Names/Nombres In the article "Names/Nombres, Julia Alvarez discusses about her life from the Dominican Republic to the US. She changes her personality throughout her school life as for changing her own personal name too. Since every person she knew called her differently, she didn't know what to go by. First, she wanted her name to be pronounced in Spanish. Then, she didn't care whatsoever in what she was called. Finally, she wanted everyone out of her way, whoever called her by her Spanish accent. As she changed her name throughout the story, her personality changed as well Alvarez also explains that upon her arrival, many things changed. As soon as she came aboard in the US, she bravely changed her name as for her family too, but as soon as she changed her name, she didn't like it. For example as one of the officers said Julia's father's last name incorrectly, she was thinking to herself, "How can someone get "Elbures" instead of Alvarez." As she …show more content…
People pronounced it incorrectly and called her nicknames such as "Pepperoni" or "Alcatraz". Even the teachers were calling her name mispronouncedly. She felt the urge to correct everyone who was saying her name wrong. Also she was ashamed of her country. When people asked where she was from, she took a deep sigh and drearily uttered that she was from the Dominican Republic. As she had the early school years of stress created from weirdly pronounced names, she luckily changed her personality as she went on. In middle school, she became popular and didn't care much about her name or how other people called it. It was rather a burden for her to correct every single mispronounced name. In high school, she hated her Spanish name of pronunciation. She had the feeling and urge to make someone step out of her way if he/she called her by her Spanish pronunciation. Rather she wanted to be called Judy or
The story The Red Umbrella by Christina Diaz Gonzalez and the immigration photo by Jose Hernandez Clare are two things that i am comparing. The common subject that is portrayed in these stories/Photographs is family separation. The Red Umbrella and The Immigration photo both have thing in common, they both also have their own unique thing about them. In these stories/photo they both have something different, in the immigration photo the men chose to leave everything they know and love to go to america and in the red umbrella the children were forced to go to america they didn’t have a choice and they didn’t want to go.
In the passage “Leave Your Name at the Border” the author Mr. Muñoz states that he is a Mexican-American from Dinoba, California, a small town near Fresno. The author primarily focuses on how birth names and acquired nicknames affect immigrants, he criticizes forced assimilation by referencing various personal experiences which include five major points, he begins by mentioning observations he and his mother made suggesting that some immigrants try to appear more fair-skinned and use Anglicized pronunciations in order to fit in or assimilate, he also notices that traditional Mexican names were being phased out and replaced by “American” names within his family and among his hometown friends this signifies how assimilation can erase another
In the essay "Children of Mexico," the author, Richard Rodriguez, achieves the effect of relaying his bittersweet feeling regarding how Mexicans stubbornly hold on to their past and heritage by not only relaying many personal experiences and images, but also by using an effective blend of formal and informal tone and a diction that provides a bittersweet tone. Among the variety of ways this is done, one is through repetitive reference to fog. The word is used many times in the essay, especially in segments relating to Mexican-Americans returning to Mexico for the winter. One of the more potent uses reads as follows: "The fog closes in, condenses, and drips day and night from the bare limbs of trees.
The need to conform is a vital part in an individual 's behavior. The communities in which surround everyone’s lives has a funny way of making individuals give up crucial parts of themselves to “fit in with the crowd.” Funny in Farsi is a memoir written by Firoozeh Dumas in which she talks about the experiences and challenges she faced as an Iranian American. Dumas, the author of Funny in Farsi, states that in order to fully assimilate into an unfamiliar community, sometimes one may have to give up parts of their own identity to fully achieve full integration into their newfound community. Firoozeh emigrated to America with many cultural difficulties, but one of the most inconvenient (according to Dumas) was her name.
One of the social issues in the film El Norte is losing one’s identity. The identity of Rosa and Enrique were continuously challenged by their community. Rosa and Enrique had to give up their identity as they migrate to El Norte for the purpose of safety and security. At El Norte, both Rosa and Enrique adapted new values deemed appropriate and essential in their new community. Their effort to adapt new values is highlighted, especially when Enrique had to choose between working out of states or staying with Rosa.
