ipl-logo

Don T Ask Me Where I Am From By Jennifer De Leon

1269 Words6 Pages

Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From by Jennifer De Leon is a teenage drama that deals with the challenges of overcoming adversity and racism. Liliana Cruz is a sophomore in high school who lives with her newly-single mom (because her dad left without explanation) and brothers in a small town in Boston. She was born and raised in Boston but her parents are from Mexico meaning they are undocumented. Liliana has a best friend Jade who she has known practically since she was born. Early on in the story Liliana finds out that she got accepted into a prestigious academic program called METCO. This program is specifically offered to non-white students and is highly competitive. At first Liliana is skeptical about the program and really has no desire to go, …show more content…

While navigating the stress of school, Liliana's home life is even more hectic. Towards the middle of the story she finds out that her dad was actually deported back to Guatemala. Everything seems so confusing for Liliana because she has no idea what is to come for the future. Throughout the rest of the story we see Liliana adjusting to her new life and building life-long relationships with her new friends and teachers. The school holds an assembly where the METCO kids talk about the importance of respecting kids of color and ethnicity which quickly gets out of hand. Even though it was so out of control, it made everyone come to their senses and it motivated them to start giving people the respect that they deserve and more and made Liliana a school-wide hero for resolving the discrimination dispute. At the end of the story something exciting and unexpected happens. Liliana's dad comes home and everything seems right because not only is her family back together again, but, Liliana made a difference that won’t be forgotten in years to …show more content…

Liliana has always been different in the sense that she is one of few people at her school in the METCO program. At her old school, she was more similar to everyone else considering there was a mix of races throughout the school. She didn't have many friends at her old school but someone being different has gotten her a boyfriend, a new (white) best friend, and friendly interactions at her new school. The theme is shown emerging when Liliana first arrives at West berg High and talks to a girl named Missy. She says, “So yeah, Missy was the only white girl I’d ever spoken to for more than five seconds. Some people might find that surprising, but it was true” (De Leon 40). This quote relates to the theme because it shows how sheltered Liliana's culture was with her neighborhood full of kids just like her. So interacting with a white kid was something out of the ordinary for Liliana since she really didn’t have the opportunity before she switched schools. The only person she really interacted with besides family before the transition was Jade. Towards the end of the story we get to see the theme develop even more. Liliana has been able to figure out how she really feels about being diverse. This has led her to do things that she never would have thought she would be doing or able to do as a minority. The theme is shown at the end of

Show More
Related
683 Words | 3 Pages

Lily’s nanny is also very loving towards her. She buys Lily a bunny for Easter and when T. Ray tries to take it away and threatens to fire Rosaleen, she stands up to him in order to keep her child happy. Lily says that was the first time she really knew that Rosaleen loved her. Rosaleen is a very strong woman and Lily follows her example. When Lily’s friend, Zach, starts school at the white high school, students throw things at them because he is black but she stays by his side and does not run away.

Read More
531 Words | 3 Pages

I’m Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter is a novel by Erika Sanchez. The main conflict is that Julia’s sister Olga has recently passed away, so Julia struggles with her mental health, depression and grieving, and the stress of schooling additionally with her home life and close relationships. Julia is very dismissive because of the close and messy relationships she has around her life. Julia is very self conscious because of the way her mother talks to her. Ama tries to set an expectation on Julia saying, “ You have to be pretty for your family.

Read More
912 Words | 4 Pages

During her first weeks at Princeton she had realized that Princeton had few women students and fewer Latinos. She was highly intimidated by this and it made her nervous to reach out in class, if she needed help. I feel like coming from a community when mainly everyone around you is alike in some sort of way made her understand that she wasn’t living in her old world anymore. Where she grew up, she wasn’t surrounded by many well-educated, brilliant

Read More
892 Words | 4 Pages

The novel Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From by Jennifer De Leon is about a young girl who undergoes the struggles of fitting in as she tries to identify who she is. Liliana is Latina, but she finds it tough to identify who and what she is. In Liliana's old school she was used to everyone being of color but after finding out that she qualified for the METCO program not only did things change but her school did as well. On her first day of her new school, Westburg, she realized that being in a new school would be difficult, but being one of the only colored girls in an almost all white school was even harder. In the beginning of the book Liliana finds it hard to become friends with people from both Westburg and METCO.

Read More
675 Words | 3 Pages

The theme is developed by how Jeannette learns how to take care of herself and her younger siblings, and the way her parent taught her. Jeannette have a very tough childhood where she have to go up quickly,so that she can work to make money. This way she won’t starve and feel the chill of winter, where there’s no heat in the house. She can also break ties with the move and rent new house to find new money sources because her dad can’t hold a job for a long

Read More
1426 Words | 6 Pages

To begin, the fact that Lily was white and Rosaleen was black shows the audience that racism was irrational. Even though at first, Lily thought all blacks were uneducated, we see her grow and learn. They bring characters like August that opened Lily’s eyes to a new world. When she begins to develop feelings for Zach it is a totally new world. In school she was taught that they were just trouble, but fell for him anyway and realized everyone was wrong.

Read More
1611 Words | 7 Pages

The bullying leads to her moving to Burnside Elementary School to get a "fresh start" from the bullying. Over time, the family saw a change.

Read More
579 Words | 3 Pages

An illusion is a false sense of reality or a deception of the truth. The beauty industry capitalizes on women every day by promoting products that give the illusion of flawless skin, longer eyelashes, longer hair, bigger bra size, and slimming waist line. Many people can be deceived by others because they are not who they portray to be. In Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Good Country people” the author vividly describes a character that has a false sense of reality through intelligence, deception and unbelief. Hugla, the protagonist has a false misinterpretation of her intelligence.

Read More
462 Words | 2 Pages

In "Good Country People," by Flannery O'Connor, there are four distinct characters, each with their own opinions and morals. Mrs. Hopewell categorizes her hired help, Mrs. Freeman, and a traveling Bible salesman named Manley Pointer as "good country people." However, the term "good country people" takes on various meanings throughout the story. Mrs. Hopewell believes that she and her daughter Joy—who has adopted the name Hulga—are superior to everyone else. In contrast to their rural neighbors, they are educated and sophisticated.

Read More
1924 Words | 8 Pages

Too native for the white kids but too white for the native kids. This interaction between her and Hubert really portrays her internal battle. He doesn't see her as fully Indigenous accidentally letting it slip to her that he doesn’t see them as equal when it comes to race. She understands she's different and in part ignores him at school, fitting in with the white kids, but the second she's back on that bus to the Rez it becomes clear to her that she isn’t really herslef. Forever stuck between two worlds.

Read More
250 Words | 1 Pages

THESIS: This novel is about Rachel a young biracial girl. Her mother is Danish her father is African American. Her mother killed herself and her two brothers by jumping off the rooftop in Chicago.

Read More
752 Words | 4 Pages

Everyday, she excels in her job of caring for the children and making a difference in the community. Due to her kindness she would always bring thoughtful gifts for the children. She doesn 't have to do the classes with the children everyday but she continues to do it like Sylvia says “school supposed to let out in the summer I heard, but she dont never let up” (Bambara 96). The lessons learned while earning her degree has lead her to becoming a positive role model in the children 's lives; nonetheless, teaching them lessons that may never learn from others. She shows her passion in the story by saying “she said, it was only her right that she take responsibility for the young ones’ education.

Read More
846 Words | 4 Pages

People of the majority hardly ever experience reverse racism, except Lily when she is living in the Pink House and when she is hanging out with Zach. The second August agrees to allowing Lily and Rosaleen to stay, one of the calendar sisters says “But she’s white.”(Kidd 87). Lily does not think that her skin color affects the way people view her, and she has never been questioned her being due to her race. This being said, Lily realizes that she is now being viewed differently, as Rosaleen was when they were back in Sylvian. Zach and Lily like to work and do tasks together, but Lily does not get how wrong and inappropriate that looks for people of the opposite color.

Read More
970 Words | 4 Pages

Ms. Gruwell, the teacher who was given the class she had never expected she’ll get – the class 306, the lowest class in the whole year. 306 had students who were separated because of their ethnicities, races, and color. Those were the students who experienced racism, poverty, and social injustice. Ms. Gruwell made each one of them write in the diary everyday and tell their story through the diary, and through that diary they all revealed their story. Every student's story had so much in common, most of them went through abuse, violence, poverty and molestation.

Read More
957 Words | 4 Pages

She has been a stranger to herself for six years, not knowing about her racial identity. She had never thought of herself as black because she has lived with white people all her life. It takes is one photograph with her friends for her to find out her skin color. In the book it states, “Ah was wid dem white chillun so much till Ah didn’t know Ah wuzn’t white till Ah was round six years old. Wouldn’t have found it out then, but a man come long takin’ pictures and without askin’ anybody, Shelby, dat was de oldest boy, he told him to take us.

Read More

More about Don T Ask Me Where I Am From By Jennifer De Leon

Related Topics

Open Document