Richard Blanco Essay: Poetry

Blanco states, “One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,/peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces/of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth/across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies (Blanco, lines 1-4). This quote gives a geographical visual of America. As Blanco makes another statement, “My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors, each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day” (Blanco, lines 7-8) he uses personification to describe daily American life. Another use of imagery is found in stanza four, “One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every

In "A Rasin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry and "Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes, we see that each author goes through their own struggles and frustrations in they play and the poem in their own way to accomplish the meaning of the American Dream, but in the end, through the positive and the negative they both find their happiness within in each other unified as a family and as a

“People of Mexican heritage receive a great deal of social support from the family and, whereas Anglos derive most of their status from their job” (Ross, Mirowsky and Ulbrich 1983). Hispanic culture raises its females to care for the house and family. They do this by instilling in them cultural norms of most Mexican women. It is almost and expectation that life should be this way. The man is the supporter and provides financially and structurally for the family while the wife cares for the home and family. “Mexican-American women are also less likely to be employed then non-Hispanic white women” (Ross et al. 1983). Growing up in one culture with two different views can be confusing and liberating. My mother was born and raised in Mexico. In this part of the family, it was expected that women cook, clean and serve the men of the house. The women tended to the father and brothers. My grandfather worked to provide for the family, and my uncle worked to provide for himself, but my grandmother and aunts cooked, did the laundry and waited on my grandfather and uncle. This way of life was the norm for my mother’s family. The same culture somewhat different upbringing was my dad’s family. All of my father’s family was born and raised here. My grandmother was the family glue. She cared for all of the household chores and cooking. My grandfather worked and provided for the family. My aunt and uncles worked and assisted my grandmother, but not expected. My grandmother always stressed

When we think of a family, we envision a heterosexual household. In this “traditional” family, we have a happily married man and woman who live together with their young children. The father works outside the home and the mother stays home caring for the children and the household; together the family live very happily, sharing families responsibilities in equal terms. Yet as social scientists Stephanie Coontz and Particle Hills explain, families are far more complex. In this essay, we’ll be using the theory of intersectionality to examine how diverse families are in all aspects of society. More specifically, we want to discuss how contemporary families exemplify the six principles of intersectionality. While critically analyzing both Collins

As Americans have become divided in recent times, what it means to be an American has also changed. In “Hunger of Memory”, author Richard Rodriguez examines how language affects his family relationships. For Langston Hughes, being an American means to postpone dreams or have them become something else entirely. Rodriguez states that his parents spoke a hesitant, accented English, he feels acknowledged when others speak to him in Spanish, (third paragraph). In “A Dream Deferred”, poet Langston Hughes compares his “American Dream” to a heavy load that sags. In Richard Rodriguez’s “Hunger of Memory”, the author discusses how he and his family view a dark complexion as a burden, unattractive, and as a sign of poverty or low status.

The event is conducted in the PAO Mallet theater and organized by Purdue Latin Cultural Center. The invited speaker, Javier Avila is the Latino professor from Pennsylvania, built the family with a white woman, and raise a white-tino son who was taught both English and Spanish. He memorized and praised the good quality of all of his family members including his father, mother, grandmother by reading the poem he wrote for them in Spanish. At the end of the event, we submitted the survey form and take a selfie with him. He also recommended the book of his poem collection.

No matter what circumstances you face with the hard work and with the high education you can improve your life standards and can achieve your dreams. Dreams can be achieve through education, and Education is the only way to stand strong against all the adversities you face. To prove my thesis statement I’m going to use “Importance of pursuing your dreams” by Spike Lee hammers UWIRE Text 10 Feb. 2012. Academic OneFile. Web. 29 Oct. 2015. Where the author stressed “the importance of staying in school and the fact that students must pursue their dreams no matter who stands in the way” which is true to achieve your dreams education is must and to get that you need to fight with every adversities you face no matter who stand against you. In an essay “Achievement of Desire” by Richard Rodriguez describes the difficulties of balancing school life and the life of a working class family. As a child Rodriguez was the exception to the stereotypical student coming from a working class family, who was barely able to speak English but he was always top of his class, and rather than spending time out with friends or with family he spent his time with books and notes. He has parents who are uneducated but they know the importance of education and they supported him in a place where he can ensure his future by getting a good education and stay away from the life they are going through. In another work of literature “An Angle of Vision by Castro, A women who had gone through a lot, in a

