The women's role in the Puerto Rican culture is not expected to reach further than a homemaker. If you were young, then you must help with the chores around the house. Going out with friends was prohibited, unless you had the proper chaperone. Even at the age of 16, a young woman is highly protected. You may now understand why the father was so over protective and difficult to bare.
The women's role in America is much more different than Puerto Rico. Freedom is given and does not bound a woman to what a male allows. The respect is much higher. Females try to achieve higher standards in life, much more than just a homemaker. At the age of 16, a girl is most likely allowed to be with friends un-chaperoned.
The parents obey the Puerto Rican Culture because it is what they grew up with. They want their daughter to be raised the same way. This is shown because they enforce the same rules. The daughter wants to follow the American culture, but her family restricts her. When arguing with her father, she points out that they do not live in Puerto Rico anymore, it is Patterson, NJ. She uses examples such as the scenery outside to exploit the situation. The parents never seem to care.
So do you see the differences between the family. I agree with parents for a few reasons. They are teaching their daughter respect. She is also reading a lot, and developing an adventurous imagination along with a strong vocabulary. The one thing I disagree with is that the daughter is prevented from being with friends. Being with friends increases your social skills. In America these days, social skills are what you need to succeed. It does show that she did follow the correct path though. She is now a successful author writing about her past. Without her conflicts, she may not have been where she is today.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
Judith Ortiz Cofer establishes the ethos of racial prejudice through her background, education and her own experiences. As she begins to talk about how you can travel far away from the Island, but then she states that, “if you are a Latina, especially one like me….the Island travels with you.” From previous experience, she’s able to know that being Latina can win someone's attention for extra minute, but in other people, it just makes her feel like an island that’s a “place nobody wants to visit”. She knows the feeling of resentment because she was a Puerto Rican girl growing up in the United States, and all that she wanted was to “belong” in society and not draw attention to herself because her appearance was different than others. With knowing…
- 164 Words
- 1 Page
Satisfactory Essays -
The family must overcome the immense challenges of translating their American lives and religion into the culture of the Congo. It is a culture that is so different from their own - not only in language and customs, but in mundane facets as well, including a disparity in weather and type of vegetation - forcing the family to struggle to even just survive. Soon, the political ravages of the continent catch up with the family and they find themselves in the whirlwind of government coups and the violence that follows. The closing portion of the novel details each of the Price girl's lives as they try, and sometimes fail, to leave Africa - both physically and emotionally. Each of the Price women's lives are tied up with this land that ravaged their family and disrupted the life they thought they once…
- 1176 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
The film portrays Mariana, the female protagonist’s quick fall into poverty with her two young children. Over the course of a summer, Mariana loses her apartment and is homeless and desperate to take care of her children. Her husband’s friends effectively avoid her and leave her isolated with no knowledge of English or means to support herself. Mariana’s story is about the lack of support single immigrant women receive in terms of housing, health, childcare, and employment services. The film also shows the undue burden that Mariana’s children pose to her. Childcare almost always falls on the backs of women, especially immigrant women. Her children are precious to her, but she has a harder time finding employment because she cannot leave her young children alone. This time in their lives is a transformative moment for the…
- 1352 Words
- 6 Pages
Powerful Essays -
In Garcia’s study, she points out the different experiences that Latina girl’s and their mothers went through in terms of housework and outside labor. Mothers, for example, did paid labor outside the home and saw it as a necessity to being a good mother. Young Latina’s, however, often worked the “second shift” as well as their current job. This “second shift” is a term that was “introduced by sociologist Arlie Hochschild to describe the additional and unpaid labor done by some family members when they arrive from work.”(413) Some of these unpaid job duties include grocery shopping, cooking, running errands, household work and caring for the children. Latina mothers believed that working outside the home was essential to being a good mother as it allowed them to financially contribute to the family whether they were single or married women.…
- 517 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
In When I Was Puerto Rican, sometimes responsibility isn’t chosen but given. The reason for this is because Esmeralda’s mother has been giving Esmeralda, as the oldest, pressure in responsibilities and the mindset of maturity too early on. She has grown accustomed to responsibilities but yet it has been too much for her to handle on her own as stated on page 181 “When I came home, I had wrapped myself in responsibilities mom was about to drop on me. It felt heavy, too big for me.”…
- 360 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Through first-person reminiscences and interviews, the viewer can have an insight into the problems that the Puerto Rican population has to face in terms of language barriers, school problems, and welfare dependence. One of the key scenes in Puerto…
- 429 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
