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The importance of resilience
Essays on developing resilience
An essay on the importance of resilience among students
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I am writing this appeal because my interest in the University of Southern California has remained consistent despite, my admissions decision. I want to write to you about resilience, the quality I admire most in someone, and its pertinence to my life. More specifically, I find a sense of place in a querencia not, at home or with my family. In Barry Lopez’s novel, Rediscovery of North America, he explains, “In Spanish, la querencia refers to a place on the ground where one feels secure, a place from which one’s strength of character is drawn. It comes from the verb querer, to desire, but this verb also carries the sense of accepting a challenge, as in a game.” More literally, in Spanish la querencia is the place in a bull ring in which a bull
Cabeza de Vaca’s Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America shows that while Christians thought themselves superior to natives, both sides were diverse and could commit good, bad, or neutral behavior towards each other. Therefore, the Indians and the Christians were much more similar than different. This is apparent in de Vaca’s accounts of Indian to Indian behavior, Christian to Christian behavior, and Indian to Christian behavior (and vice-versa).
In the coming of age novel Under the Mesquite, Guadalupe Garcia McCall develops the conflicts between Lupita/Guadalupe, the narrator, and her father, or as Lupita calls him, her Papi, in order to display the contrasting perspectives in the way they view their current life and future for Lupita and her family. Towards the beginning of the novel, after Lupita’s Quinceañera, she exclaims what being a señorita means to her versus her family and friends. For her father, “señorita means/ he has to be a guard dog/ when boys are around”. However, to Lupita it means “melancolía: settling into sadness” (McCall 75, 76). They view Lupita’s future life as a señorita very differently. While they may both be thinking of Lupita’s future,
Sitting there it is difficult not to listen in on the many conversations that people are engaging in, while waiting. So many different voices all whispering because in the next room everyone knows that the curandera is healing; using her spiritual tools (prayer) to cure. Two women sitting to the right of us were having a detailed conversation about their reasons for coming to the curandera. The younger women with skin the color of “canela” (cinnamon) as is typical among Latinas was sharing her story with an elderly women that seemed to be in her early sixties, she had so many laugh wrinkles around her eyes and mouth that it was easy to diverge into another train of thought about the type of life that the old women might have lead. The younger girl was telling the older women that she works at the United Postal Service (U.P.S.) unloading boxes from the back of semi-trucks. This is where she was injured, in an attempt to pick a box she hurt her shoulder. The elderly woman asked her a series of questions such as why she worked at a place that seemed so labor intensive and if see complained to her supervisor. What was
The Black Legend and White Legend: Relationship Between the Spanish and Indians in the New World
Ending their journey, they have learned more of what it feels to be a Mexican traveling the desert. Bowden has also decided to write this story about his experiences to give readers an insight on what happens to people who are willing to risk their lives to live the American Dream.
“Achievement of Desire”, an essay written by Richard Rodriguez, which describes the struggle a boy, has to go through to balance the life of academics and the life of a middle class family. As a son Rodriguez sees the illiteracy off his parents, and is embarrassed of it, and as a student Rodriguez sees the person that he wants to be, a teacher, a person of authority and person of knowledge. Rodriguez tells his personal story of education, family, culture and the way he is torn in-between it all. In this essay, Rodriguez uses the term of a of a “Scholarship boy” meaning a “good student” and “troubled son”, he believes that being a scholarship boy makes him feel separation and isolation as he goes further in his education and Rodriguez insist that the feelings of separation and isolation are universal feeling.
Before Columbus and the Europeans, there was a time where there were many struggles and many ideas not even thought yet. All of this changed when the ancient civilizations started to live in the Americas. This was a time when ancient civilizations expanded brought the Americas and had a unique way of living. The ancient civilizations in the Americans and in Europe were different from cultures, adaptations, and foods.
