Before Love, Memory And The Husband Stitch

Sotomayer recalls anecdotes from childhood, where she visited her grandmother and spent time with her extended family. Doing things such as “listening to Spanish songs, watching Spanish comedians, “watching the adults play dominoes” and so forth helped connect her with her family. While she does say that simply doing these things does not make her Latina, citing these events depicts to the audience that she, despite not living in Puerto Rico, was able to bond with other family members that used to live there who gave her the experience of what it was like to be embellished in that culture. “The sound of merengue at all [her] family parties and the heart wrenching Spanish love songs that [they] enjoy.” describes an experience that shows that even when growing up in America, she is still exposed to her identity as a Latina. By incorporating anecdotes into her writing, she puts an emphasis on how her American identity does not take away from her Latina one and, in fact, only adds to

During the Mexican-American War the border moved, but the people didn’t. History has shown us that no matter how thick the border might be Latino Americans have a strong connection to their culture and roots; instead of assimilating, Mexicans live between two worlds. The film, Ballad of Gregorio Cortez gave us a perspective of two cultures; “Two cultures- the Anglo and the Mexican- lived side by side in state of tension and fear” . Cortez is running for his life as he heads north, while the Anglo believe that because of his Mexican ethnicity, he would travel south to Mexico. Throughout the film there were cultural tensions and misunderstandings; language plays an important part of someone’s identity, and for many Latino Americans Spanish is their first language. The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez also shows us that language plays an important role, and can cause confusion between two different groups. For example, Anglos refer to a male

One of the main sources of tension in How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents, written by Julia Alvarez, are the sisters search for a personal identity among contrasting cultures. Many of the characters felt pressure from two sources, the patriarchal culture that promotes traditional gender roles and society of nineteen-sixties and seventies America. Dominican tradition heavily enforces the patriarchal family and leaves little room for female empowerment or individuality, whereas in the United States, the sixties and seventies were times of increasingly liberal views and a rise in feminist ideals. This conflict shaped the identities of the characters in Alvarez’s novel and often tore the characters apart for one another.

The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria is an essay by Judith Ortiz Cofer. In this essay she writes about her experiences to demonstrate the stereotypes of Latin woman and the struggles they face in America. In Puerto Rican culture it is normal for a girl’s mother to encourage her to look and act like a woman and dress in clothes too “mature” for her age. This is a conflicting message for these young women because they are also kept under scrupulous surveillance, since virtue and modesty are equivalent to their family’s honor. Two Ways to Belong in America tells about how there are two ways to belong in America; legally and to feel you belong. It exhibits this by telling of two sisters who used to think alike, but now share opposing views on their lifestyles. The author, Bharati Mukherjee, is an American citizen who married outside of her Indian culture and has lived all over the United States. Her sister Mira has a green card and does not wish to become an American citizen, even though she has become successful in her contributions in the fields of pre-school education and parent teacher relationships. Mira married an Indian student and they have plans to move back to India when she retires. Out of these two essays, The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria is more effective.

The story of my childhood is very present in my life every time I watch the Spanish programming on television. In the occasions I have free time from my daily routine I sit next my mother in the living room and talk about how different my childhood was in Mexico compared to my son’s here in California. We like to watch documentaries about the thirty two states and rural towns that surround each state in Mexico. Unlike the stories “Miss East LA” and My Ride My Revolution” by Luis J. Rodriguez my story does not begin in an urban city or in a diverse community like the south central area. Not even in a wealthy gated community or in the popular community of East Los Angeles.

She explains what her Chicano language means to her and how it identifies who she is, first she discusses overcoming tradition of silence, second she explains the importance of her Chicano language, and third, she explains Linguistic Terrorism. 4. After reading Gloria Anzaldua’s narrative it made me notice what my first language means to me, which is Spanish and how it makes me who I am. 5. The authors’ purpose is to enlighten the reader on the stigma attached to speaking in

When reading Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, I was reminded about the struggles of being an immigrant in the United States with all of the barriers with learning a new language and culture. I really saw this when it came to all Spanish words that are written in the book. To be able to understand her own culture, the reader has to have a basic understanding of Spanish. Culture is really taught through language, and there is a lot missing if the reader does not have this basic understanding. When immigrating to the States, people have to learn English not only to communicate well, but to fill out paperwork, and to understand the culture. For this essay I am going to focus on one story that resonated a lot with me when I was reading

