Sunday, October 17, 2010

"Looking for Empire in the U.S. Colonial Archive" pgs. 135-140 - Megan Reynolds

                When I first read “Looking for Empire in the U.S. Colonial Archive” by Morillo-Alicea, I was sort of curious to how far the author actually delved into his topic.  However, as I read pages 135-140, I began to really get a better grasp on the author’s intentions.  In the second part of the article, the author mainly focuses on the classification of the documents and the photographs that he found throughout his process of researching our country’s history and so forth. 
                In the article, the author also talks about two particular photographs, one of barefoot children and another of a classroom of female students at sewing machines, where none of the females are looking at the camera.  I decided to compare this section of the article to a photograph that I found online.   In the article, the author mentioned that the photographs that he found in the archives of the Puerto Rican children in what is assumed to be a schoolhouse is an example of how we illustrated moving the other countries that we claimed into progression, fitting our typical uneducated stereotypes of those from other, less fortunate countries.  The photograph of the women sewing is just a further example of the illustrated stereotypes in the archives that the author mentions.  The photograph that I found online is just one example of the typical stereotype that exists for modern-day American women.  They are expected to always have their hair done, and dinner cooked for their husband as they arrive home from a hard day at work.  I thought that this photograph was a great example of another example of stereotypes that exist for certain groups of people.

No comments:

Post a Comment