Myths About Maria Judith Ortiz Cofer's "The Term Paper

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Myths About Maria

Judith Ortiz Cofer's "The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria reveals how an educated Puerto Rican woman has to endure stereotypical labels from a variety of different people - mainly influenced by WASP culture. The three stereotypes that she has to withstand include: fashion, sexuality, and the notion that Latin women are thought to be little more than "domestics." Cofer explains how each of these myths unsettled her thinking, and at times, how her identity went through a bit of a crisis because she was raised in a Puerto Rican/Spanish-speaking, Catholic home, yet she had to tolerate slights from a largely white populace in Jersey who didn't recognize her cultural forms of expression, nor her sense of pride. Although each of these stereotypes myths represents a myth that Cofer has to debunk, perhaps the first noticeable one, fashion, occurred when she was still in high school.

Essentially, Cofer recognizes how her loud and ostentatious attire at a career day celebration led many of the pedagogues to treat her and her Latin contemporaries like second-class citizens. Cofer recalls how many of the Latin student contingent were greeted with scowls and turned-up noses from non-Latin nuns and teachers.

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She writes,

But it was painfully obvious to me that to the others, in their tailored skirts and silk blouses, we must have seemed 'hopeless' and 'vulgar'" (Cofer 226). Despite her ornate jewelry and tightly worn form-fitting clothes, teachers and administrators never informed her about proper business-wear. Despite the uninviting looks and stares that she received in regards to her attire, the myth of about a Latin women's sexuality was more insulting, and perhaps more dangerous.

She alludes to conversations in her home about Latin women who had to cope with sexual advances from non-Latin colleagues and bosses in factories where they worked because the common myth at the time was that Latin women were supposed to be very hot-blooded and "sexual." In effect, non-Latin men thought that Latin girls were supposed to be more readily willing to exchange sexual favors because they were believed that their curvy shapes at a perceived young age was an invitation for a "good time." She writes of how she responded negatively to a mainstream boy's come-ons negatively and his reply, "I thought you Latin girls were supposed to mature….....

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