Blog #5 :"Down These Mean Streets" Piri Thomas

       In chapters 1-8, 14-16, Piri shares his experiences growing up in New York City as a "Puerto Rican." I put that in quotations because he soon discovers that he is in fact African American. He always knew he was different somehow because he was always darker than his bothers and sister but, no one in the family wanted to accept their "blackness" everyone believed they were "white Puerto Ricans." Going through Piri's young age to his semi-adult age was very interesting. His becoming "hombre" phase and fighting with family. I wonder is this actually happens in real-life.. Do young Puerto Rican boys feel the need to become "hombre" by doing what Piri and his friends did? Do they fight each other and prove their masculinity this way? Is it only Puerto Ricans, do others do this?
       I also found the conversations that went on between Piri and his father as well as the conversation with José. To see what his brother thought and the way Piri thought was completely different. Siri was open-minded and sort of not ignorant is the only way I can put it. Then, the way Piri's father revealed that he felt ashamed of his skin color and the way people addressed him was very sad and heartwarming. It is also interesting to think about because he said that he'd even make his accent heavier so that it'd be known that he in fact was Spanish and not black, I guess to "make it better" for himself which is horrible to say but, it is what got him through. I just think it is interesting to think about how people grow up and portray themselves in the world and how the world sees them, it is ever-changing.

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 4, 2019 at 9:29 AM

    Great post, you really did a good close reading of that scene between Piri and his brother Jose. Just a note on terminology, African American refers to a specific ethnic group (those who are of African decent that have have familial ties to the colonial United States). Such as Piri's friend Bru. While Piri on the other hand, while also Afro-descended, would be more appropriately refered to as Afro-Latino, or Black Puerto Rican.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog #1 The New Latin Nation

What I found most interesting about Alejandro Portes' essay was the way he described Latin Americans and how he basically agreed with the stereotypes put upon the community. He criticizes Americans in saying that they do not account and show representation for all so called "Latino/x" people but, in turn makes the bold statement that there is a common culture grounded on religion and language. This is very hypocritical because we know or it is assumed that we all should know that all Latino or hispanic" people do not speak Spanish. It should also be known that not all Latinos go to a catholic church. Other than that, this essay was more or less things I had known about the struggles in the Latino/x community and it is just still chilling to see facts and statistics discussing either racism or whether they've immigrated and such.
Read more

Blog #3- Education, Immigration, and the Future of Latinas/os in the United States

Many Americans take the Latina/o community for granted and blame everything on their community. They tell us that we are responsible for taking away their jobs but, what they don't know and understand is that "we" do this and we work as hard as we can in this country to provide a better life for our family and for ourselves. In Pedro A. Noguera's essay he examined Miguel's life and analyzed what could be better in his life and really showed that most Latinos/as need to think outside the box and create opportunities for themselves. The documentary "Precious Knowledge" was a great example of Latinos/as creating opportunities and fighting for what is right for themselves! Those teachers who fought with their students to help them and encourage them to learn about their culture and not just their own culture are amazing role models and we as watchers of the documentary can see that those teachers not only cared about what they taught their students, but actu...
Read more

Blog #2 Refugees or Economic Immigrants?

Today's reading by, Maria Cristina Garcia discusses a more inside look about immigration and the Latino/x community's immigration from all sorts of places. I thought it was very informative and astonishing to see all the different numbers of how many of each "latino/x culture" has immigrated to the U.S under harsh conditions and received so much approval or not so much approval. I thought Garcia's constant reminder of proving that there aren't just "latino/x" communities but rather that there is an enormous amount of culture within that label and how they should be treated with respect to each of their needs and look at them as an equal in terms of knowing that they all exist. We can connect this to the other reading from last week about Indigenous people seeking help to learn Spanish so they can learn english. We can make this connection by finally saying we realize that not all "Spanish" people speak Spanish and the simple fact there is m...
Read more