Great Melting Pot, Essay Example

America is known as a great melting pot. American literature has become a multicultural mixture that reflects the great diversity of American life. The works of Sandra Cisneros, Herman Alexie, Jhumpa Lahiri and Edwidge Danticat reflect not only the way in which American literature has developed, but also how America has become what it is today.

The stories of Cisneros, Alexie, Lahiri and Danticat show both the good and bad sides of America. Cisneros describes the drudgery of the life of poor Latinos, the violence their frustrated young men sometimes resort to and the helplessness of their dependence. Yet, she also shows the promise of opportunity and freedom in America.  Sherman Alexie similarly shows the depressing conditions in which many American Indians live, as his main character; Jackson Jackson lives the life of a homeless drunk, who ends up sleeping on the railroad tracks. Yet, even when life is so terrible for Jackson Jackson, he finds that there are many good people in America. One of these is a kindly police officer who gives him money, another is a volunteer who gives him free newspapers, and the last is a pawn shop owner who gives him a family heirloom worth $1000 for only $5.

Lahiri also shows some of the struggles of immigrants in America, as he talks about living in a loud room in the YMCA, without anything to cook with or any refrigeration or air conditioning. Yet, Lahiri is able to teach at the prestigious MIT and he goes on to live a happy life with his wife and son. He buys his own home, sends his son to Harvard, and can even afford to take regular trips back home to Calcutta to see his relatives.  What is more, he comes to care about a 103-year-old American woman and to really be part of America.

Danticat, meanwhile, tells the story of a young man from Haiti who must work two jobs in order to support his wife in Haiti and himself in America. Yet, when his wife arrives, he tells her of the promise of earning enough to buy a house and a car. Each of these stories gives the reader a glimpse of what it means to be an American and what it means to work to become one. They also show how rich and diverse the many cultures and stories in America have become.