Depicting Identities
Home Movies
I started reading this essay because the introduction of it pulled me in, and I could not resist reading it. It talked about looking at old photographs and/or home movies of things in the past and it helping you bring back old memories of things that have happened in your past. Certain things that have happened in your past maybe hard to remember until you find something to remind you of it, it maybe someone talking about it or coming across old pictures or home movies that were made like how Judith Cofer did in this essay. She found an old video of a party she had went to with her parents and it brought back many different memories of her growing up as a Puerto Rican child that moved to New York with her family because of her father joining the navy to make money for their ever growing family. The old home movie of the party helped bring back memories from when she was about 3 years old up until about her teenage years.
In this essay I really enjoyed how she would jump back and forth from the video that she had watched to filling in the history about what was going on before the party. I like how she described her house and the neighborhood that she was living in. Another part of this essay that I liked hearing about is how her father wanted to give them the best life and make sure they were safe and got what they wanted, for example the nice clothing from Penny’s and Sears, and him wanting to move them into a better neighborhood. Although the mother didn’t want this, she missed the comfort that the island brought her and did anything she could to get back the feeling of home. She shopped at the local markets for the groceries that she needed, so she could get the same food items that she would have had at home and she could talk to the other women that lived the same building as they did. All of this that she did was against the father’s wishes.
I could relate to this essay because just like Cofer did, I use old pictures and home videos to relive and remember certain parts of my life that are a little hazy. I think it’s a good idea for everyone to take some free time and remember certain parts of their past, especially the good ones.
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I enjoyed reading your response to this story because it was a story that also caught my eye; but I ended up reading a different one from the same section. I like how you sumarized the story and then added your thoughts through out the response. I would suggest maybe putting more of your thoughts about the story in to the response or maybe adding more about how you relate to it. Overall, great job! =)
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