Claudia Yan

Peopling of NYC Response Week 6

Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall (Books 3 and 4)

The most memorable moment in the book for me was when Margaret’s mother pulled Selina aside and had a seemingly innocent conversation about Selina’s ethnicity. In truth, the conversation was very racist and extremely detrimental to Selina’s outlook of society. Where she originally thought she was finally making a place for herself, her white friends accepted and admired her for her dance; an old white woman shoved her into place in society. Something that I noticed about attitude of white people in the book was that most of the younger white characters had very little problems with race. Selina’s white dance friends accepted her and invited her to their house and when Selina went to visit her mother in the factory, the young white receptionist carried a conversation with Selina without much fuss. Though the receptionist did wrinkle her nose when the workers came out, I think it was more for the stench of grease that they carried with them that bothered her. You can see through these minor characters the development race on different generations, as time goes on, slowly people become more accepting of different ethnicities.

Before Selina’s big solo dance performance, Selina and Rachel Fine have an important bonding moment regarding how people view them. Rachel complained to Selina that her hair used to be very long and very blond; Rachel was the image of the perfect all-American girl and she was tired of people constantly labeling her with that image. In order to escape that judgment Rachel cut her hair and dyed it black. I connected Rachel’s problem with identity to Selina’s, though Rachel’s identity problem was easily solved with a pair of scissors and a bottle of dye, Selina cannot escape her problems as easily. Despite Selina’s problems being of a significantly larger scale than Rachel’s the moment creates a parallel between the two girls’ lives and strengthens the bond between them. Because Rachel understood what Selina went through, it would only make sense for her to help Selina escape the identity that society was trying to force onto her.

From Immigrant to Transmigrant: Theorizing Transnational Migration by Nina Glick Schiller, Linda Basch and Cristina Szanton Blancs

It is very interesting how connections to immigrant’s home countries could just be ignored in previous demographics. Hardly ever could a person just discard their connection to their home country and try to fully immerse himself or herself in American culture. It mentioned that immigrants faced “daily discrimination in the pursuit of life activities,” maintaining a connection with the home country allowed people to get through their day-to-day lives easier (Basch et al. 50). In order for people to be able to migrate to the United States, new immigrants had to have some sort of family relations in the country. Immigrants in the United States kept in contact with their home country not only because it made them feel closer to home and more secure, but also because they might want to secure passageway for others to come to America.

A question that I had when reading was regarding the countries calling themselves “global nation[s],” are most of those immigrants coming to the United States or moving to other countries as well. For smaller countries the struggle for them is keeping their citizens in the country, as more people leave the country for greater economic opportunity, while they may be representing the country, what will happen when too many people leave? Some intend to return back to their home country, which would be beneficial to their economy, but others end up settling in the countries that they moved to, which while could still benefit the home country economically, the impact would not be as great.

With immigration to other countries becoming an extremely common practice, I think that right now, a reinvention of the understanding of race and culture is happening in the world. People move to new places but try to maintain their connections to their country and share it with the people around them. The world is becoming unified as the issues of one country become significant to other countries.