Tomas Rivera gives us this book showing us that during the 40’s and 50’s(20th century) Mexican immigrants were treated very inequitable manner. Depicting the struggles and hardships, he's able to make the reader sympathize with the characters and their stories. Stories such as “The Children Couldn't Wait” and ”It's That It Hurts” are a pretty great example that shows us the discrimination towards the immigrant children and how they are denied access to water, and quality education. Rivera also shows us the migrant workers determination, facing many struggles, including a death in the family these workers still work hard in order to move on and progress in the hopes of a better living. This can be seen in “ The Children Couldn't Wait” in the…
The poem “Daddy” was written in 1962. Sylvia Plath discusses her love/hate for father and others using imagery from the Holocaust, Nazis, and vampires. The title of the poem suggests that it is loving and intimate, more so than if it were titled “Father”. That is where love is present. Hate and anger are present everywhere else in the poem.…
Fiesta 1980, written by Junot Diaz, is about a Hispanic family that lives in New York. Their relatives, tío (uncle) Miguel and tía(aunt) Yrma, just moved from the Dominican Republic to the United states and therefore they are throwing their aunt and uncle a party. There is much representation on how the Hispanic people really live embedded within this short story. Such as the different roles of each family member, the extreme since of loyalty, actions that benefit everyone, and the different ways of showing affection and celebrating.…
The story of immigrant struggles is the major theme in Drown by Junot Diaz. Every immigrant has a personal story, pains and joys, fears and victories. This book captures the fury and alienation of the Dominican immigrant experience very well. Drown brings out the conflicts, yearnings, and frustrations that have been a part of immigrant life for centuries. In each of his stories, Diaz uses a first-person narrator who is observing others. Boys and young drug dealers narrate eight of these tales. Their struggles shift from life in the barrios of the Dominican Republic to grim existence in the slums of New Jersey. The characters in these stories wrestle with recognizable traumas. Yunior and Rafa in Ysrael and Fiesta 1990 confront the pain of growing up, the loss of innocence, and how misfortune just happens to fall upon them. The book argues of a world in which fathers are gone; people fight with determination for their families and themselves.…
This gives the reader an example of his theme because a reader would see that Yunior adopted his father’s abusive ways and acts in the his father treated him towards the women he has relationships with in his life. Another way that Diaz shows his novel’s theme of how your family affects the rest of your life and your future decisions can be found in the ‘Ysrael’ chapter when Yunior is searching for Ysrael. This experience is an allusion to how the Jewish people searched for the promised land of Israel for forty years where they were wandering and were without a proper amount of food to live with. This shows the theme because Yunior is searching for love and affection from his family for a very long time before he is given the love he needs and the support he needs, just as Ysrael. The search for love from his family is shown to the audience when Yunior is trying to stop throwing up in his father’s van; Yunior is trying his best to not vomit Papi’s car and he can’t control whether or not he feels sick. His father would constantly abuse him and his mother neglected him for reasons he could never…
The character Mami represents the Dominican Republic, home, where Yunior feels safe. Papi, domineering and selfish, represents America and all of its false promises. The juxtaposed images represent the countries, opposites in Yunior's mind. Yunior feels his homeland slipping away while America takes over, his culture fading on American soil:<br>The fact that I <br>am writing to you<br>in English<br>already falsifies what I <br>wanted to tell you.<br>My subject:<br>how to explain to you that I <br>don't belong to English<br>though I belong no where else.<br>(Drown, 1)<br><br>This poem, shown on the first page of the collection, illustrates Diaz's ideas about America and its tendency to stifle one's culture. The powerful effect "Fiesta, 1980", and Drown as a whole, has on readers can be greatly attributed to Diaz's careful construction of each story, incorporating tough wording and elements of Spanish culture. <br><br>Secondly, symbolism presents another important aspect of Diaz's writing. The lime-green Volkswagen van helps to convey just how profoundly affected Yunior becomes by…
Problems with men start at a young age for most women. Daddy issues is a perfect explanation for the piece “Daddy” written by Sylvia Plath. The complications that occurred early in Plath’s life then occurred in Plath's love life. After doing some research on Plath, it was apparent that a continuing theme in her life was issues with men. To fully understand this piece I had to do some research on Plath.…
As well as “If I never get to see the Northern lights, or if I never get to see the Eiffel Tower at night, oh if all I got is your hand in my hand, baby I could die a happy man.” By Thomas Rhett Atkins. And one of the best country music artists when it comes to life quotes; comes from the song “Remember When” by Country Music Hall of Famer Alan Jackson “Remember when the sound of little feet, was the music we danced to week to week, brought back the love, we found trust, vowed we’d never give it up, remember…
