The Maid 's Daughter By Mary Romero

A vampire is defined as “a prenatural being of a malignant nature, supposed to seek nourishment, or do harm, by sucking the blood of sleeping persons;” (1). Whereas a parasite is defined as “a person who lives at the expense of another, or society in general;” (2). A sleeping persons can be interpreted as an innocent person, this is due to countless stories and lore depicting vampires stealing the blood of conscious innocent persons. Therefore, by doing harm to the innocent, a vampire is living at the expense of the humans whose blood it steals, making vampires a form of parasite. In The Good Lady Ducayne, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Ducayne is genetically a human, but her mind has become fixated on life. By exploiting technology, her moral and ethical standards change, allowing for her personal relationships to become meaningless in her search for an elongated life. She goes so far as to steal the blood of young girls; this act of stealing innocent girls blood at their own expense, makes her a special parasite, human vampire.

In the Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, the main character, Lauren Olamina, leaves behind Christianity, a religion that she identified with her whole life and creates a new religion known as Earthseed. Earthseed is a naturalistic way of faith, based on the idea that God is changeable, therefore life, too, could change. Lauren Olamina creates Earthseed because she believes that it is what her people need in order to not only alter their chaotic and misguided ways, but to live a pro-active and positive life.

Caminero-Santangelo, Marta. 2007. On Latinidad: U.S. Latino Literature and the Construction of Ethnicity. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.

In conclusion, Esperanza faced many challenges as new immigrant to the United States. Such as, her mom suffering Valley Fever, Esperanza having to become “la patrona” (head of household), and her having to face discrimination as a Mexican

In the novel, The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, the theme of growing up is prevalent throughout the book. Throughout the novel, a young mexican girl named Esperanza goes through experiences as she matures that involve her friends, society, dangers that expose her to the outside world and help her to realize what the real world is like.

In the Foreword, she brings the reader to a day in 1997, when her cleaning woman Carmen reveals that she has four children in Guatemala, whom she has not seen in twelve years. Nazario is stunned. She cannot understand how a mother could so walk away from her young children, but Carmen then presents a reality the author will soon investigate and know to be ordinary. Since the 1960s, untold numbers of Central American mothers, often abandoned by their husbands, come to America to take any work available (Nazario xiii). In the late 20th century, then, and as American women were entering the workforce more and more, supply met demand and the illegal immigrant mothers found work as house cleaners and nannies. As Carmen expresses, nonetheless, the distance is almost unbearable and these mothers intensely feel the distance from their children. As the novel also reinforces, the children similarly experience the pain of separation, which goes to another form of “immigration”; basically, and often at very young ages, they risk their lives to join their mothers. Most importantly, then, and as Nazario is further moved by the true tale of Carmen's son Minor, Enrique's Journey actually documents an ongoing situation based on inequality and injustice. The novel is then completely based on the realities researched by the

Growing up in today’s society can be traumatizing for any child. When it comes to growing up as a young girl, however, it can be downright devastating, but not only for the child but the parent as well. There are so many decisions to be made when choosing how to raise your child, assuring that you have instilled proper values to develop a healthy sense of self-worth and confidence.

In Cinderella Ate My Daughter Peggy Orenstein examines the triumphs and pitfalls navigating raising a daughter, in today’s mixed message world. From peer pressure and the need to fit in today’s society, young females have commercialism forced at them at every turn and in very clever ways. Doll creators have been pushing the boundaries of good taste with each new season launch. When the more “mature” actresses at the age of 17 feel the need to do something drastic to remove them from the wholesome image created for by company executives, mothers and consumers feel betrayed, and yet then we need to have a dialog with our kids as to why just last month Miley Cyrus was wonderful but now she is not okay for the viewing household.

     In The House on Mango Street, we see how the youth struggled with the discrimination being pushed on them by Whites. Esperanza describes how they lived in such a poverty-stricken area of the city, and did not interact with the Whites. She talks about how the Whites saw Mexicans as bad people who committed crimes. Esperanza shows how personal identity for Mexicans was made

First of all, the setting of this novel contributes to the Rivera family’s overall perception of what it means to be an American. To start this off, the author chooses a small American city where groups of Latino immigrants with their own language and traditions, lived together in the same apartment building. All these immigrants experienced similar problems since they moved from their countries. For example, in the novel after every other chapter the author

Again, the story shows lots of examples in how the Sandoval family had to go through many discriminating acts. At the end of the Story Mariana, daughter of Pete, Granddaughter of Neftali falls in love with an Anglo Rich boy who never learned to accept Mariana because she was Mexican. Society has characterized Mexican Americans as unintelligent, dirty, and lazy people, therefor seeing an Anglo male with a Mexican girl was not common, and even if one did not think that at the time, Anglos were still embarrassed to be seen interacting with Mexicans, which could potentially degrade their name. Marianas Boyfriend David makes Mariana get an abortion on chapter seven, promising her a future; even though, Striver was planning on leaving Mariana after the abortion and planned to start a new life. This part of the story is absolutely saddening because Mariana died, thinking Stiver loved her, and was going to have a future with her. Mariana is not one only unfortunate girl who had this happen to her, but a Mexican woman during this era was only seen for maids, prostitutes, factory/field workers, or simply nothing. This shows the indifference Mexican American woman had to face, which was much different that Anglo woman.

Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler, is the story of a girl, Lauren, forming a new sort of religion in a post- apocalyptic world. As she travels through the remnants of a lost world, she begins to formulate her own belief system and calls it Earthseed. In short, Earthseed is described as a “combination of Buddhism, existentialism, Sufism” in addition to other worldly beliefs (261). All in all, Lauren hopes to create a new, sustainable religious community, and in turn, one day, a better human society.

Claire Standish or “the princess” portrays the stereotypical popular teenage girl in The Breakfast Club. She is in detention with everyone else because she decided to skip class and go shopping, which also plays into the stereotypical teen girl image. It can also be assumed that she is spoiled and rich since her father tried to get her out of detention but failed, and she mentions to the group that her parents only use her to get back at the other one. She brings a fancy lunch of sushi while the other teens either have nothing or the standard lunch one’s parents might pack for them. There are a couple of times in the movie that she brings up her social standing and could even be considered as looking down on those who are not as popular as her. Even closer towards the end of the movie she informs the others that if they were to say hello to her in the hallway in front of her friends, she would have no choice but to ignore them. By the end of the movie, she has opened up to everyone else about her fears of letting her peers down and has formed a close relationship with Bender.

This explains that men are not more that women, and both should have equal opportunities and mutual respect for each other. However, in today’s society women are been oppressed by sexism and racism ideologies, not only based on gender differences, but in skin color, body shape, and culture as well. Furthermore, the short story “Only Daughter” by Sandra Cisneros can be effectively analyse through the feminist lens in the belief of oppression, constructions of patriarchy, and multiple traditions ; to illustrate women struggle in the limitations and restrictions in the search for social acceptance and to bring consciousness that gender inequality is a crucial issue that must be resolved.

but has a 'gift' that 'Cousin Kate' is not likely to get; a son. The