Demetria Martínez’s Mother Tongue is divided into five sections and an epilogue. The first three parts of the text present Mary/ María’s, the narrator, recollection of the time when she was nineteen and met José Luis, a refuge from El Salvador, for the first time. The forth and fifth parts, chronologically, go back to her tragic experience when she was seven years old and then her trip to El Salvador with her son, the fruit of her romance with José Luis, twenty years after she met José Luis. And finally the epilogue consists a letter from José Luis to Mary/ María after her trip to El Salvador. The essay traces the development of Mother Tongue’s principal protagonists, María/ Mary. With a close reading of the text, I argue how the forth

During his childhood, he felt English was an obligation to fit in. As his family’s proficiency with English increased, their close ties with being solely Spanish speakers diminished: “We remained a loving family, but one greatly changed. No longer so close; no longer bound tight by the pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separateness,” (lines 127-130). Growing apart from his family illustrates native Spanish speakers lose bonds because their shared identity no longer separates them from American

Soon after his first opinion is stated, Rodriguez dives into another story, this time detailing his mother and father’s struggle to speak English in public: “In public, my father and mother spoke a hesitant, accented, and not always grammatical English. And then they would have to strain, their bodies tense, to catch the sense of what was rapidly said by los gringos. At home, they returned to Spanish. The language of their Mexican past sounded in counterpoint to the English spoken in public. The words would come quickly, with ease” (Rodriguez 572). This is the sad fate of many immigrants, as well as many people learning to speak a second language. The fact that this young boy noticed that his parents struggled is touching and sweet, while

Growing-up in a predominately Mexican/Mexican-American community as a first-generation girl, like I did, is no walk in the park. Not only was I to uphold my parent’s traditional Mexican values such as: learning to cook and keep to a household, as well as a marriage, but also to uphold my new American values of independence and success measured in money as well as in property. At school I was taught to forget my first language, Spanish, and speak only in English, reminding me that: “You don’t want to speak with an accent.” At home I was reminded that Spanish, was and still is my first language and to leave English for school use only, reminding me that: “We can’t understand you in English.” Through this tug-of-war, between both cultures expectations of who I was to be/become, there was a desperate need to find my own identity, away from either culture. Sandra Cisneros’, The House on Mango Street, documents the need and struggle to find one’s own identity, through the narrator Esperanza’s experiences growing-up in a predominately Latino community in Chicago. Throughout the book Esperanza tries to understand the many different factors that influence her life and identity: in particular ethnicity and gender. Although, Esperanza suggest that she doesn’t want to be identified by either her Mexican identity or her sex; both of these factors play a major role in her struggle to find her own identity, by the way that they are intertwined in her own thoughts and in the descriptions of

She argues how from an early age she was disciplined for speaking English with an ‘accent.’ Often, Chicanos feel criticized for not speaking ‘proper’ Spanish or English without an ‘accent’. Anzaldua states that Chicano language is connected to their identity. She describes the many influences like music, films, and writers that shape who Chicanos are today. She also discusses how the lack of acculturation often creates psychological conflict to Chicanos.

Because there are no "true" Hispanics, the author concludes that racial categorization, not only of Hispanics, is unfit. Americans, explains the author, do not speak English but "American English" (115). Americans have taken the English language and transformed it into their own property. While becoming a hybrid, the language has also devoured other languages as well, causing boundaries, whether literary or racial, to mesh together.

“Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent” (Marilyn vos Savant). Within the short text “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” this idea is explored in numerous ways as the various groups of people attempt to gain more rights within their community and society as a whole. They come to the realization that the ways in which they are treated is in an unjust manner. Others treated them as if they are insignificant and powerless. Therefore, in Gloria Anzaldua’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” she confronts how many Hispanic minorities, especially women, are marginalized within society by showcasing many of the difficult obstacles these groups face, and how they attempt to overcome them.

As a woman, Angela Vicario is the epitome of a traditional Colombian woman. A traditional Colombian woman is expected to be virgins when they get married; but Vicario defys this social custom causing Vicario to get “softly pushed his wife into [her house] without speaking,” (46). These details emphasize the idea that women are given different standards than men. The details help highlight Marquez’s criticism of how the traditional Colombian woman is treated as and thought of as. From a very young age Vicario and her sisters were taught “how to do screen embroidery, sew by machine, weave bone lace, wash and iron, make artificial flowers and fancy candy, and write engagement announcements,” (31). These skills were taught to better prepare the girls for marriage; displaying the difference in gender roles. Marquez uses parallel structure to emphasize the amount of skills one has to learn before they can be considered as good and pure. Many years after Bayardo San Román returns Vicario she still does “machine embroidery with her friends just as before she had made cloth tulips and paper birds, but when her mother went to bed she would stay in her room until dawn writing letters with no future,” (93). The diction of the words “no future” and “still” suggest that Vicario’s life is stuck in