As we enter chapter 13, “LADY WEDGWOOD, 2000–2002,” Meredith Talusan discovers a predicament that occurred by not having gone back home in 10 whole years. When she returned to the Philippines, she was greeted by bittersweet tears from her family, especially from her grandmother. Although this was a fond memory to take note of, Talusan realizes how long she hasn’t kept in touch properly with her family, and what effect it could have on their relationship. “It was Nanay Coro’s voice I picked out among the relatives who called my name, and my grandmother greeted me with a gush of tears, lamenting that I had not seen my grandfather before he died. As we hugged, I wished I’d kept in better touch, but I was too busy earning the life she wanted for me, too focused on notches of achievement instead of sentimental letters or expensive calls.” (Talusan, 2020). After being told of the news of her grandfather’s passing, Talusan could see how distant she was, but as it goes without saying, nothing comes without risks. I’ve had quite a few distant relatives of my own, and as tenacious as they were, they all ended up severing ties with me and other relatives of mine. Obviously, this doesn’t compare with Talusan, but with the right mindset, this type of action can have positive effects that outweigh the negative in life, even if it means not keeping in touch with one’s own family for a while, I’ve definitely been there myself.
While reading the 3rd part of Fairest, we see that Meredith’s mother still selfish and bad and using her daughter and spending her money, that’s can be shown in a fight between Meredith and her mother “I don’t even know where my money goes,” I replied. “You’re just spending it when you go out.”
Excerpt From: Meredith Talusan. “Fairest.” Apple Books.,”.
However, this time and for the first time Meredith stand out to herself, after canceling the show Meredith’s mother had a lot to say but this time Meredith stopped her saying “I’m old enough to decide for myself” and “You’re not a real mother” and ‘I have nothing to be grateful for”. I really liked this part, because it’s the first time when Meredith is being strong and is standing out for herself as an independent individual.
After that Meredith moved to Talacsan, she was living with her grandma and went a new school and met Samuel that she really liked, and she met friends and made connections. She was happy until her grandma passed away! She lost the person she loved the most, and at her funeral half of the people didn’t recognize her and said that they didn’t knew she was a gay. She added “I felt disappointed over how I hid so well that even my most intimate friends didn’t know me.”
Excerpt From: Meredith Talusan. “Fairest.” Apple Books.
And that made me wonder Do we hide who we are scared from others or scared from ourselves?
Jaquira Diaz has been through so much that it makes you question, how did she get through it? Yes, she does get through everything, but she had a bunch of bumps in the road. Her grandmother that she loved so dearly, passed away, she got married at 18, then got divorced. Jaquira tried to get her GED but failed, she also joined the army and because everything in her life was going bad, she then drunk, smoked and did drugs a lot. She also got back together with her ex husband whom she moved into a townhouse with. “I couldn’t really see any future at all…a high school dropout with a GED…All I’d done over the past year was drink and smoke and snort coke. I’d done more drugs than homework.” (Diaz 211) After reading all of that, can you really blame Jaquira? Her life at that point was an unpredictable rollercoaster. She has dealt with so many issues and situations that have scarred her and when she hit rock bottom, she relied on the power and benefit of drugs and alcohol, which only makes things worse. This goes to show that Jaquira Diaz is one tough cookie, and nobody’s life is perfect and everyone deals with personal issues differently.
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.).
This section of the book so far has been the heaviest in my opinion . It starts off with Kiese departing from his mom and starting life at Millsaps College. He touches on the topic of being culturally shocked while attending a PWI. He says, ¨The students surrounding us were only white, and all of us were Mississippi, black, and abundant¨(121). For Kiese, it seems that being around white people makes him more socially aware of the black experience in a grand sense. Rather than feeling bad about where he comes from, he stands strong on the fact that he´s black and he is incorporating that into every aspect of his life. He even feels obligated to represent African Americans in a positive light by carefully choosing how he participates in his classes. In this section of the book, food is also making more of a statement on his identity as he turns to food in times of discomfort and sadness. His mother points out how big he is getting and so does his friend, Ray Gunn. He also begins to experience a new love with Nzola. Along with love, he realizes that he is a black feminist but he does not know how to be that while also being a black man. Through reading powerful books by black authors, he comes to terms with his identity which led to a change of diet and the loss of weight.
The meat of this section of the book is that Kiese gets the opportunity to write a paper on racism in his school. The paper was published and he became the talk of the town. Being a black man and writing an essay about racism in a PWI put him in a lot of controversy. His close friends and family warned him to be careful. He soon starts to receive death threats and get called racial slurs putting his safety in danger. This is a sad situation because it just shows how the white man is afraid of the black man having a voice and speaking out against issues that are perpetuated by the white man. Even throughout history, this issue has often caused the white man to fight against the renewal of the black mans mind with violence, threats, and torture.
