Humaiya Sawda
Essay #3
English 1121 (Prof Scanlan)
May 9, 2020
Transition from Haiti to America
In “ New York Day Women” by Edwidge Danticat, there are two main characters. The two main characters are Suzette ,who is a youthful Haitian lady who works in New York’s Midtown and also her mother. Suzette’s mom is a Haitian outsider who is stuck in a rut. This story is about Suzette, the storyteller of “New York Day Women,” is having a run of the mill day in New York City when she sees her walking around the streets of Manhattan. Suzette is shocked, in light of the fact that as far as anyone is concerned her mom has never been outside of Brooklyn. As Suzette tails her mom, her psyche is loaded up with memorable statements of things her mom has advised her before. She was getting to know her mother in this process as well. To Suzette’s eyes, while her mom’s body may have arrived in America, her essence never made the excursion. Suzette has looked as her mom battles to grapple with certain “American” practices, such as “eating out” and providing for Goodwill. In this story, There are instances of the genuine and genuine battles foreigners have while showing up in the United States. In the wake of seeing firsthand her mom’s challenges with American culture, envision Suzette’s stun when she sees that equivalent lady enduring and flourishing in Manhattan. Suzette’s mom strolls the road certainly “with a cheerful step,” as though she has lived in New York her whole life. While reading this story I found that the cracks between the moms and daughters are significant, and that gap hole between the moms and daughters were augmented by the contrasts among Haitian and American culture and by the multifaceted nature of the political connection between the nations. This implies feminist ethics since it revolves around motherhood and the sacrifices a mother makes for her children.
In the article, “Women like and unlike us” by Davinia Yalimaiwai goes into topics such as motherhood and immigrant parents who come to America for their children. It is stated on page 58, “Thus, the daughter depicted through different characters in Danticat‟s stories has ambivalent relations to the ethnic culture of her mother because the daughter has yet to understand the sacrifice the mother made in migrating to America.” “New York Day Women” displays a solid feeling of motherhood, which permits the primary character to develop into an all the more all around characterized lady. The sacrifices the moms suffered in coming to America were exclusively for their daughter‟s fates. Also, it baffles the immigrant mother when she understands that her fantasies are not in a state of harmony with her bicultural daughter‟s. It is stated on page 60 “In order to gain a better life, many families migrated to America, especially New York and Florida.” She touches base on sacrifices which is also a part of motherhood. This thought of a transnational regular worker is seen in “New York Day Women,” where Suzette‟s mother‟s binds to Haiti are solid to such an extent that she fills her whole carport with garments that she anticipates sending back to her family. At first Suzette can just observe her mother‟s binds to Haiti. As the story unfolds, be that as it may, Suzette sees her mother‟s binds to the United States, also a nation she buckles down in for her little girl to succeed. Periodically, the bicultural little girl turns into a scaffold between the mother‟s culture and the standard American one, and this is seen with Suzette in “New York Day Woman”. “New York Day Women” displays a solid feeling of parenthood and also feminist ethics which permits the primary character to develop into an all the more all around characterized lady and it also helped her realize all her mother had done.
In “New York day women”, feminist ethics is shown in many ways. For example, Suzette’s mother told her to give up her seat to a pregnant woman or an elder woman whenever she sees them on the train. ( page 332 ) Another example is when Suzette saw her mother taking care of children in the park . ( page 332 ) These two examples are showing she always helps out other women and also has caregiver qualities such as a mother. In “Mothering the motherless: portrayals of alternative mothering practices within the Caribbean diaspora” by Amanda Putnam, she discusses Black Women are regularly depicted in contemporary western societies as the matriarchal establishments of their families, ingraining faith, culture, and insight in their kids. Benefiting from their moms’ beneficial encounters, black children learn approaches to endure and outperform snapshots of prejudice and mistreatment inside their day by day presence. The mother’s quality conveys urgent information to resulting family ages. This generational knowledge reinforces the family, empowering youngsters to succeed regularly where their moms proved unable. It is stated “Merle Hodge’s Crick Crack Monkey and Edwidge Danticat’s Krik? Krak! offer similar collective mothering practices,….Their purpose is to help the daughters acquire qualities which will allow them to develop into strong adult women.” This is implying that female substitutes give a common mothering impact to the motherless little girls. Then again, the little girls, discovering not many or no resources accessible for their mothering, start to make social connections to their past themselves. Through both collective mothering and self-mothering, the little girls re-associate with the normal world, acquire basic understanding and information, just as increase another, yet changed, female lineage. This ethics is shown by Suzette’s mother.
During this short story, Suzette’s mother strongly displayed feminist ethics. However, Edwige Danticat has many more ideas in her short story such as virtue ethics. In “New York day women”, Suzzete’s mother always tried to incorporate practices in Haiti in America. For example, on page 334, she states “Why should we give to goodwill when there are so many people back home who need clothes? we save our clothes for the relatives in Haiti.” But, later on she decides she wants to get to know the city where her daughter stays. Suzette’s mom is a character brimming with virtue ethics; she is somebody who appeared to contemplate how she ought to be in her new home. Before she restricted herself to specific spots to make a trip to, that most likely helped her to remember Haiti. In “Palimpsests of Ancestral Memories: Black Women’s Collective Identity Development in Short Stories by Saskia Furst, it is stated “Danticat and Brand narrate the lives of Caribbean women who have journeyed abroad in search of a better future, and the protagonists also continue to develop their respective identities through the challenges of leaving their homes.” She is implying that It is principal likewise to women’s’ writing in diverse settings. Remembering Caribbean ladies for her investigations of personality dealings, she brings up a few manners by which composing takes into account reaffirmation and self-advancement, something that is regularly required when living in a spot that one doesn’t think about home (yet). Be that as it may, the story refers to that her character and morals gets from her past in Haiti. This also had an effect on Suzette. Suzette used to be indecisive about giving up her seat to pregnant women or elderly women in the subway but now she does. On page 335, it stated “ Tonight on the subway, I will get up and give my seat to a pregnant woman or a lady about Ma’s age.” Both of them definitely transitioned to virtue from the beginning to the end.
In this essay I observed the Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat portrayal of mother and little girl relationship between two societies in two of the narratives in her short story, Her story centers around issues with history, gender and immigration, and they concern mother-daughter connections. Normal for Danticat‟s stories is the emphasis on women and their identity quest. This observation of her and the short story gives clear proof that Suzette’s mother utilizes her encounters, the encounters of others to prepare stories that greatly open the readers attitude to positive morals that would enable people to join together, and produce beneficial outcomes. Nonetheless, this observation was really evolved to show that the fundamental morals Danticat appears to accept more than any is of feminist ethics.
