Analysis Of Diaz's Essay: A Hispanic Garden

Essay 3 In her essay, “A Hispanic Garden,” Diaz expresses the inner conflict she faces a foreigner between two lands. As a Cuban immigrant residing in the United States she is obligated to fight a continuous battle with herself and others to preserve her culture within the dominant culture. She explains her feelings when she visits her homeland Cuba. While she is there she is not considered Cuban enough in the same way that she is not considered American enough when she is in the States. Her essay further discusses the battle against injustices that Hispanic women suffer in America. Attempting to find liberation for Hispanic women from society’s oppression, she concludes that in order to reach true equality, power within feminist movement must be shared among all ethnicities. She notes how important it is for “Euro-American feminists to acknowledge their prejudice” (18) in order to “work together on deciding the priorities for the [feminist] movement and not only for the Euro-American

She then states her mother’s difficulty to “criticize the sexist behavior she sees there” (25). In a way, Diaz understands her mother’s conflict as her mother was raised with different ideologies where women are expected to subjugate to their spouse. She believes that overcoming“the oppression of women in any domestic sphere” will contribute to the Mujerista movement. However, she also recognizes that “those of us as mujeristas criticize sexism in the Hispanic culture are often belittled and accused of selling out to the Euro-American women, but Euro-American feminists call into question our integrity and praxis as mujerista feminist when we are not willing to criticize” (26). With this in mind, we can see the constant fight a Hispanic women must face in the feminist