2. Group E---lfortier27

In my book The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon is about a girl named Natasha that is struggling with facing deportation because they are non-documented immigrants. Because of this, Natasha is trying to wrap her head around the fact that she’s being taken away from the life she’s lived for so long and the only thing she really remembers. Those that are involved in the deportation process are telling her that she will be fine back in Jamaica, but nobody knows the life she lived there before moving. Natasha has met a boy named Daniel, and day by day they continue to gow an unbearable connection through the love experiment. Meanwhile, Natasha’s deportation process and daniels family academic pushes create tension. 

Natasha is struggling with protecting herself knowing she is going to be deported soon, or letting herself have true hard feelings for Daniel. She knows that if she lets herself fall in love with him, it will only make leaving so much harder. This decision is causing Natasha confusion because it's going against her belief that everything can be proven or explained by science, and it's showing her that her emotions can be hard to ignore, especially if they're so truly strong towards someone. “When Natasha thinks about love, this is what she thinks: nothing lasts forever… love has an infinitesimally small half-life that decays to nothing.” ( Yoon 59 )

 A quote from a TED talk that could relate to this could be “So we take the pizza, our very first pizza, and we devour slice after slice as the delivery man stands there and stares at us from the the doorway” The reason I say this is because it shows that the decision of taking something for granted could create an impact on the rest of your life. The delivery man may have nio had the money for the food they just purchased, so always be thankful for what you have.

Throughout my book, How the Garcia Girl Lost their Accents, Yolanda and her family get into some trouble and end up having to make the decision to move to America. This is really hard on them because it causes them to start to fade away from their culture from the Dominican while also trying to fit in. This is really hard for them because they don’t want to lose their culture because of how important it is to them and their family, so having to move away and slowly lose themselves affects them a lot. 

Yolanda faces a lot of changes in perspective throughout the book, through learning how to stand up for herself. The book is being told in reverse chronological order, Yolanda grows up in a pretty stable home with money and nice things, but they have very strict rules when it comes to their family and culture. Yolanda is shown that other people had to move away too and adapt when they said, “ When I was a girl, I left my country too and never went back. Never saw father or mother or sisters or brothers” ( Alvarez 221).Their family later moves away to America, which causes them to struggle to adapt to the culture there while also trying to continue their own culture from the Dominican. 

  Yolanda and her family struggle with the balance of two cultures, which I think will later cause some family fights and separation between their family. Overall, I think this hard time will end up making them closer and realizing that they don't need to change just because of where they live. In the TED Talk, From scratch, by Susie Castellano She talks about how she felt as if she didn’t fit in no matter where she lived, “ She couldn’t be Indian anymore and she didn’t know how to be American. She didn’t fit anywhere” (Castellano 3). It is shown that Yolanda and Susie related a lot with feeling like they needed to fit in and couldn’t just be themselves. They both feel like they need to change to be accepted by the people around them. 

gbehne27 what do you think would happen between Daniel and Natasha if Natasha was both documented and not getting deported

swood27 what do you think they can do to stay within their culture while also fitting in?

The book The Sun is also a Star by Nicola Yoon is about two teenagers in New York City named Natasha Kingsley and Daniel Bae. Natasha is a practical, science loving girl whose family is being deported back to Jamaica. She doesn’t believe in fate or love–she believes in facts and logic. Natasha is spending her last day in New York trying to find a way to stop her family’s transportation. Daniel is a Korean American boy whose parents immigrated from South Korea. His parents want hom to become a doctor, but Daniel secretly wants to be a poet. Natasha is trying to save her family, Daniel has an important college interview that could decide his future. Natasha and Daniel meet by chance in New York City. Daniel instantly feels a connection and believes it’s fate. Natasha doesn’t believe in love at first sight, but Daniel challenges her to spend the day together to see if he can make her fall in love with him using science. The character Natasha Kingsley knows she is different from the people around her because of the way she thinks about life and love, which is completely different from her peers. While Daniel believes in fate and destiny, Natasha has her roots in science and facts. As the day goes on, Natasha and Daniel spend more time together, visiting different places around the city and having deep conversations about their lives, families, and beliefs. Even though Natasha is determined to stay logical and not get emotionally attached, she slowly begins to feel something for Daniel. Daniel, on the other hand, becomes even more convinced that their meeting is not just a coincidence but something meant to happen. Natasha continues her mission to stop her family's deportation, holding onto the hope that something will change. At the same time, Daniel struggles with the pressure from his parents and begins to question whether he should follow his own dreams instead of the chosen path from his parents. Natasha finally reveals that her family is being deported that night to Daniel, and it creates tension between the two, as Daniel feels hurt that she didn’t tell him sooner, and Natasha is overwhelmed by the reality of her situation. Their time together begins to change both of them. Natasha starts to question whether love and fate could be real, while Daniel begins to confront the pressures his parents have placed on him and what he truly wants for his future. Natasha faces a difficult decision about whether to be honest with Daniel about her family's impending deportation and her growing feelings for him, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say or do now. I want to take the words back. I want to keep pretending. It’s my fault that things went so far. I should’ve told him from the beginning, but I didn’t think we’d get to this point. I didn’t think I would feel this much.” (Yoon 191). Natasha’s choice to withhold the truth initially reflects her attempt to protect herself and her family, but it also creates emotional consequences, including guilt and confusion. This decision impacts her relationship with Daniel, creating tension between the two because he is unaware of the full truth, which affects his ability to trust her and how they connect. In the TedTalk "Don't feel sorry for refugees--believe in them" by Luma Mufleh, she talks about how she had to make the hard decision of giving up her Jordanian citizenship to escape persecution for being gay, “After my college graduation, I applied for and was granted political asylum, based on being a member of a social group. Some people may not realize this, but you can still get the death penalty for being gay. I had to give up my Jordanian citizenship. That was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make, but I had no choice.” (Mufleh). The death penalty is still given in Jordan for being gay, so Mufleh had to decide between home or survival; to give up her citizenship and leave her family so that her life wasn't jepordized for something she cannot control.

