Rituals: Immigration, Family, and Identity in Writing of Judith Ortiz Cofer Anonymous College

The American Dream―a phrase that was once the foundation of many immigrants’ hopes for a new life now feels fanciful and almost cruel. Not only do immigrants face economic difficulties upon arrival to the U.S., but they also face a world where their appearances and customs separate them and drive them into a cultural limbo. The reality is that immigrants step into a country whose government doesn’t protect their interests as best it could. This unfortunate truth is evident in Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “Rituals: A Candle, a Prayer, and a Notebook”. Cofer tells of her and her family’s struggles as Puerto Rican immigrants, as they try to find a happy medium between assimilating American culture and maintaining their own Puerto Rican identity. Cofer’s own personal journey demonstrates the ways in which political decisions in housing, education, and even the enforcement of the Constitution has stripped families like hers of their cultural identity.

Housing in the United States is one of the greatest indicators of cultural divides perpetrated by political decisions―the lack thereof, in this case. In the 1930s, the federal government failed to intervene in the housing market and its redlining approach that ended up segregating...