TOW #6 - "Two Ways of Belonging in America" (Written)

The author of this essay was Bharati Mukherjee, an Indian-born author. She is currently a professor at Berkeley. The essay describes her experiences as an immigrant and contrasts it with that of her sister. She explains the main differences between her and her sister as they lived in the United States, like how her sister chose not to become an American citizen. She talks about how her sister wanted to keep up the old traditions, while she almost seemed to reject them, not having an arranged marriage, as well as marrying someone who was not Indian. She goes on and describes her sister's stance on immigration and how legal immigrants are not treated as well as they should be. She talks about how this happened, and what the differences were that led to this happening. She also addresses immigration itself, from the view Americans have of immigrants, how they're believed to work in stereotypical immigrant jobs. She talks about her own similar experience in Canada, and how she understands her sister's sentiment about being an immigrant.  She is trying to tell the reader, who probably doesn't share these experiences, that North American countries need to rethink the way they treat immigrants, as they should not be treated as second class citizens and do not deserve the stereotypes they are given. She also describes how immigrants choose to approach living in a new culture, you can embrace it the way she did or you can try to cling on to your past, the way her sister did, and both of those things are perfectly fine. She achieves her purpose by appealing primarily to logos and ethos. She appeals to logos by making a logical argument about why her she and her sister share different immigration experiences. She builds her ethos almost immediately as an immigrant, and she is clearly credible to speak about the topic, since she talks about her own experiences as an immigrant as well as her sister's.