"One More Lesson"- Judith Ortiz Cofer

The story “One More Lesson”, by Judith Ortiz Cofer, discusses her childhood life in Puerto Rico and when she moved to the United States. The story discusses how Cofers father wanted her family to conduct themselves a certain way, to escape the general stereotypes that Puerto Ricans received, such as them being loud, playing loud music, and mothers yelling at their children. Cofer’s family was forced to act differently from the other Puerto Ricans that were around them for the satisfaction of her father and others around her to please others. In Puerto Rico, her family was not like the other Puerto Rican families, for example, for Christmas time Cofer received dolls from her father and her brother received picture books, where as the normal Puerto Rican child would receive just clothing. Her father’s plans was to present a respectable family to whomever he met so that he won’t be judged like the normal Puerto Rican would be judged. Evidence to support this idea comes from page 90 in the CW, where Cofer states, “Since our apartment was situated directly above where the Schultzes worked all day, our father instructed us to remove our shoes at the door and walk in our socks.” This suggest that Cofer’s father did not want the Schultzes to think they were loud like the average Puerto Ricans, which refers back to the stereotypes they had to escape. When Cofer and her family moved to the United States, she went on to discuss how everything was new to her, the language, the culture, and the people. Coming to America, she really didn’t know the language and she felt like she would be an outcast to the natives her in America. In reality, Cofer was in fact an outcast to the other children when she started school. Evidence to support this statement comes from page 92 in the CW, where Cofer mentions a few incidents in which the children treated her like the foreigner she was, for example she states, “Some of the children even raised their voices when they spoke to me as if I