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Discrimination In Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees

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Over the years, immigrants have influenced many aspects of American society and has had a vital role in shaping the United States to what it is today. According to the US Census Bureau, an agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System responsible for producing data about the American people and economy, “non-Hispanic white population in the U.S. declined from 85 percent in 1965 to 62.2 percent in 2014, and the forecast is for the percentage of non-Hispanic whites to fall to 43.6 percent in 2060” (qtd. in Walsh). Despite the rise of immigrants and the profound impact they have had on society, many immigrants face perpetual discrimination; this idea has appeared many times throughout Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Bean Trees. Taking place during the 1970s, the main character, Taylor, moves from Kentucky to Arizona; along the way, she meets Esperanza and Estevan, illegal immigrants from Guatemala. As she gets to know them better, she notices they are forced to live a monotonous, arduous life which implies that immigrants face prejudice from Americans who claim to be accepting. Through the use of …show more content…

They have impacted most aspects of life for American society more than one can imagine. In The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, she depicts the immense injustice that immigrants have to endure when they migrate somewhere, particularly the United States. Kingsolver sends the message that immigrants are oppressed and taken advantage of by society which she illustrates through her use of dialogue, diction, and rising action. The theme of this novel proposes that immigrants face much adversity because they feel constantly ostracized by society because of misconceptions that society has about them. This suggests that for society to progress, it not only needs to change the way that they treat immigrants, but their entire way of thinking towards

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