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An essay about multicultural literature
An essay about multicultural literature
An essay about multicultural literature
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Summery
Julia Alverez, the author of the novel How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents. This was her first novel of many more to come after she published this book in 1991.This novel about the Garcia family; mother and father with four daughters who are Carla, Sandra, Yolanda and Sofia who were living in the Dominican Republic. The father attempted to over throw Trujillo the dictator which caused the family to move in to New York City in the 1960. The novel shifts between multiple perspectives and narrators between the family members within each of the chapters which allow for many tones like casual and warm throughout the novel. The novel is separated in three parts and in revere chronological order which allows for an interesting reading experience. The turning point is when the family is forced to fly from their home in the Dominican Republic to start a new life in the United Stated. This act tarnished their relationship with their extended family and may have caused the daughters psychological damage. As each of the girls adjusted to the new world of the United States, struggling with immigration, adjustment and family conflicts. Carlos and Laura (the parents of the Garcia daughters) were reluctant and stuck
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with their homeland customs and traditions from Dominican Republic and wanted to sway the Garcia daughters from the American ways they were assimilating to. Here is more information on each of the characters. Carlos Garcia (Papi) is the concerned and controlling father of the four Garcia girls. Carlos resisted the Dominican Republic dictatorship which made the family flee to the United States for their own protection against the Dominican services. Trujillo is the dictator of the Dominican Republic that lived next door to the la Torre land. Victor Hubbard was the American CIA operative that assisted the Garcia family to escape to the United States. As a doctor, Carlos had to reestablish his professional reputation and credentials. Laura Garcia (Mami) is the mother of the four Garcia girls. Laura’s family name meant more in the Dominican Republic than in the United States so adjusting to the realization that her family name did not mean much in the United States was difficult. She was a daughter of the la Torre clan back in Dominican Republic that meant privileged. Although they had struggle adjusting the United States, Laura was always supportive, loving and proud of her four daughters. Carla Garcia is the oldest daughter of the four Garcia girls. Carla was the daughter that had the most difficult time adjusting to American schools and the English Language. Although she struggle she went on to college and became a psychologist. Sandra Garcia is the second born of the four Garcia girls. Sandra suffered a traumatic accident by braking her arm because of her husband Don Jose. She was so devastated that she ended up losing her artistic vision. As an adult she suffered a mental break down. Yolanda Garcia was the third born and known as the rebellious tomboy. When moving to the United States she grew interests in poems and poetry. Yolanda married a man named John that she ended up realizing she was not in love with anymore. She struggle with men and went through a painful divorce that led her into a mental breakdown. Sofia Garcia was the youngest born child and began being rebellious in her adolescent years. She fell in love with a guy named Otto. He father had found love notes from Otto so Sofia and her father got into a huge agreement so Sofia ended up fleeing to Germany and marrying Otto. RELATED CONCEPTS Introduction In the section before, I just stated a brief summary of the novel. After furthermore analyst of the novel, one may discover some racial tension within the book. This section of the paper will be connecting characters or events within the novel to psychological theories or concepts. The paper will be divided in five concepts or theory sections. The concept will be explained thoroughly and then the book example will be explain to connect the novel and the psychological terms together. They are psychodynamic theory, racial prejudice, racial socialization and acculturation, multiracial identity and social identity theory. Psychodynamic theory The psychological term “psychodynamic theory explains prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination as intera individual processes, as a way to satisfy individual need grounded in basic “instincts” Social Dominance theory links prejudice and discrimination to intergroup relations and sees them as an ideology or worldview, of how groups should relate to one another. (92) Carlos the Garcia girls father demonstrate the social dominance theory when he becomes overprotective with his daughter in making his daughters go back to the Dominican republic for the summer for the secret idea that they will find a man their because the thought of another group outside of their race dating his daughter bothered him. Religious Prejudice People may practice their religions for different reasons. There are two different concepts when in comes to religion in the textbook. Intrinsic religiosity represents a deep commitment to the principles of religion for the meaning it provides in one’s life. The other concept is extrinsic religiosity which involves using ones religion to connect to a community to gain social status or increase personal security.(textbook 106) The novel describes that the Garcia girls are raised as catholic wixh practice celibacy. Yolanda describes an encounter where she struggles with her religion when she is in college and met this guy named Rudy Elmenhurst. He tries to pressure her to have sex with him after a few months of dating. That ended her relationship with Rudy but Yolanda would never find someone who understood her mix of Catholicism and agnosticism between Hispanic and American culture. Racial Socialization and Acculturation Acculturation is what is focused on acquiring knowledge and accepting a different culture. Carlos and Laura wanted their daughters to function in their Hispanic culture witch is an example of enculturation but when they were forces to live in New York. The Garcia girls were exposed to a different cultural context which is acculturation. Every member of the Garcia family struggled with acculturating to the America. Acculturation stress is when the exposure of the different culture causes tension.(211) Multiracial Identity Multiracial identity is when a person struggles with their racial identity.
