Children of the Sea...Are Me.

"They say behind the mountains are more mountains."
Children of the Sea starts off with a very bold and figurative statement. Sure there is a literal side to it being that there are alot of mountains in one place. But I feel they were mostly trying to say that behind the struggles and hardships that they have already overcome, there are still more "mountains" to cross over. When people came to the Americas, they sought to be free and independent but they just got hit with more discrimination and labor. They may have religious freedom and no dictatorship but is it really worth living in horrible sleeping quarters and getting paid little to no wage for the work that nobody wants to do? But hey, somebody has to do it...right?

Now this may be a little earlier in time before this book was published but the expectations haven't changed that this is an American. An American is someone who has to earn their way up to where they feel is comfortable for them unless priveleged to be born into a family who already built a name for themselves and all that needs to be done is maintain it. I really feel that that is what an American really is. A person who works hard and does the disturbing things no one else would so that they may earn enough or leave their children enough so they don't have to struggle like they did. And that doesn't just include the typical father and husband that works in a mineshaft around deadly gases just to try and put food on the table and a college fund for the kids. I'm more so refering to how generations before us paved a way for us so that we wouldn't have to go through the same stuff they did. Like learning from slavery, the depression, labor strikes, segregation, discrimination, racism, sexism, etc,. Yes, some of the categories listed above do still exist but they are not as bad as they were because people saw that it was unjust, spoke up, and put their beliefs into action. Now if that is not American, then tell me what is?