Book Of Unknown America Analysis

Mayor was the only one that treated Maribel with respect, but when her parents found out about their little incident of sneaking out and kissing, they prevented her from seeing Mayor. As soon as the parents saw Maribels disatisfaction, they started to wonder whether their actions were the right thing to do. “Say whether you’re upset about Mayor and her because she’s your daughter or because she’s your brain-damaged daughter.” (221) This clearly shows that both Alma and Arturo had never really discussed the matter with each other. Without clearly thinking about what their actions could do, they dug themselves a hole which put them in a hard position to recover. This was the first time Alma and Arturo really discussed the health of Maribel. The fact that she was healing, and that after she healed, she will not be the same as

The author's attitude towards the boys in this novel is ignorant and emotional. This novel is composed of vignettes that show Esperanza learn about the true power of language and the struggle for self- definition. While befriending Sally, she learns more about boys and matures sexually. During the year, Esperanza develops her first crush and even endures sexual assault. From this, her first impression and ignorance over the topic of boys and having the thought process that girls and boys live in different worlds, awakens Esperanza and teaches her an important lesson and becomes to an eyeopening experience.

In the article: America, Found and Lost by Charles C. Mann,the colonists that arrived at Jamestown faced many hardships but how they managed their newfound land changed the landscape forever. When the newcomers arrived to America, their different ways changed the landscape around them forever. What we learned in school is wrong, the land was far from untouched. Powhatan’s people lived in villages surrounded by huge plots of cleared land that was used for crops. To avoid attack from Spanish ships, Jamestown was settled over a hundred miles away from the ocean. They also tried to keep themselves on good terms with the natives to decrease the risk of being attacked. Around half the of the original colonists at Jamestown had perished from salt

From Mexico to the United States, a very dangerous journey some take to have a better life or to reunite with their family. Even people who are as inexperienced, such as Enrique, go through this dangerous path to reunite himself with his mother. In the novel, Enrique's Journey, author Sonia Nazario uses literary devices such as theme, characterization, and POV to show us how events change a character along the way and reveals how a character truly is. Sonia Nazario uses theme to show us the drastic change in character, characterization to show us how the dangers of this journey has an impact on someone, and POV to show us how the character is someone else’s perspective.

Imagine you and your family living under a gruesome dictator and having no freedom . Julia alvarez “ a genetics of justice “ is a novel about a young girl and her family living under a dictator with a totalitarian government in the dominican government.In this novel you learn about her journey and how she becomes to be the women she is today . “No flies fly into a closed mouth “is a quote used by her mother through the text. In the novel it also talks about the dictator and is unusual daily life . Alvarez and her family have a lot of trauma considering there lives in the dominican republic and living under the dictator,through it all alvarez's parents raised a daughter who would share their story in a fashionable matter that told the story how it was.

Stories and memories passed on through generations can help to shape an individual. In many instances, storytelling can tell a lesson or push a person’s opinion about something in a certain direction. Memories can sometimes be unreliable, but can also be all that someone can base their life off of. Judith Ortiz Cofer’s memoir Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican childhood uses storytelling to share her memories in a life lesson manner. She takes the reader on a journey through her memories and childhood and uses her memory as a main tool. Memory and storytelling is an important aspect of Silent Dancing, because they helped to shape the author, told lessons to the reader, and explained a life tied between Puerto Rican and American.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a martyr is a “person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life itself for the sake of principle” and in Julia Alvarez’s novel In the Time of the Butterflies, no one encompasess this more than the book’s four protagonists—Dedé, Minerva, María Teresa, and Patria—the Mirabal sisters. Known as Las Mariposas, the Butterflies, these women suffered for the right to pursue freedom in a revolution against the Dominican Republic's oppressive dictator Rafael Trujillo. In their revolutionary efforts, these remarkable sisters have become icons in the public eye of the DR, and have been heralded as great leaders for their bravery and hope despite enduring such tortures as imprisonment and bombings.

