compare and contrast essay (fix and need more 600 words)

Tran

Tam Tran

Instructor Acevedo

English 61682

April 24 2019

Immigration

Joshua David wrote the novel Spare Parts in 2014 to tell its readers about four undocumented students from Carl Hayden Community High School in the hopes of winning the robotic competition; therefore, one step closer to achieve their American Dreams. It is a successful non-fiction novel, and in 2015, it was adapted into a movie. Both novel and movie did an excellent job to describe the theme of immigration. In both versions, there are some similarities and differences. While watching the movie shows a perfect picture through visual and hearing, reading the novel requires the audiences to let their imagination take over and create an image in their heads of what should the scene look like.

In the beginning of the movie, the reasons why four Hispanic students: Lorenzo Santillan, Luis Aranda, Cristian Arcega and Oscar Vazquez came to the United States illegally does not go into the details as much as the novel does. In the movie, it started by showing scenes of four undocumented teenagers’ everyday life in Carl Hayden High School; it does an excellent job of highlighting each of their personal struggles such as: Living in poverty, being bullied at school, or being considered dumb. However, there is no source that points out why did they want to go to the United States or how could they arrive there without any document. Thus, viewers have a blank perspective of how these kids got into America illegally. On the other hand, in the novel, David clearly explained backgrounds of each teenager, all of whom were born in Mexico and were brought to the United States by their parents with desires for a better future for their kids. There is an example from the novel that Lorenzo’s mom decided “He needs a better medical attention than he was getting in Mexico” (Spare Parts 10) so that she took him to cross the border to the United States to cure his illness. This important source proves the readers that reasons why Lorenzo’s mom had to take the risk of leaving their own home country and sneaking into the “promised land.” Without this root, the movie becomes less efficiently in portraying audience why immigrants like Lorenzo’s mom came to America. The novel does a better job in including reasons why these immigrants came to America like: lack of local access to resources, desire for a better living, or hope for a repaid work.

While the novel did a great job at describing their hardship as undocumented aliens, the movie has scenes and dialogue to transmit the message more efficiently. In the movie, there is a conversation between Oscar and his mom after she found out that he lied about attending to the robotic competition. After hearing Cristian defended that some of the winners from last year could work at Teledyne and have good jobs, she replied, “But they had papers” (Spare Parts 00:40:45). By using tone of her voice and expression of her face, it makes the audience empathy with this mother. It seems hopeless for these immigrants when they do not have the paper. The movie succeed in focusing on the difference between American and non-American in real life, privileges that these immigrants do not have when they living in the United States. She continued, “You think they’re gonna let you work or go to college if they won’t even let you serve?” (Spare Parts 00:40:53). This question lets the viewers have to think again about surviving in a “dream country” without document is not as simple as it be. By hearing what she said and seeing her expression, it brought audience to a strong emotion of how desperate the situation is for undocumented immigrants living in America. The movie lets the audience observes a lot of things - sometimes things that in the novel couldn’t do so well. For another instance, there is a scene about Lorenzo’s father was arguing with Fredi about joining the robotic competition, this scene does not exist in the novel; However, it helps audience to understand how these kids’ parents afraid their children will be deported if the federal agents found out about their immigration status. In contrast, some expressions of the character from the novel couldn’t be indicated by words alone. By reading the novel, the audiences sometimes do not feel a part of the character or how scared they are when they have to live in precaution. A lot of people have interests in immigration, but they do not have enough time to read the whole novel, they would prefer spending two hours to watch the movie. The movie and the noel both have the same message to the audience, however, the movie conveys that message faster and more efficiently within a shorter time frame.

Watching movie is very interesting, but reading novel let readers have some critical thinkings, opening their mind for imagination. So that they can have different feedbacks to the stories that they read. In contrast, watching movie might not let the audience able to see the bigger picture, they only see what the produce and the movie maker want the audience to see. The movie also make it more dramatic

Movie has to cut out some parts for enoough time