In Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina, neighborhoods symbolize limits that have to be overcome. On Piddy’s first day of her new school, when she steps into the cafeteria, she notices that there are different neighborhoods- the latin kids have a group of tables, as well as the asian kids, the black kids and the outcasts. In terms of geographical neighborhoods, Piddy’s friend Mitzi moves to get away from the bad neighborhood. Also, Yaqui, who bullies Piddy, lives in the Bland which is thought of as a neighborhood for nobodies. “[Yaqui will] still be there- same as always always in her old neighborhood- a nobody with nothing.” Medina, pg 219-220 In both cases, your neighborhood creates stereotypes about who you are. In the lunchroom,
The book itself is an on-going dialogue between Kozol and the neighborhoods residents, interjected every so often with thoughts from Kozol. He covers a spectrum of topics from AIDS, drug addiction, prostitution, crime, poorly run and funded schools, white flight from schools to over-crowded hospitals and the amazing faith in religion and God that many of these people have.
The last chapter of John Okada’s No-No Boy is an evaluation of Ichiro’s choice that shapes the story. Before the beginning of the novel, Ichiro chooses not to fight the Japanese as an American soldier, and, as a result, he spends two years in jail. Ichiro’s friend, Freddie, was also a “no-no boy” who refused to fight as an American soldier. Freddie also does his jail time. However, at the end of the novel, Freddie makes the decision to go to war in a different context, and he dies (with a strong comparison to Ichiro’s good friend Kenji, who also dies as a result of going to war). As Freddie and Ichiro had made the same choices up until the final scenes of the book, Freddie serves to represent the contrast between Ichiro’s choice (to abstain from fighting) and the decision he could have made (to go to war). Ultimately, Ichiro defends his people and is on his way to becoming fulfilled. The novel ends on an optimistic note as Ichiro feels validated by all of the difficult decisions he had made.
It describes the immigrants point of view as they sacrifice their most beloved things. Bodega and Chino risked their love ones in order to help other people and the community. Relationships throughout the story elaborated the sacrifice that they went through to better the community. The relationship between the Chino and Blanca demonstrates that they sacrificed themselves for the better outcome of their upcoming baby. Sacrifice was also demonstrated through the business in the community being overpowered by Bodega to ensure that the white supremacy did not change the Puerto Rican community. Sacrifices that the characters made affected the development of the community of Spanish Harlem. El Barrio transformed its bad reputation to a well-know and conservative community. People give up their most precious loving memories to ensure their or someone else
When I was little I remember driving across country, going to Florida, and past neighborhoods that were anything but mine. They had old houses that looked like they were going to fall down any minute, real trashy looking. In Colorado, my house was nice and always kept up. I sat in the car wondering what kind of people lived in those run down places and what they were like. The answers came to me years later when I read the book, Famous All Over Town, by Danny Santiago. The main character, Chato, is a young Hispanic boy living in a neighborhood like the ones I saw when I was little. After reading the book, although I never thought I would have anything in common with people who lived like that, I learned that Chato and I have do have similarities, but we have more differences.
Latin American women in media are usually assigned the typical stereotypes. The stereotypes that are commonly associated with Latinas are thugs, gangbangers, laborers, servants, or seductress. In this novel we observe the experiences that many Latin American women have to endure due to the male-dominated society. The House on Mango Street is about a young Mexican-American girl, Esperanza, who dreams of a better life. Esperanza's family moves to a new house on Mango Street, but it doesn't meet the expectation of Esperanza's "dream house." The house is located in a crowded Latino neighborhood that consists of the lower income families. This book gives insight to the living conditions that many poor Latin-Americans live in.
