The Importance of Social Background Circumstances matter. Everyone manages to determine how to approach to them. Characters in text develop themselves largely depending on their social background. Whether it’s ethnicity or economic status, identity overrules many factors in the presentation of characters. Bodega Dreams presents its characters with significance to how they live their lives while providing historical context with its setting. Moreover, the author of Bodega Dreams, Ernesto Quinonez, creates his characters to live their lives differently within similar sociocultural surroundings. For instance, the background of the setting is reflective through all the characters and how they learn through their circumstances. In Spanish Harlem, a lot of people were not called by their given names. Instead, they all had nicknames. For example Enrique was given the name, Sapo, because of the way that he resembled a frog. "So you have a nice car and …show more content…
make good money, but Bodega, Bodega is the Man. Bodega has made a name for himself. You know about names, Sapo. When you get one it's only a matter of time before you have to prove who you are. And Bodega has the biggest name in the neighborhood." (Quinonez, 41) There is a certain significance that lies within the name and once you are the holder of it, it adds on to their identity. “Spanish Harlem is one of the last real neighborhoods of New York. Called East Harlem by the City of New York, Spanish Harlem has always been home to poor ethnic minorities. After World War I, as the Lower East Side became more congested, many of the Latin Americans coming to New York settled in East Harlem. Today Puerto Ricans remain the largest Latino group in East Harlem, better known among its residents as el barrio.” (Rodriguez, 1) To start with, they need to study how a function of writing mirrors are written in sociocultural setting—that is the aspect discovered from the clean canvassed perspective of the impact on background for the setting. Ultimately, to know how the setting is like, one has to experience it and through the text there has to be the one controlling the creation of the story. In addition, the environment revealed that growing up in Spanish Harlem, they had nothing better to do than be in harmful areas that are unsuitable because El Barrio is not known to be the safest place.
Sapo and Chino’s sociological background play heavily into their interactions with the world. Quiñonez utilizes, “With Nazario I intend to own this neighborhood and turn El Barrio into my sandbox.” (Quiñonez, 25) Metaphorically, he’s comparing the neighborhood to a children’s play area, giving the readers a tidbit of information of their world. “I would count how many floors they had. I would ask my cousin, looking up at one six- story tenement, "Do you think they have an elevator?" He replied, "No, stupid, they only have elevators in those fancy buildings on Park Avenue.” (Rodriguez, 1) While in the real El Barrio, there is a socioeconomic divide between the people that lived in the same neighborhood and everyone were all well-aware of their circumstance and how they were going to live together as a community in El
Barrio. Spanish Harlem and the drug society has been prevalent since the 1990’s and until the present. It has affected the community of El Barrio that a lot of people are either stuck in the drug regime or try their best to get out of it."So, mira, i have this package here and being' that yo'r the only guy that i trust, you know, can i leave it here wi'choo, Chino?" (Quinonez 14) Chino and Sapo have contrasting identities within the quote because during that time, Chino was studying at Hunter College with Blanca, his wife and trying to be the one getting out of the system of drugs and crime from El Barrio while Sapo clearly has involvement with the processes of El Barrio’s drug dealing routine. “Teachers and other school staff said they faced constant pressure from administrators to not report violent incidents, which renders the district's statistics suspect. Depending on the principal, schools vary widely on how they report and handle violence and whether they call city police.” (“Climate of Violence Stifle City Schools”, 3) A lot of young people from Spanish Harlem would not be involved in this cycle of being involved with drugs if alternatives were set, intervention programs were implemented and if teachers reported incidents, so that authorities can be involved. Leniency has grown within the time periods of raising El Barrio that changing would have to occur some time early on in an individual’s life for one not to be involved with the cycle. Going back to schooling and teacher intervening with reports, “If we are truly serious about fixing our nation's schools, and if we ever hope to roll back the re-segregation and ever-deepening poverty of these same institutions, we must first recognize the enormous price that public school children have paid for America's recent embrace of the world's most massive and punitive penal state--a vast carceral apparatus that has wed our economy, society, and political structures to the practice of punishment in unprecedented ways.” (Thompson, 1) It is society’s job to acknowledge the deep problems of the school system that we could have outstanding aptitude scores, but the well-being of a student should come first and in a lot of instances, that is not the case. "I could have married Blanca right then and there. Instead we enrolled at Hunter College, because we knew we needed school if we were ever going to change ourselves" (Quinonez, 13) Chino knew what had to be done and did it. He may have not like it, but he was lucky enough to be taking the opportunity of going to college. El Barrio has less opportunities of a better or higher education because young people are taken into gangs, drug dealing, etc. They have not been shown that an opportunity for education was open to them so since the time Quinonez has noticed El Barrio in the past and now it is compared to the present. No drastic change has been made since. Violence spikes, opportunities are dwindling and the community grows outwardly. All in all, Bodega Dreams and its social context has provided many insights on another community where people’s lives are lived differently. The importance of community plays a role in El Barrio and how Spanish Harlem is what it is, but the people that reside in it are taking advantages of it one way or the other. Eventually, the lives lived at El Barrio are different depending on circumstances and modes of approaching them. Ernesto Quinonez incorporates his life insight and experiences well into Bodega Dreams, making Chino reflective of him, giving the readers an idea of who is and how he has become who he is. Therefore, his circumstances do not make him who he is, but reveals who he has chosen to be.
