I wrote this essay with passion, and it was an actual topic I had wanted to talk about for a long time. I got this idea from my past essay that I wrote last semester about immigration, and since immigration is also a big topic in the news now, I decided that I would write about it again—but this time, focusing on how immigration is not harmful but rather beneficial to the United States. I also wanted to challenge the people who think it is harmful and encourage them to change their minds because immigration has a lot to offer.

This paper took me about three days to write. At first, I started with passion, but then the draft was due, and I had only about three paragraphs done. I kind of ran out of ideas because I ended my topic by talking about fast food restaurants that were created based on the idea of Mexican food. After that, I got stuck and completely forgot what I was writing about. Then, on the second day, my draft did not make sense, and I realized I needed to refresh my approach and find new sources. I was talking with one of my friends, and they were telling me about their experience in the U.S. I began asking them more questions about their story and then asked, “Do you mind if I use your story for my English paper?” They said they had no problem with it, so I used it. Then I called my other friend because she had told me her story before, and I asked if I could use it. She also said yes.

With those personal stories, I had enough material for my next paragraph, so I began writing, and everything started making sense. After that, I added my conclusion, finished my editing, and submitted the paper. I didn’t look at it too much after finishing because I knew I would start overthinking my work and deleting everything.

The part I liked the most was when I added the section about fast food restaurants and how some cultures do not originally belong to the United States, even if they are viewed as American. Many of these foods actually come from immigrants, like bagels and other foods that most Americans eat. I felt like this fit perfectly with my title, Not Harmful but Beneficial to the United States.

When I did my peer review, I learned that this was a topic people actually liked reading about, even though I originally felt like they wouldn’t. Most of my peers enjoyed it, and I was happy about that. They did suggest that I include more sources and make it more personal, so in my next paragraph, I added the interviews as well as my personal overview and experience with immigration—how my parents and I came here for a better life.

If I had more time, I feel like I would have done more research on this topic and even gone as far as to interview people on campus about it. I feel like I need to be more focused in my writing, and if I do that, I will be fine.

What role does the narrator’s family play in shaping her perception of her body?

In story eight, we are faced with the character and her struggles with her body. Despite this, she grows up with the idea of just eight bites. First, we start with her mother, and in the book, she states this idea that you only have to take eight bites of food. Her mother, according to her, looked skinny and was never overweight. This causes her to become more aware of what she eats and even causes her to feel anxiety after eating, which leads her to take more than eight bites due to the fact that she is hungry. She then experiences even more anxiety after picturing the food as delicious and in her mouth. Even if she remembers herself as having a normal weight and being a normal teenager, this is something that sticks with her every single day. When she remembers her mom, this constant phrase that her mother said sticks with her, and now that she is older, she could feel it more and ask questions like, “What would my mother think or say?” Her mother influenced her, I believe, to be skinny and eat less.

Another set of characters that could have influenced her perception of body image were her three sisters, after she claimed that they all got the surgery. I feel like she might have been influenced to also do it. After all, in the book, they talked positively about the surgery and even encouraged her to get it. There could’ve also been peer pressure from them since they got it. After all, it could be the same thing for her sisters due to their mother’s influence.

Third, I think her daughter plays a big part. After having her daughter, she felt different and felt like her body was not fine and did not fit the standards of society or her mother’s standards. After all, she is a woman, and her body after having a child could change completely, and I feel like she would have felt that. But in the end, her daughter has a positive outlook because she does not want her mother to go through with the surgery and feels like she does not need it, giving her the confidence that she needs. Overall, I feel like her daughter makes her reflect on her old self and question what she did. After all, she will not be the same. She feels like she did not deserve that body, and her old body did not deserve her.

Question: What does the word “inventory” stand for in this story?

In the short story Inventory by Carmen Maria Machado, we see that the title is Inventory, but what can this possibly mean? Well, at the start of the story, we can see that she starts telling us who her past lovers are, and she mentions the experiences she had with them, even if they involved sex or other things. She continues by talking about how she lost her virginity and how she reunited with the same guy again.

Throughout the story, she runs away from a pandemic that honestly could mean an actual pandemic, or it can be used as a metaphor, but that is another question to ask later. As she moves to get away from the virus, her relationships, I feel like, start to get a little more crazy and extreme. For example, the time when she was almost killed, woke up to a knife at her throat, and had to send the guy away. After that, she mainly became more interested in women than men. The same happens when she splits up with her wife and sleeps with men more than women. As worse events happen, her relationships also get worse.

I feel like this is a pattern she is used to and is not able to be alone by herself. If she is by herself, she would probably get this feeling of being alone, which is not what she wants. She lacks a lot of self-love and respect for herself because this feeling of loneliness makes her feel empty. At the end, we get to this moment where she is probably alone and finally able to find herself as the woman she is. But you can sense that she feels alone and scared. Due to this, she starts having a moment of reflection and looks back on her past relationships, seeing both the worst and the good in them. She is going back in time and seeing herself as she was, and I feel like she might want to change that.

The word inventory stands for a complete list of items, such as property, goods in stock, or the contents of a building. In this case, she makes a list of the people she’s been with and reflects on it at the end of the story. So that is what Inventory means to me in this story.