While Barrientos and Marquez in the book, The Norton Sampler, both come from very similar cultures, they both have been raised to view their culture in different ways. In, Se Habla Espanol, Tanya Barrientos writes about how when she was younger she took pride in not knowing Spanish, but later wishes she knew the language. Myriam Marquez discusses in, Why and When We Speak Spanish in Public, that she takes pride in speaking Spanish because it is respectful to her culture. In this essay we will look into the ways in which Barrientos and Marquez differ in the ways they have been raised to view their culture.
Esperanza is not proud of her heritage, she even wants to change her name. Her friend she meets,
Lola takes advantage of her deteriorating mother whose illness represents the declining hold of the norms over Lola. Since her mom “will have trouble lifting her arms over her head for the rest of her life,” Lola is no longer afraid of the “hitting” and grabbing “by the throat” (415,419). As a child of a “Old World Dominican Mother” Lola must be surrounded by traditional values and beliefs that she does not want to claim, so “as soon as she became sick” Lola says, “I saw my chance and I’m not going to pretend or apologize; I saw my chance and I eventually took it” (416). When taking the opportunity to distinguish herself from the typical “Dominican daughter” or ‘Dominican slave,” she takes a cultural norm like long hair and decides to impulsively change it (416). Lola enjoyed the “feeling in [her] blood, the rattle” that she got when she told Karen to “cut my hair” (418).
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.
In Leave Your Name At The Border, Manuel Munoz writes about how the anglicization of his name has affected him. This is an example of ethnocentrism, defined by dictionary.com as “a tendency to view alien groups or cultures from the perspective of one's own”. In particular, this concerns how Manuel’s name is pronounced in english as if it were a guide, rather than with the name’s original pronunciation. This harms Manuel as well as other hispanic Americans. This form of oppression exists because native english speakers tend to interpret foreign words and names as if they were in english; in other words, english speakers apply an english pronunciation of letters to foreign words.
In Munoz 's article "Leave Your Name at the Border," the author sheds light on how names can reflect an individual 's ethnicity and perhaps some negative qualities. Munoz also describes how he saw countless examples of people of similar backgrounds having to change their name to a more Americanized version. Munoz even tells a story of how his stepfather adopted an English name for the respect he would gain from others. He proceeds to further explain how the Anglicization of his stepfathers name, from Antonio to Tony, gave him "a measure of access as he struggled to learn English and get more fieldwork. " For Munoz ' stepfather, an English name gave him an American identity—one that many individuals hope will lead them and their families into
Roberto Clemente Mr. Baseball Baseball player, good citizen, humble are three words that describe Roberto Clemente. Many people knew that Roberto Clemente was an amazing baseball player but he was so much more. As a well known baseball player, Roberto Clemente showed the world that they can do anything if you work hard for it no matter what your race. He left a legacy as a great baseball player and a good citizen.
This caused her to alienate herself since her mother asked her to keep a part of herself hidden from the world by binding her and making sure no one found out she menstruated ealy (Anzaldúa 1983, 221). This will later isolate her further but ultimately lead her to reflect on the racism that surrounds her. In addition, Anzaldúa’s identity also suffer because she denied her heritage and the traditions that with it. She mentions that she felt ashamed of her mother and her loud tendencies, it is an archetype that most Hispanic mothers are loud by nature, and the fact that her lunches, or “lonches”, consisted
Names/Nombres written by Julia Alvarez is a short story regarding a little girl, Hooleetah, moving with her family from the Dominican Republic to New York City in the 1960s. It is extremely clear within the beginning of the story that the girl absolutely despises it when people pronounce her, or her family's’ names wrong, this is proven when she corrects the customs officer under her breath when he mispronounces her family’s last name. “At Immigration, the officer asked my father, Mister Elbures, if he had anything to declare... but I said our name to myself, opening my mouth wide for the organ blast of trilling my tongue for the drumroll of the r, All-vab- rrr-es (Alvarez 1). As the story continues each member of her family is assigned with many different American names, as people found it hard to pronounce their actual names.
Esperanza cares a lot about what her environment tells her about herself in order to be accepted. During one’s teen years, people are typically very self conscious about how they look or how they are labeled in front of their friends. They are willing to do almost anything to fit in. This quality that a child obtains matches the process in which Esperanza judges herself from what those around her think. She wants to change her identity to fit in with the environment that she has been put into.