Saturday, May 16, 2009
American Chica by Marie Arana-Humanities III 5/21
After reading American Chica by Marie Arana, write a minimum of 300 words analyzing the relevance of race, class, gender, and/or ethnicity in the memoir, and relates it to the different readings studied in class this year. In your response, you should consider the interaction of race, class, gender, and ethnicity, as well as each category separately. How does the memoir and the arguments of the memoir’s author connect to the readings we covered in class? What is the experience of the author, and how does it relate to her race, ethnicity, gender, and class? Does the memoir address the social construction of these categories? Are their any social institutions (work, family, education, the media, politics) that seem to reinforce the author’s experiences? Is there potential for social change?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
13 comments:
American Chica, written by Marie Arana is a novel that represents the struggle of many to find their inner identity and heritage. There is the question of race, whether she needs to identify herself as a Latina or an American girl. There is also the question of ethnicity and how this contributes to the social class at which she stands. Having a successful business man as her father and a mother who shows much care and love toward her, Arana is brought up as the typical high class child in a Latin American country. This memoir relates to many other topics and readings that we have covered in class. Comparing this memoir to other readings, such as The Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, we see the struggle for finding identity within an individual and a family outside of their native country. We see this with Oscar’s family as well as with Arana’s mother, who is not from Peru and struggles to fit into a society and a culture that is not hers. Growing up as a child from mixed heritages, there is always that confusion and questioning behind the identity of each individual and the differences between the cultures that you have to embrace because of your ancestors and family roots. Arana is exposed to this bewilderment. From one side of the globe, she has to embrace a culture that brings out the smell of sugar, where she is home schooled and is taken care of by different maids. In another part of the globe, Arana has to embrace a culture that is entirely unknown to her, but that she must believe to be hers because of the direct link that connects her through her mother. This memoir also embraces the question about the social issues that Arana grew up with. She knew that she could be friends with the family cook’s daughter, but that they would never be the same because she was rich, and her friend was simply the cook’s daughter. Peru is a place where there are many native indigenous people, who even today, do not fall under the same social status as many other people who are considered “civilized.” Arana’s novel tells the story of the Latino and Latina struggle to find a real identity and be part of something that does not directly connects her to only one culture or one heritage.
In American Chica there are different aspect the author relates to, like cultural respect, ethnicity, and social class . These topics have had a lot to do with the studies in class because we learn how cultures are divided by two cultures and learning how to practice both their heritage and American culture is difficult because you’re torn between the two of them. Arana a mixed a heritage child is having a hard time to balance her father Peruvian culture and her mother’s American culture. She has to decide to stay in New Jersey or go to her father’s country. In the book Arana learns how culture is important to enrich people. This has a outlook on what we have learned in class because like the first Jewish Americans they had to decide to change their Jewish culture to Christian culture, but some Jews embrace it and knowing what your culture is all about is important to know who you are. We learn in the book about social class and how important it is in America. When Arana invites her Indian friend we learn about how different she is treated because she the daughter of the cleaner and how even the children have an outlook on people just like the adults. Arana learns about her culture identity and how to change and embrace it. Social class has also been a part of the problems in a lot of cultures that we have learned in different readings. Many Americans feel as though their social class is a superiority to treat people different. Arana learns about these changes and how she divided by her mother free spirited culture and her father’s strict Peruvian rules. This book shows is a good book because we learn about Arana and her journey to learn more about who she is.
American Chica by Maria Arana tells the story of a girl who has a unique cultural upbringing. Her father is a Peruvian engineer from Spanish backgrounds and her mother is an American musician with a Hollywood- like face from the rolling lands of Wyoming. While in the care of her father’s Peruvian family, Arana was instructed on how to have manners and on how to be a lady. In contrast to her father’s upbringing, she was taught how to ride a horse, properly fire a weapon, and snap a chicken’s neck for a meal. This difference in her parent’s lifestyles shows the cultural differences between the two sides of the family. It also shows her parent’s contrasting methods for rearing a girl. On Maria’s father’s side, Maria is taught how to become a women and the role of the women is more sensitive to the American culture with feminism and domesticity. On the other hand, Maria’s mother does not take on the typical role and habits of a women or a wife, and she instills these habits in her daughter. The gender classifications that are assumed in the typical roles of a man and woman are inversely related to each other. Once being settled into America, the family cultures of her mother and father are split up half and half in Maria’s own personal identity. In America, Arana is first unaware of the fact that she is different from most in this new country. As Maria grows and lives life, these two cultures are fused together into one identity. This book is similar to H. G. Carrillo’s Loosing My Espanish. In Losing My Espanish Oscar Delossantos, has a struggle with bridging his native Cuban culture with his American culture. He looses apart of him on his journey to find himself, his native Spanish language, but in the end, he is associated with a unique identity as a result of his family’s ethnicities. This is the same scenario Maria Arana dealt with in American Chica. In the memoir, the social construction of these categories is inevitably created through Maria’s experiences in Peru and in America.
