Oppression Of Sexuality In Dominican Republic And America

Alvarez gives When Sofia was with Manuel her mother sent her to Dominican Republic as a punishment for finding a bag of marijuana behind a bureau. Smoking was just one of the ways Sofia tested what was expected of her. Sofia also was able to find her sexual independence in America. At one point in her life, she was never without a boyfriend. She was brave and was her own person throughout most of the novel , but as soon as she was with a man that expected certain things from her and in a place where society agreed with those demands everything changed. Geological setting did not only affect Sofia’s beliefs in a patriarchal culture. The girls noticed a difference in the way their cousin Mundin treated them. “When he’s in the States, he’s one of us, our buddy. But back on the Island, he struts and turns macho; needling us with unfair advantage being male here gives him.” (127)

The other main character of the story is Adelina a girl who leaves her home in California to go to Mexico. Adelina is driven out of the United States because her family won’t accept her relationship with her lover, so they both decide to go to Tijuana, a city in Mexico. Not much is said about Adelina’s experienced in the United States. What we do know is that she had a family that loved her, but she decided to leave it all behind to be together with her boyfriend Gerardo. In Mexico she finds nothing but shame and misery because Gerardo could not find a job and the only way for them to make money was for her to be a prostitute. Besides having to expose her body, Adelina, is physically and emotionally mistreated by her boyfriend until it finally leads to her death when she tells him that she is going back to the United States with Juana.

Josefina Lopez writer of the play and co-screenwriter of the movie “Real Women Have Curves” created two important characters, Ana and Carmen, to demonstrate real life issues in the Mexican-American culture. In the movie Carmen becomes the antagonist that constantly torments Ana. Several identities were pushed onto Ana, forcing her have to break through her family’s old-fashioned cultural beliefs as well as her community’s stereotypes. Ana remained resilient regardless of what her mother put her through which led to her own self-love and comfort.

The first of paragraph of The Myth of the Latin Women draws you in with anger but also a sense of embarrassment. Cofer buts up with antics for the name of comedy and is expected to take it well, for the mere fact that she is Puerto Rican. As a person as latin descent, the stereotyping and frustration draws me from a deeper standpoint. Her anger is justified and pushes for understanding for all those perpetrating. Her life is filled with anecdotes of people assuming that they can treat her a certain way because of the island her culture came from or the stereotypes portrayed in West Side Story. She uses sarcasm when she says “If you are a Latina, especially one like me who so obviously belongs to Rita Moreno's gene pool, the Island travels with you.” She is telling the world she is not Maria but an independent brain that is more than the oversexulatization of her background or the pigment of her skin.

The main idea of this paper is to discuss the sexual and reproductive health of Latin American immigrants in Madrid, briefly approaching three different questions: do they believe that there are differences about sexual and reproductive health issues between what they lived in their countries and Spain?; are they having different

The culture of Mango Street lends itself to espousing two main gender roles for women, most importantly the role of mother and caretaker, and less significantly, as sexual figure. Women on Mango Street commonly embrace or are forced to embrace at least one of these roles. Marin, a woman who takes care of her cousins by day and sits outside smoking by night, easily embodies both roles. Sally particularly exemplifies that women cannot get away from the gender roles that bind them. In her family, being a female means becoming a vulnerable person for the man to control. However, Sally prefers to ignore this gender role and advertise herself as a seductress. As she agrees to give “a kiss for each” boy (Cisneros 97) in exchange for her keys back, “beauty is linked to sexual coercion …; there are no promises of marriage here, only promises of giving back to Sally what is already hers” (Wissman). Her family rejects his role, though to some extent accepted by Mango Street. By accepting the alternate gender role, Sally tries to break away from the gender role her family expects of her. However, she is unsuccessful. To escape from her father, Sally is “married before eighth grade” (Cisneros 101) to an equally controlling man who “won’t let her talk on the telephone” or “look out the window” (Cisneros 102). The marriage is a way

Injustice in Patriarchy in Ana Castillo’s So Far From God So Far From God is a Chicana feminist novel written by Ana Castillo. Castillo’s novel consists of four main characters: La Loca (The crazy one), Fe (Faith), Caridad (Charity), and Esperanza (Hope). La Loca is given

