A Prostitute A Servant And A Latina In Humanities Chapter Summary

On the other hand, personal experiences of a Puerto Rican woman are shown and she explains how people around her judge her behavior, her actions, and even the way she dresses.

During the time I been taking English 105 we have talked about many essays. Many of the essays we read in this semester were interesting essays in the 50 essays book. Most of the essays were inspirational to students. Some of the essays were very helpful they help develop our writing skills and how to be more descriptive in our essays. For the student learning outcome the essays should be interesting for the student to feel involved when talking about the essays. Many of the essays in our book were relatable to many students, yet there was one essay that ,in my opinion, did not have to be in our syllabus. In the essay "The Myth of the Latin Women: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria" by Judith Ortiz. The essay I did not believe it had to be in our syllabus because it really did not have to do much with the student learning outcome was "The Declaration of Independence" by Thomas Jefferson.

During the poetry reading, a woman motioned Cofer to a table and thought “that [Cofer] was a waitress” (Cofer 108). Cofer was carrying a notebook, yet the woman assumed Cofer was a waitress because she is a Latina. This demonstrated that people assumed that Latinas have the role of a housemaid, similar to the stereotype of Mammy from Gone with the Wind. If Cofer was a different race, she would not experience these incidents. The media’s poor portrayal of Latinas negatively affect how they are viewed in the real-world, especially when they hold such

Unfair laboring and immigration in the United States has affected Latinas/os lives for decades. In the United States millions of Latina/o citizens, emigrants, and immigrants have dealt with bias, racially segregated, and limited positions in regards to labor. They have been limited to blue collar jobs with low wages, no benefits, and hardly any raises. In the article, “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy”, Andrea Smith argues, “This framework does not assume that racism and white supremacy is enacted in a singular fashion; rather, white supremacy is constituted by separate and distinct, but still interrelated, logics.” (Smith 67). I believe that Andrea Smith’s two of the Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Genocide/Colonialism and Orientalism/War fits with Latina/o labor and immigration. I also believe that her first pillar of Slavery/Capitalism could be displayed slightly differently to be more suitable with Latina/o labor and immigration. In this paper I will argue how the two out of the three pillars fit with Latina/o labor and immigration. I will also argue and propose a new pillar to represent Latinas/os labor and immigration. I will also argue how sexuality, power, and gender play a role in these three pillars.

In a scene from the film, Selena, Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, a Mexican-American singer, is ignored by a white sales woman. The sales woman judges Selena on the color of her skin, determining her social status as one unimportant to her business, not realizing that Selena was actually a celebrity. Just as the sales woman predetermined a role for Selena rooted by race and ethnicity, Waretown High maintained class, gender, and race stereotypes in determining girl’s futures and outcomes. Julie Bettie’s Women Without Class discusses these stereotypes through expectations set for las chicas and the preps by the school, families, and themselves, the exclusion of hard-living students, those whose families were low income, and the ability for some girls to become upwardly mobile as an exception to the rules.

Both of these essays reflect on facing prejudice with a particular audience in mind: Cofer’s intended demographic is white men, while Staples is addressing society as a whole, but particularly white women. Cofer wants men to know that Latina women are not the sexual deviants they are stereotyped as; they are not simply the “whore,

Through her personal experiences, Lugo-Lugo reels in her audience by connecting with them emotionally. She recalls many stories of when she was a victim of discrimination due to her race and sex. As a professor, students viewed her differently from her colleagues, due to the fact that she is Latina and a woman. On the first day of classes Lugo-Lugo explains one of the incidents that took place in her classroom, “Student: I do not feel like being in the classroom today, and since my parents pay for your

Throughout the essay, Lugo-Lugo wants one to become informed on prevalent issues in the average college classroom by allowing the reader to appeal to her through emotions. She uses personal stories and thoughts on college profiting accordingly to portray the issue amongst her classroom. As she mentions in her essay that her “...position within both U.S. society and academia is an important component of [her] discussion… A woman of color who is a Puerto Rican…. And those markers mean something at the beginning of the twenty-first century in and outside the U.S. academy” (Lugo-Lugo 190). She also describes how her image and identity is automatically judged, “These identities, they inform the way I position myself in relation to other gendered and

