As someone who recently graduated from college and changed career professions, unsure of where my life was headed I could relate to the book, Ten Years Later. After interviewing the author, Lisa Marie Latino I realized that everyone is going through the same situation. Trying to fit in, and pleasing others is a common mistake people make. Lisa Marie Latino gives us the facts about the process she endured when trying to write her book and the fears and emotions she faced before releasing it to the public.…
Michele Serros was born in 1966 in Oxnard, California. Serros was raised in Hispanic Community. Historically, Oxnard was originally inhabited by Native Americans the same location in which the story is being portrayed and also during Serros late childhood and mid-teens because, it was during the time when Radio frequencies named Citizens Band were popular. The narrator’s ancestors are obviously Indians because she explains how her nose looked “less Indian” with time because of her repeatedly squeezing her nose. This sort of action makes me believe that she is self-conscious about her appearance and how others may see her. She also describes her nose as hideous, less Californian. I can relate to her though because who doesn’t want to look beautiful? Who doesn’t want to be socially accepted? I personally don’t like my height or body shape and I feel that others see the same. Everyone has an image or idea on how one must look and how one must live such as perfect height, hair, eyes, weight, perfect parents with the prettiest house and the narrator believes that her best friend Terri had all these features. The girl looked up to Terri and loved going over to the house by how she described her feelings every time she arrived at Terri’s house and how she felt when she found out Terri’s father left her mother for another woman by saying “Who’d wanna leave a house that smelled like a pine forest and always had pudding pops in the freezer” (Pg.32)…
On a crisp night in Boston, all seemed well as Diane enjoyed a nice meal with her family, and the next day, her mom, dad, and brother were stolen by US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and she was stranded. The book In the Country We Love: My Family Divided, tells us the life story of Diane Guerrero, a Colombian girl who was born in the United States, unlike her parents and brother who were both born in Colombia. The author tells a heartbreaking story of a girl’s resilience in frightening situations, like isolation and poverty. Diane’s home life was turned upside down, but despite the countless number of nightmarish situations, Diane strived and pursued her dreams with no aid…
The purpose of Judith Ortiz story is to explain how hard, and at times uncomfortable it is to be a Latin woman, because of prejudice and stereotypes regarding their dress. Latin woman, are usually taught to dress in a “mature way”, which many times is confusing to both a Latina and the larger American culture. To a Latina, it is ok to dress sexy, and wear lots of jewelry, and accessories such as tight clothes, bangles, and big hoop earrings on different occasions. This style of dress however, becomes problematic particularly as it is what is taught in the culture as being formal and too often confused with being professional. For Ortiz’s generation, it was ok for woman to wear their best party clothes as she mention, to go and flirt with the boy they like in the park because they were protected by the extended family and traditional Catholic…
In this essay Barrientos argues that the language she speaks defines her identity and who she is as a person. As Barrientos was growing up, she realized being Latin-American was not what she wanted to be, she decided to didn’t want to speak Spanish, as Barrientos says, “To me, speaking Spanish translated into being poor.” She also said “It meant waiting tables and cleaning hotel rooms. It meant being poor.” She thought if she stayed away from Spanish stereotypes they would…
‘It’s Hard Enough Being Me’ by Raya is a short story about her own experience. It seems to be the cultural awakening of a female college student that occurs when she goes off to college in New York. Coming from the Mexican American family, Raya did not think much about where she comes from and who she is until college. Raya says, “In El Sereno, I felt like I was part of the majority, whereas at the College I am a minority” (119). Now that she is in a new environment, she feels detached from the society. Moreover, Raya’s mom did not want to teach her Spanish because she des not want her daughter be called “spic” or “wetback” (119). Raya had the advantage of being Mexican and Puerto Rican, but never had the chance to develop her main language when she was a little girl because it would be used against her. In this essay, the author uses the emotional appeal to show that how she is treated by Mexicans when she can’t speak perfect Spanish as well as how she is treated by Americans while attempting to speak the language. “Soy yo and no one else. Punto.”(120), this last sentence in her article uses two competing languages and it…
In the article, “It’s Hard Enough Being Me” written by Anna Lisa Raya. Anna Lisa struggled with her identity while she was an undergraduate student attending Columbia University in New York. She’s the daughter of a second-generation Mexican American father and a Puerto Rican mother and grew up in Los Angeles, California. Anna Lisa, all her life has identified herself as a Mexican. However, now that she’s in her new environment in college and having to identify herself with a broad term “Latina” she experiencing an identity crisis. She complained how complicated it was going from her hometown being part of a majority to entering college and now being the minority. As well as, being a sell out in her own race for not being able to speak the native language. I know from my own personal experiences defining who you are can be very difficult. Who defines us? Society and it’s…
