Friday, July 6, 2007

Summary and Response to “The Myth of the Latin Woman”

The article “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” by Judith Ortiz Cofer is about the hardships that Latin women have to go through due to many stereotypes portrayed by the media. Cofer starts out be reliving an experience with a drunk man who re-enacted “Maria” from West Side Story and even though she was aggravated, she tried to keep her cool even though everyone around her was laughing and applauding. She states that growing up in New Jersey, she suffered from “cultural schizophrenia” which meant she had to kept true to her heritage while her friends got to act and dress the way they wanted. Cofer continues by explaining some of the stereotypes, such as the “hot tamale”, that she had to put up with and how men treated some women because they where Latina. The she relives some more stereotypical encounters with another man serenading her and a woman assuming that she was a waitress in a restaurant. Cofer concludes the article by stating that she hopes to change the media produced stereotypes from trashy Latina to a well educated and wise Latina.
I really enjoyed this essay because it gave me a taste of the hardships that my mother had to put up with. I also liked it because it talks about disproving stereotypes which I really think would be better for the world if we just got rid of all stereotypes. I also liked how she described the piropos because it seems funny that men trued to impress the girls like that. I did not like that she showed two examples of men serenading her because she is Latina and I felt like she was repeating herself. She showed one stereotype in the beginning, she did not have to show the same stereotype again.. Overall this was an interesting essay,

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks you helped me greatly!!! :D

Johnmiller27035 said...

Also good summary of The myth of the Latin woman here