David Chamberlain- Personal Essay

The one about how great I am, and why BYU needs me!



As a BYU student, I will greatly enrich the campus environment in several ways. First, I will be an example of outstanding academic performance. On my mission I have learned to pay the price to get good results and will apply this principle in my studies. With a good work ethic, assisted by my intellect, I have no doubt that I will receive exceptionally good grades.
Another way I will enlighten the provo campus is with my cheerful nature. A friendly smile and enthusiastic greeting go a long way to relieve stress and create and enjoyable work and study environment for all.
The third way I will make BYU a better place is by always striving to magnify my calling. I have learned from my Mission President to never be a "maintainer" but to make the difference in every church position. I will continue to serve the Lord with all my might.
With these three qualities; hard work, a positive attitude, and dedicated service, I will be a great addition to the BYU atmosphere. After graduating, I will take these qualities with me into the professional world, upholding BYU´s exceptional reputation.

Kayla Partridge - Personal Essay

Imagine, if you will, a magnificent orchestra, tuned and anxious to play. The conductor enters, raises his baton, and begins to conduct. The musicians play perfectly, but all the notes are the same caliber of sound; there are no dynamics. Now, add some dynamics to the symphony. The quiet twitter of a piccolo. The soothing constancy of a bassoon. The sporadic boom of the timpani. In music, dynamics are what make a song interesting to an audience. Dynamics are what make me active, energetic, enthusiastic. I am dynamic.

Dynamic is defined as vigorous and purposeful, full of energy and enthusiasm. This describes me perfectly. I am always involved in activities. I am extremely enthusiastic about enough things, so I live life to its fullest extent, enjoying every moment. My energetic enthusiasm sometimes leads me to experience things I may not have attempted otherwise because of fears or doubt. One such instance was repelling off a cliff. Honestly, it went against my better judgment to lean off a cliff, relying solely on a rope to prevent my premature death. However, because I was so excited to try something new, a relatively “extreme” sport at that, I went off the cliff…and had a blast.

My dynamic nature also shows through in my choice of activities. I maintain a full schedule, and there is never a moment for monotony. Whether encouraging friends or working at school, dancing a ballet or leading youth government organizations, the plethora of activities that I participate in have given me experience in many different areas. By experiencing different activities and different people, I add dynamic spice to my life.

By living dynamically, I can better savor my various experiences. It is by living large that I can fully appreciate the quiet moments. My dynamic personality brings energy to everything I do, and encourages others. It is by living dynamically that I can affect others for good. It is living dynamically that allows me to appreciate the true value of life’s symphony. I am, simply, dynamic.

Kayla Partridge - Poignant Pointe Practice (Descriptive Essay)

Sweat. Blisters. Hard work. Pain. Squeaky pointes. The dance studio. Bits of conversation, like the gentle buzz of bumblebees, waft through the air. At this studio, tension is met by something equally powerful: concentration. And excitement? What is all of the preparation for? The upcoming Nutcracker performance.

Seated on his dilapidated red chair, the director watches the progression of the ballet with a critical eye. He often reprimands without explanation, but he always has a plan. The complaints from some dancers flow like a torrential rain; still, after being critiqued, they are always answered with “One more time.” Which, we have all learned, means a least five more run-throughs.

Over in the corner, anxious dancers whisper together. They imagine themselves in a similar position during a performance: nervous, excited, standing in the wings. During this rehearsal, there is a hint of confusion in the air. Dancers are trying to sort out instructions while still attempting to salvage what may be left of their feet. They move through the milling masses and rush in to be on mark at the right moment. At the show, dancers will be running frantically, technical crews will be pushing through, and little children will impede the busy traffic while watching the Sugar Plum Fairy with transcendental awe.

When opening night finally arrives, the music, the costumes, and the choreography will combine to produce a fantasy, a magical story, to be enjoyed by dancers and audience alike. For now, however, with the continuous chatter, unrelenting corrections, beaten hopes, and tarnished pointe shoes, endless rehearsing for that night will have to do.

Sarah Johnson- Genre Example

Change is constant in life. I have thoroughly experienced that. While I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, my sister changed a lot. I don’t think I will ever forget how weird it was to see my little sister in the airport that returning day. We both were flying home for Christmas break, me from Argentina and she from BYU-Hawaii; miraculously, we had the same connecting flight. To understand the drastic change in her, I must jump back to the last day I had seen her—her graduation day.

Anna was eighteen years old. Though she was the fattest baby of all of my siblings, she was the most petite of us sisters. She had highlighted hair, a small frame, and had not developed very much. She wore a fuchsia-colored dress and silver heels to match the get-up. She cried at the end of that chapter in her life, her high school career. She was preoccupied with how she was going to spend her last night with her high school friends, not caring much that I was about to leave.

When I came home though, she was a different person in every way; she had passed through a year and a half, making her twenty. I of course noted the physical changes in her first. She had gained twenty-five pounds, grown taller, and developed into a more womanly form. Her clothes were casual, sporting a Northface jacket with jeans and UGS. Her bag still seemed fashionable, but that seemed to be it. Having since moved to Hawaii for school, her hair was three shades more blonde, and her face appeared to be a different person with a more pronounced dimple in her cheek. We literally stared at each other for minutes and minutes; she stared and laughed at me, who had lost weight, and I stared at her, who had morphed into a woman.