Lastly, the element of this book that has been most heartfelt to me is the relationship between him and his mother. It is to my surprise that even while in college, he sends his mother every paper for her approval. Even after getting beat for having bad grades in college , not wanting to do book summaries when he was younger, and the general instability of their relationship, her love and impact on him shows up in almost every aspect of his life. Through books and her discipline, shes impacted him into becoming a strong minded person who has a sense of individuality. This section of the book really shows how their love blossomed from a blurry concept to something more concrete. After getting kicked out of Millsapps and transferring to Oberline College, Kiese says to his mom¨I will never forget the day I told you I´d be back soon, the day I burst your heart wide open,…. the day you called me your child, your best friend, your reason for living¨(162). This part of the book felt so warm. It made me think about my mom and so many other black women I know. It made me think about how black women specifically, are such selfless beings and they truly do give their life for their kids. This part of the book was so emotional for me that It actually made me a teary-eyed. And I don´t get teary-eyed a lot.
The more I continue to read Ordinary Girls, the more invested I get.
The more we progress in the reading, the more Diaz talks about her personal relationships and friendships. I was shocked to learn that at 18 she was already married, and separated. Actually, I was shocked about everything that happened in her life at that age. It made me look back and realize all that I have been through in my 18 years of life and how grateful I am to have been raised in a stable home.
The differences between our lives are immense, but they are familiar to me as I have heard similar stories from friends and family. Things like that happen everyday to a lot of people. Relationships are complicated, as we can see through her experiences and our own as well.
She then shares her story about her joining the ARMY after spending time doing drugs and failing her GED. I heard the military can be a great way for troubled people to change and find their paths as it gives structure, discipline and responsibility. It has never been something I was a huge fan of for myself, but it can be for others
In the third section Jaquira Diaz talked about her love interest Cheito, dropping out of school, joining the military, and her grandmother Mercy passing away. Jaquira had a very difficult life growing up without both parents and facing constant abuse. In the section “Beach city” she talked about being a complete failure in life and didn’t know if she had a future. “I couldn’t really see any future at all. I was still exactly where I’d been a year before, sleeping on my fathers couch, a high school dropout with a GED and some failed community college classes.” (Diaz 150) Jaquira talks about how her life had gotten worse over time she dropped out of high school, which shows how much Jaquira struggles with drugs and her trying to keep a stable life. In “Battle stations” Jaquira talked about joining the military and how it would save her. For example, “In the navy, I became a completely different girl. I took orders, I followed the rules, and worked hard, harder than I’d worked my whole life.” (Diaz 152) This shows Jaquira clearly wanted to become a better person and joining the navy set her on the right path, she became very responsible and respectful to others.
In pages 142-247 I learned a lot about Jaquira and her personality. She was only this way because of the lacking love from her loved ones. As she moved back and forth from her mother house to father house, she was only looking for comfort and support from them. She didn’t get any of that which led her to committing a lot of crimes and going to jail. I was so happy for her when I read that she felt loved by being with Cheito and his family even if they didn’t like her. She stated “I couldn’t remember a single time my father told me he loved me, or the last time my mother had hugged me.” I was surprised by this quote because I thought even If her parents were messed up she at least received love from her siblings. Cheito gave her generous love and he was her entire world. They even got married. After few days of their marriage he went back to Training for the military. She went back to depression after him leaving for training. Back at smoking, fighting, etc. She was only well behaved when she was around Cheito because that was where she felt truly loved. Despite the fact that she had certain individuals in her life who were attempting to guide her in the right direction, her father, counselor, grandmother, and friends were all negative influences. I believed they were excellent for her at first, but after reading this section of the memoir, I had second thoughts. I think they were the second ones after her parents who turned her into a person like who she is.
After reading “Fairest” on pages 68-106, I can understand how Meredith felt empty inside when she saw that her mother was only using her for her benefit. When she received the news that the show she was in was canceled, she felt a great sadness that she would no longer be on television, and she didn’t know how she would ever focus on school again. When Talusan’s mother also received the news, she did everything she could to get her daughter on another show, but Meredith had had enough and told her mother that she wanted to live with her grandmother because she was not a real mother, and confronted her for the first time. She was free and went back to her grandmother, started studying in one of the best schools, made new friends, and could feel the feeling of love towards her friend Samuel. After long years, Nanay Coro dies (Meredith’s grandmother), no one could identify that child from before because now she had become a woman. At the funeral, one of her old friends tells her, “It’s amazing you’ve become a woman. We didn’t even know you were gay.” Meanwhile, inside she thought, “I felt disappointed over how I hid so well that even my most intimate friends didn’t know me. I was still sure Samuel did though, regardless of what he said”. Sometimes we must hide who we are, just as Meredith did, if she had not hidden it, she would surely think she was going to lose the only friends she had, but still, Samuel did have an inkling of Talusan’s true self but he never told her anything and pretended not to know anything and continued their best friends friendship. The great feeling she felt was so great that she didn’t want to leave for America without kissing him or holding his hand, but she had to show control because if she lost her sanity for a moment, it was as if she knew, that she would also lose a good friend in the blink of an eye. It was an impossible love, she let it go even though she hurt, but for me, she felt happy when she could smell one of her T-shirts for the first time. Finally, when Talusan first came to America, her thoughts on what America was like betrayed her as she saw the sad reality of a country she considered wonderful. Everything was different from Filipina.
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.
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