Jennifer Natalie Fish: Domestic Workers

In the short story “ The Circuit” by Francisco Jimenez, the lifestyle of a migrant worker is portrayed as discouraging. Migrant workers have to move often. After a long day of picking strawberries, Panchito returns home to find that “Everything [he] owned was neatly packed in cardboard boxes.” he “suddenly felt even more the weight of hours, days, weeks, and months of work.” (1) Moving often is discouraging because everything that you have built at your current location is taken away. The author explains that Panchito “feels that weight” of all of the time he spent working. He is reflecting on all of the time that was spent working, instead of doing the things that kids usually do. Migrant workers have to work hard in the heat. After working all

In the book Nickel and Dimed, written by Barbara Ehrenreich, the author argues how challenging it is to live in a life of poverty. To prove to herself as well as others that this statement is accurate, she makes the decision to experience this lifestyle firsthand by taking low-wage jobs and recording the results. Ehrenreich took on jobs including a maid service, waitressing, and assisting the nursing home to make enough money for a place to sleep and food to eat. The work’s central argument is the fact that minimum and low wage workers face a myriad of difficulties in getting by in America; they receive very low pay, harsh treatments from their employers, and the inability to have an actual life. The author provides various amounts of evidence from her factual recordings, her personal insight as an effective technique, and rhetorical choices of ethos, logos, and pathos to support her position.

Throughout the text, “Changing the Face of Poverty,” Diana George is certainly precise when claiming that the common representations of poverty limit our understanding of it. She expresses that most of our knowledge of poverty becomes misinterpreted due to advertisements, media, and images. Consequently, the way that we look at poverty focuses around that in which is in third-world countries, but poverty can be anywhere, even in your backyard. American citizens are the audience for the text, because Americans typically portray as being wealthy, happy people who are oblivious to the poverty-stricken areas surrounding them. Diana George’s, “Changing the Face of Poverty” expresses to its readers that non-profit organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, utilize unauthentic pictures as a way to convince the public that there are people out there that need help.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" is about a lady made crazy by post pregnancy anxiety and a hazardous treatment. However,, an examination of the protagonist’s portrayal shows that the story is generally about character. The protagonist’s projection of a fanciful lady, which at first is just her shadow, against the bars of the wallpaper shows her personality, disguising the contention she is dealing with and in the end prompting the entire breakdown of the limits of her character and that of her shadow.

In the poem “Sonrisas” by Pat Mora, the poet uses word connotations, onomatopoeia, and alliteration to convey that some people in this world are more genuine than others. Right at the start of the poem, the author describes “[living] in a doorway/between two rooms.” In the first room, the author experiences “careful women in crisp beige/suits, quick beige smiles.” These two lines heavily rely on the word “beige” and its connotations. Beige means a yellowish brown color and is associated with offices, among other places, thus giving it a connotation of being very standard. Because these women give “quick beige smiles,” the author shows the reader that their smiles are standard and brief. These word further prove that these women do not genuinely

Author – Lynda Hull is the author of the poem “The Night Waitress”. Hull had been developing an impressive career in Literature when she died in a car accident. She was influenced heavily by Hart Crane, she had allegedly memorized his poems, as well as jazz musicians. Hull taught English in many universities and also served as Poetry Editor for a journal.

In the short story "Birthday Party" by Katherine Brush, she uses literary devices; such as imagery and tone to achieve her purpose of the story. Her purpose of the story is to highlight the disappointment out of an event that's expected to cause a good feelings at the end.

Women and children were the ones mostly risking their lives working in a factory. “In a factory in Japan, the women had to pull threads off silkworm cocoons and put them into a hot water basin” (Doc A). These silkworm cocoon threads were then threaded together to make clothing. This process might’ve been long and tiring as well as dangerous because they could get easily burned while working with these unsafe equipments. This is negative because the workers could’ve worked with equipments that weren’t as unsafe. These women worked very hard, but sometimes weren’t being treated fairly enough. “There were more females (12,519 women) than males (1,109 males) working in the factory” (Doc A). This means that women had to do most of the work. A worker’s day at work was another hardship. “They would commence their work at 4:05 am and end at 7:30 pm. During those 15 hours of hard labor, the workers would only receive 40 minutes in total for breakfast, lunch, and an extra break time” (Doc B). Waking up early in the day wasn’t their only hardship. They also had to work very hard, but only received a little for their work. These Japanese worker’s daily wage was also another cost. While men made 27 yen for their work, women were being paid with only 13 yen. This wasn’t even enough to buy what they needed such as food or other necessities. “For a female worker to buy a pound of sugar, she had to work 15 hours