But the physical evolution was not the only change. Something in her spirit had changed as well, something I had not seen since we were little. She had grown out of the adolescent attitude! She was compassionately concerned about me and my emotional well-being as I was making a drastic change from missionary to citizen once again. On our flight, she documented the moment by taking pictures of us, and then by calming my nerves when we were about to unboard our connecting flight to see our parents. That day was a mark of a new beginning of our relationship. Through the holidays, she spent time with me, and since we’ve both returned to our respective universities hemispheres apart, we communicate on a regular basis in a healthy, closer to adult relationship. Change cannot sometimes be scary, but m

17 again...! (Kristina - Personal Essay)

Hey everyone! This is a snippet from my blog entry as a 17 yr. old about turning 17… (and a little about dating, ha ha... : ) get ready…! (funny how people change… even funnier is how they don’t ; ) Enjoy! Love, K*

2004
“…After buying a CD just to listen to the one sweet 16 song on it the night before I turned 17... I tried to think of what I could look forward to, because 18 is cool because... you are like, an adult, yet still a teenager, so you are kind of in two stages of your life at once... just kind of an interesting concept I think : ). Anywho (and you can vote and such!! Good times!) So one might think okay, just another year of more great dates right? Well, since we all know the record from last year, pfff, forget that one, who needs those anyway right? I actually I am kind of glad because... well around times when I actually need one... like prom and homecoming... (or rather would like one: ) it is always exciting to see how close I can get to the dance while still not having one : ) he he... Anywho, I have accepted that fact and am happy about my present state : ) so moving on. What is exciting about 17? Um, as I mentioned earlier... most people would say... "Now you can watch R movies!! Wahoo!” {But} since I have chosen not to do that... I needed to find some other fun way to celebrate my 17ness!

“So I thought about it... and realized that every time I have heard about a blood drive they always say you have to be 17 and over some weight, (the weight I got covered baby! But the age was always a different story : ) and not that I love pain or anything, but giving blood is healthy for you and... saves lives!! I mean seriously, who doesn't like the feeling of being needed? Right?! It is wonderful to think that because I gave my blood and one hour of my life... someone can live the rest of theirs. Amazing isn't it? Anyway, so I read about an upcoming blood drive, the first I have heard of since my birthday and just decided I had to go! Also, since Labor Day is coming up this weekend, it is even more in need, because sadly, there will most likely be accidents and people who need it, so of course, all of the more reason! Anyway, It was such a great experience!!

“Since I have been young, I have had to go to the doctors for various health reasons and have had to had many shots and blood samples taken at different times, so I am somewhat used to the process, but it still gets me everytime! I usually am not too nervous about it, but when it is just about time, I just get so giggly! I usually don't get that nervous about much really, but when I am either really happy, really tired, or scared nervous, I giggle like crazy. Those of you who have been there during my giggly times... I am sure can agree : ) It is awful though when I can't stop, I love to laugh, but... oh man, sometimes I just giggle so much, I realize how stupid I must look and giggle more! So it is fun and a good giggle, because I would rather giggle than cry, but goodness, I am sure I seem like a fool, but at least I am enjoying myself! : )

“Anywho... so when they did it I kept giggling, but they were all so nice and friendly so it wasn't too bad : ). Thankfully they were just like, if only everyone laughed instead of cried, we would have a great time! Anyway, throughout the hour, we had plenty of good times. But it was funny because towards the end I kind of started to feel whoozy and voices started to get quieter and echo-ish and I was feeling kind of light headed, so I decided maybe I should tell them and did and immediately these 2 guys hopped up and layed my chair down propped my feet and brought a cool wash cloth the second I opened my mouth! Dang, if only I had service like that anytime I wanted ice cream! So yeah, it was fabulous and I am so glad I did it. A small contribution I know, but it was I think of the most fulfilling things I could do to celebrate my 17ness : ).

Anywho... I had a great week! That's about it! : ) eh heh heh, not much really as you can tell from what I wrote... j/k! : ) -- loves! - K*”

Max Johnson Personal Essay

Max Johnson Peer Tutoring December 20, 2009



This semester I have had some favorite times in school. Last year I came to CVMS. I met my buddy Tanner. I saw Chase and I just connected with them both immediately. They always were happy and great friends to me. I loved being around them, and one day I saw my friend with them in the library and I asked him what he was doing. He said he was a peer tutor, and it was one of his favorite classes he had ever taken. When I found out I could be with the kids every day, I knew that I wanted to be a peer tutor.



I love being a peer tutor for so many reasons. When I walk into the class, I get high fives and at least 10 secret handshakes. I also like Peer Tutoring because you have so many friends. The third reason is that at lunch I always have a reserved spot so that I can eat with some of my friends. If anyone comes near my seat, Scotty, Tanner, and Jed will straighten them out for me. The final reason I love being a peer tutor is that it gives you a break from everything else you have going on. You finally have a time when you can relax. Peer tutoring turned out to be much more than I thought it would be.



I have learned so many things in peer tutoring this year. The biggest thing I have learned is that if you want to, no matter what, you can do anything. I have also picked up on some sign language with Chase. I have also learned that disabled kids are perfectly able to do the things we can do just in different way. Peer tutoring has helped me understand so much about disabled kids.



Some things about peer tutoring are hard. It is usually pretty easy to get along with everyone, but there are two things that are hard for me. These two things are always paying attention to the many things they say, and getting Jed to go to art. Sometimes some of my friends want me to talk to them, while the others want me to talk to them too. I have a hard time focusing on what each of them has to say.



Without question I would recommend being a peer tutor to anyone who wants to have a good time. I know I am going to try and be a peer tutor next year. I will miss peer tutoring, but I know I will always have a spot at our table.

