The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (201-268)

Summary
This next section is continuing with Lola, Oscar's sister who went to stay over at La Inca's place in Santo Domingo. It's her last day there before her mother comes to pick her up and take her back to America. When her mother saw her she expected her to say that she looked beautiful but she did not. Lola thought she still liked only Oscar. When they got on the plane to America Lola started to cry, I believe she felt loved and and enjoyed staying with La Inca. Her mother help her hand throughout the whole plane ride and even defended her when someone told her to tell Lola to stop crying.
Quotation
She put her hand on mine and left it there.                                                                  
Reaction
I chose this quote because I think it was very emotionally. I thought this because when the mother saw her she still didn't show any love to her daughter but she comforted her when she was crying on the plane.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (134-201)

Summary

Quotation

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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (67-134)

Summary
The second section of TBWLOW has the speaker recalling Oscar's mothers teen years in Baní with her aunt known as La Inca. Beli's parents died when she was young.The speaker talks about how fortunate Beli is for a girl living in a third world country. She has everything any girl in such a country could dream of but yet it looks as if she is not satisfied. It looks like she wants something else in life maybe something that has more value to her than anyone else.
Quotation
"
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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (1-67)

Summary
The book starts off by introducing Oscar. It makes one point clear which is Oscar likes girls. It is not saying anything is wrong with him just that it is his kind of obsession. This may have a part to play in the end of the story. Oscar had two girlfriends when he was seven. One was named Maritza, a beautiful young girl and the other was named Olga which you could tell by the name was not so attractive. One day Maritza went up to Oscar and told him to dump Olga or he cannot her. He made the decision to dump Olga. When Olga cried over the break-up, Oscar had not felt any sense of guilt. The next time he goes to the bus stop to wait for his bus. He finds Maritza with another boy. He then starts to think how the breakup affected Olga. He life  went downhill from there. He lost his groove when it came to dealing with the women. Olga's life had also gone downhill after their breakup. Maritza seemed happy but Oscar did not think so after seeing her slapped around by her boyfriends.
Quotation
"Mari Colon, a thirty-something postal employee who wore red on her lips and walked like she had a bell for an ass-all purportedly fell for him (Diaz 12-13)."
Reaction
When I first started reading the book, I found it confusing because the book started talking about the Tainos in the introduction. I felt like what was going on around here. I found that quotaion funny because the main character was young and he even had older women falling for him and he was just seven years old.

The Measure of a Man (41-100)

Summary
Sidney's family moved to Miami. In that part of America racism existed a lot and Sidney witnessed a lot of it. His family was terrified because they did not want to endanger their lives but Sidney did not stand there to take in watever the racist was telling him. He would respond by saying he does not care about the different colors of their skin and he told people point blank that he would not take any nonsense about racism becuase he did not see the need or the cause to be racist to a fellow human being. After some time he could not take the pressure of racism anymore so he got a job and used his money to buy a bus ticket so that he could leave Miami for New York. When he arrived in New York he wanted to find Harlem because people in Nassau kept on taking about how nice the place was. Someone directed him to the subway station. Sidney became overwhemled when he say the trains. He started to wonder how the train travels under New York City. He thought that Harlem was a popular place because th trains could take you there.
Quotation
"Being new and from a different culture, I was wide-eyed with curiosity, mostly at my family's reaction. I just couldn't get used to this strange place and this strange way of behaving."
Reaction
I understand when Sidney says in the book that he wondered why his family was scared then he responded with the quote above. When your brought up differently in another country and your a teen or a kid and then you leave for another country, you do not usually agree with some of the rules because you are mostly arrogant and alwayswant things to go your way.

The Measure of a Man (21-40)

Summary
In the second section of this autobiography, Sidney and his family have to move to Nassau because they were struggling to meet ends meet on Cat Island. Sidney was so over taken by Nassau because it was so modern compared to Cat Island. He had never seen cars before and he was so consumed by the technology he saw. On his island Sidney has only seen two white people but one day on his way to school in Nassau he saw a white boy and they started talking. The boy told Sidney straight up that he could not have the same opportunities as him and that he was better than him because of his color. In another part of book Sidney was hit by a white biker. He tried to chase the biker but he escaped. Sidney and his family was still suffering. He even had to wear sowed flour sacks to school.
Quotation
"He wasn't at all shy about letting me know that he was better off than I was, on the basis of his color. According to the gospel as he had learned it, I would never have the same opportunities, the same circumstance in life that he would."
Reaction
After reading this section of the autobiography I began to see that Sidney was going to endure more racism in te book. Afte reading what the boy had told Sidney I thought that parents of that time started to make young racist among children. I also thought that the biker did not need to hit Sidney for nothing. I wish Sidney had gotten back at him,

The Measure Of A Man(1-20)

Summary

The book starts off with the narrator in his home flipping through some channels and he becomes frustrated with technology. He then starts to remember a time when he had no technology around him to irritate him. He starts to recall when he lived on Cat Island with his sister, mother and father. There was no technology to distract anyone from nature. There were no refrigerators or freezers son his mother would preserve the fish traditionally and they would not use the fish for about two months but when they finally did use it, it tasted as fresh as ever. There was another scene where the narrator went into a ditch which was one hundred feet long and six feet deep was dug from the sea to a salt pond. A door was blocking the sea from the ditch when he tried to push it opened. He couldn’t get it opened so he got out of the ditch and looked over the see the level of the water and if he had got the door open, he would have drowned because of the current and the level of the water. When he was fifteen he left for Florida. There he starred in a movie called No Way Out. He went back to Cat Island to show the people of the Island. His family enjoyed it and that moment he saw how much his mother really cared for him. She was happy and very proud of him. At first he thought his mother was just a mother but now he understands that his mother is a mother.

Quote

“The water was up to my neck, and I was scared shitless” (Poitier 11).

Reaction

When I began reading this story I instantly related his view on television to mine. Sometimes I could search through all one thousand channels and still not find anything suitable to watch. I enjoyed this book so far because there are a lot of funny as well as some emotional moments in this book. The author uses some minimum profane language which adds to the humor in this book. When the narrator wanted to go into the ditch, I found that funny as well because it was filled with water. He was a very daring boy at such a young age. I would recommend this book to anyone.