Cisneros #2

The first impressions of this book are definetly not what I think about now in relations to this novel. By reading my first blog entry on Cisneros and reminiscing back to what I thought this book was going to be like, I never imagined how blunt certain issues would be adressed. We didnt talk about it much in class, but I cannot believe how the woman in the story gets such sick pleasure from ruining people's lives. I still can't get over this fact, and I'm going to attribute it to my psych major. It's hard to say if the omwna in the story is the same person throughout the entire novel, but if the girl who was raped is the same woman who was hidding little gummy bears in her lover's house to be found by his wife, I would be able to comprehend her character a lot more. Women, and especially chicanas, sometimes feel a loss of control in their lives that can be due to many aspects of the immigrant experience. This includes the language barriers, dignity losses, the fact that all aspects of their lives are brand new, oppression...and the list goes on. It is so hard for these women to make their lives in America when they themselves look down on ther own races. It is so hard to have pride in something that is so often bashed by society and looked down upon.
I know this is somewhat digressing, but I was watching "Bend it like Beckham" this weekend, and the same issues of double standards arose that I'm finding in this book. Why can men be upset about the situations they fnd themselves in (such as not having enough money to support their famalies, not being able to change their situation), but women cannot? Why do women have to turn to men to find the happiness they deserve in life. I am so proud of the woman who hollers as she passes over the creek in that tale about the wife escaping her husband. chicanas need to see that it is alright for a woman to be independent, and that she can make it out there in the real world wihtout a man.
Many times in these stories, the woman has to feel ashamed for being sexual but the man doesnt (why should the woman have to move away when she is pregnant but he man can stay wherever he pleases and continue on with his life sans-baby?)
It is just sad to me that these issues have to be written about in a book for us to be aware of what they are. They should not be a problem, period.
And along that note, north american women are no better than those in this book. We too wait anxiously to find the right man that will suddenly make our lives complete. We too rely on sitcoms to dictate what our relationships should resemble. I am not going to stant here (or rather write here) about how different these women are from us, because they are not. They may be faced with some hardships that we take for granted, but overall: they are just women. Women who live life just like us and should get our empathy from the heart.