Literary Analysis: The Myth Of The Latin Woman

Three months ago, when I first identified myself as a critical thinker, it was one of the first times I have consciously considered my privileges and oppressions as they pertained to my identity as an able bodied, straight, middle class, light skinned, cisgendered, Mexican American woman. I briefly mentioned that although I am often mistaken as all white, I am actually also Mexican, and it was not until college that I became more interested to learn about this disclosed side of my family and their culture. My dad was also my mom’s step¬¬¬brother, and although he passed away over three years ago, his side of the family is still very much connected with my mom’s side because my grandma, and his father, remain married to this day. Because of this,

I identify as a Latina. I have always considered myself as a Latina, but throughout time, I believe that I have assimilated more into a white individual because of the privilege that I hold and because I have lived in the US most of my life. I have received mostly negative messages from those who are not from my ethnicity. My peers and I were told we wouldn’t graduate high school and be laborers for the rest of our lives. With the current politics, I believe that this still holds true where some people still hold stereotypes and give oppressing messages to Latinos. This exposed me to certain microaggressions, such as If I was really born here and if I speak English. I have received a mix of positive and negative messages from those who are of my same

Outdated stereotypes create forced expectations and affect people for the worst. This is a common theme between “Turkeys in the Kitchen” by Dave Barry and “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” by Judith Ortiz Cofer. These works deal with stereotypes of gender and ethnicity, as well as how they are interpreted on the receiving end. Turkeys in the Kitchen deals with gender through anecdotes about cooking, and how the stereotypes of men and women in the kitchen persist post-women’s-liberation. “The Myth of the Latin Woman” deals with Puerto Rican stereotypes through anecdotes about how she is treated differently as a woman for her ethnicity, and how she is prematurely judged by her Puerto Rican behavior and ethnicity. These

Freedom of poverty and individual rights ultimately what Mexican-American cultures strive to obtain in earlier times, according to Viramontes. Although this contains accuracy to an extent, today’s Hispanic American culture fight against stereotypes and hidden oppression of full individual rights. Remedification of potential and hard work is dismissed in this novel, due to Mexican-American’s job status and minimal education. This oppression often leaves Mexican-Americans to keep living in this lifestyle, obvlious to keep working and hopefully achieve grounds to move out of poverty. In the novel, Under the Feet of Jesus, Helena Maria Viramontes emphasizes the physical labor Estrella and her family go through, and how this work reshapes their

Being different from others sometimes creates a desire for a person to change oneself. In the novel How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, by Julia Alvarez, the Garcia girls are stuck between America and the Dominican Republic, the two main settings of the novel. The girls are all dragged out of their homeland and thrown into an environment they thought would be welcoming. Even though they specifically come to America to live the so called “American Dream,” they hit some obstacles. When the girls see how different American culture is, and how much they do not fit in, they become self-conscious. They ultimately try to change themselves to assimilate to American behaviors. Out of all of the girls, this mainly relates to Yolanda because she

“The common denominator all Latinos have is that we want some respect. That 's what we 're all fighting for” - Cristina Saralegui. Judith Ortiz Cofer published the article, “The Myth of the Latin Woman,” where she expresses her anger towards stereotypes, inequality, and degradation of Latin Americans. Cofer explains the origins of these perceived views and proceeds to empower Latin American women to champion over them. Cofer establishes her credibility as a Latin American woman with personal anecdotes that emphasize her frustration of the unfair depiction of Latinos in society. Cofer addresses the cultural barriers and challenges that Latinos experience through emotional appeal, anecdotal imagery, parallelism and the use of effective periodic sentences.

Selena Quintanilla’s father once said, “We have to be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American than the Americans.” In today’s society, many have encountered the challenge of not being able to be who they really are because they fear not being accepted by others, more specifically their culture. But, what happens when an individual is part of two worlds that have just as many rules? Gloria E. Anzaldúa was a Mexican-American writer and poet who made a major contribution to the fields of cultural, feminist, and queer theory. Anzaldúa identifies as a Chicana and speaks different variations of Spanish, some of which she exhibits in her works. In her short story “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, she centers on the struggles of self-identity that

Everyday people are judging and being judged by others with unique criteria that we, as inhabitants of Earth deem necessary checkmarks to be met to afford and be afforded tokens of civility. In Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “The Myth of the Latin Woman” the memoir is brimming with personal accounts of fetishiztation and discrimination the author experiences as a Latin woman that have vast influence on her life. Throughout the text Cofer conveys the significance of how deep the status “exotic” to describe Latina women is held inside the minds of people which the author alludes to on page 879, “I thought you Latin girls were supposed to mature early,” [1] after being given a sudden, non-consensual kiss at a dance by her date. The author expresses the cultural dissonance between

