Wife

Growing up, despite my toddler aspirations to be Cinderella, there was never any question that I was going to go college, that I was going to have some kind of a career to support myself, that I was going to work at something I was passionate about, something I wanted to do. So it was strange reading this last section of Women Warrior, where the appropriate goal for the women in the story seemed to be more along the lines of getting married, being a wife, continuing the cycle of traditional gender roles. Of course, Kingston says that all of her brothers and sisters "mad up their minds to major in science or mathematics" (Kingston, 160), hinting that traditional roles were not exactly appealing to them. But throughout the story, there are multiple instances where the ultimate goal for girls is made very clear: to become a wife.

The ultimate goal: getting one of these.

http://www.2nice.com/shop/images/362-24.jpg

When Moon Orchid arrives in the US, she is described by Brave Orchid to be soft and useless, someone who felt she "accomplished a great deal by folding towels" (Kingston, 14), a job considered by Brave Orchid to be easy and not very helpful. However, reading this, I realized that Moon Orchid, despite her "softness," was still in a new country full of opportunity. I wanted her to find something here in American she could succeed at. I wanted her to build a new life, to become appreciated and respected for what she could offer. Instead, Brave Orchid, from the very beginning, made it very clear that the only role Moon Orchid could play was that of wife. I did see Moon Orchid as acting a little bit weak, protesting to seeing her husband because she was perfectly "happy [in Brave Orchid's house] with [her] children" (Kingston, 142). I could tell that she wasn't branching out, wasn't really working to find a place for herself in this new American world. However, her reluctance to branch out may have been due partially to the fact that Brave Orchid continually reminded her that he stay in her house was temporary, that soon she would be back in her correct traditional role of wife. In the end, that role was unavailable, and Moon Orchid is so distraught that she basically drives herself crazy, perhaps because she felt there was no place for her in this new world.

Even in the US, where she might have more opportunity, Moon Orchid was expected to be just a wife.

http://www.mapsofworld.com/images/world-countries-flags/united-states-flag.gif

In Kingston's chapter "A Song for A Barbarian Reed Pipe," we see Kingston being pushed into this role by her mother as well. She speaks of how her mother brought "a series of new workers" to the laundry, and how she was forced to call them "'Elder Brother' though they were not related [to her]" (Kinston, 193). Kingston finally explodes from the pressure of this traditional role she feels is being forces upon her, telling her family she wants them to get "that hulk, that gorilla-ape, to go away" because she refuses to be "[given away] to [a] freak" (Kingston, 201). Interestingly enough, after her explosion, Kingston's mother reminds her that she "didn't say [she] was going to mary [her] off" (Kingston 202). It is at that point that you being to realize how completely the prospect of being married consumed Kingston. Even as she beats up the silent Chinese girl, her insults to her have a lot to do with this subject, as she tells her she is "not the type that gets dates, let alone gets married" (Kingston, 181). It's not that I don't think her mother wasn't trying to marry her off. Though the mom says she was searching for a husband for her sister, she shows Kingston's picture to the suitors, suggesting she wanted Kingston to get married first. However, the fact that Kingston herself shared this obsession is notable because it highlights how incredible it is that she was able to break away from the traditional role expected of her and pursue her own passions in college and beyond.

I was lucky enough to never have the traditional role of wife forced upon me, or even really encouraged. Everyone in my house wanted me to pursue my dreams. I'm so grateful to have had a family that raised me not to fill a traditional role but to follow my passions. Not to say I don't want to get married, or be a mother. It's just nice to know that I can choose where my life goes.

I've never really wondered what my mother thinks of me. This is probably due to the fact that she has always tended to inform me (mercilessly) of her opinion on myself. I distinctly remember leaving for school late, and being about to jump in my car, obviously out of time to change my clothes, and having my mom stick her head out the door and call after me in a shocked (and might I say, disgusted) voice "You're wearing THAT?". I mean, you'd think I was dressed up like Ugly Betty, or something, the way she went on about it.

She always gets mad when I remind her of these instances, and is quick to point out that for every negative "honest opinion" she dolled out, there was at least 20 positive opinions.

The way my mother said it, you'd think I'd walked out of the house looking like Ugly Betty.

http://www.jaunted.com/files/18788/ugly_betty_161206.jpg

Well, yeah mom. I know you said nice stuff to me too. But my self esteem is on a strict point system, here. Let me try to explain it to you:

A on a test? Plus 10

Positive opinion before leaving for school? Plus 10

Negative opinion before leaving for school? Minus 1 million

See how it goes? I'd need like... 10,000 A's to get my self esteem back in the positives after a negative opinion. You've heard about my high school, haven't you? Yeah... that wasn't going to happen.

