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.