Annie Dillard and Luis J. Rodriguez are two award-winning American writers. Although Ms. Dillard—Pulitzer prize winner— writes in the female perspective and Mr. Rodriguez in the male point of view, both display a similarity about a childhood event that happened to both of them. Even though the grew up in America, each has a unique style which gives us, the readers, a glimpse of their environment, along with its color, sound and culture. Each wrote about an event that occurred in their childhood, during the cold days in winter. Ms. Dillard was seven years old, and Mr. Rodriguez was ten. Ms. Dillard related her experience in her book (released in 1987), An American Childhood. Mr. Rodriguez told his story in his 1993 best-selling autobiography, …show more content…
He writes, “We were constant prey, and the hunters soon became big blurs: the police, the gangs, the junkies, the dudes on Garvey Boulevard who took our money, all smudged up into one.” Dillard describes an open, clean and order way of life while Rodriguez portrays a tough, boundary inflicting, chaotic environment. Both writers want the reader to understand their culture. They achieve their objectives by directing the reader’s attention to the specific details of their …show more content…
Seven-year-old Dillard and a friend were chased relentlessly by an adult—a red-headed stranger—whom she and some boys had thrown snowballs on a cold, winter morning in Pittsburgh. Dillard explains the thrill and fear she felt as she ran from the stranger. She implies a euphoric happiness “for nothing had required so much” of her since that day. On the other hand, Luis Rodriguez’s account is sad, painful and life-changing. The ten-year-old can’t trust anyone in such a tough culture. “Sometimes they were teachers who jumped on us Mexicans as if we were born with a hideous stain. We were always afraid. Always running.” These two writers, though, don’t differentiate much in the way they write their chasing scenes. Both use short choppy sentences when they both want to push the action forward. Such as like when Ms. Dillard writes, “Wordless, we split up. We were on our turf, we could lose ourselves…” The shorter breaks in-between punctuates and creates a faster-paced tempo and quick beat to the chase. Rodriguez does the same thing, “It never stopped, this running. We were constant prey, and the hunters soon became big blurs…” He too includes those quick breaks and puts shorter words to make the story flow more
Both Virginia Woolf and Annie Dillard are extremely gifted writers. Virginia Woolf in 1942 wrote an essay called The Death of the Moth. Annie Dillard later on in 1976 wrote an essay that was similar in the name called The Death of a Moth and even had similar context. The two authors wrote powerful texts expressing their perspectives on the topic of life and death. They both had similar techniques but used them to develop completely different views. Each of the two authors incorporate in their text a unique way of adding their personal experience in their essay as they describe a specific occasion, time, and memory of their lives. Woolf’s personal experience begins with “it was a pleasant morning, mid-September, mild, benignant, yet with a keener breath than that of the summer months” (Woolf, 1). Annie Dillard personal experience begins with “two summers ago, I was camping alone in the blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia” (Dillard, 1). Including personal experience allowed Virginia Woolf to give her own enjoyable, fulfilling and understandable perception of life and death. Likewise, Annie Dillard used the personal narrative to focus on life but specifically on the life of death. To explore the power of life and death Virginia Woolf uses literary tools such as metaphors and imagery, along with a specific style and structure of writing in a conversational way to create an emotional tone and connect with her reader the value of life, but ultimately accepting death through the relationship of a moth and a human. While Annie Dillard on the other hand uses the same exact literary tools along with a specific style and similar structure to create a completely different perspective on just death, expressing that death is how it comes. ...
Norma Elia Cantu’s novel “Canícula: Imágenes de una Niñez Fronteriza” (“Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera”), which chronicles of the forthcoming of age of a chicana on the U.S.- Mexico border in the town of Laredo and Nuevo Laredo in the 1940s-60s. Norma Elia Cantú brings together narrative and the images from the family album to tell the story of her family. It blends authentic snapshots with recreated memoirs from 1880 to 1950 in the town between Monterrey, Mexico, and San Antonio, Texas. Narratives present ethnographic information concerning the nationally distributed mass media in the border region. Also they study controversial discourse that challenges the manner in which the border and its populations have been portrayed in the U.S. and Mexico. The canícula in the title symbolizes “The dog days of 1993,” an intense part of summer when the cotton is harvested in South Texas. The canícula also represents summer and fall; also important seasons and concepts of that bridge between child and adulthood. She describes imaginative autobioethnography life growing up on ...
