Sandra Cisneros, the only daughter with six brothers that never supported her to continue her education and made a fool of her yet, has inspired me. According to her Passage, “Only Daughter.” Cisneros claims that her father was the only one that supported her at the beginning to get into college and continuing getting her education. But all he was thinking, that college was a perfect way for girls to get married. His thoughts never stopped Cisneros achieving her goals. Even when he said, ” Why would anyone go to college and then choose to be poor? Especially someone who had always been poor.” Cisneros continued her life being independent and proves her father that she was able to make a difference. During the holiday Cisneros came back home with a published book. She has given the book to her father for him to read her work and made sure that the book was in Spanish for him to be able to understand. As he finished reading, he asked for more copies to hand it out to his relatives. Cisneros inspires me to continue following my goals even when the closest ones are stopping me. And because of does people, that are disagreeing with my thoughts such as careers, education, or lifestyles. For them to be able to understand, I would have to prove and let them see the difference.
Category: Reading Response
Sandra Cisneros Only Daughter – Resubmitted
The text “Only Daughter” by Sandra Cisneros was very interesting and relatable to many young women who try to pursue their careers but are told to do another thing. When Sandra said that her father told her, her destiny was to become someone’s wife that to me was very ignorant and it was not all that surprising because back in the older times, women at a certain age were told get a husband and have kids. I can somewhat relate to this not personally but from my country’s background, because in past Mexican traditions it was viewed as normal from a young age to get married and have kids, the man is supposed to take care of the woman while she does house chores. But of course, now times have changed and women can get careers however sometimes they do not have the support of their families or friends. Sandra wanted her father’s approval so badly that when she finally got it, she felt accomplished with what she has produced as a writer. I think this just shows how you shouldn’t be closeminded and explore the possibilities of what you’re capable of doing such as Sandra. She was told to be one thing from a family of six sons, to become a wife but came out as being a great writer.
Response to Malcolm X “Learning to Read”
I found “Learning to Read” by Malcolm X very interesting, because I gained some new knowledge about him that I never knew. Malcolm wasn’t a very good writer and wasn’t really educated and he saw his flaw when talking to Bambi and forced himself to fix that flaw, not many people can do that. Instead of just ignoring how much smarter Bambi was than him, Malcolm went to the prison library and took out books so he could learn to read, however he couldn’t understand the words and sometimes skipped pass them, but couldn’t understand what he was reading. Instead of giving up Malcolm went back to the library and got a dictionary so he can learn new words that he didn’t know. He would sit down and just read the dictionary and record the new words he was learning. And he was actually remembering the words, and the ones he couldn’t remember he went back to. It’s amazing that Malcolm spent all those years in prison become a better reader, writer and critical thinker, while most people who have a chance at education just take it for granted. I like that even after prison he continued on to read books, he says you couldn’t catch him with a 15 min break without a book in his hands.
Sandra Cisneros “Only Daughter”
Sandra Cisneros purpose into writing this story is to have readers picture what she was going through in her family .She was an Mexican American growing up with 6 boys being an only girl. From just knowing this you knew  it was hard for her. It was hard for her because she was the only one looked down on in her family and all her brothers are being looked at as most important. Her relationship towards her father was off. I had found it interesting that her father thought that she was wasting her education because she didn’t get married when she was finished from college.. From my understanding, I thought that the father was basically saying that with all the knowledge she got from school  she wasted it by not having a family to pass it down to her own family. Being an only daughter left her to think a lot and she wrote on her thoughts. The best moment in the story was her father reaction towards her writing and she was finally noticed by him
Sandra Cisneros only daughter
I found a lot of interesting facts in the text, firstly I like how she was able to create something out of loneliness. She was able to utilize her time in a more useful way by processing something mentally and writing it to the world. Sandra wanted her father to treat her the same as her brothers which is accepting and understanding her text. Her father always wanted to boast about having seven son, he didn’t appreciate the fact that he was having a daughter. She just wanted to make her father proud. We can relate sandra’s experience to other females having a lot of male siblings. they feel disconnected and sometimes wish for having a female sibling. In some cultures females are expected to have children at a certain age . When they reach that stage and still haven’t married or have children they start to receive pressure from family and sometimes friends. Sandra’s father wanted to see her daughter get married that’s why she encouraged her to go to college so that she can find a husband. Female siblings come across situations like this but I believe in today’s society male siblings go through the same situation as well also male siblings turn to be protective of their female sibling especially when they are younger . Lastly some parents do support their children when they start to see positive outcomes or a reward. during Christmas vacation her dad read some of her text and really loved it. Sandra just wanted to please her dad and she was able to accomplish that goal through writing.
