Analysis Of Kidder's Strength In What Remains

Kidder’s work, Strength in What Remains, offers a perspective on the troubling lives that foreign-born American immigrants weather in both their native countries and the new world through the tale of Deogratias, a Burundian medical student who survives and escapes a Tutsi genocide. With the aid of many of the individuals that Deo encounters on his journey, he is able to receive an American college education and eventually realize his dream of building a medical clinic in Burundi. The list of persons that generously aid him along his journey also play a paramount role in his survival and successful transition into the new world, even before dreams and education could be feasible goals for someone in his position. That is to say, despite Deo’s …show more content…
After they had formed a relationship, she regularly searched for housing opportunities, part-time jobs, legal advice and other boons to assist in his climb up the socioeconomic ladder. She did this free, received minimal gratitude in return from him, and did so while in a non-ideal economic situation herself. The number of individuals possessing such generosity does not nearly meet the number of those immigrants needing it. In addition to the fact that Deo was fortunate enough to meet Sharon, he didn’t even do so by seeking for support from the charitable organizations and institutions that Sharon worked and volunteered for. Without meeting Sharon perchance, it would have remained unlikely that Deo would have turned to such charitable institutions due to his pride and dislike of perceived greed. It is entirely possible that he would have suffered in extreme poverty and living conditions just as bad if not worse than those he had experienced Africa. Sharon’s most valuable aid to the betterment of Deo’s living conditions was, however, the pressure that she put on the Wolfs to accept him into their …show more content…
They provided him with a roof over his head, a path to higher education in the American system, and the opportunity of a safety net if he were to not find employment. All of these things are luxuries to immigrants in America and Deo being granted them virtually guaranteed him a reasonably successful and eventually independent life in America. Minority immigrants migrating with little to no wealth and little to no experience with English would almost certainly be condemned to a life in the working classes or poverty with little room for mobility, without the kind of special opportunities like free housing and paid living expenses. Another thing to note is that welfare programs and charitable organizations can nowhere near provide the level of security and backing that Deo received from the Wolfs, along with the fact that many working and legal immigrants could have exploited far worse than he was working as a delivery boy for the grocery store. In addition to directly lifting him out of poverty, they assisted Deo in receiving a top quality higher education by helping him find scholarships and paying his student loans. Supporting his education opened him a path toward not only self-sufficient lifestyle, but a comfortable one at that if he so desired. First generation immigrants, especially those arriving alone, would not be able to maintain a living wage while receiving college education as Deo did. The fortunate and unlikely