In the essay The Myth of the Latin Woman, Judith Ortiz Cofer reflects on the image of Latin girls and how it has influenced her life. Born in a Latin family residing in the USA, she has experienced pressure of the controversial expectations from her family and American society to behave and look in a particular way. At the same time, she regularly faces stereotypes based on her nationality and appearance. In fact, The Myth of the Latin Woman and the graphic narrative The Veil feature two completely different cultures but denote the same theme and ideas. In particular, both authors try to show how the cultural constructs influence girls during their upbringing and define their sense of self-identification in future. Firstly, the readings demonstrate the vulnerability of women regarding the well-established cultural traditions and gender notions. In The Myth of the Latin Woman, the author tells how Latin girls are strongly encouraged to wear mature and revealing outfits, which is common for females in South America. Even though the family and close surrounding of an writer reside in the USA, they are holding on to their culture, language and traditions. Consequently, young girls raised in such families have to deal with a dilemma regarding their cultural self-identification. On the one hand, they are attached to their cultural heritage, and but, on the other hand, they are raised in a society with different values and views. Both sides provide contradictive role models of how women should look and behave, which often results in the cultural conflict. Similarly, in the graphic narrative The Veil the little girl is vigorously imposed on new rules in society and in school during the so-called Cultural Revolution. Girls become the primary targets of the new politics and have to deal with the newly implemented restrictions in everyday life. Since the 1980, women have been obliged to wear the veil and to go to the separate schools with male students. At the same time, females were not given a freedom of choice, and any kind of disobedience or disagreement was violently suppressed. The mother of a girl is a vivid example of how vulnerable and unsecure was the position of a woman in Arab society at that time. While being an avid supporter of the females liberation and freedom of speech, she was terrified of the possible consequences after her picture appeared in the magazine. Secondly, the articles aim to prove the lack of correlation between the established stereotypes and reality. In particular, the conflicts occur when behavioral patterns common for one culture are misinterpreted by the representatives of another culture. Thus, Judith Cofer has to deal with the uncomfortable situations provoked with the mere misunderstanding regarding her nationality on a regular basis. Even though she has a degree of a major university, she is often taken for a waitress or service stuff. She speaks fluent English, but random strangers in the public transport and places try to impress her with their knowledge of Spanish, which is mostly limited to few lines of the songs with disgraceful meaning . It should be said that in most cases people involved do not mean to be deliberately rude, but they do not realize how harmful and offensive their behavior might be for Latin women. The overall situation is aggravated with the fact that media is actively exploiting the racial and cultural stereotypes. For example, the strong association of Latin women with the increased sexuality is very common. Similarly, the narration about a little Arab girl shows that the veil is not a proof of being deeply religious. In fact, the veil has not been originally a religious attribute, but was imposed during the Islamic Revolution (Satrapi, 2003). Thus, the stereotypes and cultural constructs based on the appearance often turn out to be invalid and might provoke uncomfortable situations for both sides. To sum up, most false assumptions based on the appearance stem from the cultural differences and misinterpretation of the particular customs or traditions. Moreover, women seem to be especially sensitive to any kind of impositions, as they have to overcome their negative effects at school, on workplace and in society. Overall, strong imposition of particular cultural and social patterns tends to reinforce the racial and religious prejudices.

About author Linda works as an editor at https://essaysservice.com/quality-proofreading-and-editing-services.html. She has always enjoyed working with a variety of literature and being interested in new facts. In addition, she easily finds common ground with many people. She also received her master's degree from American University Washington