Please post your response to Roxane Gay's short essay here. It can be pretty open ended, but some things you may want to address are the overall structure or language of the piece; the way Gay inserts herself into the narrative; the comment on race; the comment on genre (various genres really); the way this essay complicates or engages with ideology/pop culture; etc.
Your response should be no less than 200 words.
In Roxane Gay's short essay, she talks about how infatuated she was with a book series as a kid and how that helped her get to where she is now. The book series, Sweet Valley High, was one of the things that helped get her through school and it gave her something that she could relate to as her and her family moved around the country. One of the things that she mentioned about the book was that she couldn't entirely relate to the characters she was reading, because she wasn't white. Since she is of Haitian descent, she knows that she will never be chased after like the boys do with the other white girls. Roxane just had to hope that she would go on to do great things, but she was also inspired as a young kid. As she mentioned in the beginning, when Vanessa Williams won the Miss America crown, she became the first black women to win that award. This gave Roxane so much hope in the fact that she could become the next winner of Miss America. Another way that Roxane mentions race issues in her short essay is when she is describing, how in Sweet Valley High, a couples relationship didn't last that long because they were "too different". The only difference that we can tell is that they were a different race from each other.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started reading the short essay, I was hooked. I was curious to see where Roxane Gay was going to take it, because this was clearly a very personal essay for her. The language and overall structure of the piece was very fitting for a personal essay. While her writing was personal, it was also relatable, and that is oftentimes a very difficult thing for a writer to do. It was really eye-opening for me, to hear about the difficulties minority populations face in present-day America. I don’t want to say I’ve never thought about the discrimination minority populations face, I have, but I’ve never really thought about it from the perspective of a young girl, who faces constant discrimination and bullying from her peers. While I couldn’t relate to the discrimination or bullying she has faced, I can relate to the reading of Sweet-Valley like books, books that paint an unrealistic version of reality. I’ve always found solace in these types of books, because they provided me with an escape from reality. I can even admit that, occasionally, I’ll take a trip down memory lane and read one of those young-adult novels I probably shouldn’t be reading given as a nineteen-year old in college. I read them, however, for the same reason that Roxane Gay does… the nostalgia. Genres that contain the likes of Sweet Valley High and other young-adult novels, remind me of the good old days, when things were easier, and simple. A time when I lived at home, still had my parents to help take care of me, a time where my biggest worry was high school. Overall, I think this was an amazing piece of writing.
ReplyDeleteRoxane Gay's short essay was an interesting read. She uses first person which allows her to insert herself in the narrative. She quoted things that she had said, particularly to bullies, which was a good way of getting to know who she was at that young age. Her comments on race are moving because she actually experienced different treatment because of her skin color. It was inspiring to know that Vanessa Williams made her feel comfortable in her skin and made her believe that anything was possible. I think that her comments about his show how important pop culture is to young people. As long as kids see people in the media that look like them they can feel good about themselves even if others are trying to put them down. Her descriptions of her fantasies are entertaining and detailed. It shows that she is still has big aspirations like the one of being miss America when she was a little girl. This essay engages with ideology when it refers to her struggles as a Haitian girl. Her comments of being left out at school reflect the beliefs in this country that immigrants, especially of a different skin color, are not good enough or equal to people born in this country.
ReplyDeleteI think this story is a typical school story, in that Roxane Gay talks about how she felt inferior to the other girls and felt that she was not pretty enough to or popular enough to hang out with the girls that she looked up to. One day when they were making fun of her because of her difference,she blurted out, "One day I'll become Miss America." This story is a wonderful personal narrative about how life was for Roxane. There are multiple comments about her race that I find interesting. She mentions that the girls used to make fun of her accent because she was part Haitian. They also made fun of her hair because it was different than theirs. I think it’s kind of sad that the girls would do that to her. I also think that Roxane wanted so badly to be popular and be understood throughout her life, and in school. Roxane makes many references to the book series Sweet Valley and compares life in those books to her life in school. She even talks about how the characters in the books relate to her friends outside of the books. One thing that I think this story touches on is self worth. Roxane is constantly talking about how she doesn’t feel like she is worthy enough to be popular, or to become Miss America. Self worth is something that a lot of girls, and guys too, struggle with throughout their grade school years. I think that this is a good narrative because it allows others to see what it’s like to struggle with self worth.
