Hello America Lit Circle Post 1

Page 35, Paragraph 2 and 3, Elli thinking to herself and making a promise to her dead father:

"Oh papa, it has come to pass. The 'cloud scraper' is just as exciting as you promised. The shops on Broadway are just as glamorous. But Papa, where are you? You promised to stroll with me on Broadway, to buy me the prettiest dress. I stand here at the foot of the Empire State Building, the tallest building in the city of your dreams, and the mass grave in Bergen-Belsen casts and enormous shadow over it all. And for a moment the excitement turns to ashes in my mouth.
But I will not let the mass grave be the final arbiter of your dreams! Your dreams are not buried in Bergen-Belsen. I will make them live on in New York. I will make all your dreams live on. I promise I will make all your dreams come true."

This is significant to the first question because it shows the hardships that the family went through before they came to America. They fled Europe to meet their relatives in the U.S. after being liberated from Auschwitz. Much of Elli's family perished in Auschwitz in the gas chambers, as well as other slave and death camps.

I share a relation with that, because my family also suffered during the Holocaust, despite us being Christian. My great grandfather, Opa, was drafted into the Nazi Army, and was forced to fight. During the war, he was captured and made a prisoner of war by the Russians, and was forced to repair equipment, and was later released after the war,after being presumed dead, and his whole family thought that he was dead.

Despite Elli's promise to her father, I wonder if she will be able to fulfill it. (Will she be able to keep her promise to her father?)


Page 24, Paragraph 2, Elli thinking to herself:

"God,help me make my way in America."

I find this significant to the fourth question. This is because I think that her biggest enemy in her new life in America will be a lack of self confidence. If she can't bring out her best self when or if she goes to college in the book, she won't succeed. This will probably be one of the many hardships that she faces in the book.

Judging by the way she has acted, Elli is quite nervous about her future in America. I would be too though, if I had come from a place that had shown that level of pregiduce to my belief in religion. I would also be nervous if I had moved to a country and I didn't speak their language very well, and my mother who had came with me didn't at all.

What hardships do you think that Elli will have to overcome in order to "make her way" in America?