Villanueva Reading

Villanueva Reading

Questions for Discussion and Journaling:

3. Starting this piece off with a memory instead of a synthesis or thesis is definitely a very nice change up from all the other pieces I am used to in this class. It is boring to read the same type of set up every single time I begin to read. So it is something to keep me interested. Also it is something that directly pulls me into the reading. It is a direct connection and story with the author. It gives me a peek into what he wants me to take away from this reading and what I am going to take away from this piece. It gives the writing a voice and a tone, something that normal original piece’s might not have, or it might not be as strong. It gives the text more dynamic and a more comfortable feeling in my opinion. It shows dreams and hopes.

4. The different poems and passages contribute to Villanueva’s point because they bring really a ton of emotion to the reading. You see so many things, hopes, dreams, fears, wishes, mishaps, so many things going on. It brings life and a sense of what these people were going through. It brings pride and ignorance. It brings a sense of who Villanueva is to someone who has never read about him before. It brings a sense of the Puerto Rican, African American, Native American; all different back grounds. It brings racism to the table and problems with our and others society’s. It shows us history and struggle to rise. It brings all these different poems and passages together to form one discourse. To show us that no matter where we come from or what we have been through, it is still very important for that to be known. Are past are supposed to be held pride and be told for others to know. We must share who we are and where we came from.

8. Although I said a big chunk of this in the question before, people who doesn’t identify as people of color could still take so much out of this reading. There is so much more meaning in this writing then simply a look at Puerto Rican Race or African American race. It is about the struggles that everyone went through and the overcoming of those struggles. It is about pulling your history through life with you and being proud of it. We need to think about living our lives as an autobiography, we carry our history and our past with us everywhere we go and with every person we meet. You carry your own personal discourse with you and who you are. It is an obligation for the world to see your discourse and to share it with them. We must know ourselves and be able to look back and look forward. We need to show people that you have to bring all of this to the table.

Applying and Exploring:

2. Intertextuality plays a huge role in this piece. It shows us that all of these various backgrounds have their own discourse of course. Inside of these discourses we have intertextuality. Every single discourse has their own intertextuality. Each discourse has its own background and language where they started from and where they came from. This shows us that intertextuality is everywhere, it is all around us and it is in everything that we are as individuals. Like the “memoria”, it shows us how that community has a different type of language that they use for their discourse. It shows us they have different values and understanding of the world than any other discourse has. Every single thing you do is affected by your memories. Your memories are your experiences, and your experiences affect how you react to everything that is new. Everything that I have been through and all of my memories affect not only how I act but how I write. So my memories to appear and affect my writing.