Reader: Claudine Favorita

1. She is an award-winning author of poetry, essays, and children’s books.
   1994. National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship in poetry

1. Kellogg National Fellowship-allowed her to study the importance of preserving language and traditions.

1. Native of El Paso, TX, a border city that her grandparents migrated to during The Mexican Revolution.
2. Her style is to write in English, but includes Spanish words, phrases, or sentences in most of her work.
3. Her writing examines the pros/cons of the experience of acculturation.

Obj. 5A: To discover the power of poetry and fiction to help others hear the minority voice and vicariously share the minority experience.

Obj. 5E: To emphasize how all speakers and writers may use common devices of human language to make poetry. Mood/Tone

Obj. 6: To observe images of the individual, the family, and alternative families in the writings and experience of minority groups.

How does this benefit by being poetry and not prose?

The mood/tone is expressed in just a few lines-we feel her deep sense

Of conflict and isolation and are able to empathize with her. We understand her story w/out having to hear a long account/life story.

The poem expresses feelings of inadequacy and displacement. She is reflecting on her "job" as a mother-she no longer has young children. Her role as a mother is changing, because of this and living in the United States. She is stuck in the middle. She wants to fit in to American culture, but is holding on to her old culture in Mexico.

Pronouns she uses are mostly I, me, my- focus is placed on her. This poem is about her. It reinforces the isolation she feels.

They represent the children (the Americanized ones) and the Americans.

The American culture is slowly creeping in to her home. This is seen at the kitchen table where her family comes together. She is at the stove. We feel her isolation.

She bought a book to learn English. Her children could have helped. She feels different then them. She doesn’t realize that interaction is needed for her learning to take place. She is embarrassed, by her mouth. It won’t cooperate to say the English words correctly.

The husband wants her to stay in the traditional role of Mexican mother/wife. She should stay home and raise children. She knows this role is changing. She is desperate to figure out how she fits in.

The Spanish phrases are included to make English reader feel some of what she feels. Also, it forces the reader to interact with the language and the people of the language, to understand what is written.

Acculturation definition from this site:

http://encarta.msn.com/

I typed the word in the search bar and used the first link found. It was mentioned on one of the websites I read with information on the author. I was unfamiliar with the word so I looked it up and found it to be applicable to the presentation.

**Feelings

**Children assimilate to dominant culture

**Have to learn language to exist in everyday life

**Father upset-Spanish culture men don’t want their wives to be smarter then they are.

**Learning English opens up a whole new world. Doesn’t want to be left alone when children leave and she is stuck in an unknown world.

Husband is hiding behind the alcohol.

**Douglas narrative-gains power thru reading. She is powerless because she doesn’t know the language.

**Isolation

**Sadness, alienation from the outside world and her own family. Laughed at by her children.

**Tone/Mood isolation and loneliness.

**Guilt. Speaks more English than her husband. He drinks more beer. Worried she won’t be able to communicate with children.

**Voice-she can’t speak the language so she is voiceless.

**Style—almost like music. Pure emotion. Prose would not convey the same emotions as poetry for this.