Barrio Boy by Ernesto Galarza and A Place to Stand by Jimmy Santiago Baca

Gary Soto, a Mexican-American author, was born in 1952 in Fresno, California. His parents were both Mexican-American. Soto did not expect a lot from his life; he imagined he would "’marry Mexican poor, work Mexican hours, and in the end die a Mexican death, broke and in despair’" (Lee). Instead, he became a great writer of poems and short stories. James Sullivan describes Soto as “one of the most important voices in Chicano literature” and Don Lee counts Soto as “one of the best Chicano poets of his time” having published over twenty books. Soto, an established writer, uses experiences from his life and his observations of his community to write stories about life in a Mexican-American community with characters and conflicts that are relatable.

Throughout Enrique’s Journey, the vivid use of imagery is the main source of understanding. The use of Nazario’s descriptive language really helps depict the mood and setting of the scene. We can see this through the

Culture is according to Zimmermann (2015), “the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts”. One culture that I am not affiliated with and did not grow up in is the Hispanic/Latino culture. Today, this culture is one of the fastest-growing cultures in the United States of America (“Understanding the Hispanic/Latino,” n.d.).

Throughout the course of his novel Barrio Boy, Ernesto Galarza does a superb job of capturing

Culture is found throughout the entirety of “In the Time of Butterflies” written by Julia Alvarez. There are points of conflict due to culture and one's personal beliefs. There are also ways that people are connected through their culture and beliefs. There are cultures found both, within the families and across the country. Widely accepted cultures and ones that are not as popular. Culture that is taken away and replaced with a different one. Culture is a very broad term in a book like “In the Time of Butterflies” because of all the different types of culture there is.

Gary Soto, a Mexican-American author, was born in 1952, Fresno, California. His parents were both Mexican-American. Soto did not expect a lot in his life, he imagined he would "’marry Mexican poor, work Mexican hours, and in the end die a Mexican death, broke and in despair’" (Lee). That’s what many people would have predicted for him. However, he instead became a writer of great worth, writing poems and short stories. “Soto is one of the most important voices in Chicano literature”(Sullivan). Soto, an established writer, uses his experience from life and his surroundings when he was a child to write stories about life in a Mexican-American community.

Barrio Boy is a memoir written by Ernesto Galarza about how he immigrated to California, where he started public school in the first grade. Ernesto’s mission is to discover a new language, school, and country, working alongside his new friends. Ernesto showed bravery, determination, and courage

According to Dr. Ruiz, culture can be defined as a complex system that defines how a way of life is taught from one generation to the next. It is also responsible for influencing our behavior. (Lecture, Ruiz, 01/07/2016). Upon moving to California, I experienced a transition between the culture that I have known for the majority of my life to one that was completely foreign to me. I was born to Filipino parents and spent my childhood in Kaiserslautern, Germany, the largest overseas military community in Europe. Because of that, I had the opportunity to immerse myself in the blending conglomeration of the German and Filipino cultures with a strong U.S.

Ernesto Quinonez was born in Equador but moved to New York before the age of two. (Kevane 132). His father was Ecuadorian and his mother was Puerto Rican. (Kevane 132). Quinonez was raised in East Harlem (also known as “el barrio”) in New York. (Kevane 132). After high school, he studied writing

Ernesto galarza was a Mexican-American boy who tells a story of how he immigrated to california and successfully navigated the public school system. Galarza was not the only foreigner there was a skinny italian boy, manuel a fat portuguese boy, and galarza's

Ernesto Galarza was a Mexican-American activist and author that changed lives of not only Mexican-Americans but everyone. Ernesto was born on August 15, 1905 in Jalcocotán, Nayarit, Mexico. Later, when he was 6 years of age he immigrated to America from Mexico and changed his life forever. When Ernesto was only eight-years-old when he went to his first labor union. Sadly, when Ernesto was only 12 his mother died from the disease of Influenza. In 1923, he got admitted to Occidental college and graduates in 1927. A year later, Galarza marries Mae Taylor. Also, Taylor and Galarza created a school called the Year-Long school in 1936. In 1947, when he was 42, Ernesto earns a Ph.D from Colombia and helps organize a strike against the DiGiorgio fruit

Culture by definition is the identity or feeling of belonging to a group. It is part of a person's self-conception and self-perception and is related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality or any type of social group that has its own distinct culture. To me that definition couldn't be more spot on but let's go more in depth over the past few months in my English class we have been trying to learn what our culture is and what part culture plays in our daily lives so in this essay I will be sharing with you what I think culture is what it means to me and how I think it impacts our way of living and the way we look at each other as human beings and how we treat each other and how all this makes up my culture

The concept of culture is something that defines many aspects of one’s life. From physical objects to different ways of thinking, culture adds significance to human life and makes groups of people distinct from one another. Culture is essentially a group of people who come together with similar interests and points of view. According to the Center for Advanced Language Acquisition of the University of Minnesota, “culture is defined as the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization.” From a more sociological perspective, culture is a way in which people come together in order to fulfill their needs. These shared patterns and ideas identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group.” Culture is one of the things that sets the United States apart from the rest of the world. Not that the rest of the world is not cultural, but the circumstance here is different. Many people of different cultural backroads come to this country in search of a better life. As a consequence, the United States has become a place where many cultures merge together like a colossal pot soup.

Culture can be defined in many ways due to the fact that everyone can have their own distinct and traditional beliefs and values. “ Culture is fluid, it is not a static entity which one takes out of the box on occasion. It is with us daily” (Cultural Handout). Someone’s culture is set as the characteristics of the group practices in language, religion, types of food, social traits and habits, and the distinct arts and music. There are a variety of different cultures for example, Western Culture, Eastern Culture, Latin Culture, Middle Eastern Culture, and African Culture. All of these different cultures have their own ideas, values, and individualism, laws that are implied, civil rights, and even technology. In our, “ Culture Handout” culture is defined as the tool of the mind, “ it is an individual’s way seeing and interacting within the world. It encompasses one’s values systems, beliefs, and perceptions of the world around them. Race, socio-economic class gender, sexual orientation, ability, geographic location, age, religion language, etc. all impact the formation of culture, but these various context are not culture” (Cultural Handout).

Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1962) identify over 150 scientific definitions of the concept of culture. Indeed, many authors have tried to define culture and this is why there are so many definitions and that a unique one is hard to find. First of all, Kroeber and Kluckholn (1952) assume that culture is a suite of patterns, implicit and explicit, “of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in artefacts” (p.47). Later, Hofstede adds that culture is “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another” (Hofstede, 1991, p.51). This definition is the most widely accepted one amongst practitioners. For Winthrop (1991), culture is the distinctive models of thoughts, actions and values that composed members of a society or a social group. In other words,