Jaime Puente
year and a half I had already stopped attending. Working and partying was the most important
thing to me at that time. When I returned in 2006 I came determined to push myself to new
knew that I wanted to focus on American Literature, but also American history and philosophy. I
wanted to know who and what I was in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001 and both
the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. I wanted to know why it was so easy for people in our society
to homogenize themselves and others when pressed by fear. Most of all, I wanted to know why I
was so angry with my government, my family, and myself, for not being able to articulate my
my desire to return to school and take a multi-disciplined approach to finding some answers.
Slowly but surely, my scholarly work took shape. While not represented in this portfolio,
two introductory classes informed my work and course of study, Introduction to Philosophy and
Introduction to Literary Theory. These two classes exposed me to a wide variety of theoretical
perspectives. Literary Theory set the foundation for my ability to apply philosophical,
sociological, and psychoanalytic, theory to literary texts, while the philosophy course opened
doors to more nuanced understandings of such theories. What is found in this portfolio is a
concerted effort to engage in scholarly discourse from three distinct perspectives, the literary, the
philosophical and the historical that seeks to tease out the meanings of identity. My studies are
informed in part by modernist thinkers such as those in the school of Marx, Freud, and
Nietzsche, but more recently by, what I like to call, post-thinkers. By that, I mean scholars
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such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Edward Said, whose post-structuralism and post-
colonial ideas are represented in my essays in both the citations and methodology. While my
understanding of such dense theoretical positions is still in its infancy, I have always made the
The first essay in this collection is a final essay written for Dr. Jane Creightons ENG
3322 Mexican American Literature class. Titled, Caught Between Two Worlds: the
Predicament of Antonio Cuitla in Amrico Paredess The Shadow, this essay discusses the
effect of the so-called American Dream on Antonio Cuitla, the protagonist of the novel The
Shadow. Paredes creates a hybrid character in Cuitla that is at once Mexican and American, but
the latter only in spirit. I argue that the storys protagonist is haunted, not by the ghost of his
dead compadre, but the ghost of his identity as a Mexican person. This essay is a good
representation of my ability to discuss a work of fiction and elaborate on its meaning through the
use of critical and historical texts. The study of identity and Cuitlas duality drove my essay, and
it marks a beginning of a chain of thought that spans the course of my upper level course work.
The next essay is also a critical examination of a novel, and again, it was written for a class
In the spring of 2009, I registered for ENG 4311, Contemporary Literature being taught
by the cooky yet brilliant Jane Creighton. My essay that semester discussed a novel by J.M.
Coetzee, titled Waiting for the Barbarians (1980). In The Double Face of Empire I use
Coetzees novel and the deconstructive theory of literary scholar Susan Van Zanten Gallager to
argue that in the empire-colony dichotomy even the most innocent colonizers are culpable in the
actions of the state. I discuss the use of torture in the novel as a way to describe the transfer of
information between colonizers and colonized through pain inflicted upon the body. In this essay
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I engage in a theoretical discussion and explication of Coetzees novel using literary criticism
that is founded in post-modern theory. While the discussion of transferring knowledge and
experience through torture is extremely compelling, the next essay I am submitting is an example
of being able to fuse my lust for pop culture with my academic endeavors.
One of the most amazing educational experiences Ive ever had happened in Dr. Chuck
Jacksons ENG 4314 Major Authors: Richard Wright and James Baldwin class. We were reading
Wrights Native Son (1940), and the second or third day of discussion I made my way to school
listening to an album called Straight Outta Compton (1988). During class our discussion of racial
hegemony, as discussed by sociologists Michael Omi and Howard Winant, and Bigger Thomas
in Wrights novel reminded me of lyrics from songs I listened to that morning. The nihilism I
perceived in Wrights character Bigger corresponded to that being expressed by a group of kids
rapping on an album in 1988, singing Whos the man with the masterplan?/ A nigga with a
muthafuckin gun . Dr. Jackson encouraged that train of thought, and I produced an essay called
Whos the Man with the Masterplan?: Bigger Thomas and the Trope of the Angry Black
Man. This is one my finest essays because it shows my ability to historicize, contextualize, and
connect a narrative across time, space, and form. I synthesize and critique the sources I use to
show continuity between Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and rap groups such as N.W.A. My
final essay written for a class in the English Department, is also the most recent.
I am currently in Dr. Antonio Garcias ENG 3387 Modernity and the Avant-Garde. After
registering for it the second time around, I am very happy I am in this class. Discussing
Modernism from the perspective of Charles Baudelaires 1863 essay The Painter of Modern
Life I wrote an essay titled, The Filth and the Fury of Baudelaires Modernism. Using the
work of Walter Benjamin I argue that the shocks of experience Baudelaire relied upon by living
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in the city informed his perspective of what it means to be beautiful and modern. Writing this
paper I had to rely on my philosophical and theoretical background to understand the ideas
Benjamin used to explicate how Baudelaires experience influenced his thinking. While
discussing Baudelaires use of shocks, as Benjamin called them, I also helped solidify my
literature or theory courses the previous four essays all have a close connection to the next two
essays because the history and philosophy papers are examples of my belief that a basic
foundation in all three fields is necessary for a better understanding of how identity is
constructed.
The two being represented here are for Dr. Theresa Cases HIST 4305 History of the New South,
and Dr. Jeffrey Jacksons PHIL 3305 Contemporary Philosophy classes. The first is a study of
Mexican Americans living in Houston during the Great Depression. Titled, Mexican Americans
in Houston: Facing Adversity and Becoming American during the Great Depression, 1929-
1939, the essay is a historical research paper that is founded on primary material, and argues
discrimination aimed at Mexicans. I discuss the idea that some Mexican Americans embraced
their ability to be considered white as a way to gain access to certain privileges. This essay
helped me understand better the history of the people whom I identify most with, and provides a
necessary context for any study of my identity and context in socio-historical time.
The one philosophy essay I am submitting is an argumentative essay that engages the
existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartres idea of radical responsibility to freedom and Dr.
Cornel Wests argument that Democracy Matters (2004) to argue that the borderzone between
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the United States and Mexico poses the greatest risk and most promise to the future of American
democracy. This essay is an example of my belief that being a critic is not enough. I must try to
offer solutions. It also shows that I can use theoretical arguments and apply them to real world
problems because I believe as scholars we must engage in the world around us. As an aspiring
This collection of work from the last three years has been a labor of love, torment, and
redemption. Writing these essays, I have tried to explore myself through the works of others, and
in all three fields, literature, history, and philosophy, I have done just that. Each essay that was
written for a literature class engages identity in some way, and it has become an interconnected
theme throughout my work. The history and philosophy essays are important to include in this
collection because it speaks to the multifaceted perspective from which I approach a text. In each
essay there are elements, bits and pieces of theoretical insights peppered across pages that are
informed by modernist and post-modernist thought. This portfolio, and the essays it contains, are
not only examples of my academic achievements, but my ability to better understand with