Preview

Purto

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
372 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Purto
“When I was Puerto Rican.”

In the book “when I was Puerto Rican” by Esmeralda Santiago, negi goes to New York to find a “better like” with her mother” there Puerto Rican jabara who longed for the green quiet of a tropical afternoon was to become a hybrid who would never forgive the uprooting.” (pg109). Her whole life and future had changed when she left Puerto Rico to live in New York. Negi loved Puerto Rico and did not want to move anywhere. She admired the warm tropical weather. There was this laid back feeling when she went to the beach. In Puerto Rico she felt safe, and had freedom. Negi felt and knew she was a true Puerto Rican. Her parents would fight all the time. As much as they loved each other they hated each other. When Negis uncle got hurt the tress and fighting got worse. Negis uncle needed a better doctor, so they finally had a reason to leave Puerto Rico and go to New York. By moving to New York they would start there “better life”. When negi was in New York she felt lost and out of place. Negi felt no longer a full out Puerto Rican. Kids would make fun of her and call her names. She could not speak their language at first. Negi doesn’t feel safe and comfort in New York like she did in Puerto Rico. Negi want to get out of Brooklyn, in the process of trying to leave she got accepted to go to a high class performing arts high school. The longer she was in New York the less she felt like a true Puerto Rican, this is where the book got its name “when I was Puerto Rican”. There are always those days negi had remembered what life was like when she lived in Puerto Rico. “The Puerto Rican jibara who longed for green quiet of a tropical afternoon was to become a hybrid who would never forgive the uprooting”. Negi had a better life in New York. She no longer lives in Puerto Rico, but inside she was still a true one. This is the reason the book is called “when I was pert

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Puerto Rican Passages provides a comprehensive overview about Puerto Rico, and the Puerto Rican population in the United States, specifically Connecticut. It touches upon issues such as the history of Puerto Rico, immigration, politics and economy, and social and cultural issues concerning Puerto Ricans. The documentary aims at capturing the reasons for the large number of Puerto Rican population in Connecticut, and how their community is often misperceived.…

    • 429 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Dinuba was home to Manuel Munoz, born in 1972. Set just outside of Fresco, California, Dinuba was where Munoz learned his culture, languages, and was given his name. Learning both Spanish and English was common in Munoz bilingual generation. Although, living past your given Spanish name was not something Munoz had yet considered. Munoz states that when you are of Spanish decent, you are more than likely labeled a “Mexican.” Lower socio economic background, diminished standard of life, all sayings that are sometimes used to describe men and women of Spanish decent. For years now, America has been the place where you can make a better life for yourself, but for some…

    • 379 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Caucasia, Danzy Senna tells the tale of two young girls, Cole and Birdie. The products of a biracial couple, they struggle with the growing racial tensions in 1970’s America. The sisters share an inseparable bond, always speaking to each other in their own language, Elemeno. “What was the point of surviving if you had to disappear? [Birdie] said it aloud” (8). She soon learns, much like the Elemenos, that she would have to learn to change form in order to survive.…

    • 527 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Blue Against White

    • 605 Words
    • 2 Pages

    This intense, short story contains flashbacks of a woman named Lena’s childhood. She was constantly embarrassed of her culture and family. She yearned for assimilation and could not handle the pressure of being different all her life. Lena finally decides to leave the reserve and pursue her life journey in the city, where she would also be schooled. Not only does Lena find out that the city is not the greatest destination, she realizes that again, she does not fit in amongst everyone - in this case the “white society.”…

    • 605 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sometimes we go through life struggling to accept our identity or we try to fit a certain standard that is set by those other than ourselves,but in the end, only a select few abandon who they truly are. In this essay, I will be comparing the authors of “How To Tame A Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua, and “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Hurston. Both Anzaldua and Hurston struggled to accept their identity based on social and cultural differences within their surroundings. This inevitably caused them to realize that what society rejects them for is what makes them who they are, and they accept it.…

    • 539 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Then as soon as everything was good it went bad. The mother took a trip to visit her mother and just decided to never come back; she abandoned her family and her live in Barrio. Then the father got a new girlfriend and moved in with her. Lena got a boyfriend named Armando and moved in together in a tiny little house. While Rudy was up too no good and they didn’t know what to do with me, until they decided he would live with Lena, it was all good until it turned south.…

    • 2895 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Birdie Lee Research Paper

    • 846 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Caucasia takes place in nineteen seventy-five and Boston was a racial battle ground especially for one family the Lees. Birdie Lee ,a half white half black eight year old girl, tells her story of fleeing the racial war and hiding her identity . For over seven years she was on the run and forced into a new identity. At an early age Birdie was confused about her identity since a mixed race child was a social taboo. Forced by her family to live on the road with a new name and background confused Birdie even more. This paper will analyze how the surroundings of Boston, Aurora and New Hampshire and how they each molded the main character into a constant…

