Central American History and Heritage

The Many Faces of Central American People

The Good Cripple: Essay

The Good Cripple: Essay

The Good Cripple is a story about how a man lives after being kidnapped for a ransom. Rodrigo Rey Rosa, the author of the book, shows the struggles and dilemma of Juan Luis Luna, the protagonist, in coping with being kidnapped and having his foot cut off. But the story presents an argument about how roles of women are changing.

The history of society in Central America shows us that society has been mainly patriarchal and male dominated. Men were thought of as bread-winner, where they are the sole providers for the family. Meanwhile the women are supposed to be stay at home mothers, where they cook clean and stay home and take care of the children. Women were expected to be completely obedient and loyal to the men of the family. They were expected to not talk back, not have their own ideas and opinions and just basically be servants to men. Bunny’s mom shows this as she is shown to be a traditionalistic women, where she is the housekeeper and also is obedient to most of Bunny’s orders.

It wasn’t until recently that women started defying these roles and started doing what they want. More women now have their own opinions their own thoughts. They wanted to be treated with the same respect as men are treated. They don’t want to be below men but they want to be as equal as men.

Juan’s relationship with his wife is based off of this sense of equality. They both communicate with each other effectively and they both have a say in what goes on and happens in the relationship. This is seen when they both agree to live in the middle east. This change in attitude by women has been seen as really radical and has been defied by traditionalists. Rodrigo Rey Rosa presents this conflict between Juan’s father and Juan's wife.

Juan Luis Lunas wife is a perfect example of how women's roles are changing.When she was Juan Luis Lunas girlfriend first, Juan's father didn't like her because she was not like a typical house women. She had her own ideas and wasn’t afraid to express them and she wasn’t afraid to challenge men. He resents Juan’s marriage because their relationship is based on equality, instead of the traditional relationship where the women is subservient to the man.  When Juan Luis Luna was kidnapped she was devastated by the fact that his father didn’t want to pay the ransom at all. She pressured and argued with him to pay the ransom. Seeing how effective she was at convincing him, and realizing their love for each other, Juan’s father became accepting of their relationship and marriage.

After Juan Luis returned, they settled down and married. She wanted to go to the middle east and convinced Juan to go. While there she made sure that living there wouldn’t be a hassle for Juan to live there since he had a missing foot. She would go and get the groceries cook clean and do other household activities so her husband wouldn’t be burdened. She was making sure that everything was well for Juan and that they both could have a happy life. She was taking care of the household, as a traditionalist women , but she was also making money and taking care of her and protecting her family.

She supported him in choosing his career as a writer. She gave feedback to his stories and was a big influence in his writing styles. If this story were to be set at least 30 - 50 years before, her thoughts and ideas probably wouldn’t have been well received and would’ve been seem as idiotic. She also convinced him and gave him advice on how to approach his favorite writer.

After a while Juan Luis decided he wanted to go back to Guatemala and his wife agreed with him. When they went back she decided to go back to school so she could get a degree in something. This is a clear example of how the roles of women has changed. Women going to school had been seen as radical and was not well perceived up to that point.  She also is allowed to go out with friends and allowed to have guy friends. Juan Luis’s wife is the perfect representation of the “new woman”, showing us how they are progressing so they could be viewed as equals to men.

However, Central America is a place where the traditionalist view of women is still held into high regard.  Rey Rosa shows this with Bunny’s mom and Juan Luis’s father. She is in charge of keeping the house in order and has to be obedient to the men of the household. Bunny loves her for this but he doesn’t seem to high respect for her. In a part of the story, when Juan Luis finds out where Bunny leaves, he blames this on his mothers ineptitude to handle difficult situations for him. Juan Luis’s father also doesn’t appreciate how Juan Luis’s wife is more progressive instead of being a housekeeping women who has no ability in having her own ideas or opinions.

Progression One: Reading & Responding to Texts

Progression One: Reading & Responding to Texts

For today’s reading I decided to read “The Silent Words” by Ines Arredondo. This story was about a chinamans struggle to live in Mexico because he wasn’t like most mexicans. From what I could tell he immigrated from china a long time before this story took place. He works for a man named Don Hernan who sympathized with the chinese.The chinese man has adapted the name Manuel and his real chinese name is never revealed. Manuel had a wife who he called Lu, because he couldn’t call her by her actual name. He had three kids with her but she ended up leaving him for another man taking the kids with her. He is liked by the community but he’s unable to communicate with them properly. In the end he seems to commit suicide because his kids take the land that was left to Manuel by Don Hernan.

I liked this story. I did not realize that there were asians living in central american countries. i realize that they too suffer discrimination while living there. The way that Manuels life was portrayed as discriminatory seems similar to what thousand of immigrants living in the US suffer daily.

Letter to a Friend

Dear Erick,

I am writing to you today because I wanted to inform you about two articles I read for my Central American Studies class called At the Margins of Nation by Alejandro Lee and Central American-Americans. Both articles seem similar in that they are analyzing a type of diaspora. A diaspora is a dispersion of a people from their original homeland. Margins of Nations seems to analyze the Chinese diaspora into Mexico (Chinese people in mexico? weird right?). Central American-Americans seems to be analyzing the migration of Central Americans into the United States. These articles are really interesting because they highlight the struggles of both the chinese living in Mexico and Central Americans adjusting to live in the United States.

Margins of Nation focuses on how Chinese people lived in Latin America and how they were portrayed in literary works.In most works they are portrayed in some sort of negative way since they weren’t able to assimilate to the Hispanic culture at that time. They couldn’t speak the language so they couldn’t communicate effectively with the people who lived in Latin America. Life for them was hard because of this and they were targets of abuse.

To me this is really interesting because I had never thought about people migrating to Latin America to have a better life. It especially surprised me that Chinese people would be willing to migrate to there. The lives that they seemed to live seemed to be a hard life.They faced a lot of discrimination because people didn’t know what to think of the newly immigrated chinese. It didn’t help that they couldn’t communicate with the people there. The chinese are also excellent marketmen and this caused jealousy from the natives since so many chinese were able to become successful.

Central American-Americans focuses on  Central Americans migrating to the United States. The many years of Civil war affected many and were forced to migrate to avoid all the bloodshed and death. The article talks about how these Central Americans come here and try to assimilate into the new culture and forget their own culture because they are trying to forget everything horrible they left behind. They have a sense of lost identity because of this. I would recommend you to read these articles.

Sincerely,

Misael