Aguero Sisters Cultural Identity

In which, she describes the degree of difficulty her Uncle endured, to receive a visa to leave Cuba and work elsewhere and raise his family. He uncle was forced to endure harsh circumstances as described in the memoir such as; “being forced to work ten hours a day planting, tending, and eventually cutting sugarcane. For lunch, he would often eat just a mango and swallow a fistful of sugar to boost his energy. Evening meals in the mess hall usually consisted of watery soup made from cow bones that hung from the kitchen’s ceiling and were recycled night after night.” This speaks to the dedication and determination that her uncle had to be in a better position and place to build his family and escape the seemingly tyrannical reign of Fidel Castro. According to Mirta, his once fine hands, that were capable of shuffling papers and operating calculators, were reduced to rough, callused, and swollen appendages. At the risk of losing the visa, the very thing he had been fighting for, he continued throughout and despite these conditions for three years, in order to be able to provide his family with opportunities in America, being able to buy a house in Miami for his wife and two kids. The fruits of America seemed to be convicting enough for her uncle to sail to Cuba to get Mirta and her

Which, of course she accepts without much intensive thought. In this new line of work, Maria travels to America, experiencing horrors that change her life, and new found realities that determine her future.

In the novel, we read through Richard Blanco’s childhood in Miami. Growing up in a family of Cubans is a challenge. Through his stories, he searches for identity and belonging. Blanco shares experiences, in which he finds a sense of self. He discusses the importance of being who you are no matter what. Through knowledge and experience, Richard Blanco and I have experienced “Coming of Age”. When you are in the process of this transition, you may go through some conflicts or struggles. These conflicts will most probably teach you life lessons. You will gain wisdom throughout these years, which will make you more mature.

In the book, How the García girls lost their accent, by Julia Alvarez, who utilizes rhetorical devices in the passage chosen to develop the conflict that Yolanda is facing in the story by using imagery, simile, and anaphora in order to evince how Yolanda’s conflict with her husband John plays a role in her horrible breakdown and her journey to revive the love she had for her native language and culture.

“María Isabel does not say good-bye to her daughter. She does not hug her. She gets out of the car and walks briskly into the business terminal. She does not look back. She never tells her she is going to the United States” (240).

One of the main sources of tension in How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents, written by Julia Alvarez, are the sisters search for a personal identity among contrasting cultures. Many of the characters felt pressure from two sources, the patriarchal culture that promotes traditional gender roles and society of nineteen-sixties and seventies America. Dominican tradition heavily enforces the patriarchal family and leaves little room for female empowerment or individuality, whereas in the United States, the sixties and seventies were times of increasingly liberal views and a rise in feminist ideals. This conflict shaped the identities of the characters in Alvarez’s novel and often tore the characters apart for one another.

In the film “Mi Familia,” we follow the story of the Mexican-American Sánchez family who settled in East Los Angeles, California after immigrating to the United States. Gregory Nava and Anna Thomas introduce the story of this family in several contexts that are developed along generations. These generations hold significant historical periods that form the identity of each individual member of the family. We start off by exploring the immigrant experience as the family patriarch heads north to Los Angeles, later we see how national events like the great depression directly impact Maria as she gets deported, although she was a US citizen. The events that follow further oppress this family and begins separate identity formations. These

Yet Moraga writing style is very difficult to comprehend at first, due to the barrier that she create by using Spanish and English. Moraga’s choice of words force the reader’s flow to be caught off guard and roots it to focus on every details. She blends both languages together that challenge the reader to understand the multiple categories of her. As she write her struggles to define herself in relation to others, (mainly in the Chicana/o community), she also makes it a challenge for the readers to fully access her trials at first read. In the article “Cherríe Moraga’s Loving in the War Years: lo que nunca pasó por sus labios: Auto-ethnography of the “New Mestiza,” Cloud states that “the placement of her own personal experiences within the context of her community enables Moraga to capture successfully the struggle of an entire people for individual and collective autonomy” (86). Clouds argue that Moraga purposely writes for an “all in one” perspective that can be very challenging for reader to understand. She admits that, “Loving in the War Years first part speaks to the confusion and personal struggle that characterized its author’s formative years, no more so than in its poetic parts. Much of the inner turmoil that pervades Moraga’s self-portrayal revolves around the collision course that is the confluence of her two ethnic identities: Chicana and American” (91). With this reason, the only way that Moraga could have directly and explicitly share her

