Personal Narrative: The Three Little Red Riding Hood

Every night before bed, I waited impatiently for my grandma to read me one of her beautiful novels. I would walk into our room, where the shadows of the trees danced around the peach colored walls. The window that overlooked the moon glistened and reflected onto the candles that my grandma would turn off as soon as I fell asleep. We laid on the bed snuggled in my overly large blanket, my leg thrown over her in a way to keep her locked there. Her voice softened as she read me my favorite story about two sisters. A story combined with the characteristics of “The Three Little Pigs” and “Little Red Riding Hood”. The sisters would pass by houses and animals, in which one sister greeted everyone and the other harmed them. Then, after a long day …show more content…
Tacky sombreros and maracas were scattered throughout the perimeter of the room. My eyes soon stopped upon an older woman with platinum, short hair and vibrant red nails. Ms. Upshaw’s gregarious personality outshined all her decorations, I was intrigued. She moved to Brazil at six years old with her father, in which she caught up with the languages of Portuguese and Spanish. As a young adult she moved to Mexico for three years after her father moved back to the United States. Her stay with a Mexican family led her to endure the legends and traditions that she passed onto her students. I knew about my Cuban culture, yet I lacked the knowledge of other Hispanic countries. The Legend of Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl is a beautiful story similar to Romeo and Juliet where a princess fell in love with a prince. She was falsely told that her beloved had died, leading to her suicide. The prince carried her to the highest ground, where the shapes of their body was carved into the volcanic mountain. Another legend known as “La Llorona”, about a woman whose children drowned in a lake, allowed me to fall into the works of legends. I grew up on poems and novels, lacking in the legends that are greatly known in other countries. Including a story that shocked me about the reality of migrant farmers, “Cajas de Carton”. This story is of a very poor family where cardboard boxes signified the move towards another harvest, in which Ito was deprived of an education. He started going to school and grew close to a teacher that shared his passion of music where his teacher got tickets for him and Ito to go to an Opera. When Ito went to tell his parents, his home was covered in cardboard boxes. Ms. Upshaw saw how I grew intellectually on the works of Mexico from “la Llorona” (mentioned in one of my undergraduate readings) to “Cajas de Carton” and