Author Archives: Angel Caceres

Ordinary Girls Section 4, The End

As a grown up Jaquira somewhere in her early 20s after graduated community college, she received word that her grandma Mercy has dies. She inform the information to Alaina, but she doesn’t care. Jaquira realize the same when she thought to herself that “When Abuela, my real grandmother, died two years ago, I felt deep, insurmountable grief, like I was completely lost. It was because of her that Mercy didn’t destroy my sense of worth” (Diaz, 253). She understand that Mercy was a terrible person and she could understand on why Alaina doesn’t care. Jaquira and her husband went back to Miami to see Mercy body, as she arrived she saw her mother who has missing teeth, a drug addict and homeless. The cause of death was suicide by pills since it turns out Mercy was suicidal all the time and that she will hang out with her daughter (Jaquira mother) by doing drugs. Few years later, her mother had more mental illness and drug addictive were two part of her organs were remove and has to frequently see her mother to make sure she is living. Jaquira moved back to Miami to take care of her mother. She mention on how she missed her before she became a drug addict and remembering the good times with her mother. She hear that two of her friends died and most of her friends who were alive had kids and have families while Jaquira doesn’t. In 2018, she meant her friends were they use to party as teens (ah, nostalgia) and partied. It reminded her about her friends (either dead or alive), the good times they had and that they will always have their back. Jaquira conclude her memoir by saying that she created for every girls just like her, if she could go back in time she will just say to take care, she wishes all the girls to care, love, dance and most importantly to live.

The message that she said about her reasoning about writing her memoir because she wants to connect to girls who have been through the same as Jaquira did in their life. It is amazing on how Jaquira told her life story in order to relate/connect to other girls (or people who faced struggles like her). She shows that people could manage to face their struggles and find a good life.

Ordinary Girls Section 3

  As Jaquira Diaz keeps on telling her story growing up as a juvenile delinquent  teen, it was not always a negative side there are times where she had good times. When she was 16 years old she met a man named Cheito, both of them fell in love (they had the same family issues and shared things in common)  and started dating. Jaquira introduced Cheito to her family (bad idea since she hates her mother, father and Anthony) and everyone loved him. The family keeps on telling Jaquira that she better not miss it up since her life is already hard enough. When Cheito introduced Jaquira to his family, they were mostly having a bad feeling about her since she is delinquent and dosne;t want him to go down a bad path. But they still accepted that she is Cheito’s girlfriend. When Jaquira sat down to eat with Cheito and his family, she felt something that she never experienced. She felt “love in the room… everyone is smiling.. Saying please and thank you like an ordinary fucking family. This is what a family was supposed to be, people who actually loved each other. I felt robbed” (Diaz, 199). It tells of the realization that Jaquira was missing out on her teen (properly whole life), it was love. She never experiences love in her family since they’re  dysfunctional and the only person she loves is her sister, Alaina. She felt that this is what led her to this path. Without love she was a delinquent and if she was loved by her family she would have been living the good life. 

  It’s sad that it affected Jaquira, but it also affects other people when it comes to not having love. Without love (either romantic, friends or family support) people will feel lost and go down a dangerous path. They do something that they would regret and release that they weren’t loved by others and that’s why they went down a bad path of darkness. People need to be loved in order to maintain a sustainable and good life (unless the person is a criminal, scammer, jerks, psycho and socialpth they don’t need love since they’re already on a path that they can’t return.).

Ordinary Girls summary 2

As the story continues of Jaquira Diaz’s life, when she arrived in Miami to live there, her parents had a divorce. She, Anthony and Alaina live with her father, but the dad didn’t care for them that much so abuela (the father’s mother) looks after them when he’s at work. For the mother she became broke and properly a hooker (since she keeps on bringing guys and getting their money or other services) Anthony basically became a psycho/sociopath since he keeps on attacking Jaquira for no reason and Anthony kill rats in grossom ways like he’s performing Fatalities at the rats, while Alaina is safe from him. Everytime when they both fight the dad always takes his side of the story, which makes sense on how Anthony became a psycho/sociopath. Jaquira finds it unfair that he gets the respect and she doesn’t. One day the mother tells Jaquira and Alaina that they are going to her house, but in reality she kidnaps them since the father doesn’t know. The house was a mess and both girls didn’t like living there. The mother, Jaquira and Alaina went to the father’s house, the reason why is because the father wants her to keep the daughters so they have to pack their stuff and go with their mother. This made Jaquira mad since she has been through hell and it shows that her father doesn’t care for his daughter, she said to him “I will never forgive you” (Diaz, 83). Jaquira’s dad was impactful in her childhood but now she knows that he is an uncaring person, it made her realize that life isn’t fair and that there are people who would leave one behind. They lived in different places until her mother found a stable place to live in. Later on in Jaquira teen life, when she and Alaina went back to live with their dad again. One day Jaquira stabbed her brother since he was attacking, which in result she was sent to juvie, also learned that she did some Grand Theft Auto (not the game) on some cars,properly endangering someone and some other things that she did that are illegal.. The father is an idiot for not taking his daughter’s side but instead he took Anthony’s side who’s a psychopath. As she left juvie she was in school (also she skipped school alot, but it looks like she wants to get her act together), she was with friends. One day she was hanging out with her friends and a couple of them were boys. She thought she could lose her virginity to one of the boys since she thinks it’s a burden to have a virginity. She did get to be with one boy, but didn’t get too far. But one day she did lose her virginity but she feels regret since she didn’t love the boy that she was dating with. When she was in the age of 16 she fell into depression after dropping out of school, dropping out of and losing all contact with her friends, she did get her GED but it didn’t make her happy. She works as a pharmacy technician and lives in an empty studio apartment. She always wonders about her friends, Alaina, and her mother. She felt like she had nothing to live for and was miserable for not being with her friends.

