America As A Land Of Opportunity In Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game

America, U.S.A, the Big Apple, the land of opportunity, the land of Liberty; whatever one wishes to call it, America is full of opportunity. America is commonly considered to be the land of opportunity because many people immigrate to America in search of the sensational, lucrative, stable lifestyle it promises. Further, people often come to live in America to pursue the vast amount of job opportunities, and to seek out the promised fortune. The same is true of the characters in the novel The Westing Game. The Westing Game is a fiction mystery novel written by the American author, Ellen Raskin, about heirs working together to try to solve a mystery. In this novel, there was a motif of America portrayed as a land of opportunity. Quintessential

Hoo. Mr. Hoo, whose full name is James Shin Hoo, is 50 years old and was born in Chicago. Once James Shin Hoo moved into Sunset Towers, by the prompt of Barney Northrup and the help of his wife Sun Lin Hoo, he opened his first restaurant. Sun Lin Hoo came from Hong Kong two years ago speaking very limited English. Despite the fact that Sun Lin Hoo did not speak any English, she was able to help her husband open a restaurant and contribute to its success.
“Mom went into the restaurant business, has a chain of ten. Nine are quite successful. I keep telling her to give up on Hoo’s On Tenth, to cut her losses, but she’s stubborn as ever. I guess she hangs on to it because it’s in Madison, to be near Dad. He’s now the state crime commissioner” (Raskin, 181).
This quote explains that overtime, James Shin Hoo’s business with his partner Grace Wexler developed into a successful enterprise. Together, they have almost 10 successful chains of restaurants. They have both grown into better people and made lots of money and shared it equally with one another. This quote connects to the statement of America being the land of opportunity because it displays a great example of how James Shin Hoo and Sun Lin Hoo, who were immigrants, had the opportunity to open and develop 10 successful