“The Men Who Built America DVD” begins immediately after the American Civil War. The United States was in a rebuilding stage and the future of the country seemed uncertain. During the next 35 years, there would be a group of men who would change the country and the world forever. These men would have power and wealth never before seen in the world and would direct the United States into the 20th century.

Jamaica Kincaid’s The Autobiography of My Mother signifies a pivotal point in her writing style. Her earlier novels have some semblance of her personal life, but, in this novel, the protagonist Xuela does not share a common experience with that of the author’s life. The mother-obsessed protagonists of her earlier fiction are absent. Instead, we have a seventy year old half-Carib Dominican. The domineering presence of the maternal figure is eradicated and the chief motif of the novel revolves around the absence of the mother. The smothering maternal love that plays a significant role in character and identity forming has been put aside and the implications of the physical absence of the mother are taken as the essence of the novel for analysis. How the self is defined and identified in the absence of the mother explicates the plot of this fiction.The life of Xuela per se revolves around the central fact of the absence of the mother figure or a substitute to whom Xuela can rely for a mirror image which would eventually help her to form and affirm her identity.

In Adam Gopnik 's piece “Caging of America,” he discusses one of the United States biggest moral conflicts: prison. Gopniks central thesis states that prison itself is a cruel and unjust punishment. He states that the life of a prisoner is as bad as it gets- they wake up in a cell and only go outside for an hour to exercise. They live out their sentences in a solid and confined box, where their only interaction is with themselves. Gopnik implies that the general populace is hypocritical to the fact that prison is a cruelty in itself. The citizens of the the United States preach moral equality and the wrongdoings of their government, yet they fail to realize the horrors that occur when trapped in a cell the size of your bathroom. The article makes great points against the criminal- justice system and their cruel punishment towards prisoners, but the author has failed to persuade me because although their current state in the system might be wrong, it doesn 't take from the fact that they are convicted felons who need to do their time, even if

During the novel the reader can notice that there are copious different lessons the characters learned. The principle theme in the novel is that love and forgiveness are essential aspects in a family. The ending of the book seemed quite sudden and leaves you asking a great deal of questions. What happens

The book is in the past which is in 1940s. The place is in Mexico and the family does not have a lot to deal with and when they went to the United States they were struggling. The family were going through even more struggle when Roberto left when he got married.

Alma is one of the main characters that Cristina Henriquez focuses on in The Book of Unknown Americans. Based on her internal dialogue, Alma is overly critical of herself. After all these years she still blames herself for what's happened to Maribel. Due to her critical nature she's also very wary of everyone and everything especially if it concerns Maribel. She was wary first of Mayor, then of her neighbors. She never truly approves Mayor and Maribel's relationship either. Alma does not show compassion. I don't think she will show compassion towards herself until she finally accepts the fact that Maribel's brain damage isn't her fault. The good note is that in the end she begins to understand that fact. Because of Alma's perspective towards life she's not really good at interacting with others. The person she gets along with the best is Celia because they reminisce about where they came, speaking in Spanish and pointing out the differences between their country and America. Her inability to make connections is due to her criticalness and her wariness. She doesn't hold herself too well during difficult situations. For example, she worked up a lot of courage

The intended audience for The Book of Unknown Americans are other immigrants, or foreigners living in the United States. The author seems to assume that the reader is not originally from the United States, and is Latino. Adolfo “Fito” Angelino talks about how the United States is popular with the Latinos. “We have all the Spanish supermarkets now, and the school district started those English programs. I know some people here think we’re trying to take over, but we just want to be a part of it. We want to have our stake. This is our home, too,” (145). Angelino repeatedly uses the word “we” and the word “our”, including the reader. Micho Alvarez believes that many Americans have a skewed idea about Mexicans, and refuse to actually get to know

When I Was Puerto Rican is a memoir written by Esmeralda Santiago. She writes of her childhood life in Puerto Rico and how she lived in primordial conditions. Santiago paints a vivid picture of her early life which creates unforgettable memories of her childhood. The author talks about her life from her rural home in Puerto Rico to Brooklyn, and to her graduation in Harvard University. The memoir details the struggles and freedoms of a young woman in a new land.