Cultures of American Childhood

Kenya Melissa Amezcua

RE: Kenya A's Presentation and Responses

How might the a child, who immigrated to the United States, like in Letters From Rifka, view the ideal American Childhood, compared to what it really is and compared to the childhood they had already experience in their native country?

To theses children who might had to leave their countries for whatever reason, their main image of the ideal American childhood are greatly influenced by those around them such as their parents and other close family relatives. The United States of America has been seen as the land of opportunities for many generations of immigrants. To these children, the American childhood means that they will have the opportunity to grow up in a place where they do not need to live in fear, poverty, or, hunger. It is a place where they can actually enjoy being a kid and experience the joys of life without any big fear of harm coming their way at every waking moment like in Letters From Rifka .

You could actually greatly see how Rifka’s ideas changed throughout her journey. Although she still had fears of things like being killed over roll of toilet paper, at the end, all she wanted was to be with her family and live this American dream she has been hearing about throughout her journey. One of the biggest change I noticed was how instead of considering someone just as Russian and how the Russians ruined her life, she saw Ilya as more as a person in need rather than as a person from the race who caused her family to flee.

There were things that seems so common to those who grew up in the United States that to Rifka and her family did not. Looking at it in their perspective, it truly is worth the journey and blessing to come to the United States. But to them it is not just an opportunity to leave the harassment of Russia, but rather an opportunity of a better future. This journey that Rifka and her family experienced in the novel  in reality is a sequence of sacrifice and hardship from deciding to leave Rifka to sacrificing their sabbath day in order to work and gain money to maintain the family. The ideal American Childhood is not perfect but it is definitely better than other countries’.

Suzanne Roszak 

RE: Kenya A's Presentation and Responses

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Thanks so much to everyone for your hard work on this conversation! As you look toward the midterm, try to avoid a "lesser of two evils"-style view of this novel that might cause you to miss some of the complexity of the novel's view of the U.S. It is certainly true that Rifka is eventually able to enjoy some of the ideals of childhood on her arrival in the U.S. (even in Ellis Island, where, as we all know, she was in a tenuous, liminal position relative to other U.S. children). Nevertheless, when you think about how this novel is crafted, it's important to recognize how much time and space the novel devotes to challenging views of the U.S. that occlude or ignore the ways that American childhood historically did deviate from our own ideals of childhood. Think about how often we hear about Rifka's imaginings of the U.S. -- how she expects that it will automatically provide her with freedom and equality. And then think about how bitterly disappointed she is when she realizes the truth. This is a really critical aspect of the novel, which helps the novel to counter discourses of American exceptionalism that downplay the history of inequality and injustice in the U.S. based on comparisons with other countries. Since the latter is such a typical view, one that we are often brought up with in the U.S., it's important that we all make a special effort to allow our course texts to help us develop a more complex and nuanced understanding of what U.S. childhood has actually meant historically.

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