Zavala 1

Luis Zavala Professor Collin Ludlow-Mattson English 114 13 September 2013

What I wanted to accomplish in this essay, was an explanation on how much of a struggle I had to go through to get where I am today in my literacy skills. I wanted to show my background culture and its corruption in stereotypes. I think I did accomplish what I wanted to do, because I explained the obstacles that my friends and family put me through. I used Mrs. Escobedo as my example of the little amount of hope I had to succeed and I did end up succeeding. I felt that with the readings we did in class and with writing my essay, I was able to learn how to express my essay better than I thought I could. I structured the essay in a way that made it very easy for the reader to understand just like Sherman Alexie. The reading helped me expand my story more than it originally was because I was able to relate to the stories. All these methods helped me convey my story to the reader more clearly. My opinion did change from when I first started writing my essay because I mainly just wanted to talk about how I got better as a writer. After reading how Sherman Alexie had to go through the obstacles of his culture, I figured that if I used the same concept, that it would make my essay much stronger. Now my essay is more of a story that draws the reader in, instead of them just reading another boring essay.

Zavala 2

The Latino Fear As a Latino most people had expectations of me being a person with a very low education and confirming to work in hard labor. The Latino tradition was to confirm on what God gives us, and to never ask for more. Most Latinos follow these traditions of faith and conformity and that is the reason they are thought of as lazy, uneducated and unable to surpass obstacles to reach higher success. With the help of one of my most inspirational teachers Mrs. Escobedo I was able to break from my traditional barriers and improve my ability to write, read, and speak better English. Breaking from my traditional barriers wasnt as easy as it seemed. I had to be criticized by my own friends and had no support from my family. My friends were some of the people that put me down the most. They would always be calling me bad names whenever they saw me doing my work or readings. They would call me names like a nerd or loser. The reason why I was their friend was because they were Latinos just as I am. I felt comfortable socializing with them since we had all these traditional aspects in common like; food, sports, and culture. I felt like that was where I belonged. When I would be with other kinds of people with different traditional views I would feel very uncomfortable and out of place. I would make other Latinos feel the way I sometimes felt by also calling them names when I saw them doing their homework. I wanted to fit in more with my culture so I didnt have to be called any names. What I would do was live up to the expectations in which they said Latinos are uneducated and lazy. Just as my friends did I would never read a book, do the homework assignments or pay attention in class.

Zavala 3

I already had a difficulty reading, writing, and speaking English since I was raised in a family that only spoke Spanish. As a child I had nobody to look up to that spoke fluent English. My parents are very traditional and thought that as long as we went to church our futures would be bright and successful. My parents never told me to read or do good in school, they believed if I was smart enough to go to college I would go, and if I wasnt I can just go work in construction with my dad. They thought construction wasnt a bad option since the pay was not too bad, but after years of working in construction your body starts to wear out. Even though we see that construction wears our body out we still tend to stay in these jobs because thats how our tradition taught us. The tradition of confirming to what we have is a stain in the beauty of our culture and we never seem to try to change it. Latinos are known for having a beautiful culture in which most kids respect their parents and they have a great faith for god, but what good does that do if we never try to be better people. I would keep living up to peoples expectations and just keep on falling behind in school since I would never read or do much work. In high school my math scores were always good since it had nothing to do with reading and I had a natural talent for that subject. In my other classes though, I struggled more each year and I would do nothing to improve my scores. Everyone in my family knew that I wasnt doing the best I could in school, but not at one moment did anybody in my family push me to be better than they did. My parents could have gotten me a tutor but they never even put in the effort to look for one. Somehow I kept my grades at a minimum passing level but my friends just kept putting me down and teasing for it. All my Latino classmates were my friends; most of them failed their tests and never did their homework. Sherman Alexie describes in his Superman and Me As Indian children, we were expected to fail in the non-Indian world. Those who failed were ceremonially accepted by

Zavala 4

other Indians and appropriately pitied by non-Indians.(pg.5) This is the same for Latinos, I wanted to fit in with my culture and be accepted so I followed in the footsteps of my traditional expectations like my friends did. I felt like I was obligated to follow in my friends footsteps, because if I didnt I knew that I would be judged by my own friends. Unlike me, Alexie did the contrary and isolated himself from mainstream culture and thats why he accomplished a lot in his future. Luckily in my junior year in High School, I had Mrs. Escobedo as my teacher and she made a huge impact in my life. Mrs. Escobedo was our English Puente teacher, which consists of an English class that is focused on Latinos that want to go to college. I only joined the class because it was the only class that fit the schedule I wanted. Mrs. Escobedo was raised in a traditional Latino family just as all of us Latino classmates were. Except Mrs. Escobedo would constantly speak to us emotionally about her struggles as a child and how she lived in a broken family without a father. Her mother could not keep a stable job, so they would constantly have to be moving around to different parts of the city. She ended up going to more than 20 different schools, which made it very difficult for her to stay focused in school. She somehow ended up going to college and became a successful teacher and also works for the College Board. Mrs. Escobedo told us that we can be like her and exceed the expectations that people put on Latino students. That is why she became an English teacher to help any student that is expected to not be able to learn proper English. At first I thought Mrs. Escobedo was out of her mind and she would make up these stories, but the more she would tell us her stories of her struggles the more I understood her. I could understand that she didnt want us going through the same situation that she went through. Mrs. Escobedo started giving us more reading assignments every day to improve our reading. We would read poems, newspapers, and novels and anything else that she though would

Zavala 5

make us better informed of the world we live in and more importantly make us a better reader. She would make us read poets like Edgar Allen Poe, and authors like George Orwell. There was a part inside of me that wanted to better myself, but before I was too scared to show it. I would not want to let her down so I would read all the assignments she gave us and slowly I started to notice I was becoming a better reader. Soon enough I began to do better in my other classes and even my writing was beginning to improve. Just as Judith Ortiz states in My Rosetta As the walls of our apartment were closing in on me, I became determined to break out from what I saw as a suffocating cycle of acceptance and adherence to tradition. I was also breaking my stereotype of being lazy, it was the best feeling ever. I even stopped hanging out with my friends who would constantly try to bring me down. I found classmates with the same ambitions as me to succeed and that wanted to break out of that tradition. I even felt more comfortable around my new friends than with my old friends. They would help me with any work I didnt understand and I would also help them. Mrs. Escobedos class started to get more difficult but I took it as a challenge and I ended up passing the class with an A. Mrs. Escobedos Puente English class is one of the most memorable classes I have taken, because it has a large impact on where I am at today. When she would give us all the work to do in class and at home, I first thought she wanted us to have a miserable life just like hers. Now I know that it was just the opposite. She made me realize that you can acquire any skills like literacy if you put the effort. Adapting all these skills has opened up lots of opportunities for me. Now I am the first in my family to go to college and my parents are starting to realize how big of a deal that is. Although I have gone a long way in my English skills I know that I have lots of room for improvement. I was able to break my traditional barriers and not be put in the position to work at a hard labor job just like my relatives. All my old friends dropped out of high school

Zavala 6

and they are working in either low waged jobs or in hard labor jobs. What I learned from my friends dropping out was that not educating ourselves leaves us worse off in the future. Having English Puente with Mrs. Escobedo has taught me to be a better reader, writer and speak English better. These lessons I took from this experience are that just because you are a minority that is born under a bad traditional stereotype, it doesnt mean you cant break it. It should in contrast, give you more motivation to exceed the expectations they put on you and succeed in any goals you wish to accomplish.