Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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Hi MS Cooney um Welcome to my video essay. I chose the book.
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I am not your private mexican daughter.
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Um Here's just some background information about my book.
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So first off we're gonna talk about the author,
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the author is Erica L Sanchez and that is this lady right here.
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So the book was published october 17th 2017. And did I like or dislike the book?
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Yes, I would say I actually very much did enjoy the book a lot.
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Um I'll get more into detail and depth about that later on my presentation,
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but let me just give you a quick summary of my book.
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Um First off,
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the book is about a girl named Julia who
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is the daughter of a first generation immigrant family.
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Um She dreams nothing more but to be a writer and go on
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leave her family and just live her own life by herself.
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Um
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but she instead she feels trapped and constantly suffocated
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by both of her spare parents, especially her mom um about certain
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barriers they have about their beliefs.
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Um but while trying to juggle her parents and trying to become a writer,
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uh Julia is suddenly hit with a sudden dilemma when her sister um has passed
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in a sudden bus accident. Um And now this puts
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Julia in a tough spot as she was now held to this
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impossible standard to fill her sister's shoes.
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Um and uh live up to this expectation that her parents are putting her
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to to fill her sister's shoes and become the next like perfect mexican daughter.
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And even though it's completely not Julia and it completely
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doesn't match up with her identity as a person,
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she'd become so overwhelmed that she takes
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um by the new standard that she has to live with you,
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that she um takes comfort in her sister's room and find some tough,
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some would say skimpy underwear
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and this makes Julia wonder about like her sister and
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what she really knew about her sister and she actually did
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um nowhere sister at all.
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Um so next we're going to talk about the objectives and audience.
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So first off we're going to talk about um the the objectives.
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So first off,
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the author was addressing poverty and um just
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in general about poverty and um and immigrant families
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and undocumented families and how hard it is for them and um to make a living.
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And I know this was specially addressed in the book,
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especially when Julia was talking about how her and
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her parents lived on the south side of Chicago
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in a rough neighborhood and the apartment was just
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roach infested and it was just difficult for them.
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Okay, next up,
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uh the book talked about cultural ideals and how Julia is constantly fighting
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or like um going against her mother's wishes and like her mother's cultural ideals
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and they have argued about church and how Julia feels at church,
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the catholic church,
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mother's catholic church um wants women to be weak and ignorant and not have a
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voice in the community and are supposed to just follow along and Julia just doesn't
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I believe that's how it should be,
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and she constantly is questioning
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on the book, also talks about mental health and how um
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and Julia was suffering from severe depression, anxiety and how basically,
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just getting the word out there about people who might
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be suffering from mental issues and that there is help and like,
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bring more awareness.
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Also talks about sexual harassment,
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how Julia describes how she constantly feels like she um
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is uncomfortable because men will stare at her and still
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feel like they're staring at her boobs and then she
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needs to cover up and just bring it on this,
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like, um,
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pressure that she needs to dress a certain
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way just because people are staring at her.
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Um okay, so it talks about audience. Um, what it talks about
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is um what kind of audience I feel like we'll be young Latinas,
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or um people who struggle maybe with poverty or um just like mental health,
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because it did address all of those people who feel like they are alone in this book,
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really just helps address all of those issues.
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Um, also about first generation immigrants, people who could relate to this.
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I'm pretty sure I would know a lot of people who
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could relate to this and I sure did in um,
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different ways, not all of them, but um,
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the book is could definitely be targeted to more people who,
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or like um from poverty or um
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um first generation families and stuff like that.
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Um Okay next up we're gonna talk about the writing style.
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Um First up the book was um uh first person narration by Julia, the main character.
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Uh it was only talked about through her perspective and through her eyes
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and we didn't really find out nothing else about other characters,
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opinions or ideas, not only without her finding out.
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First um book cover was very closed off with
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her thoughts
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and it wasn't necessarily a journey because it
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didn't really say it was like you know,
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a straight up journal, but it was through her perspective, she did have one.
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Um
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she also is like showing her like going through the phases of her just like growing up
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and how she's dealing with all these emotions as
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a teenager and her sister's death and how overwhelmed
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um she feels in the book.
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Okay,
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alright readers perspective. So um
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first off for my literal perspective,
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I chose deconstructionist because it relates so
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much to the main character Julia's journey.
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So um first off it addresses the perfect mexican daughter concept on how like um
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daughters need to be addressed a certain way and they need to go to church
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and they need to do all of this stuff and they
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didn't cook and clean and fill all these uh like I guess
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holding back women in a way um and it's just like this
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impossible stressful standard that is helped held to women and not men
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And they also talked about the struggles with cultural ideals. So Julia
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um has mentioned many times that she disagrees
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with her mother's catholic choices about how um,
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she feels like the church makes women feel they
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should be stupid and not have opinions and be
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hush and not be outspoken.
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And she did get into, uh, for example, she got into an argument with this man,
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her mother's church because he was concerned about his son's sexuality.
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When Julia feels like the church makes all these um, uh
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not updated ideals,
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old fashioned thinking.
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Um,
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and just her status as an immigrant daughter and what she has to be able to help too.
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And she always has to have this like image that she has
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to live up to and that she can embarrass her family,
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you know, and just like stuff like that, that she has to
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live a certain way and yes, she has to dress,
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she can't show too much skin and she was just really weighed
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down and not being able to express herself in a healthy way.
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Mm hmm.
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Okay. Um some personal connections I had with the book. Um
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first off I would say I really connected
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with the book through the main character Julia.
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I personally related um with her so many asked with so many aspects.
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Um through the book. Um,
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she um,
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talks about one of the things that I relate with her so much is how she questions like
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belief in how what she believes um completely goes
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against the perfect daughter um perfect mexican daughter aspect that
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she is um pressured to feel because that's what
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her parents believe that she should be doing.
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Um not only just like her personal beliefs about like how she
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supports gay people and how like she goes against all that about um
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her book and like not a book about her story
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about her life
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and all of these just controversial topics.
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Like I know they bring up the concept of sex in the book and how like
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it is almost like frowned upon and like this is a no until like almost like a big issue
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and um
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just how Julia feels like it should be more um
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brought up and mentioned about and talked about
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unlike uh and she goes against all by all
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those values against her mom and just like
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her um culture in general and her heritage.
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Next up, it talks
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dresses about.
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Um I also really connected how they talked
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about mental health and anxiety and depression personally,
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I usually have a lot of anxiety and this personally
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made me feel like I related to it so much because
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um and how she describes that, you know,
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sometimes anxiety feels like she's trapped and then she's held back
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and I feel this is important for anybody to just like
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learn about who or who could relate to like these same issues
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mentally that um Julia describes.
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So connections, also she talks about connections with her family
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and how that she feels disassociated for them and she can't really
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talk to them about certain topics and beliefs because she um she was
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afraid of how they will react and judge her and I can
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also feel the same way because in a um very strict family,
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um I feel like most people can relate to this and how um
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sometimes it's hard to trust family because of just different
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generations of like thinking and how different ideas just don't
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match up the same way if that makes sense.
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Um
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And how you like that.
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Alright, so, so for my conclusion and um how much I would rate it.
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Um I in conclusion, I would 100% recommend this book.
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Especially anybody who's dealing with mental problems or like
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um just like struck family
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like that and like this poverty in general um on
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how relatable it is and how like Julia feels and how
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um she is described as a character
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and all these issues that she's going through.
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Like real life issues that people have definitely gone through and can relate
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and not feel like as lonely or as alone about their problems.
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But honestly, I would give this a five out of five typewriters.
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12.
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All right, thank you so much. Mr Cooney