'Late Victorians' By Richard Rodriguez

396 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Society in the Victorian era

Richard Rodriguez in his piece “Late Victorians” paints a picture as an outside observer of gay culture in San Francisco. He opens and closes with thoughts from St. Augustine and continues through the paper to write of his heavy Catholic influence in his thinking. As a gay male that migrated to San Francisco, Rodriguez speaks of the stereotypes within the gay community, always putting himself in a different if not elevated category. Rodriguez begins speaking of how he stumbled across the gay freedom parade walking from mass. I found this to be a statement of how far he was removed from the out community and an early example of his internalized homophobia that would be a theme throughout the paper, and his statement of ‘them’ “following the

Show More
Related

  • Mornings on Horseback, by David McCullough

    764 Words  | 2 Pages

    Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough traces the early life of Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. McCullough examines Theodore's love of the outdoors, his health problems, and his family relations. He also discusses Theodore's time at Harvard University, his first marriage, and his entrance into politics. These experiences helped shape and influence Roosevelt's later years, as President of the United States and other political positions.

    Read More

  • The Watsons Go to Birmingham, by Christopher Paul Curtis

    2133 Words  | 5 Pages

    Christopher Paul Curtis wrote The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 throughout the course of 1995. The novel follows the Watsons, a black family living in Flint, Michigan during the Civil Rights Era. In a historical context, 1963 and the early 1990s have far more in common than one would expect. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 following the church bombing in Birmingham, and yet race-based discrimination remains a problem even in our modern society via passive racism. This paper will analyze the ways in which Curtis’ The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 draws parallels between the time in which his is writing during and the time in which he is writing about. This analysis will also shed light on what can be called the “white standard,” wherein all things white are “good” or “better” and anything not-white is “bad.”

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Latino Homophobia In The Film Quinceañera

    1040 Words  | 3 Pages

    The first people introduced are a couple, Agustin and Marcelo, that has been well established in Chicago, Illinois. Marcelo explained his struggle of being both gay and staying catholic because as a kid he prayed to god for a miracle to change him to be “normal”. Marcelo has accepted himself and continues to practice the religion even though Catholicism prohibits being gay. Another man named David described being teased in his school career for kissing another boy in the third grade because of his sexuality. He moved to New York City to get away from his childhood and to finally be happy in a place where he isn’t judged. This homophobia from young kids instigates violence in school that is learned from parents and from the community of others. The last person introduced in the film was a man who transitioned to be a woman that was rejected by her family and had to move out of her home for coming home with hair extensions. This form of violence caused Gabriela to abuse drugs and alcohol to deal with the pain of rejection. These three examples show how people have overcome the cultural normality, but have experienced all sorts of different

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Peculiar Benefits By Roxane Gay

    818 Words  | 2 Pages

    Gay begins her article by first mentioning how her parents took her on an unexpected trip which educated her for the future. Since Gay was a child when she witnessed all the poverty and uncleanliness of the

    Read More

  • Exploring Homosexual Identity Crisis in 1960s Society

    1504 Words  | 4 Pages

    Society has grown to accept and be more opened to a variety of new or previously shunned cultural repulsions. Lesbians, transgenders, and gays for example were recognized as shameful mistakes in society. In the story Giovanni 's Room, the author James Baldwin explores the hardships of gays in the 1960. The book provides reasons why it is difficult for men to identify themselves as homosexuals. This is shown through the internalized voice of authority, the lack of assigned roles for homosexuals in society and the consequences entailed for the opposite gender.

    Read More

  • Harrison Bergeron By Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

    972 Words  | 2 Pages

    The world is filled with many different types of societies and cultures. This is due to the fact that many people share dissimilar beliefs and ideas, as well as diverse ways of life. People lived under different circumstances and stipulations, therefore forming cultures and societies with ideas they formulated, themselves. These two factors, society and culture, are what motivate people to execute the things that they do. Many times, however, society and culture can cause downgrading effects to an assemblage if ever it is corrupt or prejudiced. Society and culture not only influences the emotions individuals have toward things like age differences, religion, power, and equality but also the actions they perform as a result.