Societal expectations are a part of everyone’s life, male or female. From the day people are born, there are roles they are expected to assume-- wife, homemaker, father, provider, mother and many others. While these aren’t necessarily negative, the stigma of not fulfilling these roles can be unpleasant. While the roles we are supposed to choose aren’t always clearly defined, the judgement that comes from choosing to take certain actions in life, like settling down or becoming a mother is palpable. Throughout The House on Mango Street, Esperanza’s view of the world is largely shaped by the people around her, which are her neighbors, family, and friends. These characters influence Esperanza’s choices and her overall viewpoint of life. Sandra

Experiencing “...fatigue and exposure to weather, necessary to their conditions”, women suffered immensely because working conditions which they exhibited were often unsanitary and dangerous (Anonymous, Document 1). Majority of women found jobs in domestic service, textile factories, and piece work shops, and despite claims that the Industrial Revolution provided increased wages and a better standard of living, it however, resulted in the life of hardship for many. Because “remains of the absolutism of slavery still linger in the conventional arrangements of domestic service”, the Industrial Revolution epitomized inequality in the workforce (Linton). By being exposed to unsanitary working environments where women “...live under ground or just below the roof”, the lives of women had little improvements (Liton). Not only did women experience poor working conditions, they furthermore, were victimized by the unequal distribution of wages. According to the Economic History Review with illustrates the difference of wages across genders, the average ratio of wages between women and men is 0.50, men being favored. Essentially women made a significantly less amount of money than men. Therefore, as a result of the Industrial Revolution, women experienced little benefits as there were victims of poor conditions and unequal

The first image uses colors like red to make the viewer feel anger towards the government, while also Included the “don’t tread on me” symbol from the American Revolution to invoke a sense of unity, and send a positive message. While image 2 attempts to connect on a more personal level with the audience by using younger kids, in order to inspire you to think about your kids, or kids you may know. Wanting them to fight hatred, and tolerate others. It also employs the idea that, our kids are our future, and hatred, and intolerance is learned over time, and tin order to fix it, we need to educate our kids while they are still

The poor are lazy and have nothing to offer: this seems to be the mindset for most of society and media. As bell hooks (1994), a prolific writer, wrote Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor, (an excerpt from “Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations”, published in 1994), she argued that the representation of the poor portrayed by society and the media is far from actuality. In this excerpt, hooks (1994) argument was well accredited with quotes from respectable sources, relations of her own personal life experiences, effective use of emotional appeal. She concludes by offering what she believes to be some solutions to the “problem” at hand.

Despite its dull, ordinary setting, “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen is an extremely deep short story covering complex socio-economic issues spanning over two—very eventful—decades. The story shows how economic hardships could physically alter the stereotypical gender roles, while cultural traditions kept them mentally intact. When these two elements contradicted each other, they left women, like Tillie Olsen’s character, feeling emotionally responsible for the consequences. Although her husband left her and she was forced to assume the role of both the breadwinner and the homemaker at only nineteen years old, she blames herself for neglecting what was thought to be her primary duty as a woman: motherhood. As the reader can tell from

How do you define the harshness of society? Social Justice and Poverty is a hard concept to analyze when one does not have a clear understanding of the social justice structure and why most people living in poverty remain poor. Looking beyond the aspects of what causes everyday circumstances and situations, society must become more well-rounded to people living in poverty are lacking their everyday hierarchical needs. In a world with people who are very rich and people who are very poor, society tends to put their focus on making the rich richer. Poverty has swept over many cities, states and countries with low unemployment rates, child hunger, economic violence, homelessness, and major social class issues. With unemployment being

‘Poverty’- a simple word with unlimited connotations. Poverty is a universal issue that has been plaguing our Earth for centuries; thus it is essential that the immensity of the situation is acknowledged by everyone. If looked up, you’ll find the exact definition of poverty being: ’general scarcity, dearth, or the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money. [1] Poverty is a multifaceted concept, which includes social, economic, and political elements. [2] Poverty may be defined as either absolute or relative.’ Never the less, it’s ironic how in the 21st century we prize ourself for being progressive when almost half of us - over 3 billion people - can’t even conjure up what life is like beyond ‘the poverty trap’ they are in. We prize ourselves, when one out of every two children is poor. Can you imagine growing up as one of the 640 million kids whom have no adequate shelter, let alone a place to call home? Or the 400 million to whom safe drinking water is simply a figment of their imagination? Or maybe the 270 million who have no means of getting health care? According to United Nation statistics, until this moment, there are 836 million people whom live in extreme poverty meaning they don’t have the rights they are entitled to in the first point of Article 25 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which clearly states that “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his