Hot Tortillas By Ofelia Zepeda

At some point of a kid’s life, they want to be picky about something. They want to have some control of their little world where adults are constantly telling them what to wear, what to do, and what to eat. Food, for instance, is an easy topic where kids will fight for some independence. Throwing, yelling, crying and even bribing were the essence of a battle at dinner tables. Because some parents would automatically give in to their children’s need, the kids often think they won the battle but technically they didn’t. In the story, “Picky Eater”, Julia Alvarez tells a story of her childhood experience of home meals where her and her sisters were also picky eaters, despite having healthy food served to them. Meals, she said, “at home were battlegrounds. Even if you won the dinner battle, refusing to clean your plate or drink your engrudo, you inevitably lost the war” (Alvarez 145). Battlegrounds at home can occur but it doesn’t have to end up being messy if the parents know how to handle the situation properly.

To expand on the intricacy of the speaker’s life, symbolism is applied to showcase the oppression her ancestors etched on her quilt were facing for their “burnt umber pride” and “ochre gentleness” (39-40). Once again, the theme of absence is introduced as there is a sense of separation among the Native American culture as their innocent souls are forced onto reservations and taken away from their families. This prolonged cruelty and unjust treatment can be advocated when the speaker explains how her Meema “must have dreamed about Mama when the dancing was over: a lanky girl trailing after her father through his Oklahoma

　　Natalie Diaz's debut collection, When My Brother Was An Aztec, is a book of poems that accounts Diaz's skills in imaginative and lyrical language. The collection explores her past in unexpected form and images, tackling the subjects of her family, most notably her meth addicted brother, life on the reservation, and being a Native American woman. In this collection Diaz has filled the pages with rich and interesting images that rely on Native American culture, experiences of her own as a Native American woman, and mythology. As I read this collection I was struck by how heavy her images rested on the page and yet how weightless they seemed to fly off.

The poem begins explaining to the reader the story of a Mexican American as he worked in an industrial factory at some point in his life. “In the factory I worked, in the fleck of rubber, under a press of an oven yellow with flame.” (Lines 1-3) Soto uses visual imagery to describe the color of

In “Chango’s Fire” Ernesto Quinonez shows Julio’s battle between his Pentecostal faith and Santeria, all the while addressing gentrification in the Puerto Rican community. Julio’s journey from his Pentecostal upbringing to Santeria illustrations through Julio’s eyes what his religion meant to him growing up and what made him decide to stop indulging in said religion. When Julio began setting fires he became a part of the problem with gentrification and it was his belief in Santeria that allowed him to discourse from aiding in gentrification.

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.

Native American families were frequently placed in little, ruined reservations, endorsed to give up their childhood to receive inadequate schooling, a constant threat of kidnapping, and even removing entire families off their land where they have called home for hundreds of years prior. Louise’s father and mother both worked at Indian boarding schools, giving the reader the sense that she really was passionate about her writing of this poem in more ways than one. She truly gives the underlying insight to the boarding schools and the treatment of her people’s way of life, which was a systematic and legal genocide

In his book “Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free,” Hector Tobar recounts the story of 33 miners who spent 69 days trapped more than 2000 feet underground in the Chile’s San Jose mines following the collapse of the mine in 2010. According to Tobar (2015), the disaster began on a day shift around noon when miners working deep inside the mountain excavating minerals started feeling vibrations. A sudden massive explosion then followed and the passageways of the mines filled with dust clouds. Upon settling of the dust, the men discovered that the source of the explosion was a single stone that had broken off from the rest of the mountain and caused a chain reaction leading to

The irritation and despair of Esther Belin’s Night Travel flows with the fearless attitude of Laura Da’s Vantage. Both of these women are Native American, but are from different tribes and regions of the country.Yet they both express their Native American spirit separately through their poems. Laura’s style in poetry includes elements of time, travel, history and place. As for Esther Belin, her work portrays the experience of a Native American living in urban Los Angeles. She attempts to bring Native Americans into mainstream American culture and receive recognition, as well as discussing issues regarding racism and isolation (Poetry FDN).

When comparing passionate versus companionate love, there really isn’t a better option of the two due to how both are almost always required for a long and secure marriage. In Janie’s case, out of the three men she married, none of them had both the qualities of romance and stability which is why their marriages all went downhill. However, Tea Cake was an exception, due to how his death before him being able to provide Janie with material security caused readers to never know whether if he would become like Joe Starks and eventually lose the intimacy between him and Janie or remain loving and romantic towards her. However, it is guaranteed that if he did remain intimate towards Janie if he became successful, then most likely, they would have

Like Water for Chocolate opens a new page in Latin American magical realism. This book, paradoxically combines reality and fiction, eroticism and mysticism, a love story and recipes of Mexican cuisine. Tita de la Garza, the main character of the story tries to protect her love and personal freedom. In her turn, Tita’s mother Elena is the one who does not let Tita fulfill her wishes. Elena blames Tita for all her problems, so Tita decided to spoil her life and deny any connection with Tita 's lover instead of finding a common language with her daughter Elena deliberately makes Tita suffer. In order to satisfy her suppressed desires of body and emotions, she expresses them in the food that she prepares.

In the poem, the mother directly addresses the audience and goes in depth about how she is feeling. There are different instances in which she is talking to different people. For example, while speaking to the audience, the narrator discusses her abortions and what she is going through in her life. When she is talking to herself, she seems as though she is going through deep issues. When she addresses her dead children, she talks about how a she would treat her children if they were in her possession.

Pablo Medina, a Cuban American poet and novelist wrote a poem titled, “The Secret.” In this poem, he writes about a kid who moves to New York with his family, not knowing any English. I believe his poem may be related to his experience traveling from Cuba to New York, when he was only 12 years old. In the first stanza of his poem the narrator introduces a photograph of him and his family going up the steps of a plane, the narrator holding a book his uncle had given him before his flight, telling him, “Be free to learn / Only that is good.” In the second stanza, he’s suddenly in New York, while “New words made dough in [his] ear.”

I read the short story ‘One of those days’, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, where a politician abuses his power and a middle class dentist enacts revenge on him. Without even being in their world, my mindset has completely changed after reading the story. It is never good to enact revenge on anyone, no matter who they are or whether or not they deserve it. At the end of the day, revenge will not make you better than the other person but it will make you worse than the person you were yesterday. The best way to quench fire is with water; adding more fire will not do it any good. So if I had to live in the world of this story, I would love to be the dentist who would willingly forgive the mayor’s actions and respect the power the possesses, or to

The environment and its creatures hold a deep connection that most humans do not have or understand. In Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle, the main characters have a rare interaction with one of natures most “cunning, versatile, hungry and unstoppable” creatures: the coyote (Boyle 215). Some of his characters hold a deeper level of connection with the coyote that can almost be seen as paralleled and from this connection, T.C. Boyle’s idea of how a Mexican immigrant and a coyote can be related is expressed when the notion of the willingness to do anything to survive, being clever and relentless, and though fearful are fascinating is explored.