Puerto Rico Essay
Compared to how the U.S was developing into a powerful country, Puerto Rico was a very poor place in the 1940s. If you were to look up a picture of New York in the 1940’s, you’d see that it’s quite similar to how it is nowadays in the sense that you see a lot of taxis/cars, a lot of businessmen, and a lot of skyscrapers. In the 1940’s, cities like the one I just mentioned didn’t exist in Puerto Rico, just a lot of countryside, therefore, there were a lot of mountains, a lot of farm animals, and the beautiful Puerto Rican beaches. Sadly, almost everyone in those times were male chauvinists, as well as in some states in the U.S. There was always this stereotype that women couldn’t do anything except having kids and raising them. In Puerto Rico, the men were the ones in charge of bringing an
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income into the household; it would be very rare to see women doing the bidding of man in those decades.
Even if we don’t want to admit it, there are always things that we stick by from our upbringing, like certain sayings, customs, and behaviors. Depending on the way we were brought up, it normally explains our outlook on certain aspects/subjects in life. For example, a person who had a rough childhood tends to be more mature and serious, while a person, who had a great childhood, tends to have a merrier, outgoing personality as well as a more positive outlook in life. Just like the example, our childhoods tend to mold our future, mold our way of deciding how to act on certain situations, or how respond to certain comments, or how to decide what to do in certain things. Our culture also influences our personalities; for example, Latino men tend to have the reputation for being sexists, on some occasions it’s true, but it’s because of the cultures in Latin America, just like Americans tend to have the reputation for being racists (it’s a reputation, it doesn’t make it true), if said reputation were true, it would probably be because of their ancestry, given that most American families were racists back in the 40’s. So, based on the author’s upbringing/culture, it will definitely affect his way of expressing certain topics and voicing out his opinions on others. It will also affect his/her likes and dislikes on certain things they’re writing about.
There were a lot of things that happened in the book that I found were similar to historical events in Puerto Rico, like slavery.
Sadly, in Puerto Rico’s history, Europeans brought Africans to be enslaved and tortured and I found myself feeling sympathy for Jim quite often. But, I was able to feel sympathy towards him because I know a lot of the things that slaves like him had to go through to be able to survive because of my history and my culture. We Puerto Ricans have a mix of a lot of races in our blood, so a lot of us try to learn as much as possible about the ones we know of. I definitely think that my upbringing, culture, and history affect the way I criticize books and other aspects in life. Every person has a different view on a same subject, like in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. There are persons that probably found interests on certain aspects of the book, but there are others that liked other aspects, we’re all different, and every critique is unique. The purpose of a critique is to find a new perspective on the matter, so we can continue to learn new aspects of the same subject, if anything, that’s what critiques like Sanford Pinsker and Tom Quirk’s taught
me.
income into the household; it would be very rare to see women doing the bidding of man in those decades.
Even if we don’t want to admit it, there are always things that we stick by from our upbringing, like certain sayings, customs, and behaviors. Depending on the way we were brought up, it normally explains our outlook on certain aspects/subjects in life. For example, a person who had a rough childhood tends to be more mature and serious, while a person, who had a great childhood, tends to have a merrier, outgoing personality as well as a more positive outlook in life. Just like the example, our childhoods tend to mold our future, mold our way of deciding how to act on certain situations, or how respond to certain comments, or how to decide what to do in certain things. Our culture also influences our personalities; for example, Latino men tend to have the reputation for being sexists, on some occasions it’s true, but it’s because of the cultures in Latin America, just like Americans tend to have the reputation for being racists (it’s a reputation, it doesn’t make it true), if said reputation were true, it would probably be because of their ancestry, given that most American families were racists back in the 40’s. So, based on the author’s upbringing/culture, it will definitely affect his way of expressing certain topics and voicing out his opinions on others. It will also affect his/her likes and dislikes on certain things they’re writing about.
There were a lot of things that happened in the book that I found were similar to historical events in Puerto Rico, like slavery.
Sadly, in Puerto Rico’s history, Europeans brought Africans to be enslaved and tortured and I found myself feeling sympathy for Jim quite often. But, I was able to feel sympathy towards him because I know a lot of the things that slaves like him had to go through to be able to survive because of my history and my culture. We Puerto Ricans have a mix of a lot of races in our blood, so a lot of us try to learn as much as possible about the ones we know of. I definitely think that my upbringing, culture, and history affect the way I criticize books and other aspects in life. Every person has a different view on a same subject, like in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. There are persons that probably found interests on certain aspects of the book, but there are others that liked other aspects, we’re all different, and every critique is unique. The purpose of a critique is to find a new perspective on the matter, so we can continue to learn new aspects of the same subject, if anything, that’s what critiques like Sanford Pinsker and Tom Quirk’s taught
me.