Cisneros depicts Mango Street as a rough neighborhood, but she also conveys a sense of community. She writes down that “we are safe,” (Cisneros, 28) to indicate that she can find the sense of community. Even if the author does not think she belongs to Mango Street, she does not deny that her community lives there. At the beginning of The House on Mango Street, Cisneros states that “I had to have a house. A real house,” (Cisneros, 5) illustrating that after knowing the American society’s evaluation criteria of success, she wants to follow the upward mobility and be viewed as a successful figure not only because she wants to be appreciated but also because white people will change their stereotypes of Hispanic people if they see that a Hispanic woman can be as successful as other whites. Her ambition triggers her to want to explore the meaning of being a Hispanic girl in the real world. Furthermore, in the “My name” session, the author depicts her great-grandmother’s life. “She looked out the window her whole life… but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window.” (Cisneros, 11) Cisneros wants a marriage formed because of love, like most white people do; her desire indicates that she wants to live like the whites, so that they will respect her and the Hispanic race later. In addition, Cisneros points out that she
The setting of the story is Chicago’s South Side. This area of Chicago was known as the “capital of black America” (Manning), and according to Andrew Wiese, Chicago used to be known as “the most segregated city in America” (118). These seriously contradictory statements are true. Chicago’s South Side was home to William L. Dawson, who was the most powerful black politician at the time, and Joe Luis, who was a boxing champion and was known as the most popular black man in America (Manning). It was the most popular place for blacks to migrate to during the Great Migration, and the population grew from 278,000 blacks to 813,000 blacks. Most of the neighborhoods located in the South Side were poor and highly segregated from the rich white neighborhoods located just outside the South Side (Pacyga). The housing in these areas was very poor as well. Most of the African Americans at the time lived in a small apartment called a kitchenette. These were cramped with a small kitchen and small rooms (Plotkin). Lorraine Hansberry describes the Youngers house as a worn out, cramped, and very small apartment (23). She also talks about the small kitchen, living room, and bedrooms (24). These apartments were not ideal, but it was all that many African Americans could afford. If African Americans tried to move nicer neighborhoods, whites would perform violent acts on them (Choldin). This violence was recorded in a African American newspaper, known the Chicago Defender (Best).
I learned many things about Philip Caputo and his tour of duty. He described how he felt in the beginning about the Vietnamese people, which was not as much hate since him and the other soldiers were not as knowledgeable about all the conflict that was taking place in Vietnam. Caputo was very opinionated towards his views of the Vietnamese people. He actually felt sorry for all the villagers who had to see and deal with the negative environment that was brought upon them, and bear the Marines who probed their homes for prohibited Viet Cong relations. Caputo did not find it fair how the American troops mistreated the villagers and protected the concept of apprehending the Viet Cong. However, throughout the end of his tour, he and his men disliked the VC very strongly, learned how to hate and wanted to kill them.
In recent years the new house Negro is the middle-class black family and the field Negro is the lower-class Black family. The middle-class black family has done everything in his power to flee the stereotypes of the lower-class black. In "Faking the Funk: The Middle Class Black folks of Prince George`s County," by Nathan McCall, some middle-class blacks from an area called Prince George's county petitioned for a different zip code, because their current one too closely related them with Landover, a lower-class black community (275). The middle-class black family has fallen victim to classism whether he is willing to acknowledge it or not. The mentality of the middle-class black resembles "the white racist stereotype of Blacks" (Steele 266). For example the middle-class black sees the lower-class black as a lazy irresponsible person with no work ethic. The more negative images the middle-class black relates to the lower-class black the more the middle-class black tries to disembody himself from that image.
In The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail, Oscar Martinez comments on the injustices that occur while migrating from Central America. Central Americans are forced to leave their countries in fear of the inevitable consequences. The systematic abuse Central Americans endure while migrating is founded on that fear which results in more repercussions for migrants. The psychological effects of migrating is used by Martinez to give insight on the atrocities that happen in Central America. The corruption involved while migrating in Central America is against human rights and should be brought immediate attention internationally. Martinez uses the experiences of migrants to expose Mexico’s passivity on the subject and to expose readers’ to the hard truths that occur while migrating.
