El Olvido

You can see how Maria’s El Salvador is empty of people, full only of romantic ideas. Jose Luis’s image of El Salvador, in contrast, totally invokes manufactured weapons; violence. Maria’s “self-projection elides Jose Luis’s difference” and illustrates “how easy it is for the North American characters, including the big-hearted María, to consume a sensationalized, romanticized, or demonized version of the Salvadoran or Chicana in their midst” (Lomas 2006, 361). Marta Caminero-Santangelo writes: “The main thrust of the narrative of Mother Tongue ... continually ... destabilize[s] the grounds for ... a fantasy of connectedness by emphasizing the ways in which [Maria’s] experience as a Mexican American and José Luis’s experiences as a Salvadoran have created fundamentally different subjects” (Caminero-Santangelo 2001, 198). Similarly, Dalia Kandiyoti points out how Maria’s interactions with José Luis present her false assumptions concerning the supposed “seamlessness of the Latino-Latin American connection” (Kandiyoti 2004, 422). So the continual misinterpretations of José Luis and who he really is and has been through on Maria’s part really show how very far away her experiences as a middle-class, U.S.-born Chicana are from those of her Salvadoran lover. This tension and resistance continues throughout their relationship.

Judith Ortiz Cofer is a Puerto Rican whose writing often examines the conflict and the beauty of cultures mixing together, as people immigrate to America. Though she exhibits a strong connection to her Latin heritage, she often seems to also resent that part of her life. There are many standards and expectations in the Puerto Rican society which Cofer writes to subvert, viewing them negatively. As a Puerto Rican woman, Cofer often disagrees with the limits and expectations placed on a woman in Puerto Rican society, and this attitude is the subject of much of her work. In “Claims,” the speaker describes “Grandmother.” Cofer uses this poem to illustrate a family and describe an individual, as well as

　　Natalie Diaz's debut collection, When My Brother Was An Aztec, is a book of poems that accounts Diaz's skills in imaginative and lyrical language. The collection explores her past in unexpected form and images, tackling the subjects of her family, most notably her meth addicted brother, life on the reservation, and being a Native American woman. In this collection Diaz has filled the pages with rich and interesting images that rely on Native American culture, experiences of her own as a Native American woman, and mythology. As I read this collection I was struck by how heavy her images rested on the page and yet how weightless they seemed to fly off.

Judith Ortiz Cofer a Latin American author of short stories, poetry, autobiography, young adult fiction, and essays, as a young child migrated to Mainland America from Puerto Rico with her family, moving into an apartment complex with other people of Latin descent. Although, she spent most of her years in the Continental U.S. her writings are reflective of the strong latin heritage that her mother undoubtedly instilled in her from a young age. This is clear in her short story “Nada” where the narrator makes references to the hispanic community that live at an apartment complex in New Jersey. Cofer’s style of writing and experiences in her life are brought out in this story as well as many more of her writings. She includes some Spanish words throughout the story and ideals of the hispanic culture.

Josie Mendez-Negrete’s novel, Las Hijas de Juan: Daughters Betrayed, is a very disturbing tale about brutal domestic abuse and incest.  Negrete’s novel is an autobiography regarding experiences of incest in a working-class Mexican American family.  It is Josie Mendez-Negrete’s story of how she, her siblings, and her mother survived years of violence and sexual abuse at the hands of her father.  “Las Hijas de Juan" is told chronologically, from the time Mendez-Negrete was a child until she was a young adult trying, along with the rest of her family, to come to terms with her father 's brutal legacy. It is a upsetting story of abuse and shame compounded by cultural and linguistic isolation and a system of patriarchy that devalues the

Ehrenreich was able to make her point that she does in fact have an ethnicity other than Scottish, English and Irish. It was intriguing to see the progression in the essay from the authors feeling of disconnect with her heritage to a sense of pride in her family that refrains from carrying on cultural activities. She recognizes where she came from and concludes that no tradition is a tradition, rather than trying to

Richard Blanco’s diverse background makes him relatable for people of multinational upbringings. His writing thoroughly appealed to me because he did such a good job capturing the emotions of a child coming into a new world. Having experienced that, I wanted to see if I could have that effect on people. I used some of the techniques that Blanco uses, in my poem “New Identity”, to familiarize the reader with what he has been through. Richard Blanco accustoms the reader to his experiences by using figurative language, diverse diction, and allusions.

During the 1960’s, the Civil Rights Movement wasn’t the only one occurring. Struggling to assimilate into American culture, and suppressed by social injustices convicted by their Anglo counterparts, the Chicano movement was born. In the epic poem “I am Joaquin” written by Rodolfo Gonzales in 1969, we dive into what it means to be a Chicano. Through this poem, we see the struggles of the Chicano people portrayed by the narrator, in an attempt to grasp the American’s attention during the time of these movements. Hoping to shed light on the issues and struggles the Chicano population faced, Gonzales writes this epic in an attempt to strengthen the movement taking place, and to give Chicanos a sense of belonging and solidarity in this now

She believes that because we are forced into this land, we are doomed to have a life which not happy. She also explains to her family in the play that all their problems will be solved if they go back to their country of origin and find out who they are there.

Currently Sandra Cisneros resides in San Antonio in a purple house and she describes herself as “nobody’s mother” and “nobody’s wife.” Both Frida Kahlo’s and Cynthia Y. Hernandez’s works convey the idea of having one’s culture limit one’s freedom and individuality. Cisneros and Esperanza are both victims of this idea and realize that the only way to live one’s life freely is to defy the roles and limitations created by one’s culture.

June May lived her life for thirty-six years without really exploring her family history and heritage. She never took and interest in who she was or where she came from until her mother passed away later in her life. Her mother was very passionate about embracing their Chinese culture, but June May could not comprehend why it was so important, sometimes even embarrassed by it. June May spent her life surrounded by people who did not share her culture and customs. Because of this, she never questioned why her culture was insignificant most of her life. It is ultimately uniting with her family, connected through blood and history, provokes June May’s attitude towards her heritage. At age thirty-six, June May tells the reader, “My mother is dead and I am on a train, carrying with me her

Yet Moraga writing style is very difficult to comprehend at first, due to the barrier that she create by using Spanish and English. Moraga’s choice of words force the reader’s flow to be caught off guard and roots it to focus on every details. She blends both languages together that challenge the reader to understand the multiple categories of her. As she write her struggles to define herself in relation to others, (mainly in the Chicana/o community), she also makes it a challenge for the readers to fully access her trials at first read. In the article “Cherríe Moraga’s Loving in the War Years: lo que nunca pasó por sus labios: Auto-ethnography of the “New Mestiza,” Cloud states that “the placement of her own personal experiences within the context of her community enables Moraga to capture successfully the struggle of an entire people for individual and collective autonomy” (86). Clouds argue that Moraga purposely writes for an “all in one” perspective that can be very challenging for reader to understand. She admits that, “Loving in the War Years first part speaks to the confusion and personal struggle that characterized its author’s formative years, no more so than in its poetic parts. Much of the inner turmoil that pervades Moraga’s self-portrayal revolves around the collision course that is the confluence of her two ethnic identities: Chicana and American” (91). With this reason, the only way that Moraga could have directly and explicitly share her

In this article, “The Myth of the Latin Woman” Cofer has talked about many incidents from her life where she was talked about, from a young girl the adult life. Ortiz Cofer is so ardent about this topic of stereotyping Latin women because she was a native women of the Puerto Rico area who really grew up in the United States. There is how she witnessed firsthand how hurtful stereotyping could be. In “The Myth of the Latin Woman”, She has repeated use of Spanish words in the essay to shows her audience how proud she is of the Latin heritage. she continuously uses other words, such as Puerto Rican, and Latina to stress the names she heard growing up. Because she has been brought up to love her Latin culture, she was often stereotyped here in the United States. As you can see, this is why she became so involved with trying to bring people so much awareness to the

The autobiography When I was Puerto Rican, written by Esmeralda Santiago, tells a story of a poor girl trying to succeed. The settings in this novel have an important influence on Esmeralda. They influence her behavior and change her ideals as an adult. Negi goes through many changes based on the challenges she faces by moving to new locations where society is different. All of these changes allow her to become a stronger person. When she lives in El Mangle, Negi has to face extreme prejudice against her upbringing as a jibara. When she leaves Puerto Rico to move to Brooklyn, she is forced to face an entirely different society. All of these events that took place in Esmeralda’s childhood had a significant impact in shaping her into an adult.

Stereotypes are dangerous weapons in our society. “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” is a short essay in which the award winning poet and professor of English, Judith Ortiz Cofer, wishes to inform and persuade the audience that labels and stereotypes can be humiliating and hurtful. The author targets the general public, anyone that doesn’t understand that putting someone in a box because of a stereotype is wrong. Cofer starts out the essay by telling the reader a story with a drunk man who re-enacted “Maria” from the West Side Story, and how angry that made her feel. She continues by explaining how she grew up in the United States being a Puerto Rican girl trying to fit in, but always being labeled as an island girl. Cofer carries on by explaining why Latin people get dressed and act a certain way. Then she recalls some more stereotypical incidents.