How was I supposed to have self-esteem as high as this hot dog when I was getting minuts 1 million points all the time?

http://www.billboardmama.com/images/categories/self-esteem-is-awesome.jpg

I'm exagerrating, obviously. I wasn't a tortured teenager or anything. And I knew not to take my mom too seriously; half the time she would laugh after criticizing me, like she knew she was being ridiculous. But after reading this most recent section Maxine Hong Kingston's Woman Warrior, I started speculating as to how my mom sees me, as a person. Not as her daughter that she loves unconditionally, but as a human being, full of imperfections and like everyone else on the planet.

Kingston sort of presents two sides to her mother. In the second half of her chapter entitled "Shaman," she includes a segment of herself back at her parents house for a visit, interacting with her mother in modern day. Her mom seems kind of confused in this section, like she wants to say something but just keeps talking in circles, unsure of where she's taking the conversation. The mom goes from scolding her daughter like a child for "eating too much yin," (Kingston, 100) which she blames for her daughters colds, to revealing she things this older version of her daughter "charming with words" (Kingston, 101) but absent, unfaithful, too long gone. The whole experience is presented like a bizarre dream, something that no one ever talks about again. But there was also something heart-wrenching about it, and, though I hate to admit it, something familiar. I feel like the climax of the conversation is when the daughter admits that "when [she's] away" she doesn't "get sick... go to the hospital every holiday...[or] stand at windows and watch for movements and see them in the dark" (Kingston, 108). I know what the daughter was trying to say here. It wasn't an insult to the mother, or to her upbringing. She was trying to explain that she had built a life for herself, apart, and that when she came back to the house she felt like she was going backwards. But after that long, late-night conversation with her mother, she sounds ungrateful, doesn't she?

I can relate. I think we all can. It's like... we're away here, at college, and we're constantly changing, but our parents aren't necessarily around to see it happen. So you go home, and you're this new person, right? But they don't know the new you, and they treat you like the old you, and you find yourself regressing, acting like a child again. You come back for summer break not being able to wait to see all the things you've missed and you leave eager to get away from what you had forgotten you hated.

Sometimes when I go home I feel like a little kid, but not as cute as this one.

http://images.buycostumes.com/mgen/merchandiser/34203.jpg

So I could relate to this first mother-daughter exchange, but I kind of cringed at the chapter entitled "At The Western Palace." The mom is SO ANGRY at her kids, it scared me. It seems like partially, she's mad at them for rejecting traditional mannerisms and attitudes. She expresses contempt for their "wandering feet" that keep them from "understanding sitting" (Kingston, 113). She also gets angry when they "play with presents in front of the giver," (Kingston, 121) after Moon Orchid gives them, offering them rock candy in an effort to distract them. But it seems like she never says anything TO them about their bad behavior. She watches them grow, tries to steer them, and then sits back and fumes as they don't turn out in the way she imagined. And I couldn't help but wonder if my mother ever feels that way about me: like I'm not quite what she expected, or something.

The mom in Kingston's book doesn't think her kids understand how to sit in a chair, or rather, how to wait patiently.

https://people.ok.ubc.ca/lgabora/research_files/chair.jpg

I wrote an essay last year on Snow White, and part of my research involved the psychological implications of the tale, most of which centered around the interaction between Snow White and her Stepmother. As many of you may know, in the original version of the Grimm's adaptation of the tale, Snow White's stepmother was actually her mother. Joan Gould, in her book Spinning Straw Into Gold: What Fairy Tales Reveal About Transformations in a Woman's Life, asserts that though a daughter is, biologically, the “flesh of [the mother's] flesh” (Gould, 12), a daughter is also her own person, something that often appalls the mother. Hence, in the fairy tale, the mother is awful to her daughter, and Snow White calls her a stepmother just to separate this new, evil mother from the tender, loving mother of her childhood. Luckily, my mother didn't turn evil when I started becoming my own person. But both Gould and Kingston seem to think that children are often disappointing to their parents as they grow up, and it's gotten me wondering (now that I've encountered this idea twice) if my mother is ever "appalled" by me.

http://www.readjunk.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/snowwhite_image2.jpg

It would be nice if she wasn't. But as my high school counselor hinted (probably much to the chagrin of parents of seniors), if children were perfectly content at home, if parents and their kids never rubbed each other the wrong way, the youth of the world would never leave the nest, never go out and become grown up, contributing citizens of the world.

Citation for Woman Warrior: Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior. New York: Random House Inc., 1976.