The Dominican Republic influenced families to leave their native culture to immigrate and accept a new culture. In her short stories and poems “My First Free Summer”, Exile, All-American Girl, and “Antojos”, Julia Alvarez uses a particular style to fulfill her purpose. The author uses figurative language, sensory images and word choice also including her native language and culture. Julia Alvarez uses her native tongue and culture as her style to prove her purpose of embracing a new culture without forgetting the native culture. Julia Alvarez uses her native hispanic language to embrace her cultural heritage through her writing and poems.

From a broad perspective, Caroline’s tale entails her relocation from New York to Florida, out of rather desperate measures. In further elaboration upon this, she explains how an unloving husband, along with a lack of living space in her mother’s house, subsequently led her and her two children to move to Florida. While initially believing that conditions are better in the southern state, Caroline encountered numerous obstacles during her attempt to settle down. For instance, her lengthy-and indisputably arduous-job of cleaning hotel rooms exponentially reduced the quality time spent with her children. Evidence from the text that further highlights the gruesome conditions that Caroline endured is shown when the author states, “What was it

This paints an image of what kind of lifestyle she grew up from. Telling the audience to imagine what obstacles she had to go through because she felt alone in her household. Also, to keep in mind of her culture, that her family came from Mexico. A country built from different opportunities and perspectives in society compared to the United States. All these aspects transformed her into the person she is today.

“Pearl of the sea! Star of the western world! Beautiful Cuba!” Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda, the nineteenth century writer wrote fondly about her homeland in her poem “Al Partir,” when moving to Spain in 1836. It was here where she developed her career as a writer before returning to Cuba twenty-three years later. Within that time she wrote poetry, novels, and theatrical pieces that stood out today as well as then for its romantic themes and progressiveness toward both woman empowerment and slavery.

Elizabeth Nunez writes Bruised Hibiscus (2000) offering some of the most complicated issues of female identity, oppression and quest for liberation in male centered postcolonial Caribbean society with strong resonances to Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea (1966). Nunez’s central characters Zuela and Rosa Appleton undergo a series of annihilation of their identities and exploitation and oppression from their husbands. By situating Rosa in a similar position as of Antoinette Cosway in Wide Sargasso Sea, Nunez creates yet another story of a Caribbean creole who suffers denial and becomes a victim of male-centred society ending up her life in complete doom and negation without any hope of autonomy and existence. However, Nunez projects some hope of

Belisa Crespusculario is a literary woman and without a doubt Isabel Allende’s most convoluted character in ‘Dos parablas’. The opening paragraph of the story, told in the past tense, starts the reader off near the end where we immediately learn that Belisa was much more than a celebrated travelling word smith. Set in a time and place where civil war ravaged the country an literary skills were a rare sight, her importance in towns and villages throughout the land becomes apparent : ‘No necesitaba pregonar su mercadería, porque de tanto caminar por aquí y por allá, todos la conocían.’ (page 16). Isabel Allende creates an air of mystery around the character of Belisa and suggests that simple ‘word seller’ has more to offer than her literary

Las protagonistas de las novelas La fiesta del Chivo y La voz dormida logran recuperar sus voces para presentarlas al mundo de la novela histórica, a través de un elemento particular que merece un acercamiento más profundo y minucioso, el interlocutor. Las historias de Tensi y de Urania logran sobrepasar la barrera del silencio gracias a la labor del sus respectivos interlocutores. Son estos quienes permiten que la voz de estas mujeres puedan reproducirse y que de alguna manera recuperen algo de lo que perdieron en la violencia que les arropó. Por tanto propongo que utilizando la teoría de la búsqueda del interlocutor de Carmen Martín Gaite, es gracias a la función del interlocutor que Urania y Tensi logran recuperar la voz que les había sido silenciada y así logran contar a través de su historia, las historias de dos naciones y de muchas personas que nunca pudieron contarla.