    Read More

  • Hard Lives in South Bronx depicted in The Boy Without a Flag

    2097 Words  | 5 Pages

    In this story, the reader can see exactly how, many Puerto Ricans feel when living on other grounds. Throughout this time, the boy that Rodriguez presents us realizes he has his culture and that he wants to preserve it as much as he can. “Because I’m Puerto Rican”. I ain’t no American. And I’m not a Yankee flag-waver”

    Read More

  • The Stonewall Riots

    1224 Words  | 3 Pages

    homosexual liberation. Some have demonstrated their anger and concerns about prejudice against homosexuals in both riots and artistic forms. Therefore, these people seek to prove to the heterosexual world that homosexual ‘deviancy’ was a myth.

    Read More

  • Homosexuals: Coming Out of the Closet in Angels in America

    1061 Words  | 3 Pages

    Author Steven Seidman writes that “it is the power of the closet to shape the core of an individual's life that has made homosexuality into a significant personal, social, and political drama in twentieth-century America “(38). Those that are homosexual tends to tell lies and play deceitful silly games just to appease family, coworkers and a few dear old friends. They feed into the prejudices and fears about homosexuality. In Angels in America, many of the characters are homosexual, and the truth about their sexual preferences comes out. Kushner shows us the difficult struggle that often precedes a gay person’s acceptance of her or his identity, and the ways in which one’s ability to enact this identity is dependent on the acceptance of others.

    Read More

  • The Stonewall Riots

    1946 Words  | 4 Pages

    Life for most homosexuals during the first half of the Twentieth century was one of hiding, being ever so careful to not give away their true feelings and predilections. Although the 1920s saw a brief moment of openness in American society, that was quickly destroyed with the progress of the Cold War, and by default, that of McCarthyism. The homosexuals of the 50s “felt the heavy weight of medical prejudice, police harassment and church condemnation … [and] were not able to challenge these authorities.” They were constantly battered, both physically and emotionally, by the society that surrounded them. The very mention or rumor of one’s homosexuality could lead to the loss of their family, their livelihood and, in some cases, their lives. Geanne Harwood, interviewed on an National Public Radio Broadcast commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, said that “being gay before Stonewall was a very difficult proposition … we felt that in order to survive we had to try to look and act as rugged and as manly as possibly to get by in a society that was really very much against us.” The age of communist threats, and of Joseph McCarthy’s insistence that homosexuals were treacherous, gave credence to the feeling of most society members that homosexuality was a perversion, and that one inflicted was one to not be trusted.

    Read More

  • A History of Sexuality

    1957 Words  | 4 Pages

    Halperin, David. "Is There a History of Sexuality?." The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Ed. Henry

    Read More

  • North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

    1973 Words  | 4 Pages

    The nineteenth century was a time of economic, technologic, and population growth. These changes created problems in everyone’s daily lives. Two examples of things that affected the lives of many were disease and sanitation. Disease and sanitation led to high mortality rates in Nineteenth- Century England. This relates to North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell as it takes place during nineteenth century England and multiple characters died presumably due to disease.

    Read More

  • The Challenges of Lesbian and Gay Youth

    2611 Words  | 6 Pages

    “The unprecedented growth of the gay community in recent history has transformed our culture and consciousness, creating radically new possibilities for people to ‘come out’ and live more openly as homosexuals”(Herdt 2). Before the 1969 Stonewall riot in New York, homosexuality was a taboo subject. Research concerning homosexuality emphasized the etiology, treatment, and psychological adjustment of homosexuals. Times have changed since 1969. Homosexuals have gained great attention in arts, entertainment, media, and politics. Yesterday’s research on homosexuality has expanded to include trying to understand the different experiences and situations of homosexuals (Ben-Ari 89-90).

    Read More

  • Gay Marriage and Asian Culture

    849 Words  | 2 Pages

    Matt Cook, Robert Cocks H. G. Mills. A Gay History of Britain: Love and sex between

    Read More

  • LGBT Subculture

    1415 Words  | 3 Pages

    Bawer, Bruce. A Place at the Table: The Gay Individual in American Society. New York: Poseidon, 1993. Print.

    Read More

More about 'Late Victorians' By Richard Rodriguez

Open Document