American History By Judith Ortiz Cofer Summary

“You are heading for humiliation and pain,” Elena’s mother advised her as she sat there not knowing what to do about the president’s death. This statement was created by the author of American History, Judith Ortiz Cofer. There was a great amount of silence when President Kennedy got shot at Dallas, Texas. Elena was frightened by the way her P.E. teacher, Mr.DePalma dismissed her (Ellen’s) class as he was wailing over the sound of kids smirking. She loves a classmate of hers, Eugene, and wants to go to his house “to study”. Her mother informs her that she will be disappointed of what is to come. Later on, she realizes that her mother was correct. Elena is lovestruck, educated, opinionated, netural, and erratic. She expresses all those character

She is ambitiously lovestruck and educated. She is supposed to be in honors class, like Eugene, but the classes aren’t available to her because english is her second language. She really loves Eugene and wishes she was sitting with him at his kitchen table. Throughout this short story, Elena keeps telling and showing us that she loves Eugene, like when she claimed, “I liked him right away because he sat at the kitchen table and read books for hours. That summer, before we had even spoken one word to each other, I kept him company on my fire escape.” By making this statement, she proves to us that she is educated and lovestruck because she loves reading and she loves watching him from her fire escape. Later on, Elena will be affected because she wants to go to a boy’s house “to study”. This is not the type of person she was, even her mother tells her that she is different then who she really is. Eventually, she gets affected even more when she basically ignores her mother and goes to Eugene’s house. After the conversation she has with his mother, she gets shocked, which is going to lead her into plenty of problems with her emotions. For this case, she is passionately