Checklists

I went to Westwood High School. I know this means nothing to you. It's about as familiar to most of the UT campus as Earth was to ET. But I'm just going to go ahead and tell you that the school itself was, for me, an unpleasant experience. I loved my peers, and there were a handful of teachers who inspired me, but the entire atmosphere of the place was akin to a childhood nightmare.

The front of my high school. You'd never know how ridiculous it was by the look of it, would you?

http://activerain.com/image_store/uploads/8/2/2/5/9/ar122573592395228.jpg

Westwood houses an International Baccaulareaute Honors Program that draws the best and brightest as far as students go from all over the district. However, wikipedia notes that "Westwood's IB academy also has what some consider to be negative effects on the student population. As highly talented and giftedstudents transfer to Westwood from across the Round Rock Independent School District to join the IB program, a distinct disadvantage drops on to regular students since their class rank is not disaggregated from these magnet enrollees. As a result, the class ranks of many otherwise strong students (often carrying a significant number of honors or AP courses) drop dramatically in relation to where they would place in nearby local schools given their performance" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westwood_High_School_(Williamson_County,_Texas)#International_Baccalaureate).

Everyone knows it. Everyone is bitter about it. There's a facebook group called "you know you went to Westwood when...". One person finishes this statement with "You make a 4.9 and finish 183/635 with a 1300 SAT yet don't get into a certain college because your too far out of the top 10%." There's are many other, less tactful endings to this sentence that say much the same thing. And yes. I know that getting into college is about more then just your class rank. But when the Texas Tribune is reporting that in "2008, 81 percent of incoming freshman at UT Austin were admitted under the top 10 percent rule," (http://www.texastribune.org/topics/top-ten-percent-rule/) people start to get a little twitchy about how competative Westwoods academics are.

But the detrimental effect of overly-competitive academics of Westwood goes farther in the "getting into college" nightmare then just by affecting class rank. Because students are struggling to stay afloat in the cut-throat academic world of Westwood, they are unable to pursue passions such as athletics and community-oriented volunteer efforts. As the article said, to get into college (and to survive in the hectic world of today) you have to "strive for balance" (Rimer). But at Westwood, just as in the article, "balance is out the window" (Rimer). Colleges want you to do everything, and Westwood makes that impossible. In addition, because students don't have time for extraccuriculars, the caliber of extraccuriclar opportunities at the school suffers. In the same facebook group ("you know you went to Westwood when...") one alum finishes the statement with "we were the only football team in America that (literally) had to climb over a fence and cross a busy street to get to practice." Athletics are OBVIOUSLY not number one.

Oh, that mighty Westwood orange...

http://images.maxpreps.com/Gallery/0tv1rg-fIUCEx4ZREB1o_g/XK_JzIKlcUKQ6I1CQ_BJ2g/vista_ridge_westwood_forster_zeitz_austin_forster_zejtz_austin_boys_football_image.jpg

And then there's the teachers. Good lord, I feel for those teachers. There they are, many young and optimistic, trying to instill in their students a love for learning, and what do they get? A bunch of grade-whoring teenagers out for the "A". They basically have three choices:

1. Leave. This is the "save-yourself" choice, the once that will enable you to avoid getting sucked into the whirlpool of negativity that clouds Westwood's classrooms. If I were a teacher, I'd definitely go with this one.

2. Stay and drown. Become that teacher that trains students only to pass the AP test, who's grading rubrics leave no room for creativity so as to avoid getting chastised for grading unfairly, who is known as "boring" but still experiences an influx of students because you're also known for being an "easy grader".

3. Stay and be unreasonable. Give so much work that sleep deprivation is your students only option. Be known as a difficult grader who doesn't care if the students pass or fail. Revel in your reputation as "impossible". These teachers are ridiculous. They are also the best teachers Westwood has, because if you're willing to stay and teach at Westwood, truly teach, it means you REALLY love what you're doing.

We always knew Ms. D, the English teacher I had junior and senior year, was eventually going to go with option one. She was too much of a free spirit to stay for long. Recently I found out she's leaving next year. But I remember, distinctly, during the Fall rush of rec letter requests senior year. How she sat us down and told us seriously that she was worried about us. We scoffed, of course. Worried? About her IB, honors english class? We were fine. We had it under control. We were headed for great things, for sprawling Ivy League Campuses and famous professors, for universities full of brilliant minds and power.

Princeton: an example of the type of college the people in my class felt they were destined for.

http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~wxu/princeton/wallpaper/spring/princeton_spring.jpg

"No. I'm worried about you because too many of you are living life like it's a checklist, and you're ticking things off the list, and one day, you're going to tick off that last thing and realize that that list isn't even what you wanted."