Marie Arana’s American Chica was a beautiful memoir that told the life story of a young girl that attempted to co-exist between two varying societies. Living in Peru with her American mother Marie A., native Peruvian father Jorge, and her two siblings George and Vicki was the ultimate life for young Marie. Her dad was an international businessman and her mom stayed home and taught the children, while utilizing various books that were sent from the United States. Although Jorge’s mother and Marie A. did not get along, due to differences in culture and customs, they were able to keep the peace for the sake of the children. Language was one barrier that Marie A. dealt with as an American marrying into a Spanish speaking culture and family. Her in-laws spoke to her in Spanish daily, which was said to be the quickest way that Marie A. would learn to speak the language fluently. The Arana’s were wealthy people and they owned elaborate houses, servants, and at one point a personal tutor. However, visiting and later moving to the United States proved to be an experience unlike any other. While in a train station upon arriving to America, Marie observed the fact that there were two separate restrooms for whites and people of color. This was her first time encountering racism because in Peru life was simple and everyone lived together peacefully, despite the strong earthquakes. Marie began to settle into her new life as a “hybrid American,” and that was when she realized that people were structured into groups and classes based solely on the color of their skin. After her parents split, reality hit Marie in the sense that she now had two residences and citizenships in two countries. She would have to maintain multiple cultures and personas to fit the varying social aspects of these two different societies. However, Marie Arana was able to stand her ground through any tests that challenged her culture, as well as people denying her the title of being born an American citizen. American Chica was similar to The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Loosing My Espanish, the Distant Land of My Father, and many other literary pieces we have read because they all illustrated that it is difficult yet inevitable to leave your culture and assimilate into another, however the most important aspect of being multi-cultural is never losing your heritage.
During the twentieth century, many different groups of people left their homes to establish new ones in the “New World, the “Promise Land.” This place was called many names but everyone had the same expectations of it. America was a calling for freedom and a chance for individuals to start a new life. Most immigrants come from poor conditions or from uncomfortable situations that their old homes threatened. A group of immigrants came from South America who was looking for freedom, education, prosperity, a new home, a job, and to grow a family. In Marie Arana’s American Chica, Two Worlds, One Childhood, shares the Latino experience of a young girl and her family when coming to America and living upon its soil. In the story the narrator is a young female Peruvian descendent in which her family has a decent living but in her native home, her character is not taken serious. In America education is a key to prosperity which tests her and her family. Thanks to the family’s wealthy state back at home she was living a stable life but once she is among other American folks her race, class, and gender are viewed differently. In Humanities, when immigrants come to America for the first time they are at the bottom of the pyramid in which they need education to move up to the next level of having a job. Even though the family in American Chica had a great establishment back in their home country, they were still under the rule of a cruel dictatorship. In America they worked hard to gain what they lost but they had the chance to live their lives again but in a better direction. Another book sharing the same two different experiences for the Latin American culture is The Brief and Wondrous of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. In this novel the characters in the story are threatened by Trujillo as well as the characters in Marie Arana’s memoir. These conflicts of education, gender, race, and class, all reflect the author’s relations to society. In the memoir that revolves around a young girl who has to put up with the false attitudes toward immigrants share the exact same insights of what the author had to go through before. She points out the advantage and disadvantage of living in a higher class while sharing the same examples for someone who falls to a lower class. American Chica contrasts the life of the immigrant experience with those lives from the past before they migrated. Marie Arana greatly depicted the everyday issues individuals face with those topics of gender, race, class, and education and how people address them.
The revalence of race, class, gender, and ethnicity were important in this memior. Marie Arana lived in a nice house in a nice area and were surrounded by other nice estates, just as similar to the life of Anna in The Distant Land of My Father.Both of their fathers were successful, they had servants, theyhad the life and they were at the top of the class. Their races were different though, one white and the other of Hispanic, Peruvian heritage. The author, Marie Arana experiences the coming to America and experiencing new things outside of her class on her mother's white side of the family in America. She learned to shoot a gun, an break a horse, which was something she wouldnt have done originally in her country. Her grandfather was a politician who wrote books, but one day gave it up and just stayed upstairs in his rom and rarely came down or spoke. She learned so much in America and almost learned of another side to her that she ended up liking it and ended up loving her other side of her family and found the grandmother's love she looked for. Also in the end stepped out the role of a women as she played back in her country into a new one, making a better her.
