Book Reports / "Miguel Streets" - about a thought about how the world has changed? [2]

Have you ever thought about how the world has changed? How the world used to be so cruel? Comparing Miguel Street to the Great Toronto area, 2012, there are many differences and similarities. Life has changed drastically from a few years ago more for the better, than for the worst. Life in the Great Toronto area is more developed, education is a respectable mandatory service that all must attend and there is hardly any female abuse.

Miguel street in different from the Great Toronto area today, it is more developed in a lot of ways. "At twelve an old women smoking a clay pipe came and she got a cent" (N, 56). A cent was worth a lot in Miguel Street, the dollar has increased; today a cent cannot buy barley anything. They would work so hard for a penny to buy a meal or some refreshing water. "He went back to Titus Hoyts school, not as a pupil, but as a teacher, and Titus Hoyt said he was giving him forty dollars month"(N,24). In Miguel Street that was a lot of money. They could not afford cars or plane tickets so they had to take a train or bus to get to where they wanted. "We travelled up by train and took a bus to Miguel street" (N, 93. In the present we have our cars and some even have a private jet to take them places they demand. These people live in houses that people in Miguel Street could not afford. Their houses were old, rusty and very small. But they lived in a house like we do, we just have better opportunities that they never had.

Their dialect was different from the way it is now. Most people in Miguel Street did not go to school, they did not know how to write or speak proper English. In Miguel Street most had accents, like Man-Man w, who did not know how to speak proper English. "I said automatically, 'yes, I goes to school' I found that without intending it I had imitated Man-Man's correct and very English accent" (N, 47). Today, we do not speak the way Man-Man spoke. Most of us have an English accent. Elias was the only one who how to speak proper English and to read very well "the odd thing was that although George beat Elias at the slightest opportunity he was very proud that his son was getting an education" (N, 39). Elias was very lucky to get an education in Miguel Street. Elias was educated, how it's mandatory that we, people in the Great Toronto area, have an education. We are very fortunate to have that of an opportunity to learn.

Imagine a life with no education, having no clue how to speak; read. Elias would get beaten even though he knew how to speak English.

Miguel Street used to be a very violent place to live in; men would severely beat their family. "He had his wife and his daughter and his son. He beat them all" (N, 27). They would abuse females more them they did to males. Women meant nothing to men or society. They were considered insignificant. If women had a female as a child, she would get beaten even more. Men would only be happy if their wives gave them a male child, but even that would not be enough. Their child would have to become a strong, important man. Today if a man abuse a women/children they will go to jail, but some still hit their wives/children. In the Great Toronto area, women are able to do anything, they have equal rights. In Miguel Streets, women could not work or get out of the house. As the narrator states "Like Popo, George was happy to let his wife do all the work in the house and the yard" (N, 27). They had no perspective in what that the men would do. In the present women are working jobs that were considered for 'men' and having an amazing life. Overall, women in the Great Toronto area have a privilege to be living there because they have the freedom that some women around the world do not have. Some women today still are living the way women in Miguel Street lived.

The Great Toronto area has changed drastically more for the better, than for the worst. Life in the Great Toronto area is more developed, education is a respectable mandatory service that all must attend and there is hardly any female abuse. Do you think Miguel streets living style was worse than the way we live in the Great Toronto area? What time era would you want to live in?