Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Mexican american nonfiction essay
Mexican american nonfiction essay
Mexican american nonfiction essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Mexican american nonfiction essay
The 2006 Pura Belpré Award was presented to Viola Canales for her coming-of-age tale, The Tequila Worm. Set in a Mexican American community in MacAllen, Texas, this story is told from the point-of-view of Sofia, a young girl who has many adventures in her small community. Through the course of the text Sofia develops from a young child who plays dress-up games with her cousins, to a young woman who is willing to move three hundred miles away from school. The Tequila Worm is a acclaimed text because of the development of each character, and the realness of every situation he or she encounters. Throughout the text, Sofia finds herself in a constant struggle between remaining loyal to her Mexican culture and heritage, or assimilating in to American
society in order to be accepted be her peers. This constant grapple helps Sofia to learn more about herself, and aids in evolving her character. With Sofia, Viola Canales created a story that many young Mexican Americans can relate to and as a result of her efforts, she was rightfully awarded the Pura Belpré Medal. I truly connected to the Sofia’s story in The Tequila Worm. Although I am not Mexican American, I witnessed Sofia’s growth from a playful five year old to a mature woman. I knew her thoughts, her emotions, and her true opinions that she never shared with other characters in the book. Through Viola Canles’ beautiful writing, I felt as if I with Sofia on every page. The Tequila Worm is an ideal book for middle school and high school students. The Spanish version of this text would be a great part of a Spanish class’s curriculum. In an English class, students could do a project in which they discuss a family tradition that, although it may not make sense, is very important to their family. Assignments such as these aid students in relating books to their own life experiences.
“The Tequila Worm” by Viola Canales is a marvelous book that shows the story of a young girl named sofia;on her journey to explore life but to never forget where she came from her roots which means becoming a good comadre.
In the novel “How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents”, Julie Alvarez gives the reader multiple accounts that narrate the difficulties of four sisters growing up in unfamiliar lands. The Garcia girls are Carla, Sandra, Yolanda and Sofia, and Alvarez speaks the most through Yolanda 's narrative. The sisters were born in the Dominican Republic and were exiled to the United States as children with their loving mother and traditional father. Papi Garcia grew up during an era where women were not supposed to be left alone which transformed him into a protective father and moving to a new life raised his fatherly instincts to a greater height. The novel starts in 1989, with the Garcia girls as American adults. The novel starts to flow backwards
Junot Diaz is a Dominican-American writer whose collection of short stories Drown tells the story of immigrant families in the urban community of New Jersey. His short story “Fiesta, 1980” focuses on Yunior, an adolescent boy from Dominican Republic and his relationship with his father. On the other hand, Piri Thomas was a great Latino writer from Puerto-Rico whose memoir Down These Mean Streets tells his life story as an adolescent residing in Harlem and the challenges he faces outside in the neighborhood and at home with his father. Both Diaz and Thomas in different ways explore the dynamics of father-son relationships in their work. Furthermore, both expose masculinity as a social construct.
“Like Water for Chocolate” by Laura Esquivel, is a beautiful romantic tale of an impossible passionate love during the revolution in Mexico. The romance is followed by the sweet aroma of kitchen secrets and cooking, with a lot of imagination and creativity. The story is that of Tita De La Garza, the youngest of all daughters in Mama Elena’s house. According to the family tradition she is to watch after her mother till the day she does, and therefore cannot marry any men. Tita finds her comfort in cooking, and soon the kitchen becomes her world, affecting every emotion she experiences to the people who taste her food. Esquivel tells Titas story as she grows to be a mature, blooming women who eventually rebels against her mother, finds her true identity and reunites with her long lost love Pedro. The book became a huge success and was made to a movie directed by Alfonso Arau. Although they both share many similarities, I also found many distinct differences. The movie lost an integral part of the book, the sensual aspect of the cooking and love.
Macaria’s Daughter, by Americo Paredes, is a murderous tale of male dominance and female virtue where there is a sacrifice between an altar of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the marriage bed of two distinct cultures. This story is set in south Texas and surprises the reader with the murder of a beautiful young woman named Marcela. She is found in the bedroom, lying on the floor in a pool of blood, 30 to 40 knife stabs decorate her breasts, while the local men gaze indifferently on her lifeless body. Her husband, Tony, who is at the scene, hands over the knife to the local authorities, the Texan police, who are dressed in tall, spiffy Stetson hats.
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.
It is the last piece in one of her more famous books, the memoir Silent Dancing: a Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rico Childhood (1990) and reveals the mental and physical sensations Hispanic girls encounter for the first time on their coming-out day, Quinceañera. A usually joyous occasion, Cofer depicts it in a much darker light than one would expect after having read the title, as it is the bitter, negative side of entering womanhood that she chose to describe. Quinceañera is the celebration a young girl’s coming of age in some parts of Latin America – a traditional birthday party, where customs highlight God, family and friends, food, music and dance. And yet, there is definitely nothing festive about this poem – even though we are presented with some of the stages of the preparation for the event, which would thrill and make any girl happy, Cofer’s choice of words eliminates any trace of gladness for the speaker on our part by creating imagery which is on the verge of being brutal. More often than not, children are not as mature as their bodies indicate they are, and obeying tradition by imposing customs on them can be traumatizing to both the body of a child and their
Gender, ethnicity, and sexuality are core components that create a solid identity. In the western world Jolene is known as a bisexual Latina female. She is bisexual because she is sexually attracted to men and women, she is a Latina because she is a mixed company of Puerto Rican and German American, and she is a female because she has the physical attributes of a woman. Although gender, ethnicity, and sexuality are all relating factors, they are also separate units of identity. Gender refers to physical attributes and traits that make one appear to be male or female. Sexuality refers to how one feels about their body, one’s sexual orientation, and one’s sexual attraction for others. Ethnicity refers to a group of people who share the same cultural background and heritage. Lopez uses these three different factors of identity and crafts them together simultaneously to suggest the damage of stereotypes. Throughout the novel, Lopez’s Flaming Iguanas highlights the conformity of sex and gender stereotypes, and addresses the socially constructed stereotypes to challenge the patriarchy and expose the damage it does to one’s search for selfhood. Jolene exemplifies how they damage one’s sense of self as she ventures
When Sandra Cisneros wrote “Women of Hollering Creek” she reflected back on her own life experiences. This is a story that is told from the female perspective from start to finish. Like the lead character, Cleofilas, Cisneros is Mexican-American and the only daughter in a family that has seven children. Cisneros studied creative writing at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and earned her Masters of Fine Arts degree in 1978, (238). Growing up she traveled back and forth to Mexico to visit her father’s family and Cleofilas flees to arms of her father later in the story. She has a blended cultural identity that is relevant in the story by how she uses Mexican and English words together. For example when describing soap operas she calls them by the Spanish name telenovela. This story made me reflect on my own life experiences while I was reading it. I thought about my parents divorce, my aunt’s extremely abusive marriage of eleven years and why women, like me, tend to seek that silver lining when it comes to broken relationships.
Maria Alejandrina Cervantes is a rare dominant female in the novel who by society’s standard should be marginalized due to her career and gender but she refuses to conform and chooses to go against her society. She is shown to be headstrong and fiercely protective of her friends and always accepting others. Through his use of situational irony and characterization, Gabriel Garcia Marquez portrays the town’s madam, Maria Alejandrina Cervantes, as a contradictory character and her fight against her society’s restricting beliefs.
In conclusion, “The House on Mango Street” manifests the differences between men’s and women’s roles in Mexican culture through Esperanza’s point of view. All of the female characters mentioned in the story are oppressed and overpowered by men, whether husbands, fathers, or even children. The story is both astounding and emotional, as it astonishingly reveals Esperanza’s process of growing up by observing and learning the valuable life lessons from her female neighbors. These women are portrayed as a negative role model for Esperanza. Unfortunately, most of them offer her the examples of a person she does not want to become. Yet, these women teach Esperanza many life experiences and have an important role in shaping her identity as well.
Ibsen, Kristine. "On Recipes, Reading and Revolution: Postboon Parody in Como Agua Para Chocolate." Hispanic Review. 25 (1996): 133-146.
Mango, Abuela, and Me is a 2016 Pura Belpré Author and Illustrator Honor Book about Mia and her grandmother who comes from a Latin-American country to live with Mia’s family. As granddaughter and grandmother begin to spend a lot of time together, they face a language barrier—Mia only speaks a little bit of Spanish and her grandmother speaks very little English. Mia tries to teach her grandma basic English using sticky notes and they both repeat after each other, yet it is still a challenge to communicate. One day, Mia goes to the pet store with her mother and decides to buy a parrot as a gift for her grandmother. Mango, the parrot, picks up both English and Spanish phrases and while he practices, so do Mia and her grandmother. Over time, they
"Toad's Mouth" is a short story written by Isabel Allende in 1989. She has lived in Chili for most of her life, but she was born in Lima, Peru. Her father was a diplomat in Peru, but when her parents divorced, Allende's mother took her back to Santiago, Chili, to live with her grandparents. She wrote her first novel, The House of Spirits, around 1981. It became an international best seller. After reading "Toad's Mouth, I believe that magical realism and sublime literature have many things in common.