In the book Krik? Krak!, women were basically all from Haiti and some moved to America as immigrants, and some stayed in Haiti. They changed quite a lot when they moved to America and started their new lives. And the first half of this book mainly discusses people stayed in Haiti, and the other half are about people who came to America.
In general, female workers were not being respected at that time, and they could not get normal jobs like men did. I believe that was because the strong racism. Women supposed to stay at home taking care of their children. As a result, women’s status were really low. Their jobs were almost somehow depended on others. For example, the night woman’s job is prostitute which gains money from men, and New York day women’s job is gaining money by taking care of other people’s children. They could not do jobs depending on their knowledge because they did not get education. So life is hard for all working women in both places.
However,Haiti was not well-developed as America, so getting jobs for women is even more difficult in Haiti. If they could not depend on their husband, it is reasonable for them to become prostitutes. Working at night also fitted the depressive atmosphere in Haiti, and it kind of represents people’s desires and social disorder. It says in the Night Women some women in Haiti do day-time jobs such as selling things but they only get a little and irregular paid. As a conclusion, they were poor and less independent. Nearly all of them mentioned in the book suffered in a hard life.
For women coming to America. They needed to always living under a label “foreigner” which also created difficulties for them. Although they left their homeland, they still always remained themselves who they are and where they are from. And this kind of feeling showed clearly especially on the first generation immigrants. However, since New York was a busy city, there were more opportunities and possibilities for women to get variable jobs rather than just be a prostitute. There was many more ways for them to make a living. Also, it was safer here in America. They were able to have a stable and sweet family. On the other hand, the disconnection between the rich and the poor was very large, so poor women even in New York were still very inferior. No matter how well they adapted the environment, they would still be overwhelmed by the crowds as the story describes. However, they did not have to choose to be prostitutes working at night thanks to the environment they were in. So their lives were absolutely different than women’s lives in Haiti. Because this complex and busy environment shaped them quite well, their personalities were more determined, independence and experienced. That also because they were brave enough to leave their home land and make a change. But in they needed to work even harder than women in Haiti because the living requirements are higher and difficult to reach in America.
In a word, because women in both areas could fit in the social well, and they could not gain equality, they must have similar unhappy experiences.
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