My Son's storry

  In our family stories i have seen a pattern between our families. Me, Camal, and Max all talk a little about how our parents left their hometown to come here to the U.S. They all left their hometown to try and live a better life in America. 

For example in Camal's family story he talks about how his dad wanted to leave Yemen to give Camal and hi siblings a better future, and to give them a better opportunity to succeed in life. His dad knew how in America his kids would be more motivated to do good in school, he came to America because he was thinking about his kids future.

.Camal: My dad eventually left Yemen and traveled to Dubai to work as a police officer for a couple of years before making the trip to America. His hard journey to America was to help me and my siblings avoid the difficulty he had as a child and so we can live life to the fullest, which drives my motivation to achieve the best that I can in getting a good education. 

As you can see here Camal says how his dad had to Move to America and leave his hometown Yemen because he was thinking about his kids future.Thanks to his dad Camal is now at A.S.T.I and trying his best to succeed in life. Camal was giving the chance that his dad was not.

Another person who wrote about how their parents came to America was Max. Max's dad came to America for a whole different reason than Camal's dad, Max's dad came to America to come and settle down with Max's mom. 

Max: Leaving the states for the first time was a big step for him, he had never been so far away from home and family before. So he said his goodbyes and ventured to America. As he arrived he was already bewildered by the things he saw.

So as you can see both Camal and Max wrote about how their parents came to America. Both of their parents came to America as well as me parents did to. We share this similarities about our parents leaving their country to come to America.

Cyclical Stories

In the Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, there is a wave of cyclical stories throughout the entire book.The main cycle that goes on within the mothers and daughters of the Joy Luck Club was marrying what people consider bad men.

In the Red Candle chapter of the book, we see that one of the mothers, Lindo Jong had to get married to a boy when she was 12 years old. She married him not out of love and not because she wanted to, but her family forced her after their house had been destroyed in China. He automatically was a bad husband and form then on, she knew she had entered an unwanted bad marriage. Not only that, but the husband's mother also did not like Lindo Jong so she too wanted to make her life as miserable as possible.

“I knew what kind of husband he would be, because he made special efforts to make me cry. He complained the soup was not hot enough and then spiller the bowl as if it were an accident. He waited until I had sat down to eat and then would demand another bowl of rice,” (pg. 55).

Lindo Jong had to live out part of her life attending to her horrible husband to please her family. It was unfair that it had to happen to her and that she was being treated so badly.

 The trend of bad marriages also followed the daughters throughout their lifetime. Most of all the four daughters also had married bad men or were about to enter a bad marriage. For example, in Rice Husband, Lena St Clair felt as if she did not marry the right man and that he was too fair with her.

"Why do you have to be so goddamn fair!" I shouted,” (pg 164)

Lena had started an argument over nothing that apparently set off  fight between her and her husband. This was also not a good marriage of they couldn't settle their differences.

Another example is that one of the daughters, Rose Jordan Hsu had mentioned that she would be getting divorced with her husband because it just was not a good marriage.

Throughout the entire Joy Luck Club, we can see that marriages are not often chosen wisely and end up being horrible, and if we think about it closely, the mistakes that mothers made will be the same mistakes their daughters can make in their future.

Family Story

I remember when my mom Maria Ofelia Librado use to tell me stories about my grandparents. My mom usually told me stories about the grandparents from my dad side of the family. She told me stories to past time when I and she are having a mom and son time. When my little brother was old enough to understand what we were talking about is when my mom decided to tell me new stories about my grandparents.

I remember this one story she told me about how my grandparents started a village that is now well known. She had told us how my dad’s grandpa was the first one to live in this little village. My mom had told me and my brother that one day that village called Espinalido was once pure grass. It was no ordinary grass this grass was big and hard to walk through it. My mom told me how my grandpa and his friend would go there to play around and cut the grass of. They would do this just to pass time and have fun.

