When I Was Puerto Rican

The main character Negi is an adolescent puerto rican girl living with her parents and many younger siblings. Being the oldest she is left with many responsibilities including taking care of her younger siblings while her mother is at work because most of the time the father is not there, he is usually running around with other women which seems to be what many husbands in Puerto Rico do.  Their family moves around a lot, mainly the cause of the mom wanting to get away from her husband that she ends up forgiving, and they have lived in both the city and countryside of Puerto Rico. Negi prefers the bucolic lifestyle and wants to be from the barrio and she is proud of it!

     Along with growing up Negi seems to be maturing, not just mentally but physically as well. She, already, has experienced things that no regular preteen has gone through like seeing the private parts of the opposite sex and letting them see yours; getting “checked out” by not only a man, but your principal! I doubt she’ll be getting good grades at that school!

     My group for lit circles is the best I could’ve been matched with.  Each one of my group members is always prepared with their assigned jobs to every lit circle and we get very deep into discussions. I feel like we can really relate to Negi and her family in this book because we share the commonality of being Hispanic and there are a lot of ideas and religious aspects that are very similar even though we are Mexican and her family is Puerto rican. Honestly, at first I did not like this book at all, mainly because the prologue was way too descriptive for my taste; I usually don’t even read the prologue. Seriously, I don’t want to read a whole freaking chapter on how a guava looks or what it tastes like or its redolent scent, I’ll Google it! The author could’ve done without the prologue in my opinion because it made me think that this book was going to be about describing nature in puerto rico, I hate when authors describe nature so much because I find it fake. Lesson learned: always skip the prologue. 

WORD COUNT: 371

OH AND I DID GOOGLE IT. SHE COULD'VE JUST SAID IT LOOKED LIKE A TINY WATERMELON FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

Native American Mascots

Good Article on This

Using Native American, or Indians, as mascots for sports team is a new modern type of racism and discrimination today. For some reason we as Americans seem blind or immune to this and it has been brought up to much attention, the only reason why I know of this is because my teacher actually put more emphasis on this. A lot of times we find this common, to have an Indian mascot. In Chicago we have an Indian mascot for the BlackHawks (a hockey team). But to be honest it would be offense if there were a mascot representing any other race. Say for example, we had the “Polish men” team or something. This wouldn’t even be thought of as a possibility because it is immediately seen as offensive and if it were to occur, it would be removed immediately and would be a complete shock that someone so cruel would name a sports’ team mascot like this. But why is it that it’s okay for us to do this to Native Americans? Perhaps some of us find it as a sign of respect or homage to Native Americans because they were the first inhabitants of our land, America. But, even with this reason, it is more important to see how they feel about having a caricature of their heritage being displayed to represent a team and used to strike fear into opponents. Personally, I believe that this problem should be fixed immediately because I. myself not even being a Native American, find it disrespectful to any race and humiliating ton human beings as a whole for being so inconsiderate. Screw the “resect” excuse, this is just discrimination in a modern disguise.

WORD COUNT: 382

Great Gastby and A Raisin in the Sun

     The American Dream Presentation varied from person to person. For my neighborhood it resembled wealth and education that is associated with acquiring that wealth. This obviously relates  to both books because of the wealth aspect showing in both The Great Gatsby and A Raisin in the Sun. In "Raisin" it relates well with Beneatha's dream of going to college and becoming a doctor. The same goes with the American Dream of my neighborhood of the adults providing the best education to their children and sending them off the college. She wants to go off and be someone in the world and she has the support of, some, of her family. In my neighborhood we have a similar situation except that the children in my neighborhood don't have the ambition and don't want to do anything with their lives and they have FULL support from their families to go to college, get a good education, and have a career in something they'd like to do. This was Beneatha's american dream, which is the same as the one portrayed in my neighborhood.
     The American Dream project is also relative to The Great Gatsby in that they both have a wealth aspect to them related to happiness. They say money can't buy you wealth but it can buy you things that make you happy. Gatsby was a big representation of money in Great Gatsby especially because he came from a family of farmers, poor, and changed in his goal to become wealthy and respectable for Daisy. In my neighborhood the motto seems to be "money and education will bring you happiness", this is clearly not true as shown in The Great Gatsby. People seem to associate money with happiness because of all the things and luxury you can buy, it also seems almost stress-free to be wealthy which leaves you healthier and happier. By contrast though, Gatsby was the wealthiest caracter in the book, yet he seemed to be the loneliest. He achieved his american dream of becoming wealthy, yet he still wasn't happy. Perhaps the people in my neighborhood already know this and that's why they decide not to do anything about achieving goals or even setting any in the first place! Another example, also in this book, is Daisy and Tom. They are also living the american dream, Daisy being famous and Tom having power over people. But, although they have achieved their drams, they also are unhappy. They are married and don't even seem to love each other even though they have a child together. Tom is even having an affair because he is not happy enough with Daisy, then later on in the book Daisy has an affair with Gatsby, her first love. They, Tom and Daisy, both know that their "significant other" is having an affair but they don't really get jealous, until the end of the book, because they know that they are unhappy in their marriage and don't love each other as they should as a married couple.

