Praise the Tortilla, Praise Menudo, Praise Chorizo by Ray Gonzalez is a fascinating poem. Although it is short, it has much room for interpretation and analysis. The poem contains only 221 words, but they are rich in meaning and evoke powerful emotions in its readers. The poet, Ray Gonzalez, grew up in El Paso, Texas and has Mexican heritage. His identity as a Chicano poet is clearly evident, if not the inspiration for, Praise the Tortilla, Praise Menudo, Praise Chorizo. Praise the Tortilla, Praise Menudo, Praise Chorizo consists of three stanzas. The first stanza addresses the tortilla. Gonzalez begins the poem with a memory of “El Panzon.” According to Google Translate and my three years of Spanish classes, this translates to “The Panzon,” …show more content…
Menudo is a Mexican soup made of cow guts, hominy, and red chili peppers. Menudo is typically reserved for large family gatherings and special occasions due to the fact that it takes several hours to prepare the beef stomach. Gonzalez refers to “tripas y posole” in line eleven. This translates to “cow guts (tripe) and hominy,” the main ingredients in menudo. Gonzales brings up the “tight flashes of color” because the white chunks of tripe and hominy would contrast with the redness of the red chili pepper base. He uses imagery to evoke a picture of “red caldo (soup) smears” in a notebook. This imagery relates the food back to his childhood, as elementary school is the most common setting for using notebooks. In line ten, Gonzalez calls menudo “visionary” which he elaborates on later in the stanza when he compares “our lives going down” to the digestion of menudo. “Going down” in this context does not mean becoming negative, but rather refers to life running its course, just as menudo must run its course. He also compares chili piquin to “poetic dreams,” which conveys the idea that just as chili piquin provides the spicy flavor in menudo, dreams or goals are the spice and flavor in our
...the use of both the Spanish and English languages and the description of a meal of menudos, gorditas, and Coca-Cola symbolize Josie's two identities--Mexican and American.
The Broken Spears is a book written by Miguel Leon-Portilla that gives accounts of the fall of the Aztec Empire to the Spanish in the early 16th century. The book is much different from others written about the defeat of the empire because it was written from the vantage point of the Aztecs rather then the Spanish. Portilla describes in-depth many different reasons why the Spanish were successful in the defeat of such a strong Empire.
Hannie Rayson’s play ‘Hotel Sorrento’ explores the changing nature of Australian cultural identity. Rayson successfully perpetuates and challenges common Australian stereotypes in order to establish how the Australian National Identity has changed over time. She presents these stereotypes through the characters expectations of gender roles, attitudes towards Australian culture and the theme of ownership.
Miguel Castaneda is the narrator and main character of the story “We Were Here”. Miguel is a young teenager from Stockton, California. He is dark complected because of his Mexican background but he does not have the personality to do the work like that of his Mexican relatives. I know this because in the story it says, “Told us we might be dark on the outside, but inside we were like a couple blonde boys from Hollywood.” He is very different from the rest of his family in terms of being able to handle situations that are put in front of him and completing the task at hand.
Robert Laurence Moore has written a delightful, enlightening, and provocative survey of American church history centered around the theme of "mixing" the "sacred" with the "secular" and vice versa. The major points of conversation covered include the polarization caused by the public display of religious symbols, the important contribution that women and Africans have made to the American religious mosaic, the harmony and friction that has existed between science and religion, the impact of immigration on religious pluralism, and the twin push toward the union and separation of religion and politics.
This novel is a story of a Chicano family. Sofi, her husband Domingo together with their four daughters – Esperanza, Fe, Caridad, and Loca live in the little town of Tome, New Mexico. The story focuses on the struggles of Sofi, the death of her daughters and the problems of their town. Sofi endures all the hardships and problems that come her way. Her marriage is deteriorating; her daughters are dying one by one. But, she endures it all and comes out stronger and more enlightened than ever. Sofi is a woman that never gives up no matter how poorly life treats her. The author- Ana Castillo mixes religion, super natural occurrences, sex, laughter and heartbreak in this novel. The novel is tragic, with no happy ending but at the same time funny and inspiring. It is full of the victory of the human spirit. The names of Sofi’s first three daughters denote the three major Christian ideals (Hope, Faith and Charity).
