Serving In Florida

The essay “Serving In Florida” by Barbara Ehrenreich describes what people is living today because there are many people in the United States and around the world who had been living the same issue that is to not have enough money to survive. There are many people who had to prefer to make their job as their first option, and school their second option, and the reason of that is because they need the money to survive and they prefer the job than education. But there is also another reason why people are working for a minimum wage and it is because they didn’t have the opportunity to go to school, and that was back the around the 1900s. However, nowadays there are many opportunities to study, and the government is the fist one because they are trying to help every person who wants to finish with a career by helping them with money. I think I’m going through something similar because I have learned how life is difficult as I go to school and I work to pay my bills, my rent, my food, my car, and everything that I use every day with a minimum wage.

On Dumpster Diving 

Reading “ On Dumpster Diving” by Lars Eighner put me in the position of not knowing where I am today because there is a lot of people who is suffering day by day, and I am in the glory. It’s really sad how people have died just because they don't have the money to survive every day, and is not their fault, sadly they have to live that life. I feel lucky to have the life that I am living because I am not suffering like those people, but I would not like to see more people suffering and dying for the reason of not having money. The only thing that the government has to improve is to give a little help to those people who don't have enough money to improve their lives. But I think by given to those people food and some money would help every person more. An opportunity to those people to change their lives I think can be by giving them the opportunity to have a job so they can have an initiative. There are many ways how people can change their lives, but the people are the responsible who decide how they want to end.

On Compassion

In the story “On Compassion” by Barbara Lazear Ascher, is about how people react about the homeless people. In the story she explain how the people treat to the homeless people, as they just try to not have any contact with them. My experience with homeless people had been very low, but every time that I have the opportunity to help them is the first thing that I do. The only thing that I keep thinking every time that I give money is for what they are going to use it, because I always give money but to benefit them, not to harm them. But the only thing is you never know what they really gonna do, but at least I don't feel bad for not helping them. And what I have done many time is help the same person that I most see every day because he is asking money to help his mother that she has cancer, and I have see her so I trust on what he is going to use all the money I gave to him.

How It Feels to be Colored Me

In the essay “How It Feels to be Colored Me” by Zora Hurston, the author describes her experiences as an African American in a time with racism ruled. Hurston ends her essay by comparing people to a “brown bag” staffed with “random stuff” and they will still all be equal. In my personal opinion, I strongly agree with Hurston’s statement. I believe people should not be judge by their appearance or color. I also think there should be no stereotypes because is not fair that people get expectations from other races without knowing them. Hurston’s agree with every understanding of race that I have since her opinions of race are similar as mine. The only new perspective that this novel brought me was that the more isolated that we are from other cultures, the more difficult it is to understand our own. What I mean by this is that if we only know what our culture “means” and we don’t open to explore other cultures, we might not going to be able the intensity that our culture has on others. This actually made me realized that sometimes even I locked myself with my culture that I don’t even bother to get the chance of meeting new people from different cultures.

“They Joys of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me”

In the Novel “They Joys of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie, the author talks about how him, as an Indian boy, “broke the walls” of the negative expectations that his culture had of Indians succeeding. Just like Alexie struggled with Indian’s stereotypes, also did I. I as an Hispanic man, have faced many obstacles as; culturally, linguistically and also stereotypical. When I first moved to the U.S. I didn’t know anything about their culture, beliefs or their educational system. My first year studying on this side of the border (the U.S.) was a nightmare. I remember having teachers who would come to the ESL classroom and only talk to Hispanics about attending to summer school at the beginning of my school year. At the beginning, I couldn’t understand the reason for it, if there were Asians in my classroom too until I realized that their expectations of Hispanics failing were higher than Asians. When I attended to High School, I started realizing that their expectations of Hispanics dropping out weren’t wrong. The only thing that made me different from them was that I actually wanted to succeed and demonstrate how stereotypes couldn't affect me of getting my education. I started working on my grammar, my spelling and my involvement with different races so I could learn about how their methods to study were. I knew I was going to work extra hard to get where others were, but I was decided to “break the walls” as Alexie did.

Turkeys in the Kitchen

In the novel “Turkeys in the Kitchen” by Dave Barry, the author notices how each gender have their role, especially when it comes to the holidays. In my opinion, the majority of the people seems to believe that each gender has their own different responsibilities and do’s base on how their culture employs it. People have been teached how to behave and what their responsibilities as a man or a woman are, depending on the situation. For example; men don’t get involved in the kitchen as much as women do and when they try to do so, women prefer them not to, since they don’t have the same “sexiest Home Economics training” in the “pre-feminism era.” If men and women don’t get involved in each other “eras” the stereotypes issue will continue growing as part of the culture. On the other hand, there are a few people who believe that each gender borns knowing what their responsibilities and eras are. My opinion, I don’t believe that each woman born knowing that their responsibilities are to cook, clean, take care of the kids etc. neither men, they don’t born knowing how to do the heavy work that they’re expect it to do. In my opinion, it’s all about culture and how the surroundings that we were born in were. I do think that men are capable of doing what women do and vise versa. The only thing that stops us from doing it is our culture and the stereotypes that they have on it. Most of the times people won’t act the way they want to just because they are afraid of what would their culture think about breaking their stereotypes. For example; if an Hispanic man wants to become a fashion designer, he most likely won’t do it since he will be afraid of being judged by his culture. I personally agree with Barry when he says “Man are still basically acum when it comes to helping out in the kitchen” Men are useless when it comes to tasks that are traditionally “feminine” since they are not familiar with them. All of this stereotype issues and gender responsibilities are part of our cultures and they will always keep affecting us in a positive or negative way, depending on how cultural the person is.

I Just Met a Girl Named Maria

In the novel “I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” by Judith Cofer, the author talks about some of the cultural and racial issues that she, as many Latinas who had left their country, has to face. At the beginning of the novel, Cofer describes how stereotypes had a big impact on how Latinas were treated. For example, she as a Puerto Rican woman has to learn how to deal with machismo and the fact that she will always be treat it as a minority. She also made a statement on how the Hispanic culture can be lost in translation and misunderstanding; after a guy told her “I thought you Latin girls were supposed to mature early” meaning they supposed to be easier sexually. The way Americans saw Hispanic women (with lower standards, like whores, domestic or criminals) made a huge impact on the author and encouraged her to be the opposite of what they expect her to be by being educated. At the end of the novel, Cofer hopes to encourage Latinas to do the same thing as she did, to educate themselves and to learn how to break the stereotypes that surround them day by day. During the past years, the way other people had perceived me, has been affecting my identity in a positive way. Just like Cofer, I had to suffer from stereotypes, for being Latino and part of the minority; people doubted of me being able to get a good education and pursuit my dreams since that’s what most of Hispanics do. And here I am, trying to make a change on how people see Hispanics by getting educate it and not letting other’s racial negative comments to hold me down.