Roxanne's English Blog

 Judith Ortiz Cofer's saying "The island travels with you" can symbolize our identities. What I can tie together of myself with this quote is my Hispanic background as well as my American one. My whole identity and who I am is built on the different kinds of people i have met and teachings I've learned due to being a part of these two communities. Wherever I go I will always be able to speak Spanish, teach certain parts of my Hispanic culture, tell stories of my family's history and how they have gotten here. That is what builds the Hispanic side of myself. When it comes to my American self I will always travel with my wisdom of what is morally wrong and right in a country, how I dress, and lastly the different kind of cultures I was able to experience being here due to the diversity of the people. Wherever I go I will always bring these teachings that built me into who I am today as a person. As far as what we did in class today, we worked on our common lit assig...

People assume a lot based on my looks. I don't have a typical look compared to others. Dark clothing is always my go to, I have a lot of piercings, and I wear drastic make-up. This makes people assume I am mean for some reason which is completely not true at all. Every time I get to know someone when I ask them what their first impression of me was, they say "I thought you were gonna be mean" which then they explain it is because of the way I dress. People assume that having an alternative look means your anti-people, anti-world or just a downer. I try my best to come off as friendly as I can and appear approachable so people don't assume the worst of me. That'd would probably be the most common stereotype people make of me considering my appearance. Today I wasn't in class due to a college fair field trip.

 Something that I will never fully truly understand is hating someone else based on their physical appearance. I could have thousands of people try to explain or justify why they'd hate someone based on their physical appearance and I would still not understand. When I say this I mean things that people can't fix in one day. For example skin color, Racism is such a deep rooted part of America and has always been. It astonishes me how people are capable of committing such atrocities for people simply being born a specific way. This also implies to people born with physical disabilities, different features, or just overall born with something that isn't considered common. The judgement and hatred that is filled in peoples hearts is so immature that I can't even comprehend how it can make a person capable of killing someone over. Judgement is so normalized in today's society and passed as a harmless joke, but it shouldn't be. Ridiculing someone can go a far way and...

 

 Something I wish I had more of would honestly be money. It may sound like I'm no different than a money hungry greedy snob but the difference between that is the way that I would use it. For instance, if I had more money my mother and father would not have too struggle so much to pay for an apartment the size of a rich persons living room. The concept of money overall is really problematic especially in the way it is distributed in our country, but money is the only way to survive in modern day. For example, if I had as much money as Elon Musk (which it is wrong to own that much money for one person), I would help so many different causes around the world. This isn't just to say either because if I had enough to help others while still being able to fulfill my own needs i'd see no problem with that. I would just want money that can help me sustain myself and my family. That is why I would wish to have more money. Today in class we worked on our culture poems.

 The most creative thing i have ever made would probably be a painting I did of the show Steven Universe. The reason being that I resonate with a lot of the teachings in that show that I created a painting of the characters I feel most connected to. The show speaks about different problems in life in a over exaggerated way but with a hidden meaning behind each conflict. That's why that certain painting I made stands out to me so much. The painting consist of Steven and the diamonds. Each character is different and expresses different situations. Steven for example, represented love throughout the show and gradually started breaking down mentally and physically due difficult things he'd deal with. Most of the struggles he faced were due to the ruling of the diamonds which resonates with my own personal life considering my family for example. Eventually, he learns and the diamonds learn how to become better for each other as also for themselves. They finally healed which touched ...

 What has always fascinated me as a kid was the concept of death. I've always wondered what it is that comes after it, why it's such a sure thing to happen, and does your beliefs change the outcome of your afterlife. Death terrifies me I can't accept not existing and I think it's selfish because everything has its time, but honestly the biggest question i'd like to be answered is "What comes after death?". Another question i wish could be answered "is there any higher power or being". I feel like this question constantly weighs on a lot of peoples mind especially very religious people. I personally am not a religious person, but the concept of God does weigh on my mind because I'm expected to believe in it. I'm the type to apply logic to things which is why grasping the fact that God exists is hard for me. That's why i'd like to ask the universe if an entity like that really does exist. Today in class we read the poem called ...

A time I felt completely lost would probably be my freshman to mid junior year of high school. I started to lose myself because of who I thought I was and what to become of myself which drove me into a spiral of discovering myself. The future was something that weighed on my mind in an unhealthy way, I felt as if I had nowhere to go. My grades weren't good at all, I was closing myself off from close ones, and I even started to loosing my ambition to my personal interests. Eventually, I pulled myself out of the maze in my mind and started figuring out certain parts of myself. Little by little i started to focus on individual parts of myself like quitting smoking, Becoming more extroverted, Taking care of myself more, and surrounding myself with good people. These simple looking changes helped me discover myself more and i still am on the path of figuring out my identity. I still feel lost at times but now i have a guideline of how i'm going to find myself. As for today in class,...

 Growing up as a girl in a Hispanic household as the eldest made me realize that a lot of expectations are placed upon the female gender in a lot of different cultures. When I was a kid I would always see the difference in how the women and men were treated in my family, not even the treatment they'd receive from their own family members but even from other non biological males. Generation to generation many of my own friends family's and even my own I'd see women constantly  be treated as someone who's assigned to tend to the kids, tend to the home, tend to their work, and even tend to their own needs. Seeing this kind of pattern being passed down never sat right in my stomach the idea of women having to carry the emotional and physical baggage of a family changed who they are and what they become. That's what makes me as people would call "rebellious" when it comes to the "Trad-wife" or "Normal women" stereotype. I simply won't an...

My culture consist of my fathers hondurian side and my mothers nicaraguan side. Both are very similar seeing as they're both in the hispanic ethnic group. What is expected of me as a Hispanic women is politeness, maturity, modesty, cleanliness, and intelligence. In Jamaica Kincaids passage I could point out various factors that related to the way I was raised. Some given examples would be Kincaids mother teaching her how to tidy up a home or how to be polite to someone even if they don't rub you the right way. One relation I can really stick to is her quote "This is how to bully a man; This is how a man bullies you" (Kincaid) which is something my mom would always teach me considering the hardships women in my family went through over choosing the wrong man. What I could infer about Kincaids mothers advice is that she wants her daughter to know how to get around the world, to not be perceived as a object, to be someone capable of maintaining herself around others and ...

 My cultural heritage is not the strongest thing thats been pushed on to me by my family, but there are certain aspects that stick. For example, my culture is very big on kids cleaning around the house while the adults go to work and it typically starts being that way once you turn 8. It is also very important to be polite to your elders and everyone around you. Your taught to do your please, thank yous, bless yous, etc. My culture also requires all of the girls in the family to know how to take care of kids properly which I was taught to do as a young kid. There were certain mentions that i recognized in the passage we read today that I have been told like "Don't squat down"(Kincaid) or "Don't eat your food in a way that'll turn someone's stomach"(Kincaid). What we ended up learning today was cultural heritage and we read a passage called Girl by Jamaica Kincaid and it was based on the traditions and expectations Jamaica Kincaid has to live by every...