Bad Influence
This story follows a fifteen-year-old girl, Rita. Born and raised in America, Rita is unfamiliar with her Puerto Rican heritage which worries her parents. Like all other adolescent teenage girls, Rita starts showing interest in boys which prompts her parents to send her off to Puerto Rico to visit her grandparents.
In the first days of her arrival, she is hostile to her grandparents and refuses to acknowledge her Puerto Rican origin. As the days pass, Rita slowly begins to recognize their culture and the vast experiences her background has to offer. She is excited and ends up forming a new bond with her friends, family, and culture.
Arturo’s Flight
Arturo is a high school student who is having trouble understanding the challenges that come with life. During one of his literature classes, his tutor, Miss Rathbone, asks him to recite a Shakespeare poem which he is unable to do. His classmates all laugh at him. He feels embarrassed and disappointed in himself.
He flees from his friends’ jokes and makes his way to a nearby church. There he meets the janitor, Johann, who sits him down and the two have a heartwarming conversation. Johann tells Arturo of the struggles his family had to go through during the Second World War. Arturo feels motivated and uplifted. He is now ready to face the world with a different view.
A Job for Valentin
Cofer wrote this story as an appreciation of our differences in traits and experiences. The text follows the teenager Terry Works who discovers that everyone has something different to offer the world. Terry works at the local swimming pool. She works with a mentally challenged man named Valentin whom she brushes off most of the time. She would rather spend time with a dashing lifeguard called Bob Dylan.
During one hot summer after, Dylan slacks off at his job, and one kid almost drowns. However, Valentin springs into action and rescues the kid making him a hero.