“Como vamos Carlos?” I asked as I felt the dry wind hit my face. In one ear, I heard the sound of horse hooves and desert wilderness. In the other ear, my headset had been playing the guitar stylings of Rodrigo y Gabriela, specifically the song Tamacun. I had set my phone to shuffle their songs, after all what better way to hunt for Mexican treasure than to listen to mexican music?

Having a basic understanding of one's own family history is essential since it allows us to know our origin, as well as our roots. The Barron- Hernandez family dealt with numerous hardships, but were capable of overcoming them by staying strong. This journey of self-discovery unveiled fascinating stories regarding my own family history. My maternal side of the family consists of my grandmother, Belen Alvarez, and my grandfather, Victor Hernandez. Together they had a total of eleven children, in which includes my mother Bertha. Belen at a young age was left an orphan and was left to fend for herself all throughout her childhood. At the age of fifteen, she was swept off her feet by Victor. There is not much known about the early life of Victor before meeting Belen.

During national poetry month, I chose to write Juan Fellpe Herrera a response on his poem “You Can’t Put Muhammad Ali in a Poem.” Out of all the videos we watched during english, I felt Herrera’s poem jumped out to me the most. As I wrote in my letter, my favorite part of his poem was the different format of his poem. Herrera made his poem skip around the page as a boxer would do, he also put phrases in parenthesis and acted like he was in a fight and he added a quote of Muhammad Ali into his poem. I also liked how he read his poem because he put so much expression into it and made it entertaining. In my letter, I included questions that I hoped I could get a response to. Unfortunately he did not respond to my letter, but I am happy I got an

“MR HERO” Crashing into the room, hair dishevelled and a fearing look in her eyes, she catches the hem of her skirt on the door handle, tumbling to the floor with a crack. “Please help us” snotty tears mixes with her bloodied face as she looks at the languid figure rocking in the shadows.

How does the poet vividly convey ideas concerning the influence that nature has upon man?

Rosa Gonzalez is a 28 year old, Latino woman, who was raised in Tempe, Arizona. She came from a low socioeconomic status background. Rosa’s records indicate that her mother was in prison while she was pregnant with her, and that her father was out of the picture. She was placed in several foster care homes until the age of four when her father came back into her life. Shortly after, her mother was released from prison, and decided to have a relationship with her father. Rosa’s parents had a total of four children, Rosa, Maggy, Jose, Pedro, and Hector. She depicted having been psychologically, emotionally, and physically abused by her father and by Pedro. Although Rosa’s mother knew about the abuse, she was neglectful and ignored it (R. Gonzalez, personal communication, July 23, 2014).

In short, I come from a relatively normal family. I am the oldest of the three girls, with four and eight years between each of them and myself. I have aunts, uncles, and cousins too numerous to count, each family scattered across California and the rest of the United States. We are a multicultural, multiracial, and multiethnic family, which had vast implications to how we were raised and the structure of the household and the greater family system. There are many themes and patterns that have been passed down from generation to generation-through different types of trauma and hurt. In this paper I am going to explore explicit themes that have been transferred in my family, the privilege that is apart of our family culture, and my

The role of culture in human development allows us to process and reflects on our heritage in order to understand who we are as an individual. My family history brings back so many memories that, it might imply, sacrifices were the main actions between family members. While gathering information from my ancestors, I got the opportunity to find out that being a collectivist and interdependent individual were the messages received about the rules of belonging. When it comes to patriarchal family, all women in my family had to do both roles; shockingly, men were not involved in their child’s lives. Even-though migration intents to bring wellness to the family it only brought separation to mine. Leaving Dominican Republic at the age of eleven was not challenging, leaving my family behind, was devastating.