Just Like a Ghost

To strip someone of their name is the same as stripping someone of their identity. Your name is used to identify who you are when you are meeting new people or even when someone is taking about you. It may be small but your name is a very big deal. Reading “No Name Woman” which is a memoir written by Maxine Hong Kingston, made me very sad and at the same time mad. I understand that in cultures if a girl gets pregnant before she is married or even when she is married with someone else that it is a very shameful thing but to pretend like she never existed is just cruel. I understand that the author’s mother was telling her the very brief story of her aunt getting pregnant so that the author knows not to make that mistake or she will bring shame to the family but I personally don’t think it was a very good way to teach your daughter something. The author was the only one who seemed to really care about the story behind her aunt getting pregnant and then committing suicide. She tried her best to patch up the missing pieces and although it is not accurate, it still seems believable. For her aunt to not even have a name or rarely get mentioned shows how strict the author’s culture was. But reading it was also degrading because it did not matter who got the aunt pregnant, all that mattered was that she got pregnant. No one took the time to really understand her side of the story. This again makes my feminist senses kick in because the guy who did that to her just got away but she had to suffer along with her newborn baby. She suffered so much to the point where she just became a ghost and that was just so sad.

Stereotypes

“It started before I was born, before my mother was born, and before her mother was born. We were groomed to be caretaker, to carry the world on our shoulders…” –quote from “Dutiful Hijas” by Erica Gonzalez Martinez

This quote really stood out a lot to me as soon as I started reading “Dutiful Hijas.” Upon reading this my feminist senses kicked in and I just automatically knew what it was going to be about. When we are born, actually not even then; when we are fetuses and our sex has been determined, automatically we are branded with stereotypes. Our family and friends gets blue clothing and cars if it’s a boy and if it’s a girl there are lots of pink clothing along with teddy bears and dolls. Baby boys are expected to grow up to be very strong men and take care of the money business while baby girls are expected to grow up to be nurturing to both their kids and their family and take care of the household duties. Being a girl raised in a culture where women are supposed to be housewives, I can relate to the author. After her mother gets a divorce, the author starts to face guilt, power, and dependency due to her mom not having her own identity when her husband left. The author ends up giving her mother tough love and although she didn’t want to it helped shape her mother’s identity. This part I can’t relate to since I was raised by a single mom who has a very strong identity and taught me to never depend on anyone. However, I can relate to the part where Erica was expected to take care of household duties with her sister like I am. I have an older brother and when it comes time to cleaning the house, I am usually the first person who is expected to do it just because I am a girl. Although it used to be very annoying it isn’t anymore because I realized that’s just what comes with being a girl. We are supposed to care for the house and everyone around it and just be sensitive. However, with the world evolving times have changed and more women are independent but at the same type that stereotype I believe will always remain with every female out there.