  It’s sad how Jaquira has suffered for all of her child/teenhood since every time she tries to be in a positive mode or just somewhere something happens. I wasn’t shocked that she stabbed Anthony since it was bound to happen and he deserved it.  It shows how she had enough of her brother’s abuse and that she snapped. It reminds me of a Joker quote which is “ All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy.”  It shows how Jaquira’s bad journey led her to become juvenile and regret on deciding to leave her friends behind since she has no one to be with in her darkest time.

Ordinary Girl Section 1 summary

The book “Ordinary Girls” is about Jaquira Diaz life story of her growing up with her family in Puerto Rico and moving to Miami beach as her family and teen life begins to crumple. The first chapter is about Jaquira childhood in Puerto Rico, she talks about how her mother works hard in a factory and her father study in University of College, but in order to support his family he sells drugs (properly cocaine). She also has a brother name Anthony, he was sacred of his mother since she almost had a burst of anger at him (which she has schizophrenia). As a result he lives with his grandma ( the father mother). And she has a little sister named Alaina. Jaquira was always reliant on her father since he thought her to read books. One day a new neighbor came to the neighborhood, this caused Diaz mother to go on a outburst when she suspects her husband cheating on her. They both always argue about the mother accusing the father of cheating. Then mercy (the mother, mother and grandma of Jaquira) showed up in her life and explain that Jaquira mother run away from how and threaten to call the cops since her mother was under age (she was a high school student and the father was an adult) which the father didn’t realize she was under age. Mercy accepted her daughter marriage so their fine with each other, accept that mercy is a racist since she doesn’t like her two granddaughters since their black. Mercy always says that Jaquira “brother got lucky, he turned out like me.” Diaz, 50). It tells on how Mercy is not a good grandma since she wanted light/white skin grandkids instead of black grandkids and explains on why she endorse Anthony except for Jaquira Alaina. One day the father bought a like a fancy apartment for his family to live but it caused the family trouble since it brought a gang to threaten the family if the father didn’t had the money for them. The father gave them money and they left. This made the family keep on moving until they decided to move to Miami Beach to get away from the past. They lived in a small apartment and Diaz parents got a divorce since her mother hit her father which lead the father to finally leave her. This made her mother sad since he meant everything to her and Jaquira was sad that she lost a person that inspired her to read books and be a creative person. I

like they story since it shows on the personal struggle that Juquira faced in her childhood. It shows on how people could struggle on supporting family, how it feels like to be discriminated by appearance and the how Jaquira childhood is tragic. It brings me the question on why do people make a big deal over skin color, like their are a person and skin tone doesn’t matter, people are beautiful just the way their are weather in the inside or outside.

Racial Justice reads reaction

How does a story captures a realistic problem to get the audience attention and make them read more about it? The line that I like from the video is when Kiese Laymon shared a a short passage about the night of the Rodney King verdict, The quote I like is ” I didn’t want to teach white folks not to steal. I didn’t want to teach white folks to treat us respectfully. I wanted to fairly fight white folks and I wanted to knock them out.” The reason why I like this quote is that it shows that the narrator is tired of white people on mistreating minorities and the only way to stop racism is to fight them back. It tells on how their are minorities that are tired of the unfairness and are thinking that violence will solve the answer. The three stories that were read from the videos tells on how the story is serious and has realistic problems that could related to the readers. The stories are interesting due to the topics that are mention, but I was interested on the Rodney King Verdict paragraph. The reaction that I have informed me that the previous reading that I have read tells that the stories will be relatable and tackle serious subject the people face. The expectation that I have when it comes to these author that I read from their passage shows that they are not holding back when it comes to their stories, they will go to serious subject to the story to relate to the audience or make the audience have a new view on the subject and release on how the story is impactful when it comes to the writing. And shows on how different people could have different types of problems weather could be racism, sexism or identity.

My expectation

My expectation for this class is to engage and try to get along with my teacher and class. For my expectation for the school, I expect that the courses will be difficult, but I will try my best to pass my class and try to make new friends as I start my adulthood.