CAS 115 Review

Hayley Wheeler

Mrs. Fonseca

CAS 115, T/Th

17 December 2013

CAS 115 Review

            I did not expect CAS 115 to turn out as it did. I came into this class wondering why I had to take yet another English class, and contemplating the amount of essays I would have to write. This class started out rough for me, yet by the end of the semester, I was happy I had taken it.

            At the beginning of the semester I was dreading this Central American Studies class. I realized that the essays we would be writing were going to be mostly research essays, which were the type of essays that I was not fond of. I struggled to write our first few essays. Yet Mrs. Fonseca would always spend time discussing our essays and research with us, which definitely helped me.  Our class discussions were always interesting too. Hearing different views taking on our readings were very interesting and eye opening.

            Even though, it was difficult at first, I eventually got the hang of writing research essays. My classmates and I would read each other’s essays and proof read them. Reading my other classmates essays no only helped the person whose essay I was reading, but it helped me practice my proofreading skills for my own essays. Also, it gave me the chance to see their point of view, which can help me to get a better grasp on the research article we had read. Mrs. Fonseca drilled us on creating interesting titles and using transitional words and phrases to make our essays move more smoothly. I know this will definitely help me with my essays in the future.

            I read many interesting articles about Central America in CAS 115. For instance, one of them was called “Queen of the Chinese Colony”. This article was about a bunch of women at a beauty pageant, each representing a different country in Central America. The winner was chosen based on how traditional she was. The woman who could speak Chinese, wore a traditional dress, and was overall presenting the Chinese Colony the best, would win. Miss Honduras was almost the winner, but since she was not as traditional as Miss Costa Rica, she lost. Miss Honduras though, was trying to represent a new way of living that the Chinese Colony could start to represent. She did not speak fluent Chinese or come from the same background that Miss Costa Rica did, yet she was determined to shed light on a new way to carry out their culture. The judges of the pageant though, only looked down on Miss Honduras. At this point of the article that I was reading I was shocked, because I never though of how judgmental and stereotypical a society could be. I was sad for Miss Honduras because just because she was different, she was looked down upon and thought of in a negative way. I learned how when someone tries to go against the grain, it can create rifts and conflicts within their society.

            I also read an article called “Silent Words”, which was about a man named Manuel who had left his country due to war and danger and came to America. He wanted to keep his traditions and old way of living so he farmed just as he had in his homeland. His wife, though, was unhappy with this way of living and kept telling him to get a job in the city. But Manuel wanted to keep farming, and anyways that was the only job he was ever taught or had learned to do. Then there were his children who had now been living in America for most of their lives, and Manuel desperately tried to teach them of their heritage. He would try to tell them stories and get them involved in their heritage, yet they were uninterested and Manuel finally accepted that there was no use. Sadly Manuel ended up going suicide and prevented his “alien” children from inheriting his land. This article taught me about the incredibly hard time some Central Americans had with trying to keep their culture. When someone is suddenly surrounded with a completely different culture, it is hard to keep ones traditions alive when they are separated from their homeland and society.

            In CAS 115, a bulk of our time was spent reading and analyzing Rey Rosa’s The Good Cripple. This short book was an easy read, yet it took a few readings to grasp the underlying messages Rey Rosa was sending. This book was very interesting and there were many different views taken by my classmates. This book really illustrated the corrupt government in Central America and how it controlled and corrupted the society. When discussing this book with my class, I was greatly saddened by the horrible amount of corruption that society so desperately wanted to escape.

            I never knew much about Central America before coming into this class. I had no idea what was going on there. I only had been focusing on the United States. Now, my eyes have been opened to other parts of the world thanks to CAS115. I am so happy to have been educated about Central America and am thankful to have had such an inspiring and involved teacher as Mrs. Fonseca.

Essay Two

Hayley Wheeler

Mrs. Fonseca

CAS 115, 9:30-10:45am

16 October 2013

Passing on Culture

                        John F. Kennedy once stated “conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth”. Imagine someone deciding for you how you will live and what you will believe. Then, if you stray from the culture of your family, you are persecuted and said to be disrespectful. On the other hand, if a parent came from a culturally rich background, it would be disappointing if their children were to refuse to learn about their culture. It would be very sad if the children were disrespectful and altogether threw the culture from their lives. Some people believe that children should follow the culture and traditions of their society, while others believe that they should have the freedom to make their own decisions as an individual.

