Short Story : A Large Flowing Black Gown

Coming from a lonely and abusive home Mary had to find happiness outside of her house. Her mom made a friend from their church and she happened to have a three month year old baby. Mary always occupied the Richardson’s by helping with baby Alyssa, while also distracting herself from reality. Meeting the Richardson’s ended up being Mary’s worst nightmare. One night the Richardson’s went out and asked Mary and her mother to watch Alyssa.

Eventually, Brenda and her father made it to Virginia on the morning of the 22nd of March, parking their car at the driveway of the Brotzman residence. It was an average looking house that matched the aesthetics of the houses near the only Catholic high school in the city of Arlington, Bishop Dowell High School. Getting out of the car, the father and the daughter went to the front door. From there, the father knocked on the door. Soon after, the door was opened by the Godmother, wearing her Bishop Dowell uniform, who was surprised by the arrival of unrecognizable guests. Brenda, who obviously was not a Ryanite, was amazed by the sight of the taller blonde girl wearing a royal blue golf shirt (with silver colored school insignia on left breast), a khaki skort that was about one inch above the knee, white knee socks, and a pair of black oxfords. The girl’s hair was tied back with a royal blue colored ribbon, and her dark blue eyes were staring into Brenda’s own.

Ronita had returned to school, 2 years after Katrina, when she went into labor. The local schools, overwhelmed by thousands of children displaced from New Orleans did not welcome more students, especially with babies, and her help with her youngest brother was needed at home. She liked high school and had hoped to graduate, baby and all, but worried her mother and grandmother could not manage without her.

As told through her mother’s perspective, one will learn that Trina is a eighteen year old female of African-American decent and resides with her mother in Los Angeles, California. Trina’s parents, Keri and Clyde, provide their daughter with an upper/upper middle class lifestyle due to her father’s sudden successful career and her mother’s successful resale clothing business in Los Angeles. This well rounded and beautiful adolescent has recently graduated from high school with high grades and was accepted to Brown University, however, due to her summer manic episodes, Trina has not attended college yet.

Unfortunately, her father expected her to go to college and earn a degree like her brother Sheldon and sister Bunny. Toni, unlike her siblings, did poor while she was at UH Manoa and had to move back home to Hilo. Her father Harry was extremely disappointed and no longer had high hopes for her. When she moved back, her sexual encounters with family friends Wyatt and Maverick Santos grew and she became closer with longtime Haole family friend Billy who was six years younger than her. Her relationship with Billy blossomed into mutual feelings for one another; however, Toni refused to take it to the next level due to the fact that Billy was younger than her, a Haole, and was considered as family. As months past, Toni found herself pregnant from either one of the Santos brothers with her family deeply ashamed by her actions. She did not finish college, was not married, and now she was pregnant. When her baby was born, things started to slowly change for Toni. Her baby became the joy of her life and her father’s new found joy and hope that had once died when Toni did not meet his expectations. Toni later became the co-owner of her father’s business and finally felt accepted into her own family and community. Toni’s experiences is indeed also reflective of our highs and lows in life and is something that most, if not all of society can relate to.

Raicine Rodriguez was born in San Bernardino California; she was the middle daughter of three girls. Her siblings and she had all different personalities; Raicine was the one who always seemed to think things through, perhaps a little too much. She lived her life as full as she allowed herself, while always thinking about the “what ifs,” before she gave her one-hundred percent. It was a very cautious act, but it held her back in many ways as well. Once in college it took her several years to decide what she wanted to major in. In her mid-twenties, she moved to Nashville for a job. Here was able to figure out the kind of person she wanted to be in life. All of her friends and family were in California so she was able to concentrate solely on

In the book, Kisses from Katie, Katie Davis describes her remarkable journey through following God’s call for her life. During her senior year of high school, Katie traveled to Uganda as a part of a three-week mission trip. It was during that trip that she felt the initial tug of God directing the call for her life. She instantly fell in love with the country and could’t wait for the next chance she had to return. So when she was just 19 years old, Katie uprooted herself from her life in small-town Tennessee to move to Uganda full-time. As a promise she made to her parents, she was only supposed to live there for one year.

