Growing Up Latino: Memoirs and Stories - Essay Example

SILENT DANCING The narrator uses retrospection when she narrates about her experiences and events basing on her memories. This causes the narrative to shift from present to past to the future and also the future to past to present. The narrator, Ortiz, tells about her past when she was born in Puerto Rico, and the life her parents lived. She also remembers and narrates about the birth of her brother in 1954 (Starvans 12). She remembers how their family had financial difficulties after the birth of her brother, and that forced her father to join the United States navy. It was during this time that her father moved to the States. He got assigned to duty on a ship in Brooklyn yard. She narrates on how her father moved to the United States, and Brooklyn became his permanent home base until his retirement. This happens more than twenty years later. He went and tracked his uncle who stayed in New Jersey, and that is where he found an apartment which hosted Jewish families. A year later they followed their dad when her mother was still twenty years old (Starvans 12). The narrative then moves from the past to the present when she enters into a living room. The room is filled with people dressed up; the men had dark suits and the women had red dresses. She is here for a party where her cousin had bought a camera, and they wanted to make a movie. At the place, she meets a lot of people originating from Puerto Rico. There, she finds traditional food like kidney beans, and she felt surrounded by her language. The narrator then moves to the future where she sees herself being a secretary for a prominent lawyer as she could type the fastest in her class. She sees herself getting married to an American and doing away with the outdated Puerto Rican culture and belief system. The narrative continues in the same manner where she continues to have memories about the past and narrates about how it was like when they used to have their Christmas. The narrative moves to the present where she narrates about her future plans again. This sequence goes on till the end of the narrative as it keeps on shifting from present to past to future. Ortiz also uses the projection technique where she projects her future in a manner that makes it seem so real and certain. She projects herself and sees herself being a secretary of a lawyer because she was the fastest in typing. She projects her cousin’s girlfriend to being a good wife from the way she sat on the couch and the way she got dressed. Ortiz narrates that her cousin’s girlfriend had wore a full skirt dress, which she had tacked around her carefully. She sat on the couch formally, and her dress got pulled over and past her knees. These qualities project the girl as a humble future wife. Also, when she approached the camera she faced down as she was supposed to by her culture; this shows her humility in her actions hence depicting her as a humble future wife for her cousin. Ortiz projects herself to be an independent American girl and not a naive cultured girl from Puerto Rico. She sees herself marrying her American boyfriend whom she sneaks out on some nights to be with him. Ortiz narrates how she will have an American name, and she is so sure of it (Starvans 134). The narrative also employs the technique of different time frame and structure. The narrative moves the reader from present to past and present to the future and vice versa. The narrative begins with the narrator telling about her past, she remembers about her life when she was young in Puerto Rico. She remembers about the birth of her brother and how her father moved to the United States as a navy officer. She then narrates how they moved with their mother to follow her dad in the U.S. She remembers how the dad struggled to make them adopt and become assimilated into the American culture (Starvans 101). She narrates how her dad had a difficult time in getting a house because of his origin. She remembers of their life in their first house and how the heater pipes rattled and made a lot of noise that left them sleepless in the first two nights in the house. She narrates how she got her first spanking as a result of trying to play tunes on the pipes to find out if someone could answer. The narrative then quickly shifts to the current time frame when she is at the party with her mother, cousin and other people from Puerto Rico. This is the part where she feels surrounded with her language and gets to see her traditional foods like kidney beans. After which they move to the making of a movie where they dance before the cameras. She also narrates how her father struggles to provide for them. She tells on how her family got to become the first to own a television in the neighborhood they lived in. The narrative then moves to a future time frame where Ortiz narrates how she foresees her future to be. She sees herself with an American and American husband. She then sees herself being a secretary for a lawyer as she was fastest in typing even compared to members of her senior class. She also sees her cousin marrying a decent girl from Puerto as she was extremely humble in everything she did and the way she handled herself. She sees herself as a complete American girl who does not care much about the Puerto Rican culture and beliefs (Starvans 98). The narrator has used straight forward narration where the story unfolds in a systematic manner. There is a clear beginning and middle which focuses on the development of issues and tries to resolve them. At the end of the narration, it is clear how the character has solved her issues, and she is certain of what she wants. At the beginning of the narrative, we see the narrator explaining how she came into America. She does not regret at all as she is glad they moved to America. As the story