Analysis Of Andale Prita

The story Andale Prita, is a memoir by Mexican-American, Yasmín Ramírez from El Paso, Tx that wrote this book to grieve her late grandmother talking about her many life experiences. Throughout the story we can see how the book covers a lot of important and delicate subjects such as violence towards women. Yazmín’s grandmother who she would call “Ita” (short for abuelita, grandma in Spanish) suffered a lot during her lifetime, and violence was one of the many hardships she encountered. Ita was hurt physically by more than one man and more than twice in her life which shows how hard it was for her. For example, in the story on paragraph eleven Ramirez wrote,“He and your Ita were arguing as they walked up the stairs of our apartment-you know

In the story Ramirez writes, “One time they got into an argument, and he grabbed a dinner knife, and my mom grabbed a fork and stabbed him on the side of the head.”(86). Pete wanted to hurt her with the knife, but it is noticeable that there is a difference here from her past relationships-she’s now defending herself. This is because Ita had to build a stronger character to defend herself due to the bad past relationships she had experienced. She had to learn how to be strong and not let any guy get away with hurting her. Although she then developed a stronger character, after some other failed relationships Pablo came into her life to also add up to the abuse she suffered from men during her life. The book states “He’d hit her, then hug her so she couldn’t hit him. That’s how he headbutted her and left that scar in her forehead.”(89, Ramirez). This quote helps us understand that Pablo knew that Ita wouldn’t let him mistreat her and she would defend herself, but he knew how to manipulate her. He physically hurt her and left a scar as proof of the violence he had towards

For instance, Yazmin wrote in the book,“It also shows how even though she wanted love more than anything, Ita didn’t know how to be loved because even after this, she still stayed with him.”(78). Yazmin knows that her Ita wanted love, but didn’t know how to receive it since her relationships were all bad and she was used to men being abusive. Her past traumas followed her. She knew it was wrong,but she also thought it was “normal” the only thing she thought she could do was defend