In my opinion When I was Puerto Rican was a horrible book because the author was writing in a style that blamed other characters, wallowed in her own ideas, and the book was a little disturbing. Santiago writes about her immigration from puerto rico to the United States of America. She blames her father completely for the move. I was all his fault that the moved to the city and then to the states. If it was a good memory she would of moved on a noticed that her Dad was in and out of the family's picture so there were other reasons she was to young to understand. She wants you to feel bad for her but truly she should of moved on and left the past in the past. Secondly Santiago writes with the idea that everything is based around her. If something bad happens to her it should happen to everyone. Her opionion on how she was force to move comes out through the novel as if she wallowed in the every single detail for the greater good of her self. Lastly in my opinion When I was Puerto Rican was a little graphic. She explained to many little details that had nothing to do with the plot but were slightly disturbing. For example when she is in the US she sees a truck drivers with his hands in his pants and goes on and explains how she watch and was interested in what he was doing.
I thought this was a great argument saying it wasn't a good memoir. During the paragraph maybe you could expand or explain the detail more after stating your point. Although, I thought you found great examples from the book.
ReplyDeleteYou've chosen relevant criteria from Zinsser's piece to prove that the memoir is bad. You can just be a little more precise/specific in your thesis. Try organizing your points more carefully and bringing in more evidence--and elaborating on the significance of that evidence to be more persuasive.
ReplyDelete