Hardships of Immigration as depicted in "And the Soul Shall Dance"
...of curse in her life. Shah 2 Kiyoko, Oka’s daughter who arrived from Japan towards the middle of the play, is another good example of an immigrant who finds it a difficult challenge to adjust to a foreign culture. She is made fun of in school due to her physical appearance and poor communication skills. Her unfamiliarity with the basic norms of the culture, for example the “way she laughs,” adds to her being perceived as an outcast. I can never forget my first day of school. I was handed a schedule with various class rooms, and names of teachers. I was confused because in all my thirteen years of school in India, I was designated to one classroom where teachers were supposed to change rooms. After searching for my second period classroom for more then ten minutes, I knocked on the door and asked permission to come in. The whole class looked towards my direction and laughed. Later in the class, upon hearing my name to answer a question, I stood up straight and confidently answered. The class looked in my direction again and laughed. By the end of that day I had realized that in New York, you don’t ask permission to come into a classroom when late, neither do you stand when answering a teacher, and most of all, it’s alright to argue with a teacher. These norms were very hard to accept because they were very different, and sometimes contradictory to my native ways. I can relate to Kiyoko because it was a struggle for me, like her, to adjust to a new culture that was dissimilar to my original culture. Immigrants also find it very hard to attain a respectable social status in their host countries. It is human nature to consider another inferior if they lack the knowledge you possess. This same theory applies to the reason why immigrants are considered socially inferior for their lack of knowledge of the new culture. After Oka picked up Kiyoko from Shah 3 Los Angeles, their car broke down causing them to stop at a restaurant. The waitresses treated them with utter disrespect acting as if they had never seen a Japanese person before. The waitress made them wait for a long time and “practically threw the food” at them. I encountered a similar situation when my sister and I were recently at a diner in Suffolk County, Long Island. A Mexican couple who was not fluent in English was seated next to us. My sister and I had a very sweet waitress who got along with me very well, but the couple was another story. Their waiter was very rude to them, brought them water twenty minutes after they arrived, and to top that, he brought them the wrong order. I could tell by the couple’s reactions that they were embarrassed because they couldn’t argue with him. The couple did not eat the food, paid the check, and left the diner dissatisfied. Relating the two scenarios, I came to the conclusion that immigrants are often looked down upon. Associated with social inferiority, immigrants encounter many economical drawbacks. Due to their lack of proper communication skills, immigrants are not qualified for certain jobs. In our play, Murata and Oka can only be capable of unskilled work such as farming, dishwashing, and being a janitor. Like them, many immigrants are only fit for jobs were communication is not essential. The grocery store I shop at has an English speaking girl at the counter whereas the stock person has very bad communication skills. Since he was Indian, I inquired of this wages and discovered that he wa...