The Walking Dead is an award winning drama series. The show is about how a zombie apocalypse takes over the world, and the struggles of what people will do to survive. The main character of the show is Rick Grimes who was a sheriff before the apocalypse started. The show starts out in Atlanta, Georgia. Through out the shows we see groups of people come together regardless of race, and we see groups of people solely made because they look like one another but we will dive into that later.

Something that seems very significant in different social groups coming together is the beginning of the show. In the beginning of the show Rick Grimes wakes up in the hospital. He was put into the hospital before the the apocalypse after he was shot in a response call, and he woke up in the hospital after 3 months after the apocalypse started. He leaves to the hospital to go look for his wife and son. Rick makes his way to down town Atlanta where he meets and Korean man named Glen, after Glen saved Ricks life. Glen then introduces Rick to the rest of his group in Atlanta and they bring him back to their camp where Rick finds out that his wife and son where staying at.

Upon arrival to the camp there was people from a lot of different social groups. African Americans, Asian Americans, Caucasians, elderly, etc. Most of these people did not know each other util the apocalypse started, and they did not know about each other’s backgrounds, but that did not stop them from getting a long. Everyone put aside their differences to survive together.

I think the creator of the show wanted us to know that everyone can always get a long regardless of race. As stated before these people in thus group had no knowledge of each other before the apocalypse started, and now they treat each other like family. The creator of the show wanted us to know that you do not need to know about someones background just because they are different from you. you should treat everyone with respect regardless of who you are, what you believe, and what you look like.

One of the experiences that I found the most interesting from the Diary of Systematic Injustice’s was was the crazy racist Kroger Lady. This past year, I was at Kroger going grocery shopping and I was waiting in line. The cashier attendant was a Hispanic lady who could not speak English very well. The cashier was checking out a women who seemed to be of middle age. While the customer was checking out she wanted to use coupons, but some of them were expired. When the cashier told the customer that the coupons were expired the customer started to become frustrated. She started to say that the cashier did not understand what she was saying because she could not speak English very well. She then went on and started to call her racist names like “beaner” and “illegal”. I should have done this sooner but me and this other guy stepped in to tell her that what she was doing was not okay. We then got a manager over to the register and the lady got kicked out of the Kroger. I think that this story connects to The Leavers by Lisa Ko. Lisa Ko’s novel is about a young boy who struggles as an immigrant in America. The reason that. I connect these storeis is because the main character in Lisa Ko’s story went through adversity just like this. I also believe that these stories provide the same meaning. Lisa Ko’s novel is about how Asian Americans are mistreated, and misheard in the United States. The altercation that I witnessed also follows the same meaning to me as I digested what happened. The altercation in Kroger provided a real life example of how immigrants are treated in the United States, and it spreads the message of how immigrants are mistreated and misrepresented. After I took time to reflect on Ko’s novel, and what happened in Kroger it made me sad. They both opened my eyes because it showed me how mistreated immigrants are in this country. It made me realize how lucky I was to have the life that I have, and I also realized how privileged I am. I believe that it is important to treat everyone the same. Just because someone is a different color than you does not make you better than them.

Lisa Ko was born in 1977, her parents were immigrants from china. In 2016 she published her first novel that was titled The Leavers. The reason that Lisa wrote this novel was because she read the New York Times winning article about the story of “the detention of Xiu Ping Jang”. She was very moved by the story because it was about an immigrant making it into America which is very similar to what Ko wrote about. Lisa Ko’s The Leavers is about a young boy Abandoned in the United States by his Chinese mother. This Novel won many awards. It won the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and NPR

The reason that this story was written in the first place stems from her own childhood. Lisa Ko was born in Queens, New York to a family of immigrants. Ko struggled being the first born of the family in the United States being Asian descent. Ko also struggled with being a minority in America, she faced many trials growing up regarding her race. This led to Lisa Ko being frustrated with the lack of representation that Asian Americans would get in the United States. Ko felt she needed to write this novel because she felt like she was the one that needed to represent Asian Americans and their struggles that they face growing up in the United states. 

The most interesting part of why Lisa Ko wrote this novel is she wanted to write it in fiction. She noticed that most immigration stories come from non-fiction true stories, but there were no stories based off of just what they were thinking, so Ko changed that. The Novel was not about Ko’s life, it is about an Immigrant Chinese boy who struggles growing up in the United States. Ko used her own life experiences to make a story. 

NBCUniversal News Group. (2018, April 24). ‘the leavers’ novelist Lisa Ko found success through massive failure. NBCNews.com. Retrieved November 3, 2021, from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/leavers-novelist-lisa-ko-found-success-through-massive-failure-n750811.

Guardian News and Media. (2018, April 22). The leavers by Lisa Ko Review – quietly sensational story of migrants’ plight. The Guardian. Retrieved November 3, 2021, from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/22/leavers-lisa-ko-review-migrants-debut-chinese-american.

Messer, M. (2017, July 21). Lisa Ko on immigration and the inspiration for “The leavers”. The Barnes & Noble Review. Retrieved November 3, 2021, from https://www.barnesandnoble.com/review/lisa-ko-immigration-inspiration-leavers.