Judith Cofer Career Day Summary

Personal anecdotes are the most prevalent forms of evidence that Judith Cofer uses throughout her essay. In recounting a memory about Career Day when Cofer couldn’t determine what was appropriate to wear, she claimed that an Italian-American friend made a comment “that coalesced [her] impressions of that day” (5). Her friend helped Cofer understand that Puerto Rican women were seen as always wearing “too much jewelry, too many accessories” (5) and that is where the stereotype that Latinas are “sexual firebrand[s]” (6) originated from. This also helped to establish that not only was she facing discrimination from complete strangers, but now her friends who knew her well were feeding into the stereotype and promoting the discriminatory behaviors.

This provides evidence of the stereotype that Latinas are sexual beings as she is called out for not reciprocating an act that majority of girls would deny anyhow, but since she is a Latina it is assumed that she likes it. She goes on to state in a metaphor that “I was supposed to ripen, not just grow into womanhood like other girls,” (8) meaning that she was thought of as a fruit, an inanimate object, used for the pleasure and to satisfy other people, even though she is a human being herself. Finally, the author’s last personal anecdote is one where she was at a poetry reading and “an older woman motioned [her] to her table” (13) and Cofer believed it was to sign an autograph. However, the woman “ordered a cup of coffee from [her], assuming that [she] was the waitress”