Monday, November 28, 2011

Being Thankful

Last week, Mr. Whipple left off on an interesting note. He told the class honestly that he, like the most of us, forgets to reflect on holidays we have off from school, like Veteran’s Day. Before Thanksgiving Break, he ended his class by saying that he was thankful for us, his students.

‘Tis a kind thought indeed. Thanksgiving is an important day to reflect all that we have and give thanks for the abundance we have in life. For me, Thanksgiving is also an important occasion to reflect how you yourself have impacted others. If, even for a second, you think that you haven’t influenced anything in this world, you are sadly mistaken, my friend, because your existence on this earth makes a difference. Think of your impact on your family, your friends, your community, and the Earth, and be thankful for it! Sometimes- a lot of the time- we tend to drown in life’s problems. We tend to thank God for all the wonderful things in our life, but we don’t appreciate and thank God for making us who we are today. Even if you’re not happy with who you are today, realizing your roles in life and the positive impact you’ve made on people and the Earth is a great way and being thankful that you could mark such a presence in people’s lives is a great way to bring positivity in your life.

In addition to being thankful for who I am, I am thankful for my intellect, my education, and ability to take action with it. I am thankful that I have the opportunity to learn about different literature and different issues freely and be able to take action in my community, therefore, make an impact on others. In class, we are reading Reading Lolita in Tehran , a story about Iranian women who secretly gather to discuss different banned literature. In some places, women don’t have the freedom and opportunities. The professor in the book has to organize these meetings in the house because the university forbids talking about such books. Realizing things we take for granted shines positivity in our lives and is a great way to remind ourselves all the things we have to be happy for.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

The Immigrant’s Pursuit of Happiness

Immigration is the epitome of the Pursuit of Happiness. Immigrants leave their motherland behind to find a place of opportunity, a place of Happiness. But wait-Does immigrating to a place with freedom mean achieving Happiness?
In an English and Social Studies collaboration, the class watched an animated movie-based on the book- about life during the Iranian Revolution, called Persepolis. In the movie, due to the restriction of freedom of speech, the parents of a growing girl in Iran, Marjane, send her to Vienna, Italy after she gets in trouble for speaking against the biased curriculum taught in school. Her parents wanted a better life for their daughter and sent her to a place where she will be free to do whatever she wants.
Sounds like a good plan, doesn’t it?

Well, probably, it was, for a pair of helpless parents. While at a boarding school in Vienna, Marjane gets thrown out of a covenant for insulting the nuns and ends up moving to various houses. She meets a group of friends, and boys, who introduce her to the freedom and culture of smoking, drinking, clubbing and sleeping around. She has the freedom to say whatever she wants, she has the freedom to do whatever she wants without restriction. Yet, after a couple of years in Vienna, Marjane ends up on the streets. She is desperate to go back to Iran, and asks her parents never to question her about anything in Vienna.

Maybe an immigrant’s life in the U.S. doesn’t end up on the street, but many immigrants, especially first-generation, don't achieve satisfaction and feel a disconnection to the place they reside in. As I have witnessed myself, many immigrants long for their familiar culture, their traditional surroundings, and their relatives, yet they make another land their home and stay there for the better opportunities, which outweigh every other desire.

Both my parents are first-generation immigrants. They’ve well adapted themselves to American culture, but there is always this desire to go back where they’ve grown up, meet their friends, and delve back in the culture they were brought up in. They dislike the fast-paced culture in America, (not to mention all the other West-associated habits also). If they got a chance to go today, I’m sure they would love to go, even though they are surrounded by many friends and relatives of the same nationality here. I’ll often here them say, “It’s not the same.”

Nonetheless, they are thankful for the opportunities here and continue to live here. A land of freedom and opportunities is a type of happiness in itself, but, as I've seen it, there’s only a certain level of happiness they've achieved. They try to fill that longing with things like watching traditional movies or going to Devon Ave (Indian Area in Chicago).

Many people, like my parents, continue to stay in the places they have adapted to, but I found it interesting that Marjane did not find bliss in the West-in fact-she would have rather gone back to her oppressed country, than stay in Vienna.