The Strange Career Of William Ellis By Karl Jacoby

In the novel, we read through Richard Blanco’s childhood in Miami. Growing up in a family of Cubans is a challenge. Through his stories, he searches for identity and belonging. Blanco shares experiences, in which he finds a sense of self. He discusses the importance of being who you are no matter what. Through knowledge and experience, Richard Blanco and I have experienced “Coming of Age”. When you are in the process of this transition, you may go through some conflicts or struggles. These conflicts will most probably teach you life lessons. You will gain wisdom throughout these years, which will make you more mature.

The author creates a mood of being irritating by her “…awful grandmother…” and brothers “…Alfredito and Enrique…” who are occupied playing outside as “… a B-Fifty-two bomber…” [paragraph 5] and her grandmother with a “… long, long list of relatives … names of the dead and the living into one long prayer…” [paragraph 10]. Including, the imagery provided in the short story described the character’s actions by watching her grandmother pray while she counts her grandmother’s mustache hairs. Later, an unknown lady and man start talking to her brother asking if she could take a picture, than judging by their looks, they assume they do not speak English but only

The story begins in Guatemala; it shows the happy family life which Rosa and Enrique have. Their family friends are visiting and they are talking about the life in United States. Rosa’s godmother says she has been reading Good

The story describes the experiences of a young women named Cleofilas. She grew up with six brothers and had no mother. So therefore, she learned how to be a woman through watching telenovelas. She believes that to be a woman she only needs to find true love and have a “happily ever after”. Later she meets a man named Juan and they eventually fall in love and get married.

The novel, ‘Enrique’s Journey’ follows the difficult quest of a Honduras boy in search for his mother after she is forced to leave her starving family in order to find work in the United States. Lourdes, Enrique’s mother, knows she will not be able to afford to send them to school, and they would be forced to grow up in poverty as she did when she was a child. Finding work in the United States was Lourdes only way of being able to send money in order to support her family. As a boy, Enrique and his sister Belky are were also split apart from one another, leaving Enrique completely alone. Over the years, Enrique often shuffled from one home to another, eventually spending most of his young life with is grandmother, while his sister sets out to get her education and is well cared for by their aunt. After the depression sinks in for Enrique, he turns to drugs for comfort and begins to rebel against his grandmother. She eventually kicks him out and he is faced with the sobering reality of being completely alone. Frustrated with his mother, and the circumstances he faces in life, Enrique embarks on a

The speaker of the story is an anonymous narrator from Laredo who gossips about Carmen. The narrator gives off a gossipy persona through what the narrator said about her. The narrator gives off this persona due to his or her exaggeration of the story such as the rumor of José and how he carved his initials onto Carmen’s chichis. In addition, the narrator decides to interrupt her story with unnecessary details about her love life such as the rumor of José rather than

Alejandrez begins his essay with a story from his childhood. He sets up the story by giving it a time and place he is the son of a migrant worker born in a cotton field in Merigold, Mississippi. He then describes his difficult childhood using vivid language, as the son of a migrant worker he had to move many times a year and assimilate into many different schools. His family had to make ends meet with the little money they had so most of the time that meant having no shoes or one pair of pants. The social climate was also very tense, he describes it as “ I always remembered my experience in Texas, where

But when she saw the house that they moved into, it was not what she had expected. In the book, Esperanza says, “But the house on Mango Street is not the way they told it at all. It’s small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you’d think they were holding their breath. Bricks are crumbling in places, and the front door is so swollen you have to push hard to get in. There is no front yard, only four little elms the city planted by the curb. Out back is a small garage for the car we don’t own yet and a small yard that looks smaller between the two buildings on either side. There are stairs in our house, but they’re ordinary hallway stairs, and the house has only one washroom. Everybody has to share a bedroom-- Mama and Papa, Carlos and Kiki, me and Nenny.” (Cisneros 4). By reading this, the reader can see the parallel between the house and Esperanza’s struggle with her identity. Esperanza expected her house to be this beautiful, huge, almost mansion-type place, whereas in reality it was a small house, with not much inside. Just like that, Esperanza wants to be this amazing, strong, confident, prolific writer, whereas she does not even know who she is yet. Like the house she imagined, she wants there to be so much to her, but now, she is like her house on Mango Street with not much to her that she has discovered

As a young girl Esperanza is asked one day where she lived by a nun from her school who happened to be walking by. Now before this moment Esperanza never really notice her living situation, all she knew is that her parents loved her and wanted her to go to school. When the nun rudely said “You live there” (Cinceros 5) and pointed at the shoddy apartment building, it is then Esperanza started to build a dream inside of her head because of the look on the nun’s face, unsatisfactory.

First and foremost, this novel is about Chicano people and the struggles they endured. While each small passage can be viewed as the progression of the unknown male protagonist, it also gives a multitude of other views as well. Middle-aged male

Daniel H. Williams took a stand by going to college to get a good education in a time where “colored” people had very few options for schooling. Daniel began his education in Hollidaysburg; then studied in Maryland, at the Freedmen's Bureau's Stanton School, and later in Janesville, Wisconsin, at

Rodriguez does not comfort whose mother even though he feels something is not right. Richard thinks that his mother is “sad” and wanted to approach her and ask however claims they are “questions of paradise.” if someone's mother felt sad or upset, usually there children would try to comfort them and understand what they are feeling, however richard feels his mother’s pain but does not even try to ask what the cause of it is. Richard compares his mother too material objects. Richard thinks that his mother “seems very small,” when compared to the “expensive foreign cars” behind her. Richard instead of notices his mother, notices the expensive foreign cars more. Richard also does not even recognize what his parents are doing. He didn't realize that his father “has” only said one thing to him all evening. Someone would notice if their father had not spoken to them all day, however richard does not realize this to the very

In conclusion, Oscar Casares made Mrs. Perez represent Brownsville by the way he used Spanish in his text and by focusing on her life in Brownsville. He wanted the readers to know that it was a town filled with people who are full of life and enjoy the little thigs in life. Mrs. Perez was a strong and independent elderly woman who was fascinated by bowling and was not afraid when faced with a

In the series of short stories The Stories of Eva Luna, the author, Isabel Allende, incorporates the element of the past affecting the present into her plotlines. This style of writing creates a correlation between the new and the old by establishing a cause and effect type of relationship. While this element exists in all of Allende’s short stories, she exhibits it most prominently in The Gold of Tomás Vargas. In this specific short story, the main character, Tomás Vargas, indulges in life’s luxuries and pleasures to their fullest extents. Tomás can afford to act in such a manner because of a past event, occurring at a time before which the short story even takes place: the burying of his gold. When paper money loses almost all its value, Tomás’s buried fortune gives him a wealthy status

In the book Revolutionary Characters by Gordan Wood, the degree in which he portrays the personality and personal philosophies that informed the politics of these early American leaders, especially Thomas Jefferson, shows that contrary to popular belief that these men were not some unflawed perfect beings, but they are just like us with their many fears and insecurities. These flaws appear in all of the founding fathers and this adds a level of realism to them. It also shows that flaws are a part of human nature.