Kimberly Aguilar - The Color of Waters by Kimberly Aguilar-154004784

Personal Reflection

154004784 — 2024-01-26 17:56:19 UTC

I see this more as a mirror because the experiences that I share with the characters is that in my part of family there is many culture and religion perspectives. I am religious but half of my family isn't or normally just don't go to church. The experiences is that we have different backgrounds and some of us feel or think different when it comes to families perspectives in life. It is somewhat similar because my uncle grew up in Mexico but was born in a differerent color even though he is mexican and grew up in mexico. Many people why he is a different color than majority of us because half of us are a different color we are more pale/white but my grandma was somewhat brunette. In the book I learned that the character struggles to learn his background or way that people view his identity and that is why he comes to question and questions his mother because his mother is different. My mom sometimes give me advice but she is also the same when people talk to you or want to know something from you we just try to explain not to expose where, who, or when we are going or somewhat to what we are looking into.

Social Issue

154004784 — 2024-01-26 17:56:19 UTC

Race and ethnicity was presented in this characters life because in the story we see the different on the race of the color from the mother and her children such as James. James struggles to understand or question their ethnicity because his mother never told or explains to James about their family background. Toward the chapters we see that James is growing up and is starting to realize as he grows up that the background culture of his mother and father were different. Their marriage was a rearranged one but the mother struggled from the fathers passing and soon married again but the step father also passed and since then the mother ask their children to not pay attention to any of the things that go on into life or people questioning about their life. James truly feels that his mother and reason why James is a bit different is because of the social class and political landscape that occurs in these chapters for the mother to change religion or point of view to have a better understanding and feeling a more closing way to God.

Quote

154004784 — 2024-01-26 17:56:19 UTC

People in the world would judge a person and not know a person without knowing their real identity or true background, first impression are always shown in a person at first and judge. "I do look like you. I'm your mother. You ask too many questions. Educate your mind. School is important. Forget Rodney and Pete. Forget their mothers. You remember school. Forget everything else. Who cares about Rodney and Pete! When they go one way, you go the other way. Understand?" In the story this quote made it significant because James was asking his mother why she did not look like the rest of the other mom's in the school of James because James mother was a different color of her race. James was questioning and was wondering of her identity since James wanted to know. James mom is the one speaking when James ask her identity/color of race or who she was informing her identity. This quote stood out to me because we are starting to see James questioning his race or wondering why his mom stands out than the rest of most of the mom's. I can see this perspective in other people's life because someone can be adoptive or just born different but not exactly the same as their parents. This can go enough with many other families that can relate.

Formalist Lens

154004784 — 2024-01-26 17:56:19 UTC

The patterns in this book such as repeated words that I find is that James in the book ask his mom why she didn't look like the other mothers because the color of her identity. The affect in this book is that the question gets repeated multiple times in the book of The Color of Water. The rhetorical strategies of ethos, pathos, and logos in the book enhance the story because it gives us the feelings, emotions, and actions that were occuring during this time peroid or how especifically the family or people felt during this time when all of these different chaos. The tone and the mood in this book are assorted differently because in the book it goes from feeling of being sorrowful to joy and switching to misunderstandings. The tone in this book is a gesture of pure kindness talking about his former life to what he waits or wishes in the present of his future as a kid to a grown up.

Reader Response Lens

154004784 — 2024-02-05 04:26:14 UTC

Readers in different ages can interpret the text in "The Color of Waters" since different people of ages may view this book in a different way, it can also be the color of race that can given as a first impression to a person. Teenagers can look at this a different way depending on how the person may feel towards the perspective of the book during this time peroid, for example when they were strict such as having Jim Crow Laws back then. Elders may view this differently than us since they may know more during this time peroid cause they knew what was going on during this time and us 2000s kids weren't born during this time we can't talk or speak about it but just by reading it and observing throughout the book how it was different back then. By reading the book it can show us how differently they were treating different races and no one liked blacks or a combination of both colors such as white and black together. Elders know more and may speak more about it than us that were born in the 2000's.

5. The memories that is affecting my perceptions to the story is how people during my years of ages have been affected or close friends that have been treated different for their color of race and are being treated differently just because of the way they look. Not everyone will look the same but people will have opinions and perspectives on others based on something they may not like but I don't want to witness by looking or hearing another person getting made fun of based on the race, religion, or identity of someone. Someone may go through a bad life experience and people throwing off bad reputations on a person would make them feel hurt. For example the protest of Black Lives Matter was big for many people but many people had different perspective about this and not everyone agreed to this but this book is being affected to my story because I truly do not like seeing people being treated unfair and no one should be treated unfair everyone has a heart and it should be equal no matter what the situation or cause it might be.