As you read you can picture his settings and characters. For the purpose of this book review, the reader will discuss how a migrant community in search of the “American Dream” encounters the “American Nightmare” as described by Tomás Rivera in his novel, “ …And the Earth Did Not Devour Him.”
In both the movie, La Misma Luna, and the newspaper series, Enrique’s Journey, migrants are faced with many issues. The most deadly and scarring issues all relate back to bandits, judicial police, and la migra or Mexican immigration officers. The problems that arise are serious to the point of rape, robbing, and beating. It is not easy crossing the border illegally and secretly, but the successful ones have an interesting or even traumatic story about how it worked for them.
Sandra Benitez, birth name Sandy Ables, was born in Washington D.C. March 26, 1941. Due to her father’s job as a diplomat, she lived most of her childhood in Mexico and El Salvador. During Benitez teenage years, she lived with her family in the United States where she assimilated into American culture. In 1979 she decided to leave her job and began to attend a creative writing class. “Her first novel, a murder mystery set in Missouri, was never published. She brought the novel to a writer’s conference, where she was told it was terrible”. (“About”, Benitez) This led her to become the person she is now and focus on writing of her Latina heritage. In 1993 Benitez had published her first novel, A Place Where the Sea Remembers, where she received the Minnesota Book Award and the Barnes and Noble Discover Award.
The book, “Y no se lo trago la tierra” by Thomas River grasp a point of view of a migrant community, as manifestations of Chicano culture, language, and experience as understood by a first person point of a young male protagonist. The setting of the book takes place of a year during the 1950s and uses a variety of perspectives and voices to follow the boy’s passages into adolescence. As the setting of the book moves from Texas to upper Midwest to the ye...
In a story of identity and empowerment, Juan Felipe Herrera’s poem “Borderbus” revolves around two Honduran women grappling with their fate regarding a detention center in the United States after crawling up the spine of Mexico from Honduras. While one grapples with their survival, fixated on the notion that their identities are the ultimate determinant for their future, the other remains fixated on maintaining their humanity by insisting instead of coming from nothingness they are everything. Herrera’s poem consists entirely of the dialogue between the two women, utilizing diction and imagery to emphasize one’s sense of isolation and empowerment in the face of adversity and what it takes to survive in America.
The setting of The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction is based in the 1904 when the Arizona mines and smelters offered ideal incentive for immigrants from Mexico scrambling for a means to life . Around this time, New York nuns brought in 40 Irish orphans to one mining camp in Arizona to stay with Catholic families in the locality a move that was not kindly received by the rest of the Anglos. The underlying perception at the time in Arizona was that Anglos could not mingle freely with any immigrants as they were considered people of colour an understanding that raised racial discrimination to great heights in all operations within the community . Owing to this, the Anglos were furious with the nuns at such ‘betrayal’ and formed a vigilante group to save the community from this great ‘plague’ of immigrant settlement . The vigilantes kidnapped the children and nearly killed the nuns and burned the Catholic Church on whose authority the children had been brought t...
The emotional letter that Juan left for his mother might be one of the most emotional scenes in the documentary. The pure emotions that the letter was written by Juan to her mother leaves the audience with the bonds and emotions felt between the kids and families. Juan Carlos’s father abandoned the family years ago and left to New York, consequently Juan believe it is his responsibility to provide for his family. He also wants to find his father in New York and confronts him about why he has forgotten about them. The story of Juan is not just about migration of children, but also the issue of family separation. The documentary does not dehumanize but rather bring the humane and sensitive lens to the story of Juan where the human drama that these young immigrants and their families live. Juan Carlos is not the first of Esmeralda’s sons to leave for the United states, his nine-year-old brother Francisco was smuggled into California one month earlier. Francisco now lives with Gloria, his grandmother, who paid a smuggler $3,500 to bring him to Los Angeles, California. Once Juan Carlos is in the shelter for child migrants his mother eagerly awaits him outside. After she sees him she signs a paper that says if Juan Carlos tries to travel again, he will be sent to a foster home.
