La Guera, Cherrie Moraga

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Playlist based on short story, “Kimberle” by Achy Obejas

Quotes from story that relate to this song:

Quote 1: “I left my VW Golf at home and took a cab to pick her up from some squalid blues bar, where hers was the only pale face in the place.” (14)

Quote 2: “…so that it wasn’t long before she found herself at the unemployment office (where her insistence on stepping out to smoke cost her her place in line so many times she finally gave up).” (16)

• This song is about a girl who has spent her youthful years just partying and having a “good” time, but in reality she suffers from her low self-esteem and in order to cope with it, she turns to drugs. I feel like this is related to Kimberle because of how in the very beginning of the story, the narrator says she was going to pick her up in a club (quote 1). In the story, it is also evident that Kimberle has gone through many hardships, like when she was fired and evicted from her home right after (16). She also appears to have an addiction to nicotine (smoking cigarettes) (quote 2).

“Falling” – Harry Styles 

Quote: “Her girlfriend had caught her in flagrante delicto and walked out; depression had swallowed her in the aftermath.” (16)

• “Falling” is all about the emotions you feel once you lose a lover by your own doing (you’re not yourself and often feel lost and helpless), so it tied in very well with the story since once Kimberle had lost her girlfriend, it resulted in a deep depression. In this song it states, “And there’s no one to blame but the drink and my wandering hands”, which I feel goes hand in hand with this quote of the story where it says how Kimberle’s past girlfriend left her after catching her in “flagrante delicto”, which basically means, “being caught red handed”. 

“No body, No crime” – Taylor Swift

Quote: “It seemed that about this time every year, there would be a disappearance—someone would fail to show up at her dorm or study hall.” (15)

• Throughout the story, there was mention of a murderer being on the loose. Every so often, a girl that was “average looking” would go missing and months later would be found dead in a corn field by an unsuspecting farmer. I feel like this song was related to this in the sense that it talks about murder and how even though people were suspicious of who had done it, there wasn’t any proof. In the story they lacked leads and years had gone by without having found this murderer.  

“Déjate Llevar” – The Marias

Quote 1: “Trembling there in the dark, I realized I wanted to kiss Kimberle—not for anyone else’s pleasure but for my own.” (25)

Quote 2: “I steered out of town, past the strip malls, the corn fields, and the interstate where, years before, Kimberle had made me feel so fucking alive.” (24) 

Quote 3: “’Ready . . . ? For what?’” I asked, my fingers clutching the shoulder belt. ‘This’, she whispered. Then she turned off the headlights. Before I had a chance to adjust to the tracers, she gunned the car, hurling it down the black tunnel…” (21)

• This song is about “letting yourself go”, it states something along the lines of, “even if you say you don’t want anything to do with me, if one day you feel anything towards me, just let yourself feel those things”.  I think this song can both relate to the narrator’s newfound feelings for Kimberle (quote 1) and also Kimberle’s ability to allow her to just let herself go. An example of this is when they were younger and Kimberle almost gets them in a car accident (quotes 2 and 3). Even though the narrator had felt terrified when it occurred, she noted that it had made her feel “so fucking alive” (21), igniting something in her that she had never felt before. 

“Me” – The 1975

Quote: “I suppose I should have been worried about Kimberle’s whereabouts when she wasn’t home, given the threat of suicide she’d so boldly announced.” (3)

• “Me” centers around difficult past experiences and coming to terms with them. In this song the artist is confronting his past self and his previous actions. There’s a line in the song that goes, “I nearly killed somebody, don’t you mind?”. This relates to the quote from the story that I’ve provided where the narrator notes on Kimberle being suicidal. The song quote is saying how they “nearly killed somebody”, the “somebody” meaning themselves, and in the story Kimberle also possesses suicidal tendencies due to her grave depression.

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Alternative ending for “Porcupine Love” by Tatiana de la Tierra

The next day I call my boss and as soon as he picks up the only words that slip out of my mouth are: “I quit”. There’s no going back now. I take the first flight available to New Zealand, I’ll figure out the rest of the details later, right now, I just want to see Antennita again and I’ll stop at nothing to do so. I’m tired of doubting myself, my chances, and most importantly my love for her, because I love her, I do, and I’ll stop at nothing to prove that fact, to not only her but to myself as well. Proof that I am capable of love without ruining it afterwards. No more Porcupine love, I refuse to let it define me. 

The flight was long and in all honesty, I had never felt more exhausted in my entire life, but the adrenaline rush I got from just the thought of seeing Antenna again made all that exhaustion reverse itself into an odd sense of determination and strength. I had informed Antenna about my impromptu decision just a few minutes before the airplane took off. I’ll be there, was her reply to my email asking her to pick me up at the airport. There’s no turning back now, I kept repeating to myself over and over again. As I stepped out into the airport, I had to walk a few feet before I saw her, but when I did, I felt something in me that I had never felt before. It was if my body was floating and my heart was beating at a hundred miles an hour. There she was in all her glory, my little Antenita. As we collided into each other’s arms, she pulled back a bit and I suddenly felt her lips crush into mine. As we pulled apart, I looked at her feeling like I was on top of the world, “this is too good be true”. She smiled softly, “that’s because it is”. I looked at her, confusion plastered all over my face and right as I was about to respond, I jolted awake.

