Reading Response Of The Thing Around Your Neck

READING RESPONSE Name Date Institution The Thing Around Your Neck The story is about Akunna, who is the narrator of the story. Akunna wins the American visa lottery in which she and her family had been enlisted by her uncle. She travels to the U.S.A. where she joins her uncle who lives in Maine, where she lives with him, his wife and their children. She enrolls in a community college and also gets a cashier job. At the time, there is a lot of racism in the country and she finds that for a black woman to have her hair done she has to travel a long way. She learns from her uncle that in America they live in a give and take culture where you have to give something so as to get something else. Her uncle sexually molests her insisting that girls her age allow men like him to assist them. One day he pushes his molestation further and she opts to run away. She runs to Connecticut, where she secures a job as a waitress. She earns less than other waitresses because there is an assumption that all immigrants work hard. Her low payment cannot enable her to continue with college, so she studies in the library. She at times thinks about her family and friends back in Nigeria who envy her for winning the visa. Akunna is engulfed by a feeling of being invisible which is brought about by the treatment and perception that Americans have on immigrants. Akunna feels like there is something that is hanging around her neck that is chocking her pulling down her spirits. It is this feeling that the title of the story, “The Thing around The Neck” was ...