When my grandpa found out how the place they were always playing on was now full of dirt and how the grass was going all away he first thought it would be a good place to play with other people there. My grandpa was still young so he was not in a relationship, but as he grew up he felt in love with my grandma. He wanted to move somewhere with her. That’s wren my grandpa thought of the place he use to play in and have a great time with his friend. He had saved up some money to get people to build a house for him in that same place him use to spent time with his friends. My grandpa told people of his idea and one of his friend said he was going to build a house there as well.

So they got there houses built and they were the two first families to have a house in that place that was created by him. More and more people heard about them living there and how it was so peaceful and no violence. So more and more people started to building houses there, next thing you there was a mini community there. The people had all one problem. The problem was that when people told them were they live and what was the place name they all did not know what to say. So my grandpa had to come up with a name. This is when he remember how they use to be full with grass and threes, he remember how every time him and hid friend came to play they would get cut. There were things coming out the plants that were pointy and hurt if you got stab by one of them. So my grandpa decided to name id by there name Espinalido. So this is how the place got the name. From then more and more people came in to this neighborhood built by my grandpa and his friend.

When I first heard this story I thought my mom was just playing with us, but my mom had me and my little brother call to Mexico so we can ask my grandpa himself and it turn out to be that it was him who started this village. It was my grandpa who was the first person to build a house in this well known place now. He had started his own neighborhood that now is still well known. I was surprise how one Peron could start something this big.

I also found out how now there are more people who live there and that this little village has now grown to be a big village that different families now live on. I and my little brother were surprise when we heard this story and both could not believe it.  

Over all I was really fascinating about this story. It made me feel like everyone is capable of doing anything. I am not trying to say my grandpa is weak and no one but he started something with a friend. He was just one ordinary person who wanted to have fun and go explore, next thing you know the place he loved to play in and spent good times with him and his friend came to become his home.

Another story I was told while growing up was about the devil. When I spent time with my cousins they would always tell me different stories about people who got scared in Mexico . My cousins love to scare me and they always did it by telling me stories about scary thing that happened in Mexico . They always had many great stories that they told me. For example La Llorona, the devil, my uncles who got scared, and many more.

One of the stories that I remember is when they told me about this one big rock in Mexico that had the devils wife in there. The story was that this rock was once the devil and his wife house. One day the devil came out to go do his bad stuff and let his wife in there. Now usually both the devil and his wife went out to do what they do. This one time is when the devil decided to go out by him. People knew about the devil and his wife and how this huge scary rock was their home.  The people were tired of them going out and making there life miserable so they decided to do something about it. They were going to get a cross and put it on the rock. It was more like a spell. The spell was that both the devil and his wife could not come out unless someone removes the cross, but it had to be a person not a demon. So the decided to do this, but the day they did it is when the devil had decided to go out and do his bad stuff.  It was a dark and rainy day. The people did the spell but only the devils wife was inside this huge rock.

The people thought it was all safe now but the found out how it was not ok. People were still dying and getting scared to death. So the figure out how the devil the only one out was and that they only trap the devils wife. So through the years the devil tried to posses a person so they could remove the cross. There was one problem though if the devil posses someone it counted as them being a demon. So there was nothing the devil could really do.

My cousins had told me how one of my uncles in Mexico was pressure by the devil to take the cross off this huge rock. He told me how my uncle and his friend decided to climb this scary rock. When they did they made it all the way to the top of the rock. My uncle had said that it was huge and bones were up there. He told them how he had never felt so scared in his life. He told his friend that they needed to go because he had a bad feeling about it.  So they listen to him and decided to go. Later that day they were at my uncle’s house drinking and having fun. Out of nowhere this man comes and tells them if he could drink with them. They were running out of drinks so the stranger told my uncle to go to the store with him to get some more. My uncle being drunk and wanting to drink more said yes.  What my mom did not know was that the stranger was the devil. The devil took him to the huge rock and tries to make my uncle take the cross of but some how he said no. so then out of no where my uncle woke up on his bed. He could not remember what really happened but he was not able to move. Everyone was worry about him. About two days pass and he was able to move again. This was like a miracle.