Her images represent her individual uniqueness towards the self-created goal of the “perfect Colombian women.” Her Instagram account is her creative power. The definition of creative power of the individual is, “the process by which we each make original conceptions of ourselves and our world as we develop a style of life for pursuing the three tasks” (Adler, 1932). She is able to portray her life as extremely wealthy and extravagant. Her attire is nothing but the best, and her body is a shrine that any Colombian women would die to have. In that sense, Ariadna’s Instagram account strives for superiority. Striving for superiority is a common motive that society places on one another. It is considered the universal psychological phenomenon that includes the goals toward perfection, security, and strength (Adler, 1932). Ariadna’s post show her aim for perfection and she strives to be the perfect person. Her perfect image throughout her Instagram post could be considered a way to compensate for her inferiority. It could be that she feels inclined to look a certain way to be the best representation of Colombian’s beauty. Adler would say that anything that was filtered or concealed any possible flaw would be a way to compensate for her inferiority. She fears the chance of not representing her country well, and not being able to meet people’s…
In countries all around the world, beauty pageants are held as a long-standing tradition. Often, young women participate in these pageants. While pageants are said to present a sense of self-esteem and value for the participants, these competitions often cause damaging emotional issues for an already trying adolescent life. One young participant anonymously said, "I used to think I was pretty, but once I got on stage and didn't hear my name called the world came to an end and from then on, I've called myself ugly everyday" (Anonymous, 2010). When a girl feels as if she is being valued solely on her looks, she may change her personality and dietary habits to an unsafe level to continuously garner attention. The beauty pageant process is far from the safe harmonious competition it attempts to promote. As the rest of this essay suggest, damaging emotional scars often remain after the competitions are long gone, and pageants themselves harbor predatory dangers to young naïve girls.…
In today’s society it is believed that being of a certain color, a certain weight, and having specific characteristics is what makes someone beautiful. The movie “Little Miss Sunshine” directed by: Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, is about a young girl named Olive who dreams of being in beauty pageants. In the first scenes of the movie it shows Olive mimicking the winner of the Miss America pageant in ah and amazement. Olive is invited to the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in California by default, which leads her and her dysfunctional family on a great journey to California. Although the journey is filled with turmoil and loss, their main priority is to get Olive to the pageant. At first glance, Olive is not what one would think of when beauty comes to mind. She is pudgy, very tall for her age, with black rimmed coke bottle glasses, and a style only she can appreciate. By setting a specific model and certain standards The Little Miss Sunshine pageant is a symbol of commercialized American beauty.…
Moving to a new country is an emotional hardship and even harder when you leave family behind. Bharati Mukherjee uses her outlook on American as a new country to tell her story. By using American culture, conformity, and loss, the gains and losses of a new arrival becomes apparent in Bharati Mukherjee’s “A Wife’s Story.”…
In the face of public society, the individual is presented with a few social norms. There are two things that a person can do in response to these norms, either succumb to their pressure by conforming to these norms or resist by deviating from them. In Richard Rodriguez’s “Aria,” Rodriguez shows how he conforms to the pressure of the American public’s social norm of learning and speaking English. By learning English, Rodriguez is able to participate more in American society, while gaining acceptance from his peers and others around him. At the same time, Rodriguez is deviating from his and his family’s own personal social norm at home of communicating in Spanish and sticking to his culture and beliefs. In the long run, this hurts his family and causes a separation and loss of communication between him, his siblings and his parents, especially his father.…
In just twenty-four hours, I had discovered a whole new world inside an island. I wandered aimlessly in Central Park as the Dawn Chorus occurred, laid eyes on Andy Warhol’s collection in the Museum of Modern Art, learned an artist’s persona based off a photograph, questioned the stories of the sixth borough, spotted Banksy’s graffiti, and revealed a life’s worth of dilemmas to an alumni of Julliard on a building rooftop. Day by day, I encountered a different face that originated from another part of the globe. My doorman was raised in Palestine and had witnessed the murder of his brother by an Israeli. A waiter that I met at a Dim-Sum restaurant in Chinatown is an illegal immigrant that has slept in a crammed studio of ten people. Whether one is a professional model, a drug addict, a millionaire, a hustler, each person possesses a distinctive story to…
In the Miss World beauty pageant in 199 the Philippine’s contestant Sharmaine “Ruffa” Guttierez answered the question: “How would you tell a girl who’s suffering from low self-esteem to feel better about herself?” she said: “ I’ll tell her to believe in herself because it’s not only physical beauty that’s important but also inner beauty. Like what the Little Prince said, "What is essential is invisible to the naked eye." And I believe that character and personality are more important than physical beauty.” Everyone applauded and thought she would win the crown. But sadly Miss Guttierez only bagged the 2nd Runner-Up behind Miss South Africa and Jamaica.…
I was still having a dream when my alarm clock roared to life at exactly six in the morning. I focused my eyes on the cracks of the ceiling then I held my passport on my right hand. “Ava Kyara Pellosis, this is your time to shine “, I told myself. I’ll be flying to America at ten in the morning. This is a dream come true. After being the Philippine’s top model, I’ll be going to a new world today to show more of myself.…