Sarah Johnson- Personal Essay

Born and raised in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, I have lived in the same house all eighteen years of my life. City kids have a fenced in backyard for recreation, but I have had the Smoky Mountains for my playground. I attended a small, rural elementary school comprised of nine grades and about 200 students. Determined to lead an exciting life, I anxiously anticipate the drastic change of pace in college. I hope to study across the country to build new perspectives to bring home to the mountains I love. When my family and I camp, my mother always reminds me to leave the campsite cleaner than when I found it. This is how I want to leave this world: a little bit better, but in order to do so, I need help.
My brother, born with Noonan’s Syndrome, a life-threatening genetic disorder, inspired me to become a nurse or doctor. Even with the help of family, friends, and specialists, learning to crawl, speak, and grow took months to accomplish. Also, at seven months my nephew contracted spinal meningitis and suffered from an accompanying stroke that evoked severe brain trauma that severely damaged his skills; it caused a physical barrier that stops him from even sitting up or rolling over. Furthermore, my four month-old niece suffered from a rare disease called Infantile Spasms; she too faces life handicapped due to subsequent brain damage. Through excellent teams of doctors and nurses, all of these precious ones are progressing. I want to be there to help someone else’s little brother, nephew, or niece. When all of the odds are stacked against them, I want to be the one holding their hands to help carry them through.
Reading also peaked my medical interest, beginning in English classes as an essential component of educational growth. I read mostly for pleasure because it is a phenomenal emotional outlet. Creating almost a “make believe” world, when I was young, I pretended I was the princess locked in a tower, a detective like Nancy Drew, or a nurse during WWII. Although I have outgrown these fantasies, one still claims my fancy. After reading about the ladies called to the nurse corps throughout American history, I am compelled to join these women in an effort to ease the burdens of my community and my country. Whether I opt to work in a hospital’s nursery or operate in an emergency room, I could make my childhood game into reality.
If this community will invest its support in me, I will perpetuate the service because I will reach my dream and in doing so, repay my community. Elder Neal A. Maxwell, a leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, summed up my attitude about the feasibility of my plan. He said, “God does not begin by asking us about our ability, but only about our availability, and if we then prove our dependability, He will increase our capability!” I firmly believe that I can succeed. I will. I must.

Once Upon A Time

Once Upon A Time 07/08/07

Once upon a time in a far off land,

A girl waited

For Prince Charming, Shrek, or Mr. Darcy

To sweep her off her feet.

“Problem!” cried the girl-

I lack that Cinderella grace or

Beautiful Bell’s tiny waist.

I don’t have magic fairies like Aurora

Or seven Stylists like Snow White…

Waiting for me is one never-ending fight.

While Wendy’s got spirit, I just get down

Because I can’t seem to grasp my prince or my crown.

Though Tink’s magic dust helps some girls fly,

My ship is stuck,

Bogged down in disguise,

Anchored in Never Never Land.

My love life is paused-

Uh, actually it never started.

I’m waiting. Oh, waiting…

Amidst the interminable silence.

Waiting, Wait, Waiting, inwardly vying.

Heart beating and looking

No broomstick for flying.

If I could just be Elizabeth,

Middle name after all.

Then maybe wait waiting would eventually stall.

Not looks at first glance,

Outstretched Darcy’s steadying hand…

She outwitted the slump, done waiting her demand.

But I’m sick of waiting too…

With nothing in between-

Heart locked in my tower,

Chained with stifling beats.

Some say I should be happy,

All on my own…

But on my own; tired of pretending,

Imagining he’ll eventually come-

Pretending he’ll sit beside me or

Ask me to dance.

Like Fiona, half beauty, half broken, I’m through. I’m done

I just want a chance!

If I am the princess who must help love along,

I’d head out right now to search through the throngs.

But where is my North to orient love’s path?

Where do I begin on this unplottable map?

Once upon a time…

In an all too close land…

The Vaquero: Father of the Cowboy

Sarah Johnson

Professor Cutchins

English 364

29 February 2008

The Vaquero: Father of the Cowboy

Cowboy—the son of America! This eidetic label elicits images of a hardened, tan man saddling his horse to ride the open range among the Indians or as a herdsman wrangling cattle. He is a wilderness man who rides into the “mainstream and modern” American identity as a symbol of romanticized dominance, restless freedom, and naturalized loyalty. But who sired this American icon—the cowboy? Jerald Underwood says that this forefather is “the forgotten man in [American] history” (2) and “Vaquero” is his name. He migrated from the Old, eastern world to the New, western lands in the Americas, leaving a distinct impact on the cowboy (Clayton et al.68).

The vaquero’s story has been hidden behind the chronicles of the cowboys (Rojas Vaquero 5); in fact, indifferent historians almost combined the cowboy and vaquero identities (xi). Though related, the vaquero is a descendant of the Spanish conquistadores and their noble horses of Andalucía, who were imports from the Moors from Morocco, the descendants of Arabia. In fact, “they swarmed out of Arabia across Africa and into Spain, France, and Austria” then across the seas to North American Mexico (Rojas The Last 7). They even introduced their horse lore to the Indians, affecting that facet of the West (14). Even the classic image of throwing a looping lasso high in the air was “the most difficult of the skills…developed since the first Spaniards landed in America” (17)—a skill the Arabs learned from central Asians (21-2). The cowboy’s father has a history of his own, spanning the continents.

Past the rich heritage however, becoming a vaquero required mastering patience. He had to learn to observe in detail and listen intently, claiming teachers of the arts (Rojas The Last 32). He “learn[ed] to read landmarks” so he wouldn’t get lost (34) and bridled his horse with respect and fortitude. He must be part of his horse and his mount, a part of him (Clayton et al. 8). A blend of Spanish and Indian, the vaquero was “a new bronze race… the true centaur of the New World” (8). He rode “his horse great distances, working cattle but also defending the hacienda against hostile Indians” (18). These were the skills that he passed down to the American cowboy.