This story was kind of scary when I first hear id. This was one of many other stories that my cousins told me to try to scar me.  At first I thought they were playing around with me but the kept saying they were not. So I still do not know what to believe. I do not know if that story was real or if my cousins were just trying to scare me.

These are some stories that I was told about my family history. My family has many great stories to tell and every time there is a new baby born and could talk and understand these great stories are told over and over aging. There are sometimes told with more details and sometimes with fewer details.

 

Mother- Daughter Relationship

In The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, and in, Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, an article by Amy Chua, they both discuss mother-daughter relationships. Amy Chua believes that Western parents are not strict enough on their kids as they should be.

" For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It's hours two and three that get tough."

A similarity between Tan and Chua is that in The Joy Luck Club, The Twenty- Six Malignant Gates, tells hoe Suyuan wants her daughter to become a prodigy. She wanted her daughter to be really good at playing the piano and that was why she made her practice on the piano all the time for hours a day, piano lessons and piano practice… to practice on every day, two hours a day, from four until six.” (136). This relates to Amy Chua's arguments because she states that the best way for their children to get better at something is to practice at it for many hours.


Obedience plays a difference between Tan and Chua. Chua states that,

"Second, Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything... parents have sacrificed and done so much for their children. (And it's true that Chinese mothers get in the trenches, putting in long grueling hours personally tutoring, training, interrogating and spying on their kids.) Anyway, the understanding is that Chinese children must spend their lives repaying their parents by obeying them and making them proud."

The difference between Amy Chua's argument and the mother-daughter relationship between Suyuan Woo and her daughter June Woo was that the daughter had given up trying to make her mother proud, and that was also the day she decided to be disobedient,

"I didn't bulge. And then I decided. I didn't have to do what my mother said anymore. I wasn't her slave. This wasn't China. I had listened to her before and look what happened. She was the stupid one," (141). 

Chua believes that Chinese children owe everything back to their parents and that they must try to make thir parents proud for the rest of their lives. Amy Tan contradicts this because June disappointed her mother and gave up trying to make her proud and became disobedient.

Joy Luck Club- Intro

In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan's purpose behind the introduction for the section, The Twenty Six Malignant Gates, is to show the relationship between mother and daughter and how the mother is always just there to try and protect their daughters from all of the bad things that can occur to them. The next two chapters to this section of the book, Rules of the Game and The Voice from the Wall, are all foreshadowed by the introduction. In the introduction, the mother warns her daughter to not leave on her bike because she will be out of her sight. After the daughter does not listen, she falls off of the bike, "And the girl ran outside, jumped on her bicycle, and in a hurry to get away, she fell before she even reached the corner, "(87). This shows that daughters need their mothers to be protected. Without them there, then they would be lost and make many mistakes.

This is somewhat similar to what happens in Rules of the Game because the daughter, Waverly abandoned her family, and when she came back home that night, her family ignored her and ate without her, "We not concerning this girl. This girl have not concerning for us, " (100). Waverly left her family and basically did not have any concern for them . She was without her mother at that time. When she came home, her mother told the family to not mind her because she had done the same. Without her mother, Waverly was lost and her family began to not concern her.

In The Voice from the Wall, the mother of Lena St. Clair was constantly trying to protect her from harm. When Lena and her mom walked down to the store, a man tried to attack Lena's mom, and after that, she was so shooken up, that she held on to her daughter the whole time. When Lena tried to get away, the mother reacted quick, "She grabbed my hand back so fast I knew that instant how sorry she was that she had not protected me better, " (108). The daughter needed guidance and protection form her mother. The letting go of the hand symbolized how at some time, the mother must learn to let go, but at that moment, she had to protect her daughter from anything bad that might happen to her.