A Prostitute A Servant And A Latino

The story “Woman Hollering Creek" by Sandra Cisneros describes the lives of Mexicans in a Chicago neighborhood. She depicts the life that women endure as Latino wives through her portrayal of the protagonist, Cleofilas. For Cisneros being a Mexican-American has given her a chance to see life from two different cultures. In addition, Cisneros has written the story from a woman’s perspective, illustrating the types of conflicts many women face as Latino wives. This unique paradigm allows the reader to examine the events and characters using a feminist critical perspective.

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 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

Caminero-Santangelo, Marta. 2007. On Latinidad: U.S. Latino Literature and the Construction of Ethnicity. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.

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,

Stereotypes are dangerous weapons in our society. “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” is a short essay in which the award winning poet and professor of English, Judith Ortiz Cofer, wishes to inform and persuade the audience that labels and stereotypes can be humiliating and hurtful. The author targets the general public, anyone that doesn’t understand that putting someone in a box because of a stereotype is wrong. Cofer starts out the essay by telling the reader a story with a drunk man who re-enacted “Maria” from the West Side Story, and how angry that made her feel. She continues by explaining how she grew up in the United States being a Puerto Rican girl trying to fit in, but always being labeled as an island girl. Cofer carries on by explaining why Latin people get dressed and act a certain way. Then she recalls some more stereotypical incidents.

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

Women themselves perpetuate their inferiority; the author recounts a moment in her life when her emotional connection with her mother was interrupted abruptly by a telephone call from her brother. In this instance, the mother chose to speak with her son, the Chicano, over her daughter, the Chicana.

As I stared into my reflection, I began questioning my identity. I felt as though the world was was condemning me for not fitting society’s image of the “typical Latino”. I began to hang my head down in shame. I was apprehensive to show my culture because I would be ridiculed for not being Latino enough.

In this article, “The Myth of the Latin Woman” Cofer has talked about many incidents from her life where she was talked about, from a young girl the adult life. Ortiz Cofer is so ardent about this topic of stereotyping Latin women because she was a native women of the Puerto Rico area who really grew up in the United States. There is how she witnessed firsthand how hurtful stereotyping could be. In “The Myth of the Latin Woman”, She has repeated use of Spanish words in the essay to shows her audience how proud she is of the Latin heritage. she continuously uses other words, such as Puerto Rican, and Latina to stress the names she heard growing up. Because she has been brought up to love her Latin culture, she was often stereotyped here in the United States. As you can see, this is why she became so involved with trying to bring people so much awareness to the

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

Ever since the election in 2016 in which Donald Trump won presidency in the United States, certain individuals have been very comfortable in letting their opinionated stereotypes come out into the world, in some places where they are not wanted. These stereotypes and prejudices exist against all minority races: that they are lazy, not hard working, cannot speak our language, amongst other things. It is now a common occurrence to come across a video on the internet of racists yelling at these minority people for being in this country and other senseless reasons. These stereotypes, however, have existed long before the time of Donald Trump being sworn into office, and people have been fighting them the entire time. Latina professor and author Carmen R

Through her language Carmen Lugo-Lugo uses literary devices to express her emotions with her experiences. She uses hyperboles to emphasize her writing, “and, regardless of who pays for my services, I am your professor, not your personal prostitute.” this statement draws the reader's attention and causes them to acknowledge what she is saying. This exaggeration may be seen as much but it got exactly what she wanted it do to. When she uses words like “prostitute, sexy latina, and exotic beauty” they bring forth certain emotions within the reader. That type of language is not used in the everyday conversation, so when it is brought up it turns heads. She aimed for this because she knew it would get this reaction out of her readers. Her intention was clear and she chose her diction very precisely to get her issue across. Through emotion evoking words Lugo-Lugo is able to embed in her audience the anger and frustration that has accumulated. Her crowd

Another problem with colleges is not the institution itself, but the students. Too many students are used to throwing their money around, and so they do the same at college. With the help of money, they expect faster registration, first pick of classes, and even professors that heed their every beck and call. In “A Prostitute, a Servant, and a Customer-Service Representative: a Latina in Academia”, Professor Lugo-Lugo recalls a time where a student had the audacity to demand that she cancel class, with his justification simply being because his parents paid for her salary (189). She also mentioned that students would contact her, and then get upset if she didn’t reply within 24 hours. What these students do not seem to understand is that professors are humans as well. They have set hours in which they work.