3. Group B---jgreenwood27

In my book, “Breathe and Count Back From Ten” by Natalia Sylvester Veronica has lived in the U.S. since before she can remember so she's never had to think much about fitting in unlike her mother and father. They push her to be perfect and do nothing wrong, but while they think it's for the best they are really taking away all her freedom and choices. Rather than her trying to fit in because of her ethnicity she has to fit in due to her hip injury; her hips are lopsided, and she just found out her parents have been keeping a huge secret from her. She finally gets her dream job but her family won’t accept it so she is forced to lie to them. Also due to the new worsening condition of her hip she has to learn when to figure out if she is actually okay or if she is just being brave for others. The job she thought she had wanted and she fought for, the place she thought would truly accept her with her scars ends up trying to cover up the part of her she's always been most self-conscious about. In the end she finally starts to live out her dream, her parents accept what she chooses and she finds out the decision she thought was going to be made for her was actually something she could finally control. 

Vero never really had an opportunity to assume something of someone, rather she was always the one people made assumptions about. Due to her hip people always assume she’s fragile or not capable, when in reality she is very strong willed and is capable of much more than people think, “Like admitting I've needed crutches dispels the myths we want to believe about people”(Sylvester 228). This shows how she feels towards people, because of what they all think or assume instead of thinking about how strong she is. The Ted-Talk that connects with this is, "What's missing in the American Immigrant Story” by Elizabeth Camerillo Gutierrez . This connects because it shows how people always assume how others' lives are, “And that's because for the most part, we want to see ourselves as idealists and as people who do what they believe in and pursue the things that they find the most exciting. But the reality is very few of us actually have the privilege to do that.” This shows how they assume and that those assumptions can easily be proved questionable and wrong.

How does judging people or getting the wrong impression set the characters up for failure in your book? 

jgreenwood

 In my book “the sun is also a star”  by Nicola Yoon, the main character Natasha meets a boy in a record store named Daniel. Nataha kind of stereotypes Danial as a smart asian kid in a suit, but he ends up being a poem writing nerd that doesn’t actually want to be a smart doctor. 'Would you like to be famous and how?’ “You first’ I tell him. “I’s be a famous poet in chief.” (Yoon 90) This relates to the ted talk “sweet, difficult sounds”  by I.M. desta because it is about a young girl who is new to an american school and is having a hard time talking in front of her classmates. Everyone just assumes she can’t understand English, “Can you speak English?’ Ashley asked. Nothukula stared at her. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand English.” (Desta). Nothukula can speak and understand English, but people assume she can't. 

jgreenwood27

The novel “The Sun Is Also A Star” by Nicola Yoon shows how two teenagers experience the first stages of “love at first sight” in their own unique ways. Daniel is a lot more spiritual than Natasha in the fact that he believes in fate and love. Poetry is one of the things he loves which his parents think is basically a waste of time. He is fairly different from the rest of his family, his older brother goes to Harvard and he feels the need to be like “the perfect son” and his parents are being pushy for him to go to Yale while he tries to follow in his brother’s footsteps but also trying to make his own decisions. Especially when Natasha comes into his life. Natasha is a “keep to herself” kind of person. She is scheduled to be deported back to Jamaica, but she’s nervous to go back to her old life that she’s already left behind. Being deported is not her decision, it’s the government’s decision because she is an illegal immigrant, with a false social security number, which is also not her decision. Unfortunately the day that she is set to meet about the deportation she, literally, bumps into Daniel, or “Red Tie” and starts to fall for him. As Natasha and Daniel continue spending the day together in New York City, they are getting to know each other better. Natasha meets with an immigration lawyer to try to stop her family’s deportation, but she learns there is little he can do to help. Meanwhile, Daniel keeps trying to prove that two people can fall in love in a single day by asking Natasha deep and personal questions. He brings her to a karaoke place and he sings a song almost perfectly to show Natasha his talent. Natasha sang a song too, but she was all heart and no skill. Then they went onto each other, which both of them had been waiting for all day. When they share their thoughts about family, dreams, and the future, Natasha slowly begins to open up to him. Even though they grow closer, Natasha still worries about having to leave the country soon. When they leave the karaoke place, Natasha tells Daniel the truth about her deportation and they have a big fight, leaving them both guilty in their own ways. When Natasha’s family deportation is finalized, it leads into a heartbreaking goodbye and separation from Daniel. For 10 years, Natasha and Daniel live their own lives apart from each other. It wasn’t until a plane flight that they met again. The flight attendant that thanked Natasha was the security guard named Irene from when Natasha was a teenager. This conversation got Daniel’s attention from down the aisle and he spoke up and said “Natasha?” Natasha looked over at the stranger and knew it was Daniel, so she said, “Daniel.” This ending makes it seem like there will be a new beginning for the two.

Natasha and Daniel have been both a victim and an accuser of an assumption or prejudice to something or someone else. At first, Natasha didn’t believe in fate and destiny but as she spends more time with Daniel, he makes her question her beliefs and she ends up reflecting on the day with him and she considers his POV. Natasha does have other times that she assumes something that she’s wrong about like when she admits she first thought Daniel was a stereotypical “nerdy” Asian boy, “I guess I assumed he’d be nerdy because he’s Asian, which is crappy of me because I hate when other people assume things about me like I like rap music or I’m good at sports” (Yoon 75).