Blog Post #5

1.  One character who has had their identity shaped by events in the story is Sofia.  It started when she met Otto in Colombia.  They could not be together because Otto lived in Germany, and Sofia lived in New York City.  Then Carlos, the father, found the love letters from Otto, and had a big fight with Sofia over them.  Sofia in a fit of rage, packed up her things and went to Germany, where she managed to get Otto to marry her.  After that, they had a daughter and moved to Michigan, where they had another kid, a boy, named Carlos.  The grandfather seemed happy with the son,  but after they played the kissing game, the father got and left after he figured out that Sofia was the one who gave him that open mouthed kiss in the ear.  These events shaped her identity because she was once the baby of the family, and now is considered by the father as the rebellious one, and now has a strained relationship with her father because her identity has changed so much.

2.  I think one thing that is positive in the story was when Yolanda returned to the Dominican Republic, in the beginning of the novel.  She was longing to return to the Dominican Republic because she felt disconnected from her roots, and wanted to revisit them after years in the United States away from her extended family.  It is positive because, even though it was not necessarily a good trip, she did revisit her roots and reconnect with her extended family again, and overall that was positive for Yolanda.  I would label this positivity as person to person, and person to self.  It is person to person because it was positive that she was able to see her family again and be with people she was once close with.  It is also person to self, because she was able to realize her old culture because she felt disconnected from the Dominican Republic, and for herself, she wanted to go back and be apart of her original culture and be with people that are like her.

3.  I feel that the Jeremy Lin is impressive for two reasons.  One is that he overcame many obstacles, and second is that he is the only asian-american player in the NBA right now.   I feel that the media attention he is getting is well-deserved, but, for me personally, it is getting to the point that every time that I turn on the television, there is a story about Jeremy Lin, and I am getting tired of the repeated stories that are continually being published about him.  I think that it is a great story, but I think the media has overblown it because he is an asian-american, and that nationality/ethnicity is very uncommon in the National Basketball Association.  Overall, it is not that I am not impressed with or the obstalces he has had to overcome on his way to, what is now, super-stardom, it is just that I feel that the attention he is getting overblown to ridiculous proportions because he is asian-american, which again, is very uncommon in the NBA.