Sofia was the fun, carefree child in her family and all of her sisters are shocked when they see Sofia being suppressed and controlled by her boyfriend. The sisters liked Manuel at first, but then they took a step back and saw that, “The Lovable Manuel is quite the tyrant. A Mini Papi and Mami rolled into one. Fifi can’t wear pants in public. Fifi can’t talk to another man. Fifi can’t leave the house without his permission. And what’s most disturbing is that Fifi, feisty, lively Fifi, is letting this man tell her what she can and cannot do” (Alvarez 118). They see how Sofia is being suppressed and are shocked at how Sofia let her boyfriend do this to her. Sofia meets Manuel in the Dominican Republic and at first everything was going great. But then everyone started to see what was really going on. This man, as acceptable in the Dominican Republic, was completely in control of what Sophia did and how she acted. This passage shows that men in the Dominican Republic need to be in control of their women and have them listen to everything they say. This shows even more when Sofia tries to stand up to him, saying, “‘You have no right to tell me what I can and can’t do!’” (Alvarez 118). Sofia standing up for herself infuriates Manuel because he believes Sofia should not stand up to him because he is the man of the house. Sofia then feels she must beg for

When the girls go back to visit the Dominican Republic, they see Sofia living in this patriarchal environment, and since America is so different, they do not want any part in a patriarchy: “ And what's most disturbing is that Fifi, feisty, lively Fifi, is letting this man tell her what she can and cannot do… ‘Don't let him push you around. You’re a free spirit,’ we remind her. But within an hour, Fifi is on the phone with Manuelito, pleading for forgiveness” (Alvarez 120-121). When the sisters see that Fifi just lets her boyfriend control everything she does, they realize how bad the patriarchy is, and what it can do to a woman. The girls start to realize that they used to be living in this kind of society. But all the aunts and girl cousins in the Dominican Republic consider it very ‘unfeminine’ for a woman to fight for her rights. In America, it is very different, which is why Yolanda became such a passionate feminist after her immigration to America. Being a Dominican immigrant has affected the way Yolanda defines herself because it has caused her to be a

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

Even after 30 years for some the stigma attached to HIV and AIDS often can lead to those who suffer from the illness as being second class citizens. The idea that those who have HIV brought upon themselves through “bad behaviors” can result in some people not seeking help or when they do they wait until the disease has progressed. However, the center for disease control considers HIV to be a focal point in the Dominican Republic, and one of the major concerns is how health officials can lower the number of new cases the country sees each year. One must understand that the rise of deaths from AIDS-related complex can mean an increase in mortality across the board creating a domino effect within the health system. Therefore education and awareness could change the health narrative by using preemptive measures. Also, those who are tested regularly and seek help quickly are those who are most likely to live full long lives.

The women find the Island to be unwelcoming. They notice people with genetic deformities. The store clerk, RED, leers at them and tells them that the Island might be cursed by Indians. They run off a STRANGER from the grandfather’s beach house. They sense that there’s

Camilla, Arturo, Sammy, Vera and Hellfrick are all non-entities in the bustle of L.A. culture, but all are profoundly human in their suffering, confusion, and vices. All are battling a poor sense of self-worth and struggling to survive in an indifferent world. Arturo Bandini takes us through this story in intimate first-person, exposing us to his mood swings, his astute observations and his growth as an author and a man.

Brazil Did you know that the president of Brazil is a women? Dilma Rousseff Born on December 14, 1947 who became first female president. This woman is prepared, she is an economist and politician she became politician because he was worry about its's nation form of government that was a dictatorship. This woman has change Brazil in many ways mostly for good. The topics I want to talk about are Brazil's government, conflicts and the LGBT discrimination. Some of the conflicts that Brazil has faced during several years and it still have problems... Lack of education LGBT discrimination Civil War Violence Education is really important for a person because she or he needs to be ready for the future. Violence and civil wars has been

Culture varies from one place to another, which is why even the conception of gender and sexuality is perceived in different ways, especially in the lens of a group of males who enjoy anal penetration known as the “travesties (a word derived from transvestir, to cross-dress)” in Brazil. In Don Kulick’s (1997) The Gender of Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes, he argued that “sexuality might also result in, or be reflective of, different regimes of gender” where the idea of who penetrates who has the capacity to change a “male’s cultural definition and social status”. In addition to that, it is necessary to analyze the core concept of gender rather than the superficial categorization between male and female. However, Kulick posited that the