A Countryless Woman Summary

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Contextual Analysis: “Alien Soil” and “A Countryless Woman: The Early Feminista” The essays, “Alien Soil” by Jamaica Kincaid and “A Countryless Woman: The Early Feminista” by Ana Castillo, represent two women’s opinions on the influence white society has on each of their minorities’ cultures. Kincaid was born to a poor family in Antigua, a slave culture that was born solely for the benefit of the Europeans in 1632, where she grew up until she eventually moved to the United States. Castillo was born in America, but felt oppressed and looked down upon by the white society as she was of Mexican descent. These two women’s views on the effect of white society on their cultures differed in many ways but both agree that it has an unfair and negative…show more content…
The Antiguans gained the quality of showering pity and cruelty onto the weak from the Europeans that dominated their society (Kincaid 47). Americans view Mestizas as weak because they assume that they migrated here because they had no other options in their home country so they need our help to earn a living and are therefore pitied by the majority society. This quality was transferred onto the Mestizas as they are ashamed to be Mexican and ashamed of the stigma that comes with working the typical manual labor jobs we reserve for them (Castillo 25). The shame Castillo feels to be recognized as a Mestiza opens our eyes to why the Antiguans may have so readily adopted European traditions and perspectives. While Mestizas retained pride for their Mexican heritage, although not how they are viewed as immigrants in America, the Antiguans wanted to eliminate any ties to their previous culture of slavery and poor quality of living that is associated with them. The Antiguans who could afford it attempted to live as the Europeans, gardening for pleasure instead of survival, to show they had grown past the phase of being inferior to white
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