The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria by Judith Ortiz Cofer: An Analysis

Main Argument Made By author and what do I Believe about this

I think that the main argument presented by the author in this is the principal notion about life revealed in this essay is that in Western societies the Latin Women are viewed stereotypically as a sex object or selfless housewives and obsequious workers. Otherwise, some people believe and perpetuate stereotypes about particular ethnic groups while in reality those myths can be related to few members of that ethnic group. In this essay the author Judith Ortiz Cofer discusses how she has been treated by different people in different countries due to their conception of her as a Latin woman. The author refers to the several incidents where she has been viewed stereotypically as a person who is capable of doing only a very simple job or being an object that satisfies a man's lust. She says that from her childhood, because she was a female, she was kept under strict surveillance by her parents and was schooled how to behave as a proper senorita. Because of her background she had to be dressed up as a Puerto Rican girl. As she says it was obvious that for the others this kind of dressing seemed vulgar.

An Analysis

It is clearly that from her childhood the author has been surrounded by the circumstances in which a female human being must fit into demands of her society. The author's culture and traditions were not the same with the American culture, and as a result, the girl was grown up on the verge of two different customs. As the author says, the way of dressing of the Latin women gives American men a wrong massage ...