditions in the South must have been truly unbearable for them to embark on such a journey. In fact, Wilkerson describes them as fleeing from a “spell or high fever.”

What was so interesting about this reading was the fact that it was able to shed light on something that is overlooked. Everyone fails to recognize that the world wasn’t instantaneously transformed to the way it looks today. Different time periods were unlike one another and the world had to slowly evolve into what it is today. The migration of African Americans to Northern cities was first met with opposition and segregation, however, as time went on the people of different races began to accept one another and recognized that in order to maximize the well-being of society we much share beliefs and cultures. The one question I would have for Wilkerson would be, how was society able to change from how it looked back then to the way it is today?

While reading through E.B. White’s “Here is New York,” I found myself agreeing to many of the points in which he discusses. Furthermore, as I read through it I noticed that I tended to compare many of his discussions to my everyday life as a New York resident. For instance, in the beginning of this excerpt, when he discusses the three different types of New York, I imagined myself standing in midtown Manhattan, watching all of the people passing by. On one hand you have the commuter, who as he mentions is the “queerest bird of all.” To them, New York is a place where they get it, take care of their business and get out. They don’t care about all of the extracurricular activities that New York has to offer. All he cares about is the bus and train schedule and has never roamed around New York adventurously trying to discover what’s hidden under the next rock.

However, on the other hand I thought about myself, the resident, who takes the “city for granted.” As a resident, I don’t get amazed by the sight of the Empire State Building and have never been to the Statue of Liberty. In my eyes, these are just everyday, natural things that are routine in my life. I don’t take the time to be fascinated by the things that are not common in the lives of people who don’t live in such an amazing city as New York. Although I am so fortunate to live in this city, by reading this essay I noticed that being a resident of New York has, in a sense, spoiled me in the fact that I fail to notice beauty in its very essence.

Another one of White’s points that fascinated me was when he mentioned that although Irving Berlin’s journey from the lower east side to his uptown apartment may have been a couple of miles long “it was like going three times around the world.” When I read this line, I immediately understood what White was trying to say. I began to picture the lower east side and all of the diversity it has to offer. I imagined myself accompanying Irving Berlin on his journey “around the world.” It was almost as if I could see myself walking through Chinatown, Little Italy and many other neighborhoods that were occupied by such diverse yet amazing people nonetheless. I could imagine myself having discussions with them and hearing about the stories as they and their families entered this city. And although their stories may be different, they are all citizens of New York.

Lastly, I was fascinated White’s discussion of New York being a city that is a “composite of tens of thousands of tiny neighborhood units.” I never thought about New York in that light and like the people who live in small towns and villages,in my eyes, New York was this one great, big giant city, where everyone is on his own. However, I soon came to realize that, like many other New Yorkers, live in an area that in itself can be considered its own unique neighborhood. As E.B. White stated, the area that I reside in can be considered to be self-sufficient. All around my building there are stores that sell goods and services that make my life easier. For instance, within a a 2-block radius you can find a supermarket, dry-cleaner, restaurants and many other stores that are found in the hearts of small towns and villages. This is what makes New York such an amazing place, the fact that there are neighborhoods within neighborhoods within neighborhoods, each with a diverse and unique group of people.

Although this essay has changed the way I view New York and the people that inhabit this amazing city, I still had a few questions that remained to be unanswered. First I felt that he contradicted himself when he mentions that New Yorkers escape hazards due to their “sense of belonging,” however, later he mentions that they feel uncomfortable and like strangers when they leave the boundaries of their neighborhoods. Lastly, I wanted to know more about his background and how he stumbled upon these observations.