Children should be able to choose their own paths in life. Their parents should not force them to follow the traditions and culture of the society. It can be too much pressure on their children. Their children would end up pleasing everyone around them, yet inside they would be unhappy with themselves for conforming out of peer pressure. When parents and society are strict about their culture though, it can lead to problems. For example, in Lok Siu’s “Queen of the Chinese Colony”, Miss Honduras tries to shed light on an option of how the Chinese society can carry out their culture. She was at a beauty pageant, which put her in a position where she was expected to be completely traditional. Yet Miss Honduras went against the grain and this only led to a great conflict at the

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pageant. She was looked down upon because she did not know any of the Chinese dialects, which was untraditional, and she also did not dress in the more traditional Chinese gowns that others wore. When people go against the grain like Miss Honduras, it can create rifts. When someone is different or stands out, others may look down on them and see their deviation as a bad thing. When people stray from the culture of society, it can lead to stereotyping and other negative ways of thinking.

Yet many others agree with Marcus Garvey when he says, “a people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”. They believe that their descendants should carry on the family traditions and culture. Some say that this should not be all that difficult because your culture chooses you. Often a child is born into a culture without even realizing it because they grow up in learning systems that are based on the culture. They grow up surrounded by the characteristics and ideas of their culture so that before they know it, they have internalized the culture. That is, they already have ideas of the social norms before they even start questioning the culture.                     Children should not be disrespectful towards their parent’s culture. Their parents probably feel a lot of pressure to keep their culture going by passing it down every generation. Manuel, for example, in Inés Arredondo’s “Silent Words”, works really hard at keeping his culture after immigrating. He suffers though because in a different land, surrounded by a different culture, his children could only learn a little from his past. He tries to teach his children of where they came from to help them better understand who they are, yet they have very little interest in what he has to say. Eventually, Manuel realizes that his children are so different from him culturally, being so Americanized, that

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they seemed alien to him. They have been so accustomed to America by now that, to Manuel, they seem like they are from a whole other world. His children showed no respect towards his culture. They should have tried harder to understand their father’s past and to listen to his teachings.

Children should respectfully make their own decisions and live their own way. Culture is constantly changing as politics changes and shifts over time, which is why parents should accept that some aspects of their culture they grew up with will be different for their children. The parents should teach their children about their culture and where they came from. It is important for people to not be ignorant of culture and cultures of other parts of the world. Yet the children should make the ultimate decision on how much of their parent’s culture they plan to make their own. Children should not be afraid to start something new. These days, when someone is “different” or sticks out, many people look down on them. This is where racism and stereotyping starts because for some reason, being different is bad. Yet if everyone thought the same things and lived the same way, society would never move forward and advance.

Eliana Tardio, a Family Resource Specialist who is a Hispanic diversity support blogger, believes that “encouraging Latin culture in children is not only important, but imperative”. She says that when people immigrate to another country, only slight adjustments should be made to their culture, but the main body of their culture should be kept. She insists that children be taught about where they come from because it would help the children to better understand who they are. In a country far from their culture, the only way children can learn about their own identity, is through their parents. Tardio

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goes on to explain that a child who grows up “without a clear identity will, unfortunately, not develop a strong self-esteem”. Then there is Nadia Chernyak, an author and graduate student in the field of human development, who agrees with the idea that “as children become more exposed to their own culture and adult behaviors, they are more likely to adopt their culture’s ways of thinking”.  Nadia talks about a study performed that found that some people think there are so many obligations to follow in their culture that there is not much free will involved. Others responded to the study by saying that the obligations are choices, “free to be followed or disregarded based on personal desires”.

In conclusion, parents should teach their children about their culture, but leave the ultimate decision, of whether they want to follow the culture, up to their children. Growing up in their parents culture and learning systems are bound to make a mark on the children by leading them in the ways of the culture. So the children will already feel as though the culture is a social norm, yet as they get older, they will find other options. Children growing up in a country far from their parent’s culture though, should at least show respect by listening to their parent’s teachings about their culture. The children should be free to try out these options without being cruelly judged. They should show respect towards their parent’s culture, yet be free to make their own decisions.

