I think that Khaled and Frank's first experiences in america were vastly different. I think this is due in large part to the fact that Frank had spent his life viewing America as a shinning beacon of hope and when he finally got the chance to get out of Ireland and move to a place where he felt he could make something of himself was a very liberating experince. I also think that the issue of sin did not way on his mind as much because throughout his entire life he saw corruption everywhere especially in the church so when he arrived to america he was not particularly guilt ridden about drinking and sleeping with a couple of fluzies he and the other men encountered.

The two stories are similar and yet have some opposite aspects of the characters' immigration to America. first of all, in Angela's Ashes, Frankie is only able to go to America by way of money he stole from a dead woman in contrast to Diary of an undocumented Immigrant, in which Martin recieves an honest loan of $650 from a friend. Also, Mexico City's 'wetbacks'often return home from America with a wealth of clothing, whereas Frankie's family celebrated his departure with little hopes of his return, however, for both native countries, it is very common for people to travel to America in those days. Another interesting point contrasting the stories is in how their travels are viewed. For Frankie, his family termed his departure as 'American Wake', implying that his immigration was like his death because he wouldn't return, where on the other hand, life was Martins reason for leaving, 'My people have to emigrate to survive'. America is a country of all kinds of people, and the characters see this in similar ways in the immoral people they meet as well as the religions helpers. The men who seem to help the immigrants out the most have some relation to christianity, such as the Priest helping Frankie and The coyote, Juan Serna, with a bloody head of Jesus tattooed onto his arm. On the other had, we have the 'bad people' in both cases as well, them being the adulterous American women who Frankie meet in Poughkeepsie and the men who talk to Matrin about holding people up and taking their money.

At the beginning of the Angela’s Ashes excerpt, we see that Frank, like Khalid, has a job that he is sorry for, and knows is wrong. (i.e. Khalid with his jewelry and Frank writing the threatening letters). Also, Frank decides not to give any money to the Jesuits because it ends up purposeless, just as Khalid deems it useless to continue paying the Atheists. Similarly, both characters want money, without having to work for it; Frank steals it and Khalid just doesn’t want to work. In contrast with the B of K, Frank seems to have more closure than Khalid does because his family has a party for him, while Khalid sort of just goes off on his own. Also, in “Pack Peddling”, the journey to America seems to occur within the families, that is, more than one person in a family goes to the America, so that when new relatives get there, they always have an uncle or brother in law or someone to help them out or that has gone before them; while Angela’s Ashes follows this story, B of K does not. Khalid seems to be pretty alone, except for his friend that he goes with. Another huge difference is that when Khalid sees America he is incredibly sad and when Frank sees America, everything is glorified. The story even ends with, “Isn’t this a great country altogether?”. Angela’s Ashes seems to be more descriptive and praising of America, where Khalid’s description is more emotional.
-Missy

In the beginning it seemed like Khalid was going out into the world to seek his personal truth and construct this solid, philosophical conduct of himself to commit to paper…I can’t find it in the early passages but there was this one part where he talked about the temples and structures of the world and how they went into ruin and disappeared while these manuscripts of mere paper have endured the entire time. And it did seem like he was thinking about gaining this sort of immortality of the soul put down on paper. But in “In Kulmakan”…Khalid has just gone everywhere in his endless thoughts and back again, and I think he has forced a lot of humility into himself because he realizes how fanatic and idealistic he’s been and how with or without that enthusiasm, life just goes on. He says “I let my No-will, in this case, dominate my will, and that serves my purpose well.” If at any times he had his mind set on some sort of personal philosophical conduct, he appears now to sort of say how egotistical it is to have this single system, this one great irrefutable truth to live your life by when he sees that there are so many truths. “Consistency is superficial, narrow, one-sided.” And it is really ironic though how he says all this, but yet here we still have Khalid to read on paper. Although Rihani may have seemed to distance himself by having said he found Khalid’s book…it just really seems that Khalid may have always been a part of Rihani and I was re-reading Lord of the Flies recently and it makes sense in the sort of Jack-Piggy-Ralph way that perhaps Khalid is like the ego who has to say his mind while Rihani’s narrating is the superego-ish conscience that always has to step in to level off Khalid’s pride in…I guess his existence and his thoughts and mind. And when Shakib was telling the story earlier in the book, that seemed really focused on the physical body- of finding food and eating, making money, and meeting women. Which seems like id…and even the metaphysical becomes physical like that one part where Khalid wants to get into the atheist lecture but has no money and begs to be let in because his “mind is hungry”. And I really might be totally overanalyzing the premise of the book in a very actually Khalid way of thinking, but all these different points of view say to me that Rihani is trying to make peace with the parts of his mind that he doesn’t like, due to their zeal or instinctual desires or even that part of his mind that has to say these other parts of the mind are wrong. And when this book is coming to an end it really seems to emphasize that these are all parts of the human that should be balanced and sought in proportion, which makes sense when you see that Khalid starts in Baalbek then he goes to America, then he comes back, and then he wants to go back again. I don’t think most people would search for such a perfection of balance…but this seems really important to Khalid/Rihani or whatever the perspective may be. It’s difficult to speculate…but anyways.

The excerpt from Angela’s Ashes makes a lot of sense if I’m still taking this sort of ego-superego-id approach to things. In the beginning Frank wants to get to America and he’s like this ego- ready to confront America, and he seems to want to do good and he says “I wish I could tell them, I’m your Robin Hood.” So it’s like he’s ready to be influenced but maybe he doesn’t know what to expect, or maybe who to build his image upon. And maybe, like Khalid, he wants to come to America to find his personal truth. And from there, well obviously Frank gets quite an impression. From the priest, who acts very well as a superego influence (e.g. “The priest whispers to me again, Bad women, bad women, occasion of sin, and I don’t know what to say to him.”) to the “bad women” who are the very instinctual id influence and it seems that before Frank knows it, he’s in the bedroom and according to him, “Jesus I’m in heaven and there’s a knock on the door the priest Frank are you in there Frieda putting her finger to her lips and her eyes rolling to heaven…”. Both Khalid and Frank seem to be at fault for being human, and although the Rihani/Khalid persona seems to go into a lot of depth into sort of apologizing for his own humanity, these characters really show what goes into being this ball of clay that can be molded and changed by one’s environment. SO yes, very complicated stuff, and what I could be thinking concerning this stuff could be a really big overshoot. In especially Rihani’s case, if he is sort of apologizing, I get this sense from the book that he likens his thoughts to the level of action, so that thinking of committing some sin is just as bad as actually committing the sin. Anyways…whoa. Time for me to step back.