6. The intended audience was for everyone who have read the book, it wasn't for a particular audience. I felt like it was more for everyone to view on how during this time peroid every color of race was being treated unfairly and how everyone had different perspectives on the world during this time. The audience which is everyone who has read this book was for a person to feel a certain way or opinion based on how we can view the past on how people of race were being treated to now, how has it changed or what are people changing even if they aren't based on the same generations or future generations could do better to do about it to work on it and avoid situations for future references. The audience may be different since during class we are reading it at school and people are different races and have different background experiences or life on the way they grew up and people may feel the same to this story or feel that connection while others may not go through this or haven't experience this at all but think about it, if people read this book and carefully saw the impact that people view society in general people would probably would change their minds or still continue to feel about specific people in society such as the color of races.

Quote

154004784 — 2024-02-08 19:22:12 UTC

Thoughout the book we see the challenges that James McBride faced knowing his true identity and his mothers relationships to soon realizing that he does not know his identity and he is trying to know or recognize if he is either black or white coming from his mom's background. He soon realizes that he wants to know his true identity and states "I realized that the color of my skin didn't define who I was". This quote explains how James McBride realizes how his identity does not change the way of his skin color of who he is or who he is defined as to who he is. People like to judge and question James due to his mother's background and past situations he has been through with his family because of their color of their race.

Social Issue

154004784 — 2024-02-08 19:22:32 UTC

The social issue in this novel is that James McBride and his experiences during this time has trouble knowing his true idenitity since he is known as coming from a mixed family where his mother was Jewish and his father was black. One social issue is James exploring his racial identity and the struggles that us faced by where he comes from, again he comes from a mixed-race and the book goes in dept about the mother being a Jewish woman that experiences the inequality when she lives in the black neighborhood. She faces the risk of how society is judged and discriminated against them due to the racial identity. The social issue that this has is how it impacts James McBride and his mother with the influence of the interactions with others that they have throughout the book. This questions and raises the identity for James to understand the acceptance or the power of society norms of how each and everyone can judge or view a person quick with it but not accept them always.

Personal Reflection

154004784 — 2024-02-08 19:22:55 UTC

Honestly from my part throughout this book I understood where James comes from and how he realizes or somewhat reacts to how or where does he comes from because since he comes from a mixed family race he wants to make sure which race is he mostly in or mostly involved in. His mother Ruth ask him that he is a human and does not need to question his race because he is like everyone else just different color. He wants to know his true identity. My ethnicity is honestly a understandable identity because since I grew up with both of my parents coming from the same country and all I don't see the difference in me or others being a different way weather it is race or knowing the identity. I understand if James questions this because honestly I would like to know as well but also understand his mothers part.

Social Class Lens

154004784 — 2024-02-08 19:30:39 UTC

The work criticizes the class of structure in society now because through her mother's experience as a white mother that is married to a black man. Many people view this differently and think that the social class structure or way of how people of race are mixed are not suppose to be mixed. During these chapters we see that they overcome challenges because of the discrimination that they face with her children and family due to their lower social economic status. The book expresses how it shows the inequalities and prejudices that exist in society's class structure. In the mother's experience her life changes when she marries a black man and has twelve children which changes throughout the book to when his whole family facing racial discrimination. The society of James and Ruth are living in the life of discrimination about their race, religion, and decisions throughtout their life it forms a strucuture between the whites and blacks throughout the chapters since it reveals the past situations that has happened to James and his mother. It has influenced her children's sense of how they are being put out somewhere in the place in the world to knowing their knowledged and lack of knowing the reality of their family's background to people discriminating them. It has two different worlds where they are being caught in the world of blacks or the world of whites that they can't figure out and this leaves the struggles of the characters in the color of water that wonder the ways of being black or a different race. Ruth growing up with a family of Jews in the South to later a mother who has black children of color living in a black neighboorhood. While James was growing up he witnessed the injust stereotyping and the treatment of black people in his family and neighboorhood of how they are being faced due to the inequality. This makes James feel confused about his race and identity to where he comes from.

Psychological Lens:

154004784 — 2024-02-16 02:49:05 UTC

The characters emotions in the book are seen by psychological lens that can be seen by the insight when James mother faces her inner strength and determination that is being faced through the adversity. James can reflect with his psychological journey of self-discovery of himself. It examines that the characters emotions and behavior can be better at understanding with how the impact of these experiences from the past of social class structures with their aspects of how us readers read throughout the book. Ruth (James mother) has lots of self-determination and she is like this because she wants to show her children that it's not about race that makes a person different than the rest. Just because people view them differently and are made fun of the color races does not mean anything, she just wants the best for her children and since she got married with a black men it has her changed the views of how their children are being seen from different parts that we see throughtout the novel The Color of Water.