“Patricia deja de comer comida en la calle, para eso cocino.” These are words that I constantly hear from my mother whenever I eat outside of the house. My mother is a strict Dominican mother who believes that food from the streets will make me sick or gain weight in an unhealthy way. In the story We’re Not by Andrea Roman, author mentions that her parents could not understand certain unacceptable actions in their culture were acceptable to practice in the United States. My mother is a person who I believe does not understand that neither. Most of our latino parents want to follow and continue to contribute to their culture traditions and beliefs. Sometimes they just make it hard for us to understand, just like the author of the book does not…
- 803 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
The circumstances that Richard Rodriguez dealt with all circled around the fact that his parents were not natives of the United States and everything that follows this. Richard Rodriguez came from a family where his parents had been born and raised in Mexico. After moving from there, they settled in America, and gave birth to him and his siblings. Being from a different culture causes a definite strain on the family trying to keep their culture while being immersed in another that's so different. This is an experience that I struggled with as well, because my parents were not born in this country and have a real distrust of it at times, so I could completely relate to the words within the narrative.…
- 1019 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
Women roles in America were similar to the women roles in most countries. Women were responsible to care for their husband,…
- 980 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
The mother believes that domestic knowledge will not only save her daughter from a life of promiscuity and ruin but will also empower her as the head of her household and a productive member of the community. She basically believes that there are only two types of women: the respectable kind and the “sluts.” Undoubtedly for many Caribbean women, domestic knowledge leads to productivity, which in turn wins respect from family and society. Household work therefore brings power and even prestige to women in addition to keeping them busy and away from temptation. Readers recognize the reverence the mother has for the power of domesticity because of the numerous specific instructions she gives…
- 814 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Women in America versus women in many other countries are treated much differently. Some differences between American women and women in other countries are both positive and negative which reflect on marriage, pregnancy, discrimination, and education. In the United States we females are allowed to be independent and while some may still think otherwise, we are mostly looked at as an equal to men. Women in other countries only dream of that independence, which may be why so many families immigrate here, to the United States.…
- 792 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
References: Countries and Their Cultures (2010) – Puerto Rican Americans, Retrieved July 5, 2010 from…
- 1531 Words
- 7 Pages
Good Essays -
The duties and roles of the Puritan women differed from that of their husband’s. In the patriarchal lifestyle, where men were the head of the household, women transferred subordination from their father to their husband (Themes and Variations in Men’s and Women’s Roles in Colonial America). Women were not to challenge men, have a temper, or be insubordinate to their husbands. Even though it was a patriarchy, husbands still entrusted the women with a wide range of practical responsibilities and viewed them as “deputy husbands” (Religion, Women, and the Family in Early America). As a housewife, they were expected to fulfill various duties throughout the day. The major duties were made up of food and clothing production, childbearing, the health of the family, and child-rearing. Being a mother was the most important role for a Puritan woman. As a mother, women had direct authority over their children. It was the Puritan women’s responsibility to bring up the children of their society correctly. Religious piety, manners, discipline, and affection were a few of the many things that the women taught their children (Childbirth and Motherhood). Through the act of child-rearing, women were able to gain social status based on their skill. Under a patriarchy, the Puritan women were still able to obtain and uphold particular rights. The different tasks that the women were…
- 945 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
Throughout the last century women were able to change the point of view of their gender to be more productive to society rather than just a reproductive member of society and a stay home mother. The laws that were applied to give women a voice has changed also the way business is now conducted and even incorporating women in political roles. But before all this occurred in Latin America, there were first important moments in history that lead up to these freedoms for the female gender. Women had different roles when the first conquistadors came to America as some were slaves, whores, or family members. Before this the Aztecs and the Incas saw women of inferior degree than men as they were not able to do the hard labour that it required to build and cultivate at the same strength that men did. Most women in the colonial period were consorts or wives to replace the European women they could not have. At first this was approved by the Spaniards to mix the races but then…
- 1010 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “One More Lesson” is about her growing up in Puerto Rico with her family while her father was in the Navy. When her father was shipped to Paterson, New Jersey, he sent for them to move there in a little barrio along with him; Judith didn’t like this at all. You would think she would like moving from Puerto Rico to America, but in the mid-1950s America was a lot different. Back then America was viewed as a “melting pot”. “The idea then was that although we may have different immigrant backgrounds, we should strive toward some common “Americanism”. For some, this is still a powerful idea, but for others the melting pot is a metaphor for cultural hegemony or even racial prejudice, a demand that differences be ignored and erased rather than celebrated.” (The Curious Writer 92) During her younger years first moving to New Jersey, Americans didn’t help in teaching immigrants the American way; they created a melting pot and treated them as if it’s their fault that they didn’t know much in English.…
- 527 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays