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Michelle Sepulveda
West Hills Middle magnet has been celebrating Hispanic Awareness Month for three years. An assembly with speakers, music, and dance has been the previous format. Students have also researched famous Latinos and shared them with the school through murals and bulletin boards. Although the variety of people presented have come from all areas of the Americas, little is done about women. Students will be guided through Latina literature and pick important sections that provide visual images. These images will then be translated into pictures that will literally come to life with drama and dance. Poetry will also be incorporated into the presentation so audience members can use their own imagination to conjure up visual images of their own.
“Readers are intrigued by a literature that can claim antecedents in the Spanish-language Latin American literary tradition, the English-language literature of immigrants to North America, feminist literature, and the literature of the emerging voices of America’s ethnic minorities”. 1
| Students will study life in the writer’s native land, if applicable, but focus on the transition to life in the United States and cultural traits that were kept and discarded. The preparation for our “picture” involves a technique in drama called creating tableaus. A tableau is a silent and motionless depiction of a scene that is often taken from pictures. Students will be encouraged to form visual pictures from the descriptive stories read in class to base their tableaus. Drama classes often use the pictures as a springboard to develop characters and stories through the use of improvisation. The improvisation will lead not only to acting but to poems and dances also. The final assembly will showcase these talents in a gallery of pictures encased in frames that is presented to the audience and will evolve into motion. The whole process of developing the resulting pictures involves: |
- 1. Choosing pictures
- ____2. Planning a tableau.
- ____3. Developing improvisation.
- ____4. Performing to a small audience.
- ____5. Responding to audience critique.
- ____6. Adapting the project for a larger audience.
When women had to defend and protect their families, these cultural traits weakened though they have not totally vanished. Women who formally tended house while their husbands provided for the family entered the workforce like many women in North America despite their racial make up. Political activism provided another venue for women’s voice in all parts of Latin America. Education has propelled women to positions that were formally denied to them. They represent occupations that range from doctors and teachers to agricultural and factory workers. “As a result of their experiences, the women of Latin America have developed their own distinct feminism, one that challenges the persistence of male and female stereotypes”. 4
Esmeralda Santiago is one such writer. She was born in Puerto Rico and later moved to New York, and maintains pride in being Puerto Rican though her culture was often tried and challenged as a result of fitting into an ideal mold of an American. Like most Puerto Ricans, her assimilation did incur changes but she also held to certain traditions of being Puerto Rican. Her book When I was Puerto Rican will be explored with the students. The entire book will not be read but it is written so that parts of it can be read and analyzed like essays. She provides rich details of country life in Puerto Rico as well as visual images of the New York she encountered as a child.
Aurora Levins Morales is another writer we will explore. She has an essay titled “Puertoricanness”. The essay captures her realization that no matter where she lives she will always be Puerto Rican. Levins Morales was a child born from a biracial marriage. Her father is Jewish and her mom is Puerto Rican. Though she claims allegiance to both cultures it is interesting that she considers herself Puerto Rican.
____
Judith Oriz Coffer was born in Puerto Rico but moved as a child to New Jersey. She says, “I lived in a bubble created by my Puerto Rican parents in a home where two cultures and languages became one.”5 Her essay titled “The Myth Of The Latin Woman: I Just Met A Girl Named Maria”, explores her constant struggle with perceived notions, and the stereotypes others openly apply to her because she is Latina despite her success as a writer and teaching position at the University of Georgia. In the essay, she tells of embarrassing moments when ignorant people have openly insulted her by singing the refrain from “Maria” or insisting that she must be the waitress or maid.
This essay will help the students at West Hills deal with an action that was taken a year ago at the school. Many students were offended and upset because the decision to produce the play, West side story, was overruled when a parent wrote in that it [the play] offended Puerto Ricans. Open discussion was encouraged but it left a sore spot with students who could not understand what was supposed to be offensive about the play.
Students will also listen to music by Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez, Tito Puento, and Elvis Crespo.