    • 846 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Rodriguez describes his journey of language through the influence of his grandmother, the battles of balancing both the native language and the English language and by his disagreement of “individuality”. Rodriguez designates his passage by describing the struggles he endured as a bilingual Hispanic in American society. Born as an American citizen to Mexican immigrants, Rodriguez was the child of working-class parents. He started going to a Roman Catholic School following the footsteps of his older sister and brother. However, by attending this school, he felt misplaced; his classmates were all children of high-class lawyers and doctors. Living in Sacramento, California, Rodriguez realized that his life would entirely change, for better and worse.…

    • 838 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Mona and the Promised Land

    • 1068 Words
    • 5 Pages

    It has often been said that coming to America is the start of a new life for many immigrant families. The novels Mona and the Promised Land by Gish Jen, and Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez, it is said that “American means being whatever you want” (Jen 49). Mona and Rodriguez both strive to reach that “American dream.” They take the initiative throughout the novel and seek what they want to become. However, the novels show that in order for Mona and Rodriguez to become what they want, they have to make sacrifices. From losing their culture to losing their strong relationships with their parents, Mona and Rodriguez will have to endure consequences of their decision to become what they want to be.…

    • 1068 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Garcia, Jessica & Nieves-Ferris, Kristin. (2001). Hablas Spanish?: The Linguistic Culture of Bronx Puerto Ricans. Retrieved from http://www.nyu.edu/classes/blake.map2001/puertorico.html…

    • 1041 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Piri Thomas’ parents moved to New York from Puerto Rico during the 1920s before he was born in 1928. Piri reflects upon a hard childhood of growing up in a lower class family at the time of the Great Depression, through the cold winters of New York City, a place whose people Piri’s mother described as having snow in their hearts. But the most difficult thing of all was the racial prejudice that he had to endure because of his black skin and the confusion of his own racial identity caused by his family’s denial of their Afro-Latino heritage. One day, Piri confronted his younger brother Jose, pointing out the hypocrisy of his family’s claim to Whiteness:…

    • 3200 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Myth of a Latin Woman

    • 1013 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Cofer initiates her essay narrating an incident that occurred on a bus trip to London where a random young man started to sing “Maria” from West Side Story. Although she acted cool and calm, she was very displeased with the young man’s performance. Cofer realized a fact in every Latina woman’s life; that is, “you can leave the island, master the English language, and travel as far as you can, but if you are a Latina the island travels with you” (366). Far from being a positive thing; in most cases, it’s the opposite because society will look at Latina women in ways they might think is normal and even treat them as an object instead of a human being. Cofer’s experiences of her early years as an immigrant made her suffer from what she called “cultural schizophrenia” (366). She grew up in New Jersey but her life was designed by her parent’s way of living back at the island. In her teen years she had a hard time trying to fit into society because of her appearance and the cultural differences. She often felt humiliated when she arrived at birthday parties overdressed for the occasion. Cofer explains her parents strict ways of showing her “how to behave as a proper senorita” (366), and at the same time expecting for her to act like a woman and dress in clothes culturally acceptable in Puerto Rico, but seen “as too mature and flashy” (366) by others to the point that she would get verbally attacked…

    • 1013 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    When I Was Puerto Rican

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages

    This socioeconomic status greatly affected Negi’s childhood as she could barely go outside. Although Ramona had an established job in Puerto Rico, she essentially had to start all over again. She shared the following with Negi, “‘Here you have to prove yourself all over again,’ … she tried hard, which impressed her supervisors, and was moved up quickly” (Santiago 246). Ramona also instilled this hard work ethic into her children when it came to academics because she wanted better for her children. She told Negi that she was not working hard to support their life in New York for them to get factory jobs like she had. This is a big goal of many immigrants. They work hard for their children, constantly being knocked down and getting back up, so they can have a better life than they had.…

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The culture Nel was born into was full of prejudice. As a result of that prejudice, she was greatly motivated to direct her own life, but she was still faced with obstacles. Her mother was adamant that Nel conform to the same life as other community members, but Nel wanted a path to freedom. Although she had inclination, her ethnicity had a detrimental effect on her dreams. Her marriage to Jude was the end to “any sparkle or splutter she had,” which conformed to all she had been taught (Morrison 83). The black community had put a limit on the potential of Nel. This was an extension of the hardships many African Americans faced as they tried to move up in the world.…

    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Myths of a Latin Woman

    • 1021 Words
    • 5 Pages

    “Myth of the Latin Woman:/Just Met a Girl Named Maria,” by Judith Ortiz Cofer tells of her personal experiences as a Latin girl growing up in a large urban city in New Jersey during the sixties. She tells of her journey maneuvering through her childhood trying to find her place in a mixed cultural world and faces many stereotypes. Cofer later learns how to take the negative comments of others and turn them in to positives in her own life. There are many times she realizes some of these comments that are made toward her would never have been made to a Caucasian woman, but somehow finds a way to smile and thank them. Although it is not always easy, Cofer finds her place after facing the negativity of sexual harassment, being frowned upon for her way of dress, and being seen as nothing more than a domestic and is able to take this negativity and mold and shape herself into the successful adult she is today.…

    • 1021 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays

Related Topics