Mona and the Promised Land Essay Example for Free

Mona and the Promised Land Essay It has often been said that coming to America is the start of a new life for many immigrant families. The novels Mona and the Promised Land by Gish Jen, and Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez, it is said that â€Å"American means being whatever you want† (Jen 49). Mona and Rodriguez both strive to reach that â€Å"American dream. † They take the initiative throughout the novel and seek what they want to become. However, the novels show that in order for Mona and Rodriguez to become what they want, they have to make sacrifices. From losing their culture to losing their strong relationships with their parents, Mona and Rodriguez will have to endure consequences of their decision to become what they want to be. Mona and Rodriguez were raised up to believe their parent’s religion and traditions. To begin, Mona has an Asian appearance, which automatically differentiates her, and Rodriguez has an accent, which also distinguishes him as different. The differences that set Mona apart from Americans lead her to decide that she wants to practice Judaism because she lives in a neighborhood that is dominated by the Jewish community, and wants to be more accepted in that community. The dissimilarities that set Rodriguez apart from Americans lead him to deepen his understanding of the American culture. Mona and Rodriguez believe that religion and culture are two of the primary instruments through which they can create and develop a new identity. Mona states, â€Å"Jewish is American, American means being whatever you want, and I happen to pick being Jewish† (Jen 49). Mona relates being Jewish with being American and she wants to be an American because then there is no limit to what she can accomplish or become. However, Mona still has people constantly trying to bring her back to her Chinese culture. Helen, her mother, tries to trap Mona in her Chinese culture by telling her that Chinese people are not supposed to be Jewish, and that if she chooses to be a Jew, she can no longer live in her home. Mona is in a complex situation where she wants to identify herself as a Jew, but Helen wants to limit her ability to be â€Å"whatever she wants,† (Jen 49) which forces Mona to choose between sacrificing what she wants to be or pleasing her mother. Helen asks Mona, â€Å"How can you be Jewish? Chinese people don’t do such things† (Jen 45). Mona replies, â€Å"I guess I must not be Chinese then† (Jen 46). Jen shows that Mona can be Jewish and also Chinese, but she cannot be Chinese and also Jewish, meaning the Jewish community will accept her even though she is Chinese, but her Chinese parents will not accept her being Jewish. Mona feels bound by her Chinese culture, when as an American, she feels as though she is supposed to have the freedom to do â€Å"whatever she wants† (Jen 49). Though Mona feels as though she has found how she wants to identify herself, she is realizing that her decision to become Jewish is conflicting with her relationship with her mother. Helen wants Mona to find herself in the Chinese culture, even though she was born in America. Mona feels as though, being born in America, she is supposed to have the right to find her identity in any way she chooses. Mona states, â€Å"Free country! Right! (Jen 250), but her mother combats that by stating, â€Å"In this house no such thing† (Jen 250). Helen is making clear that as long as Mona is under her roof, Mona will have to obey her instructions. Helen also tells Mona, â€Å"Once you leave this house you cannot come back† (Jen 251). Mona is in a situation where she has to decide between living with her parents and being Chinese, or leaving her home and staying Jewish. Rodriguez believes one must sacrifice their culture to become a part of another culture. Rodriguez states â€Å"Outside the house was public society; inside the house was private,† (15) meaning, outside of his home, nobody understands the way he feels inside of his home, and the amount of security and comfort that he feels while he is home. As Rodriguez grows deeper into the culture that he is learning about, the private feeling he has when he is at home, no longer became that private feeling. Rodriguez had a deep connection with his parents in which he states, â€Å"I am speaking with ease in Spanish. I am addressing you in words I never use with los gringos. I recognize you as someone special; close, like no one outside. You belong with us. In the family† (15). In his home with his family is the only place he feels as though he can truly express himself, but not only did he have to sacrifice his culture, but his parents did also. â€Å"They agreed to give up the language (the sounds) that had revealed and accentuated our family’s closeness† (20). By his family also giving up their culture in their home, it is taking away his only place to truly express himself with his family, and losing that bond that they share. Mona wants to find happiness in things other than what she already has as a Chinese girl living in America. She changes her beliefs because she thinks she can find happiness in Judaism. She also changes her lifestyle because she has the freedom to do whatever she wants. After Mona gets everything she has sought, she realizes that all the sacrifices she made to fit into society were, in the end, not worth losing her mother. Rodriguez identifies himself with any culture he wants to. Rodriguez strived to gain a deeper understanding of the culture and become one with the culture and that is just what he did. He also lost his culture and that special connection with his family. Mona and Rodriguez believed that religion and culture are two of the primary instruments through which they could create and develop a new identity, but did not realize there would be major consequences from their decision to become what they want to be. Work Cited Jen, Gish. Mona in the Promised Land. New York: Knopf, 1996. Print. Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez: An Autobiography. Boston, MA: D. R. Godine, 1982. Print.

Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac :: essays research papers

"Physical Laws should have mathematical beauty." This statement was Dirac's response to the question of his philosophy of physics, posed to him in Moscow in 1955. He wrote it on a blackboard that is still preserved today.[1] Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (1902-1984), known as P. A. M. Dirac, was the fifteenth Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. He shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1933 with Erwin Schrodinger.[2] He is considered to be the founder of quantum mechanics, providing the transition from quantum theory. The Cambridge Philosophical Society awarded him the Hopkins Medal in 1930. He was awarded the Royal Medal by the Royal Society of London in 1939 and the James Scott Prize from the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 1952 the Max Plank Medal came from the Association of German Physical Societies, as well as the Copley Medal from the Royal Society. The Akademie der Wissenschaften in the German Democratic Republic presented him with the Helmholtz Medal in 1964. In 1969 he received the Oppenheimer Prize from the University of Miami. Lastly in 1973, he received the Order of Merit.[3] Dirac was well known for his almost anti--social behavior, but he was a member of many scientific organizations throughout the world. Naturally, he was a member of the Royal Society, but he was also a member of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforsher and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He was a foreign member of Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques and the Academie des Sciences, the Accademia delle Scienze Torino and the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and the National Academy of Science. He was an honorary member and fellow of the Indian Academy of Science, the Chinese Physical Society, the Royal Irish Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the National Institute of Sciences in India, the American Physical Society, the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research in India, the Royal Danish Academy, and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He was a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.[4] The world wide respect he earned for his work was well deserved. A prolific writer, Dirac published over two hundred works between 1924 and 1987, mainly papers in physics journals on topics relating to quantum mechanics. His book Principles of Quantum Mechanics , published in 1930, was the first textbook in the discipline and became the standard.[5] Some predictions made by Dirac are still untested because his theoretical work was so far reaching, but many other predictions have been verified, assuring him of a special place in the history of physics.[6] Dirac was three years old when Einstein published his famous papers on

