Preview

The Myth of the Latin Woman

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
443 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Myth of the Latin Woman
Jurnal-2
The Myth of the Latin Woman Judith Ortiz Cofer portrays in “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria”, how society often stereotypes groups without a doubt. In this particular case, the offensive stereotype of the Latino women. I enjoyed this article and somewhat agreed with it .I think this story is little different from other story were immigrant American faces different obstacle to adjust with American culture. Cofer was not an immigrant. She was from a Puerto Rican, which is part of America, but still people misbehave with her because of her dress and look which I found unfortunate but very common. Americans are so used to seeing one way and one culture that when something new or someone new comes along they automatically assign a stereotype to them or try to relate them to a movie character we have seen. Is it right to judge someone only by looking at their dress? My answer will be “no”. It’s not right, but we can’t deny that it is not only Americans nature but also every other county in the world nature that they try to judge someone from their look. Even though there are reasons why cofe dress openly, still I don’t want blame blindly to stereotypes groups because if I see a girl openly dressed, I will think that she wants to show her body to everyone on purpose. Cofer goes a little too far when she describes the incident where an old woman mistakenly thought that she was a waitress. I can feel and see the anger of Cofer when that incident happened. It is true that she had a ph.d degree and she deserve batter then that, but we can see that the old lady feel sorry for her behavior. This kind of thing happened with me couple of time were I went to shopping, but people thought I am an employee of the store. Those incidents made me unhappy, but not agree like her. But one the other hand; this article proves that anyone can succeed in life; no matter what

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Brent Staples

    • 989 Words
    • 4 Pages

    She tells us of other situations where people have looked at her as being “easy” and as a teenager, her friends and their mothers felt that the cloths she wore were, “too mature and flashy”. Judith Cofer’s main theme is to show the misconceptions as well as the stereotypes people have of Latin women. She uses examples like how the media uses certain words to describe Latin women, words like: hot tamale, sizzling, and smoldering; how, many Latin women that work in factories are victims of sexual harassment and that people think they are maids or waitresses. She expresses feelings of anger and discontent because of how Latin women as well as she are treated by people. One of the incidents that affected her the most was when she went to a luncheon to read one of her poems an older woman mistook her for a waitress and tries to order a cup of coffee from her. She says she understands that the woman was not intentionally trying to be cruel yet; she became very angry at the…

    • 989 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    My Hips My Caderas

    • 843 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In the excerpt, “My Hips, My Caderas” by Alisa Valdes, gives distinctive examples of her life story to develop a meaning for how society perceives women. America strives to fit the perception of beauty because it is the single physical characteristic that makes us matter. Her anecdotes show us how the world shapes our thoughts to brainwash us. Alisa Valdes personal experiences are a service to provide a better explanation of how we perpetrate in order to be welcomed in society. “Beauty is in the eye of the culture.” This is an essential quote that summarizes the moral of Valdes story. Being a biracial woman, she received perspectives from two cultures about the way she looks. Valdes is white and Cuban. She is a girl with hips and curves. She is seen as voluptuous. White Americans and Cubans have different viewpoints on how women should look and what beauty is considered to be. Valdes body type isn’t accepted in by all of her family because of the type of the different type of society they live in. As a child it confused her as to what herself image should be.…

    • 843 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Stereotyping describes a value-neutral psychological mechanism that creates categories and enables people to manage the swirl of data presented to them from their environment (“Latino Images” 14). The human mind automatically sorts things in different categories in order to perceive things a certain way by generalizing or stereotyping. Hollywood films stereotype people in different cultures in an attempt to breakdown the types of characters that are contained in the culture being portrayed. Stereotyping today is seen in a negative way as being racist and prejudice. Especially with the current events taking place in America where cops are blamed for racial killings with minorities. Where Racial profiling and stereotyping are often used and affiliated with crime prevention against minorities, its understandable when talking about stereotypes can sometimes leave a bad taste in the mouth. In Ramon Menendez’s Stand and Deliver, there are several traditional hispanic stereotypes broken down by Hollywood Cinema. Charles Ramirez Berg identifies 6 main stereotypes and that they are…

    • 1275 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Cofer’s essay “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria,” Cofer uses a variety of rhetorical strategies to portray Latina stereotypes as harmful and inaccurate.…

    • 854 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Sometimes stereotypes sames like nothing to some people, but to others, they can be really hurtful. Cofer tell us that her life is not bad as other Latino women, Because she has a really good family to support her and give her chance to be educated. The books and knowledge saved her life. But not too many Latino women in the society can have good chance like her. People using different eyes to see them and didn’t give them chance to do what they want to do. The society give them really big pressure make Latino women feel they are really small and low level in the society.…

    • 343 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Role of Women in Aztec Society Women played many significant roles in Aztec society. Although most of these roles revolved around domestic duties, women were acknowledged as equals to men. Women generally had a great degree of independence as they were also able to partake in economic activities, like working as midwives, selling items in the marketplace or acting as scribes. Aztec women were expected to fill the role of homemaker and mother in Aztec society.…

    • 454 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    While I was reading the passage Context, by Dorothy Allison, I realized that I the just like her I had been judged just because I was a Latin woman. In fact I had went though something so similar because of many traditions my family has had. Just like Allison, when her lover called her families’ accent a “dialect,” my family was called crazy simply because we like to hold massive parties to celebrate or the way our family spoke to one another. (Paragraph 3,Allison) The reason why I relate so well with this passage is because I too don’t believe in being judge just by seeing or hearing certain things. I believe that if you should job me, or my family, it shall be after you have gotten to know the real us. This is why I will let you know the time I was judged for “wasting my parents money,” on an event that I will always cherish throughout my life.…

