Contrast in "Days of Obligation" Essay

Rodriguez begins to become more involved in his classroom by his new grip on the English language. He shares fewer and fewer words with his mother and father. His tone now transforms into guilt. As Rodriguez's public language becomes more fluent, he forgets how to speak Spanish. "I would have been happier about my public success had I not recalled, sometimes, what it had been like earlier, when my family conveyed its intimacy through a set of conveniently private sound.? He begins to break out of the cocoon as a slow or disadvantaged child and blooms into a regular kid in his white society that only uses English. He feels a great sense of betrayal of his Mexican past. His connection that held him so close to his family is destabilized.

Richard Blanco, a famous Cuban-American poet who became the first Latin American, immigrant, and openly gay Inaugural Poet in 2013, wrote a variety of works based off his life and all the things that were going on in it. In Richard Blanco’s, “El Florida Room” and “The First Real San Giving Day”, Blanco provides the readers with a look into his personal life with information about his family and some characteristics of his life. Dealing with many different societal issues due to his culture and even his sexual orientation, Blanco describes what his life was truly like, more specifically geared towards his culture; being Cuban-American. Through his use of a chronological storytelling in his memoir and a reflection on the past in his poem,

In Richard Rodriguez, "Days of Obligation he is comparing and contrasting Mexico and California and how they are similar and different to each other. Richard distinguishes the two by explaining how California was compared to comedy while Mexico has seen tragedy. He then writes about how he as a Mexican who lived in California saw a huge difference in culture, religion and in how American valued life. Rodriguez compares how even though they believed in different religions they still all believed in god. Richard Rodriguez use of comparing and contrasting Mexico and California gives us insight to how they both lived a different lifestyle.

The particular focus of Rodriguez’s story is that in order to feel like he belonged to the “public society” he had to restrict his individuality. Throughout his story, Rodriguez discussed such topics as assimilation and heritage. He goes into depth about the pros and the cons of being forced to assimilate to the American culture. Growing up Hispanic in America was a struggle for Rodriguez. This was due to the fact that he was a Spanish-speaking boy living in an English-speaking society, and he felt like he was different than the other children. Rodriguez writes, “I was fated to be the ‘problem student’ in class” (Rodriguez 62). This is referring to Rodriguez’s improper knowledge of English. It made him stand out as the kid that was behind. He wanted to find the balance between the public and private face. He believed both were important to develop. As I read this story it changed the way I looked at people who speak different languages, and how it must be hard to fit in with society if you are not all fluent in English.

Rodriguez was torn apart his “private” life and his “public” life. Private as in referring to the language spoken and home and the Spanish heritage at home. Public as in referring to his quite life at school where Rodriguez was intimidated by “high syllables” and the way people talked fast English. This quote illustrated how the need of

The reader sympathizes with Enrique as he is making his seventh attempt to reach his mother. It is this small glimmer of hope that propels him through his treacherous journey all though he, yet again, fails. The author uses “pathos,” the emotional appeal, heavily throughout this chapter in order to grab the audience’s attention. She wants the reader to empathize with Enrique, an archetypal martyr with heroic behavior. The narrator describes the cruelty and suffering of the gangsters, bandits, “la migra” and others. “Enrique thinks of his mother…she will never know what happened.”(Nazario) Nazario uses stream-of-consciousness reflections such as this to cause the reader to subsequently reflect on their own families, and how one would react to this circumstance. Although Nazario uses pathetic writing, she does not make a fully-pathos driven argument such as that of Leslie Marmon Silko’s “The Border Patrol State.” In fact, Enrique’s Journey is written in exposition mode with anecdotes within narratives, which purports as journalistic rather than objective, or biased, writing. It is through this writing style that Nazario builds her credibility, or “ethos.” The exposition mode lays out the effects throughout Enrique’s path as well as brings extent of the hazards to fruition for the

In “The Country Just Over the Fence,” author Paul Theroux wants the reader to understand the differences between the life and customs between the United States and Mexico by using the three rhetorical appeals; ethos, pathos, and logos. Theroux goes into detail when talking about the significance of the border, describing it as something he has never seen. He talks about Mexico having a common idea of Mexico being very violent due to the murders through drug cartels. This fact is also common in the American perspective of Mexico and could be considered a contradicting stereotype.

During the Mexican American war, racial tensions against people with Mexican ancestry increased. As the United States began to take over Mexican land many Anglo Americans continuously showed their rejection of Mexican culture and citizens by treating them cruel and unjust. The text, Early California Through the Eyes of Women, contains Bancroft and Cerruti’s interview of Rosalio Vallejo. In 1874, Vallejo recounts her experiences with complete resentment toward what had happened to her in 1846. More specifically, Vallejo’s interview reveals the injustices she was forced to endure during the Bear Flag Rebellion. Her testimonio exposes the authoritarian attitude American officials such as John C. Fremont possessed against the Californios. Not only did these men cause the destruction of her town, but they also stole from her people. Similarly, during the Mexican revolution (1910-1920) common people with Mexican ancestry living in the United States were succumbed to inferior treatment. In, Texas- Mexican Cancionero: Folksongs of the Lower Border, by Americo Paredes, the corridos stress the oppression men like Jacinto Trevino had to overcome in the hands of Texas- Rangers. In the following paper, I will show how perceived marginal figures like Rosalia Vallejo and Jacinto Trevino are able to resist the unjust treatment of Anglo American government officials in their own respective manners. While the testimonio shows resistance against American militant interference indirectly through Vallejos protest of American culture and her embracement of the spanish language, the corrido rejects Texans inferior treatment directly and physically through Trevino’s unapologetically confrontational comments and violent actions. Thus, both texts use a distinct tone and repetitive phrases in order to expose how people with Mexican ancestry have found ways to resist a long lineage of historical repression caused by their American neighbors.

There are multiple topics that are embedded in Cervantes book, Emplumada. Most of the topics deal with the trials and tribulations of having a misconnection with her own culture. The topics I will be analyzing about are how Cervantes tries to resolve her own sense of split identity--Mexican and American--through her poetry in “Emplumada.” The poems I chose from Emplumada are, “Beneath the Shadow of the Freeway,” “Refugee Ship” and “Oaxaca, 1974”. I will begin with an analysis of each poem, the interpretations of the three sections in the book, and will conclude with Cervantes resolutions in her split identity. After doing a thorough analysis of the poems, I hope to have a better understanding of how Cervantes found her identity.

Moccio’s introduces a book called El Narco. He starts off by telling us how the book is so detailed it gives “on your edge feel”. The author risked his life and others just to put together this dramatic war on drug story from Mexico. Moccio uses a lot of descriptive words to help get a feel of the story line. He gives direct quotes from the book to make his point on how dangerous the situation is in Mexico. He backlashes at the author for using Spanish vocabulary, stating “it make reading more challenging”. What would a story about Mexico be without using some direct terms they actually do use on a daily bases? The best part of this essay was when he got to the research part. It seemed to flow better than his review of the book itself. He explained

We are reading every day: newspapers, books, magazines. What make all those articles different from others? They may have different topics, different genres, or different backgrounds according to different writing styles. Even writing on the same theme, different writing styles can create different artistic conceptions. Diaz’s essay “ The Dreamer”, and Cofer’s essay “ The Cruel Country” are both talking about how their moms’ perseverances influenced them on their literary Achievements as immigrations of the United States. After reading their essays, as an immigration in the United States as well, I was attracted by their different writing styles and emotional tones deeply. I am going to analyze those two essays on their unique writing techniques and different expressing patterns.

Award winning professor Carlos Nicolas Flores has put a new perspective in a life of a Mexican-American. The El Paso native has had a successful career as a professor and author, he’s well known for Our House on Hueco, but he’s been recently getting more attention with his lascivious novel: Sex as a Political Condition: A Border Novel. This said novel has placed him in the spotlight as he acquires more interviews and reviews about the book he further discloses information about himself. The interviews and reviews expose essential parts of his life as well as mixed reactions for Sex as a Political Condition: A Border Novel. Author Joseph Green’s put it best: “It is revolutionary in spirit and inelegant in ethos, equal parts hilarious,

Border Writing examines a newly emerging culture-space, the borderland between Mexico and the United States. This gives the geographic referent of the term border a centrality. As used by Hicks, though--and, one might say, as used by a score of writers in the field of cultural studies--that term points beyond its most obvious geographic referent to become a leading metaphor that organizes the conceptual field. What gives the term its privileged metaphoric value is the reality of displacement that is the central fact of life among people living in the

James Blanco had invited Michael Steiginga and me to go with him to Camelback Water Park for his birthday. I was excited and could not wait. On September twenty-three, I got to skip half of the school day to leave for Camelback Water Park. In the car ride there, I attempted to nap, but I was too eager to fall asleep. After waiting in a boring car ride for what seemed like years, I could see our destination.

“Amigos Mexicanos” and “Mayan Dusk” are fictional stories written by Juan Villoro. Both stories had many similarities mainly with both of them having unnamed protagonists as well as both being written in first person. These stories show a different side of Mexico and Mexican people. This approach taken by Villoro as well as his style of writing and use of humor gives quite some insight into Mexican life and Culture.