I feel very indifferent about this. It might be that I may not be looking at the bigger picture of things, or maybe that I would like things to be very straightforward sometimes, but I have never deemed a feeling of confusion that cannot be described "art" - if anything ever leaves me with a gap, I deem it unnecessary and go on about my day.

Am i wrong for this? Should I be looking for explanation in everything?

This is something I never really understood when someone could not really describe an emotion, especially when it comes to looking at those "abstract pieces"

This is very well written, but it contradicts itself with how the standards of beauty are setup today. Although I do agree with my peers that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, there are certainly some guidelines to follow, for example, if someone were to play the flute with beginner experience next to a world renowned flautist, there is a comparison and a standard being set by "critiques"

This is true, and it speaks miles for me. I feel like there is a lot of ways people can approach what the definition of art can be, There are standards to everything, but these standards were not set by the artists, they were set by people judging the art. Its a strange concept that a lot of people don't paint or do music anymore just for the love of it, but to satisfy others and hope for the audience to like it. We live in a world of critiques now.

True statement, but I feel that people are go too deep into it, English is a universal business language expected to be known, but of course I may be sounding offensive to some.

I think this resonates more with the modern day immigrant, and those who have came before us. A lot of the times we have this attachment to home and stand behind a country that we may have been or not been in, we still would not go back due to the conditions and or different level of comfort.

This is an interesting line, I am not sure how it would translate today in the modern gen z era, but I can see these cultures are very traditional and conservative. Although these were norms back then, I feel that we are heading in a new directions that allows us to not let cultures be dictated by men but have participation from everyone equally regardless of gender.

This is a very strong line for me. I think that us as Hispanic/Latinos are not exactly trapped, but we are never free to discover ourselves in our first households. We often get shut down when trying to voice out an opinion or get greeted with a "you're too young to make those decisions for yourself. For the longest time, my family did not let me get a job for numerous reasons. Now I know it was because of the natural independence I had.

I think this is very well said. There is a weird feeling of inferiority between us that when our elders or higher ups shut us down, our reply is not to find out the reason why or stand up for ourselves, but to submit and choose peace, even if it is to sacrifice our rights.

This is strong. As a man you become bombarded with inner thoughts that begin to kill you. The norm here is that expressing those moments to others or sharing them with the public can be perceived as weak. We as men try to find an escape from reality in everything, this hits home.

I really love the flow of the writing here. The author is providing us with imagery of the experiences during the sacrifice of the narrator. I resonate with a strong line in this text and that is "All the tattered and bright colors of someone's gried." I used to live in a neighborhood where the entire community got together to grieve one of the locals- a young cyclist on his way to school got hit.

This is interesting, often times the familiar norm for a household would always be that the man is deemed as the head. My guess is that the father was not as progressive an is a traditional. I wonder if there is any other reason.

I love this so much, its a nice tie of culture to the reading.

This raises a concern with questions for me. I feel that we have expressed success in a lot of battles that have been won for independence, but how do people deal with the aftermath of things? I can relate this with the independence of Texas becoming a union with the United States. We have two cultures tied to us now, but one of them is trying to kick the other one out with recent political tensions. How do we know where to side?

This line is powerful. I feel that although its directed towards the roots of "Joaquin" this same empathy can be shared amongst many conquered nations, even dating to present time amongst the modern day generation and its ancestors.

This confuses me and I think it is sort of a bias answer. Many times the transition to the new life is supposed to be a 100 percent positive thinking. I don't think I have heard many people have the thought of negativity behind it. But I did some research prior- this is due to the fear of losing Mexican roots. It makes me wonder If maybe I have gone too far into losing my culture that I think this way.

I feel that this line touches many of us first generation Mexican-Americans. Many of our parents or grandparents have expressed to us that Mexico was no longer up to living standard, so a lot of us have a similar perspective with this.