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Movie clip that relates to “Mexican Heaven” by José Olivarez

“Mexican Heaven”

“All the Mexican women refuse to cook or clean or raise the kids or pay bills or make the bed or drive your bum ass to work or do anything except watch their novelas, so heaven is gross. The rats are fat as rooster & the men die of starvation” (22)

• In this clip, we see Miles Morales’ as he begins his morning before he heads to school. However, the most important part about this clip is Miles Morales’ mother, Rio Morales, who based on her uniform appears to be a nurse. All throughout the clip, you can see them rushing about to get ready; his parents for work and Miles for school. Rio is yelling at him in spanish to hurry up. She’s a modern day working mom, and we can also assume from the clip that the food Miles takes a bite of could’ve been cooked by her (since she was in the kitchen). I feel like this clip is related to this poem because it’s referencing how many hispanic women are meant to bear the burden of having to do everything around their households and then also on top of that, raise their children, and pay bills. The poem describes how, “the rats are fat as rooster & the men die of starvation”. This suggests that if these women were to suddenly get up and walk out,  then their family’s lives will definitely turn upside down since everyone is so dependent on them. Therefore, hispanic women deserve a lot more recognition and acknowledgement than they do.

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A newspaper article online that relates to “Pandora’s Box” by Arturo Arias

Link to the article: https://www.vice.com/en/article/43e899/male-to-female-transition-guide

This article points out the many challenges that come with transitioning and gives trans women tips on their journey to do so. In “Pandora’s Box” by Arturo Arias, Juan wakes up one day as a woman and isn’t really sure of what to do with their newfound body, they’re confused and unsure of their reality. It takes Juan, who is now Juanita, a while to get her thoughts in order and figure out what to do next. One of the very first things she does is go to a shopping mall and buy new clothes that are more feminine. As she adjusted to the new changes, she realizes that being a woman isn’t all that easy and that they must endure various struggles throughout their daily lives as well as the initial confusion in regards to her new body and learning to adjust to it. In the story it states, “I simply looked around, as if embarrassed that someone would recognize me, but I saw nobody, not even a stranger, and I decided immediately to head home, to run like crazy for home, feeling the strangeness of running with bouncing weights on my chest and my behind, yet also feeling somehow lighter” (31). There’s an obvious discomfort in her newly acquired body, yet she still feels a sort of relief as well. In the article it explains, “Transition made it easier for me to love myself because I wasn’t so distracted by the weird situation of living as the wrong gender, but I needed to do a lot of work to accept myself for exactly who I am”. Transitioning may relieve that discomfort of feeling like you aren’t in the right body, but there are also other challenges that come along with it, such as what the article revealed to be, “gender dysmorphia”, or distress in trans people whose sex assigned at birth differs from their gender identity.

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Comparing photographs of Dulce Pinzón and Graciela Iturbide

• This photograph depicts a woman standing in her kitchen with an infant seated in a baby seat with a surprised expression plastered on their small face. The woman, who in this case appears to be the baby’s mother, is holding a cupcake and leaning towards the child. The title of the photograph, “Housewife”, indicates that she’s a full-time mom and spends her days performing house duties. I think that this photograph kind of romanticizes the idea of the housewife. A lot of women in today’s day and age have adapted more modernized ideals and transitioned to working moms, who do house chores, along with raising their children and also working. They work incredibly hard and oftentimes this work is overlooked and definitely not appreciated enough. Also, many women around the world now have the opportunity (and feel more open to) starting careers rather than marrying young and bearing children. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a housewife but it is important for women to realize that this isn’t their only choice in life, they can pursue whatever their hearts desire without needing to feel “stuck” only doing one thing throughout the entirety of their lives.

• “Doña Guadalupe” shows a woman sporting a knee length sheer dress sitting down, while being blindfolded. To her right, is a toddler looking up at her and to her left a dog about to pass by. Unlike the first photograph by Dulce Pinzón, she isn’t a readily domestic setting. I think that the sheerness of her dress could be a representation of women’s or mothers vulnerability to the world. Women are often put down and judged without any remorse. They know there’s the chance of being terribly hurt, either by their own children, the world, or just anything life is cruel enough to throw at them. But even so, they still push through and accept the inevitable harm. The blindfold could mean how women pretend to not “see” these things that have the capability of hurting them. The child gazing up at her could also be representative of their dependence on their mother and admiration for her hard work. I’m not sure if the woman depicted in this photograph is a housewife or working mom, so either one would severely change the meaning behind the photograph itself. 

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What I learned in this course

This is a conversation I had with a close friend of mine regarding Bad Bunny and Princess Nokia and their intentions through their music, which I thought were both, super enlightening and fascinating. I really enjoyed learning about them through this class.