Hi everyone, my name is Rebeca Ponce. I am a second year intending to major on International Relations with a minor in Economics. I was born and raised in Monterrey Mexico, lived there the first 18 years of my life until I moved here to Vancouver for college.

My main expectation for this course is that I can (hopefully) get back to my habit of reading, as I used to read a lot but really slacked off the past year. I am also looking forwards to the opportunity to read Latin American classics, as I usually read books with English authors.

As I was born and raised in Mexico, I have been always exposed to Latin American literature, even if I didn’t always read them. “Magical realism” has been a genre that I have studied in the past, and which I have concluded out of personal experience, is a genre that was born out of a need for Latin American people to escape from violence surrounding us. I am really looking forwards to read other texts of magical realism, to compare them and get to know more about this genre.

Another thing I am looking forwards when reading these books is that I will get to have another perspective other than Mexico, to read magic realism. Being able to read other Latin American authors will broaden my knowledge and perspective of Latin American literature, which will be interesting to compare with what I have read in the past.

One thing that stood out to me from the lecture was the question regarding having less anxiety and fear of getting the right meaning of literature. During high school, when I had homework such as analyzing a text, I would be very scared of not understanding it to the depth and level where I would get the meaning my professor was looking for. This may be one of the reasons why I stopped enjoying reading, as I was afraid I was not reading the texts properly, and even began to feel ashamed I was not as “smart” as others were. Now I know that this is not the case, and that reading either a classic or a “trendy” book is a different experience for everyone. Even during this class, we will have different perspectives and conclusions about the texts, but that doesn’t mean we are wrong for this. I really like that this course encourages feeling less anxiety when reading a text and to actually enjoy it, not being focused on getting a good grade based on an analysis we might be scared to write.

The question I would like to ask is, have anyone experienced a situation where you and/or classmate have had completely different perspectives on a book you both have read? And if so, why do you think that was?

I am really looking forwards to hear all of our different points of view for the following weeks!!! 🙂