Girl In Translation by Jean Kwok (The issues of immagrating to America for a young chinese girl)

    I’m currently reading a book called Girl in Translation by Jean kwok. The book is about a girl named Kim who immigrates to America with her mom from Hong Kong. In the book Kim so far has been dealing with school, working in a sweatshop and living in a horrible apartment where the living conditions aren’t great.

     One of the problems Kim is facing right now is her home. She lives in this building where it appears to be only her mom and her living. She has to sleep on the same bed as her mom and the bed they use is just a mattress on the floor. The floorboards are so weak that when she and her mom walk on them they could collapse at any minute. There is a problem with rodents and roaches. She talks about how she can feel something walk across her every night and how they roaches crawl on the floor every day. She doesn’t have any good windows they are all cracked or there is plainly no window at all. They also don’t have any heat which means they freeze all night and the only thing covering the windows is trash bags. The saddest thing of all is that her aunt Paula doesn’t care she always tells Kim’s mom that they will move them somewhere better but they never do. Also Kim wants to go back to Hong Kong where her life wasn’t perfect but it was better than what she is going through now. I personally would stand to live in a house like that. I would rather go live in a shelter where I know there is someone there who is going to care for me and look after me.

     Another problem that Kim faces is school, her teacher Mr. Bogart always accuses her of cheating and gives her zeros. She even started skipping school because she didn’t want to go to class just because she felt that Mr. Bogart was going to pick on her. In Hong Kong she was the best student and she would always get a prize for being the best. I think that Mr. Bogart should cut her some slack because she just got to a new country and she doesn’t even speak English and she is just trying to learn like everyone else. She shouldn’t get treated that way and that isn’t very teacher like. Teachers are suppose to be there to teach us not bring us down.

     Kim’s life overall right now is very difficult and she is very young to be dealing with so many problems. She should be learning to get around not wearing about rats walking over her and feeling bad because of her teacher. If I were in her position I would have begged my parents to take me back to Hong Kong because I would not stand it. She is like a role model because as such young age she acting like an adult and sucking it up so her and her mom have a better future.

I'm still reading "When You Reach Me", and there are some serious social issues and other small ones. The main character Miranda talks aboout her life day by day and her thoughts on everything. The book has made me think about the world and how sometimes we say things and people might not understand or misinterpret us.
Something that i noticed in the book is that people misinterpret things which then they causes a bigger issue among the characters. Miranda called Julia this girl in the book Swiss Miss and then when somebody stole Jimmy's flinstone bank he said ghat it was Julia. I was very surprised and I asked my myself why JImmy would say that because in the book Julia is suppose to be a very rich person. Then Jimmy said a really racist comment. He was accessing Julia because she was black. I was extremely shocked and so were the characters in the book. I asked myself the same question Miranda did why would Jimmy say that just because she is black? Then he compared it to whatiranda said earlier and said he said it for the same reason Miranda had called her Swiss Miss. I think that the author put the issue of racism to show how sometimes what we say can be misinterpreted. I think that Jimmy should have thought about what he said befoe he said it. Its not correct to judge someone or accuse them of doing something just because of their skin color. Not everyone is the same. In Miranda's case I probably would gave told Jimmy that the comment about Julia wasn't what he thought it was from the beginning that way there wouldn't have been a confusion.
The next issue I wouldn't exactly say it was a major issue but the issue of acceptance and recongnizing that you were wrong about a person comes up in the book a lot. When Miranda notices that Julia isn't such a bad person is important. She notices that in life we have to learn to like them even if we dont like the person's attitude or the way they seem. Sometimes people turn out to be better than what we expect. That something this book taught me. We have to put aside people's differences and learn to like them or try to be friends with them. The issue of acceptance is important too. Miranda thinks that Annemarie will judge her because she doesn't live in the fanciest place. But what she doesn't realize is that it doesn't matter where she lives as long as she is happy and is healthy that's all that matters. I learned that you don't have to look at appearances but how the person is and if they are mean or nice. Sometimes we just have to learn how to be ourselves and not care about what others think.
In all there are some pretty important issue and each one taught me a different lesson. We have to think before we talk or take any sort of action towards somebody and also to accept life and how we are. All we need is to be happy and people will accept us that way.