For the first time, she clearly saw what her life would have been like had her parents didn’t take the risk of leaving their home. Poverty was omnipresent, opportunity was non-existent and educated, hard working professionals were barely scraping by. Even the youth had nothing to look forward to. “Their faces all shared the same expression -- hopelessness. I would only see a small glimmer of hope in their eyes when they spoke of America, and how different their lives would be if they could live there.” says Cameron, “My parents risked everything because of hope. Hope for opportunity. Hope in the American Dream. Hope for their children. The risk they took is unparalleled to any risk I’ll ever have to face as an entrepreneur in America, and I felt so ashamed that I had allowed ignorant remarks shape my life and translate into resentment, especially towards them. The very thing that I viewed as a disadvantage growing up as a foreigner, which I let cripple me with fear and insecurity throughout my childhood and teenage years, was now my biggest blessing. My perception shifter, and it transformed into pride, a strong will, and an unrelenting ambition to succeed. My culture is unique and beautiful, and so am I, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to become anything I choose. My entrepreneurial instinct kicked into

“Education was her dream of dreams, a passion so strong it was almost a disease, and she infected not only her own children with it but generations of little Morrisons yet unborn” (23). Kate, raised in such a family, naturally considers being intelligent and having education as a symbol of success in life. After receiving her university degrees, Kate realizes that Great-Grandmother’s desire for knowledge is not without reason: “the world was spreading itself out before me; I felt that I could go anywhere, do anything. Be anyone” (188). From Kate’s perspective, no obstacle can obstruct her ambitions from this point onward since success in attaining education is the ultimate goal in life, as believed by the Morrisons. Kate’s faith in education, inherited from Great-Grandmother, is also the major reason behind her admiration for Matt – he is the most brilliant of all four children and resembles Great-Grandmother the most. “It seemed to me that the only time those fierce old eyes showed any sign of softening was when Matt walked into the room.” (27) Kate

Hannah, a freshman in college, has had a life of asthma, major depression, and epilepsy. While on theatrical stage in her first college debut, Hannah collapses on stage in a seizure. After running tests on Hannah in the hospital, the doctor suggests that her lifelong health issues could possibly be because she is a survivor of abortion. This is the first time Hannah not only learns she’s an abortion survivor, but adopted too. In anguish and searching for answers, Hannah journeys with her friends to Mobile, Alabama in search of her birthmother. When Hannah first reconnects with her birthmother, Cindy, tracking her down at her work office, Cindy rejects her yet as again as she did at her failed abortion. Hannah finds herself asking God what to do in her situation.

ALLISON (30’s) is a high-powered investment broker, who is disillusioned when she’s overlooked for a promotion. Her boyfriend, SCOTT, wants to marry her, but it’s not the life she wants. Allison decides to follow her dreams.

There was one moment in the book where she had to make probably one of the most difficult choices in her life, yet she did not hesitate to make that choice. Jeannette’s older sister, Lori, always wanted to move to New York to escape her delusional parents. However, she did not have enough money to pay for a bus ticket, wiping out any hope that she had. " ‘I'll never get out of here,’ Lori kept saying. ‘I'll never get out of here.’ ‘You will,’ I said. ‘I swear it.’ I believed she would. Because I knew that if Lori never got out of Welch, neither would I.” Then one day, Jeannette was offered $200 and a bus ticket back to Welch to take care of a woman’s two toddlers in Iowa for the summer. Instead, she insisted that the woman, Mrs. Sanders, should take Lori and her payment be a “bus ticket to New York City.” The fact that Jeannette easily made the decision of sacrificing her ticket for Lori amazes me; she knew how important the trip the New York was for her, so she wanted to make that dream happen. When Lori left, Jeannette still did not give up on her dream to go to New York and become a journalist. She joined just about “every extracurricular event at the school” to gain the attention of colleges, particularly in New York. The motivation that can be found in this is that you cannot give up on your ambitions

The story, Paris Gown, by Estella Portillo Trambley, really inspired me to find out more about women’s issues, especially Mexican and Mexican American women because not only am I am a female, I am also half Mexican. Teresa and Clo, (Teresa’s grandmother), are the main characters in this story and it starts out with Teresa asking Clo about how she came to be in Paris. Clo tells the story of her own liberation from her very old-fashioned father and the extreme that she went through in order to liberate herself. I have always wondered how much the gender roles have changed or evolved not only in Mexico, but in Mexican culture here in America as well. I’m hoping to find that things are extremely better now for Mexican women then they used to be.

     Throughout the story there are several aspects of the Protagonist’s character that play a major role in the shaping of her future. During her childhood she

For instance, Katharine has contacted the Family and Children’s Services to discuss the option of giving her unborn baby up for adoption. She is going against the wishes of her and James’ parents by not wanting to marry James and raise the baby together. Also, Katharine is very determined and set on the option on pursuing adoption. She wishes to give the baby a better future while allowing her and James to achieve a better life as well. In addition, Katharine is considering a career as a travel agent and knows that she would be able to handle college. In regards to her home life and upbringing, Katharine was face with many challenges. Her home was chaotic with her mother leaving the family and her father moving the family so often. Katharine is behind in school as a result, but is hopeful that she will be able to finish school and pursue a higher education. Due to her family history, Katharine has a strained relationship with her mother for leaving the family and with her father for always taking her mother back. Although Katharine has faced numerous challenges in her life, she is hopeful that she can create a better life for her and the baby by placing him/her up for adoption.