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Comparison Of Mama Day And Racism

Decent Essays

These two stories are very different from one another. The story Mama Day has a lot of supernatural and non-relatable elements to the story, while the story How the Garcia girls lost their accent is more relatable and realistic. Each story has a cultural background. For instance, in Mama Day Willow Springs was once a land owned by a slave master who was murdered by a slave and in How the Garcia girls lost their accent their roots are from the Dominican Republic and they are now trying to adapt to the American culture. In the next few paragraphs I will discuss literary themes that are found in each story, followed by the background as to why I chose to talk about that theme.

In the novel Mama Day, racism and romantic love are two themes …show more content…

The island is located in coast Between South Carolina and Georgia. A slave owner by the name of Bascombe Wade owned the land that is now called Willow Springs. One of his slaves was Ophelia’s Great grandmother Sapphira wade. Willow Springs became a land of free African Americans when Sapphira killed her master. The slaves that were once forced to work for white men are now free on that land because the deed now belongs to Sapphira. Racism is something that will unfortunately always be around inside certain individual’s hearts because it is something that they were taught. Mama day’s grandmother had to endure being a slave because of her color and as a result took the life of the man who made her one and allowed her family to become free. As a Hispanic American I cannot relate to the story Mama Day because I do not know what it is like to know or to be apart of a family that has endured such a traumatic event like slavery. The novel Mama Day is truly a creative piece of literature. From witchcraft to supernatural experiences and even a romantic love story, this story was one that is enjoyable to anyone with a sense of …show more content…

The Garcia’s immigrated from the Dominican Republic to The United States to get away from political issues in their country. Once in America each of the Garcia girls had a hard time adjusting to the English language. Carla Garcia is further subjected to the frustration of having a language barrier when she needs to explain an incident that occurred to her to the police. One day after school, while she was walking home, a man in a green car followed her while performing sexual acts on himself in the car. The man then pulled up next to Carla and lowered his window and asked her if she would like to join him in a sexual encounter. Carla was still very young and not too familiar with what was going on; therefore she struggled to explain what had happened to the police in either English or Spanish since this was something she had never had to explain before. Yolanda was the one who was better well spoken out of the four Garcia Girls. She was into the arts and enjoyed writing poetry. Once Yolanda divorced her husband John, she decided to go back to The Dominican Republic to connect with her roots to further improve her poetry. She soon realizes after arriving in The Dominican Republic that she has lost all knowledge of Spanish and no longer feels comfortable in her native land. Yolanda starts to feel like an outsider and comes to the realization that she no longer identifies

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