What is the significance of the ribbon and what happens when her husband touches it?

In Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado, her short story The Husband Stitch there is always a ribbon mentioned that the husband is not able to touch. While reading the story, I wondered what the ribbon could mean and found that it could have many significances. The ribbon served as an example of her relationship. She had a complex relationship with love. Throughout the story, she made a lot of sacrifices for love, and the story kindled from the expressions that a society of marriage and even just relationships.

The ribbon, which is worn on the back of her neck, is worn to remind her husband of loyalty towards her husband and the connection they both have. Despite this, at the beginning, this can be viewed as good because it shows connection, but through the story, it starts to have a different meaning. The ribbon, through the story, starts to have the expectations a wife or even a woman has when being in a romantic relationship. The woman in the relationship is required to complete her husband’s wishes and prioritize her husband over her own self. I can see that she does this when it comes to her and being able to have another child and sometimes satisfying her husband when it comes to sex.

Being in a relationship does require intimacy and is seen as a form of connection you have with your significant other. Having sex and the ribbon is where I saw another symbolism. She mentioned that the ribbon was tied tightly, and the husband stitch meaning having sex always can be an effort but also be painful.

One part of this story that stood out to me was that her husband mentioned that their son would have a ribbon. That could’ve meant a sacrifice that she had to make for her son to come into this world by having a 20 hour long labor

and later she states that her body is not the same anymore. This can be some significance of what the ribbon means throughout the story.

When her husband, at the end, touches the ribbon, he kind of takes off that bond and loyalty she had towards him, and you can see that, in the end, this led to her losing herself and even her identity. Her husband touches it and undoes her ribbon, leading to her death.

 Writing this essay was a little difficult because, in the term “community,” I identified with a lot of communities in my first thought. But then I started to narrow it down, and it looked like maybe I did not identify with the communities I originally thought or have much to say about them. They were either too simple, too short, or just didn’t really connect with me. So I thought about what actually represents me. And out of the blue, the idea came that I identify with my heritage, traditions, and ethnicity. So I thought about the Latino community, but it didn’t feel right, so I chose the immigrant community. This community felt right—I found myself identified with it and knew clearly what I was going to talk about.

Now that I had a topic, it was time to write. When it comes to writing and college work, I’m a procrastinator like most people my age. If you sit me down and tell me to do it, I’m not going to do it until the last minute. So that’s exactly what I did. I wrote my draft in approximately an hour and a half that Wednesday before the workshop on Thursday. But I did not like my draft. I felt like it was missing something. It was a little too political, and for the first time, I actually rewrote my entire essay. I felt like I needed more connection with the audience and a little more of my personal experience because, at the end of the day, it’s my community I’m talking about. So I redid my draft that week, and it felt perfect.

The only bad thing is that I tend not to reread my essays because, again, I overthink them. I start deleting parts, and in the end, I might delete my entire essay. So I turned it in. After that, it was class, and we had a discussion with my friend about an article we were reading. Somehow, the topic of immigration came into play, and I started talking about how, in my essay, I emphasized that immigrants are not only Latinos but also people from different countries outside Latin America. She agreed with that, so I felt proud that I included this in my essay because, to me, it was an important point to make my argument clear about the immigrant community.

But also, when I write, I try to write as if I am talking. Not in a formal, forced way, like I have to write this essay, but in a way that feels natural—like I’m talking to my friends. I want the reader to feel connected, even if they might not relate to the topic I’m discussing, but in some way, they can still feel a connection. That’s what I like about writing these types of essays, and specifically, this one. I do wish we had more time and a more extended word limit because I felt like I had more to say about my community but was limited. However, something I would do differently is maybe not procrastinate and also read over my work. I know that reading over your work is very important because it allows you to judge yourself from a reader’s point of view rather than a writer’s.

The quote that I picked was: “Such people, when they speak of ‘freedom,’ mean the freedom to oppress their kind, and to be savage, merciless, and cruel.” This quote appeals to me because it emphasizes the meaning of freedom back then. Freedom was not actual freedom as it was emphasized. It was more oppressing—the kind to have no mercy and to be cruel towards a specific group of people, which were the slaves. The meaning of freedom wasn’t meant for everyone. It was specifically just for a certain group of people—a group of people who were kept from their liberty and only used for economic work purposes.

What really stood out to me is when the chapter stated that there were three little girls playing around, acting like they were selling each other. This act not only contributes to the quote but also shows that this was normalized for children. The children grew up with this idea that freedom was limited for them.

I feel like this contributes to the current moment because, somehow, in other countries around the world, freedom is also limited. There are still people who suffer from slavery, and again, like the quote states, they do not have mercy and are cruel towards these people. Even now, in the United States and other countries, slavery has basically been abolished. Like I said, there’s still slavery, but there’s also some sort of way that we might not look into it simply. By looking into it more deeply, we can still see that some people do not have freedom. This includes certain people from certain communities, like the Latino community, African Americans, the LGBTQ community, and others, where somehow they find themselves limited in this freedom.

Even if the freedom quoted in the chapter is interpreted to be brutal, the limited freedom that people in these groups experience can be emphasized more gently through hateful words, brutal actions, or, again, words on social media.

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