Quote

154004784 — 2024-02-16 02:53:28 UTC

In these chapters we can see that James has a difficult time knowing his struggles of being in different class structures of society that helps James McBride realize to having a refusal of how his past was and his mothers background but knowing about himself. He wants to learn that the love he gets or attention that is being shown in the chapters about how he grows up experiencing his racial identity and background where he talks about "I learned that love doesn't have to be shown with grand gestures or dramatic declarations". James McBride has come from a hardship background but with facing obstacles it was pretty challenging for him to realize what his life was going for him in the future.

Social Issue

154004784 — 2024-02-16 02:53:36 UTC

The social issue in these chapters that I saw throughout this was that there was different situations based on the social class structures that James McBride was facing during his identification for their identity and how they face economic harships and the struggles that James McBride and his family that make their financial situation a bit worse as we read throughout the book but also we want to note that this book explores the difficulties that James and his family face since the social economic status has such limit to certain access of different resources and opportunities for themselves as a family and all. During the class disparaities that is being shown in this novel of the challenges that they face of how social and economic can change the class structures of everyone and anyone with only disadvantages.

Personal Reflection

154004784 — 2024-02-16 02:53:46 UTC

The personal reflection that I can connect throughout these chapters from social class structures is that yes it was difficult for James McBride and his family to have different opportunities and I can see or tell by this in society because now everyone has an opportunity with anything now but I can see back then it was racism for certain places where blacks could not be part of this and it was a hard opportunity for blacks to try new ways and help out with this because if they did not have a part or was being involved with everyone else just for social or economic challanges it can show how in my life I have seen this but with culture and it's due based on social structure because we all have differently cultures and not everyone is part of it we all have different cultures but coming from me and my culture part it can be public and invited for people and in some we have to be part of something or really involved in it to particapate in not everything is given with an opportunity as well I feel like we should also show it as well so that way we can seen as good people to feel like we are welcomed not just because we are forced to or don't want to by a certain way we take it upon.

Quote

154004784 — 2024-02-16 02:54:06 UTC

As I read throughout the last couple of chapters towards the end the mothers background came out as a strong self-determination independant women because she raised twelve children and as a mother that grew up in a very difficult situation and background it is very much said that the reason that James described her as a self-determinated mother stating "My mother's strength and resilience taught me to never give up, no matter the challenges". James McBride shows the novel during this book that her mom truly wished for her children the best because she knew that her children were going to get discriminated based on their race and identity to explain or show that her children should have never payed attention but stay strong for these children that were born and raised with a white Jewish mother and hate coming from both the black and white community.

Personal Reflection

154004784 — 2024-02-16 02:54:19 UTC

Throughout these chapters I was seeing that the novel and the connection I made with this was that it was showing the emoions and struggles of how James McBride and his mother were facing towards the racial identity that both were faced by the community to people's expectations with the mixed family. This connected me to a deep connection of level because it somewhat reflects to what my mom and I's connection we have with the world. It is well for me to understand how my mom is towards me sometimes and why mother's always have their children back when a situation is hard their always going to pressure you to be better than what they expect from you. My mom as my person is always giving me advice and pressures me to be better than those people that are just hating around and see what others have but they don't have it. it encourages me to have more empathy and gain a much better understanding to why mothers are so strict especially with me since both of my parents are strict with me. Sometimes the harships that come in life can effect us but someone won't betray us and that someone would be my mother. My mother is my bestfriend and she is a person I can always run to get help with or tell her about my problems. This novel somewhat towards the end of the chapters connected me to understand my connection with my mother.

Memoir Reflection

154004784 — 2024-02-23 18:27:07 UTC

People share their stories to let the people in the nation know about their stories and what they've been through such as their tragedies, romance, hardships, resilience, etc. This may help other people connect to people sharing their stories in books and in real life because others may understand the connection they have within the book they are reading. We can get inspired by the book if we feel like something isn't right, reading books may help us feel inspirational about how society and people view the books as they read thoughout the book. It is good to learn about a book when reading a book because many can have clarity about something they are reading about or it can liberate the levels about how people can imagine with shared stories. It can really open our eyes because it can explore the reality or escape from an emotion or some type of way we are feeling. If we know the knowledge and wisdom it would make sense to how we view the present of our past or shape of the future.