Before unearthing these hidden histories of vaqueros from literally the basement of the library, I would have assumed this character sketch described a cowboy such as, Hondo Lane, in Louis Lamoure’s Hondo. But Underwood actually paints the vaquero’s image when he says:

It took great courage for a man to ride down an Apache warrior… he could ride down any wild cow and rope it; he could catch, ride, and break wild mustangs; he could dance all night; he was a ladies’ man and a break fighter who scorned danger. He had a determined look in his eyes—one that looked far off to the horizon. Few people have looked more at home on a horse than a vaquero (19).

Descriptions like above molded the folk hero of Northern Mexico, who was the precedent for the American icon—the cowboy—in spirit, identity, and behavior (Clayton et al. 68). In fact, instead of the classic image of the lone man riding into the horizon like Shane in Shane, in his chapter on cowboys, Clayton mostly details the more common cowboys of the 20^th century as hired herdsman. He admits that in actuality, “the vaquero [was] the ‘master teacher…’ He taught the British descendents… how to work the cattle in the wild, open country…and knew the brush,” not the Anglo males depicted in westerns today (71). The vaqueros were the real survivors who developed the typified riding style, Indian knowledge, and rope hand in the American, collective memory (19). He was the tough, working country man who first tamed the Americas, which as a whole was the original “West” (2). He taught the Indian and Anglo "vaquero" handiness, and then passed his knowledge to White and Black cowboys (Rojas Vaquero 4).

Though the U.S. has tried to invent a new, national identity, distanced from European influence such as vaqueros, the cowboy’s true heritage cannot be buried in libraries. The iconic “cowboy” in the American imaginary and fiction stems from the old world, even though today he symbolizes the new. The original man riding in American horizon was and is the vaquero—the “master teacher” of mastering the West. He spurred the identity that defines the cowboy in American history, teaching his son the arts of his horse lore, cattle herding, and survival.

Works Cited

Clayton, Lawrence, Jim Hoy, and Jerald Underwood. Vaqueros, Cowboys, and Buckaroos. Austin: U of Texas P, 2001.

Rojas, Arthur. Last of the Vaqueros. Fresno: Sierra Printing, 1960.

---. The Vaquero. Charlotte: Heritage Printers, Inc., 1964.

Cuban Memory of and in the Moments

Sarah Johnson

Dr. Hickman

Engl 358R

3 April 2008

Cuban Memory of and in the Moments

Hortencia, a Cuban-born American, angrily snaps at her husband Felipe: “why did you chase the parrot away” (95)? Her friend Matilde asks herself: what will I do with “pounds and pounds of bananas” (59)? And Matilde’s son, Anselmo, can’t ignore tennis (158). But what do these random subjects have in common? For Cuban-American authors, like Ana Menéndez, it all comes back to Cuba. Another Cuban-born author and editor, Cristina García, compiled a book of some Cuban Literature called ¡Cubanísimo! In it, she compares Cuban music to the literature. She notes that the clave (key) to Cuban music is a simple 1-2-3, 1-2 cadence. Likewise, in Cuban literature, she argues there is a key to understanding Cuban authors as well. And simple as it sounds, like with Menéndez, that key is Cuba. Whether Cuba represents the Revolution or nostalgia in Miami, both Cuban and Cuban-American authors have a shared rhythm (García xiii). Their literary constructs suggest an underlying tone of nostalgia, played out by focused subjects like the bananas, a parrot, and tennis in Menéndez’s short stories. In the same tradition, Virgil Suárez’s 90 Miles has a chapter titled “the Republic of Longing,” which has a poem that focuses on frogs. These frogs “embrace the fact that they are there, like the past” (Lines 27-8); they are eidetic images that trigger Suárez’s memories of his “childhood not lived” (21). But on a smaller scale, Menéndez’s claves in In Cuba, I Was a German Shepard, voice the emotional chasm between Cuba and the United States by zeroing in on singular subjects that articulate the living memory in the Cuban American existence.

In “the Story of a Parrot,” Menéndez’s character Hortencia is an older, “beautiful woman who, like many women of her generation and temperament blame[s] her unlucky circumstances on her husband” (89). Though it’s possible that Menéndez is critiquing gender stereotypes, it’s more important that Hortencia looks to some outward source to make sense of her “fragmented life” (REF). That life had “evaporated along with the rest of [her] world […] which every day remind[s] Hortencia of the crooked turns her life had taken” (90). But then, whoosh!—“A bird flew into a door [that] Hortencia left open” and into her home—her current world (Menéndez 90). In Hortencia’s life, the door left open can represent her unsettled mind, as she tries to live in a state radically different from her desires—Cuba in the idealized form. The parrot is the clave to this story, a singular subject that sounds the underlying dominance of memory in Hortencia’s life because of the emotions and memories it stirs. It carries many meanings and Hortencia seems to attach many feelings to the exotic bird.

In one sense, the parrot represents a Cuban exile, whether first generation or second. Hortencia says that “Miami had lately been overrun by wild parrots, descendants of freed pets” (Menéndez 90). In Miami, there is a large concentration of Cuban exiles from the various waves of migration (Grenier 23), and some could be the wild parrots, while others the freed pets. These pets could be many of the aristocratic immigrants in the early wave from 1959-1962, trying to escape communism. They were the “displaced and alienated elite […who] found themselves on the losing side of Cuba’s …class conflict” (23). And though not all Cuban immigrants fit this mold, the elitist exiles probably could at least understand the general stereotype of aristocratic peoples being high maintenance—the upkeep of pets. A nice comparison is the Disney movie the Aristocats, which depicts wealthy pets’ standards and how hard the transition from one lifestyle to another is tricky, as the cats removed from their mansions, must survive in the streets. As a freed pet, life is challenging since survival of the fittest is the game, but the players are accustomed to always having the upper hand. In a way, Hortencia laments her former life because she imagines herself as wealthy, whereas here in exile, she listens to the plunks of her husband’s typewriter rather than the clink of his change (REF). She seems to believe she is worthy of being a maintained pet, but because she is freed from communism in exile from her former supposed glory, she is actually enslaved by that freedom.

