Three

Cisnero's book--written almost twenty years ago--seems in many respects, timeless. Timeless in its ability to capture so quietly the ugly truths that plague women, minorities, the poor, and the disadvantaged all together. The Times piece on "The Diploma Divide" reveals that these truths have, unfortunately, not become myth in the two decades since its publication. The girl featured in the film, tried to beat the odds like Esperanza dreamed about, and seemingly failed. Times attributes these issues to the widening gap between the rich and poor, which perpetuates the vicious cycle of poverty that seems unending. Cisnero highlights the issues of race in her book when she talks about the fact that her whole community is "brown"; that the man who raped Esperanza accentuates her ethnic identity as "Spanish girl"; and that in their culture—like others—Mexican men like to tie their women down. The Chris Rock piece also seems to be highlighting the issues of race in the fact that most of the white men and women he surveyed did not feel Tupac Shakur Blvd. was a suitable name for a street. While I believe that Rock was trying to make a point about the fact that a black artist—and rapper—would not be as valued as another white artist, I think this a poor example of white privilege. Rock's asking if they would alternately approved of a street named after Frank Sinatra or Bruce Springsteen seems unfair, because of his gang affiliation etc. Overall, this comparison seems an unreliable report of stereotyping examples. I do think though, that an assessment of the stereotyping of other reputable black rappers—would be fair. Any person, white or black, who is involved in some form of organized crime, probably wouldn't be considered to be put on a street sign. In the Green Day song, the central point highlights the terrors of war, and the heartbreaks that happened when loved ones were sent overseas. This connects to the other works because of the way it characterizes women, war, and love. There is a dominant ideology present in the music video that is illustrated first, by the song title. People want to forget the war, and the horrible things that happened in it, but I think that the larger issue at hand is that there is a theme of people being forced to do what they don't want to do.

Esperanza and her community members had to remain in their poverty despite hard work and trials, because of their poverty, and their poverty connected to their race, and their race and gender, contributed to more issues. Likewise, the Galveston girl wanted to go to college, but couldn't because she was forced by poverty, race, and class, to do what she didn't want to do. Maybe Tupac would have been something different—maybe alive—if he hadn't been affected by racism, poverty and classism. Maybe the boy who went to war "for us"—his girlfriend—to support her financially, wouldn't have had to go if he had been richer, or if there had been no war at all. These issues blend together into a sea of intricate and hopeless webs of problems.