How Do We Solve a Problem Like Maria? In “The Myth of the Latin Woman”, distinguished author, and Professor of English and creative writing, Judith Ortiz Cofer, passionately and persuasively challenges Anglo-Americans, particularly males, to abandon both their latent and their openly prejudicial attitudes and behavior towards Latina women. Employing ethos in the very first sentence of her treatise, Cofer puts the reader on notice, she is not simply a stupid Latina woman airing her grips about a lousy lot in life, but a world class scholar with the credentials to use the tools she is about to unleash on them. This becomes obvious as she skillfully lays out her argument. She has educated herself on her audience’s terms in the
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She is artful in her use of pathos as it plays an important part of her treatise. Even when employing ethos and logos, she wants the reader to be left with the sting of being the recipient of superficial judgments. In every paragraph, she firmly insists that the reader sit in her seat. For example, Cofer writes, “As a girl I was kept under strict surveillance.”, “As a teenager I was instructed on how to behave.”, “I often felt humiliated.” (626). “I was supposed to ripen.” (627). She doesn’t just lure the reader to enter into the maelstrom of emotion she felt as a Latina girl growing up in an overwhelmingly Anglo society, she lures them in and then shuts the trap door, and lets them feel the tightening of their chest and flush in their cheeks, as they enter into her world. This is pathos at its …show more content…
While Cofer takes aim at Anglo men for their bigotry laden sexist attitudes towards Latina women, she does not spare Anglo women for their bigotry laden classism. She points out how the nuns and teachers of her youth made the Latina teenage girls feel, ““hopeless” and “vulgar.””(626). And then in a later account, how an older woman motioned her over to her table to order coffee, assuming she was a waitress rather than the poet that was scheduled to read at the venue. As she draws her treatise to a close, she employs logos and candidly points out that change in attitudes towards Latina women will not come through legislation, but in her opinion on an individual level, by displacing Latina stereotypes with stories of them that draw on the universal truths of
She is artful in her use of pathos as it plays an important part of her treatise. Even when employing ethos and logos, she wants the reader to be left with the sting of being the recipient of superficial judgments. In every paragraph, she firmly insists that the reader sit in her seat. For example, Cofer writes, “As a girl I was kept under strict surveillance.”, “As a teenager I was instructed on how to behave.”, “I often felt humiliated.” (626). “I was supposed to ripen.” (627). She doesn’t just lure the reader to enter into the maelstrom of emotion she felt as a Latina girl growing up in an overwhelmingly Anglo society, she lures them in and then shuts the trap door, and lets them feel the tightening of their chest and flush in their cheeks, as they enter into her world. This is pathos at its …show more content…
While Cofer takes aim at Anglo men for their bigotry laden sexist attitudes towards Latina women, she does not spare Anglo women for their bigotry laden classism. She points out how the nuns and teachers of her youth made the Latina teenage girls feel, ““hopeless” and “vulgar.””(626). And then in a later account, how an older woman motioned her over to her table to order coffee, assuming she was a waitress rather than the poet that was scheduled to read at the venue. As she draws her treatise to a close, she employs logos and candidly points out that change in attitudes towards Latina women will not come through legislation, but in her opinion on an individual level, by displacing Latina stereotypes with stories of them that draw on the universal truths of