Most often it is when a person is more than one racial identity. This makes people socially identify with a particular race. The text discusses “immigration exposition and the desire to claim ones heritage in full measure , as well as greater openness to intimate unions across racial an ethnic lines “multiracial” is now identity classifications. I know the Garcia daughters are full Dominican but the girls struggled with their race several times. They felt as if they were more American then Dominican. They felt more comfortable speaking the English language then their own native Spanish language. The Garcia daughters would classify them self as Americans more so then
Dominicans. Social Identity theory Social identity theory distinguishes two types of identities that everyone experiences. There is personal and social identity. Personal identity represents what we believe makes us unique compared with other people and social identity is an identity that you share with others.(149) in the novel all the characters struggled with their identity. They were Hispanic culture in which they share with many especially when they were living in Dominican Republic but when they moved they became to know things as their personal identity.
The author of Mexican Lives, Judith Adler Hellman, grapples with the United States’ economic relationship with their neighbors to the south, Mexico. It also considers, through many interviews, the affairs of one nation. It is a work held to high esteem by many critics, who view this work as an essential part in truly understanding and capturing Mexico’s history. In Mexican Lives, Hellman presents us with a cast from all walks of life. This enables a reader to get more than one perspective, which tends to be bias. It also gives a more inclusive view of the nation of Mexico as a whole. Dealing with rebel activity, free trade, assassinations and their transition into the modern age, it justly captures a Mexico in its true light.
People who have distinctive physical and cultural characteristics are a racial ethnic group. This refers to people who identify with a common national origin or cultural heritage. But remember that race refers to the physical characteristics with which we are born. Whereas ethnicity describes cultural characteristics that we learn.
o In matters of “race” and “nationality”, in the way in which classifications work is especially apparent.
Demetria Martínez’s Mother Tongue is divided into five sections and an epilogue. The first three parts of the text present Mary/ María’s, the narrator, recollection of the time when she was nineteen and met José Luis, a refuge from El Salvador, for the first time. The forth and fifth parts, chronologically, go back to her tragic experience when she was seven years old and then her trip to El Salvador with her son, the fruit of her romance with José Luis, twenty years after she met José Luis. And finally the epilogue consists a letter from José Luis to Mary/ María after her trip to El Salvador. The essay traces the development of Mother Tongue’s principal protagonists, María/ Mary. With a close reading of the text, I argue how the forth chapter, namely the domestic abuse scene, functions as a pivotal point in the Mother Tongue as it helps her to define herself.
This book is a story about 4 sisters who tell their stories about living on an island in the Dominican Republic , and then moving to New York . What is different about this book is the fact that you have different narrators telling you the story , jumping back and forth from past to present . This is effective because it gives you different view point’s from each of the sisters . It may also detract from the narrative because of the fact that it’s confusing to the reader . This is a style of writing that has been recognized and analyzed by critics . Julia Alvarez is a well- known writer and in a way , mirrors events that happened in her own life , in her book . Looking into her life , it show’s that she went through an experience somewhat like the sisters . I interviewed an immigrant , not from the same ethnic back ground as the sisters , but a Japanese immigrant . This was a very
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.
