Category Archives: Posts

Class 17

Good morning, folks. It’s day 2 of session 2, just about the halfway point of our book clubs. They’re just flying by, aren’t they? I’m hoping you’re having fun (or at least, listening and/or being prepared).

We’ll take a quick peek at the Essay 3 prompts again. They haven’t changed much but I’m wondering if reviewing them at this point might help us focus some of the comments we’ll make in class today and some of the posts we might write for Monday, Nov 8. The pages we’re looking at for next week are on the Goals and Plans Doc, as well as the schedule and, heck, I’ll put them here, too:

Laymon 117-162 / Diaz 142-247 / Talusan 150-229

Many many thanks to those who have made such great contributions to our big class conversation. Not everyone is, I’m noticing, so please if you haven’t been regularly contributing, let’s get going. This is certainly part of your grade for class.

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.

“Fairest” of them all

Moving onto chapter 7, “Harvard Man, 1993-1997,” Talusan is headed towards Harvard Square, and starts with an interaction with a taxi driver. While she is speaking to him, she begins to realize that he may be from a foreign country. Interesting enough, Talusan is able to speak French with the driver, and tells the reader about her ability to comprehend other languages. “It was true I had a good ear and didn’t need much practice to make sounds like those around me, whether in English or French.” (Talusan, 2020). Personally, as a bilingual person, I feel as though she makes a point, though it may come with a risk of being judged by others, such as people saying, “You sound white,” or something similar. In the following paragraphs, the interaction gravitates more towards her personal life, which the taxi driver is curious to know about. As the interaction comes to an end, Talusan is ready to explore the Harvard area, and hopes to feel welcome there.

After reading this paragraph, I began to realize that it feels as though I was living these experiences alongside her, and now that she is getting to the point where she is able to move forward with her life, it inspires me to do the same.

http://www.themistrading.com/

Class 16

Good morning all. Welcome to session two of our book groups. This week, we’re looking at the following pages: Laymon 63-116 / Diaz 63-142 / Talusan 83-149. Overall, the writers are maturing, becoming young adults and going through the rites of passage:

  • taking on adult responsibilities like making money and caring for others
  • embracing opportunities like going to college or otherwise expanding their minds
  • feeling attraction for others and experiencing the pressure to have sex
  • leaving home, or watching home around them change
  • dealing with adult feelings, ranging from disappointment to jealousy
  • rebelling in a variety of ways and encountering the consequences of those rebellion

These are just a few of the ideas bouncing around in the posts you’ve posted for today. By 8:30am I saw blogs from Zeinab and Jasmin (Fairest), from Angel, Leslie, Maria, and Hamza (just in at the wire) (Ordinary Girls), and from Jose, Elijah, and Nayely (Heavy). If your post is up but I didn’t see it, I’ll circle back to it during our freewrite time.

For starters, I’d like anyone who’s not listed above to spend 10-15 minutes freewriting about one of the above rites of passage. Where in the text does the author go through one of the above kinds of experiences? What are the details around it? What is the language they use to describe it? What are the options available to them? What choices do they make? What do they think of it, looking backwards with the benefit of time?

Ordinary girls summary #2

Ordinary Girls is a first-person memoir about poor lives, wrong choices, and the culture of violence, drugs, and crime. Jaquira Diaz talks concerning their young family living in Puerto Rico and about their attempt to get to Miami Beach for a better world. Diaz portrays the difficulty of a hard life and what it takes to make it better with his history of a mentally disabled mother, sexual assault, depression, and finding her own sexuality.In Page #61 it says” The five of us were the kind of poor you could feel in your bones, in your teeth, in your stomach. Empty-refrigerator poor. Sleeping-on-the-floor-until-somebody-threw-out-a-sofa bed poor. Stirring-sugar-into-water-and-calling-it-lemonade poor. And then we’d take off again, like runaways. One apartment, and then another, and then another, never staying long enough to put up a picture, leaving while the place still smelled like the people who lived there before us.” They came from the struggle and Diaz and her family tried to get themselves out of it. Diaz took the wrong route in her life and she tries to overcome it.

