Friday, November 7, 2008

Bad Influence By Judith Oritz Cofer


Rita is a fifteen years old girl who received consequence from her parents to "either go to Catholic girls' retreat or to my mother's folks the island" for two weeks. Rita decided to go to her grandparent house that live in San Juan, Pureto Rico. This place is very hot and her grandparent live by the beach. What did Rita do? Well, she got in trouble with her friend, Meli, for sleeping with Johnny and Joey, the basketball star in East High School. Rita's parents did not think that this was acceptable. Rita vacation with her grandparents turned out to be fantastic instead of having punishment. Does she actually learn anything from her grandparents?

I thought it was kind of funny how Rita's parents had told the family that she have asthma by misinterpret and probably assume due to Rita practice Zen. Zen is the purpose for practice deep breathing;therefore, Rita does not have asthma. When her grandmother try to make her tea and do different things to make sure Rita's health had improve later she realized that Rita does not have asthma.

Her grandparents does live in on the farm. There was one of the rooster who can not tell time like the other regular rooster. The rooster thought day is night time while night is day time. How silly is that. Seem like that doesn't bother her grandparents.

Juan, Rita grandfather, help people getting away from evil spirit that make them ill. This is similar concept of helping people with mental illness or as Mama Ana said their brain is sick. He had to go help Angela the skinny girl to heal. Rita had went over to Angela house with her grandparents. Eventually, when Mama Ana invited her to come have dinner with them outside, Rita became friend with Angela. Angela had went over to Rita's birthday party and she mostly keep Rita company.

By the time Rita got back home, she still finding a way to meet with her friend, Meli and probably finding Johnny as well. I think she mostly want together with Meli while her parents was trying to separated both of them. Her parents' punishment for her does not seem to work as Rita had find some advantage and capable of meeting with Meli.

In my opinnion I did not think it was a good idea to separate friendship just because they got in trouble for sleeping with the boys. Hopefully they learned their lesson as their parents want them to. If they both are pregrant then that will be a huge lesson for them to learn. Friendship can last forever and their influence on each other can remain. I thought maybe Rita learned her lessons from her grandparent and probably Angela as well during her two week vacation. I guess not because she still went back to her old habit. Maybe if her parents' adjust the punishment that will seem more reasonable since her parents think Rita's behavior for sleeping with the boy was wrong. Rita said she does not actually sleep with the boy so her parents' probably thought she did something extreme as they may have misinterpret what they have seen or heard. I think having discussion about what happening to Rita and Meli with the basketball star boys to give Rita a better consequence.

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