LITR 5731: Seminar in American Minority Literature
University of Houston-Clear Lake, fall 2004
Poetry Presentation Summary

Susan Cummings  

Discussion for “For Virginia Chavez” by Lorna Dee Cervantes

My questions revolve the following course objectives.

Objective 4

To register the minority dilemma of assimilation or resistance—i. e., do you fight or join the culture that oppressed you? What balance do minorities strike between economic benefits and personal or cultural sacrifices?

 4a. To identify the "new American" who crosses, combines, or confuses ethnic or gender identities (e. g., Tiger Woods, Halle Berry, Lenny Kravitz, Mariah Carey, K. D. Lang, Dennis Rodman, RuPaul, David Bowie)

Objective 5

To study the influence of minority writers and speakers on literature, literacy, and language.

5c. To regard literacy as the primary code of modern existence and a key or path to empowerment.

What are the walls, the barriers between men and women in Cervantes’ poem. How did these two women not meet the expectations of their culture and their men?

Was education a path to isolation or assimilation for the poem’s speaker?