Evelyn D. - The color of water by Evelyn DeLosSantosMartinez-141001668

Personal Reflection

141001668 — 2024-01-26 16:54:33 UTC

This chunk of the story was just interesting to me not that I have any experience with anything going on. It was just amusing to understand something past experience and what it was like to go through a hard childhood. Throughout the book I can relate to the part where people would say something about my skin color. I'm lighter than my family and most people would question my parents if I am adopted or if I was brought from Mexico. But I move past their question and just say I'm their daughter and that I just had a mix of DNA.

Social Issue

141001668 — 2024-01-26 16:54:33 UTC

The social issue that was shown during that chapter was about health. We can see that in this chapter when the mother talks about how it was hard living in a household with her father. We can see that it affected her mentality since she had a very low self-esteem. How she was afraid of him and would have constant nightmares about it. This might have affected her childhood as well as her adulthood.

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141001668 — 2024-01-26 16:54:33 UTC

In chapter 5 the mother was talking about her past. She was describing how it was hard to move past the things that her father was doing to her. How she would love to run and get away from her father. When her father did things to her she couldn't move past those things, "I had very low self-esteem as a child, which I kept with me for many, many years". This is significant because we learn that most people can have low self-esteem due to past trauma. This stood out to me because it makes me understand the mother more and helps me know what she had to go through.

Formalist Lens

141001668 — 2024-01-26 16:54:33 UTC

The color of water has some pathos in it. Especially the bond that James and his mother have, he tries to understand where his mother comes from and why she is white but claims to be "light skinned". We also see lots of emotion when his mother writes about her past life.

The tone and mood change often. Since we see both James and his mother's perspective change with different moods, as they're telling the story. With different moods and tones being applied it makes the story have different feelings for the audience to feel.

The author uses dialogue to help us understand what is being said to the other characters. It also makes the story be more understanding and it helps us know what is going on.

Reader's response lens

141001668 — 2024-02-02 17:14:37 UTC

The meaning of a text changes as you reread it because it sets different moods and different tones that make you feel a certain way when you read that section.
My values alter after the perception of the text since I'm religious I respect the way they do their whole culture and how they have to follow the rules they are given. But I also find it crazy that they have to only eat one type of food, which shouldn't be right they should be able to mix foods and be able to enjoy it better. But everyone has their own religion and so I respect them.
My personal experience is affecting the way I view the text because I understand how James feels when he sees people talking about his mother who is white but she calls herself "light-skinned". There were times when me and my family would go visit their friend's house and they would often talk to my parents about me, if I'm his daughter or not because of my light skin.

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141001668 — 2024-02-08 17:10:24 UTC

In chapter 11 we hear how Ruth wants to be like everyone else and enjoy her life by falling in love and going out like every other white kid. At school nobody would want to hang out with her nor be partners during P.E class. She then met a guy named Peter who she had fallen in love with and found out something surprising. She wanted to run away with him but if white folks found out they were together they would have hanged the guy, "What a fool I was to believe we could get away with it!"(McBride 114). This is significant because we learn that us humans have a way to think we can get a solution to the problem, but during this time period whites and blacks couldn't be seen because they would hang the blacks. There were still some segregation laws going around which didn't give much blacks the rights to be with white people. This helps us understand that sometimes we don't have a solution to our problems and we believe there could be a solution but sometimes there never is.

Social issue

141001668 — 2024-02-08 17:10:40 UTC

The social issue that was shown here is race/ethnicity. We can see that in this chapter where Ruth who is a Jewish girl can't be with the guy she likes who is African American. This is an issue because if she and the guy she likes were to leave their area and got caught together Peter would end up being hang all because they don't accept white and blacks to be together.

Personal reflection

141001668 — 2024-02-08 17:11:54 UTC

This part of the story was interesting to me because I can relate to the part where we can think there is a solution or when our mind thinks there could probably be a way out, but sometimes there isn't and your stuck with the consequences. This can relate to most of us since we believe there's sometimes a way out of a situation but in reality sometimes there isnt.

Social class lens

141001668 — 2024-02-08 17:44:01 UTC

EQ: How do economic conditions determined the characters lives?

The economic conditions can determine how the characters live because in some areas there are people who are more wealthy and have a better area to live in. While other people have to live in an area where there is barely enough money to afford and as gentrification was occurring in James area, they were creating more companies and businesses which meant they were removing most tenements.