progresses, we see her having problems with her race as they got discriminated and prejudiced. She then narrates how women got looked down upon in her culture. She says women were not supposed to look at men on their faces. Women were supposed to face down when they talked to men as it was a sign of humility according to the Puerto Rican culture. She reveals a lot of turmoil that her family goes through when they arrived in the States. She narrates how her father wanted them to assimilate with the Americans, but her mother was against it and found it extremely difficult (Starvans 63). She depicts how the first generation American kids had difficulties in integrating their background with the American ways and how it affected who they were at the time. With time, she gets to understand the American culture and gets to know why her father wanted them to assimilate with the Americans. Her father, after undergoing the discrimination, wanted his family to assimilate so that they do not go through what he experienced. At the end of the story, she narrates how she made decisions about getting married to an American boyfriend. This shows that she finally got assimilated. She narrates that she decided to do what she wanted, and she did away with the primitive Puerto Rican culture. This shows that she finally resolved her personal conflicts with her culture, which she considered out dated (Starvans 113). The narrator has used characterization to bring out the originality of the narrative. She depicts her uncle as a drunkard. She says he is dying of alcoholism as he appears shriveled like a monkey (Starvans 98). She also says he had mass of wrinkles and broken arteries on his face. The way she talks about her mother shows her as a person who is rigid and resistant to change. She did not want to assimilate with the Americans as she preferred staying around her fellow Puerto Ricans. She narrates about her father moving to the States to make ends meet. This depicts her father as caring and hard working. She also talks about her cousin who was outgoing. He is not afraid to defy the Puerto Rican culture as he dresses the way he wants. He says he is an American, and he has no time for the primitive local culture. She describes her cousin’s girlfriend as humble as she looks away from the camera when she is dancing. When she seats she tacks her dress and pulls the dress to her knees. On the other hand, Ortiz depicts herself as secretive and outgoing. She did not like being told what to do as she dressed as she pleased. The narrative portrays a number of themes. The main theme addressed in the poem is discrimination and prejudice. When her father moved to the States he had a difficult time in searching for an apartment as he was a Latino. When she and her mother went to buy foodstuffs they went to fellow Puerto Ricans, this shows the level of discrimination that existed among the Americans and the other immigrants (Starvans 121). Her father wanted them to assimilate so that they could not undergo the discrimination he underwent. The narrative has also portrays the theme of love. Ortiz narrates about his American boyfriend with whom she sneaked out late on some nights to spend time with him. Her cousin also had a girlfriend whom he intended to marry, and He had introduced her to the family. Culture as a theme also gets addressed in the narrative. The Jewish had their own culture which was different from the American, Cuban or Puerto Rican. In the party, the Puerto Rican culture gets brought out. The men were dressed in dark suits, and the ladies had red dresses. They played salsa music, and they cooked local food (Starvans 134). The cultural specifics are essential to the reader as it helps to show the originality of the narrative and the characters. It helps in the understanding of the narrative. They are essential in making the narrative more compelling and authentic. The culture specifics help in the characterization of the personalities in the narrative. The plot of the narrative starts when the narrator is born in 1952, and they were staying in Puerto Rico with her parents. In 1954, her brother was born, and that caused her father to join the American Navy as he had to look for more income to provide for the growing family (Starvans 30). He gets assigned to duty in Brooklyn, and that was to be his home base till his retirement. This forced him to move to New York to look for his uncle who stayed in New Jersey. It was the same place that he found a small apartment. A year later Ortiz, her brother and mother followed him there, and they moved to an apartment in Paterson. His father had undergone hard time in finding an apartment because he was not an American. Her mother had a hard time getting used to the new culture (Starvans 152). She narrates about the memories she had about her experience in the house. Then they get invited for a party at a cousin’s place where she finds people from Puerto Rico. She found her mother and cousin in the living room. At the party, they get a chance to eat traditional food and listen to salsa music. After eating they start dancing while being recorded on camera. They danced in a circle together with her uncles and aunts. She keeps having memories of how her father did his best to assimilate them, though she remembers how he used to carry Christmas tree up several stairs. The narrator uses imagery and symbolism. She uses the color gray to symbolize hardship. The color provides a mark about her dull future. This symbolizes the hard life she and her family went through when they moved to the United States. Her father underwent a lot of discrimination and prejudice when he was looking for an apartment (Stavans 67). Works Cited Stavans, Ilan. Growing Up Latino: Memoirs and Stories. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1993. Read More