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Tyana Cullen
Dr. Benjamin Spanbock
UCB College Writing R1A
September 29th, 2015
The Lower Level
In the film, Far and Away, by Ron Howard and in the book, Strangers from a Different
Shore- Gam Saan Haak, by Ronald Takaki, the most prominent topic discussed is the
experience of American Immigration at the end of the nineteenth century. Although both pieces
show the struggle of immigrants trying to achieve the American Dream, the outcomes of both
sets of people are drastically different. Far and Away is a historical romance that showcases the
journey of Shannon, a daughter of a wealthy family from Ireland, and Joseph, a very poor
landowner in Ireland, to America. The film follows the trials and tribulations the characters face
on their journey to and through America, and how, through strength and determination, they
were able to pull through and become successful and happy in the end. The depiction of
immigration in the film is deluded into a fantasy that doesnt truly show the major issues and
setbacks immigrants had to face. The factual information provided by the Gam Saan Haak
reading breaks down the films fantasy version of immigration. The passage discusses the
continuous laws, and rules put against the Chinese immigrants that truly segregated them from
the rest of humanity. It shows that even with their hard work and determination, they were never
able to have the stable life depicted in the movie.
In Far and Away, both Shannon and Joseph are ecstatic about going over to America.
When Joseph first arrives in Boston, he meets with a worker for the ward boss, Mike Kelly, who
helps him get on the road to citizenship. Besides this one instance, citizenship is never
brought up again. The first sign of discrimination in the film, due to prior ethnic backgrounds, is
when Joseph loses his first boxing match and is forced to scramble for food. He asks a man for
work, but the the man replies, I dont hire Irish. Although this instance is the one, and only, sign
of separation between prior living locations, Joseph is able to move along and forget about the

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discriminatory comment. Since citizenship is only truly discussed once, it is depicted as a very
easy process that is available and guaranteed for all to citizens to obtain. This free and easy
citizenship portrayed in the movie, is a distorted representation of the true process toward
citizenship. This gloried version of citizenship is not what the Chinese immigrants encountered
while living in America.
When the Americans started to impose taxes on the Chinese, all of them were trying to
become legal American citizens, but they soon realized that they were rendered ineligible to do
so because of the 1790s federal law that reserved naturalized citizenship to white people.
Because of their lack of citizenship, Americans began to degrade and treat the Chinese as not
equal, causing a larger barrier of segregation between them and the Americans. (Takaki 82) The
citizenship they were never able to attain was a huge reminder that they would never be
accepted fully as Americans like the film implied.
In the movie, both Joseph and Shannon dream of owning their own land. Once they both
make the journey to Oklahoma, the two of them participate separately in the Oklahoma land run.
The Oklahoma land run was a way for new settlers to attain land. All the participants had to do
was replace the white number marked flag with their own to claim the land as theirs. When
Joseph finally gets to his dream plot of land, he exclaims, This land is mine! and plants his
flag. Overall, the movie seems to focus entirely on Josephs ease into success and shows that if
one travels to America and one fights for what one wants, a job and free land will just fall into
ones lap.
The ideal situation shown in the movie drastically differs from the real stories written
about in Gam Saan Haak. The reading traveled around with the Chinese immigrants as they
went through the troubles of acquiring land. Some Chinese wanted to be farmers, like Joseph
and Shannon, but attaining land was not as easy as Far and Away depicted it to be. Since they
couldnt buy land, they were introduced to tenant farming, which gave them a way to enter the
business with minimal capital. Chinese farmers signed agreements with white land owners,

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saying that In exchange for the use of the land, equipment, and the marketing of crops, [they]
would raise fruits and vegetables and then divide the profits with the landowners. (Takaki 89)
Without the ability to truly choose their careers, own their own land, or having many ways of
making money, Chinese immigrants had to struggle to obtain jobs that would support
themselves and their families.. The freedom, the simplicity of life, and the careers demonstrated
in the film, doesnt demonstrate the governance the immigrants were placed under.
Throughout the movie, the theme of resilience and dedication was one that was
repeatedly discussed. When Shannon arrived in Boston, she had planned to live off the money
she would attain from selling her mother's old antique silver spoons. When the spoons were
stolen from her, she realized that her way of not only living, but surviving, had been taken from
her. As she began to lose her composure, she exclaims that she now has nothing. With her
new impoverished image, she got a job depluming chickens for a very low wage, just to make a
living. With Josephs boxing job and her chicken job, the financial tension between the two was
a prominent issue.Then Joseph loses his most important match, and they both became
homeless. In the end, Joseph left Shannon with her wealthy family and took off by himself. The
story then flashes forward 8 months, and Joseph has a steady job as a miner and Shannon has
taken the train with her family all the way to Oklahoma to get land. While the story doesnt show
what their lives were like once they obtained a nice plot of land together, it is implied that they
live happily-ever-after in peace. The story depicts a perfect situation in which immigrants would
struggle with money at some point, but if they kept persisting, they would be wealthy and
content in the end. This sort of equality and idea that everyone was able to become wealthy was
a large misconception that the film had tried to put forth. The film industry wanted audiences to
believe that wealth is attainable for all, through persistence and devotion to any given job.
This fallacy is tried to put to light in the Gam Saan Haak reading. The Chinese
immigrants who came over to America in search of the same wealth were never able to reach
the same revenue the white Americans had. Because of being Chinese, they were put through

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a rigorous set of taxes, leaving them with barely any income in the end. This taxation process
forced them to realize that they were always going to be decriminalized against, and that they
would never be on the same economic level as their white counterparts. Although money was
one of the most prominent reasons for American immigration, the lack of money received by the
Chinese never allowed them to fully enjoy and cherish their time in America. This inequality of
wages also allowed white Americans the ability to control the number of Chinese entering, due
to their inability to pay for the trip overseas.
By truly immersing oneself into Far and Away and Gam Saan Haak, one will realize that,
although both pieces of work showcase the characters immigration to America, Far and Away is
set to portray a very serious and dangerous issue in a glorified manner. While the movie
showcased the love story between Joseph and Shannon, both of them ended up getting
citizenship, good wages, free land, and the ability to live happily ever after. The film depicts
immigration as an event or process that required determination, but luck would soon follow and
would be in the immigrants favor. The issue with this depiction of the immigration process, is the
false assumption that immigrants would be successful in the end. The Chinese immigrants were
never able to rise to the top of the hierarchy and were never treated with the respect they
deserve. Through insecurities with citizenship, jobs, and wages, they were always being brought
down to a lower level than the rest of the white Americans.