There’s this old man that is wise, you might think he is as well. Gentleman of Rio En Medio by Juan A. A. Sedillo is about Don Anselmo and Americans buying Don’s house. All the Trouble the Americans went through just to get what they wanted. Don is not only selling his home, but he is also selling four acres for twelve-hundred dollars. Little did Don know he had twice as much acres than he thought, eight acres.…
In Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca's Relacion, Cabeza de Vaca writes an account of his disastrous expedition to the New World, as well as providing a legal document in which the rhetoric of his narrative transforms his story of failure into a story of success. In chapter thirty-four, Cabeza de Vaca uses the three elements of rhetoric; ethos, logos, and pathos, to express that Spanish law is unsuitable for the circumstances encountered in the New World.…
One main central idea from the article "The New Heros" is that no matter how old you are you can still make a very big difference in your community whether you're trying to change something huge or something small, and it doesn't matter the size of your project. In this article, the author talks about how Albina Ruiz was worried about her communities health and environmental status because of all the pollution from people throwing out their waste into the streets, rivers, and empty lots.…
Throughout the essay “Joyas Volardoras”, Brian Doyle describes the heart of different animals and gives details of how those animals live their life according to their necessities. As we can see in the first 3 paragraphs, the author introduces the hummingbirds to us with many facts and descriptions. Doyle begins this essay by saying: “Consider the hummingbird for a long time”, and then he starts to narrate how fast a hummingbird's heart beats and how strong but fragile they can be. As you keep reading, you will find out that, Doyle is not talking about hummingbirds anymore. Now he is comparing a hummingbird to a tortoise. He says:…
Alejandro de la Fuente is writing an argument on slavery with different point of view, narrating a debate based on the Law in Latin America. The different prespectives are from Tannenbaum who is well known as a big influence during slavery, Christopher Schmidt-Nowara and Maria Elena Diaz. The author started with a confession about what he thinks of the work that this people have done and explaining their position and point of view. Slave opportunites such as slave codes, immigration and education, were part of this debate. To fiish the main claim of his article, the author gave an example of how slaves who claim their priorities gain a little of victory making an impact in the administration of justice, in this case, the local justice. Even…
Cabeza de Vaca: Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca was born in Jerez de la Frontera in the Southern parts of Spain. Cabeza de Vaca enrolled in the Spanish military as a mature man and battled with honor at the clash of Ravenna in 1512 in Italy. Due to his military assistance to the Spanish crown at that time and then well along throughout a short-lived civil war in Spain he earned the promotion as bookkeeper or also known as accountant and a lieutenant in the mission of Panfilo de Narvaez in 1527-1528. Narvaez a small contributor in the victory of Mexico left Spain in 1527 with about 5 ships and with an agreement by Charles V (the Holy Roman Emperor). This bond allowed Narvaez to colonize and land in the area amongst Rio de Las Palmas and Florida.…
In the passage “Joyas Voladoras,” the author Brian Doyle uses the heart as a metaphor to help him communicate his main idea about the differences between life, love, and its state of vulnerability. To start, Doyle uses many examples to display his ideas, but his first example is the hummingbird. He describes how fragile the small bird is by saying, A hummingbird s heart is the size of a pencil eraser. A hummingbird s heart is a lot of the hummingbird. (Doyle)…
There is a South African Proverb that states "Until lions write books, history will always glorify the hunter". In his play "Los Vendidos", Luis Valdez tries to become a lion and let the voice of Chicano history be heard. Luis Valdez does this in a satirical way by presenting the views and stereotypes that many American's have had and continue to have, about Chicano's in the form of a shop where Chicano "model/robots" are sold. By presenting each Chicano as a robot and stereotype, Luis Valdez tries to earse of the "models" of Chicano's that people have in their heads and tries to point out that there is a strong Chicano culture and a rich history that has been ignored by American's for years. "Los Vendidos" is a challenge to all people but…
Have you ever been hurt by someone or have someone break your trust? Would you ever trust that person again?Or would you just never trust again? Brian Doyle’s essay made me think of these questions when he started talking about trust and giving our trust to people but always getting your heart broken in the end. In the essay “Joyas Voladoras” by Brian Doyle, it illustrates that you can try to protect your heart and trust by locking it up and keeping it from the outside world but it will always be broken by someone or something. Brian Doyle never says that he is using this theme because it is left to the reader…
The sorrowful, yet loving relationship between Quick and Fish is a realistic representation of human relationships and the pain they often bring. Both Quick and Fish bring despair into their relationship, conveyed…
De Vaca’s journey as depicted in his narrative offers an in-depth look into the lives of the natives who he calls Indians throughout his writing. Being European, he found the behavior of the Native Americans as peculiar and interesting and goes ahead to discuss it in his narratives. De Vaca speaks of how the native Americans who he calls Indians greet each other. This he sees in how they greet him and his entourage after he returns. The welcoming and greeting was a huge celebration of dance and music accompanied by a celebratory mood, which De Vaca did not understand at first and even believed that they were going to be sacrificed.…
The author first humanizes the descriptive account of a whale to make further connection to humans. In the second and third lines of the prose, both similes and house metaphor are present: “as big as a room” and “as big as swinging doors in a…
When Brian is walking home from school he changes into a bird because it is pretty and he wants someone to notice him. This shows that Brian is longing for someone to notice him and his abilities and that he wants to be something else,”I mean he could simply decide he wanted to be an object and poof” Another example of when Brian hates himself so he changes into something is when Brian is in math class and every time they got five questions right that student would get a marble. Brian wonders what is would be like to be marble and poof he was a marble. While some people think this part is nothing I think this part of the story means a lot because again this show that Brian is trying to be something that he's not because he hates himself for what he is.…
America was formed on violence. The American Revolution is a prime example of fighting for freedom. However, America also formed from the people the colonists fought, they were fighting to keep their land, for belonging and justice. The exploration and colonization of the Europeans caused an incredible amount of violence, pain, and death for the Native Americans. The greed they had and the disregard for the Native Americans has shaped what America has become today, however awful it might have been then. Even through the pain and violence, love influenced America too. These two unrelenting forces often go hand and hand, especially in literature. In the literary pieces throughout the ages, the impact of violence…
Hummingbirds live a fast paced life. “Each one visits a thousand flowers a day” Doyle writes, “they can drive at sixty miles an hour…. They can fly more than five hundred miles without pausing to rest” (273). Each of these ideas displaying how busy the birds is all hours of the day. But behind every trip to a flower and every mile they cover, is the heart. Doyle claims, “they have race-car hearts that eat oxygen at an eye-popping rate” (273). Their hearts are beating faster than most of us could even recognize, but it allows them to fly fast and visit thousand upon thousand of flowers in a lifetime. “It’s expensive to fly. You burn out. You fry the machine. You melt the engine” (273). In this statement, Doyle is claiming that the heart just cannot keep up the fast pace of life forever; it eventually wears out and just quits.…