Junot Díaz

The property rights of whiteness deals with the concept that includes the right to be recognized as the privileged class while excluding others. This white identity solely belongs to the whites and gives them a higher value within our country. As I research this topic, I can’t help connect it back to a story I heard yesterday. On April 21st, a black 16 year old student, Amy Inita, was beaten to death by her fellow classmates in her high school’s bathroom at Howard High School. A group of girls…

Through the conjunctive analyzation of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne a unifying theme between these two works emerges and the exploration of the ways that these authors impose this specific concept in their respective works leads to a larger understanding of these two novels. Specifically, the unifying theme of the individual within society permeates these two works and creates parallels between them. In The Brief Wondrous Life…

Fruitvale Station had an impact on me that confirmed that racism is very alive today. Police still are racial profiling and are more likely to suspect African Americans as a suspect. This film did not anger me as much as it did others, but it did confuse me because as an African American I already know the basics of what and what not to do. For example, Oscar could have walked away from the situation on the train, but because he addressed the situation, things got violent and the police were…

A. Overview/Introduction: Clarifies your white paper issue and gives a basic understanding of your connection to the issue (home page) Every year in the U.S, millions of students graduate from high school and go on to find jobs, go to college, or explore their other options. However, every year, 65,000 of those students experience very different lives than those of their peers when they graduate. These students are undocumented. While the 1982 case of Plyler v. Doe in which the Supreme Court…

American Deceptions and Reflections: An Analysis of the Sociopolitical Stakes of Oscar Micheaux 's “Within Our Gates” “If you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves.” ― Junot Díaz For many Americans, ideas of what constitutes Blackness are heavily influenced by media portrayals of African Americans; yet, these popular representations of Black Americans and their culture often highlight dated stereotypical images. As a result,…

The Ted talk given by Chimanada Ngozi Adichie describes the dangers of a single story. A single story is told here as a story that is told with the same singular view. Adichie describes how she started reading and writing when she was younger, although her writing only ever contained characters who were white and blue-eyed. She says how the books she read only ever had people like this and who drank ginger beer, Adichie wanted to drink this ginger beer although she had no idea what it was. But…

For this story “Videotape” it feels as if Don DeLillo had heard of the term “Mondo film” (or as it is also known Shockumantry) and was inspired by it to write a story of someone who would be a viewer of these kind of films. A “Mondo film” is a sub genre of exploitation films that take a documentary/pseudo documentary style focusing on taboo subjects such as death real or fake. Don DeLillo 's “Videotape” shows us a man who has become desensitized to violence. The character in the story is a…

to many American’s disbeliefs there are other styles of parenting that differ greatly from the American standard. These differences are seen at the household level but often engulf entire nations into separate cultures distinctive from our own. Junot Díaz and Jhumpa Lahiri provide an alternative lens into the lives of those living as Americans in a culturally different home. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Unaccustomed Earth present the parenting styles of Dominican and Indian families…

Oscar, alone, types furiously away at his typewriter. Oscar, alone, dreams of the woman he saw on the bus earlier in the day. Oscar. Alone. In The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz illustrates the way in which one’s society can both burden and create one’s identity. As Oscar meanders through his life without any firm direction, his approach towards girls and his rare parlance determine the life he lives. They are what ostracize him, but are also what make him special. They make…

In The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao it describes a boy who once he hit his early adolescence years he was bullied and left aside. “He no longer went anywhere near the girls because at best they ignored him, at worst they shrieked and called him gordo asqueroso!” (Wao 135). The boys are expected to be over muscular with abs and a slim fit body in order to look attractive an image of an unrealistic body type. Also, a (Aiello) high percentage of our youth in America have social media, and/or…