{"id":10099,"date":"2026-01-23T21:37:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T21:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/?p=10099"},"modified":"2026-02-09T15:01:59","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T15:01:59","slug":"everything-will-be-okay-example-draft-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/2026\/01\/23\/everything-will-be-okay-example-draft-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything Will Be Okay (Example Draft Post)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I shared on the first day of class my dilemma about this first assignment. Because I want to encourage you all to write about a story that had a significant impact on the way you think about migration, I’m writing my example post about an animated movie from my childhood: Don Bluth’s An American Tail<\/em> (1986). This film is not the most sophisticated depiction of immigration, but that’s not what matters most. What matters most is that I think through how this movie made me feel SO SAD for a little mouse who got separated from his family in New York City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What I remember about An American Tail <\/em>is that it made me cry. Fievel was a tiny little mouse and he got separated from his family on their ocean journey from Russia to the United States. Before rewatching the film, my recollection is that I mostly felt sad for Fievel. I was horrified that something so awful could happen to a child. I had a similar reaction to another Don Bluth movie: The Land Before Time<\/em> (the scene when Littlefoot’s mom dies<\/a>…oh boy…so many tears).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Classifying my Experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I think the thing I felt was distress<\/strong>, which our glossary of experiences<\/a> defines as “anxiety or mental suffering that you have not chosen.” I sat down to watch a movie, I was amused, and then I was crying. I know I had many other emotional experiences with the film, but that is the strongest one. I actually think a better term for the experience I had would be pity<\/strong>, which isn’t in our glossary, but is defined in Wikidata<\/a> as “sympathetic sorrow evoked by the suffering of others.” “Distress” suggests that I suffered, but I really wasn’t suffering–I was just feeling for a character who was suffering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Describing the Features Prompting my Experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As I try to think about what prompted this experience of pity, the first thing that comes to mind is the plot. A young mouse is separated from his family, forced to fend for himself in a cruel world filled with dangers. I think it’s pretty common to have a vulnerable child in a story like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it’s more than just the plot. It’s also the fact that Fievel is really really small. He gets a hat from his father that is way too big for him and he’s just a lot tinier than everyone he encounters. This is not to mention that he’s an anthropomorphized mouse. This movie is telling a human story with animals, something we see happening in countless stories for children.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Still from An American Tail. Universal Pictures. All Rights Reserved.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Before rewatching the movie, I would’ve said that the feeling of distress or pity was caused by the song “Somewhere Out There.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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