ReplyDeleteIn Roxane's short essay of "I Once Was Miss America" Roxane talked about how she liked this series of books named Sweet Valley High. She talks about her experience of reading the book before when she was a young girl and how she would count down the days till the next book came out and in to her adulthood when she was so excited to buy the series Sweet Valley Confidential. The series talked about these twin girls who lived in this perfect suburb town, they were “popular” and apparently had the looked. Mind you these two characters in the book were white, blonde, and thin, so most girls in Roxane’s town could relate to them. Roxane was a young African American girl whose parents were from Haiti, cross-eyed, and was told she “talked funny” so compared to everyone else on the block she was different, but that did not stop Roxane from finding herself inside that book. At the end of her short article, she wrote,” As a black girl, as a Haitian girl, I was not supposed to see myself in the Sweet Valley High books but I did.” Roxane was able to find something to relate too in the series as a kid and maybe as an adult too. Just because of race or location, does not mean that people can not relate to any subject.
ReplyDelete"I Was Once Miss America" has a very personal tone throughout the entirety of the essay. Beginning with how she introduces her favorite set of books she would read as a child and how she strives to be just like the girls in them. They're beautiful, blonde and popular. She then reflects onto herself and thinks of the ways that she is not like them. She even brings up racial comments about herself that make her "different" than the other students at her school and her struggles handling that. It is unfortunate that a problem like that is found at such a young age. When I was younger I made friends with everyone no matter what they looked like because to me, everyone was just another person to call my friend. She on the other hand did not feel the same way. Maybe there comes a problem with reading too many of those "perfect reality" books. Children read them and think that is what their life should look like, no less. It is very similar to the way women end up looking at themselves after playing with Barbies their whole life, there is a constant tease of "perfect" lives all over books, tv, and everyday toys that children play with. It is no wonder people grow up belittling themselves because they have not lived the same life as two perfect twins in the books.
ReplyDeleteThe personal essay "I Once Was Miss America" is one that I found to be very interesting, I really enjoyed how it emphasized the authors character development through her childhood. The first person point of view allowed for a better understanding of the way in which both the victory of Vanessa Williams and the Sweet Valley High book series impacted her childhood so much. The author organized the essay by first introducing both and how they affected her as a child, making note of how Vanessa Williams being Miss America was breaking beauty standards, "That moment made us believe we too could be beautiful." The author also points out how her and her brother were the only black kids in school and she would often get picked on, when all she wanted was to be popular and was desperate to have friends like the Wakefield twins, which shows just how much the book influenced her social life. Clearly she saw her race as a setback in having that “perfect life” that was depicted in the books. As the essay progresses, it talks more about her reminiscing on her childhood and what I mostly got out of this is how the idea of what is commonly advertised as beautiful was something that affected the author personally as a child but she then got inspired by Vanessa Williams and was able to see herself as beautiful and felt empowered.
ReplyDeleteIn Gay's essay "I was Once Miss America" she uses many personal examples from her own childhood to help the audience understand her emotional struggles growing up. Her family are immigrants from Haiti and with her wild hair and being the only black girl in school, it is obvious that she stands out from the other kids at her school. The Sweet Valley series helped her get through school because she felt as though she was living in Elizabeth and Jessica's shoes. She would imagine herself hanging with the popular kids at her school. For example she states, "I wanted the popular kids to pull me into the shelter of their golden embrace and make me popular, too. Popularity is contagious." Reading this Sweet Valley High books gave Roxanne joy and let her enter her own world of imagination even when times were tough for her socially.
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