Marie Arana’s memoirAmerican Chica is about a young girl named Marisita who is the child of a biracial couple. When she was at a very young age she realized there was a distinct difference between her parents, sister, brother, and herself. As she takes readers on a journey through her life she begins to understand her place in society as well as her parents’. Regarding the theme of her ethnicity she is placed in between two completely different “worlds” that her parents have been born in, Peru and America. As a hybrid her position in society is circled with discrimination in some aspects because she is not one of “them.” As Marisita gets older she gradually comes to understand why her father sticks out like a sore thumb in America and her mother vice versa in Peru. The customs, traditions, and beliefs are not the same as one another’s and as their offspring she has a hard time distinguishing her own identity. George, her brother being the closest friend to her for most of her childhood contributes to Marisi’s position in society regarding gender. She struggles to learn the ways of conducting herself like an American girl or a Peruvian female. Her femininity altered between the two cultures which also contributed to the complex heritage she yet understood. This memoir connects to the readings we have read in class because just like Lillian in Amy Bloom's novel Away she is lost and has no true distinction of who she is as an individual in society. The memoir does discuss the social construction of these categories because similar to many other novels we have read in class such as Loosing my Espanish and Away the characters' environment has shaped them. The environment sets their general values and ethical ways which are passed on to their children. However, when cultures from two different social institutions are taught to another individuals views and understandings clash which results in misunderstanding of ones own roots. I did enjoy reading the memoir but I feel as though there were too many details that were dragged out, therefore, slowing down the momentum of the plot.
In American Chica, written by Marie Arana, cultural roots and assimilation was the main conflict. Most immigrant stories about coming to America cover the basics of being unaccepted into American culture, but Maria Arana explored many other obstacles and went into depth of the experience. Peruvian-American was the ethnicity of the main characters, not a very common race found in America or written about. Arana used her roots from her own life and the ones of her parents to create this story in American Chica. In American Chica, Arana takes the past life of the Peruvian-American family and applies it to their present life. An example is their Peruvian childhood, filled with the discovery of their Native American and Spanish roots. Their culture was rich and full of history. It all seemed to fade when the family moved to America, however. As discussed in class, the only way of surviving in America and becoming successful is to loose your heritage to become completely acculturated. Immigrants were not easily accepted, as from our studies of the Jews, African Americans, Latinos and Irish. The only means of living in America were for each racial group to become “more civilized” or assimilated. This consisted of learning the English language, reading and writing, Christianity and, of course, traditional American attire. The family lived in a middle-class suburban area in Summit, New Jersey, where deciding which side to embrace become a bigger issue. In the novel, Arana quoted,” I knew there were two women I could be—the Latina or the gringa—.” This was a positive place to begin for most immigrants because others lived in poverty. The Jewish Americans lived in ghettos on the lower eastside of New York, according to my past studies. The family was in a better area and class because they were returning to America rather than just entering the country. As far as finding and identifying themselves in America, the family tried to bridge the gap by exploring other cultures. After all of our class readings, I do believe exploring new languages and cultures does help one to become more globally knowledgeable and more accepted. Similar to the novel Away, the main character interacted with people of different ethnicities and race, which ultimately, assimilated her into the American society. In the novel, the family learned parts of American culture such as shooting guns, breaking chicken necks and breaking a horse. The difficulty came because the family’s culture was split in half and finding social change to remain in America. Even born Americans face this challenge of identification. White is always an advantage in America. From the movie documentary The Color of Fear, we learned that minorities have less opportunity than whites and have to work harder than whites to even reach potential. The themes of American Chica almost sum up all of our Humanities III class readings and complete our literature proportion of the class. It is a perfect ending and conclusion to the discussion and issue of race.
American Chica by Marie Arana is about connections and making connections, both external and internal. It is also about the authors voyage into the past, , as a middle-aged adult she realizes what she is living for real . In this memoir She writes about her grandfather who lived as a hermit in his own house, and talks about how further back the ancestors who played a horrifying role on Peru's rubber plantations. In this memoir she uses real details which helps the reader understand how she felt and this way they can feel like they are in her place, and example of this would be when She describes the scent of sugar, "raw, rough, Cartavio brown" from her father's factory; An example of ethnicity is the sounds of "El Gringo," who is this crazy blind man and how he acts on his daily rounds. There are experiences in this book that help explain her ethnicity and the way she is. For example the ghost or spirits that seem so real to her, the ones she goes searching for in Peru. She writes about many people in this memoir, of her mother, and of the many marriages. She finally talks about herself. It is said that most people have double personalities or have double lives but Arana had three lives, there is her American self, her Latina self and her third persona, the “whole new” persona live, the one that she made up. Through the different classifications in this book it was easy to see the diffrences in each group. This helps talk about how Arana was able to make her mix between the culture in her family to keep her loyalty, and the one she wanted to have to fit in and feel independence. In this book she mixes a sense of journalism, with a form of storytelling, and humor with all honesty.
