Out of this Furnace, by Thomas Bell, is a rich portrait of five generations of a family of Hungarian immigrants who came to America during the late nineteenth century. George Kracha settled in Pennsylvania in 1881 as a worker in a steel mill – at ten cents an hour. George truly was full of the hope and promise that America’s freedom and riches represented to immigrants from around the world. Less than fifty years later, John Dobrejcak, his grandson, is the main force behind uniting his co-workers into a group of organized laborers. Along the way, the meaning of being “American” changes significantly for John, who realizes he is more a product of the steel furnaces of Pennsylvania than of anything American.
The family of immigrants that Out of this Furnace explores had a similar viewpoint regarding America as did many of their co-immigrants – they were leaving a bad town in search of a better one. As Kracha thinks at the novel’s outset “he hoped he was likewise leaving behind the endless poverty and oppression which were the birthright of a Slovak peasant in Franz Josef’s empire.” Kracha finds out during his voyage for America that poverty may not be something he is leaving behind. He wastes his money on the birthday party of a pretty, young, married girl he meets aboard ship. Nonetheless, Kracha retains high hopes regarding his future in America, mainly because he is so poor that he has nowhere to go but up. Yet, his high hopes are those of someone who is completely unaware of what is awaiting him. Thus, his wishes are larger than life without much substance to support them.
The Essay on Middle East America Immigrants Eastern
America has always defined itself as a great melting pot of differing cultures, however, when the safety or the well being of current citizens is in danger the government is forced to step in and regulate who enters the US. On September eleventh a great travesty occured, and some of the assassins and others plotting against America were immigrants who betrayed the American ideals. It is necessary ...
Still, Kracha’s ideas of what it means to be American are realistic. As he arrives on U.S. soil he is not impressed because he realizes the country is not what he has come for – he came for what it has to offer, “what he saw [Castle Garden] was not overwhelmingly impressive. It was America, of course, but he would not feel himself really in America until he was in White Haven, secure in a job and a place to live”. This is in opposite of the feelings of Kracha’s grandson, who found it nothing more than a melting pot of economic hardship and racial oppression.
Kracha’s children and grandchildren were born outside of the same social and racial walls that had contained him. His children and grandchildren thought our country would offer than social and racial equality along with the opportunity of earning money. Instead, what they found left them disappointed in America because they found racial and social inequality. Slovak’s were called “Hunkies” and could not obtain social and racial equality. They were forced to work in the most tedious jobs for the least amount of pay. Their lack of economics forced them to live in the worst housing and areas. For Kracha this had been a necessary burden of his immigration to land of greater opportunity than the old country, but for his children and grandchildren this was unacceptable. As Mike says about Kracha’s generation, “They had come to America to find work, to make a living. It was their good fortune, perhaps, to come unburdened with many illusions about a land of freedom, a land where all men were equal.”
Still, Johnnie (Dobie) is the character whose idea of what it means to “be American” changes the most. At first he is disappointed to find the racism and social and economic injustice that exists throughout America. However, he has completely changes his opinion while undergoing interactions with the other residents of the First Ward. He realizes that the social and racial differences are not aimed at Slovak’s in general. Each group of immigrants that comes to America, unable to speak the language, miserably poor, and fleeing even worse conditions, will be treated the same way until they blend into the rest of society. He comes to see that he and his people have made many achievements worthy of pride, and that racism will exist but must be fought at every turn. His anger leaves him and in its place he feels “pride of achievement, a growing self-assurance, a certain degree of understanding that ‘Hunky’ was only one word in a whole disgraceful dictionary of epithets whose use would continue to spread humiliation and discord until society made that use as unprofitable as it was dangerous.”
The Essay on African America American Racism Programs
The 2000 Presidential election has brought much attention to itself. While a slew of lawyers try to cheat their respective political figurehead into the White House, the topics discussed during the debates have been put aside. Affirmative action and education touch upon a delicate subject, which hinders the fundamental progress of our nation. Racism is nothing new to this country. In fact, much of ...
Throughout the problems of the book’s main character we can only see the pattern of struggle emerge for him and his family that was the same pattern of struggle for many immigrants in the late 1800s and 1900s. Throughout the problems, different waves of immigrants replaced those who had risen themselves in society through hard work, sacrifice and tireless effort. To Johnnie, being American wasn’t really about where you were born, or how you spelled your name, it was the way you thought and felt about certain things. About freedom of speech and the equality of men and the importance of having one law – the same law – for the rich and poor, for the people you liked and the people you didn’t like.
It is not so much enduring this struggle which makes Johnnie feel less bitterness and more acceptance towards what it means to be an American. It is how he and his fellow Slovak’s have dealt with the struggle. Many of those in the First Ward had no choice but to deal with their struggles in a noble and proud way. A way that becomes distinctly American. It was his particular way of doing things, his strength of character, that became to Johnnie what it meant to be Made in the U.S.A., “Maybe not the kind of American that came over on the Mayflower, or the kind that’s always shooting off their mouths about Americanism and patriotism…but the kind that’s got Made in the U.S.A. stamped all over them, from the kind of grub they like to the things they wouldn’t do for all the money in the world.” It is this portrait of the hard-working, forthright, incorruptible, determined, proud character that shows Johnnie what it really means to be an American.
The Essay on The American Indian and the Problem of Culture
The Native Americans are perhaps the most culturally storied and richly diversified culture in the America. Indeed, the historical narrations of the Indian culture, way of life and lifestyle are narrated as rich in strife, struggle as well as triumph. In fact, a majority of the modern ways of life and lifestyle in the United States are directly or indirectly inherited or borrowed from the ancient ...
This novel illustrated the problems that immigrants faced when making a life in America. Bells descriptions of working in a steel mill were vivid, and I will not forget them. Both historically accurate and uniquely personal, Out of this Furnace has really given me an appreciation for my family and our history.