A Critical Analysis Of 'The New Americans' By Ruben Martinez

In The New Americans by Ruben Martinez, the author provides insight of the life experience of several families as they emigrate from their homeland and migrate to America in hope to finding a better life. The following text will briefly examine each family and their experience, but critically analyze the experience through defining and relating sociological concepts and theories. By the end the writer will explain how in reading this book has helped in understanding cultural pluralism in American Society.
The first chapter involves a family emigrating from Palestine to Chicago. The chapter explains the difficulty the family experiences before and after emigrating. Leading up to their departure, Naima Saddeh, and fiancé of Hatem Abudayyeh plan to marry in Chicago, spend much of their time with her family reflecting her life in El Jib, Palestine and what the future of Chicago holds. Finally once the couple and her
Cultural pluralism is defined as a series of distinct but coexisting groups each preserving their tradition and culture but each loyal to a broader national unity. This was made apparent several times. One example was when Hatem went to kiss Naima goodbye, but she refused due to tradition of Ramada. This shows that Naima and any myself are part of America but preserve our own traditions. Naima’s culture is her Palestinian products, belief systems, values, morals, skills, literature and language. These were different from those of U.S. especially language and tradition. These two concepts notably created culture shock, the experiencing of disorientation and confusion one feels when confronted with a different culture. A prime example was shown when Naima searched for employment and was over looked due to a language barrier. Another was learning how to drive a car in