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141001668 — 2024-02-08 17:44:09 UTC

In chapter 18 we see a debate happening between moving and staying in New York. When the mother decides to stay, James has finally stopped using drugs and starts to put his life together and so he finds work where he will save up to go to Europe. When he does find work it's with this white family since they help people get scholarships but in return you must do work at their house over the weekend and summer. He had a good bond with Mrs. Dawson since he can talk to her about his likes in music, but then she caught him sleeping and so she fired him but he told her that he needed the money to go to Europe. She agreed to help him but he was still considered to be fired. James was able to pay his way to college however, "If I had an emergency, she would help"(McBride 187). Even though years passed he still had communication with Mrs. Dawson and never had forgotten her because she was always there to help him whenever he needed help. This is significant because we see how James bond with this white lady has made a huge impact towards his life, since she wasn't obligated to help him, she chose to help him. Which created a nice bond between them.

Social issue

141001668 — 2024-02-08 17:44:20 UTC

The social issue that was shown here was social class. We see that in this part where James finds work with this family who are white people and have a lot of money. They might have a lot of money but they aren't always so obsessive in trying to spend it. They help James when there is an emergency, and when James changes his pathway he sees there are better things in life than to do drugs and steal stuff from people. Everything changes for him when he meets those people, since they didn't have any obligations to help him with getting his trip to Europe but they didn't mind at all and would always be there if there was an emergency. This proves that even people who are the top of the social class help those who are at the bottom since Jame's life has always been hard especially with lots of siblings and his mother doing the best she can to give her kids stuff.

Personal reflection

141001668 — 2024-02-08 17:44:28 UTC

This part of the story was beautiful in my opinion since we can see how a bond between James and this White lady has really impacted his life. I had a similar bond like James, she was my neighbor and when I had the chance I would go and talk to her. She was older and had a beautiful dog and it would be nice to talk to her because she would tell her how her High School years was and she would always tell me to never give up and to always follow the good path not the bad one.

Psychological lens

141001668 — 2024-02-13 16:36:17 UTC

The motivation that forces the characters is that they want to move to a better society where they can have a little more and be able to get accepted like in this part of the story where James is at collage and he was really hoping that there wouldn't be no more racial profiling once they got out. But turns out that there is still some of that going on and they want to get motivated to do well and have this be stopped.

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141001668 — 2024-02-13 16:36:24 UTC

In chapter 23, we see that Ruth and Dennis act like they are married but they aren't really married. There is a riot that happens in 105th street which makes them wait to get married. Ruth later tells Dennis that they should get married but he responds with, "I grew up in the south and I can be killed down there for marrying a woman of the other race"(McBride 235). This is significant to the story because we can see that two different kinds can't be together during this time due to how most people wouldn't accept them. In this part we learn that during this time period no one was allowed to mix their race due to how the people with darker skin got targeted and would often get beat down for being with a white person.

Social issue

141001668 — 2024-02-13 16:36:37 UTC

The social issue here is race and ethnicity, we can see that during this part of the story. Before Ruth and Dennis get married there was a riot for being together and they would often throw things at them because they weren't supposed to be together since there were two different kinds. This impacts the story because we see that race is interfering with Ruth and Dennis. Which makes it hard for them to be together.

Personal reflection

141001668 — 2024-02-13 16:36:45 UTC

This part of the story was interesting to me because we can see that back then people couldn't mix race together. This part also shows that love is stronger than anything because if Ruth and Dennis wouldn't have agreed to get married then they would have left each other and wouldn't have been happy, even though during their time period it was hard to be together they made it work. At first it wasn't easy to get married but they acted like they were married, then later on decided to get married and then Rev. Brown said it wasn't going to be easy since they wouldn't get accepted in the world.

Reflection

141001668 — 2024-02-23 17:08:41 UTC

During the book "Color of water" we learn a lot of things. Things that most people can relate to and understand from. Some things I learned from the book is that someone's past can traumatize someone's life in the future. We see that in this book where, Ruth had a difficult past and her awful experience with her father doing things that made her uncomfortable. As well as her caring for all her children and doing her best for them all to have a successful future. In this memoir we can learn that most single parent do the best they can for their children in order for them to be successful in the world, they do whatever they can to make sure their children are safe and have a roof under their heads, even if their children are a different skin color the parent doesn't see them different like other people back then did. So what I learned from here is that nowadays most whites and blacks can be together and there wouldn't be any problem, meaning that now people accept those who are a different color.