Power as cultural identity in now we will be
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In Today We Will Be Happy, Amina Gautier’s collection of short stories about Puerto Rican families and relationships around the mainland, a chance to connect to Desfiladero Rican tradition is presented as a very important type of power and company. Families deny their children entry to the Spanish language and Puerto Rican culture, like the music, the foodstuff, and the island’s history, looking to ease the problem of their little one’s assimilation in U. S. society, nevertheless the children are remaining at a disadvantage, powerless without that expertise, trapped involving the two ethnicities and uneasy in possibly. The beauty of this collection of reports is just how it looks at many facets and the selection of repercussions that can result from issues like this, that is certainly certainly authentic with the concern of electricity and organization as swept up in Puerto Rican ethnic and terminology identity.
The most glaring instance on this is in the nombrar story, “Now We Will Be Content, ” as well as its connecting story, “Mueca, ” where Rosa, whose father and mother never taught her Spanish (42) and raised her on normal North American fare like “baked chicken, green beans, and mashed potatoes” (41), marries Pedro, a guy familiar with Desfiladero Rican lifestyle who wants her to learn to generate “bacalao, sancocho, alcapurrias, pernil¦ the right foods” (41). However for her, Pedro’s financial failures and his resultant perceived emasculation make him “feel similar to a live-in boyfriend than anyone’s husband” (43) and he turns into resentful and abusive, responding to the slippage of his sense of control over his own existence by insisting on managing hers. Apart from the one in-text instance of physical mistreatment, he abuses her psychologically by “us[ing] her lack of knowledge [of Spanish and Puerto Rican culture] against her” (25). Her lack of know-how is anathema to her, the lady desperately desires to understand, but still Pedro “wield[s] it such as a weapon, mocking and ridiculing her, showing her to ‘look it up'” (26). In addition , her parents utilize “intimacy of their private language” (25) to shut her away and speak in magic formula. They pay attention to Spanish language music “only in her absence” (25) and have under no circumstances shared the basic principles of their traditions with her (20). Rosa is “tired of being unsure of, tired of staying left out” (26).
When Insieme meets Yauba, he is not merely gentle and sort, he stocks Puerto Vasto with her in the way that she has constantly longed intended for. Instead of applying her ignorance against her as her parents and husband did, he explains to her regarding the ethnically mixed traditions of Muelle Rico (20), cooks her authentic Desfiladero Rican food (24), and dances with her to the songs your woman might and so easily have matured with (25). Though she’s a wedded woman, Rosado and Pedro’s relationship is definitely deeply bothered by the way Pedro treats her, the power have difficulty that he is trying to earn by keeping her ignorant. In the powerful last scene of the titular history, Yauba requires Rosa by using an imaginary voyage to Muelle Rico’s Luquillo Beach and “tells her the meanings of all the words and phrases she has ever wanted to know” (27) and, while the visitor is remaining in the dark whether or not Rosa’s scenario ever changes, it is very clear that she has been given a taste in the agency this wounderful woman has longed for and that it will not be easy to forget her new-found power, or perhaps indeed her new enthusiast.
The connected history arc between “Bodega, inch “Only Kid, ” and “Palabras” likewise showcases ways that connection to Muelle Rican culture and dialect provide character types with organization and personal electricity. In “Bodega, ” Nelida uses her memories of Puerto Rico as a yoga every morning hours, “let[ting her heart fly to her island over the ocean and take her where it will” (36). The island, yet , has thieved her child who “taunts them with reports of his new life in Humacao and pretends he is under no circumstances coming back” (31). Nelida’s husband offers kept her from speaking Spanish (67), even in Puerto Potentado as they planned the proceed to New York, when he is a “restless man” (32) who wants to set up a family organization in the big city around the mainland. Their son enjoys Puerto Lujoso and feels “stripped of his skin” (70) for the Brooklyn streets. “Speaking The english language embarrassed him” (72) and he talks in Spanish to his child before his long term move to the island (73), as his mother chides him, responsive the way her husband once chided her. Esteban’s way of taking back his electricity is to operate back to the island he was created on, leaving his mom, father, boy, and the friends and family business, which act of agency is usually couched in understanding of the The spanish language language, magnified as his final reply to his dad’s letters is at Spanish, “Papi, No comprendo ingles. tu hijo” (120). He features turned his back entirely on his friends and family, wounded by feelings of loss of his culture because of the decision to assimilate. This individual has previously accused all of them of “never tr[ing] to view what it was just like for me” (75) and says this individual “can never forget where [he] came from” (79), talking about Puerto Potentado and not to his family members. His rebellion, while it damages his friends and family immensely, is one way that the kids caught between two worlds can take backside their electricity and match their own requirements.
Whilst these are perhaps the most manifest examples of personal power and agency as manifested although ability to connect and connect culturally, the theme looks repeatedly thoughout Gautier’s collection. In “Aguanile, ” the estranged grandfather’s family “eschewed all things Puerto Rican, ” (1) as if in immediate response to his abandonment and return to the country. He endeavors to reunite by posting his preferred element of his culture, the background music, with his granddaughter. She is utilized as a “peace offering” (3) and a link between New York and Muelle Rico, nevertheless her initial experience finding her grandpa in San Juan is of her cousin and her grandfather “completely ignoring [her], uncaring that [she] couldn’t understand a word they said” (3). She is rendered invisible simply by her insufficient knowledge of The spanish language. Back in her home in the U. H., many years later it is apparent that her grandfather would gain several power more than her as she treasures the cassette tape of Spanish-language jugo music that he provided her, irrespective of her blended feelings about the man (14).
From the granny in “How to Make Flan” who has attempted to “cram a complete island into her¦ apartment” (60) decoratively, to her granddaughter who the girl reprimands for not knowing The spanish language, “roll[ing] her eyes in disgust” (59), the reader can be allowed to begin to see the power of ethnic memory and communication in Puerto Rican communities inside the mainland U. S. from various perspectives, but it can be obvious the fact that younger generation has shed much of that connection through their parents’ desire for compression with the current culture which this reduction gives these people less electric power and organization in their own community of elders and maybe also inside their own brains, as without stories of Puerto Rico, they cannot picture and process the place they are really from. Gautier’s masterful portrayal of a number of characters and their different reactions to the loss in cultural history and the language that goes with it keeps the reader from pigeonholing or stereotyping this young generation while having a single reaction. People are far too complex for that and reactions range between neutral to Esteban’s abandonment of his son and family. There is, however , always an element of some thing lost, even if it is only a loss of ability to communicate very well with the most well-known generation and a loss in historical thoughts. Power and agency rest in possessing a past and understanding ethnical history when also going toward a desired long term and eliminating a culture completely through total compression shows on its own to be emotionally harmful to heroes like Rosado, Esteban, “Nena, ” and “Nieta, inches although their responses to this erasure fluctuate richly, emphasizing the abundant diversity of even similar human encounter.
Works Mentioned
Almost all quotes by
Gautier, Amina. Now We are Happy. University of Nebraska Press, 2014.
