one more lesson
One More Lesson”
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.
Which brings along the meaning of the essay, I believe the message of the essay is to show the reader that the more you practice at what your bad at the better you will become at it. Judith didn’t understand English at all minus a few words she heard from her father talking, she would get ignored and receive no help at all from teachers because of her bad use of English, after all of this like she said “I quickly built up my arsenal of words by becoming an insatiable reader of books.”( Cofer 92) What did she do? Judith learned English by reading and reading and reading. This essay I think is supposed to teach the reader that to become a better writer you have to just keep practicing, that you’re going to be shot down a lot by your bad writing, but the more you write the better you will get, just like Judith had to keep reading to be able to understand English. The point of her writing is that you should just keep writing, you’ll get
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.
Which brings along the meaning of the essay, I believe the message of the essay is to show the reader that the more you practice at what your bad at the better you will become at it. Judith didn’t understand English at all minus a few words she heard from her father talking, she would get ignored and receive no help at all from teachers because of her bad use of English, after all of this like she said “I quickly built up my arsenal of words by becoming an insatiable reader of books.”( Cofer 92) What did she do? Judith learned English by reading and reading and reading. This essay I think is supposed to teach the reader that to become a better writer you have to just keep practicing, that you’re going to be shot down a lot by your bad writing, but the more you write the better you will get, just like Judith had to keep reading to be able to understand English. The point of her writing is that you should just keep writing, you’ll get