Narrative Essay # 1

Narrative Essay

 

   One morning, I was with my mother in home and she decided to talk to me about a very serious issue that could make me sad. I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was 12 years old, I was just a girl. My mother and I sat on her bed and she said:

-"We need to talk about one decision I made. It is for the best of the three of us. I want more opportunities for our life”-

 I was quiet and I kept hearing everything she had to say to me.

-"I'm quitting my job and I'm going to leave the country"-

I was amazed because my mom had worked over 10 years in my uncle's company. I thought she had prosperity in her work and she earned enough money to support my sister and me, but for my surprise it was not true.

She kept talking to me in a loving mood because she realized that I felt like she was hurting my feelings, I didn't understand in what point she was getting at. She continued:

-"I requested the VISA to go to United States and got it"-

I interrupted her:

-"Are we going to the USA?"-

She looked at my eyes, full of sadness and hope, that kind of hope that she would say, YES!, we are moving, but I knew deeply in my heart that she would say no.

-"Not my beautiful Jai"- she said. Usually, she has always called me Jai.

-"You're leaving us!!!" - I replied crying like a brokenhearted.

She hugged me and stroked my hair trying to comfort me saying that everything was going to be fine.

-"What is going to happened with my sister and me? With whom will we live now? How long are you going to be out"-. I desperately asked her.
I didn't know what it was going to happen to me now that she was going to leave me in searching of new jobs opportunities in a foreign country.

-"My love"- she said crying too, -"everything will be fine. You are moving with your grandparents while I find something stable and I can bring you girls with me"-. She answered me giving me hope that very soon we will see each other again.

   When I was 5 years old, my parents got divorced and my mother made the decision to live with their parents, my grandparents. We lived with them for several years and never felt in home living with my grandfather because he was a very angry person and he liked to discuss with everyone for stupid things. After a few years, my mother found an apartment to live just the three of us and finally no one could bother us. When my mom told me that my sister and I had to move again with my grandparents, I wasn't excited at all.  

- "we have to live with my grandfather again!!!!?"- I said.

She looks at me with that face that was the only option we had, but it was going to be temporary, she hugged me again to comfort me for the bad news. In fact, my whole family knew about the news, my sister and I were the last people to know that our mother was leaving the country to find a new job in  a foreign land. I can not imagine how she felt when she told us. It really hurts her.

   In February 2nd, 2001, that was the day my mom left Colombia. It was one of the saddest days of my life. I cried a lot, I didn't want to be with my family, I wanted to go with my mother, be with her always. When I gave her a last hug, I didn't want to let her go I begged her to come back soon for my sister and me. She was crying and when she was ready to enter to the gates, she didn't look back because she didn't want to see us suffer from his departure. I got depression for the first few weeks, she called me every day to know how my sister and I were going. I missed her a lot. It was 2 years of not being able to see her. to not feel someone tuck me  before going to bed, to not talk with someone about my days in school, to not listen the advice of my mother face to face. But my hope had never gone, I had faith that she would come back for us. It was two years where I learned to appreciate my mother, to admire and respect her, because few mothers leave their children to seek a better future for them. She is my greatest pride, is my role model. After two years of absence from my mother, she returned. She returned for us!
-"I will back for you, my two beautiful daughters, I will bring you to live with me in this country, USA, where I will find great opportunities for your future" -. She told one of the many days we talk by phone. She came true her promise. Now I have been living for 9 years with my mother and my  sister in the USA. With a sacrifice of two years, a reward was given to us. We are  together and happy. We found many opportunities in this country because unfortunately  there are none in Colombia. Today I'm studying for become a professional and make my  dreams come true.

Partner's Name: Andrey K.

See	Mae Mobley see Aibileen how to use bathroom A little colored boy watches Steeker in the colored neighborhood. Mae Mobley saw a dog
Hear	Aibileen hear when the baby cried.
Smell	Miss Hilly smell like "tee-tee" A big magnolia tree at the yard. Mae Mobley smell bad because her mother never change her diapers.
Taste	Hamburger Cookies
Feel	50 degrees (cool)

HOMEWORK-OUTLINE

OUTLINE TEMPLATE:

I.               Orientation

a.   My mother looking for new opportunities of life in an other country .

b.     My mother, sister and I moved to Puerto Rico because she got a new job.

II.             Complication

a.   Culture, food, people, neighborhood and weather totally different than our country.

b.     Public school in Puerto Rico is a lot of crime, unsafe and not good teaching.

c.      The way people expressed themselves and their behavior in our new neighborhood was ordinary, horrible and terrible.

III.           Resolution

a.     We moved to a better neighborhood after my mother started to get better pay in her job. My sister and I were changed in a better public school. 

b.   Starting a new life in a different country is hard at first, but if we have constancy and be optimist we can come true our dreams.

In-Class Writing - 9/18

Think into the future about Mae Mobley. What do you think she will have to say about her childhood?

    Aibileen is like a mother for Mae Mobley who is 2 years old and Elizabeth's daughter. Elizabeth is not the warm and loving mother that Mae Mobley could have. Miss Leeffolt always complein about her daughter's weight, how she looks and her behavior. Every time Mae Mobley does something wrong, she is abuses physically by her mother. She thinks she is a bad girl because that's what her mother say to her all the time. But it is Aibileen who remains her that she is a little kind, smart and lovely girl. Aibileen is the only woman who really shows love and takes care of her. Also, she teaches her how to use the bathroom, new words, and others things that Elizabeth should do as a mother.
   
    Provably, Mae Mobley would not be satisfied with her childhood and the kind of parents she had when she was a baby because they didn't show to her love, affection and attention. Her mother was just worried about what her friends and society say about his family. Her mother never taught and share with her special moments or things that a mother is suppose to do. I think she wouldn't be happy at all about how her parents raised her. She would be grateful with the maids who take care of her while she became in a lady. Because thank to them she learned how to love and be kind to people who are not the same raise like her, like Skeeter did.

"THE HELP" in class-writting 9/13

Compare and contrast Aibileen and Minny's relationship with Skeeter and Hilly's relationship.

    Aibileen and Minny are one of those ladies who work being maids for white people homes. They are good friends and live close to each other in a poor and black neighborhood. Also, these woman have suffered a lot of humilliations of the white people where they work. They work hard and they try to help people when they can. They are together when the hard times come, for example, Aibileen's son, Teelore, died in a accident, and Minny was the only person who stayed always there for her friend Aibileen, taking care of her while she overcame the death of his son. When Minny was fired from Mrs Walter's house, it was Aibileen who helps Minny to get an other job. This relationship is real, is honest, humble and they have a big heart to help others. They don't care who looks better, who has more money or who live better. 

    Skeeter and Hilly have a relationship completely different than Aibileen and Minny. They have been best friend since elementary school, they went together to college but Hilly left the college to get married and have children because for her college is for catch a good man to spend the rest of their life together. But Skeeter thinks different than her, she finished college and got her diploma and not a man but that is not important for Skeeter. Hilly is a selfish person who likes to control others. She doesn't like colored people, she's racist. She is conducting a sanitation initiative where black maids need to have a different bathroom that the white and guest people, out of the houses. Skeeter thinks Hilly is wrong and is disagree about the way she thinks of black people. Skeeter is kind and wants to help the maids who work for her friends, writing a book where they can talk about how those white house-owners treat black maids. Skeeter is a good woman than her evil friend.

THE INFORMAL LANGUAGE AND THE STEREOTYPES

     Kathryn Sctockett, the author of "The Help", wanted to show us in, how the maids expressed themselves, writting in the same way that they spoke. Reading the book, I can notice that they weren't people with highly education. Their lack of knowledge was low, so their language was very informal, that's because most of the black people hadn't the opportunity to go to school. Instead of study, they start to work in early age to survived in this world. They didn't care about the way they talk, a least, they understood what they meant. The most important thing that they had in mind was working hard to get the money to pay the rent, bills, food, grocery, etc.


    As we can see, there is this concept of stereotype toward black maids. For example, they don't the same bathroom that the guest use to go. Maids have to eat in the kitchen and not in the dinning room with the white people. They are not allowed to have a intimate conversation with their employers and their friends. They have to treat the white women with "yes ma'am" "no ma'am" and never go against her bosses. In other words, black people are like slaves with a low pay. In the other hand, white people treat those poor black women like a trash, like animals, they don't even care about them. They talk their maids in the way they want to. Because they don't know how to keep the house in order, they are "lucky" to hire maids who do the dirty job. The treatment between white and black women are totally different. They don't mix and they are not friends in the most of cases.

"THE HELP" HOMEWORK # 2

HOMEWORK # 2

   Skeeter is a women who feels a big passion writing. She is not the typical woman who thinks in find a good man to get married and being the perfect wife that the only thing that do is staying at home all day taking care of her children, supervising that the maid is doing her job (cleaning the house, cooking, etc...), and going to any ladies event or club that housewives have. Most of these women feel satisfied and lucky because their husbands are looking  for then, obviously they don't have a real job. This is not the Skeeter case, she is ambitious, she thinks totally different than the ladies who live in Jackson town. In fact, she wants to be a writer. She would like to be independent from her parents, but she can't because she is trying to find a job after she graduated from college. Skeeter feels a lot of pressure from his mother, Mrs Phelan, because she wants that her daughter became as one of those ladies of her town, a real wife. Most of the time she doesn't believe in Skeeter's dreams and they argue very often for the same issue. But she is not going to give up to get what she really wants for her life.
   Two years ago I came to United States looking for new opportunities for my life. The first three months I studied in a English Academy because I didn't speak English, it was so hard for me. After some months my mother start to calling me and say I have to get a job because she wasn't going to send me more money. Every night she called to remind me the same thing. She said it was for my best, meeting new people, being independent and have some responsibility for myself. I felt a lot of pressure, I was afraid to get a job because I didn't know how to express myself with people who speak English. I felt a lot desperation, I wanted to work but I didn't feel comfortable with the language and everything was new for me. After all, I took my mother's advice. I got a job, first months were not easy but now, I'm so happy for take that decision. She was right, now I'm 100% independent and I'm glad to be it. Taking the first step could be hard but if I don't try I will never success. Mothers want the best for their children, and sometimes, they don't notice what we really want, but they think that they always are right.