What Is The Theme Of The Trials Minorities In The Wretched And The Beautiful

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In the short stories "Eraser Tattoo" and "The Wretched and the beautiful" authors Jason Reynolds and E. Lily Yu are sending a message to the readers on discussing the trials minorities go through in today's society. In Eraser tattoo teenagers Shay and Dante are being separated from one another due to gentrification in the neighborhood. In Wretched and the beautiful immigrated aliens are being stereotyped due to the fact that they're different from everyone else in the place they migrated to. Both of these authors show the trials minorities face in the real world. Eraser tattoo starts off in Brooklyn NY where Dante and Shay are having one last conversation before Shay gets sent miles away from her home and lover. The story starts off with Shay rubbing an eraser onto Dante's arm in her initials and giving him a bruise to symbolize how she'll always be a part of him. While reminiscing about their past "white where brown used to be"(6) discussing dante bruises …show more content…

The curious humans begin to question these aliens and make assumptions about them. The humans begin to have a stereotypical agenda and attitude towards the immigrant aliens due to the fact that they differed from them "Drop your weapons" (17). The aliens told the humans in "perfect comprehensible French" (18) that they weren't being harmful but the humans still decided to be hostile towards them. This correlates to society today in how immigrants are stereotyped as criminals because they differ from citizens in the U.S. When the immigrated aliens had all died the humans showed no sign of remorse for their deaths, "all of us, warm and satisfied with our participation in history, turned off our television and went to work, or to pick up children from soccer, or to bed"(62). This shows how dehumanizing the humans felt about the immigrated aliens that they showed no sign of sympathy towards their