    • 1005 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    She does this by first introducing where the stereotype evolved from, which would be from various forms of media. Once she has established where the stereotype evolved from, she provides anecdotes that refute the stereotype. For example, the anecdote with Cofer’s Mexican friend that is pursuing her PhD and the friend’s doctor “shakes his head in puzzled amazement at all the big words she [Cofer’s friend] uses” (108). The woman is of Latin decent, consequently causing the doctor to underestimate her intelligence, since Latin Women are not meant to be in higher levels of education or so they say. Nonetheless, the anecdote aids to refute the stereotype that Latin women do not uphold higher level jobs, since she provides an example of a Latin friend who is off to be called a doctor. Moreover, Cofer adds another anecdote to further refute the stereotype that Latin women do not uphold higher level jobs. In this instance Cofer claims, “She ordered a cup of coffee from me, assuming that I was the waitress. Easy enough to mistake my poems for menus, I supposed”…

    • 427 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    stereotyping latin women

    • 438 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Judith came from a Puerto Rican family that lived in Jersey. Throughout her life she was put into situations of others stereotyping her for being a Latin woman. One of those times was for Career Day at her catholic school. The girls were supposed to dress formal with the tailored skirts and silk blouses to look professional. However, she wasn’t dressed appropriately to the occasion and that caused her teachers as well as her classmates to look at her as a “negative models” Another one of her experiences was at first formal dance where the boy she went with kissed her, and when she didn’t go along with it his response was “I thought you Latin girls were suppose to mature early.” The next thing that happened at a hotel she was staying. As she was walking to her room she ran to a man and her daughter. He soon began to sing part of a song, “Don’t cry for me, Argentina”, and after that a famous Spanish song “La Bamba”. To the men and the others around him it was an innocent joke to make others laugh, but for Judith it wasn’t funny at all, she took offense to it. Simply because they were Latinas the man found it perfectly fine to sing Spanish songs, to make it seem funny. Latin women are often portrait as only working in factories or having housemaid jobs because of the lack of skills they have and because of the little English they know. She stated “The big and little screens have presented us with the picture of the funny Hispanic maid.” I come from a Mexican family and throughout my whole life have also experienced some form of stereotyping. I was born in Mexico and came to the United States when I was eight. Some people assume that my family was poor in Mexico and that’s the reason why we came here, and that’s completely wrong. My parents were teachers, we had a decent house and we had a car. The most common one that most Hispanic girls have to deal with is being asked about their quinceanera. Of course it’s a tradition for girls to celebrate…

    • 438 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The roles of women are useful to historians because they provide an insight into the life experiences, cultures, thoughts, and every day life of a historical period. Similarly this essay will examine the roles of women, which provide insight into the Aztec civilization’s many strengths. The Aztec child bearer/warrior, priestess and sexual being will be analyzed to display that gender relations were complementary that produced equality. The midwife and weaver reveal that the Aztec’s specialization proved successful through fields like medicine and the market. Finally the Aztec daughter and mother will be examined to show that the Aztec’s had a strong socialization system established through education and the family. For these reasons women’s roles allow historians to look at the greater picture and see that Aztec society was advanced ad possessed three particular strengths being that its gender complementarity structure, a successful specialization of labour, as well as a highly efficiency in socialization that allowed Aztec culture to retransmit itself.…

    • 3067 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    I am Mexican, and we have unique customs. One, for young girls, is called quinceanera, or sweet fifteen.…

    • 730 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Compare and contrast

    • 944 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In “The Myth of The Latin Women”, there are numerous stereotypes that Latin women are judged for. Being a Latin woman, Cofer was judged falsely. Clothing in the Latin culture is a means of expression. Cofer explains that woman and girls often wear brightly colored outfits, specifically dresses and skirts. The clothing that Latin women wear also has an influence on how others might see them. Cofer describes that, “As young girls, it was our mothers who influenced our decisions about clothes and colors,” Unfortunately, the media twisted this tradition, making it translate into “Hispanic women as the hot tamale or sexual firebrand” (245).…

    • 944 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The life of a man compared to a woman in ancient Roman times was very different. A man was a usual member of society and mainly is out of the house working and doing business. A woman generally stayed close to home. First they stayed near their father’s home, then later in life they stayed by their husbands home. A woman’s job was to take care of the household and the family. Women did not hold their own identity and were referred to their father or husbands identity.…

    • 295 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Women In The Ancient World

    • 1130 Words
    • 5 Pages

    We have grown to know and learn that women in the ancient world inferior and had less status than men, because of the patriarchy system of government. In the ancient world, most of the societies were patriarchal; which is a society or government that is bee controlled by men. However, there were some exceptions to this social system. Not all ancient world considered women inferior beings to men, because in some part of the ancient world, women were priestesses, pharaohs, entertainers, goddesses and even noble wealthy women.…

    • 1130 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Does anyone ever remembered what it takes to be stereotypes? In most instances, many of us have being at one point being misjudged based on our race, gender, ethnicity and appearances. Racism and gender bigotries couple with stereotypes plays an enormous role in the manner in which individuals are being perceived especially with regards to race and gender. Stereotypes on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity and physical appearances have been eating away at the fabric of our society. It is unfortunate that most individuals are faced with being misjudged based on stereotyping which is a factual veracity that occurs in our societies on a daily basis. Some of the most acute challenges or problems of racial and gender stereotypes is that, the most brilliant individual can be completely be misjudged and underestimated due to his or her race, gender and physical appearances which falls under certain levels of categories. In “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” by Judith Ortiz Cofer, and in “Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Spaces” by Brent Staples, these two authors talk about…

    • 1125 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays