The Myth Of The Latin Woman Summary

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“The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” was written by Judith Ortiz Cofer, and was originally published in Glamour magazine in 1992 (Cohen 370.) Cofer was a Puerto Rican American writer, who is well known or her novels, poetry, and nonfiction works (Cohen 91). She also taught at the University of Georgia and was inducted to the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2010 (Cohen 91). Cofer was a Professor of English and creative writing while she taught at UG (Cohen 370.) Though Cofer grew up in New Jersey, she was born in Puerto Rico in 1952 (Cohen 91). Upon moving to the United States with her family as a young girl, Cofer experienced what she described as a “(cultural) clash” (Cofer 93). In “The Myth of the Latin Woman” she explains her insight to the “Hot Tamale” trope that is often given to Latin women here in America and explores the one dimensional stereotype of the Latina domestic (Cofer 93, 95). As a woman, Cofer might experience bias for her own gender. Because Cofer has experienced a fair amount of racism over the course of her life, another bias that she might hold would be towards Caucasian people. Lastly, though she had a master’s degree, there seem to be little to no evidence that Cofer held a bias towards working class individuals.