3. Group D---llovering27

Where in your story are characters struggling with the expectations of people around them? Where do they end up? 

In the book out of nowhere the book is about a high scholar named tom who lives in a small town in maine he starts to change when lots of somali immigrants that move to his town and play soccer and john the soccer team in the beginning tom dosnt understand them and has a negative attitude about it but then he has to do community services his attitude starts to change he starts to get to know one of the Somali families he starts to understand how unfairly they are treated but now he understands how un fair there treated and changes his attitude about them 

To answer the question yes tom struggles with the pressure of his friends and how they should act and treat the Somali immigrants for example  “could we have a three, a  five, and an eight?and a side of sambusas,please ? Mylamyla said to the skinny guy. He nodded punched numbers into his register. He pointed to the case where we could get bottled drinks.”(pg183) 

Sol  sets high expectations for herself in the beginning of the book, and when she shows she can achieve them, people around her start setting them too. She wants to do things like getting a job, and going to school, so she can brighten her future. Things that will result from this would be saving the restaurant her family owns, and getting into a good college. She sets herself up to be strong all the time, to make everyone think of her as this strong, grown up girl. “I’ts all much simpler than I used to think-- finding the strength that is buried deep within me, and doing things that once seemed impossible” (Aleman 308). She had to find the strength she had built, from having all the expectations weighing her down.    

The book, The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo, is about a young Dominican girl named Xiomara, (X for short) making her way through high school and learning the feeling of freedom she gets through poetry. She starts out, always on edge, having to defend herself or her brother from harassment. She wrote her poems in secret, locking her true self away in ink splattered pages, hiding. She struggles a lot with the expectations of her Mami (Mom). X’s mom is an incredibly religious woman, and she’s trying to get X to follow her footsteps, but X just can’t seem to get on the same page. She doesn’t identify with their religion. It almost seems incompatible with their life. The book reads, “When I look around the church/ And none of the depictions of angels/ Or Jesus or Mary, not one of the disciples/ Look like me: morenita and big and angry.” (Acevedo 59). This quote shows how she almost looks at them like they aren’t human. Their perfect, saintly lives are not the same as hers, like they don’t understand her, and she doesn’t understand them. Towards the end of the book, after X continues to butt heads with her mother on routine issues, she finally gets the confidence and joins her school's poetry club. The club makes her and her words feel valued and powerful. She moves on to reading at the big New York Citywide youth poetry slam, where she gets huge applause. Her family and friends are in the audience, even her Mami, who never liked her poetic tendencies, calling them hurtful, and dangerous. They go home and celebrate and Mami says to her, “Pa’lante, Xiomara./

Que para atrás ni para coger impulso.” (Acevedo 355). (Translated: Onward!

Never look back—not even to gather momentum.) This quote shows how Mami is now more in support of X and her poetry, allowing her to feel loved, and to be her true self, the poet, X.

In my book “The sun is also a star” By Nicola Yoon. Natasha is being deported later in the day, the same day that her and Daniel meet. She is focused and determined to help her family stay in America. She bases her feelings and opinions through facts. While Daniel uses his heart to think. He is a Korean American, with dreams to be a poet, While his family's dreams for him to be a doctor from Yale. They meet in the morning and spend the day together, Daniel is immediately drawn to her, while she is skeptical and resistant. Daniel spends the day trying to convince Natasha to fall, while she convinces him to do the opposite. He has no dreams of being a doctor or going to Yale, so he postpones his meetings in order to stay with her longer. Only to find out that his interviewer, is Natasha’s Immigration lawyer. He has his interview after she meets up with the lawyer. Her file happens to be on his desk at the time of the interview. Daniel goes off to tell him that she is the one, and that he is happy he was able to make it so she can stay and they can be happy. Which is soon crushed when the lawyer tells him that he was unable to make it happen, and she has to leave that same night. When Natasha finds out she brings Daniel back home with her. And they spend the rest of the night talking about what they could have been. And their dreams and plans. Daniel although spend the day with her based on emotion eventually starts forgetting about the impact that she had on him, and the details of them. While Natasha starts basing her life on emotions and thinks about him almost daily. They live like this, until years later they see each other on a plane. During Daniels interview, the interviewer is asking him questions about him, and why hes there, or if he even wants to be there. He talks about how his parents want him to, and how its the American dream. “My parents are immigrants. They moved to this country for a better life. They work all the time so me and my brother can have the American Dream. Nowhere in there does it say you can skip college and become a starving artist. ” (Yoon 291) In terms of their relationship he ends up having to let her go because of differences. And how it's really just not the same when they're miles, countries apart. For Natasha she struggles when she goes home that night to pack up to leave and shes getting judged by her family for bringing a boy home in their circumstances. And warns Daniel about her home life many times before they even get to her house. By the end she also ends up letting him go. But on her own circumstances. By the way she finds it difficult to have to maintain the life she's living in Jamaica while also maintaining her life with Daniel. 

@IAdams27. I don't really understant you quote and the explanation of your quote could you expalne it a little bit more. 

@Apinard27

I like the quote that you pick and from the little part that you shared it seems like that she thinks she has to save the restrant her parent own instead of doing what she wants 

@rbussiere27

what you told me about your book really answered my quastion. she has to do what her mom wants he to do and i seems like its not fair to her and decides to do what she wants like joning potrey the thing that makes her happy.