New ordinary girls

a big part of life is about new beginnings, and the memoir of Diaz’s book is no exception. in this section we get a glimpse of how Diaz adjusts to her new life in Luquillo and how that it’s not only affecting her but her family as well. speaking of family we also get a deeper dive into how her family works, their dynamic. How it changed after certain events like before the parents’ divorce or after Alaina was born. To people who experience sudden changes to their families status quo at any point in their life Diaz writes this section as a way of telling those readers that they are not alone in this aspect. That the unordinary is technically ordinary in a way. She talks about her experience using words and phrases like “except in my versions the hero was always an eight-or nine-year-old curly-haired Puerto Rican girl traveling through time,” (Diaz,69). in the second paragraph of page 69 Diaz explains how she imagines herself or her own characters in her favorite books and movies as a way to cope with her life in that moment, except she goes way above beyond script even in her imagination simply because she can. Its an abnormal way of going about it but at the same time being abnormal about it is what makes it normal. Especially for those who use this same way of over imagination when coping with time.

Mental Illnesses in Hispanic Families (Ordinary Girls)

These comments are based on pages 63-142 of Ordinary Girls.

During these passages, Diaz shared parts of her childhood including her complicated family life, difficulty with dealing with her mother’s mental illness, her time in jail, suicide attempt, her sexuality and sexual assault.

 All of these are very tough subjects, and this book is packed with emotions. In fact, I had to stop reading a couple of times to take a breath and empathize with her. What I admire is that she does not write in a way that makes us pity her, but understand her struggles. 

“Maybe the thought that my mother had done this to herself was less frightening than the idea that madness was something that could just happen to you, as it had to my mother, as it had to Mercy before her, as it had to Mercy’s father” (pg. 63 )

From this quote (and other passages), it seems like there is no true understanding of Mental Illnesses in her family, in fact she often referred to her mother’s sickness as being “crazy” and “madness”. One thing I have noticed from hispanic families is that we fail to get educated on the matter, which leads to false stereotypes.

My question to you is, how much do you think your parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles know about mental illnesses? Is there a stigma for those who do try and seek help?

Fairest 2

parent abuse

The second part of the story Fairest give us an idea about Talusan’s relationship with her family members. Meredith had a grandmother that loved her and embraced her different skin tone as she thought it was beautiful and white not dark as the other’s in the town, and that is shown through a dialogue between the writer and her grandma.

“There are people in Manila who think I look abnormal,” I said.
“They’re just jealous they don’t have a child like you.”

Excerpt From: Meredith Talusan. “Fairest.” Apple Books.page 47

Moreover, Meredith had a toxic relationship with her mother, Meredith described her mother as unfair and selfish, she even hated living with her but her grandma told her to live with her since she’ll be living with her in the US. Talusan’s mother was tough and selfish in the way she treated her and the way she hit her and the way she wanted to control her actions and her life. Meredith’s mother wanted to use Talusan for her own good. Furthermore, her mother uses a harsh way to deal with Meredith and that could be shown through an excerpt from the book that took place between Meredith and her mother.

“ Mama had slapped me across the face. I started to cry.
“Be quiet or I will leave you here and never come back.”

Excerpt From: Meredith Talusan. “Fairest.” Apple Books.Page 79

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 Girls Analysis pt.2

The author of “Ordinary Girls”, Jaquira Diaz has had a rocky start to her childhood. From having a judgmental and if I may say, a racist grandmother, to a mentally ill mother whom she doesn’t have the best relationship with, to a father that she thought was her other half until she saw the real him. Jaquira experienced such heart felt and traumatizing events as she grew up that no child should. Throughout pages 63-142, Jaquira talks about her non-existing relationship with her mother and how she wishes she had the loving, caring mother she deserves. “We’re supposed to love our mothers. We’re supposed to trust them and need them and miss them when they’re gone. But what if that same person, the one who’s supposed to protect you, is also the one who hurts you the most?” (Diaz 66). This is such a strong piece of writing and it’s sad to know that she had this doubt about her mother and that there was a lack of love and comfort Jaquira received from her. “I remember when Mami and Papi were still together, how they’d scream at each other in their bedroom…Once, right before Papi left her for the last time, Mami grabbed me and Alaina, held us out in front of him. “Take a good look at them,”…”because once you leave, you will never see them again.” (Diaz 66). This is something that a child should ever have to experience nor hear. To experience it is one thing, but to remember it, means that it really impacted you and left a mark. Overall, Jaquira Diaz does have a set of tough skin that has allowed her to get through her heartbreaking and traumatic childhood.