Inequalities within minorities is not limited to economic unfairness but also social inequity. The second story that shows how inequality within minorities is “The Myth of the Latin Woman” by Judith Ortiz Cofer. “The Myth of the Latin Woman” is an essay based on the real life experiences of Judith Ortiz Cofer. The story talks about the racist inequalities she has went through as a women of Hispanic descent. “a young man, obviously fresh from a pub, spotted me and as if struck by inspiration went down on his knees in the aisle. With both hands over his hearts he broke into an an Irish tenor’s rendition of Maria from West Side Story”. The author retells one of her experiences from earing graduate credits one summer and she is met by someone whom ignorantly makes racists remark simply because she is Latina. Furthermore in the story Cofer mentions how people gave the man a round of applause. “amused fellow passengers gave his voice the round of gentle applause” (Page 61). This shows that it is acceptable to generalize an ethnic group into a character from West Side Story. In addition to the unfair generalization, Cofer is confronted unfair expectations. I thought you Latin girls were supposed to mature early”. This is unfair assumption made to Cofer. She is treated like a vegetable rather than a girl who traditionally grows into womanhood. This also generalizes Latin women to be matured at a young age. Which is incorrect just because Latinas fall into a small category in society

Throughout the essay, Lugo-Lugo uses personal experiences and builds bridges with her audience to further establish emotional appeals. Carmen Lugo-Lugo is a woman of color, specifically a Latina. Latinos have become so stereotyped, that people’s portrayals and descriptions of them have become so ingrained in their minds that

Lulu taunted as I walked into the girl’s bathroom one day. ‘You think you’re better than us? Well, you’re just a spick, and don’t you forget it’ (36,37). Following the terrorist attacks on 9/11, in Bird of Paradise, Raquel remembers seeing: “A white T-shirt with bold black letters that read, ‘I’M NOT A TERRORIST, I’M DOMINICAN… I start to eavesdrop on conversations and overhear other Latino’s recounting stories of being harassed because of how they look” (139). The racism that Latin American’s have experienced, and continue to experience in America is absurd, much of it based on what they look like.

Michael Pickering presents numerous concepts of stereotypes in his book Stereotyping: The Politics of Representation, that can be applied to a myriad of situations and texts. His most valid points comprise of, but are not limited to, stereotyping as a gain and loss as well as how stereotyping creates an inflexible way of thinking. These concepts are plainly exhibited in Junot Diaz’s How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie); a story giving explicit directions on how to treat certain races of girls in order to have sexual relations with them and how far they would be sexually expected to go.

There was a clear division between the rich and the poor, the white and the people of color. Holding somewhere from 400-500-students, they offered limited A.P. and honor courses, sport, clubs and counselors. However, all of these resources were created for the daughters and sons of white farmers, and if space permitted, we people of color were allowed to apply. Applying for such courses included essays, interviews, and transcripts as a way to prove our capacities and worth to partake in such opportunities. As professor Abrego stated, this is how hegemony does, it “shifts”, and tries to incorporate new populations into their institutions, yet with the intentions of maintaining the same power relations (Lecture 2/3/2016). In this case, those at the top were willing to open the door for the underserved, but imposed extra requirement to discourage them those “inferior” ones, in other words it was academic profiling. Nonetheless, the other side of the school had high rates of substitute teachers, lacks preparatory classes, and has police officer monitoring student’s actions. Just like mentioned in Rios’ book “Punished,” these young individuals were exposed to a system that was setting them up to

María Alejandrina Cervantes is the prostitute in Gabriel García Márquez’s novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Her characterization is a strategic choice to portray prostitutes and the profession of prostitution as respectable and honorable. García Márquez uses descriptive words to illuminate the mundane and give praise to behaviour that would usually be degraded. By characterizing María Alejandrina Cervantes unexpectedly, he forces a shift in the reader’s outlook on prostitution. María Alejandrina Cervantes enchants the reader and gains their sympathy for her profession through her intriguing and illusive qualities. García Márquez chose María’s name strategically, the biblical references make her more relatable and depict prostitution honourably.

On the other hand, Villanueva’s work reveals how racism can be used to block or inhibit academic excellence. Many students have dreams of achieving success through academic excellence but end up failing due to issues of racism and discrimination raised against them, especially if they are from a minority group in a multicultural society. Racism limits employment opportunities after completing college education. The author presents instances of language use that inhibit academic excellence for the people of color living in America. The author, using his own academic life to undertake the research, claims that most professors use rhetoric rather than logic to make judgments on academic papers presented to them