Smoke Signals

This film is important is so many ways. The first is that it was produced, written, and is acted out by an all Native American cast. This story is not whitewashed by media. This is raw emotion from a Native American perspective. The film even pokes fun at Native American stereotypes (ex. Native men are strong and stoic.) I also found that this film provided me with more knowledge about Native American culture in general.

One of the themes I saw throughout the movie was the hair was presented. Victor even says that an "Indian isn't anything without his hair." Which is interesting because Victor's father had cut all his hair off in his grief. I think we can see what kind of  opinion Victor has of his father from that one line. Victor also criticizes Thomas for keeping his hair in braids. He says that hair should be "loose and flowing." Honestly hair was a huge importance in the movie. When someone cuts their hair it can signify that they are becoming a new person by cutting this part of themselves, which we see when Victor cuts his hair with a knife. Victor is getting rid of the person he was to make room for the man he is becoming. 

The relationship between Victor and Thomas was interesting. The point made in class about Victor's name meaning conqueror, and Thomas' name meaning twin was so compelling. It  was like Victor and Thomas were the same person in the end, both children born of ash and flame. The relationships that both boys had with Victor's father was interesting to say the least. Thomas' flashbacks always involved good times with Victor's father whereas Victor only had sad memories with his father. 

I also thought the themes of magic was prevalent to the story. Arnold Joseph's obsession with magic was peculiar because the only type of magic he talked about was the type that dealt with things disappearing but never about reappearing. He waned to make all the bad things in his life disappear. He also wanted to disappear. So it could be that Arnold Joseph saw himself as a bad person for the people in his life.

Sandra Cisneros "My Name'

"In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing."

In the first stanza Esperanza compares her name to unhappiness. I find it interesting that she notes the  American meaning of her name and how it sounds better in English. It could symbolize the inner conflict of her culture versus America. Her name symbolizes her waiting for something better. I've read that the number nine can symbolize judgement or finality. It's important to make the connection between the number nine and how Esperanza feels as though her name represents finality. 


"It was my great-grandmother's name and now it is mine. She was a horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse--which is supposed to be bad luck if you're born female-but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don't like their women strong.
My great-grandmother. I would've liked to have known her, a wild, horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn't marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier. That's the way he did it. And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window."

This sections touches on the misogynist attitudes Latin men have towards women.Women are viewed as objects, for example Esperanza's great grandmother was carried off like a fancy chandelier.  It also introduces the character of her great grandmother, which is where she gets her name from.  I feel as though Esperanza sees herself in her great-grandmother. The theme of superstition, which is also huge in Latin culture is also touched upon.




"At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver, not quite as thick as sister's name Magdalena--which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least- -can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza. would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do."

I feel like Esperanza is the definitely a wild horse of a woman. She is flamboyant and extreme in her personality. She does not choose tame name to baptize herself with, instead she chooses one that almost completely erases the name Esperanza.

A Father

The themes of "A Father" include irony, religious perspective, clash of cultures, control and the lack of it, arranged marriage, lack of intimacy, old world vs. new world, generation gap, gender expectations, patriarchy, and superstition. It's important to note the relationship Mr. Bhowmick has with his chosen goddess, Kali. She symbolizes all that we cannot understand in life which clashes with Mr. Bhowmick's desperate need to control life. She also symbolizes Mr. Bhowmick's hatred of women, especially the women he cannot control. It is ironic that Mr. Bhowmick chose this goddess to worship because she is a woman and represents chaos at it’s core.

The relationship between Mr. Bhowmick and his daughter Babli is something that I found very interesting. This passage was very telling. “Balbi was not the child he would have chosen as his only heir...Babli could never comfort him. She wasn’t womanly or tender the way that unmarried girls had been in the wistful days of his adolescence...her accomplishments didn’t add up to real femininity. Not the kind that had given him palpitations.” (Pg 341) Mr. Bhowmick’s makes his disdain for his daughter quite evident. Mr. Bhowmick probably never showed Babli affection as a child, which in my opinion, gave her a negative attitude towards men. Babli is outspoken and fierce, more like her mother than her father. This is also why Mr. Bhowmick has such a resentment for his daughter. It is also interesting to note what exactly Mr. Bhowmick means by real femininity. His idea of femininity is constantly challenged by the women in his life.

The way I felt about Mr. Bhowmick was how I felt about the narrator when I read Lolita, to a certain extent. I couldn’t stand his character and I found him pathetic but I felt so bad for him. He was not comfortable in his life. He didn’t think he was American enough and now he didn’t belong in his home country either. He states that he hates Ranchi and he would never go back. He cannot find home anywhere because both places can’t fulfill him.  Maybe this is why he cannot love Babli and where his anxiety stems from.  

The themes of racism and sexism are intermingled when Mr. Bhowmick thinks about the gender and race of his grand child. He only refers to his grandchild as grandson and never once thinks about the possibility of Babli having a girl. He prays that the man who impregnated Babli is white and envisions his grandson “brown and buttery-skinned.” He even suggests that Babli must have been raped or yielded to passion by a married man, which he does nothing about. He doesn’t even consider that Babli would get artificially inseminated because what it comes down to is that being raped or assaulted would be better than having a baby on your own in his mind.