Ever human being has its own race, it is a categorization of human beings, for example, people are divided into black, white, Asian, Hispanic (Latino), and Hawaiian or others. These people share different cultures and languages, somehow these people immigrant into the same country and produce the next generation of “mix” cultures. This concept can be seen in both The End of Race: Hawaii and the Mixing of Peoples, by Steve Olson, and What 's Black, Then White, and Said All Over by Leslie Savan. In The End of Race: Hawaii and the Mixing of Peoples, Olson addresses the idea that someday there will be no race exist, but human might still share different cultures, and in What 's Black, Then White, and Said All Over, Savan describes the black language
What does cultural identity mean? “Sliding back and forth / between the fringes of both worlds / by smiling / masking the discomfort / of being pre-judged / Bi-laterally” (Mora lines 18-22). This woman is both Mexican and American, but yet she feels discomfort in both cultures because they do not see her as neither. In order to understand one’s cultural identity, he or she needs to understand what the term means. According to one source, culture identity can be defined as “[S]ocial groups existing within one nation may share a common language and a broad cultural identity but have distinct ethnic identities associated with a different language and history” (Trumbull and Pacheco 9). Various aspects
Race, as a general understanding is classifying someone based on how they look rather than who they are. It is based on a number of things but more than anything else it’s based on skin's melanin content. A “race” is a social construction which alters over the course of time due to historical and social pressures. Racial formation is defined as how race shapes and is shaped by social structure, and how racial categories are represented and given meaning in media, language and everyday life. Racial formation is something that we see changing overtime because it is rooted in our history. Racial formation also comes with other factors below it like racial projects. Racial projects seek
Ethnicity is made up of many factors and can be seen through various viewpoints. To cut someone’s identity into specifics can be a difficult task depending on what is being looked at and by whom. Nagel sees this when she writes, “As audience change, the socially-defined array of ethnics choices open to the individual changes. This produces a ‘layering’ (Mcbeth 1989) of ethnic identities which combines with the ascriptive character of ethnicity to reveal the negotiated, problematic nature of ethnic identity. (240)” In this she says that one’s ethnicity can be changed or formatted to fit into a bigger field, varying by who is looking into it. Mohr also sees how different perspectives can play as a factor, when talking about immigrants in the United States. Mohr uses the character if Aldo Fabrizi to demonstrate this, Fabrizi calls out William and says, “What do you think of your paisano. He don’t wanna...
Broadly speaking, race is seen or is assumed to be a biologically driven set of boundaries that group and categorize people according to phenotypical similarities (e.g. skin color) (Pinderhughes, 1989; Root, 1998). The categorical classification of race can be traced back to the 16th century Linnaen system of human “races” where each race was believed to be of a distinct type or subspecies that included separate gene pools (Omi & Winant, 1994; Spickard, 1992; Smedley & Smedley, 2005). Race in the U.S. initially began as a general categorizing term, interchangeable with such terms as “type” or “species”. Over time, race began to morph into a term specifically referring to groups of people living in North America (i.e. European “Whites”, Native American “Indians”, and African “Negroes”). Race represented a new way to illustrate human difference as well as a way to socially structure society (Smedley & Smedley, 2005).
She mentioned that people would try to run her over for being Mexican along with being called names like “spick.” Racism had even continued to her jobs she previously had. She worked for about 2 years with Mattel Toys, Barbie’s and Hot Wheels, during this time she had a meeting the corporation. Mattel vocalized “All ethnic people are the same, Spanish and African-American, so the ethnic Barbie Doll of those two races should be the same.” I was shook, I thought “How can a brand that markets to so many young females limit many ethnics to one doll?” I asked her about if she had ever experienced classism, of course, she said yes. “Being married to a white man when you are Mexican is so difficult,” she told me. “I felt as if I was never good enough, as a Mexican, to be married to a white man. I felt so dumb because I did not go to college. I was just a waitress.” She left as if her identity was not inline with the community she married into. In our textbooks, it mentions that ‘identity is connected to community and various ways community is generally defined as “a body a persons having a common history or common social, ethnic, and political interest.’ (Scott,
Times are changing and I feel like I am forced to conform to the everyday social norms of America, which makes me feel impuissance. Racial identity, which refers to identifying with a social group with similar phenotypes and racial category, is the only experience that I have with life (Organista, 2010). Racial ethnicity was used to build my self-esteem and to keep me in the dark when it came to how society treats individuals of darker complexion. However, once I left the confines of my family and neighborhood, I was forced to befriend and interact with individuals that had different cultural values and beliefs than me. This experience caused me to learn how to appreciate other racial and ethnic groups and their cultural values and belief. This is an accurate definition, of acculturation because I was able to understand and fit in with individuals different from me, while maintaining my own culture and ethnic identity. Therefore, knowing the importance of my ancestry, while acculturating and developing my own identity was all used
Barak, Julie. ‘Turning and Turning in the Widening Gyre’: A Second Coming into Language in Julia Alvarez’s “How the García Girls Lost Their Accent” MELUS, Vol. 23, 1998. Print.