My interpretation of "Passengers" and "Out of All Them Bright Stars" (Blog set #2)

Whether there is life besides humans in this universe has always been a question many people have thought about. If there is, then how exactly would they interact with humans? I found the differences in the human-alien interaction in these two stories, "Passengers" by Robert Silverberg and "Out of All Them Bright Stars" by Nancy Kress, to be very interesting. In the story "Passengers" Silverberg portrays the aliens like parasites, they live through the humans and use them as hosts. The way they take over the humans makes me think of Dissociative Identity Disorder. The title "Passengers" is referring to the aliens like a passenger passenger in a car. Having a passenger means having an extra person inside your car besides yourself, the driver should be the one in control but a passenger could easily take over. Possibly like two people or personalities trying to be in one mind. More examples are the way the humans couldn't remember anything that had happened and how they acted when they were being ridden was apparently opposite of their usual personalities. The fear they had to try to actually love someone knowing that they could change at any second. Also, the strange way that people who had been ridden weren't supposed to discuss like it was shameful. It made me think of how people treat mental illnesses in our current time. On the other hand Kress portrays the aliens as friendly and polite in "Out of All Them Bright Stars". The alien, John, is very kind towards Sally and clearly means no harm. Even though the alien is nothing but kind he still gets treated rudely by the owner of the diner simply because he looks different. Even now, racism like that still exists. People are constantly judged and mistreated for having a different skin color or looking different. This story made me think about how many Americans feel about the large amounts of immigrants that have come to America. Out of all the countries why do most immigrants decide to come to the U.S? This question is similar to the one Sally asked herself about why the aliens chose to go to Earth instead of any of the other planets. Most immigrants come to the U.S with the simple intention of starting a new and better life and gaining new experiences, like what these aliens seemed to be doing. Just like John, immigrants can be treated very rudely. I can say this from personal experience. My family immigrated to the U.S from Cuba in the 90's and the treatment John experienced is very similar to treatment that me and my family have experienced. Personally that's how I thought these stories reflected humanity back on itself.

UPDATE
After the discussions we had last class I learned a lot of different perspectives and interpretations about these two stories which was really cool. However, my own personal interpretation stays the same and nothing about the way I understood these stories has changed.