Personal Experience Essay/mother tongue by Amy Tan
I chose this text because out of all of the text that we have read in class this was the one that I felt connected to and can correlate it with my own personal experience. Based on the text Amy tan showed her mother’s level of english and her inability to express herself in English. She also showed how her mother’s language has influenced her academically and socially. Even though Amy tan was chinese American, this is a text that every child coming from a minority household can relate to. I made my emphasis on the time when Amy’s mother went to the hospital but based on her lack of English and struggling to Express herself the doctors and the nurses did not even take her serseriou as compared to where amy intervened. They showed Amy more respect ,apologized and assured her that the cat scan will be found soon. This clearly show that people are treated some kind of way when they can’t Express themselves in perfect English. People turn to avoid them regardless of their age or ethnic group. The text is a typical example, they showed amy more respect than her mother. I have experienced similar situation with my mother and sister. We moved from Africa to reside with my father in the United states. Unfortunately my mother waa not familiar with the English language so my sister was forced to move around with my mother whenever she has an appointment and orientation. She always said she wish she had her education before moving to the United states. We clearly understand where she was coming from because she lost her parents at a very young age so she was introduced into trade and traveling in other to support herself. She later moved to her elder sister’s house but still didn’t get the opportunity to study in school. She gets very emotional every time she shares her childhood stories with us . My sister receives all her business and professional calls. Recently she came up with the idea of speaking English at home so that she can learn from us. We started speaking English at home and corrected her everytime she made a mistakes. We became her personal teacher and taught her how to read. During the past few years , we have experienced some growth in her vocabulary and her level of confidence. She now goes outside by herself without my sister assisting her in applications or appointments also she seems happier whenever she goes outside to even purchase an item at at our local deli. In the past few years she felt intimidated whenever someone approached us with English. She was always shy and avoided contact with people. Surprisingly we realized that she can remember things for along period of time. She learns very fast and always pressure us to teach her something new.
Malcolm x learning to read
Reading malcolm x text was very surprising and motivating. The surprising part is, a text structured perfectly like this coming from someone with only a middle school education and the motivating part is a prisoner building on himself and using his resources to acquire knowledge. He was passionate about education and eager to be enlightened. He was opened to the world and learned about different cultures and African American history through reading. He saw himself in different places through visualization and reading of different text. Reading gave him freedom and opened his eyes to the outside world even though he was locked up .
learning to read by Malcom x
in “Learning to Read,” an excerpt found in The Autobiography of Malcolm X, author Malcolm X attacks his illiteracy while imprisoned for battling the white man. Malcolm in his conversations with other prisoners realized he was not as articulate with the hustlers in prison as he was in the street. Bimbi, a fellow prisoner in Charlestown Prison would take over conversations because of his vast vocabulary and knowledge from reading. This knowledge was where Malcolm X drew his inspiration to be Malcolm just as intelligent. This was his initial start toward his autonomous learning. Malcolm X explains, “Bimbi made me feel envy of his stock of knowledge.” He became fascinated with the vast amount of knowledge of Bimbi. When X first arrived in prison, the highest education he had was that of an eighth grader. Therefore, Malcolm begins reading to obtain the same eloquent speech, but he comes across a dilemma. X explains how he could not comprehend every word in the sophisticated books Bimbi read. Malcolm became frustrated because he could only read the words he knew but in the end had no understanding.but he keeps on going and learns how to surpass bimbis vocabulary
Malcom X “Learning How To Read”
After reading the autobiography of Malcom X I can truly say that I feel inspired not only from his actions as a civil rights activist but as his thoughts on education itself. Growing up I never really knew a lot of Malcom X besides his role in the civil rights movement and how he went along with that role, never knew anything about his nationality, his background, his family and at last himself. This autobiography put more information in my mind about Malcom X compared to what I was receiving from school. Learning that he didn’t graduate high school and his last encounter with school before getting arrested was 8th grade shook me at first, I related with him when it came to being in a different environment and atmosphere mentally when reading and I also connected with him when I found out his penmanship wasn’t the best. He was connected to books and knowledge that made me changed the way I think about Malcom X. The use of diction during his speeches baffles me after learning more about him. He went out the way to ensure himself that he would be educated, then went out to educate, influence others and to express himself freely. He used to be in chains mentally and physically but the moment he was educating himself was the moment he felt free from both the mental and physical chains.
LEARNING TO READ BY MALCOLM X READING RESPONSE
Malcolm X shares his experience how he was having a hard time explaining and expressing his thoughts because his vocabulary wasn’t that good. He knew slang words due to his background of being a street hustler but those slang words didn’t help him in his motivational speeches. He would read a book and would not have any clue what he actually read and what the purpose and lesson of the book is. Malcolm X also stated that he was jealous of other prisoner due to the fact that the other prisoner had more vocabulary skills than him. That’s what pushed him to improve his reading skills and work hard to gain more knowledge. He would spend days reading dictionaries and it helped him learn more and more words everyday. And that’s how he became a literate to inspire people.