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Works Cited

Arredondo, Inés, and Cynthia Steele. “Silent Words.” Underground River and Other                     Stories. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1996. 30-37. Print.

Kennedy, John F. “Quotes About Conformity.” Good Reads. Good Reads, 2013. Web. 06           Oct. 2013.

Nadia, Chernyak. “American, Nepalese Kids a World Apart on Social Duties | Cornell

Chronicle.” American, Nepalese Kids a World Apart on Social Duties | Cornell Chronicle. Cornell University, 20 May 2013. Web. 06 Oct. 2013.

Ramos, Zuania. “Raising Children To Be Proud Of Their Roots By Encouraging Latino     Culture At Home.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 22 Aug. 2013.        Web. 06 Oct. 2013.

Siu, Lok C. D. “Queen of the Chinese Colony: Gender, Nation, and Belonging in    Diaspora.” Memories of a Future Home: Diasporic Citizenship of Chinese in       Panama. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2005. 511-42. Print.

Essay One

Hayley Wheeler

Mrs. Fonseca

CAS 115 9:30-10:45am

16 September 2013

The Difficulties of Immigration for Central Americans

            Central Americans immigrated to the United States to get away from the hardship going on in their homeland, yet they were also faced many difficulties once they arrived. They left their homes because of strife and hardship there, yet they find themselves in other troubling situations as they come to America. They encounter language barriers, and with their lack of knowledge of the U.S. education system, many do not do well in school, which makes it even more difficult to get a job. In Arredondo’s  “Silent Words”, Manuel is an example of an immigrant from Central America who struggles to get past his barriers. In “ Central American-Americans? Latino and Latin American Subjectivities”, the author gives great examples of how these immigrants had trouble fitting in and getting accustomed to the U.S. culture that surrounded them. It is also sad that the Central Americans were influenced to come to the U.S. of all places because the U.S. is what made their homeland such an awful place to be.

Central Americans came to the United States to escape the horrible living situations going on in their homeland. The many Central Americans in the United States is the “result of the wars fought in the 1980, when about three to four million people fled from the nightmare of violence and massacres to the apparent safety of the United States” (185).  Many Salvadoran immigrants “left El Salvador to escape the strife of the U.S.-

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funded death squads and warlords that were ruling the country” (1). The 1980 Refugee Act is also another reason why Central American immigrants came to the United States. This act ‘declared anyone eligible for political asylum who had suffered persecution or who had a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion’ (1).

Central Americans faced many barriers that kept them from connecting to the U.S. society. In “Central American”, the author explains how the immigrants feel as if they are “invisible” because they have trouble connecting to the U.S. culture. They set themselves apart since they do not know how to integrate themselves into society. Their culture was extremely hard to keep in this new world, and when they tried to keep their culture, it only separated them more from the U.S. society. In “Silent Words”, Manuel explains his frustrations of how he wants to keep farming as he used to, yet everyone around him wants him to work in the city and give up his culture. His wife tries to change him everyday, asking him to become a city worker. Manuel did not grow up working in a city though. He is not educated in the workings of other jobs. All he knows is how to farm. That is what he grew up doing, and that is all he is knowledgeable about. Rukavina writes that most of the Guatemalan immigrants “were not from cities or towns, such as the more cosmopolitan Salvadorans, but rather from the highlands, where they had been peasants” (1). They sometimes were put into a position where the jobs that they knew how to do were unavailable because of the setting they were in. This relates to Manuel in “Silent Words” in the way that he did not want to move to the city because all he had

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knowledge of was how to farm. Going from rural to urban life would be a great shock to anyone.

Rukavina then goes on to explain how Central American immigrants “knew none or very little English, which made their living condition that much harder” (1). In “Silent Words”, Manuel also faces language barriers. He talks about how he does not always fully pronounce the English words correctly. Arias then expresses the sad fact that before the Central American immigrants “fled their homes, before their villages were razed by vindictive local armies, Central American subjects were already invisible in the eyes of their own Western-looking elites, simply because they were…peasants, indigenous peoples, or women” (188). They were faced with racism because they were different. The United States needed to grow up and realized that different does not mean wrong, it just means different or varying. Just because something different or unknown can be strange, it does not mean it is bad! Arias explains how it is sad that the United States has “a Central American population that is largely disconnected emotionally from the source of its own identity and whose forced exile is built on anguish” (189). These immigrants most likely have horrible memories of war and how their families were torn apart, but then some pretend “the horror never happened, pretending that the group is another people, seeing its suffering as a source of shame” (189).