I remember this. And I remember looking around the class after she said this at the genius-caliber kids surrounding me, hoping desperately that something, ANYTHING she'd said had sunk in.

She'd hit, of course, on what I consider the biggest problem at Westwood, and, on a larger scale, the entire college application process: that, with their unreasonable academic and extracurricular expectations, they suck out your soul.

I've been trying to figure out lately where this problem comes from. I know it sounds like I'm blaming it on my high school. And towards the end there I mentioned college applications. But I think, honestly, that the problem is within ourselves, the young people. We let ourselves get caught up in the "checklist cycle" and forget to make sure that the checklist we're ticking off from includes things we actually care about.

What's on your checklist?

http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/chscontracts/newsletter/summer2009/images/pics/checklist.jpg

However, the article on perfection hints that parents contribute to the cycle as well, with a certain Mr Mobley admitting that he is "not above" (Rimer) the perfectionism that the youth of today suffer from. Maxine Hong Kingston, in her novel The Woman Warrior, also alludes to this. In her first chapter, "No Name Woman," she speaks of her aunt "who killed herself" (Kingston, 3) after giving birth to an illegitamite child. Though the villagers reaction to the birth was much stronger and violent, Kingston asserts that it was the families vow to "leave no marker for her anywhere" (Kingston, 15) and contention that she had "never been born" (Kingston, 14) that caused her aunt to commit suicide: it was there inability to cope with imperfection that pushed her over the edge. Later, in her chapter called "White Tigers," Kingston shows how deeply she desired the approval of her parents, indicating that their approval could only be won with a perfection she was unable to achieve because she was " a bad girl" (Kingston, 46), aka simply a female. In the first half of the chapter, Kingston paints a picture of her ideal childhood, one where her parents would "sacrifice a pig to the gods" (Kingston, 45) because they were so thrilled she had returned from her trials safely. Then she transitions into her actual childhood, one where, despite striving for perfection, despite "getting straight A's" (Kingston, 47) and going away to the prestigious college of Berkeley, despite trying to stick to her parents checklist, she was still not living up to her parents expectations. The result was that she rebelled, and not in a productive way, purposely "[burning] the food when [she cooks]" and "[letting] the dirty dishes rot" (Kingston, 47). Herein Kingston hits on a central danger with perfectionism, whether its root be in parents or children. As the article on perfecionism notes, not all children rebel, pointing to Esther, who Mr. Mobley say has a "character sealed in some fundamental way," (Rimer) as an example. But how are you supposed to rebel against perfectionism? But not being perfect. By messing up. By throwing away the checklist entirely. Yes, some kids are going to figure out you can just rewrite the checklist, and rebel in this way. But there are those, like Kingston, who might let the checklist ruin their lives, dictating their actions not because they work to check things off the list but because they actively choose to avoid checking things off at any cost.

Kingston's toast (most likely)http://phoenix.fanster.com/theshowtobenamedlater/files/2009/09/burnt-toast-2.jpg In the first half of her chapter called "Shaman," Kingston speaks of letting her mothers life. After reading about her a few of her mothers trials and tribulations, about how she dealt with the death of her two children who "could already walk" (Kington, 60) "did secret studying" (Kingston, 64) to keep from being ridiculed at school, and found a way to become respected in her own right through her profession, despite being a woman, I feel like part of the pressure Kingston felt to be perfect was not just a desire to live up to her mother's expectations but also a desire to live up to her mother's life, so full of heartache and hard-earned triumph.

OK. I changed my mind. Maybe it's not just the fault of the mindless, checklist-following troubled youth that perfectionism is so rampant. I think that its' a combination of factors, factors that are different for every person. However, I still believe that ending perfectionism is on the backs of my peers and myself. Parents and colleges are supposed to push us to be our best, and they're doing so in the best way they know how. However, we have to be the ones to decide what "the best" actually is.

OK. So I understand that the big picture of our reading for next class is still focusing on discrimination, both based on race and based on sexual orientation. But there was a smaller subplot, intertwined with these themes, that jumped out at me. I’m not sure how to put it into words… I think that it had something to do with what it means to be a man, or a woman. But that’s not really it. It’s more specific then that.

Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll pose it as an essay question. It’ll be one of those ridiculous questions history classes thrive off of, one that begs for a thesis dripping in scholarly articulation and squirms at the slightest hint of writing that contains personality?

How are sexual scripts formed, acted out, and changed? How are these changes reacted to? Focus on how culturally acceptable social scripts are formed, how they are changed due to homosexuality, and how these changes are reacted to by the culture in question.

OK. So obviously I’ll never be an AP test essay question writer. But I think you get the idea.

