In the Stanley family’s case, Claude was hospitalized, out of work for two months, and slammed with high medical bills. It is a shame that a lot of people in a wealthy country like the United States were not covered by health insurance. It is a scary thought how a family would survive if the head of the household becomes sick, injured, and cannot or unable to work for weeks, months or even years. One of the important things that I noticed is the value of education and obtaining a degree. Having an education is a ticket to a decent and a well-paying job.…
Elizabeth West Pease was born in the year of 1927, two years before the Great Depression and twelve years before World War II. She lived with her parents, her two sisters, Martha, Jean, and brother George on Pleasant Street in the blue-collar town of Woburn, Massachusetts. The Depression of 1929 was set into motion due to the great economic crash of Wall Street, that was triggered when investors traded around sixteen million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day and billions of dollars were lost. Even though the country fell into a great debt and hard times, the West family wasn’t entirely effected. Biff’s father was the neighborhood doctor, so her family was well supported.…
Many families live in poverty, a life that cripples and destroys. Those most affected are the children, people born into a life of suffering and pain. Death and destruction surround them, forcing them into a life of labor and exhaustion, thus thrusting them into a world of poverty as an adult and creating an endless cycle left to endure without the help of others. In turn, when those capable of assisting those in need, who denied help to others’ struggle, they are stuck penniless in a world surrounded by money, a life of anger and frustration, as they are left to starve alone. “Flavio’s Home,” an excerpt from the 1990 autobiography of Gordon Parks, Voices in the Mirror, examines the life of a poor family in Brazil, which opened the eyes of…
Homelessness has been an issue for Americans since the foundation of our country. Although the issues faced by those without a home have changed, many characteristics have remained constant over the years. For example, shantytowns have played a large role in American homelessness from the Dust Bowl to modern day. John Steinbeck’s groundbreaking novel The Grapes of Wrath shows the life of migrant workers in the 1930’s.…
Slavery by Another Name This video starts soon after the 13th amendment is ratified and slavery is abolished (at least on paper). The cotton economy was severely hurt from the new need of payed labor. The farm owners had about half of their investments in slave labor.…
Considering, the excerpt the insight I have gain from the work is that the author is foreshadowing that the outcomes of traveling to California might be in fact extremely negative, and could be a catastrophe leaving all of the Joad’s vagrant. Furthermore, the fact that the man did not had a desire to fret the Joad family about the harsh conditions people are living, and elucidating that the people are essentially working for free for the landowner. Due their are thousands of family who are desiring a job, in order to survive, demonstrates the man is truthful, and does not wishes to bring the Joad hopes…
Unification, defined as: coming together for a common purpose while division as a divergence between two groups, typically producing tension or hostility. Poverty and struggle bring forth these two reactions and cause people to join together through the struggle or divide to fight against one another. Ma Joad chooses to be the glue of her family and unite through poverty and struggle, she chooses empathy and graciousness over rifts and division. Ma Joad allows Jim Casy to embark on the Joads journey to California, she graciously gives food to two boys in need, and most importantly keeps her family together because she finds joy out of small moments and finds strength through love. The return of Tom from prison accompanied with the stress of the bank forcing the Joad’s off of their land, causes a whirlwind of emotions from Ma Joad, yet she remains resilient and gracious.…
To Kill A Mockingbird Essay (Rough draft) In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, empathy is used habitually by the occupants of Maycomb. The main characters in the novel have learned this valuable trait and have put it to good uses, such as in the Tom Robinson case, the Arthur Radley “unveiling” catastrophe, and Jems hard times with adolescence. Many of these things has helped the characters learn and grow their empathy, and changed their character growth dramatically. Atticus Finch, Scout Finch, and Heck Tate developed an extraordinary sense of empathy and have showed it throughout the novel.…
He is stereotyped as a thief by one of his classmates, and the young boy defeats himself with violence. School only become more difficult to attend. Living the life of a migrant farm worker, the family often moved in search for job opportunities. The young boy missed school because of the overlapping work season, and was required to live in unsanitary conditions. For a second he felt as if the earth would soon open up to devour him.…
The physician anthropologist, Seth Holmes wrote, Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant farm workers in the united states in 2013 a book that displays the essence of Mexican migrant through an ethnographic sense. This book illustrates the suffering, violence and health problems that indigenous Mexican migrant’s workers faced. In common with what migrant workers dealt with the author also experience problems of his own. He wanted first hand research so he traveled on the bus from Oaxaca, Mexico to cross the border with migrants. On the way he met with Triqui families and even nine men whom he ended up traveling with.…
Do you think it’s worth it? Working hard and only get paid only about 10-12 dollars an hour as a man of the household? In the article “A Gringo in the Lettuce Fields” by Gabriel Thompson, he talks about how hard working in the field can be and what kind of obstacles field workers deals with on their daily basis. As Thompson tries to experience working in the field he deliberately interprets how the human body reacts after working for a certain amount of time in the fields. He also discusses how much trouble a single head of a lettuce can bring to its laborer.…
Sacrifice John Ford’s inspiring film, Grapes of Wrath, pulls at the heartstrings of viewers. The film tells the story of the Joad family and their struggle to find work during the depression. The story begins with Tom Joad, the eldest son of the Joad family, finding that his family has been evicted from their home during the Oklahoma Dust Bowl and set out for California along with thousands of others in search of jobs, land, and hopes for a brighter future. Ford uses the story of the Joad family to convey the theme that the need of the many outweighs the needs of one. Ford uses Ma Joad, Tom Joad and Jim Casey to exemplify the need for supportive rather than individualistic ideals during rough times.…
“True contentment comes with empathy” (Tom Finn). Without empathy, today’s society would be unduly cruel. Empathy relieves many from redundant judgement, and often provides a deeper understanding of one’s unique challenges. In Harper Lee’s, To KIll a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch tells his daughter Scout that “You never really understand a man until you consider things from his point of view… —until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (39). Throughout Lee’s captivating novel, one observes Scout mature as a character as she attempts to follow her father’s advice to “walk in another’s shoes” and be more empathetic.…
The women in the village would do anything to help their children, as they are driven by love, instead of hate, fear, and spite. In this novel, the actions of the characters affect the whole village based off of how they were treated as children. When shown love and positivity, children grow up to love and respect their parents, and be like them. If they are shown abuse and neglect, though, they become opposites of their parents in attempt to forget them.…
Community: a unified body of individuals. In a community, people come together to achieve great things and work together to bring each other to success. The theme of “If you work together, you can succeed” is conveyed in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind through William’s education, the famine, and the process of building the windmill. William’s problems with education were solved by the community around him; his father, his teacher, and the people at TED. William’s teacher, Mr. Tembo, him sneak into the back of the class for three weeks, risking his job.…