The third chapter is quite a different spin from what I read in the previous chapters from author's Gloria. E. Anzaldua's book entitled Light In The Dark/Luz En Lo Oscuro. Chapter three is quite interesting. In this particular chapter on page 48, she reveals her identity as a jotitita (queer Chicana). Anzaldua goes to further states that this "mexicatjena-to enter a museum and look at indigenous objects that were once used by my ancestors"(48 Anzaldua). What is interesting to me is the she ponders on whether or not she finds her historical Indian identity at the museum. In addition, she also questions whether her identity could be found along the ancient artifacts and their as she puts it their mestizaje. I really
Starting off the discussion we will start with chapter one. Chapter one is about Decent and street families. Decent families are families who live by society’s norms and try to avoid violence, drugs, confrontation, whereas street families embrace violence and fear because it is a way to stay alive within their neighborhoods. In the chapter they discuss how many families in the inner city actually have the decent family values, but can also harbor the street values. For example in the chapter they actually discussed an instance where Marge a women they had interviewed had a problem with others in her neighborhood. Her story s...
“Home is where the heart is.” In The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros develops this famous statement to depict what a “home” really represents. What is a home? Is it a house with four walls and a roof, the neighborhood of kids while growing up, or a unique Cleaver household where everything is perfect and no problems arise? According to Cisneros, we all have our own home with which we identify; however, we cannot always go back to the environment we once considered our dwelling place. The home, which is characterized by who we are, and determined by how we view ourselves, is what makes every individual unique. A home is a personality, a depiction of who we are inside and how we grow through our life experiences. In her personal, Cisneros depicts Esperanza Cordero’s coming-of-age through a series of vignettes about her family, neighborhood, and personalized dreams. Although the novel does not follow a traditional chronological pattern, a story emerges, nevertheless, of Esperanza’s search to discover the meaning of her life and her personal identity. The novel begins when the Cordero family moves into a new house, the first they have ever owned, on Mango Street in the Latino section of Chicago. Esperanza is disappointed by the “small and red” house “with tight steps in front and bricks crumbling in places” (5). It is not at all the dream-house her parents had always talked about, nor is it the house on a hill that Esperanza vows to one day own for herself. Despite its location in a rough neighborhood and difficult lifestyle, Mango Street is the place with which she identifies at this time in her life.
The torn down neighborhood, graffiti on the walls, gun shops and abandoned houses are what people living on the wrong side of 8 miles in Detroit saw in their everyday lives. Social disorganization theory according to Freda, Mueller, and Laufer (2013) is “A theory of criminality in which the breakdown of effective social bonds, primary associations, and social controls in neighborhoods and communities is held to result in the development of high crime areas” (p. 124). In the movie 8 Mile (Curtis Hanson, 2002) B-Rabbit lives in 8 mile where he is surrounded by delinquents that commit crimes, bums around the neighborhood and the alcoholic drunk of a mother he lives within a trailer park in the duration of the movie. He is a blue collar worker who does a lot of physical labor in a steel cutting factory where he tries to make a means to help support his mom and sister. But what he really hopes is to be a rapper, make a demo and sign to a label. So he goes where all other rappers go to get noticed, the “Shelter.” Rappers go and have battled to become a highly valued individual in the residential district. With such a large population that attend and participate in those battles there are less chances of any of them being sought out for a record deal. Others that lived outside of the 8 mile district thought less of the people that did live in that location. Even though they stayed together as people from the 313 there was always a better neighborhood or somebody who had it better. So who better to pick on than the white boy who survives with his alcoholic mother in a trailer, taking care of his sister, playing in a distasteful factory, and failing against the “Leaders of the Free World?” He was the perfect target just like many others th...
The people that travel the streets constantly look as if they are unemployed, many of the women have children. Sadly, there is nowhere to really hangout in this area, which is why many people stay in trouble. The area has several gang groups, which marks themselves and territory by colors and graffiti. You do not see any political signs or any other kind of advertisement because it usually gets graffiti on it or taken down. The main two religions in this area is Holiness or Methodist, the main race that attends these churches is African Americans. Although English is the main language amongst this population, there are some that speaks solely Spanish. All of the schools in this location are public schools.