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When In Rome By Firoozeh Dumas Hot Dogs And While Geese

852 Words4 Pages

When in Rome
The phrase “When in Rome,” refers to a letter sent to a person named Januarius around 390 AD and is actually paraphrased from the original text which says, when translated, “When I go to Rome, I fast on Saturday, but here [Milan] I do not. Do you follow the customs of whatever church you attend, if you do not want to give or receive scandal?” In this text the full idea is “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” In Firoozeh Dumas’s “Hot Dogs and While Geese” along with Julia Alvarez’s “I Want to Be Miss America” this is what both authors are trying to do; fit in with the society they’ve been thrown into.
Dumas starts her essay with humor, “Once we reached America, we wondered whether perhaps my father had confused his life in America …show more content…

If there was a ‘Hispanic,’ she usually looked all-American, and only the last name, Lopez or Rodriguez, often mispronounced, showed a trace of a great-great-grandfather with a dark, curled mustache and a sombrero charging the Alamo.” (957) in one of her first paragraphs. She points out the lack of representation of the colored women in America while also calling out white washing. Her mother even comments on this fact by saying ‘The truth is, these Americans believe in democracy—even in looks’ (958). Alvarez brings a “real world” view to her essay by addressing the problems Hispanic immigrants were, and still are facing in America. Alvarez goes on to talk about a racism she faces as well. While the comments made were more out of ignorance than hate, it still bothers Alvarez. “We bought a house in Queens, New York, in a neighborhood that was mostly German and Irish, where we were the only ‘Hispanics.’ Actually, no one ever called us that. Our teachers and classmates at the local Catholic schools referred to us as ‘Porto Ricans’ or ‘Spanish.’

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