The House On Mango Street and “ Only Daughter” both prove that being an Mexican- American women is a struggle. As Cisneros shows her first hand experience, and as well shows it through story telling. Yet without telling a biography and going straight to the point she shows emotion by using literary elements. Sandra Cisneros Chose to use metaphors and imagery to express the hard ships of being a Mexican- American women. If Sandra Cisneros did not use literary elements to show the lifestyle of a Mexican-American women, the points that she showed in both the texts would not have been as powerful as they were.…
To demonstrate how California and Mexico’s cultures compare, Rodriguez uses juxtaposition. He labels California as a comedy, and Mexico with tragedy. Theses two genres…
Sandra Cisneros, the award-winning author of the highly acclaimed The House on Mango Street and several other esteemed works, has produced a stunning new novel, Caramelo. This long-anticipated novel is an all-embracing epic of family history, Mexican history, the immigrant experience, and a young Mexican-American woman's road to adulthood. We hope the following introduction, discussion questions, suggested reading list, and author biography enhance your group's reading of this captivating and masterful literary work.…
Barrientos audiences are anyone who struggles with fitting in society just she do. When Barrientos expressed her disagreement of American society’s alleged of Latino being Mexican to her father, he sent her on a vacation to Mexico and after seeing how beautiful Mexico is, adjusted Barrientos negative understanding of Hispanics. “I found out that he was right, I loved the music, the art, and the architecture. “He’d planted a seed of pride, but it would take years for me to figure out how to nurture it” (85). Barrientos limitation of speaking Spanish hinders her bonding with her origin because Spanish aside from English was a way that Latinos connected. Barrientos was left questioning how she would fit in as Latino if she could not speak proper Spanish.…
In effect, by glossing over Selena’s transition into the Latin American the film Selena ignores her accomplishments in the Latin American market which was not easy to enter. Although the film touches on the obstacles Selena had to overcome to become successful in Latin America it still makes it seem as if Selena was an automatic sensation, particularly in Mexico, where it is known she had difficulty winning people over. This is evident through the one scene in the movie where Selena visits Mexico and whilst there speaks Spanglish to reporters without any repercussions as later on a newspaper calls her the “genuine artist of the people.” Yet, it is no secret that at the beginning of her career the language barrier between Selena and her Mexican audience posed an issue as she was derided for using an interpreter to communicate with the Spanish-language media (Paredez 204).…
Rodriguez characterizes Mexico as a country with a culture of tragedy and America as a country with a culture of comedy. However, America is comedic in the Greek sense-in the sense that America is not comedic at all. Rodriguez feels that Mexico, in being the place of tragedy, is better off. America, on the other hand, has to face the burden of optimism, and the subsequent let-downs. Thus, in a sense, he characterizes them in ways that oppose what he truly thinks of them.…
Pilcher, Jeffrey M. Que vivan los tamales!: Food and the Making of Mexican Identity. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998.…
1. The plaintiff in this case is Sandra Jones, and the defendant is Winnie Tsige. What is case is about is Winnie Tsige, has been surreptitiously looking at Sandra Jones banking records.…
“How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, Anzaldua describes her growing up in two different cultures. One thing she was expected was to speak perfect and adhere to the English Language. Anzaldua describes, “Being Mexican is a state of soul not one of mind.” This comes about after a lifetime of enduring two cultures demands (Anzaldua ). “Se Habla Espanol”, Barrientos had a very difficult journey as a Latina woman living United States. Mainly because she had a hard time accepting that she is a Latina woman who spoke English and was not able to speak any Spanish at all. After taking many Spanish class Barrientos learned to speak Spanish and now calls herself “Spanish Challenged and pure Latina” (xxxxx).…
Cisneros story states that although she speaks English, specific words in Spanish hold a lot of emotional value to her. She starts her story with a Spanish word, a word that draws an extreme emotional reaction from her. The word was the word that her father called her, and her father had died. Her father had fallen ill, and she had been the one to take care of him and to watch over him, to preserve his health. She goes on to explain that the Spanish language had been what tied her to her ancestors, but more importantly to her father. When he passed away, her connection with the Spanish language, and her ancestors, also began to fade. She goes into an entire paragraph on one Spanish word, and all of the meanings that it can have. She goes on with this, but explains how this words definition to her is not translatable to English, just because of the emotional value it holds. Cisneros keeps talking about Spanish, but now says that whenever she is talking to her pets, a lover, or small kids she uses the Spanish language. She explains how the language reminds her of growing up as a child, and all of things…
The play and film do a great job in distributing the idea that Mexicans are paranoid immigrants based on the exaggeration of reaction from the characters. In the play it is evident that the characters are terrified because in a conversation by some characters it states,…
In the story, the author is getting pulled in various directions. Rodriguez wants to stay true to his Mexican culture for his parents' sake claiming they, “...grow distant, apart, no longer speak,” but also wants to belong in American culture where his education has driven him to a position not many Mexicans get to or have to opportunity to be (Rodriguez 105). This story confronts the idea that anyone can succeed as long as they are willing to sacrifice their cultural identity in the process.…
Laura, a Mexican immigrant and student in Rose’s remedial English class, has a completely different frame of reference than California born UCLA students she finds herself in class with. She remembers in detail how her father made a meager living as a “food vendor” in Tijuana. The types of food, the smells and the other items he sold are cannot be forgotten by Laura. She emigrated, with her parents, to the United States at the age of six (Rose 1). These memories keep her connected to Mexico.…
In How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents, Julia Alvarez discusses the four girls’transition from the Dominican Republic to America. The Garcia’s are an immigrant family who must find a balance between their identity as Dominicans and their new identities as Americans. Yolanda, the sister on whom the story primarily focuses, must find a balance between the strict and old fashioned culture she comes from and the new, innovative and radical culture she is now learning to embrace. Immigration challenges Yolanda and her sisters to create a bi-cultural identity—a task at which they ultimately fail. They embark on a search to find themselves, feeling torn between two distinctly different and opposing…
In this essay Barrientos argues that the language she speaks defines her identity and who she is as a person. As Barrientos was growing up, she realized being Latin-American was not what she wanted to be, she decided to didn’t want to speak Spanish, as Barrientos says, “To me, speaking Spanish translated into being poor.” She also said “It meant waiting tables and cleaning hotel rooms. It meant being poor.” She thought if she stayed away from Spanish stereotypes they would…