Where is reality?

For this week, our class has read Boy Meets Boy a story that depicts the rocky dating road of a teenage boy who is gay. The issues within this book are not ones that are unrecognizable to a heterosexual female when remember the high school dating scene, however what kept catching me was the atmosphere of the high school in which the main character, Paul, functions in. The high school has a quarterback who is also a "drag queen" and many other students are open about their sexual orientation.

For me personally, it was difficult to read Boy Meets Boy because I could not wrap my head around the idea that there is a community within our current society that is so open and comfortable with people who identify as either gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans-gender or queer. As an optimist, I hope that some day all people while find the recognition and acceptance within our society as a whole that they as individuals deserve; however, as a realist, I didn't like reading Boy Meets Boy because I didn't know how to approach the novel because I didn't know what genre to place the book in--did Levithan intend for the book to be fantasy or did he intend the novel to be read as realistic fiction?

I was personally bothered that I had a difficult time wrapping my head around a community built on tolerance and acceptance and to get a better understanding, I visited David Levithan's website as was suggested in the "About the Author" portion of the book. Levithan says that when writing Boy Meets Boy he wanted to challenge the normal treatment of gay teenagers within literature as the tormented person in the student body at a high school and to my great dismay, when asked if his work is a work of realistic fiction or fantasy Levithan's reaction is that it is both--a story written on a line going straight down the middle of where we are and where we are going ( http://davidlevithan.com/about_davidlevithan.html ).

How unsatisfying to my constant need for having a clear cut answer, but now I believe that I understand the reasoning of Levithan for writing this story in such a way, when you look at our current society, we has such a long way to go in order for the high school that Paul attends to become a reality and yet, when you look at our past, we have come a long way in making it possible to dream that acceptance is a possibility. This is the reality and reality is rarely clear just as in Boy Meets Boy.

"True Confessions of a Closet Catholic"

I think that it was a nice change of pace to get together with my group members outside of our class to discuss a book that we all have read, I think that it made it easier to talk about the issues that we all had noticed in the book. I feel that being able to meet in this type of atmosphere made the feeling between all of the different group members more relaxed and trusting than when we have a limited amount of time while meeting during the class time.
When we were discussing the book we looked at the theme of chocolate being repeated throughout the story in instances when Justine, the main character, was dealing with the most stress or her lowest level of self-esteem. None of us could really come up with a definitive reason for the chocolate; we hypothesized that chocolate, which is such a comfort food for many different people, was used as a way to make the story about a Jewish girl more universal because what female hasn't turned to some type of food for comfort in a time of need? I thought, personally, that it was interesting that while Justine viewed her addiction to chocolate as a way of coping it was also the first thing that she blamed while mentally critiquing herself and her flaws.
The question that I had the hardest time wrapping my head around was the issue of Justine and her growing Jewish identity. For me when I was reading True Confessions of a Closet Catholic I found myself looking more at her misconceptions about a Catholic identity because I am, although non-practicing, a Catholic. When Justine's character was talking about giving up being Jewish for Lent, I found it hilarious because I suppose that I never viewed being Catholic as such a blessing. I did enjoy that although many characters throughout the story tried to tell Justine that if you are not happy with yourself, changing religions is not going to solve the problem, but in the end, figuring out who you are as a person is an journey that can't be decided by someone else, just like a religious choice can't. I found that although I didn't really understand completely the issue of being Jewish and Justine's self image, I could relate to the Catholic references because I have a background in going through a crisis of religion. Ultimately, I feel that these two religions, the one crisis of religion and chocolate all helped to make this a universally connectible story and I enjoyed the chance to talk about it with my group members outside of class.

Becoming...

In reading Becoming Naomi Leon, I tried to keep in mind how Spanish worked within the text as was discussed the Barrera and Quiroa article. For the beginning, the main character's identity was not tied to being a Latina, but instead as a quiet being. I enjoyed how Ryan tracked the development of Naomi with her increased usage and knowledge of Spanish as it was the intent of the story to show identity with self awareness. Naomi discovered her father and his Mexican roots and therefor, the usage of her Spanish mirrors her acclimation into the familial basis of Spanish and Mexican family values.
Throughout Becoming Naomi Leon, Ryan does not, in my reading of the text, make disengaged Spanish language additives, but instead the words work within the text to deepen the story line of Naomi finding her father and herself as she, Owen and her great grandmother travel through Mexico and its family-based culture. As it was discussed in the Barrera and Quiroa article, Ryan was able to integrate Spanish into the English text in a meaningful way that illustrated the cultural ties of the words and as a way of expressing an event that only occurs within a Spanish-based culture.
Ultimately, I feel that Becoming Naomi Leon functioned as a good story of a teenage girl trying to find her place in a word that she feels that looks without seeing and as the tale of a Latina girl connecting with her roots as she finds her father in Mexico and gains an understanding of the cultural importance of family.