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.

"No Name Women"
I think the reason that the author decide to tell us the story was because she wants us to know how things were back then, but I think that was not only from they were, if not that the happen everywhere because I have heard many stories about how there weren't as many liberties that we have nowadays. Another reason why I think what motivates the author to tell us the story was she may keep that story as a secret for a long time and there would be always a moment when you know something and what would make you fell better is to say what is happening. After reading all the story is sad how everything was before because you didn't have the liberty to do whatever you want with your life, for example, women's always had to follow orders for their parent or if they were married the wife's need to do what their husband says. And I think the author tells a story an act of resistance because as what her mother and aun did that was keep in silence just to not get in trouble because as I said before always the men would have the power to do anything they want with the womens because everything was back then as if womens did not have any right to speak up for them.

Hello class, 
My name is Alejandro Osuna. I am from San Diego, California, but I live most of my childhood in Tijuana, Mexico. I move to San Diego when I was 11 years old. I decide to take English 205 so I can complete all IGETC requirements. This is my second year at Mesa, and I wish to transfer to SDSU by the end of my third year, to complete my major that is Criminal Justice. What I love to do is travel, and most every year I try to travel to different places, and my passion is cars since I remember I was around 7 or 8 years when they became my hobby.