Tomas Rivera is a has created a story which challenges us with an obstacle, what hurts? “Its that it Hurts” Is about a nameless Mexican boy that faces many troubles throughout his everyday life. Being embarrassed, abused and discriminated against at school and submerged in the expectations his parents have for him. Because of a unwanted fight he now faces expulsion, and feels “that it hurts”. This first person story is about a young man dueling racism, bullying,and parent pressure, and has been emotionally and physically harmed by it.…
1. Diaz describes a delightful family loving and typical in every way. I mean at least for me it seemed like a typical family. “Fiesta” begins with Diaz stating “Mami’s youngest sister…finally made it to the United States that year.” (150) the story started very hopeful and made me feel as if the plot was going to be cheerful, but it was not. I think the overall mood of the story was mostly sad because the kids also knew about the affair. “When children find out about an affair, it’s not just the cheating, but how parents deal with the crisis that can have the most profound effect on their children’s future relationships, says sex and family therapist Dr. Don-David Lusterman.” I believe this fact is what makes the story so very sad.…
Today, family is one of the most sacred values we share in the individualist society we live in. Every family is different and has different rules and values; but in most of them, fathers are supposed to be leaders of the family, and role models for their children. They are also considerate like the one who transmits the traditions of their ancestors in order to carry them on. “Fiesta, 1980” is a short story written by Junot Dìaz taken from his short story collection, Drown, (1996). “Killings” is also a short story taken from, Finding a Girl in America (1980), written by Andre Dubus. Both of these stories are dealing with the family’s subject and provide us different perspectives of it. In Dìaz’s story we can see the relationship among a foreigner family, while in Andre Dubus’s story we see an American average family. In both stories, fathers play an important role; they figure prominently and have a considerable impact on their family but on the story also. The father in Dubus’s story is more family oriented that the one in Dìaz’; moreover the family is more closely–knit in Dubus’s story than in Dìaz’s story. The difference between the behaviors of the two fathers can be explained by their cultural backgrounds, which are not the same. These stories also provide us another perspective of the father’s role in the family, through their strength and their weakness without compromise.…
El Norte, a 1983 film directed by Gregory Nava, depicts the life of two indigenous teenagers who flee their native country, Guatemala, in search for a better life in America. The reason for fleeing is due to the ethnic and political oppression of the Guatemalan Civil War. The film builds up a strong connection shared between Enrique and Rosa, one of genuine feeling and fierce emotion. This connection is foregrounded by the exaggerated style and is often compared to adulterated relations among Hispanics. Such a differentiation is proposed to underline the strain on the social connection created by the financial aspects of migration. In both Enrique’s and Rosa’s hopes of pursuing the “American Dream”, their fantasies of a better life are both…
One of the most powerful relationships someone ever forms is the connection that they have with their own father. “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden and “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke are both poems that brilliantly describe this powerful relationship between father and son. The feelings that the poets have toward the subject are found deep within the two poems often hidden behind how the character feels toward his own father. Even though these poems were published in different time periods, one feels the similarities and differences within the tone, form, or even the imagery of the poems.…
Enrique’s story follows a young boy from Honduras life and journey to America. The author Sonia Nazario goal was to convey the truth about migrating and the horrors of coming to the US. After speaking with her maid carmen and Carmen’s son Minor she realized that the journey was very common and man single mothers left their children in central America to pursue income to send back to their homeland to take care of their families. Enrique’s mother Lourdes is an example of a single mother like carmen coming to America to help support he family.…
Daddy written by Sylvia Plath in 1962 shortly before her death is about her relationship with her father, Otto Plath. It has produced a variety of distinct reactions, from feminist praise of its unadulterated rage towards male dominance, to wariness at its usage of Holocaust imagery. I would like to adapt Daddy for a play based on Sylvia Plath and her relationship with her father. The theme for the play would be mortality of herself and her father and freedom and confinement. The play would feature Sylvia Plath and her relationship with het through the times. Featuring several acts the play; each act will go through different time periods in the life of Sylvia Plath. The technique I propose to use is drama in form of a play containing several characters. The major characters of the play would be Sylvia Plath, her father and the different people mentioned throughout the poem.…