Esperanza, the main character of The House on Mango Street, a novella written by Sandra Cisneros in 1984, has always felt like she didn’t belong. Esperanza sought a different life than the ones that people around her were living. She wanted to be in control of her life, and not be taken away by men as so many others around her had. Esperanza wanted to move away from Mango Street and find the house, and life she had always looked for. Through the use of repetition, Sandra Cisneros conveys a sense of not belonging, that can make a person strong enough to aspire to a better life.
People sacrifice their most beloved things in order to achieve success. In the novel, Bodega Dreams, by Ernesto Quinonez, characters sacrifice their most precious beloved things to succeed in Spanish Harlem. The Puerto Rican community of Spanish Harlem in New York City expresses how immigrants deal with their hardships to go against the society’s ideals of the white privilege. The protagonist, Julio (a.k.a Chino), gives his point of view as he deals with his relationship and contributing to the illegal drug business which was led by William Bodega. Throughout the novel, sacrifice is represented in the developments of love, business, and culture in the Spanish Harlem community.
Enrique’s Journey is a book that I would never read for fun. It is completely different from most of the books I have read, and intrigued me because the story was about a boy. Most of the books I have read in school are about a girl who goes through many hardships, and difficulties but I felt I could relate more to this one because it is about a boy who struggles. While I may not have been left thousands of miles away by mother so she could send money back, it was great to see what life was like on the other side. In this paper I will be talking about the micro and macro cultures of Enrique’s town Tegucigalpa. The situation and context of the characters decision making and how they adapted.
Throughout the time I spent between the covers of The Prince of Los Cocuyos, I was astounded by Richard Blanco’s dynamic relationship with the novel’s sole “antagonist”: his abuela. It seemed that no matter how many times he was chagrined at her attempts to negotiate the English language, or was forced to repress his very personhood to meet her traditional standards of manhood, she never ceased to be a pillar of support for a young Richard Blanco. But beyond his grandmother, Mr. Blanco made it quite clear that he was surrounded by a pueblo of family and friends throughout his childhood and adolescence, a village that would confound his “becoming” but foster his growth, make him question his identity and yet be intricately connected to it. It
When I was little I remember driving across country, going to Florida, and past neighborhoods that were anything but mine. They had old houses that looked like they were going to fall down any minute, real trashy looking. In Colorado, my house was nice and always kept up. I sat in the car wondering what kind of people lived in those run down places and what they were like. The answers came to me years later when I read the book, Famous All Over Town, by Danny Santiago. The main character, Chato, is a young Hispanic boy living in a neighborhood like the ones I saw when I was little. After reading the book, although I never thought I would have anything in common with people who lived like that, I learned that Chato and I have do have similarities, but we have more differences.
Symbolism is the key to understanding Sandra Cisneros’ novel, “The House on Mango Street”. By unraveling the symbolism, the reader truly exposes the role of not only Latina women but women of any background. Esperanza, a girl from a Mexican background living in Chicago, writes down what she witnesses while growing up. As a result of her sheltered upbringing, Esperanza hardly comprehends the actions that take place around her, but what she did understand she wrote in her journal. Cisneros used this technique of the point of view of a child, to her advantage by giving the readers enough information of what is taking place on Mango Street so that they can gather the pieces of the puzzle a get the big picture.
Women are seen as failure and can’t strive without men in the Mexican-American community. In this novel you can see a cultural approach which examines a particular aspect of a culture and a gender studies approach which examines how literature either perpetuates or challenges gender stereotypes. Over and over, Esperanza battled with how people perceived her and how she wished to be perceived. In the beginning of the book, Esperanza speaks of all the times her family has moved from one place to another. “Before that we lived on Loomis on the third floor, and before that we lived on Keeler.
The cultural studies approach is only one way of analyzing an open text such as the story "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong", but it is one of the best ways to determine the social actions of a society and the reasons for their cultural beliefs. Having knowledge of tools such as gender construction, levels of power, and the theme of isolation, the reader becomes personally involved with the characters and the ways in which they are coerced to live their lives.
