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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.

Meredith Talusan’s, “Fairest”

At the start of the book, we’re introduced to the first chapter, “Sun Child, 1980-1990,” and I noticed that the title is connected to the first paragraph, which speaks of a child who’s born with pale skin. Though, this was not seen as a good thing, as it was usually a warning to mothers not to stay in the sun for too long.  Miraculously, Talusan wasn’t completely blind, which was what allowed Talusan to read, which is why she enjoys reading to begin with. Later in the text, she quotes her grandmother, who had felt much appreciation for her granddaughter, and somewhat discontent with the skin she was in herself. “‘This is because you are fair and beautiful,’ she said, ‘not dark and ugly like me.’” (Talusan, 2020). This would imply that her grandmother has a different view of people compared to those around her, and challenges the idea that a child with pale skin is not something that should be labeled as ‘taboo’, but rather should be revered as part of one’s community. While this can be seen as discrimination towards oneself, I feel as though it’s more related to the idea that she was tired of the views her people had, and forced onto others, because of her ‘normal’ skin color.

After getting a brief look into who Talusan is, it’s safe to assume that she’s gone through much struggle within the start of her life, and will most likely have issues to overcome in the future (which will be seen in later chapters of the book). 

How it all started

Talusan, Meredith. Fairest: A Memoir. Penguin, 2021. Print.

Jaquira Diaz, Ordinary Girls

Ordinary Girls, a memoir by a Puerto Rican girl, Jaquira Diaz, which talks about how She struggles to serve. As a person who is the first priority of her parents, I pity Jaquira Diaz since she received no support or love from her parents when she was a child. “My father was a drug dealer,” she added. I can see how abusive his father was based on this comment. For all the girls out there, our father is our king, and the fact that Jaquira Diaz was treated so horribly by her own father that she considered suicide is tragic. Her mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia which is a serious mental disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally according to www.mayoclinic.org . This means that she also received no love support from her mother. She decided to commit suicide but failed, and because of her friends she succeeded to run away from her home and survive. After reading this I now understand what my mother means when she says “ you don’t get everything in life, you have to choose”. I always complain why I don’t have good friends, but I have the best parents in the world, their love is everything I need. And Jaquira had the best friends and their support and motivation was all she needed at that time. 

Class 14

Welcome to Day 1 of our book groups. Thanks to Angel, Leslie, Karen, Adrian, Jasmin, Elijah and everyone else who posted responses to the reading by the start of class. (Those named above posted by 8:30, which is usually when I log on for class and prepare these posts for publishing.) A few bits of business, about a) blog posts and book clubs, b) the impact of this work on your grading contracts, c) Essay 2 (which I’ve finished reading and commenting on), and d) where we’re going with Essay 3.

Those of you who have arrived in class prepared and with your work complete, you’ll work in pairs and then threes to discuss the reading. I’d suggest you start out by sharing what you posted in the blog. It’s OK to have started with summary but the best discussions will move quickly to responses. These responses will be based in the books.

Blog Posts for Book Clubs

For easy reference, here’s a blog post requirement review

  • You’ll write one post per week to our course blog (due Mondays by 9am)
    • It should have a title, tags, a quote from the text, an image or a link out, and citations
    • It should engage the reading and be between 200 and 350 words (2-3 paragraphs).
  • You’ll also reply to the people in your groups (due Wednesdays by 9am) 
    • These should be thoughtful comments that engage the writer and their ideas
    • They should be 1-2 paragraphs, and should summarize what the writer has said before you respond with your own ideas — this is sometimes called the “known-new” contract

Incomplete Work & Grading Contracts

If you didn’t complete your assignment, a) I will mark it as late, and b) you’ll need to spend some time in class completing it. There will be breakout rooms for this. Please go to the room that corresponds to the book you’ve decided to read. Work turned in later than today’s class will be marked “make-up” and, eventually, “ignored.” Please review our grading contract to recall how this can affect your semester grades.

Essay 2 Comments & Required Revisions

You should check your preferred email address (whatever you indicated that was during the submission of Essay 1). I have sent feedback to everyone who turned in Essay 2. These were, generally, pretty good. A few were really excellent and we’ll look at them with the writer’s permission. Many need a small amount of revision, with the most common reason being a lack of engagement with the peer-reviewed readings.

Essay 3 Topics

While the specific prompts won’t be available until next Monday, after we’ve gotten underway with book clubs, I can say with some certainty the general topic choices you’ll have for this essay. We’re returning to a more traditional format, in this case a 1,000-1,500 word essay. Your choices of topic will be as follows:

  1. The Research Option: Using library sources from Lehman or the NYPL, pose a research question about a social issue that emerges from your reading and discussion of your book. Your essay should define that issue and give it some background using at least two peer-reviewed sources. That background should explain where your book enters into a larger conversation about that issue. And your essay should explore the way that issue shapes the experiences of the writer of this book. Examples abound but could include: immigration; identity; sexuality; gender; race; education; place; family; disability. And many more!

2. The “Struggle” Option: As we articulated the reasons we were choosing these books, many writers described an interest in the “struggles” these writers “overcame” along the way to becoming “successful.” If you pick this option, you’ll engage that idea of a “struggle” story (sometimes also called a “deficit narrative”). In what ways do these stories resist that trope? In what ways do they reinforce it? Were these stories “inspiring”, “depressing” or something in between? How do these terms help us as readers, and how is that a binary that limits our interpretations?

3. The Fly-on-the-Wall Option: Drawing on Alvarez-Alvarez and (to a lesser extent) P & E as models, observe your own group and at least one other group. Use research/data gathering skills like interviews and surveys to make an argument about the benefits and limits of book clubs in a pandemic-influenced college class.