Hortencia probably dislikes seeing “wild parrots” in Miami because they are misplaced, a notion akin to many exiles. The parrot, a singular symbol reminds her of this displacement. In The Legacy of Exile: Cubans in the United States, Grenier says that Miami is a “community obsessed with Cuba, but more importantly for [him], a community that [senses it is] not supposed to be there” (10). These early exiles are the “faithful keepers of the exile legacy” (23); their attitudes precede and influence the rest of the Cuban immigrants who would come. This is like Hortencia’s attitude in the story. Hortencia does not want the parrot in her home because she immediately thinks of it carrying diseases, just as some view exile status, dangerous and infectious (90). But later, it elicits nostalgia within her.

Voicing the emotion within, Hortencia says that she feels as though “she’s been through a nightmare so terrible that memory…has rejected it” (94-95). And in waking up, this parrot reminds her that “she is in the middle of her life, in the middle of Miami, and halfway through a story,” her story (95). With the eidetic influence of the bird, she realizes through its exoticism that she has been accepting her life and forgetting what could have been. Borrowing Suárez’s words from “Frogs,” she begins to imagine her other life—the one she did not live or remember (Line 21). Ana Menéndez understands this emotion within her character because she is the daughter of exiled parents like Hortencia and Felipe. She says that as American-born children, second generation exiles “grew up being aware that [their] parents lost a lot” (Puckett 2). But that sense of loss, dubbed “unresolved mourning,” can be “passed on from generation to generation” (Yanez 2). In other words, the wild parrots adopt the parent’s loss, showing how early exile attitudes set the tone for the exiles who would follow (Grenier 23). García says among Cuban exiles and authors, there a longing for a “common identity” (xiii). Just as with music, “children clap out dance rhythms before they can walk,” they are shaped by their parents’ connection with Cuba (xiii). Seeing this wild parrot almost slaps Hortencia out of her emotional hibernation, “beckoning for [her] mind to leap” (29). And leap it does.

Somehow, Hortencia forgets that she had begged Felipe to get rid of the parrot. She misremembers and says to him in a silent, resentful whisper: “you chased away that beautiful parrot” (95), i.e., he chased away Cuba—her other life. This time, the parrot seems to simply embody Cuba to her. Describing the scene, Menéndez says that there stood “man, woman, [and] bird: a modern allegory in feather and flesh” that represents the exiles, both men and women with Cuba (94). Menéndez explicitly states that this scenario is an allegory of “feather” and “flesh;” or in other words an allegory of memory (the feathers) and reality (the flesh) tied into Hortencia’s faulty idealism and biting realism.

But memory, especially to characters like Hortencia, is a questionable source. The real bird is “magnificently’ green and yellow with a shiny beak (90). Later though, when Hortencia is nagging Felipe, she recalls or actually thinks she recalls the parrot’s blue feathers (99). She also “remembers” the beautiful song it sang, when in reality, the parrot was silent and merely staring at her until the moment it flew out of their lives (99). That is when it CAWKED loudly, hardly a lovely tune (94). In short, she forgets reality and invents a new picture of what the bird looked like, its song or lack there of, and how it left her home. It is fascinating that it is not only the parrot itself that stirs her memories, but also its absence. Because of this absence, Hortencia, a piece of fiction herself, begins to fictionalize her own life. In an interview, Menéndez explains that for people in general “memory is the first fiction,” (Morrison 1). Clearly Hortencia is a prime example of this human tendency as she confuses the parrot and then invents a past for herself that did not exist.

As mentioned, this misplaced memory is not unique to Hortencia alone, but Menéndez definitely critiques it. In Cuban Writers Off the Island, Pamela Smorkaloff quotes Edward Said of New York University who says that young Cuban writers often bring to the literary cannon a collective “forgetting” and “alternate memory” (64). In fact, according to Said, “if knowledge of the past is silenced” or silent to begin with like the parrot is, then “understanding the present is blocked” like Hortencia who conveniently forgets the reality of the bird and her life (64). She imagines it singing and being a beautiful experience that Felipe robbed her of by chasing the bird away, overlooking that it was she who asked him to clear it out. In this case, Hortencia who is a first generation immigrant cannot see her alternate memory, but a younger distanced writer like Menéndez has a wider vision because she brings to the shared history a distance (64) from it that allows her to disavow emotional interplay in the situation and memory.

Hortencia, in trying to reconcile her past, re-invents what she wishes it had been, which makes her a questionable storyteller, as she seems unable to accept truth in any situation. The parrot is a simple figurehead that represents her Cuba, her former life, and herself. Therefore, she sees in it everything “crooked” in her life (90). She can’t confront the actual past or present. Smorkaloff also borrows Paule Marshall’s words, the words of a Barbadian-American novelist. She explains that it is important to “confront the past, both in personal and historical terms” in order to “reverse the present order” (64). The present order for Hortencia is her invented history. And by making it seem outlandish, Menéndez reverses it, as she juxtapositions Hortencia’s imaginings with the parrot experience to slap Hortencia out of her hibernation. Menéndez, with a “knowing edge,” notes how clinging to nostalgia is a coping method, but she also admits that exiles like her own grandmother “spend their whole lives waiting…and put their lives on hold” like Hortencia has done (Morison 1). By showing how Hortencia hasn’t confronted the past, Menéndez gives the consequences of dying at age 42 like her grandmother who like Hortencia dreamed of an inexistent past that supposedly shapes her unhappy present. It is amazing that a simple parrot, a single symbol evokes all of these conflicting emotions in Hortencia, showing readers her unbalance and the need for reconciliation with reality.

