Racial Stereotyping in “The Myth of the Latina Woman”
The ways in which our society stereotypes women racially are developed throughout the essay “The Myth of the Latina Woman” with the presentation of Judith Ortiz Cofer’s personal experiences and encounters from her life in America. She explains that since she was a child, she was raised under “strict surveillance” and instruction by parents and her schools on the ways of being a “proper señorita.” During her years at school, even her clothing would segregate her away from the rest. Brightly colored clothing and bare skin seemed vulgar to the unacquainted society in which she grew up (453). The media portrayed Latina women as “hot tamales” and “spicy” which automatically created a typecast that they were seen as sex objects and “sexual firebrand[s]” (454). Cofer recalled conversations from her home about harassments that Puerto Rican women endured while working in factories where bosses forced sexual innuendo and threatened dismissal if they did not capitulate (454). Sexual passes are not unfamiliar to the author. She describes her first formal dance at which a boy tried to kiss her and upon repudiation remarked, “I thought you
The author’s essay culminates with her recollection of an embarrassing serenade by a respectable-looking man who burst into a blaring rendition of “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina.” Gravely humiliated, the author emphasizes that the offensive singer would not have likely serenaded a white woman with a “dirty song” in public. “He would perhaps have checked his impulse by assuming that she could be somebody’s wife or mother, or at least somebody who might take offense. But to him, I was just an Evita or a María: merely a character in his cartoon-populated universe” (455). Latina girls where supposed to mature early.” This was, as she described, her first instance of being thought of as produce which was to ripen; rather than a female which was to mature into womanhood (454). The myth that unskilled women with marginal English make ideal factory workers, domestics and waitresses has been sustained by the same “phenomenon” that made “Mammy” (from Gone with the Wind) America’s idea of the black woman for generations (455). Cofer emphasizes her point using another of her life experiences in which she was mistaken for a waitress momen
Some topics in this essay:
Caucasian Americans,
Puerto Rican,
Ortiz Cofer’s,
Wind America’s,
Latin American,
Argentina” Gravely,
Evita María,
Cofer Considering,
,
latina women,
Latina Woman”,
set realities”,
personal experiences,
judith ortiz,
throughout essay,
454 cofer,
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Approximate Word count = 789
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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