Between August
Between August
Jana Evans Braziel contrasts Haitian folklore with stories primarily from Edwidge Danticat’s Krik? Krak!, but also from her earlier stories, Breath, Eyes, Memory and The Farming of Bones. These comparisons are made through the lens of historical figures Défilée and Sor Rose. Braziel thoroughly examines the topic of maternity in each of Danticat’s stories, characterizing maternity-related metaphors in these stories as “maternal refusal.” The particular examples are all unique, but they contribute to the theme that the politics of maternity for Haitian women is difficult for a host of reasons.…
Professor Cherrie Moraga of Stanford University is considered to be one of the most influential women in the women’s liberation movement. Living in a white, heterosexual man’s world, lesbian Chicana Moraga understood her sexuality would alienate her in a Chicano culture that is highly against homosexuality. She understood her defiant characteristics coupled with her being a woman would naturally raise questions about her sexuality in a Chicano community that has purported strong, defiant women to be unquestionably lesbian. Lying under the stigmatized shade that is Chicano cultural nationalism, she began to understand and examine the identity alliances that shape young, developing Chicanas at such an early age. Chicano nationalism is the ethnic nationalist ideology…
Wilson explores the social structure of Taino society in Pre-Columbian times, and traces how the demise of Taino society was caused by the arrival of Europeans. One suggestion Wilson makes is that Taino population decrease was due partially to the disruption of food production caused by the exploitation of the native workforce by the Spanish for European profit. Wilson outlines how these forces, in addition to disease, cause the demise of the complex Taino society at the hands of Columbus and the Spanish. Solow, Barbara L. Slavery and the Rise of the Atlantic System, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 1991…
Misuzu Hatano HIST 2328 Julie Downing. Mexican Americans and the Question of Race. University of Texas Press, 2014. The purpose of this book is to indicate how a generation of Chicana activists of 1960’s to 1970’s, especially Chicana female activists created several aspects of liberation that continues to reverberate recently.…
The famous five were five woman from Alberta named Emily Murphy, Nelly McClung, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Louise Mackenzie and Irene Parlby who wanted all women to have recognition in politics, their workplace and vote in federal elections everywhere in Canada. They questioned the Supreme Court of Canada to consider and rule: “Does the word ‘person’ in section 24 of the British North America act include female persons?” After three months the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that "qualified persons" didn't apply to women, in 1928 the famous five and PM Mackenzie King appealed to the British Privy Council on the same matter. In 1929 the BPC responded that the word person in section 24 included both male and female, and were allowed to become members…
In this movie, two families identified by their mother’s, Mercha and Talia, live in their own summer homes in Argentina’s scorching sun and tropical rain. This film focuses on social statuses and gender roles in the family as well as the servants that work for them. The children represent the future and cultural descendants of Mercha’s and Talia’s family and have certain expectations for their specific genders. In the beginning of the story, daughters of Mercha shop for clothes for the boys while the boys played in the streets. Later on, the boys went out hunting and spending their time having fun like speaking to fans while the girls usually stayed at home helping the mom with chores or laying around with the mother.…
Indigenous groups throughout the world have one thing in common when it came to their fall; they all suffered at the hands of white men. Two indigenous groups that were infiltrated by western people were the Cherokee tribe and the Africans during Imperialism in Africa. During 1830 to 1831, the Indian Removal Act was enforced and more than ten thousand natives were relocated west of the Mississippi River. Thousands died before they could reach their new home. The reason for their removal of their ancestral lands was so there could be more space for citizens of the United States.…
Born in a family of Mexican immigrants, Sandra Cisneros discovers her niche in the American literature by writing from her experience as an immigrant growing at the confluence of two cultures. Until her teenager years, Cisneros’ family moves back and forth from Chicago to Mexico, making her feel not integrated in either culture. As Robin Ganz declares, Cisneros “derived inspiration from her cultural specificity and found her voice in the dingy rooms of her house on Mango Street, on the cruel but comfortable streets of the barrio, and in the smooth and dangerous curves of borderland arroyos” (1). In her short story, “Woman Hollering Creek”, Cisneros describes the life of a Mexican woman, Cleofilas that marries a man from “el otro lado” in the…
It is known throughout many communities that Latinos and Latinos are very zenophobic when it comes toward sexuality and gender roles. This feeling that comes to money of Spanish descent carried the same fears and disgusts due to the conditioning that was applied to them by their forefathers and foremothers. To help explain these reasons this essay will use Ramòn A. Gutierrez’s “A History of Latina/o Sexualities”, Robert Courtney Smith 's “Gender Strategies, Settlement, and Transnational Life In The First Generation”, and lastly Lorena Garcia 's’ “She Old School Like That”. All from “The New Latino Studies Reader: A Twenty First-century-perspective”.…
Rigid Rules Result in Rebellion Are following rules easy for you? What if they controlled your life, like rules that told you when exactly you could get a new jacket or that one was not to step outside unless under certain conditions? This essay is about characters who rebel from the novels Journey to the River Sea written by Eva Ibbotson and The Giver by Lois Lowry. The kind of rebellion I’m addressing means resisting or acting against the rules. Although these characters may be disobedient, they do have a valid reason.…
It is these ideas that force us to question the subject of anthropology as a whole, extending our anthropological view ‘beyond the human’. Through his exploration of social dynamic of the Avila and their neighbouring villages in the Napo Province…
In relation to such gendered economic roles, responsibilities and subordinate status of women, it is interesting to study the economic status of women in Bonda and Paraja tribes. The novel The Primal Land, depicts indigenous customs and traditions of the Bonda people before the influence of the outside world through the narration of the local folktales and myths but the indigenous unadulterated culture of the Paraja tribe is less evident in the novel due to their assimilation with the mainstream society, unlike the Bondas. Nonetheless, the tribes share proximity spatially as well as in terms of local customs. Both the texts, help in understanding the change caused by the influence of the outside society to the indigenous culture and the resultant deteriorating status of women.…
Although the revolution does attempt to create a nation-family, it cannot do so without scarring the survivors. Those who survive have to face the complex negotiation of remembering and forgetting, to create a history that they can live with. This struggle of bearing the burden of memories is exemplified in the second oldest sister Dedé who is the only Mirabal sister to survive. She is the keeper of memories, the guardian of the legacy of the Mirabal sisters and Alvarez’s sensitive writing ensures that the reader realises just how difficult this duty is for Dedé. Dedé has to balance the past against the present and the future, that is, she has to look after the museum dedicated to her sisters’ memory as well as actively play the mother figure…
In remembering his life as a child Omar too recalls the marital passage many young girls underwent. When Omar thinks of a Zanzibari woman he imagines one who is “feeble”, thus connotative of being weak in strength, powerless and fragile against the forces of custom and religion which dictate their position in society. Women in Muslim society are therefore portrayed as devoiced and powerless, disappearing into non-existence “until they reappeared years later as brides and mothers” (146). R.W Connell (1987) considers power as a social construct in which individual deviations from the norm “are deeply embedded in power inequalities and ideologies of male supremacy” (Connell, 107). Thus, as a consequence of this severe gender inequality experienced in such communities, women like key female character Asha, Latif’s mother, often seek alternative modes empowerment, adopting what Connell (1987) terms as ‘emphasised…
In many cases, women struggle with inequality and oppression because the government lack enforcement to protect them. In Iran as well as Nigeria, the government focuses on other elements such as economic growth rather than protection of women. The lack of government support and protection affects the inequality that women faces. With no protection against violence and oppression faced by women, it makes women extremely vulnerable in society. In some cases, the government takes an even detrimental step, and attacks women who do speak up about the inequalities.…