Oh, AP test essays... I hate you.

http://www.cel.sfsu.edu/images/programs/ap/students-take-ap-test.jpg

Here’s what I gleaned from the essays in question.:

Multihued by Anthony R Luckett

Luckett didn’t focus on sexual scripts as much as the subsequent essays, but he did seem to hint that these scripts are learned from parents, says that his “father gave [him] the greatest lesson on what a black man should be by not being around for [him] to follow his bad example” (anthology, 861). This hints that, had his father been around, he would have learned what the social script for “man” was from him. But there is a racial dimension to this lesson he would have learned. Luckett, in describing what his father would have taught him, explains that he would have been educated on what the social script for “black man” was. With this assertion, Luckett insinuates that sexual scripts are different in divergent depending race and ethnicity, and the culture that comes from these races and ethnicities.

No, duh, you say. So did I. We’ve all seen how different cultures have different views of masculinity and femininity. For example, when Vincent Ng visited China the other children “[made] fun of [him[ because they thought [he] was a girl because of [his]] long hair” (anthology, 883), while in the US long hair on both men and women is acceptable. However, there is a deeper implication in this claim. If social scripts are learned only from parents, then you are doomed to learn and act out THEIR social script. In addition (an this is especially relevant in Luckett’s case) many times the social script for “man” draws from the social script for “woman” and vice versa. But when the social scripts don’t correspond, are not two halves of one whole “acceptable social conduct”, multiethnic and multiracial children seem to be somewhat left to their own devices. In addition, if one parents, or both, is missing, where are kids supposed to learn sexual scripts? You could day that they learn it from the parent figure in their lives, and for many this is probably true. But Luckett didn’t have ANYONE he viewed as a father figure seeing as he “never really felt at home” anywhere. I really think that part of the reason Luckett feels he needs his father for his “narrative to be complete” (anthology, 868) is that he doesn’t feel that he’s found a suitable example of a social script to follow.

If Johnny Depp went to China, they'd probably make fun of his hair too.

http://media.photobucket.com/image/long%20haried%20celebrity%20johnney%20depp/rollaa/-johnny-depp-.jpg

No Such Thing by Johnny Lee

Lee says that his father was “what could be described as the stereotypical Korean male,” who “came home from work everyday, popped himself in front of the television, turned on the sports channel, demanded his good, and was perfectly content for the rest of the night” (anthology, 873). However, because Lee was gay, he couldn’t just adopt the social script his culture and family had laid out for him, because, as his parents said, “there is no Korean gay” (anthology, 872), and therefore no acceptable social script for them. The way in which Lee finds his own definition of masculinity and sexuality despite the lack of support from his parents is important, as is the way in which his parents reacted to his new social script. They were, if you remember, furious, viscious, and in denial. But WHY was it that they reacted in this way? Personally, I think the cause of their reaction was two-fold, both personal and cultural. Culturally, their social script called for shunning of gay men. However, there was also the added dimension of embarrassment, I think, of not only having a gay son but ACCEPTING the fact that he was gay. For example, when Lee’s father says that “he [doesn’t] want the faggot,” Lee muses that he may have been doing it to “keep up appearances,”(anthology, 874) not because he actually felt that his son's gayness was wrong.

Farewell My Tung-Tew by Vincent Ng

When I was reading Ng’s story, though it had a bisexual dimension, I felt like he was bringing into perspective how a degree of separation from your parents social scripts can allow you to come up with your own definition of what it means to be male or female REGARDLESS of your sexual orientation. He kind of shows how you can try to take the best from a lot of different sources, saying that “college thus allowed [him] to come into [his] own… and break the molds that [his] Chinese father had set down.”

I think, to a certain degree, we’re all a little bit doomed to act out what we learned as children from our parents. But I also think that our generation, because technology and opportunity have exposed us to more points of view, has a better chance of breaking the mold then anyone before us.

http://www.chemind.com/no%20mold.gif

Everyone in high school knew my parents were crazy. it was just this understood thing that they were super-strict, no-nonsense and entrometidos (all up in my business) like you wouldn't believe. Everyone knew that dating was a no-no. Everyone knew that I wasn't allowed to go to my first sleepover until I was in fifth grade. Everyone knew that my curfew on a typical Saturday night was 10, that I wasn't allowed to run alone in the neighborhood with my Ipod on, and that I had to come STRAIGHT HOME OR ELSE after the homecoming dance.

What they didn't know was that my parents weren't crazy. They were just Puerto Rican.

