Message from

[Anonymous]

spirited away- great movie!

Story is about a girl and a family who are moving to a new place.
Immigrant students can relate to this movie. They can relate to the main character Chihiro and what she must endure in order to survive in a new society that plays by different rules. I feel that many of my immigrant students (Asian and Latino) can relate to what Chihiro is going through. In the story Chihiro can only survive if she works for a witch and losses her name. I find that the film mirrors the reality of my Asian immigrant students who must sometimes loose their names and essentially their language in order to assimilate and feel accepted into the dominant culture. Attached to a persons name is a person’s identity and culture. The witch represents and oppressive society that wants to reduce newcomers to a less than human condition.

Uses in the classroom: I am now working on a unit that has the overarching theme of “identity” I feel that this film would be easy to incorporate to talk about the oppressive conditions many immigrants have had to endure throughout History . I can talk about the thousands of Chinese immigrants who worked and died while building our American railroads in the early 20th century.

berenice moreno clark