Another troublesome fact that the Central Americans all face is that their children who have grown up in the United States do not understand what their parents went

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through to get where they are. Their children will also never fully know the culture that their parents once lived in and followed. This can be frustrating for many parents, like Manuel in “Silent Words”. He tries to teach his children of his past culture and he has hope that they will carry on his stories and traditions, yet they are so wrapped up in the American culture, that they do not understand his teachings. Manuel soon calls his children “alien children” because they are so different from him in culture that it is as if they are not form the same world at all. It must have been so hard for the Central American immigrants to keep their culture and there were probably many characteristics of their culture that faded away due to the difficulty in keeping it. The United States culture must have been overwhelming and the Central American immigrants probably had no choice but to in many ways just follow our customs and traditions. In “Central American-Americans”, it is said that a group of Central American immigrant have a celebration once a year in honor of their culture. It is sad that they only celebrate their culture only once every year! This proves the hardship in keeping traditions of a culture. Arias explains in his “Central American-Americans” that “the way in which Central Americans were forced to parody ethnic stereotypes of Mexicans not only prevented their emergence and recognition, but served to undermine their identity, and contributed to the discrediting of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans as well” (199).

In conclusion, it is evident that the Central American immigrants went through a lot before and after they entered the United States. They fled their homes because of war, poverty, and strife, and then they came to the United States only to find language barriers,

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culture shock, racism, and the hardship of finding a job. It is a shame that the Central Americans immigrated to the United States because they are the ones who created the problems in their homeland in the first place.

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Works Cited

Arredondo, Inés, and Cynthia Steele. “Silent Words.” Underground River and Other                     Stories. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1996. 30-37. Print.

Arias, Arturo. “Central American-Americans? Latino and Latin American Subjectivities.” Taking Their Word: Literature and the Signs of Central America. Minneapolis:               University of Minnesota, 2007. 184-200. Print.

Rukavina, Jason, and Cyril Cordor. “Central American Immigration and the U.S.    Experience.” Central American Immigration and the U.S. Experience. University       of Michigan, 24 Dec. 2004. Web. 16 Sept. 2013.

Hayley Wheeler

Mrs. Fonseca

CAS 115, T/Th

16 December 2013

Luna, Hero or Coward?

            In Rodrigo Rey Rosa’s novel, The Good Cripple, Juan Luis Luna is shown to be both a hero and a coward. Right from the start, Luna is shown as a son who desperately wants to break away from his father’s way of living and from the violence that so greatly surrounds him in society. However, by the end of Rey Rosa’s novel, Luna has strayed far from his earlier goals. Luna is perceived to be a hero as he refuses to conform to the violence in society, yet he also appears as a coward when he seems to give up the fight in the end.

Luna is determined to not follow in the footsteps of his father or to conform to the evil of the world. His father, Don Carlos, is someone who is not afraid to get involved in crime. He is very wealthy and holds a great deal of power. Luna though, does not want to live in his dishonest ways. Consequently, Luna has an ongoing battle of morals and what seems to be fate. He begins to notice more aspects of his father within himself as time goes on, but he fights them back determinedly.  There is one instance when Luna is listening to the voice of his conscience and he realizes “with a familiar wave of anger, that that voice was the voice of his father” (Rey Rosa 74). He soon comes to realize that he is stuck in a “vicious cycle” where he is unable to escape the personality traits and genes he inherited. He spends so long fighting his fate of becoming like his father, until he realizes that it is a hopeless case. No

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matter how hard he tries, he knows he will end up only more like his father and society in their violent ways. At this revelation, Luna knows that there is only one thing he can do to end the cycle of violence. He can promise himself to never have children. This would cut off his future descendants, which would stop the violence that would be passed down from generation to generation. Luna is a hero for making this decision. He sacrificed so much because having descendants is what keeps the memory of one alive even after they are gone. Luna saved the world from future violence, earning himself the name of a true hero.