My Island (Puerto Rico :)

http://www.tdgnews.it/en/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Puerto_Rico_map.jpg

I used to get mad, growing up. I remember specifically in sixth grade, when I went on a school field trip to Fiesta Texas and not only did my mother chaperone but I was not permitted to wear a two piece swimsuit. I mean, who does that? All I wanted to do was wear a bikini LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD. And oh, my god. Just last year one of my best friends had a birthday part at his house and my mother literally would not let me drive to his house until she had spoken to his parents and made sure they would be "watching". I was 18 years old, two weeks away from graduating. The ridiculosity of it still astounds me.

Yeah... there was no way my mom was letting me go here alone.

http://www.coasternews.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/six-flags-fiesta-texas-logo.jpg

Did I complain? To quote a certain Alaskan politician, you betcha'. I used to say things like "Everyone elses parents is letting them..." and "You guys are the only ones that..." No good. You know how in the reading by Alessandro Melendez, his mother's excuse for making him and his brother speak Spanish at home was that they were "[her] sons... and Latino" (anthology, 854)? My mom used to say "Well, you're not everyone else." What she really meant was that I was Puerto Rican.

But am I, really? Miguel Ramirez says that "being Mexican American meant that [he] wasn't really either one," that he was "somewhere in the middle" (anthology, 838). I remember in ninth grade, I took a class called Spanish for Spanish speakers. One day, we got into a discussion about whether we (the students in the class) felt like we were more American or Puerto Rican/Mexican/Chilean/ whatever country. I remember answering that I felt more Puerto Rican, but I think that what I should have answered was something like "In Texas I feel Puerto Rican, in Puerto Rico I feel American, and in every other state if I'm speaking Spanish I feel Puerto Rican and if I'm speaking English I feel Texan." People don't want to hear that, though. When you're filling out the census, you're ethnicity is a checkbox, not a spectrum.

A little confused about my ethnicity...

http://www.tru.ca/news/websites/subject_sites/hair_website/images/green_question_mark.jpg

I can totally sympathize with the government, though. It must be a nightmare trying to decide what labels to put next to the checkboxes. And I know it's not practical to have each person write out their ethnicity. I mean, you saw what my answer to the question would have been. The government doesn't have time to read the ethnic life-story of everyone living in the US. I do understand what Norma Andrade was saying, though, when she explained that "being latina dilutes the inherent differences among all of those who claim to be a part of this group." Every time I see Puerto Rican as a separate category on one of those things, I get really excited. And it's not just on surveys, either. I hate it when someone asks what ethnicity I am and, after I answer Puerto Rican, they get this AHA look on their face and say "Isn't that like... Mexican or something? They're both hispanic, right?" Well yeah, they're both hispanic. Just like Angelsharks and great white sharks are both sharks. Except one is harmless and the other is a fierce carnivorous predator. Good lord...

Great White

Angelshark

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/sharks/classroom/sharktemplates/Templatelist.shtml

So, good news. I seriously JUST got my census. It's a big white envelope what YOUR RESPONSE IS REQUIRED BY LAW printed on it. More good news: there's a box for Puerto Ricans. Yaysies!

Truth in Fiction

You must know that I grew up on books. Not literature, persay. Unless Junie B Jones and The Princess Diaries are in the ever-so-elusive category of novels and essays relegated to this group. Oh, I read some literature too. I'm fairly certain you can't make it through public school without reading at least one work crowned with this title. Of course, with Sparknotes... maybe I spoke to soon.

Oh sparknotes...

http://img.sparknotes.com/content/help/how_to_cite.gif

But you must know that I grew up on books if you are ever to understand me, me as a person and me as a reader. Do you know what it is like for me to start a good book? To hold an unread book in my hands, to feel the possibilities blooming just under the surface, to run my hands gently along its spine and just KNOW that something wonderful is waiting inside, something life-altering and strong and... and true.

I think that, on some level, everyone is always looking for truth. Some people travel the world trying to find it, others search for it cautiously in their backyards. We look for it through relationships, through education, through religion. And I, because I grew up reading, look for the truth in fiction.

I think it is because I grew up on books that I am such a harsh, and often-times eccentric, critic of them. I don't look for the same things in books that other people do. For example, a lot of times people think that a simile is beautiful because of the words used, or the picture painted. For me, a simile must first be irrevocably accurate and build its beauty from there. Yes, the beauty is in the picture painted. But it starts with a sketch. One of the best similes I've ever read I discovered just last week, in a book called Little Bee by Chris Cleave. A Nigerian refugee compares learning to speak British English to taking off toenail polish, saying that "Learning the Queen's English is like scrubbing off the bright red varnish from your toenails, the morning after a dance. It takes a long time and there is always a little bit left at the end, a stain of red along the growing edges to remind you of the good time you had" (Cleave, 3). I seriously had a little spasm of delight after reading that. Haven't we all experienced this in our required language classes? The hours of practice to learn the words, and then that undeniable, unpreventable itch of accent that creeps up on us, or that natural instinct when someone says hello to us, in whatever language they use, to respond with the language we are most comfortable with?