In this chapter Howard Zinn gives countless events on the different encounters from Columbus to Corte’s, Pizarro and the Puritans against the Indians such as the Arawaks, Aztecs, Powhatans and the Pequots. Zinn goes into great details on the horrific attacks and raids by Columbus and his crew sailing from island to island in the Caribbean taking the Indians captive in search for land, gold and slaves. Some of the Indians fled when they heard what Columbus and his men were doing. But when they were caught they were hunted down with dogs, burned to death or they were hung and killed. Because of the inhumane treatment some of the Arawaks began a mass suicide with cassava poison they also killed their infants just to keep them from the hands of the Spaniards. This chapter gives historical events due to the raids by Columbus that in a two year span about half of the 250,000 Indians in Haiti were dead because they were murdered, mutilated or committed suicide. The Indians were demoralized and treated so crudely over the claim to their land and the search for gold. When there was no gold...
The struggle to find a place inside an un-welcoming America has forced the Latino to recreate one. The Latino feels out of place, torn from the womb inside of America's reality because she would rather use it than know it (Paz 226-227). In response, the Mexican women planted the seeds of home inside the corral*. These tended and potted plants became her burrow of solace and place of acceptance. In the comfort of the suns slices and underneath the orange scents, the women were free. Still the questions pounded in the rhythm of street side whispers. The outside stare thundered in pulses, you are different it said. Instead of listening she tried to instill within her children the pride of language, song, and culture. Her roots weave soul into the stubborn soil and strength grew with each blossom of the fig tree (Goldsmith).
I had a very difficult time reading the Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America, I constantly found myself blanking out or just skimming the pages. The autobiography was boring and repetitive, it didn’t fully grasp my attention. The writing was mundane, though it provided a perceptive understanding of the failed expedition. Cabeza de Vaca’s writing style is brief. I find that he would start the narrative off with, “Today, the next day, a few days later, then this happened, or next to this, and etc.” it would begin like this on every paragraph or so. It annoyed me how there was so much jumping around from day to day, there wasn’t much detail where he focused on one event. But, I did find that there were times where he did focus on some merely recorded happenings, which were probably enhanced to make it seem believable and realistic. Plus, a lot of events during the expedition and customs of the Indians seemed factually inaccurate. Furthermore, it left me with too many unanswered questions that exhausted me.
To Europeans, the New World was either thought of as a kind of paradise or a place that was unfit to live and where horrible things took place. Two ways the New World was described was that it was comparable to “the Biblical Garden of Eden” and, in a more negative description, the New World was thought to be a “dangerous and forbidden wilderness” that contained “cannibalism and human misery”. During this time, there were hardly any forms of communication, and the ones in place were sometimes unreliable. People relied on letters and the words of others for news of what was going on in the outside world. Therefore, many people did not know what was in the New World except for what was heard from others. Without actual knowledge of what was going
Today in society, women are accepted and praised, but women used to not even be able to choose who they are going to marry and spend the rest of their life with. Angela Vicario lives in a Columbian society in the 1950's. The society she lives in controls women from when they are born but the men are controlled by the idea of Machismo. The idea of Machismo is a big idea in her society and is followed be everyone including the women. The idea of Machismo is men being superior to women and the idea of them having control of the women. The women's lives are laid out for them and they are able to do almost nothing to be able to change it. Angela Vicario has been controlled since she was born just like all of the other women within the society she
This profound bibliographical story has a powerful message in a metaphorical way to the reader, were encourages individuals to fight to the finish in order to be rewarded; also, to represent one’s self as an individual in society, no matter what. As the reader gets involve, the personal experiences, pain, guilt, confusion and uncertainty of the narrator are clearly exposed; conveying to understand the problem that he faces.
Christopher Columbus is the father of globalization. This claim is true because of the changes Christopher Columbus brought to the world and the cultures he brought together. Christopher Columbus made discoveries to the world that made others think differently.
In T.C. Boyle’s The Tortilla Curtain Kyra’s generally apathetic in her personal life, but her world turns upside down after the dramatic loss of her beloved pets as she tries to prevent more loss. From a property moving machine to a wistful sentimental, Kyra’s work suffered from her grieving state. While showing a house far from the hustle and bustle of city life and even apart from the suburbs she was, “not herself at all…she had never felt this way about a house before…cushioned from the hot, dry, hard-driving world…she began to feel it was hers”(110). The distance of this house from the dangers of the city and even Arroyo Blanco make Kyra wistful towards owning this behemoth of a house. In trying to protect what she has left Kyra endangers her relationships.