Journal Entry-February 27, 2008

Aim: Students will analyze and understand the complexity of Puerto Rican identity through protest poetry.
Do Now: Do you consider yourself as having mixture of roots? Why or why not?
Response: I do consider myself as having a mixture of roots because I cannot say that I am from one definte place. For example, my parents from Mexico but I was not born there, I was born in the but neither can I say that I am Mexican.
Classwork:
1. What geographical regions can be identified in this poem?
Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, Afirca, Europe, California New York; Manhattan, Bronx.
2.Describe the message within the following verses:
-“History made me”-This qoute can be interpreted as if the author is trying to tell the reader how her ancestry goes back into history to different nationalities. As time passed by, her family's nationality changes until it reaches her, where she finds herself as a product of history/
-“I was born at the crossroads.”-The speaker said that she was born at the crossroads meaning that she choses what she wants to be.
3.Define Caribeña and Taíno.
Caribena [Spanish]- a girl or woman of the Caribbean islands.
Taino- A member of an Arawak people of the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas who became extinct under Spanish colonization during the 16th century.
4.How would you characterize the speaker’s racial and ethnic background?
Hispanic, Puerto Rican Jew.
“Ending Poem” introduces some of the issues that characterize the Puerto Rican identity such as:
a) Puerto Ricans consider themselves a cultural group
b) They struggle to find a place (in terms of social class) within the dominant culture in the United States.
c) Puerto Rican literature in the U.S. reveals a mixture of North American and Puerto Rican cultures, all of which at times comes to a clash.
d) Some struggle to preserve aspects of the Puerto Rican culture while trying to accept their new roles in the United States at the same time