- 1. citizen
- 2. commonwealth
- 3. constitution
- 4. bilingual
- 5. stereotype
- 6. assimilation
Another unique aspect of Cubans is their relative mass existence in South Florida. Miami has never been a primary destination for them. There is a small population concentrated in New Jersey. “For many Cuban-Americans, particularly those who left the island as children and those born in the United States, Cuba has become a creation of the imagination, a fictional space pieced together by recollections, fading photographs, and family anecdotes”. 6
Marisella Veiga was born in Havana, Cuba but raised in the U.S. Her essay titled “Fresh Fruit,” compares two Latinas, one older, one younger, and through the comparison the reader sees the difference in generations as well as the implications of machismo and marinisma.
A third author, Margarita Engle, was born in Los Angeles to a Cuban mother and American father. We will study an excerpt from her book Singing To Cuba which describes a visit to her beloved Cuba. Scenes of Castro’s influences and restrictions contrast memories of her parents and images imagined through their stories.
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| Political parties in the Dominican Republic have representative branches in New York. In 1996 many flew home to their island to vote in the presidential elections. |
Julia Alvarez was born in New York City but spent part of her childhood on the island. Her book provides enlightening vignettes that provide visual images for this curriculum. How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents has an excellent excerpt called “snow” that describes the authors first reaction and feeling to seeing snow for the first time.
Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic share historical similarities and language. Colonial rulership by Spain, slavery, and struggles for economic or independence are prevalent factors of all the islands mentioned. But each island has maintained its own flavor that distinguishes each from he other. Galeria de Pinturas aims to celebrate the differences and commonalities of all three through a program of music, poetry, and dance flavored with dramatic scenes.
The use of improvisation and tableau will enable students to bring their historical research to life. Oral histories, essays, and novel excerpts will help the students bring realism into their enactments. Music is a vital component of the curriculum since dance will be features in the final showcase. Dance is a universal way to show pictures. sTudents will listen to popular Latin music and learn basic steps of dances like the danza, la bomba, plena, seis, meringue, and salsa. The dances will be incorporated into the final choreography.
Seniors from Casa Otonal (this organization located in New Haven operates a bilingual and bicultural senior center with apartment units for the elderly), visit the school and bring traditional musical instruments from Puerto Rico.
Bernadette M. Orr, Americas-study guide1993 pp 76-77
Ibid
Ibid
Network of Educators on the Americas Caribbean Connections 1998 pp 138-141
Ibid
Network of educators on the Americas Caribbean Connections pp 100-101
Ibid
Lillian Castillo Speed, Latina; women’s voices from the borderland. 1995 pg 17
EPICA/NECA Caribbean Connections-Moving North 1998 NEA Washington, D.C.
Another secondary school source that focuses on the history of the Caribbean islands and includes information on english and french speaking islands as well.
Glasser, Ruth, Aqui Me Quedo, Puerto ricans in Connecticut1997 Connecticut Humanities Council.
An excellent resource that details the migration of Puerto Ricans to Connecticut with oral histories alongside historical information. The book is also written in both Spanish and English.
Castillo-Speed, LillianLatina-women’s voices from the borderlands 1995 Simon and Schuster New York.
A collection of short stories and essays that represents Latinas from various places. Also contains excerpts from books that might be to lengthy to read with this curriculum.
Orr, Bernadette Americas Study Guide 1993 Oxford University Press New York.
This study guide is part of the Americas telecourse and provides an overview and quiz of every aspect of the companion video.
Connecticut Educators Aqui Me Quedo Interdisciplinary Teacher’s Guides 1999 Mattatuck Museum.
A very useful and practical guide to incorporation Puerto Rican knowledge in the classroom. The curriculum was developed with teachers from Connecticut and Ruth Glasser, author of the book Aqui Me Quedo. I was fortunate to participate in a week long institute where the curriculum was enhanced by speakers, performances, open dialogue, and cultural exchanges.
Objective: Students will be introduced to the island of Puerto Rico and the citizens
From that island that reside in New Haven. Activity: Students will make a mural of the map of Puerto Rico using large copies of the people they will here from in class as well as their classmates who may be Puerto Rican.
Objective: Through role play and discussion, students will reinforce the lessons learned from the speaker.
Activity: Students will listen to one or two class speakers who will share their migrating experience. Their stories will then be acted out by the students using role play and improvisation.
Vocabulary
Goal: To familiarize students with common Spanish words as well as words that have been adopted into the English vocabulary.
Objectives: Students will practice words together and quiz each other using a game show as a format.
Activity: Students will use flash cards to quiz each other and partner up in teams that will then play jeapordy as a fun class activity.
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