The Plight of Minority Groups in America

Minority groups in America face numerous challenges when it comes to social and financial environments. The article Just Walk on by written by Brent Staples explores the experience of a young black man in Manhattan. He grew up in the ghetto and managed to reach a graduate level while living in New York. The fact that he was now a Black man surrounded by fearful Whites made his life hard. More so, he developed techniques to survive various instances of intimidations. Jose Antonio Vargas came up with an article detailing his experience as an undocumented immigrant in America. The young man faced issues of getting a driver’s license, college education, employment, and a life partner out of fear. Vargas was forced to consider his citizen status whenever he made personal and professional decisions. Vargas and Brent apply unique techniques to give clear and concise illustrations of how it feels to be a minority in U.S.A. In effect, these two authors exhibit various instances of rhetoric techniques such as analogy, parallelism, onomatopoeia, understatement, and anaphora to explain challenges face by minorities.
Brent Staples iterates the irony of a situation where a woman runs away from him using an analogy. He says that he is a “softy who is unable to knife a raw chicken” leave alone mug a woman in the streets (313). The comparison is rhetoric because the reader learns about the feeble nature of the author without direct reference. In fact, the narration of his response under a direct situation is used as a defensive mechanism.

Nonetheless, the incidence becomes worrisome because he feels that he is part of the problem. He thinks that if he was another person, the woman would feel safer. Perhaps, the ghetto made him a villain whether he tried to run from it or not. Vargas also applies analogy to explore the extent of his fear of being found out. He says “tough as it was, coming out about being gay seemed less daunting than coming out about my legal status” (329). The statement implies that his status is worse than being gay. The fact that during this time, people such as Harvey Milk were murdered because of homosexuality (329) implies that the situation was critical. Now, the reader can comprehend the level of anxiety associated with undocumented immigration status. The authors exhibit excellent skills in literal techniques. The use of similar situations to denote the mood surrounding the problem helps in empathizing with the author.
Vargas used parallelism to discuss how hard he worked to prove his worth in Washington Post. The list of activities were quoted as follows, “I was promoted to staff writer, reported on video…, wrote a series” (332).The sequence of events increase understanding for readers by reducing the monotony of writing several full sentences. Consequently, the list of activities which Vargas had is proof that Undocumented Latinos in America face challenges of identity. They feel that they need to work harder to be American citizens than their documented counterparts. The fear of deportation increases their productivity at work and school. Blacks also faced their share of racial profiling. Staples wrote about instances where he felt his race created problems for him. He uses parallelism to summarize the events as he recalls them. A good example would be, “I only needed to turn in a corner…, crowd some frightened…, make an errand move after being pulled over by a policeman” (314). Staples warned that these meetings had a high likelihood of death for African Americans. The fact that normal events such as meetings with police officers or walking in crowded areas promotes racial prejudice affects minority groups. It would suggest that Hispanics and Blacks created defensive mechanisms as a result of systematic societal failure to honor their status as citizensCITATION Jac141 p 54 l 1033 (Glaser 54). The present-day street gangs and cartels occurred with the aim of safeguarding the safety and financial future of groups such as Latinos and Blacks.
Anaphora appears frequently with Vargas when he outlines his wishes to be an American citizen. An example occurs when he says that he thinks that working to the best of his abilities would grant him citizenship. The repetition occurs as follows, “I convinced myself that if I worked enough, if I achieved enough, I would be rewarded with citizenship” (326). Such sentiments reconnoiter the high levels of tension found among the working class in the Latino community. The thought that a person is never accepted by society until they attain a certain level of success is frightening. Thinking that ‘you’ (the minority group member) should do a couple of things or work harder than the rest to be what others get as a birth right is saddening. Staples applied onomatopoeia to elaborate the challenges faced by Black men on the roads. He says that he could hear the “thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk…of a driver locking the doors” (314). The mere image of an African American on the road made drivers fear for their safety. Stereotyping meant that all of them were criminals and should be feared. They forgot that any person from any race is susceptible to criminal activitiesCITATION Jac141 p 21 l 1033 (Glaser 21). More so, the sound made by the author to explain what he heard could suggest that it happened so often that he knew it from far. The pressure to perform for the average Latino in the country as well as the assumption that Blacks will definitely harm a person affirms the plight of minorities in America.
The article Just Walk on by reveals that Podhoretz creates an understatement to explicate his perceived criminal tendencies of Blacks. He terms it as a “special brand of paranoid touchiness” (316). In so doing, the situation looks mild even though it is clear that he fears and detests such behavior. Similarly, Staples, who is clearly offended by the term, decides to use it to explain why he changed his behavior towards Whites. He took precautions meant to reduce ‘that special paranoid touchiness’ (316). For example, he sang classical music and allowed Whites to move a few steps forward before he could go where he wanted. Unfortunately, most African Americans still do the same up to now. They try to blend in because being ‘too black’ could elicit negative reactions from other people. Outlaw: My Life in America as an Undocumented Immigrant stresses on the issues associated with being an illegal immigrant by using an antimetabole. Vargas states that “yet even though I think of myself as an American and consider America my country, my country doesn’t think of me as one of its own” (327). This statement confirms the emotional agony felt by undocumented minors. They grew up in America and know no other home but this country. However, the social media describes them as aliens. Both authors use different literal devices to discuss the reaction of racial stereotyping. Brent Staples reveals that Blacks use comedy to handle the situation while Vargas shows that Latinos analyze the situation as second class citizens. Thus, they end up adding more effort in school and work to reach a level acceptable by the dominant groupCITATION Wil12 p 67 l 1033 (Wilson and Donnan 67). The situation led to the belief that acting and dressing like a white person is better.
Conclusively, Staples and Vargas used many rhetoric techniques to amplify the comprehension of readers on the issue of minority in America. For example, the use of onomatopoeia allowed any viewer to imagine the exact moment when Staples heard the sound from the cars. The antimetabole used by Vargas is evident that there is something wrong with the system. The issue being that some residents live as second class citizens whether or not they work hard to better their lives. The parallelism used in both articles show that there are many occurrences where racial profiling occurs. A Hispanic takes more time and effort to prove his or her worth. A black man must think twice while walking down the street or perhaps start singing non-threatening songs for security purposes. All these techniques clarify the position of minority groups in modern America. Even though, the stories from the articles could be as old as twenty years or even higher, they give an accurate depiction of what is happening today in America. The dominant race receives more favors than the rest in terms of employment, judicial procedures, and education.

Works Cited
BIBLIOGRAPHY l 1033 Glaser, Jack. Suspect Race: Causes and Consequences of Racial Profiling. Oxford University Press, 2014. Print.
Kirszner, Laurie G and Stephen R Mandell. Blair Reader, The: Exploring Issues and Ideas, 9th Edition. New York: Pearson Publishers, 2016. Print.
Wilson, Thomas M and Hastings Donnan. A Companion to Border Studies. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2012.

BIBLIOGRAPHY l 1033