scholarly journals Reading John Steinbeck’s “Flight” as a Folktale

Author(s):  
Didier Arcade Ange LOUMBOUZI

This paper analyses John Steinbeck’s “Flight,” a short story about the Torres, a Mexican American family, living on the periphery of Monterey in California and rarely going to town as it once happens to one of them, Pepé, who goes to buy supplies there. In addition to its one syllable word title and its twenty-six-page text, it is short like any short story in comparison with the novel which is another genre in spite of their common aspects. Its shortness clearly noticed does not end the debate on its form as it can also be compared with a folktale. The research question reads: to what extent can “Flight” be assimilated to a folktale? The aim is to show its characteristics of a Mexican American folktale. Concerning the approach, a reference is made to structuralism according to the theory on the form of the folktale developed by Vladimir Propp. In the end of this research, it is noticed that “Flight” is presented as a short story but it is formerly a folktale, a genre commonly linked to a given people identity, and Steinbeck uses it to express, to some extent, his compassion towards Mexican Americans marginalized within the Californian space.

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hsueh-Fen S. Kao ◽  
Mary R. Lynn ◽  
Josefina Lujan

Given the fast-growing Mexican American (MA) population, it is common for investigators to be pressured into using Spanish translated instruments developed for English-speaking populations. However, these translated instruments may have limited relevance for data collection without adequate assessment and vetting. The purpose of this paper is to present lessons learned from the pilot testing of instruments designed for use with Mexican Americans. Pilot testing of two instruments was conducted with 22 Mexican American family caregivers of older adults. Issues that emerged were classified into three categories—instrumentation, methodology, and demographic data. Within the area of instrumentation, six issues were identified—level of abstraction, concreteness, pronoun use, clarity, exclusiveness, and response format. Methodological concerns were focused on test–retest administration and inclusion criteria. Issues within the demographic data were concerned with marital status, country of birth, household size and income, and validity of self-rated scales. By addressing those concerns, investigators may be more likely to have culturally sensitive measures and greater generalization to relevant MA populations.


1981 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse T. Zapata ◽  
Pat T. Jaramillo

This study was designed to determine whether Adlerian-style interviews of Mexican American family members would support the general stereotypes commonly presented in the research literature. Interviews were conducted with members of 32 intact Mexican American families (64 parents, 123 children) from two church parishes. The interviews focused on perceptions of sibling roles, alliances among family members, and family management. A chi-square analysis of the data revealed that siblings perceived females as socially more cooperative and also tended to perceive sex-based alliances among family members. Parents did not seem to make choices on the basis of the sex of the family member. The results raise several questions about the prevalent literature on Mexican Americans but appear consistent with research on the American family in general.


2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 331-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna M. Lehman ◽  
Jeanette Hamlington ◽  
Kelly J. Hunt ◽  
Robin J. Leach ◽  
Rector Arya ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Christina Chavez

The debate on insider/outsider positionality has raised issues about the methodological advantages and liabilities between the two, yet no clear account exists for what insider scholars can expect when they enter the field. First, I conceptualize how insider positionality can dually benefit and disadvantage the insider. Using a partial review of insider studies, including my study of my multigenerational Mexican American family, I also present a practical discussion on specific insider advantages and complications. In conclusion, I present a new approach to training novice insider scholars that will help them mediate between insider perspective and researcher position, an approach that promises greater rigor to insider research that will serve the goals of qualitative research for social justice in minority and indigenous communities.


2010 ◽  
Vol 112 (12) ◽  
pp. 3074-3101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margy Mcclain

Background/Context This article explores the experiences of one Mexican American family as they make a key curriculum choice for their 9-year-old son. Relatively little attention has been paid to parents’ beliefs, attitudes, and, in particular, experiences as they actively engage in—and sometimes affect—their children's schooling. Parents’ agency in utilizing various kinds of educational strategizing, especially immigrant and urban working-class parents, has been overlooked. Deficit theories of low-income families have a long history in educational thought. Although more recent scholarship has debunked these theories, they remain pervasive across the country. Educators often do not recognize the many ways in which urban parents may be involved in their children's schooling. Voices of parents themselves speaking to their experiences with schools are just beginning to emerge. Purpose This article offers a rich example of the educational decision-making process of one Mexican American family. I take a phenomenological approach to examine human agency in specific familial decisions about this child's schooling that support the parents’ own vision of education. Here is a story of thoughtful, reflective decision-making that took place over a period of several years, when the parents finally decided to move their son from a transitional bilingual program at a public school to a parochial school taught in English. Research Design This is a narrative inquiry based on interviews and observations that took place with one family and one focal child through the course of a calendar year. It is situated within the frame of an ethnographic study on the educational life worlds of the family. The analysis draws on van Manen's use of phenomenology to examine how parents reflected upon experience to better understand a situation, resulting in “lived experience,” an understanding of the meanings a particular person finds in an event. Conclusions/Recommendations Immigrant and other urban parents may be actively engaged in their children's education, asking important and valid curriculum questions in ways that remain invisible to educators. I suggest alternatives to deficit theories that render parents’ perspectives invisible. Terms usually reserved for teachers can also be applied to parents: “knowledgeable observers” who make “pedagogically thoughtful” decisions about “curriculum.” This perspective would recommend that educational practice and policy use theoretical frameworks stressing parents’ roles as strong, positive, and active agents on behalf of their children and the need to develop dialogue based on respect. Further qualitative research in particular can provide needed depth in our understanding of parents’ struggles to negotiate the boundaries of culture, history and biography as they guide their children through the complex maze of school.


1988 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter R. Schumm ◽  
Eric E. Mccollum ◽  
Margaret A. Bugaighis ◽  
Anthony P. Jurich ◽  
Stephan R. Bollman ◽  
...  

2008 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelica P. Herrera ◽  
Jerry Lee ◽  
Guadalupe Palos ◽  
Isabel Torres-Vigil

Author(s):  
Diome FAYE

In Long Distance Life (1989), Marita Golden, one of the most outstanding African American female writers, follows up her first novel,A Woman’s Place (1986) with an impressionistic sort of saga about a black American family living in Washington, D.C., from the 1920’s to the present. In Marita Golden’s Long Distance Life as in Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter (1979), most of the couples’s love lives come to an abrupt end by means of death, divorce or a presence of an intruder that is to say another lover between the two spouses. The question of love occupies a central role in the novel in so far as all most all the relationships of the characters are motivated by the issue of love. Women’s predicament in the novel is the outcome of the different aspects of love dealt with by Gloria Naylor.


2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 17-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Becerra ◽  
Stella Michael-Makri

An illustration of one Mexican-American family headed by a single-parent mother is explored to depict the application of Structural Family Therapy. Familism and marianismo are examined as factors impacting healthy family functioning of Mexican and Mexican-American families. Interventions used with the family were joining, structural mapping, enactment and addressing disability and medical related concerns. Learning to create healthy boundaries between parent and children, addressing maternal depression and family economic stressors, and nurturing sibling relationships were areas that impacted this family. Further research is suggested into the application of Structural Family Therapy as a model when working with Mexican and Mexican-American families who have a child with a disability.


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