Luna’s own name, which is Latin for “moon”, is a great representation of Luna’s situation. Rey Rosa could have chosen any other name, yet he chose Luna to better illustrate the character’s circumstances. He is stuck in a “vicious cycle” that he is incapable of escaping, just as the moon is incapable of escaping its own cycle. Luna desperately tries to pull away from his father’s lifestyle, yet just as the moon is unable to escape the gravitational pull of the earth and sun, he is unable to escape the way he revolves around his father’s lifestyle. He may be changing his view of life, yet the distance or similarity between himself and his father does not substantially change. In the same way, the moon changes position as it revolves around the earth and sun, yet like Luna, the moons’ distance from the sun does not significantly change. Another way the moon is an excellent representation of Luna is how it reflects the sun’s light. Luna is a reflection of his father, and no matter how much he wants to make his own light, it is not going to happen.

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On the other hand, Luna may be perceived as a coward. One may say that he should have more faith in his future or that he could become his own person if he would just work harder. Luna has a strong start of trying to break away from his father’s lifestyle, yet he loses steam as time goes on. Luna seems to have more and more violent thoughts and he starts to participate in corrupt activities. He starts going to whore houses and then even lies to his wife. After talking to Bunny, one of the people who kidnapped him, he has “two related but contradictory ideas” that were “alternating on his mental horizon: I must kill him…I must not kill him” (93). When Luna finally decides not to kill Bunny, the reader might be thinking that Luna is a noble person, yet then they realize that the reason is because “it wasn’t worth dirtying his hands with the blood of a man like that” (93). Luna suddenly seems extremely self-centered in the way that he does not even think about morals, but only what he feels like doing.

Luna may also appear as a coward when compared to Bunny. Bunny was one of Luna’s kidnappers who participated in the mutilations, money exchange, and came up with the whole idea of the kidnapping in the first pace. The reader’s first view of Bunny, in the beginning of the novel, is of an extremely corrupt man who has no regret when bringing harm to others. When Bunny then reappears at the end of the novel though, he is a completely different man. He is no longer violent or greedy, but as he says, “the most peaceable man in the world” (111). He is married and has three children and when Luna questions him about the kidnapping, Bunny tells him everything without holding back. On top of that, when he tells Luna about the

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kidnapping, he speaks with great sadness and regret at what he had done. He admits that it was a “crazy idea” and that after getting out of the hospital after the accident, he “came out a new man” (111).   After seeing all this change in Bunny’s life, one may wonder why Luna could not have changed. Bunny made the decision to turn his life around, so Luna should have been able to successfully turn his life around too. Yet he does not, making him look weak and like a coward who was not up to the challenge. Luna seems to not want to put in the effort to break away from the cycle of violence. Then, at the very end of Rey Rosa’s novel, Luna makes the decision that “he [does] not want to have children—he [is] sure of that” (116). This is because he realizes that he is becoming more and more like his father, which means his children will ultimately be violent just as he and his father before him was. It seems as if Luna just gives up completely and conforms to the ways of the society. Everyone has control over the decisions they make, so Luna should have taken control of his life and put in the effort to be who he wanted to be.

In conclusion, Rodrigo Rey Rosa displays Juan Luis Luna as a hero, even though at moments he may look like a coward. Luna saves the world from future violence when he makes the decision to not have children. As a result, he cuts off the inevitable violence that is passed down to him, and that he would inevitably pass down to his children. He knows that stopping the cycle of violence is impossible, just as stopping the moon’s cycle is impossible, so he acts on his only option, which is to not have children. On the contrary, one may think that Luna’s changing for the better is possible. One may believe that he could have control of his future lifestyle

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and change his fate; he only needs to work harder and persevere. Since Bunny changes into a peaceable man, Luna should be able to as well. Yet in the end, Luna realizes that trying to break away from the “vicious cycle” is a hopeless case. He understands that he cannot escape the corruption inside himself. Thus, with his only option being to cut off the cycle itself, he makes the decision to not have children, thus saving the world from future violence.

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Work Cited

Rey Rosa, Rodrigo. The Good Cripple. New York: New Directions Books, 2004. Print.

Do you think Juan Luis Luna is a coward or a hero?

Is he a hero for saving the world from future violence…

or is he a coward for giving up and not facing the corruption around him?

It’s none of th…

It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.
– Ernest Hemingway