Richard Rodriguez and Gloria Anzaldúa are two authors who both immigrated to America in the 1950s and received first hand experience of the assimilation process into American society. During this time, Rodriguez and Anzaldúa had struggled adjusting to the school system. Since understanding English was difficult, it made adjusting to the American school system increasingly difficult for Rodriguez. Whereas Anzaldúa, on the other hand, had trouble adjusting to America’s school system due to the fact that she didn’t wish to stop speaking Spanish even though she could speak English. Both Rodriguez and Anzaldúa had points in their growing educational lives where they had to remain silent since the people around them weren’t interested in hearing them speaking any other language than English. The silence that immigrants experience when assimilating into a new culture is not always a sign of social control. That silence is their confidence with the new language, and

The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named María is an essay by Judith Ortiz Cofer that addresses the impact of stereotyping on Latino women. Throughout the essay, Cofer relates her personal experiences with stereotypes to discuss how they have negatively affected her life and the lives of other Latinas. She also explains how these stereotypes originated and calls on her audience, the majority-white non-Latino population, to stop propagating the stereotypical portrayals of Latino women. In The Myth of the Latin Woman, Cofer speaks out about how stereotyping hinders the process of assimilating to a new culture by appealing to ethos through her personal experiences, using similes that show how stereotypes create isolation, and adopting

There are many examples of incidents happened because of cultural differences. Some of them are short, single events, while other follow a person or social group for decades. Professor Judith Cortiz Cofer describes the second example in her essay The Myth of the Latin Woman that was originally published in Glamour in 1992. The author focused on the stereotypical view of Latin women from the perspective of the personal experience as a Puerto Rican girl and woman in the USA. Cofer based her essay on examples from her own life and observations of the problem in a broader sense. It looks like her work targets auditory from different social classes because it explains to both sides (representatives of the mainstream and Latin cultures) their mistakes. Cofer did not use information from studies

Assimilation is usually meant to indicate what happens to immigrants in a new land. However, “rejection, loneliness, discrimination—these were the byproducts of living in the United States” (Ghymn 37). In Marilyn Chin’s essay on assimilation “How I Got That Name,” the speaker acquaints the readers how she got the American name “Marilyn.” The tension between the two cultures is evident, for the speaker is treated as “Model Minority.” Her race and ethnicity define her; in fact, the stereotypes inscribed with her race restricted and cage her significance in the society. Similarly, David Hwang’s 10-minute play “Trying to Find Chinatown” centers on an encounter between Ronnie, a Chinese-American street musician, and Benjamin, a Caucasian tourist from Wisconsin who identifies himself as Asian-American, in the busy street of New York. In the play, “each character defines who he believes he is: Benjamin is convinced he is a Chinese American, and Ronnie sees

Generalizations take after specific individuals for the duration of their lives. Judith Ortiz Cofer is a Latina who has been stereotyped and she delineates this in her article, "The myth of the Latin lady: I just met a young lady named Maria." Cofer depicts how pernicious generalizations can really be. Perusers can understand Cofer 's message through the numerous explanatory interests she employments. Cofer utilizes moral and, enthusiastic interest to communicate as the need should arise to others that the generalizations of Hispanic ladies can have negative impacts.

Whenever I heard stereotypical phrases such as: “Of course you’re smart—you’re Asian!” and “No wonder you’re good at math! You’re Asian,” I felt as though they were merely compliments. Before taking ASAM 100, I never realized the damage that the stereotypes were causing to various individuals of the Asian American community. Growing up in the heart of a Vietnamese community, Westminster, California, I was never aware about the issues behind the model minority myth. Since the people around me were mainly Asian, I never realized that numerous people from other ethnicities categorized all Asians as smart and academically successful individuals—through the model minority myth. I simply viewed Asians as regular people—some being more academically superior while some others were more academically inferior. The most important issue I learned about the model minority myth was that it caused conflict to numerous individuals of Asian descent who did not fit the stereotype. As many people, including individuals of Asian descent, continue to spread the model minority myth, people who do not resemble the

Clearly, performance on MAEP is not flat. The gains in reading have been slow, steady, and significant. The gains in mathematics in both tested grades have been remarkable for whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians.