Read the paragraph from a student’s literary essay comparing two different works. (1) Sandra Cisneros’s “Mericans” is about a yo
ung American girl of Mexican descent who is struggling to find her own cultural identity. (2) Cisneros illustrates this through a number of images and ideas. (3) For example, the speaker, Micaela, calls her grandmother “awful,” and seems to resent the woman’s strict views and religious ideals. (4) The speaker also mentions how she and her brother emulate characters from popular American television programs when they play make-believe. (5) Lastly, she describes physically standing outside her family’s church, an act that symbolizes the fact that she feels like an outsider to Mexican culture. (6) Although Micaela is of Mexican descent, she seems to feel a stronger connection to the United States. This paragraph supports the idea that Micaela
Micaela has an internal conflict because of her identity.
Explanation:
Mericans is a short story published in 1991 by Sandra Cisneros, who is a "poet, short story writer, novelist and performer" (according to her own website) and was born in Chicago. The identity conflict comes when Micaela faces the two sides of her own self: what she lives in hew daily context (the television programs and how she acts) and how she behaves; on the other hand, there's the presence of religion as something strong, belonging to her Mexican identity. Identity in general is perhaps the most important topic in Cisnero's work, as we can see in <em>The house on Mango Street</em>, among others.
<span>identifies with her Mexican heritage in a different way than her grandmother.
This paragraph supports the idea that Micaela is struggling with cultural identity. While Micaela's heritage is Mexican, she lives in the United States. She wants to live as she feels American's live by copying what she sees on television and resisting her grandmother's traditional ways.</span>
