Ana Rubia Andrade is a 20 year old Brazilian American. She was born in Brazil and then immigrated to the United States of America in 2002 at the young age of 6. Ana went with her younger brother, her parents, and her aunt on a 10 hour airplane trip and arrived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She stayed in Florida for one year before relocating to Saugus, Massachusetts an area where some family friends were also living in. Her family decided to move due to economic problems. The United States offered better opportunities to become successful.
This is demonstrated in Ana’s aunt situation because her aunt was a nurse in Brazil and made less money there then when she worked part time at a gym in America. The Andrade family has not regret the decision to immigrate to America. Ana is just one example of thousands of immigrants that come into the United States of America yearly. One major highlight of the interview was Ana’s adamant view that immigrants are apart of American culture and enrich America not threaten it.
Ana is very politically active and fights hard for others to see her viewpoint. For Ana, the Statue of Liberty shows that immigration will always apart of America. This is because the Statue of Liberty invited people in no matter what and for Ana it will always symbolize America inviting people to come into the country even if there are some dissenters. She thinks that immigration enriches America because it gives America a very unique culture. All of the cultures in the country get mixed in and makes the American culture.
American culture would be very different without all the different ethnic and racial groups in America. Ana also believes that there is not a difference between keeping your own culture and being an American because you are being an American by sharing your cultures to others and integrating it into American culture. Another highlight from the interview was Ana Rubia’s expectations about the United States and the cultural differences. Ana expected America to be very cold because in Brazil she watched a popular show called Caldeirao do Huck.
One skit she watched that stuck with her was when the host, Luciano, was in a snowstorm in America. She had always pictured American very snowy and was very disappointed to find out upon landing in Florida that there was no snow for her to play in. She also outlined many differences in cultures in America and Brazil. Ana believes that Americans are more fast paced than Brazilians. This is because Americans are punctual and Brazilian arrive hours late to events. She also thinks Brazilians are generally more loud and outgoing than Americans.
Also she believes that Brazilians are more touchy than Americans because Americans are sometimes afraid to hug, but in Brazil everybody greets each other with a hug and kisses on the cheek. She also noted a difference in education. In Brazil you take English classes, but the only thing that they taught was “The apple is on the table. ” In America education is more serious which is why she was able to get into Harvard. Between 1880 and 1921, 46 million people immigrated to the United States. This people were a different demographic than immigrants of past.
The old immigrants came from England, Ireland, Germany, and Scotland. The new immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe and China. This caused many conflicts between the two different waves of immigrants. The new immigrants had to “prove their worth” to the old immigrants to see if they could actually be real Americans. The new immigrants came in because of the idea of the “promised land. ” They believed that going to America would solve their problems. The European immigrants came across the Atlantic to Ellis Island which took 12-18 days.
Most would be in third class and have long difficult journeys due to little food and lack of comfortable sleeping. They would then get processed in Ellis Island in New York. They were given medical inspections and if they passed they would be let through. In the country they would try hard to prove their worth and become liked by old immigrants. The Chinese immigrants faced more troubles. They had to go across the Pacific for 60 days in poor living conditions. When arriving at Angel Island, where they were processed, they had to go through long, enduring interrogations to prove eligibility to enter America.
This is because the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882 making only Chinese students, teacher, merchants, or those related to Americans allowed to enter. Once in America, they would work hard, laborious jobs that nobody else wanted. They were often victims of violence and were scapegoated as the cause of economic troubles in America. Like old immigrants they would fight hard to be recognized as real Americans and prove their worth. Ana Rubia has a similar mindset to immigrants of the past. She wants to prove her worth and be an asset to the country.
Some of her motivation to become an educated, hardworking future doctor is to prove to those that believe that she can not do those things. This comes from her belief that some people look down at her for being a mixed, immigrant woman. This is similar to the immigrants of the past because they wanted to prove to the old immigrants that they were also Americans. Her immigration story is different because she had been able in her lifetime to succeed which many immigrants in the past had their future generation do that for them.
I learned that many immigrants no matter where they came from follow a similar trend. They all had sad departures from their home countries and they head into America where they feel like their have to prove their worth to be a real American. This is significant because this idea can be applied to many immigrants. I can learn to relate more to immigrants because they are just trying to be accepted into society and they try, more so than native born Americans, to enrich the country not harm it.
Also a similar trend seen is that most immigrants do have a more successful life in America and improve the country. This is significant to know because there is a lot of rhetoric from politicians that immigrants are the ones causing problems in America. This similar line was said by those in the early 1900’s and it is still said today despite not being true. I can compare to Ana Rubia because I, too, feel like I have to prove something to people and be successful. While I am not an immigrant myself my parents and older brothers are, so I feel like I also have to do more work to be a “true American.
This is because a lot of people refer me more as a Brazilian than an American. So the things I do could influence people’s opinions of Brazilians and immigrants as a whole. I also am similar to her because my parents English are not superb, so I had to learn to speak English the same way as Ana through books and watching children TV shows. I contrast with Ana because I do not face the problems she faces in terms of discrimination. People already assume negative things about Ana because of her skin color which I do not also receive.
I have the liberty to freely go to friend’s houses without their parents not wanting me there which could be different for Ana. Thave a personal connection to immigration because my parents are immigrants from Brazil which makes me a first generation American. I do not have to go through the long and hard process of obtaining an American citizenship because I was born on American soil. However, the culture I grew up in my household is different from other long time American households. I get to experience a lot of Brazilian culture that is not known by non-Brazilians.
That is my personal connection to immigration. In America’s 238 years of existence it has created a legacy of being inviting of immigrants for anywhere. This can not be said by most countries that have very difficult methods to immigrate in the country legally. Ana Rubia Andrade and my older family relatives are only few of the millions of immigrants that are in the country currently. However, every family in America has somebody that immigrated to America. America is a country of immigrants which is unique to us.
