What does behold the dreamer mean

The Jongas came to America with nothing and work tirelessly. Jende regularly puts in fourteen-hour days, and Neni juggles two jobs and classes at a community college. Ten years, we could have enough money for a down payment for a two-bedroom in Mount Vernon or Yonkers. Jende tries to navigate the immigration system with the help of his cousin Winston, whose presence in the book underscores how utterly arbitrary the process can be. Jende and Winston grew up in identical circumstances in Cameroon, but Winston won the green-card lottery.

He came to America legally, joined the Army, went to college and law school on the GI Bill, and got a job at a corporate law firm. With one stroke of luck, Winston became as much a peer of Clark Edwards as he was of Jende.

Similarly, a baby born in New York to Jende and Neni will have rights denied her older brother, who was born in Cameroon. Is she more deserving? Is Winston?

Mbue — a Cameroonian immigrant whose manuscript caused a sensation at the Frankfurt Book Fair, catching the attention of Random House editor and Columbia School of the Arts professor David Ebershoff — also beautifully interrogates the idea of America as the promised land.

She is the mother of Vince and Mighty. She sometimes worked as a nutritionist for models and actresses. She was born as the result of rape, and her mother resents her for it. Because of her rough childhood, she is very determined to keep her family together. Reputation is everything to her, and her self-esteem isn't the highest because of it. She became very increasingly withdrawn from her life, Drinking and taking Vicodin, and eventually died in due to asphyxiation.

Liomi Jonga — A six-year-old boy who is the son of Jende and Neni. He receives a lot of pressure from Neni, which sometimes gives him little room to be a kid.

His parents expect him to be a successful doctor or lawyer. After, he worked as a grocery store cashier in Chicago. He worked as a custom officer at the seaport in Douala, which benefit his family, and was considered rich by Cameroonian standards. He studied law at Columbia University School. He moved to a reservation in Arizona for a few weeks before ultimately leaving for India to potentially build a retreat center for American executives.

Mighty Edwards - Youngest son of Clark and Cindy. He regarded Neni as a second mother figure because she spent an entire summer with him in the Hamptons. Through Neni, he begins to develop a close relationship with Liomi. After his mother's death, he gets ready to leave to Virginia with Clark. Bubaker - A lawyer in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and who "helped" Jende navigate the American immigration system. He helps the Jonga's apply for asylum by coming up with stories to plead his case. This is not a story of noble immigrants versus the evil banking class: Mbue is too skilful for that.

The Edwardses are self-absorbed and selfish but slim bridges of genuine affection exist between them and the Jongas. On the other hand, the Jongas are not simple Africans who eschew materialism and can teach the Edwardses how to live a contented life. Both Jende and Neni rejoice in the consumerism of America and grasp at all that capitalism has to offer. Sometimes, the pace becomes sluggish as yet another set piece scene of cultural exchange occurs.

In another, Jende tells the Edwardses older son that in Cameroon he would be whipped by his parents for wanting to quit law school. The novel was called The Longings of Jende Jonga when it sold for seven figures. Who are the dreamers? Jende and Neni, who believe that through hard work and luck they can force their way into the American dream?