This books is heartbreaking but beautiful. If you're looking for a good read, I read this in one sitting :)

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And I won't lie: If I ever, while reading a book, while emersing myselves in those characters, have to think of the author and what they were trying to accomplish, I feel that the author has failed. I should never see this book as something untrue, as something fictional, as a figment of someone's imagination or creativity or political agenda. Characters are born, not created. Fictional worlds are discovered, not imagined. And these elements of a story should mesh, should function together, should EXIST.

I'm not saying that authors shouldn't or can't have characters think or do certain things to make a point. Just the opposite. I love when a characters action makes me reevaluate things, or alerts me to the irony and dry, dark humor of the world. And I'm not saying that I don't want to analyze how an author's choices in their writing effect me as a reader or the message a book is sending. In fact, I feel that analyzing an authors literary techniques is an essential part of appreciating what you read, as well as an effective way of making sure that you as a reader are not blinded by the literary techniques an author employs to get their message across. It's like when they have clothing ads, and all of the people wearing the garments look ridiculously attractive. Nowadays, most people are aware that they will not magically transform into models if they buy from Express. They look at an advertisement and often remark on the fact that certain articles of clothing would not look good on anyone except for those individuals pictures in the advertisements. Analyzing literature is a way of monitoring your emotional responses to what you read, as well as a tool for appreciating how an author is able to elicit these responses from you.

An Express ad...

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I like to think that authors care what I think about their books, that they worry about how their novels have affected be, changed my life, etc. Especially after reading Toni Morrison's afterward, I hope that she, personally, wanted me to be touched by her writing. She says so explicitly, at some points, how she deliberately "protected [the reader] from a confrontation too soon with the painful details" (Morrison, 213) of Pecola's rape through her ingenious first two sentences, framed by the "suggestion of illicit gossip" (Morrison, 212) of Morrison's opening sentence and "'trivial' information" such as "marigolds [that] did not grow" (Morrison, 213).

If you were wondering what marigolds look like... here they are!

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And I was. Touched, that is, by The Bluest Eye. I saw truth in everything: in Pecola's desire for beauty, in the towns reaction to her rape, in the frail backstory of how this tragic event came to be, in the family dynamics of both the Breedlove's and Claudia's household. But there was something I didn't see: I never thought to myself that dreaded phrase, that hated snippet of sentence that reads "what was the author trying to say when she...". I don't think I've ever read a book that had this much truth and was also so carefully contrived by the author. If I read it again, I think I might see it more, these deliberate ways that Morrison plays with language. But maybe not...

One of my favorite books of all time is called A Heart Divided by Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfield. It centers around a 17 year old aspiring playwright who moves from New York City to Redwood, Tennessee with her family. She basically arrives in the middle a huge controversy with the schools symbol, a confederate flag, and decides to write a play about it to prove to her theatre teacher back home that she can write more then light comedy. His advice to her, before she leaves, or rather is warning for her, is that "You can't write what you don't know" (Bennett and Gottesfield, 20). Once she finishes her play, after a year in Redwood, she admits that she's not sure she can claim ownership to it, that it may in fact belong to the townspeople who inspired it. I think that with The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison was decidedly writin something that she did know, very well. But I also think that she, like the fictional playwright in A Heart Divided, feels somewhat that she can't claim ownership of the story. Should it belong to her blue-eye desiring friend? Or perhaps to the era in which it was written, that "political writing in which the writing took place... a time of great social upheaval in the lives of black people (Morrison, 212). Or maybe, more then to anyone else, this story that Morrison wrote belongs to "the most delicate member of society: a child," within whom "the demonization of an entire race" (Morrison, 210) has taken root.

I don't know if Morrison feels this way, really. But I think that if ever I succeeded in writing something as true and poignant as The Bluest Eye, something that was going to alter lives and change minds and touch hearts, I wouldn't feel comfortable calling it mine. I'd probably say, instead, that it belonged to the readers, who took the truth I wrote and made it their own.

Power

Beauty. Nothing so utterly subjective should be so irrationally important. The power we give to beauty is hideous, and but its rampant, out of control, consuming. You don't believe me? Go into the CVS on Guadalupe. The section devoted to makeup is as large as the one devoted to medication. What does that mean? That beauty and health are on the same level?

