Quiz #2 Hispanic Project

What are symbols in “My Life with Waves”?

• Main symbol is the wave 

  • Portrayed as a woman who is in love with the man and starts and affair with him

What is a theme of “My Life with Waves”?

• The cost of bad relationships  

  • Man spends time in jail and that's when he realizes that the wave does not truly love him

  • An allusion to a toxic relationship–rocky waves rocky relationship

What is characterization in “My Life with Waves”?

• the man loves a completely non-living thing

• Is put in jail because everyone thinks he is the one poisoning the water

What is personification in “My Life with Waves”?

• Wave is personified as a woman/feminine persona

  • “Floating skirts” “leaping”

What is the lesson in “My Life with Waves”?

Be careful with who you love 

What is the summary of “The Scholarship Jacket”?

• Exposition: 

  • Martha (main character in book) going to PE then hears her teachers talking about the Scholarship Jacket 

• Rising action- can't get jacket bc no money

• climax - meets w principal and is allowed to have jacket for free

• Falling action- talks to grandpa and grandma and all is well

What does the jacket represent/symbolize in “The Scholarship Jacket”?

• Hard Work, determination

• Culmination of her hard work through school

• Shows Martha's dedication to school work has paid off—physical representation of success 

• Great success, acceptance

• It was so important to her that she gets it because her older sister got it and wants to live up to it 

  • Physical manifestation and reward for the effort she’s putting in

What are themes in “The Scholarship Jacket”?

• Doing the right thing

• Perseverance

• Hard work and Dedication

• A person shouldn't give up on their dreams

• Determination

• Still being happy even though your grandparents are poor and old….  

• How rich well liked people are able to buy their way thru life, while poorer, non-white latinos are marginalized even though they are just as intelligent 

• Discrimination and Racism

  • Cultural significance– draws attention to racism against Latin Americans. 

What are characters in “The Scholarship Jacket”?

• Martha:

  • Determined, hardworking, dedicated, success, proud

  • Poor family

  • Intelligent 

  • Not traditionally good looking (why is this an important trait wtf CAMDEN) this was not an important part of the story at all i actually read it lmao

Only a man (i don't even remember this being mentioned let alone being important) 

• Two Teachers:

  • Mr. Schmidt: 

    • Kind, supportive, fair, honest

  • Mr. Boone: 

    • Mean, rude, doesn't believe in Martha and her intelligence, favored by the school board, liar…. 

• The mention of her older sister

  • Rosie– she won the jacket in the past

• Principal:

  • Understanding 

  • Fair

  • Eventually agrees to give Martha the jacket

    • Wants to help Martha but his hands are tied 

• Martha’s Grandparents: 

  • Old….

  • Caring

  • Hardworking

  • Supportive

  • Not young 

  • Old as dirt

  • Old farts

  • Loves martha

  • Owns a bean farm !!!  (very important)

  • Wise (bc they are old )

  • Poor

What is Ghost sickness?

• A lack of cultural bond between indigenous people and their ancestry. 

• Causes pathological grief (prolonged and intense) 

• Believed in many indigenous cultures, people should have a bond between themselves and their ancestors. 

• Physical way, not a spiritual way

• Longing for cultural connection to ancestors

What are the Navajo?

• One of the biggest Native American nations

• Their culture held the idea that the gods made a safe space between the 3 major mountains of the area just for them

• Southwestern United States

  • Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming = main areas 

• Cannot be considered a warrior tribe 

• Navajo code talkers in WWII

• Culture still alive today

Who are the characters in “Ghost Sickness”?

• Ana: Protagonist, Chicano (Native American and Mexican)

  • struggles with making connections with her culture

• Ana’s Mother: constant reminder of her culture

• Clifton: Ana’s boyfriend, not actually in the story  

• Professor Brown: Ana’s history professor

• Colleen: Ana’s classmate from Vermont

What are symbols in “Ghost Sickness”?