Midway through the story, Cuba, as the parrot used to be, melds into Hortencia herself or at least her alternate memory of it. She says that its absence like Cuba’s “sounds like music in the dark” (Menéndez 96), which leads her to fill the empty space, trying to bridge the gap between her present and her past. She suddenly starts singing around the house. Really it is “a song she had not heard in many years” that takes her back to her imagined glory (96). In fact, the opening words to the song are “mueren y a las ilusiones del ayer” (the illusions of yesterday are dead), which is interesting because she sings about dead illusions, yet allows the illusion of a parrot’s memory to unleash her resentments and dead dreams (96). In a way, “she unfixes the action [of singing] from time, taking her readers in and out of the past, into and out of her own dreams” (Cowert 93). The first paragraph in the story tells how Hortencia’s parents pulled her from an audition line, forever blighting her career and causing her mundane, underprivileged life (89). As she sings in her imagined “pink tulle” I muse about her influence in her life, how she affected where she is now.

Hortencia actaully sings a fatal note for her so called stardom, when she says that she wonders who “put this memory here for her to pluck” (96). Basically, even in her musings and daydreaming, she acknowledges that her memory is unreal and not her own. But! She doesn’t bring herself back to reality; she continues to add to her imaginings. She pictures young men fawning after her and being “embraced by the stars” as she is the star dazzling her audience (96). Though this appears insane to an outside audience, Hortencia’s mental response to her situation is not all that irregular. In Immigrant Writing in Contemporary America, David Cowert critiques the editor of ¡Cubanísimo! , Cristina García’s work, Dreaming in Cuban, the piece he chose to represent Cuban-American literature in his collection. The character Pilar says of Cuba that “[she doesn’t] know if that’s home, but [she wants] to find out” (98). And after she actually visits Cuba, she says that though it is not home, it’s more home than New York, where she belongs (99). This is the mental battle that Hortencia faces. Though she knows that her “memory” isn’t home or real for her, it is more real than her present boredom. Like fictional Pilar, Menéndez even experienced this emotion. She said that “growing up, [she felt she] had lost Cuba. And when [she] went to Cuba [she] felt, this is what I lost” (Takahama 2).

So I must ask, why Hortencia chooses to keep her fictional memory alive? And how can a parrot pull all of this out of Hortencia? In A Culture of its own, author Mark Falcoff says that because in Miami, the climate is just enough similar that the original Cuban exiles were able to create their own “Little Havana;” therefore, they didn’t have to abandon their other culture, which would seem good. But the result has been that the exiles are unable to “put old ghosts to rest,” especially as new refugeses “sharpen the sense of loss and keeps the wound from healing” (212). In a way, this is the bittersweet situation Hortencia faces. In a later story called “The Party,” a Ernesto, a fellow Cuban exile, describes Hortencia’s stance as “an echo of someone she might have been” (Menéndez 186). This party was at Hortencia’s community’s restuarante cubano, which in Menéndez’s fiction shows how perpetuating these ghosts or echoes as Ernesto calls Hortencia haunt the characters daily lives. The Florida professor, Rothe says that “for those older exiles, Cuba is like a dead person who somehow remains half-alive, like a zombie, because [the exiles] have never completed their mourning process of disconnecting and forming new bonds” (Yanez 1). They instead remain in “emotional limbo,” which explains why Hortencia’s emotions consume her mind.

As Hortencia is the parrot, one can see how her sanity teeters on the edge of grief, yet when her husband Felipe asks her what she had sung the night before, she responds, “an old song (Menéndez 97). She doesn’t even remember its name, which goes to show “how small the world is in the eyes of memory” a stolen phrase in Barnett’s Rachel’s Song (Smorkalof 28). Hortencia says that it just came to her, like the parrot she had not planned on. Thirteen pages of a short story, all comes from the symbol of the parrot. The winged animal flings Hortencia into the trap of idealizing reality. But, as her memory of the past competes with Felipe’s when their memories come together, she comes back to the present (8). She tells him that he “is writing in the wrong age” (Menéndez 97). Now aware of reality because the parrot forced her to face it, she says that Felipe is a romantic who writes “stuff that has gone out of style” (97). After saying this to him, she sings the old song again, but this time, in touch with reality. The words this time are “Y muere también con sus promesas crueles / La inspiraciόn que un día le brinde” (and the inspiration that one day I offered him / also dies with his cruel promises) (97). And sadly, “between the verses she could hear the click-clack of Felipe’s typewriter” (97), showing he still hasn’t accepted reality either, though less eccentric than Hortencia.

Hortencia is like the parrot to Felipe as well. In fact, “on the tattered canvas of the past he still carries, he paints a bird with great wings moving to embrace him. He hear the beating of blue feathers in his chest and turns from the window and the moon shadow that is already gliding away from him” (102). Even Felipe, who originally corrects Hortencia that the bird was green, now remembers it as blue. The parrot not only gives him Cuba, but forces him to take flight and embrace a new life. But he is sad to do it.

