Juana Ines de la Cruz was born in Mexico in 1648. She grew up in the Panayan Hacienda, which was run for her mother for more than thirty years although she never learned to read. Sor Juana started to take lessons at age or three. During a long period of her childhood, she didn’t eat cheese because “It made one slow-witted,” and “Desire for learning was stronger than the desire for eating.” By the time she was six or seven, she knew how to read and write. As she couldn’t go to the university (because she was a woman), she studied and read by herself. She used to cut-off several inches of her hair (when hair was considered one of the most important female features), as a challenge for new learning “A head shouldn’t be adorned with hair and naked of learning” If she didn’t meet the goal, then she cut it again. Sor Juana was sent to Mexico City when she was…
Susan Straight’s short story “Mines” centers on the main character, Clarette. Clarette, like many mothers have to juggle many aspects of life at the same time. Clarette is the epitome of the hardworking woman in a “man’s world”. Straight parallels the working life and family life of Clarette to depict the struggle that mothers have to go through to provide for their families .…
I was the first generation of my family to be born in the United States, so my family often spoke English and Spanish at home. When I entered pre-school I began learning more English and less Spanish. Throughout that year I began to speak less and less Spanish at all because I was ashamed of it. I yearned to be like the other girls in my class, those who spoke without an accent. My family rejoiced that I began speaking fluent English,…
On my first day of school, I was not able to communicate with my peers as Spanish was all I knew. Learning English became my priority and I worked meticulously every day to close the barrier between my peers and me. Fortunately, there was a bilingual teacher, Mrs.Verburg, who became the only person who could…
She remember that “caught speaking Spanish at recess- that was good for three licks on the knuckles with a sharp ruler” “go back to your Mexico where you belong”(Anzaldua 34). She got punished a lot just like this during her period of growing up. I believe she was suffered in this miserable in a long time, but when she grew up she realized she should value her own tongue and respect to it. She blamed the culture, the culture, which scolds the minority tongue. She described this kind of behavior as “Linguistic Terrorism”. She finally can trust herself, “Chicano Spanish is not incorrect, it is a living language.” (Anzaldua 35). She thinks every object existing in the world has their own magnificence; we should show our respect to all.…
I am Puerto Rican, or, as my family constantly reminds me, "boriqua". As a result, I grew up learning two languages; English and Spanish. However, ever since I have attended school I have lost much of my Spanish. Unlike the other kids who cried and clung to their moms, I was very enthusiastic about starting school. I think the enthusiasm came from my parent's encouragement to learn, as well as their assurance that they'd be there at the end of the day to pick me up and take me back home.…
For me, learning to read and write was long and felt like a drag to me; I took reading and writing for granted and never thought of the great advantages that every book had. It all started at home when I was five years old and my mom was teaching me how to write my name. In my head, I had trouble understanding on what I wrote but as far as I know that was my name. Finally the day came and it was time for me to go to school. I was scared; I did not know where I was, and I did not know a single word in English. There was no way my mom would stick me in an English classroom. They moved me to a Spanish one; there I had a more clear idea of what I was learning. The teacher was a sweet, calm lady; she had patience with bad writing, to this day I have not figured out whether she understood it or not. Once I learned my ABC’s here came the small words of animals and things like for example “oso” which means bear in Spanish. Learning to read and write seamed so boring. I had to sit down and do homework which required my attention, but I preferred to draw and play. Learning was torture; I would read very slowly, even when I tried to read those small picture books for small kids, I was useless by that time.…
Tanya Barrientos main point is that her parents spoke Spanish to each other on a regular basis, but insisted she and her siblings speak, read and write only in English. As a young woman growing she didn’t understand why her parents wanted this, but she did know the reason. So as she grew older, she started to feel uncomfortable with the fact that she was not fluent in Spanish, even though she was born in Guatemala of a Latin heritage.…
Being the second youngest in my family out of five children, you would think that reading would be easy for me growing up. But learning how to read was a challenge. It was something that I never thought I would be able to do without a lot of help from my father.…
The objective of this experiment was to determine if people have the ability to determine a real and fake smile. Volunteers are first asked how confident they are telling the difference between a real and fake smile. Volunteers then have to take a “Spot the fake smile” test. When the test is over and the volunteers have seen their results, ask the volunteers again how confident they are telling the difference between a real and fake smile. Record the results in a lab notebook and repeat steps with other volunteers. More volunteers misidentified real smiles as fake smiles than fake smiles as real smiles. When asked how confident they were on telling the difference between a real and fake smile, more said lower rates than higher rates. The scores and data recorded somewhat reflected on the hypothesis. More volunteers had higher scores after the test was over than lower scores. Further research may include increasing the number of volunteers. Results from this experiment may help Kinesics when studying facial expressions and body behavior.…
Everything was great until I went to school for the very first time. I remember feeling scared and out of place. Everyone around me spoke a language that I did not understand. It was not until a few days of going to school that a teacher finally spoke to me in Spanish and explained that everyone was speaking English. I knew the language as “lengua de el gringo,” which translates to “tongue of the gringo”.…
Finally the day came and it was time for me to go to school. I was scared; I did not know where I was, and I did not know a single word in English. There was no way my mom would stick me in an English classroom. They moved me to a Spanish one; there I had a more clear idea of what I was learning. The teacher was a sweet, calm lady; she had patience with my wiggly and off place writing, to this day I have not figured out whether she understood it or not. Once I learned my ABC’s here came the small words of animals and things like for example “oso” which means bear in Spanish. Learning to read and write seamed so boring. I had to sit down and do homework which required my attention, but I preferred to draw and play. Learning was torture; I would read very slowly, even when I tried to read those small picture books for small kids, I was useless by that time.…
about Rodriguez’s family and his relationship to it, his conflict of speaking English versus Spanish, and the paradox that became evident as he used English as his primary language. Since learning English, young Rodriguez noted the lack of intimacy there was in his home. Did the understanding of a new language affect the very close family? While I read this autobiography, there were tons of ideas that struck me. It was very interesting because so many of the different parts could relate to my life.…
From the time my mother taught me to speak Spanish to the time I first met my grandmother and still could not understand half the things she said. My life has been full of foreign people who left their native country for a better chance. The taught me man concepts that all seem from another world. They told me of things I never seen and how the societies them self where different from each other.…
Learning how to read was a difficult task for me because I never was the reading type. My mother always pushed me to be the best I could be and reading wasn't one. Having a strict well educated mother who puts my education above anything else has its perks. Every night she would read stories to me. Most of my reading came from when my mom would drive me to my dads work. She also made me read to her to help me pronounce words and improve my grammar skills. I'll never forget saying the alphabet over and over again, sounding out each letter's sound.…