Similar to Adnan and Zitkala-Sa, Rivera writes of discrimination towards a specific group of people, however, Rivera writes of direct discrimination for no apparent reason. The discrimination can not be justified because of a fight for land in the case of the Palestinian-Christian and Native American-American cause, instead, the hate is caused solely off of the difference in skin color. The main character is picked on and socially excluded at school due to his Hispanic heritage. There is a specific boy who often makes him feel mad and embarrassed. Rivera describes an encounter with this boy, ““Hey, Mex… I don't like Mexicans because they steal. You hear me?” “Yes” “I don't like Mexicans. You hear, Mex?”” (Rivera, 93-94). Besides the obvious racism, the boy is badgering the main character—trying to get under his skin. The boy stereotypes the main character based off of the main character’s skin color and accordingly acts in a hateful manor. Sadly, many Americans stereotype minorities without personally getting to know the individual. Based off of the main character’s Mexican heritage, the American boy assumes that he steals. However, this sort of racism towards other races on American land is rooted in an even deeper hate, the hate of the Native
Peering in from the eastern border of St. James Park, in the city of San José, you begin to get an essence of American life. From the upper echelons, to the lowly scum of society, St. James Park is known for its diversity. With the church at your back, you can observe the people pacing the station, glancing at their cell phones every other second as they wait for the train to arrive. An elderly man takes a leisurely stroll with the support of his cane. Kids playing soccer score between goal post marked by homeless bunker tree forts. Police reprimand a vagrant man for being naked while changing at his park bench. A used dirty tissue and old worn-in hooker boots lay carelessly on a picnic table inside the deserted playground area. The thugs make a quick score of some coke from their local street pharmacist. In the distance, bordering the western end of the park, are the steps leading to the Superior Court House: an everlasting symbol of justice and security presiding over American life. The frequenters of St. James Park are a part of a unique and complex subculture, in and of itself.
The struggle to find a place inside an un-welcoming America has forced the Latino to recreate one. The Latino feels out of place, torn from the womb inside of America's reality because she would rather use it than know it (Paz 226-227). In response, the Mexican women planted the seeds of home inside the corral*. These tended and potted plants became her burrow of solace and place of acceptance. In the comfort of the suns slices and underneath the orange scents, the women were free. Still the questions pounded in the rhythm of street side whispers. The outside stare thundered in pulses, you are different it said. Instead of listening she tried to instill within her children the pride of language, song, and culture. Her roots weave soul into the stubborn soil and strength grew with each blossom of the fig tree (Goldsmith).
Martinez’s story is not so much one that pieces together the events of the crash, nor the lives of the three youths, but it is an immigrant’s tale, discovered through the crossings of the various Chavez family members and profiles of Cheranos in Mexico.
Junot Diaz's short story “Fiesta, 1980” gives an insight into the everyday life of a lower class family, a family with a troubled young boy, Yunior and a strong, abusive father, Papi. The conflict, man vs. man is one of the central themes of this story. This theme is portrayed through the conflicts between Papi and his son. Papi asserts his dominance in what can be considered unfashionable ways. Unconsciously, every action Papi makes yields negative reactions for his family. Yunior simply yearns for a tighter bond with his father, but knows-just like many other members of his family-Papi’s outlandish ways hurts him. As the story unfolds it becomes obvious that the conflicts between Papi and himself-along with conflicts between Yunior and himself-affect not only them as individuals, but their family as a whole.
The opening section of this story is a third person narrative. The narrator immediately introduces a poor Chicano family with two young children. A few initial facts that the reader picks up in the opening paragraph are that both parents have to work, the children often play by themselves in back allies and carry their own keys, and the father has warned the children to always avoid the police.