WORD COUNT: 502

Reflection/Analysis

My neighborhood is consisted of the middle class and is a family oriented values. Most parents in my neighborhood have high paying labor intensive jobs and want better for their children. They try to provide the most for their kids by sending them to school to get an education and having the opportunity to get into college, hopefully by scholarship.  I remember the type of children that I went to school with. There seemed to be a 50/50 chance for them. Half of the students really cared about achieving more than what their parents could. The other half seemed to have other priorities above their education, most of them included hanging around with the wrong types of people.  Those students that do care about their education seem to be on the right path. Those that have never really shown an interest have either gotten better with high school or continued their old habits. I believe that the American Dream is alive in my neighborhood, even if for only part of the population.  In my neighborhood, the American Dream is not based so much on sole happiness, but the belief that with money comes happiness because of the economic security you can have. This also ties in with the belief that an education is required to achieve this. Even those that do not care about their education realize this and don't believe to be ever able to be financially stable or achieve happiness, or the American Dream.

Proposition

People to Interview:
-Principal of Mary Lyon
-Owner of SmallBusiness
-A Family Member (dad)

An American Dream Article

Boy Scouts Petition Against Gay Hate

The Boy Scouts of America group get a petition signed, through Change.org, against the hate of gay boy scouts in the organization. More than 1.4 million signatures were signed on this petition to end the banning of openly gay leaders in the Boy Scouts of America. These signatures were delivered through Jennifer Tyrrell (a former gay den leader), Greg Bourke (former gay scout master), Will Oliver (gay Eagle Scout) and his two straight Eagle Scout brothers  Eric Andresen and Ryan Andresen. These boxes of signatures were delivered  to the Boy Scouts National Headquarters in Dallas, Texas where they were holding a meeting for all the leaders. Jennifer Tyrrell launched this petition on Change.org in April was she outsted as the den leader of her son's boy scout because she is a lesbian. This shows the American Dream because a part of the American Dream is the pursuit of happiness and the Boy Scouts of America is like a club for young boys to attend and learn skills while having fun, and not being able to be a part of this because of their own personal sexual orientation is not something that should be allowed especially because it has caused no harm to anyone in the past and is no threat in the future. The fact that only openly gay boys are banned is obsurd because there are secretly gay males still enrolled in the Boy Scouts of America and they have not been kicked out, why? Because you simply cannot tell the difference between a gay and straight person by looks, only if they acknowlege it to you.

WORD COUNT: 268

Scary Movie Review

The Uninvited

 

     The Uninvited is an intense horror film that seems to be unreal, until the very end that is. This film is about a girl who has to go through the tough journey of not only losing her mother, but also being sent away from home and coming back to her father, sister, and new evil stepmother. Typical. But, something that makes this movie my absolute favorite horror film is that this stepmother isn't the ordinary "send you off to boarding school type", oh no, she's more like a "send you off to boarding school limb by limb type". Not only does she have to deal with...it, but she also has to face the fact that she has one more guest in the house...the ghost of her deceased mother. Thank goodness she's got her best friend, and soon to be lover (ooh-la-la), Alex to give her that moral support any ghost-seeing teenager needs. Too bad Anna (that so cool gal that sees her dead mom) ends up killing him "accidentaly" and finds out at the end of the movie, after she kills her stepmother as well, that the ghost was just a figment of her imagination and none of the things she was freaking out over was real. I wonder where she thought she was when she was on her way home from the mental hospital at the begining of the movie, or why she had to be sedated with an injection through the hip every once in a while...at least when convicted with double murder she can plead insanity and have the satisfaction of getting rid of the woman that her father was having an affair with while her mother was on her death bed (did I mention that this woman was the mom's personal nurse?). Too bad for Alex, though, but I guess he should think twice about dating a girl that just spent two years in a mental facility.

 

     The Uninvited is filled with killer sounds effects to tickle your ears and amazing actors to fill your heart with the happiness of murder, adultery, and grief. Nontheless, the film is a joyride with all the confusion and suspense leading up to the grand finale, which I have already spoiled...SPOILER ALERT!

 

WORD COUNT: 372