Dutiful Hijas

The way that Martinez describes the hispanic, Puerto Rican culture in "Dutiful Hijas" is nothing but the truth. The cultural tradition that strikes me the most is the idea of the Marianismo. The Maranismo acts as set of guidelines that Spanish woman would follow. It states that “it is a woman’s duty to be subservient and submissive, not to make decisions for herself.” In my family, this idea has some truth to it. Although my mother is the one who provides in my family, she also plays the role of a mother and she always puts her children's lives before her own. When I first read the story, I perceived the idea as disrespect to women. The idea basically gives the women no rights and allows her only to act as a maid. In my family, the Spanish culture taught me to respect women and they should be put on a throne.

Coraline: The Difference Between Graphics and Novels

The Coraline text was presented to us in both the novel form, and the graphic novel form. Personally, I enjoyed the graphic novel medium because it was such a weird text. The images definitely helped me to understand the text because it is written in such a way where you cannot place the characters in your own imagination. The images also show the difference between light and dark within the texts, when Coraline is living her normal but "boring" life, and when she was living in her "behind the closed door" life. I would really love to read the full version of the text, but in the graphic novel version. Graphics and illustrations really give the reader an upper hand in critically analyzing the text.

Little Failures: Who's the audience that Gary is writing for?

        This question was brought up in class and I think its an important question for actually understanding the book. Yes, Gary Shteyngart brings up events in his life in which I can relate to but I feel that the real audience in which Gary is writing for are the middle class, hopeful individuals/families that have come to America from somewhere else. Gary makes out that the transition of leaving where you come from and adapting to the new Western culture while still hanging on to your roots is beyond difficult. He also indicates that actually obtaining the "American dream"  is much harder than spoken about and the obstacles leading up to it are very stressful. I also feel that this book wasn't written for todays society. I feel that the generation before mine can relate to this book more than I can.  

The Emergence Of Modern Colorism In The Americas

        Reading this excerpt made me question who gave permission to the white men to do what they did. The white men ordered slaves, took advantage of the illiterate people, raped woman, and then took no responsibility for the children. America is the land of freedom, yet whoever came here was never free. This dates back to when Christopher Columbus and his people came in and enslaved the Indians who had been here way longer. Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers who wrote the declaration of independence, was a slave owner himself.
         Religion plays a big role in this. The white men felt that it was there religious duty to "tame the savage people and bring them civilization."[pg3,4] Being Christian, this kind of annoyed me because this act goes against the religion and gives it a bad reputation. A lot of Atheist today are Atheist because of history. They see how "religion" influenced societies to do bad things and they don't agree. If a slave came over as a Christian, they would be a slave for seven years and were given their independence but if a slave wasn't religious, they were enslaved for life. Its just sad because this is how America really used to be.