4. The You-Tell-Me Option.

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.

Summary for Ordinary Girls by Jaquira Diaz

In the memoir ordinary girls Jaquira Diaz grows up struggling with poverty and issues with her family as well with her own sexuality. Her father was a drug dealer and her mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Both her parents would usually get into arguments causing them to eventually separate once they moved to Miami for a better life. Even though she was surrounded by love from her friends, the division of her family broke Diaz and led her to make bad decisions in life. Diaz basically struggled to search for identity her whole adult teen years. She was used to the violence and harassment in Puerto Rico so she expected that in Miami.“I was there a couple of years ago. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. I hadn’t been there in a very long time, because everyone who’s ever lived there who has been lucky enough to get out knows that you don’t go back.”

Ordinary Girls Analysis Pt.1

Ordinary Girls is a memoir written by Jaquira Diaz, a Puerto Rican women. In this memoir she talks about her experiences growing up and how being a Puerto Rican women has impacted her life. In the beginning of her book, she has an introduction labeled “Girl Hood” and it’s an introduction not about her life specifically but what it means to be a girl and also live as one and the transition into women hood. The first couple of pages (pgs. 10-15) Diaz is reminiscing of the times she spent in Puerto Rico as a child in 1985 and the stories her father told her while her mother was ignoring him and smoking her cigarette and her brother asleep. She also mentions how her mother and father met when Jaquira’s mom was in high school and father in college. Jaquira then goes and introduces “La Otra”, the other women in pages (22-29). La Otra was a their neighbor that was in love with Jaquira’s father and tried to get as much information out of Jaquira about her father. The neighbor would ask her questions regarding her father and his interest and one day even sent him food and when Jaquira’s mom found that out, everything went downhill. “La Otra” had a huge impact on Jaquira’s life because Jaquira witnessed first hand how an outsider ruined her family and parents relationship. Jaquira also saw a side to her father that she never did, her father would lie to Jaquira and her mom and tell her that Jaquira was lying about the encounters he had with the neighbor. Many more real life and eye opening events take place after this one as well that has helped Jaquira Diaz become he women she is now.

“Ordinary Girls” Section 1 Summary

Diaz starts off the first section of her book talking about her family life and dynamic, as well as her childhood in PR. Emphasized in the first few pages is her deep love and adornment for her father, as she wrote on page 13 “But I was sure of one thing: that I wanted everything my father wanted, and if he loved this man, then I would love him, too.” and “I ADORED MY father. He was the center of my universe, and I wanted, more than anything else, to be the center of his” (pg 17). 

Like a lot of traditional families, focus is on the sons of the house. Her brother, Anthony was Mami’s, Papi’s and Abuela’s favorite. Contrary to her, he had light eyes and skin, while she was “ brown, brown, brown, like tierra”. 

During this section, Diaz also shared the issues her family had to face. Her father had an affair with the neighbor which led to a fight with Mami, and there was a racial tension between Mercy, Mami’s mother, and Diaz’s black father. In fact, Mercy was against her daughter getting with a dark skinned man, even telling Diaz “ it’s your father’s fault. Your father and his black family. Your black grandmother. Your black uncle.” (pg. 45)

She then reminisced about the good times she spent with her family.

Fairest by Meredith Talusan

According to what I have read from the book “Fairest” by Meredith Talusan, I could understand that Meredith Talusan was an albino born in the Philippines who came from a peasant family, but eventually moved to the United States to live better and where she needed to learn the language perfectly so that she would not sound like a person with her native accent and everyone would stop considering her as an American because of her whiteness. She felt self-conscious about her body for looking like a man, and so she decided to transform herself to become like a woman since inside she considered herself a woman. Her courage to show that she wanted to act and dress like a woman was extremely low because to others she always looked the same, a person who never changed. So, she was afraid of being judged by how she would look in women’s clothes, until she saw with her own eyes, that when she wore her friend Lucy’s clothes to the Drag Night party everyone called her, “you look like a real woman”. I can tell she was flattered and beautiful by how she looked and how others looked at her, everything about her was perfect until she stood in front of the mirror to look at who she was in the real life.

Three of the most talked-about themes is when Meredith tries to say she wants to be accepted. Second, that she shows weakness when no one wants to be her friend because they think she is a weird person. And third, love, she is loved by certain people and one of those people is her grandmother. Also, she is admired for being white and blonde-haired. After witnessing gender and sexuality in a trans person, I can confirm that they feel the fear of being mistreated if their true selves come out, and instead of looking at them for who they are, they look at them as disgusting people.

“Ordinary Girls” Response

In this chapter, Jaquira Diaz talks about her mother and father and their household issues growing up. Jaquira mentions her interests in books and how her father loved books as well. Her brother Anthony was an artist and drew many cartoons and various characters. Throughout the chapter she mentions how her grandmother would constantly abuse her and cut her hair. In the section “Home is a place” (pg 49-52) “Our white Grandmother Mercy hated that my hair was a tangle of dry frizzy curls like my father’s bad hairs she called it.” Mercy didn’t appreciate her hair due to her fathers genes and was very racist towards her. This shows how Mercy was very abusive and racist towards her own granddaughter because of her genes that her father gave her. Jaquira lived under poverty and struggled in school. She would be bullied in school and many students would question her appearance due to her shorter hair. Both her father and mother didn’t get along later on in their relationship and would constantly be fighting. Her mother was battling schizophrenia at a young age. As Jaquira grew up she wanted to be like her father and share a similar life he had. The chapter shows the struggles Jaquira and her family went through and how they approached these hardships living in the projects.