Like García’s 1-2-3,1-2 cadence, the parrot is Hortencia’s and Felipe’s clave to unlock their present lives. For Felipe, “the typewriter is music. [And] his long fingers find the keys like a lover in the dark” (102). He and Hortencia found the key to their lives through the parrot. David Cowert, the expert in Immigrant fiction says that every distinctive culture has a system of symbolic representation (92). For Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban, that symbol is a dream. For Menéndez’s “Story of a Parrot” it is the parrot. In the Hartfort Courant newspaper, Menéndez says that [she] thinks art “works for [her] when it’s a specific situation with a universal point that can be extrapolated” (Nunez 3). This is a common theme for Cuban-American literature. When Menéndez work at the Miami Herald, she heard stories of immigrant lives, whose themes of longing and loss, seem to be the universal point for immigrants and especially Cuban exiles (McMahon 1). And in all the stories in In Cuba, I Was a German Sheperd, Menéndez is an expert at symbolizing the whole with a single punch—a literary clave to match her Cuban-American beats.

Pseudo Reality: Religious Kitsch

Pseudo Reality: Religious Kitsch

Religious kitsch. A hot topic in Latino communities? Evidently so. Representing classic American culture, sunglasses and T-shirts stand out in tourist shops lining Venice beach in southern California. The sunglasses follow the trends. And the shirts sport presidents, Spongebob, and other pop culture items. But amidst the plethora of “junk” are Virgin Mary posters and “saint” bracelets that appeal to Latinos in the marketplace. In The Last of the Menu Girls, Rocío’s mother has a picture of Jesus hidden in her closet. It fascinates her children. In Bless Me, Ultima, the family has an altar in their home, and Antonio views the Virgin Mary as a real figure in his midst. Religious kitsch both in reality and in Latino literature seems to represent a pseudo reality for Latin and Latin American families today. Easy to access and traditionalized in homes, Latino kitsch brightens the atmosphere and becomes almost a transubstantiation experience because it transcends the material presence of the object to a spiritual state for some Latinos like Antonio and Rocío. In fact, some kitsch like the picture of Jesus in The Last of the Menu Girls becomes so real to its beholder that it is ingrained into his or her psyche, just as the picture is surreal to Rocío and her sister Mercy. All in all, religious kitsch presents an outlet for emotion and self-definition for Latin Americans, rather than solely religious devotion.

Ilan Stevens proclaims that “kitsch is king in the Hispanic world” (Cantinflas vii). In another of his books, The Hispanic Condition, he says that “Latinos get lost somewhere in the entanglement between reality and the dreams,” which is precisely how religious kitsch functions for these peoples (Stevens 181). They mix a physical reality with dreamed notions and beliefs embodied by the collected religious kitsch. Stevens speaks of a fellow writer, Richard Rodríguez, author of Hunger of Memory, who tells how time (a family clock) and religion (kitsch items) are “connected artifacts in [the Mexican-American] hyphenated soul” (120). Rodríguez said that in public and private, “there were holy pictures on a wall of nearly every room, and a crucifix hung over [his] bed... and over the clock” (Rodríguez 120). Stevens related Rodríguez’s memory to illustrate that “el sueño [y] el tiempo…[represent] religion and earthly life[,]” a way to release emotion through the connection between things temporal and surreal (120); kitsch is the mode to make those connections, just as in Rodríguez’s home example.

Another expert, Celeste Olalqiaga explains that there are distinct degrees of “kitschness” (42). Each level involves various emotional levels and connections that play a role in Latino self-definition and sometimes an invented personal history. First-degree kitsch is sacred to its owners and only belongs in sacred places, not among street venders, even though that is where it is often found after time passes with each generation. For first-degree kitsch, the “images…embody the spirits they represent, making them palpable” or practically tangible (42). These physical religious symbols, statues, posters, and pictures create the opportunity to reach an “unattainable experience…of immediate feeling” and connection with oneself and the spiritual subject (43). But only those who are orthodox believers in whatever religion represented in first-degree kitsch can experience this intensity of feeling and attachment to simple pieces that comprise an altar for example; otherwise, it is mere fascination. To these believers, first-degree kitsch isn’t “junk,” one of the defining descriptions of kitsch. These pieces are only scrappy “kitsch” to those people distanced from each religious piece. The attached emotion is the crucial component that determines the degree of reality drawn from the inanimate object. To the first generation owner, the emotional security and affiliation outweighs the “junk” label, making it a moving mainstay in personal collections.

For the second generation however, those connections weaken to a more disillusioned state. Its representation “becomes the real,” instead of the object itself (Olalqiaga 45). Similarly in research for example, a tertiary source shares this characteristic. For instance, to the student reader who lacks background knowledge, history narratives in their textbooks are indisputably true; writers’ biases or other influences are often unconsidered. This is how religious kitsch frames the minds of second generation holders as well. The image lacks the “feeling” and is merely a “sign” that represents a so called truth, rather than an object with emotional value (45). This is precisely how Rocío and her sister view the Jesus picture in The Last of the Menu Girls. It is a toy to be admired, while for their mother the keeper, there is an implied importance. Otherwise she would not keep it among her most prized possessions.

The farthest from first-degree kitsch comes when the kitsch spreads from its religious centers. Olalqiaga uses Catholic iconography to illustrate how religious items have breached the “confines” of sacred places like “church souvenir stands, cemeteries, and botanicas” to the fads and trends of the markets in Manhattan—her area of study (36). Unfortunately, in the U.S. some of these images are discredited in night clubs of cities as they are used for decorations (37). Even closer to home, a fellow student said that her ex-boyfriend and his roommates have an altar with Latino Catholic memorabilia, simply because they find it amusing that such cheap “stuff” is for sale (Bright INTERVIEW). Olalquiaga describes this phenomenon by saying that “suddenly, holiness is all over the place” in the forms of Virgin water fountains and images of favorite holy saints (37-8). But to those Latinos who connect spiritually and emotionally with these religious artifacts, cheap as they can come, the respect shown towards them does not parallel their monetary value or abundant supply.

