With this session being the last as we finally reach the ending of Ordinary girls I find myself having mixed feelings about the book. I found reading through her past experiences enjoyable however the time skips and flashbacks do get pretty confusing and hard to keep track of with Jaquira referring to the future or the past multiple times during one point. Another gripe i have with Ordinary girls was many things were left in the air and were not concluded on such as her relationship with her brother or the sexual assault she dives into at the end of the book or even regarding her mother and their relationship. However Ordinary Girls still help me captivated and interested as i wanted to know more about her experiences and how she dealt with them.
Author Archives: Julangelin Gamboa Ruiz
Jaquira’s adolescent
Throughout the pages of 142 between 247 we see more and more of Jaquira’s life growing up while she really goes where she pleases between her psychotic mother and her father who seems to not care. Throughout the reading Jaquira skips school, drinks, and fights. This is all due to the fact that Jaquira feels as though the adults in her life simply do not care about her. Seen in page 194 “Until the effect wore off and we were ourselves again—reckless, and unafraid, and pissed off at our parents for not caring that we spent most of our time on the streets or drunk or high, for being deadbeats and scutterheads.” Jaquira wishes for her father’s attention, for him to be proud of her, and wants her mother back to the way she was before her diagnosis. Reading these pages makes me feel sympathy for Jaquira for feeling as though her only chance to be free or escape was through fights and drugs. However while feeling this way I also feel she had many chances to change her ways, this is something Jaquira tells the reader as well. The countless amount of times she told her father she would change but never did. People like her grandmother, Mrs. Gold, or Paula all were there available for Jaquira to reach out to. However seeing things from Jaquira’s point of view she may have ashamed or disgraceful when it comes to talking about her experiences so far. As I read further along Ordinary Girls im hoping to see Jaquira’s path to change.
Jaquira and her relationship with her parents
For session 2 of the blog post we are told to read from pages 63 to 142, in these pages we see Jaquira’s life take a hard turn. We see her father and mother’s relationship turn even more bitter as her mother’s schizophrenia starts to effect the whole family. Her mother and father are always fighting, now to the point where her mother is physically. The reader can see Jaquira become terrified for her and her sister’s own safety especially as Jaquira learns more about the baby lolipop case. Where a deceased 3 year old baby boy was found hidden in a bush. More information about this case comes out and Jaquira learns from the news that the own baby’s mother murdered him(p128). She becomes fearful of her mother especially as we see her mother talk to herself and even get more physically abusive. However when she turns to hee father for help, the one Jaquira looks up to and puts on a pedestal, he simplies turns a blind eye. Heartbroken, Jaquira realizes that her own father will not fighting for her or her sister for custody and she has to eventually go back to fearing for her and her sister’s own safety.
Ordinary Girls session 1
For the very first session of the book club, we were instructed to read until page 62 of Ordinary Girls. These 62 pages include the book’s preface titled ‘Girlhood’ and three-fourths of part one: Motherland. This part of the book is an introduction to readers as Jaquira Diaz introduces characters such her brother,mother,father,and grandmother on both sides of the family. She also sets up her childhood home and the community around it and how everyone there treats each other almost like family (pg 41). Telling the reader this, i feel is important as it really allows for readers of Spanish or Hispanic background to be able to relate to her childhood growing up. For me, coming from a Hispanic background myself, this sort of community was common, everyone who lived in the same apartment or neighbor always looked out for each other. People gave each other food if someone made too much, invited families over for dinner, and even brought all the kids ice cream during a summer day. Seeing Jaquira implement and tell the reader about her community really helps me to connect to the story even more and helps me better picture her childhood in my own eyes. However for the majority of the reading in these first early chapters we see Jaquira Diaz’s relationship with her father and how much she loved him. Very early on we can see why exactly she loves him so much as he taught her things that she’d cherish (pg 24). He was her role model and someone she looked up to for his rich story telling and knowledge of history. While I myself cannot relate to looking up so much to a father figure, it still captives me by how much she wanted to just like him. The reasoning for this is because it gives me insight into a feeling I will never truly relate to myself but allows me a peak at how it feels like to look up to a father figure so much.
Racial Justice Reads
Throughout the video “Racial Justice Reads”, we are given excerpts of the books Fairest, Ordinary Girls, and Heavy by their respected authors. All of the excerpts give insight and a taste of what each respected book would bring to the table. Something that stuck to me was the excerpt for Ordinary Girls, in which Jaquira Díaz, reads from the first chapter. The excerpt depicts the time Jaquira Díaz’s hair was cut short by the hands of her grandmother, Mercy, due to her having “bad hair” (9:22). The way Mercy treated Jaquira Díaz pissed me off and when Mercy blamed her bad hair on Jaquira Díaz’s father and his black family made me realize how lucky I am, coming from a Hispanic family I’ve never experienced. The book review I chose helped me gain further insight into Ordinary Girls and what Jaquira Díaz would go into later on in life. The reason I’m choosing to read Ordinary Girls is mostly because of my Hispanic background, I know ill be able to relate to this book because of it. When reading “La Otra” I already felt myself relating to Jaquira Díaz as my expectation and interest grew. I want to read about her uprising in a Hispanic household with a white mother, did she struggle to balance being Hispanic and American? Did her grandmother accept her later on in life? Something I’m expecting is to know how did Jaquira Díaz find her footing with her family and life in general, how did she overcome and figure who she is as a person, how did she grow?
Expectations Free write post
Hey!
The start of a new school year is always exciting, it’s a brand new chapter in our lives. Being human it’s only natural to be curious and ponder over what’s to come and what to expect. We can’t help it we have so many expectations over the start of a brand new school year. As for my expectations, it’s probably not all that different from yours, meeting new people, getting good grades, and hoping for fair but strict professors. Meeting new people, making connections, It’s not far off to suggest that all of you want the same. Before entering college, I was and still am an introverted person, so it was always hard to go out and really push myself to make friends without the constant fear and anxiety of judgement. However since today marks a somewhat new beginning, this year I’m expecting to push myself out of my comfort zone and to really try to make connections with my peers.
Julangelin Gamboa