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When you read The Bluest Eye, you start to notice the amount of page-space devoted to this subject. And you shudder, you slyly look around the room, because within the disturbing thoughts that go through Claudia's mind, you see a glimmer of yourself. Haven't we all looked at the models that adorn the covers of magazines and thought "If only my youre insecurity here were like hers... Then I'd REALLY be pretty." And even though you're thinking "pretty," that's now what you really mean. You mean "happy." "Self confident." "Wanted."

"What was the secret? What did we lack? Why was it important?" (Morrison, 74) wonders Claudia in reference to Maureen. The first two questions in this string of wonderings mean nothing, have no answer, have infinite answers. Beauty, as I said before, is subjective. No one in Texas... no, in the entire United States, has ever before told me I am too skinny. My Puerto Rican mother has mentionted it to me at numerous occasions throughout my life. She's become a but more accustomed to the American beauty standard, I guess. My relatives on the island are a different story. "TAN FLACITA!" they gasp as I step of the airplane every Christmas. Then they proceed to spending the rest of the break heavily monitoring my food intake.

"Pero tienes hambre?"

"No, I'm fine, we just had lunch like 10 minutes ago."

"Pero tienes que comer, chica. Estas demasiado de flacita. Tu no comes?"

"No, I definitely eat. I'm not hungry, thank you."

Worried looks are exchanged. A bag of pork rinds finds its way into my hands. Two weeks of visiting a year is not a lot of time to fatten me up, and they are always determined to make the most of it.

Claudia muses about "the Thing that [makes Maureen] beautiful" (Morrison, 74) like it's something tangible, something she can pinpoint and destroy. The Thing is society's standard of beauty, which Claudia says that she fears. Her fear is based off of an idea that this beauty, based on society's standard gives you power. If beauty only gave you beauty, it wouldn't mean anything. But beauty gives you power: that is where its importance lies. But what is the nature of this power? Is it inherent in the subjective beauty itself? Or is it a power mostly given by us to beauty, something we assign to it?

ln A Great and Terrible Beauty, Libba Bray's main character Gemma sheds light on this very subject. Speaking of a boy (Kartik) and his obvious interest in a beautiful girl named Pippa, Gemma explains that "It's not Kartik's longing that hurts... it's knowing that I'll never have what she has- a beuaty so powerfull it brings things to you... I'll always have to wonder whether I'm truly wanted or whether I've just been settled for" (Bray, 211). This quote seems to agree with the first idea, that power is inherent in beauty itself. But it also points out two supposed powers of beauty: the power to bring things to you, namely to bring love to you, and the power of security, of a confidence in our desirability.

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In an interview, Bray once said that "as a society, we are very consumed with the idea of safety and security" but that "safety is an illusion". I agree with her. We can riddle our buildings with alarm systems and someone might still break into our house. We can take our vitamins every day and still suffer a heart attack. We can go to the plastic surgeon until our we look EXACTLY like that girl on the billboard and still be cheated on, or broken up with, or simply not be the most beautiful. Snow White's stepmother learned that the hard way: even after she thought she'd eaten Snow White's heart, her status of fairest was still not secure. Bump suggests that our obsession with security in beauty is strong enough that "Morrison enables white readers sensitive to their own physical imperfections to feel the tragedy of racism more deeply" because they can relate to Pecola's insecurity with her supposed ugliness.

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Morrison suggests herself that there is power inherent in beauty. She discusses how Maurreen, a "high-yellow dream child", "enchanted the entire school" (Morrison, 62) because of her good looks, mentioning a number of priveleges bestowed upon her, from escaping being tripped by black boys to eating at "the table of her choice"(Morrison, 63) with whomever she desired in the cafeteria. And jealousy. Beauty has the inherent power of eliciting jealousy from those who do not feel they possess it. Why do you think that the stepsister in Disneys Cinderella ruin Cinderella's first dress? And I've already mentioned Snow White, who's stepmothers jealousy so consumed her that she ordered her stepdaughter's death.

So we have some powerful side- affects inherent in beauty, do we? On the surface, maybe. The power to cause jealousy, give a sense of security, and "bring things" to you, ranging from boys to friends in the cafeteria. Yes, these are things that make beauty important. But why is it that beauty has the power in the first place?

To a certain extent, beauty just HAS these powers. There's not much we can do about beauty being desirable: it just is. But we can do something about our definition of beauty. Why is it so narrow? Yes, I know about how we see "average" and "symmetrical" as beautiful just because of our genetic makeup, or whatever. But why is it that we see such a wide array of flowers as beautiful and so narrow a range of human being? It's stupid. We can fix that. And that's just outer physical beauty, isn't it? Haven't you ever seen Beauty and the Beast? All this physical stuff isn't as powerful as we think it is. We can rise above it.