Running Head: Relating to Silent Dancing: How it relates

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Relating to Silent Dancing
Jorge Andujar
Devry University
Professor Monaghan









Running Head: Relating to Silent Dancing: How it relates



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Many cultural characteristics can be expressed through the use of space. You
can tell a lot about someones culture when you look at there space. Cofer explains a
lot about her culture and how different but similar things can be. She also notices
how much her father wants to leave and how her mother does not. Danticat and Cofer
had a similar life style by living in an apartment building. Oates has it different because
she lives in the country.
When you walk into someones household you can tell a lot about his or her
culture. Especially in a Hispanic culture, there is something that just makes it a latinos
house. In Silent Dancing, Cofer states the following:
It is "typical" immigrant Puerto Rican decor for the time: The sofa and chairs are square
and hard- looking, upholstered in bright colors (blue and yellow in this instance), and
covered with the transparent plastic that furniture salesmen then were so adept at
convincing women to buy(Cofer).
She calls it typical like all Hispanics do the same thing. From personal experience, yes
the way she describes it, it is true.
In the passage, Cofer talks about the pipes that connect the whole building. At a
young age she can remember a lot of details about this. She even says
But the pipes were also a connection to all the other lives being lived around us.
Having come from a house designed for a single family back in Puerto Rico -- my
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mother's extended-family home -- it was curious to know that strangers lived under our
floor and above our heads, and that the heater pipe went through everyone's
apartments(Cofer).
She talks about how unusual the pipes were to her because in Puerto Rico she lived in a
single-family house. She became curious about who the people were that surrounded
her. This is where she mentions the beehive and compares it to El Building. She realizes
that her family was the wealthiest in the building. Cofer remembers the times where
she would go shopping downtown on Broadway. She would shop at name brand stores.
Mother bought all our clothes at Penneys and Sears, and she liked to buy her dresses
at the womens specialty shops like Lerners and Dianas(Cofer). She starts to talk about
the places they go to shop; no one else in her building would go to those stores to shop.
The others would stay local and shop around their area. We never ran into other
Latinos at these stores or when eating out, and it became clear to me only years later
that the women from El Building shopped mainly in other places (Cofer).
Even though there were things that were different she still brought a little of
Puerto Rico with them. Her family was also in the area and they had parties. At these
parties a lot of old traditions and people from the mainland take surface. They make
food from back home and the men playing dominoes. In the story when talking about a
little bit of home Cofer says:
The thick sweetness of women's perfumes mixing with the ever-present smells of food
cooking in the kitchen: meat and plantain pasteles, as well as the ubiquitous rice dish
made special with pigeon peas -- gandules -- and seasoned with precious sofrito sent up
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from the Island by somebody's mother or smuggled in by a recent traveler. Sofrito was
one of the items that women hoarded, since it was hardly ever in stock at La Bodega. It
was the flavor of Puerto Rico(Cofer).
Cofers father was upset that he could not move his family out of El Building. Her
mother was fine being there because it was a little like home. The area where they lived
was not the kindest; racism was still at a strong point. "You Cuban?" one man had
asked my father, pointing at his name tag on the Navy uniform "No," my father had
answered, looking past the finger into his adversary's angry eyes. "I'm Puerto Rican."
"Same shit" (Cofer). For reasons like these the father wanted to get his family out of
there. He was very over protected and did no want them to leave the house. He would
only come over on the weekends or when he could. It is hard for anyone to be in the
situation he was.
Danticat can relate with Cofer, they both lived in areas where it was like a small
community in its own. When Danticat describes her neighborhood says Its an elevated
castlebasketball court for home summer afternoon games, an urban yellow brick road
where hopscotch squares dotted the sidewalkIt was home.(Danticat pgs.83-84) She
was in loved with her surroundings even though they were described opposite of how
she feels. "Graffiti on most of the walls...hills of trash piled up outside...the heat and hot
water weren't always on...I never dreamed of leaving"(Danticat pg.82). In Silent
Dancing, Cofers mother is attached to El Building. Her father would still appreciate
where he lived despite all the other things he did not like; he tried to make it the best he
could. During the holidays he would go the extra mile in the story it says Yet Father
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did his best to make our "assimilation" painless. I can still see him carrying a real
Christmas tree up several nights of stairs to our apartment, leaving a trail of aromatic
pine. He carried it formally, as if it were a flag in a parade (Cofer).
Oates had different look on life she lived in the country part of New York. Her
home was not described as what Cofer and Danticat seem to believe is home. Oates
falls in love with abandon homes and has a different perspective on space. She gives
you the definition of a house, A house: a structural arrangement of space,
geometrically laid out to provide what are called rooms, these divided from one another
by verticals and horizontals called walls, ceilings floors For only where there is life can
there be home (Oates pg.245). Danticat and Cofer have more to relate to than Oates
has with both. But all three were some how emotionally attached to where they lived
and grew up.