The Myth Of The Latin Woman Analysis

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Cofer, Judith Ortiz. “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria.” The Blair Reader: Exploring Issues and Ideas. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2014. Print. Judith Ortiz Cofer is a poet, a novelist, and a professor at the University of Georgia. In her essay, Cofer discusses some of the stereotypes Latin women are commonly associated with. For example, Latinas are sexual objects, are uneducated, and are housemaids or waitresses. According to Cofer, these typical stereotypes are perpetuated by “mixed cultural signals” because the media portrays the women of Latin America with these stereotypes. However, this “myth” is not true for all Latin women. Cofer mentions she was once mistaken for a waitress at her first public poetry reading. Cofer also explains that Latinas are seen as sexual icons because of their choice of clothing, but their choice of clothing “is custom, not chromosomes” (310); their mothers, who grew up wearing skin-showing clothes to keep cool and look sexy, influenced their decisions about clothes. I plan ...

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