Matav Case Study

Strategic Crossroads at Matav: Hungary’s Telecom Powerhouse Assignment 1 What is Matav’s Strategy? Has it been successful? Matav, being the Hungarian Telecommunications Powerhouse, had secured their foothold in most of the communications market in Hungary, including business services, residential services, Internet and Mobile. Their parent company Deutsche Telekom wanted them to remain an integrated telecommunications company.Since their objectives were laid out in front of them, they were facing a stagnant fixed mobile market in Hungary with the only scope of expansion being the broadband market. So their primary focus was on competitive response to the core customer base, consolidating financial performance, increasing productivity and expanding the broadband market. The next step that Matav took in implementing their strategy was to split their vast company into smaller business units which could manage their market independently and sufficiently.International expans ion was on the cards as well. Belonging to a greater European powerhouse, they had all the man power and resources to help them step in to a new, less visited, European country where the telecommunications prospects were bright. I personally think that there was no other option but to expand their foothold in the rest of Europe and keep the domestic growth ascending with introduction of new technologies. The fixed line business was decreasing as it is and the competition had reached a saturation point.The strategy hasn’t been as successful as late since, the domestic competition has increased, Matav are losing foothold in the fixed and mobile market, contrary to the fact that they still are the number one Telecomm Company in Hungary. Does Matav have any competitive advantages in its domestic markets? Matav, off late, has faced a lot of domestic competition because the East European Market has seen a heavy increase in the small telecommunications companies’ bracket. The se small companies enter the existing markets and offer low price incentives which inevitably increases competition in the price war.Matav is a telecommunications powerhouse. It has the infrastructure, the ability, the foresight and the manpower to match any competition the foreign companies can offer. Matav is a well-established integrated communications company and has footholds in all the four markets of residential, business, internet and mobile. They already have a lot of customer market in the Hungarian environment. Familiarity with the local policies, business and customers makes Matav even more powerful when it comes to dealing with competition.It could add additional services by implementing new technologies on the current infrastructure to the current customer base and could also attract a lot of customers by giving bundled service like fixed and mobile or fixed and internet together. Do Matav’s international expansion plans make sense? Why? Matav was taken over by a European Telecommunications giant. The line was clear. Since the domestic market was completely overwhelmed by Matav, the only logical place to expand further was another European company. Matav is already an integrated telecommunications powerhouse.There is no new market it can create or develop within its own country to sustain development for it. There has to be competition and scope for expansion by introducing new technology into third world countries. This is very attractive when offered at a lower price than your local provider. Matav’s international plans make sense to me for precisely the same reason. There is scope for expansion and revenue in untapped markets more than expansion in tapped markets. Nevertheless, the domestic market should not be overlooked since that’s the main source of revenue and development for Matav.Matav was also losing foothold in themobile market. It needed to expand and look for new markets. This exhibit will show you why. If you w ere a member of the strategy group, what would you recommend to Andras Balogh? If I was a member of the Andras Balogh team, I would recommend continuing what the company was doing. On top of that, I would ask him to fix his gaze more upon the local market since lately, the competition was increasing drastically. Even if the international expansion makes sense, the company should not lose its foothold in the domestic market.Since the infrastructure and the man power already existed, new technologies should be researched and implemented since, if someone else comes up with it, we don’t want to fall behind the market. A new research division should be created which could work in collaboration with the german giants to implement and try new technologies. This team should constantly be in process of innovating and researching new technologies. They should also keep a watch on the new emerging technologies in the markets across the world.Another division should constantly keep chec k on the local market and try and implement and provide the existing customer base enough to hold on to Matav for the next generation of technologies. This division should constantly help provide information to both the research divisions and the international division about the needs and demands of the local market and what to expect. The international division should concentrate solely on expansion and should set up local divisions to help understand the local market. It should also make sure all the international markets communicate with each other.

The Government And Specific Interest Groups Create Public...

In the United States, the government and specific interest groups create public policies to solve internal problems and protect their citizens. Public policies can include any action, plan, or rule, which relates to issues of domestic national importance. Once a certain issue becomes a concern for a significant amount of people, it becomes a component of the national agenda, which is what the public wants the government to acknowledge. Many of these problems are addressed because they negatively affect a significant amount of people (Sparknotes: How Policy Gets Made). For the past few years, one of the major issues in the United States is illegal immigration. Unlike today, a person immigrating illegally was not a major issue years ago. Today unfortunately, there are so many illegal immigrants from all over the world that it has become an issue no one can completely control. It was recorded in 2012 that approximately 40.8 million illegal immigrants live in the United States, which makes up thirteen percent of the country. â€Å"Data on the nativity of the U.S. population were first collected 1850 decennial census. That year, there were 2.2 million immigrants in the United States, representing almost ten percent of the total population† (Nwosu, Chiamaka). What is the total number of immigrants that have entered the United States since 2000? Approximately thirty percent of the 40.8 million residing in America entered between 2000 and 2009 (Nwosu, Chiamaka). The majority of theShow MoreRelatedPolitical Parties And Interest Groups940 Words   |  4 Pagesparties and interest groups are able to get citizens to participate in politics and political party participants or interest group members. This is a comparison and contrast paper. The following will be a comparison between political parties and interest groups. Three points will be mentioned. 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