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Factory Girls Leslie Chang Summary

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Leslie Chang does an outstanding job in her book Factory Girls describing how China’s society is changing as a whole because of the migration from rural to urban areas. She uses the experiences and perspectives of Chinese women in order to describe this social phenomena which is very unique because most of the time women are ignored in Chinese history. Chang specifically talks about how two women, Lu Qingmin and Wu Chunming, deal with living in the growing city of Dongguan. She talks about their family life, love life, who they aspire to be, and what they aspire to achieve. Within their stories, she also references her own life, connecting herself to the girls. Chang’s family also once were immigrants migrating to have a better life. I believe …show more content…

She says this is because “They are younger, better educated, and more enterprising than the people they leave behind” (Chang 11). Migrants are named the elite based off the fact they are doing just a bit better than their families still living in rural towns. I personally believe elites does not describe them at all. Yeah, they are in “better” living situations than most of their family members, but in the city they are the lowest class of citizens and that is exactly how they are treated. Bosses treat them wrong and do not pay them correctly unless someone stands up and demands it. This definitely shows how people can be exactly the same in all situations, but can be viewed completely different based on unalike societies’ perspectives. When I thought about this situation, I immediately compared it to Mexican immigrants in the United States. They come to America and get the hardest, but worst paying jobs, they are treated wrong, and are constantly looked down upon by well-off Americans because apparently “they’re taking their jobs”. The reason so many Mexican immigrants work so hard is to send their earned money back home to their families still stuck in Mexico. In their family’s eyes they are basically super heroes, but still in American society they are treated like dirt. This is definitely not one social phenomena only happening in China, but possibly around the entire

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The reason that the author, Anne Fadiman, didn’t just focused mainly on Lia’s story because the bigger picture of the cultural conflict, between the Hmong and the American, are just as important. Fadiman gave us an extreme examples of how culturally different the Hmong people are, by comparing the birth of a child in Lao to birth in the American. In America, the most ideal place to give birth is in a hospital with the assistance of a doctors and nurses, however this is a totally new concept for the Hmong people, who recently migrated to the United States. In Laos, mothers like Foua, Lia’s mom, give birth to their children usually by themself. Fadiman mentioned, as foua usually squats for her child birth, “she labored in silence, with the exception of an occasional prayer to her ancestor” this demonstrated one aspect of the Hmong’s culture which is considered normal to them, but strictly taboo for us.(Fadiman 3). By laboring in silence and seduced in prayers, this indicated that the Hmong are every spiritual in their understanding of life.

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Qian Julie Wang’s memoir, “Beautiful Country” portrays her experiences immigrating from China to the United States at a young age. She discusses her challenges in adapting to a new culture and school system, changes in her family’s financial situation, and the constant fear of deportation as an undocumented immigrant. Through her personal story, the author sheds light on the struggles faced by immigrants in the United States, particularly those who are undocumented, and the emotional toll these experiences can have on individuals and families. In her memoir, Wang describes several biographical disruptions she experienced as an immigrant to the United States. These include the sudden switch in the family’s economic status, Julie’s transition

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Living as a Chinese-American, the narrator had to take on American attributes in order to be accepted -- for example, while normal Chinese women spoke with strong and assertive voices, the narrator adopted a whisper in order to appear “American-feminine. ”(1) As a result, however, her shy demeanor caused her to be an unpopular outcast. She saw herself in another Chinese-American girl at her school, as they had certain, negative similarities. “I hated the younger sister, the quiet one.

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Many times in society there are people treated different based on their religion or their ethnic background. One very good example of this was in the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel. For starters, the concentration

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Many of her experiences during the Cultural Revolution changed how she thought, and it helped her to realize who she was. Her intelligence, conflict between pursuing politics and staying loyal to her family, and her devotion to her family have made Ji-Li into the experienced and successful person that she is today. Her experience and success is shown through her novel’s success and her care for her family when she moved to the United States. The Cultural Revolution changed Ji-Li in many different ways, and those changes improved her morale, there are many times that are very formative throughout our daily

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The record states that DR residents in U.S have a lower median income than the overall foreign-born population, and the poverty rate of DR immigrants was also higher than the overall population. This contradicts with the picture mainstream media had given us where every immigrant will eventually find where they belong and live in prosperity. Fact is, a lot of immigrants out there still can not speak English, still don’t have a college degree, and still can not leave the bottom class of the society. Our protagonist Oscar did not get a decent job, although he finished college and wen to the other 14 percent(the rest DR immigrants don’t even have one ), everyone still hates him. This reflects that the lives of these immigrants are still not in a satisfactory state, they are still suffering in one way or

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The Significance of Female Figures in Love in a Fallen City " In 1918, Lu Xun asserted that whenever the country seemed on the verge of collapse, Chinese men would thrust their women forward as sacrificial victims to obscure their own cowardice and helplessness in the face of the onslaught of aggressors and rebels" (Louie 15). Eileen Chang critiques the social status of females during the transitional period before the modern era in China throughout her novella Love in a Fallen City. Eileen Chang was influenced by the New Culture Movement in China, which promoted gender equality and education. Also, Eileen Chang 's mother who was a "self-possessed, westward-learning" (Zhang xi) female, enormously impacted her philosophy thoughts.

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