• Clifton: symbolizes the forgotten culture and Ana’s disconnect with her heritage

• Colleen: symbolizes Ana’s disconnect between herself and her peers because of cultural differences 

• Ana’s Vision: symbolizes a spiritual connection and it is caused by the Ghost Sickness 

  • The bear: a spiritual character often seen in Native American history, which symbolizes power and strength

  • The windy backroad: symbolizes the struggles the entire culture has been through and the struggle to regain a connection

  • The cliff: symbolizes the downfall of Ana trying to connect with her culture

• Colleen, Professor Brown, and the class: all white, whole different culture, assumed that Ana is the only Chicano in the class, sidelines indigenous history, represents the divide Ana feels  

• The Final Exam: symbolizes how American history, especially of the West, is mostly colonial history about the making of the United States, and it does not talk about the culture of the Navajo who once thrived there

  • Whitewashed 

• Extra Credit Question: symbolizes health and unity between Ana and her heritage, as well as the importance of storytelling in Native American culture

  • Represents a shift in Ana and her connection with her culture. Ana recalls a story that Clifton tells her, which allows her to answer the question

  • Her ability to answer the question did not come from her academic study but instead comes orally from Clifton

  • It enables her to confront her emotions about her cultura disconnect and ultimately cures her “Ghost Sickness”

  • How important oral retellings are in Navajo culture

What are themes in “Ghost Sickness”?

• he Weight of Grief and Memories:

  • ‘Ghost Sickness” reflects on how trauma and loss are memories that linger in spirit and body, a metaphor but it also causes physical suffering

• Cultural disconnect and Erasure

  • The class fails to represent the indigenous history of the American West and it reinforces the disconnect between Ana and her culture

• Oral Traditions and the Power of Storytelling 

  • In order to pass her exam and her class overall, Ana turns to her own memory instead of a textbook to find a Navajo origin story 

  • How important it is to Native American culture

What does the green jacket symbolize in “The Jacket”?

• Narrator’s poverty, low self esteem, personal identity discovery, and triumph over adversity

• The self-consciousness leads him to hide in trees to avoid school interactions

• Unflattering “guacamole” green

• Described and his “ugly brother”

• He is bullied for his coat

• Resents the jacket for all the trouble it has caused him

• By the end of the story however the narrator learns to accept the green jacket symbolizing his personal growth and development

What are themes in “The Jacket”?

• Identify and self worth 

  • Due to the green jacket he must wear 

  • Jacket becomes defining factor for him

• Poverty and Social Class

• Perception versus Reality

• Learns acceptance at the end of the story 

• Social Pressure and Embarrassment

• He faces the reality of his family’s financial struggles and endures teasing from his peers because of the jacket, however he learns to accept it and realizes it does not define his worth

What are literary devices in “The Jacket”?

• Simile:

  • “I flapped the jacket like a bird’s wings”

• Metaphor: 

  • “Slipped into my jacket, that green ugly brother” 

• Personification

  • “My clothes have failed me”

• Hyperbole

  • “Enough belts to hold a small town”

What is the lesson in “The Jacket”?

• Highlights Gary Soto’s youth and his struggles with self-esteem and confidence linked to the green jacket

  • Symbolizes insecurities

• Story is about self-acceptance and the idea that true worth is found within

Who is Angelica Gorodischer?

• July 28, 1928 to February 5, 2022 

• Born in Argentina and would reference her birthplace Bueno Aires in her novel 

• Novels focus on feminism, fantasy, crime, and science fiction

  • Big advocate for feminism in the hispanic community 

• Most well known for the Kalpa Imperial, a collection of short stories that tell about the empire

• Wrote “Absit”

What is symbolism in “Absit”?

• Scorpion: 

  • repeated many times by the girl to show her youth

  • Representative of the girl herself

• Dogs:

  • Used to represent men 

• Well: 

  • Maybe hell? Depths of despair he cannot come out of

What are themes in “Absit”?

• Predation 

• Innocence

• The weight of what’s unsaid 

  • The reader knows what happens but it isn’t explicitly said