Literature of the Americas has many stories and they all have comparisons, but they also have many differences. “Day of the Butterfly” by Alice Monro and “Crossroads: A Sad Vaudeville” by Carlos Solórzano have characters that share some traits and ways, but like all characters they have things that are different. The old woman from “A Sad Vaudeville” is a dynamic protagonist who finds herself meeting the perfect man for her, but has a dilemma when he is in denial because she is not the ideal girl of his dreams; she’s old. Myra from “Day of the Butterfly” is a static antagonist who does not have the same care free attitude as most of the children her own age. She is rather shy and does not fit in or socialize much with people her own age.
The novel Dreaming in Cuban, written by Cristina Garcia, is a novel following the lives of a Cuban family during La Revolución Cubana. Garcia develops her story in great detail, particularly through the struggles this family faces and how each of them attempts to find their own identity. Although the novel has many characters, Cristina Garcia primarily develops the story through the eyes of Pilar Puente. Even though she is one of the youngest characters, Pilar endures a plethora of struggles with her life and her identity. Her mother, Lourdes Puente, moved the family away to New York in order to shield Pilar from what Lourdes deemed to be an unfavorable past in Cuba. The main source of Pilar’s frustration is her internal conflict between her Cuban heritage and her American identity. This struggle stems from the relationship with her grandmother, Celia del Pino, contrasting with her life in America. Along with her struggle with her Cuban heritage, Pilar Puente has many experiences that shape her self-identity throughout the novel Dreaming in Cuban.
Imagine being a young girl dreaming of becoming a woman and flying like a super hero over your neighborhood, seeing everything that happens at night. Then, you wake up to realize you are still a young girl sleeping in your room with white “princess” furniture. This is part of the narrator’s dream in the story “Volar” by Judith Ortiz Cofer, but what exactly does this dream mean? Many details can be interpreted by analyzing the character and theme, both by using the reader response approach and the psychological approach made, mostly developed by Sigmond Freud’s theories.
At almost every stage in a person’s life, they are working towards something, and this is due to the fact that everyone has a plan. Nearly every person in the world has an conception of what they want their life to develop in to, and it is for this reason that they find motivation to do many of the things that they do. Society had trained it’s people that, if a person tries hard enough, they can form our lives into what they want them to be. In her novel, Dreaming in Cuban, Cristina Garcia writes about many individuals within the Cuban del Pino family making their way in the world; furthermore, Garcia uses the theme of madness to display the consequences of not having the ability to follow the life that a person has planned as well as issues of gender in relation to this theme. She presents this theme of mental illness at multiple points throughout the novel, particularly through the experiences of the characters of Celia del Pino, who suffers after she trades the life she wants for the life she is expected to have, Felicia del Pino, whose experiences with her husbands alter her life, and Javier del Pino, who
In the age of industrialization when rural life gradually was destroyed, the author as a girl who spent most of her life in countryside could not help writing about it and what she focuses on in her story - femininity and masculinity, which themselves contain the symbolic meanings - come as no surprise.
Esperanza and her family move into a poor neighborhood in Chicago. “Bricks are crumbling in places, and the front door is swollen you have to push hard to get in. There us no front yeard, only four little elms the city planted by the curb. Our back is a small garage for the car we don’t own yet (Cisneros, 4).” The reader learns that Esperanza and her family are also from Mexico. “Look at that house, I said, it looks like Mexico. Rachel and Lucy look at me like I’m crazy, but before they can let out a laugh, Nenny says: Yes, that’s all Mexico right. That’s what I was thinking exactly (Cisneros, 18).” As an immigrant family, Esperanza’s family is struggling to make ends meet in Chicago. “I could’ve been someone someday, you know? My mother says sighs. She has lived in the city her whole life. She can speak two lanugages. She can sing an opera. She knows how to fix a T.V. But she doesn’t know which subway train to take to get downtown. I hold her hand very tight while we wait for the train to arrive (Cisneros, 90).” This is also a reference of space and time that is associated with the time period of
At first, Esperanza is young, insecure, and immature. Her immaturity is apparent when she talks about her mom holding her, saying it is, “sweet to put your nose into when she is holding you and you feel safe” (Cisneros 6-7). This shows Esperanza’s insecurity because her mom is still a big comfort source to her. She feels a false sense of comfort because her mom is there and will protect her. In addition, Esperanza’s immaturity is shown through her dislike for outsiders of the neighborhood when she says, “They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake” (Cisneros 28). This indicates how defensive and protective Esperanza is towards her barrio by calling outsiders stupid for reacting the way they do, even though she dislikes Mango Street....