Girl In Translation: How does the text make you think about justice in the world?

Girl In Translation by Jean Kwok

         Girl In Translation is mostly about fitting in, child labor and poverty, and the biggest problem of all: racism. The problem with fitting in and trying to fit in makes me think about what happens at our school now. There's a bunch of cool, popular kids and there's the bunch that has no friends at all and they're always feeling lonely. I feel even more bad for them at lunch because they don't have a friend to eat lunch with. Not everyone fits in and not everyone has a good friend or just a plain friend and I think that's really unfair. I always see a lot of people teasing them and it's really unfair.

          Poverty led Kimberly, the girl facing all of these problems to having no friends at all at first. It led to so much teasing, especially when all the girls were changing in the locker rooms.  All of Kimberly's clothes were home-made except for her uniform, but her underwear was and she didn't have any bras or socks because she was too poor. Buying those things meant wasting her hard earned money from working with her mom at the clothing factory gone. She always got teased by kids because of that. It makes me thing about how in the world, not everyone is rich and wealthy so no one should tease someone because of that. It's unfair because it's not her choice and it wasn't a choice to be born like that and she didn't choose to be poor.

          Racism is so much of a problem. Kimberly and her mother came from Hong Kong to America, New York, Brooklyn and she did not know that much English. At school, her students and even her teacher teased her and laughed at her because she didn't understand what the teacher was talking about. Outside of school, most rich and white people teased her and her mother. When her mother wanted the man to fix the oven, he broke it instead and even charged her for money. It's unfair because just because they don't know English, that does not mean they are stupid or stupid in any way. It makes me think about how a lot of people in the real world try to cheat money off of people that can't speak English. It's disrespectful and rude.