Najarro.Adela. "Angles in the Kitchen:Latino Poets and the Search for Identity." Adela Najarro's Website. 24 Oct. 2002. 16. Sept. 2003
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).
Consider the first few lines, “I have nothing else to give you, so it is a pot full of yellow corn, to warm your belly in the winter” (Baca 8-10). The imagery here is clear. The author invokes the images of yellow delicious corn while stressing the importance of his poem in relation to food. The speaker cannot give the recipient food, so he gives the only thing he can, poetry. This imagery is strong in demonstrating the importance of the poem in comparison to food. Not only was imagery strong in this line it, it is also a metaphor: Thing A = Thing B. The author appears skilled in using both imagery and metaphors in this poem. Consider these lines, “It is a scarf for your head, to wear over your hair, to tie up around your face” (Baca 11-12). The author uses again both imagery and metaphors in this line. He is stating that his poem is as important to his love interest as a “Scarf for your head”, and that it should be valued. The imagery used within this stanza appears to be coordinating with Santiago’s message quite well. The second stanza invokes warm images of kindness, while the third stanza is more mysterious and
Charles Percy Austin used fine detail and a mesh of color in order to bring out the beauty in the girl. The strokes he used are precise and even throughout the painting. Charles Percy Austin settled in the golden state of California. He was an artist that had a fine soft brush stroke throughout his canvases. He has done many paintings such as “Mary Pickford’s wedding on the mission’s grounds (1924), La Buena Ventura 91927), and a padre feeding a parrot in the courtyard (1924).” His works earned him a medal from the Panama-California International Exposition. Charles Percy Austin is best known for his splendid and expensive-looking paintings. I experienced this first hand when I entered the museum because his painting stood out from the rest.
As a journalist in 1920 for the New York Herald Tribune, Sophie Treadwell was assigned to go to Mexico to follow the situation after the Mexican Revolution. (Mexican Revolution 1910-1917) She covered many important aspects of the Mexican Revolution during this time, including relations between the U.S. and Mexico. She was even permitted an interview with Pancho Villa in August 1921 at his headquarters. This interview and other events that she experienced in Mexico are presumably what led her to write the play Gringo. In Gringo Treadwell tries to depict the stereotypical and prejudicial attitudes that Mexicans and Americans have about each other. There is a demonstration of how Mexican women are looked at in the Mexican culture and how they see themselves. The play also corresponds to similar events that occurred during the Mexican Revolution.
“Who is more to blame though either should do wrong? She who sins for pay or he who pays to sin?” Throughout “You Foolish Men” by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz the central question lies around who is to really blame for the suppression of women. De la Cruz attempts throughout her poem to portray men as ludicrous for their a double standard of women. However, De la Cruz blames human nature more than men for the suppression of women.
Culture molds the character of writers and gives a variety of different perspective on certain life experiences. In Julia Alvarez’s short story Snow, Yolanda, an immigrant student, moved to New York. While attending a Catholic school in New York, bomb drills were performed. The teacher would explain why these drills were important. Yolanda later found out that her first experience of watching snow was not the best experience one could possibly have.
A person's ability to develop is due to two factors, maturation and learning. Although maturation, or the biological development of genes, is important, it is the learning - the process through which we develop through our experiences, which make us who we are (Shaffer, 8). In pre-modern times, a child was not treated like they are today. The child was dressed like and worked along side adults, in hope that they would become them, yet more modern times the child's need to play and be treated differently than adults has become recognized. Along with these notions of pre-modern children and their developmental skills came the ideas of original sin and innate purity. These philosophical ideas about children were the views that children were either born "good" or "bad" and that these were the basis for what would come of their life.
Pablo Neruda is from Chile and gives a voice to Latin America in his poetry (Bleiker 1129). “The United Fruit Co.,” the poem by Pablo Neruda that will be analyzed in this essay, is enriched with symbolism, metaphors, and allusions. These allusions have great emphasis to the Christian religion, but some allusions are used to evoke negative emotions towards the United States (Fernandez 1; Hawkins 42). Personification and imagery along with onomatopoeia and metonymy are also found in “The United Fruit Co.” Neruda’s use of these literary devices makes his messages of imperialism, Marxism, and consumerism understandable (Fernandez 4). In this essay each of these literary devices with its proper meaning will be further analyzed in the hope of achieving a more complex understanding of Neruda’s message.