In story American Chica by Marie Arana, talks about her life and the skills she learned from her father’s Peruvian family, in which she was taught to be a proper lady. She also talked about life in her mother’s American family, a life that thought her how to shoot a gun, break a horse, and snap a chicken’s neck for dinner. The skills she learned, whoever different, are similar in the fact that each race, her Peruvian and her American side, tried to teach her how to be a proper lady and provide for not only herself but her family in the future. Because she was a woman, she was thought skill s such as fine dining, by her Peruvian side, and how to cook, by her American side. As a middle daughter in a middle class family, she has to steal and take whatever she can. However as a Peruvian upper-class daughter, she has everything handed to her.
This story is like a similar book we read called Loosing my Espanish in which the main character talks about the troubles he went through trying to maintain his own identity while trying to be accepted into another. I loved how the author of Loosing my Espanish used both English and Spanish in his book and showed how his cultures integrated into one as the story progressed. In this memoir however there are times that I was confused about who was telling the story and caused me to reread that passage of there story.
Overall I found this story very entertaining. I liked how she tried to focus on race and gender, and also combined to races form different parts of the words and assembled them into on being. I found the journey of her trying to find herself interesting. Thus and would recommend it to all who likedLoosing my Espanish and all who are lost between two culture to read American Chica by Marie Arana
This school year we learned about many different ethnicity groups. This book American Chica by Marie Arana it talks about many different things we learned in our class. Although learning about different cultures, this book can relate to things we have read in the past year. This book described race, class, gender, and ethnicity. American Chica addresses these categories by explaining and going into detail of her culture and the way it was back then. While reading this book I enjoyed they way she describes how she grew up. This book reminds me of a book called Loosing My Espanish by H.G. Carrillio. These two books both describes there life style and the way they grew up in a bad time period. The social institution as far as work, family, education and politics in the book is the way things were back then during the twentieth century in Peru. In this book it mentions “half my soul at sea and half my soul on land”. I believe that quote means that, when she had to leave she did not know which side she was going to pick. The social change in the book was that she had pick and get custom to the way her new life had taken place. She had to make changes in her life tat she never imagined. In the beginning of the book her mother taught her English when she was young, but when she was around amas she spoke Peru. This reading connects to what we read in class by learning about the culture and race the way things were back during that time. Also, how thing changed from what it was in Peru and then in America.
This school year we learned about many different ethnicity groups. This book American Chica by Marie Arana it talks about many different things we learned in our class. Although learning about different cultures, this book can relate to things we have read in the past year. This book described race, class, gender, and ethnicity. American Chica addresses these categories by explaining and going into detail of her culture and the way it was back then. While reading this book I enjoyed they way she describes how she grew up. This book reminds me of a book called Loosing My Espanish by H.G. Carrillio. These two books both describes there life style and the way they grew up in a bad time period. The social institution as far as work, family, education and politics in the book is the way things were back then during the twentieth century in Peru. In this book it mentions “half my soul at sea and half my soul on land”. I believe that quote means that, when she had to leave she did not know which side she was going to pick. The social change in the book was that she had pick and get custom to the way her new life had taken place. She had to make changes in her life tat she never imagined. In the beginning of the book her mother taught her English when she was young, but when she was around amas she spoke Peru. This reading connects to what we read in class by learning about the culture and race the way things were back during that time. Also, how thing changed from what it was in Peru and then in America.
The theme of dual identities has been explored in many of the books we have read in class this, and it is no different in Marie Arana's novella American Chica. In it, she describes her life starting out when she was a small child living in Peru, with her Peruvian father and American mother. Right from the start, you can see how the contrast between her two parents lives and attitudes sets their cultures worlds apart. Her father, who was the oldest of several children in his family, had to work incredibly hard even as a small child, attending both school and working in his job at a foundry, essentially having to become the man of the house after his father quits his job. His incredibly hard work and determination eventually landed him a full ride to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. When describing her father's journey to America, the story takes a good look at how he was so puzzled at how different women behaved in the United States than in Peru. Back in Peru, women were a lot simpler; there were two kinds, one that you had casual "encounters" with and ones that are dutiful and respectful and make good housewives. But in this country, he sees the girls acting just as brash as men, drinking and essentially living with a freedom that was unheard of for women in Peru. Racism and classicism was also a theme in the book that traces back in her family through generations, as one can see through her ancestor Julio Cesar,who enslaved the indigenous Indian peoples of the Amazon and worked them to the bone in order to expand his rubber empire and become incredibly rich. This is a story that has been prevalent in almost all aspects of our Humanities class this school year, with one class or race of people thriving at the expense of another, whether they be colonials slaughtering Native Americans in the New World, the slave trade that built the foundations of this country, or even Jews being slaughtered in pogroms in their homeland in Russia, thousands of miles from the Americas. This specific part of Arana's ancestry even brought me back to our very first reading The Tempest and how this was like the Prospero/Caliban conflict on a massive scale. This novel truly encompasses what we have learned about culture and history since September in this class.
Post a Comment