In my book, Out Of Nowhere, by Maria Padian, there are technically 2 main characters, but were going to focus on Saeed, the boy from Somalia. He is an extremely talented soccer player and is very important to his team. Tom, the other main character, doesn't understand Saeed very well, which can make things awkward at times. The book shows perspectives from immigrants, and it can be fascinating to learn about some of their differences. A part that shows a hard decision that Saeed had to make was when he had to run away from his home in Somalia. “‘And my mother’ he continued, ‘she just say run!’ We go… out window. In back of house. And we run! Fast. And all the time we run we hear guns.” (Padian 96) this was a hard decision for him because no one wants to run away from home, but he has to for his and his families safety. The impact of this is because if he never ran from home, and ended up in kenya, and then came to the US, the book would be a lot different without him, and his life would still be dangerous and unsafe.

In Brighter Than the Sun, Sol struggles with adapting to her new environment and job while trying to provide for her family at home. She is focused on helping her family by crossing the border to work, even when it can be exhausting and risky. She feels pressured to be so responsible because her family is depending on her for income. Sol has to make hard decisions depending on her feelings and whether or not she’ll continue to risk her safety. Her mind is at war with her heart because if she stopped that would mean she's letting her family struggle. “If I stop, my family loses everything- but if I keep going, I might lose myself.”  This shows us how much pressure she is under, and its impact is that Sol begins to question her role and understand that constantly sacrificing herself is not the right thing to do. It marks a turning point where she starts to think more about balancing her responsibilities with her own needs.

In conclusion, my book Brighter than the sun by Daniel Aleman is about setting boundaries about protecting yourself first then protecting your family. Sol doesn't really get that as she's constantly putting her family's protection over hers as she feels she needs to be the best she can as she’s her family's main source of income. She deals with lots of stress and worry throughout the book constantly trying to figure out how to balance her own life and protecting her family. She feels bad for actually enjoying her time in the United States. She feels she needs to be the bigger person and try to only work she feels she has to drop out of school even though she doesn't want too she wants to go to school, graduate, and go to college to be an engineer but she feels she has too go full time to make enough money for her family’s lives to go back to how they were before her mom had died. This is why it's important to set boundaries about protecting yourself first then protecting your family. 

In conclusion, my book Brighter than the sun by Daniel Aleman is about setting boundaries about protecting yourself first then protecting your family. Sol doesn't really get that as she's constantly putting her family's protection over hers as she feels she needs to be the best she can as she’s her family's main source of income. She deals with lots of stress and worry throughout the book constantly trying to figure out how to balance her own life and protecting her family. She feels bad for actually enjoying her time in the United States. She feels she needs to be the bigger person and try to only work she feels she has to drop out of school even though she doesn't want too she wants to go to school, graduate, and go to college to be an engineer but she feels she has too go full time to make enough money for her family’s lives to go back to how they were before her mom had died. This is why it's important to set boundaries about protecting yourself first then protecting your family. 

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao focuses on Oscar de Leon, a very nerdy and overweight Dominican boy who struggles to find a girlfriend and loves writing and novels. When he finally falls in love after being alone for so long after he moves to the Dominican Republic. And the boyfriend of the girl that he is in love with “captain” who ends up having Oscar killed in a field because he wouldn't stop seeing her. A hard decision that my protagonist had to make was choosing to follow his love to the Dominican Republic even though his family has a horrible past there. “I never wanted to come back to Santo Domingo. But after I was let go from jail i had trouble paying back the people I owed, and my mother was sick, and so I just came back.“(Diaz 289)