Outside of the orthodox religious posters, statues, and bracelets, many Latinos seem to attach spiritual meanings to originally secular items, redefining them to be religious in order to self-identify with something personable. In The Riddle of Cantinflas for instance, the first chapter is about Santa Selena. Little did I know at first glance that the title Santa Selena refers to the deceased pop star who apparently personifies “collective suffering” because of her tragic murder (Stevens 4). An old man told Stevens that she spent her time “helping the poor and unattended” (3). In the collective memory of those Latinos, she cared about Mexican Americans when no one else did (9). In San Antonio, a mother of four actually prays to Selena, to her image that is just below the Virgin Mary on her personal altar (3). How is Selena religious? She originally wasn’t, but because that mother feels a connection to her; the importance is in the personal connection—the personal religion (Olalqiaga 48). One lady, Audrey Flack ascribes to this personal nature so acutely that she “explores her own feelings through images of the Virgin Mary” (49); she connects to images that embody motherhood.

In Caramelo, the rebozo is so heavily highlighted that it dons some spiritual element, even though it is separate from orthodox religion and more applied to social mysticism.

Hamlet and Laertes: Human Gods

21 January 2010Human Gods: Hamlet and Laertes Sarah Johnson

To know or to think one knows something leads to the most famous line in Hamlet, “to be or not to be; that is the question” (3.1: 59). That ontology, to exist or not to exist, cannot be judged by that questioning soliloquy alone, rather by an action-packed illustration of Hamlet and Laertes playing the heroes as self-defined defenders of the Danish court. They are not Godly humans, but instead are human Gods, or so they create themselves; but alas!—their human defects out-poison them as revengeful murder could never rectify self-same murder and deceit. Understanding ontology’s influence in act five, scene 2 of Hamlet, reveals who Hamlet and Laertes decide to be as characters, making the climax deeper than some mere explosive scene from modern entertainment.

When King Claudius dies, Laertes plays the Omniscient Judge who says, “serves him right,” declaring that catalyzing King Claudius brewed his own poison or death (5.2: 269-70). In the Christian world, God is the Judge of mankind, but Laertes, thinks himself more than human; he has the “godly” right to condone that murder by Hamlet’s hand, saying that particular murder is acceptable, whereas his father Polonius’ death was Hamlet’s mortal sin. At least related to Claudius’ death, Hamlet of course, agrees that mortally punishing his uncle repays the death of his father, for in God-like fury, he daggered his uncle with “righteous” indignation just moments before, making himself the Omnipotent god who takes whatever measure to undo others’ wrongs(5.2:264-265).

Laertes and Hamlet even “exchange forgiveness” not only with each other, but also claim that by so doing, they both shall be absolved from sin (5.2:271). In a god-like manner, Hamlet says to Laertes, “heaven make thee free of it (a murderous sin), “ as though his words granted authority to such declarations (5.2:274). Even further, for those who are “unsatisfied” (5.2:282), Hamlet leaves his authoritative record to Horatio, charging him to tell the “harsh world” his story, an interesting parallel to God’s story, the Bible (5.2:290-91). Even outside of Christendom, Hercules the Greek god, not a true god for a Shakespearean audience, supposedly dies from a poisoned arrow, just as Hamlet and Laertes die by the poisoned sword; they, as false gods reap their rewards.

And this is who they choose to be, men who are more than man, but mighty creators of so-called righteousness, by making right the unjust situation they see. Shakespeare shows this chasm and their faults by showing that these two men, Laertes and Hamlet, both fight for what they know and who they are, yet in the end neither self-made “god” can rectify injustice through more sin; their arrogant humanity fails to understand a Godly comprehension of rising above human nature; after all, revenge is God’s. Though Hamlet knows that King Claudius is condemnable, he cannot be the God who can deal just punishment, just as Laertes cannot alter his father and sister’s deaths by killing Hamlet. Their knowledge make them become vindicators, leading to each’s ruin. This identity can be unlayered in more symbolism if one analyzes the cup of liquor that Horatio offers Hamlet. Proving him a false god by Christian standards,he accepts the cup, instead of refusing it like Christ refused the vinegar at the cross, a godly omnipotence; in the end Hamlet is human. He is a false god.

Moving past that glimpse in act five, readers understand that “to be” is an action, making Hamlet’s earlier “To be or not to be” speech a living testament to real issues facing Shakespeare’s audience in the Epistemological crisis. Should men really “take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing them, end them” (3.1: 61-62)? Is that possible? As he puts it, The “flesh,” is subject to death and failure, and he illustrates that men cannot pretend to be above such realities when every character, who each tampered with deceit on some level, dies, excepting Horatio who lives to tell the audience of tragic Hamlet (65-66). They cannot make themselves gods, even for their knowledge and beliefs. Rather than question what “to be or not to be,” men should ask how “to be” in their “sea of troubles.” If approached with the ontologist lense, everything in Shakespeare’s Hamlet agrees with his last line saying that bravery and boldness aside, “here shows much amiss” (5.2: 345).

Color Poems

Please choose a color... write a poem...

Directions are: ...

Reading Response to Anne Frank

Answer one of the following:

How did Anne display courage through her struggles in her diary?

What is your favorite example of Anne's personality and why?

Who was the most important person in Anne's life, and why do you think so?

Biographies!

Students! This time we are going to write biographies of our favorite authors! Directions... Please post your biographies as comments to this post!

Character Time!

Students: For this assignment, please write a three paragraph description on who your character is going to be for this semester. It should be a character that you have encountered in some book or short story. For example, someone could be Ron Weasley from Harry Potter, Hank from Hank the Cowdog, or Romeo from Romeo and Juliet. Please post these assignments as comments under this post. Feel free to comment on each others characters, maintaining respect of course for each student's writing.