My Family's Slave Book Analysis

Great Essays
Alex Tizon wrote, “My Family’s Slave” which was published in June 2017 edition by The Atlantic. Published after his untimely death in March 2017. Alex Tizon, a Filipino-American award-winning journalist, beautiful love the story of a heartbreaking reality: his family had kept a slave his whole life. Tizon’s story documents the life and death of Eudocia Tomas Pulido (Lola), his family’s domestic maid, and he discovers that she Eudocia Pulido was actually a slave. Lola was the dark and dirty secret of the family, a modern slavery in the land of the free. When Alex Tizon was a little boy in the 1960s, he moved with his family from the Philippines to the US along with the domestic maid of the family, Lola. It was not until Tizon was almost a teenager …show more content…
Lola life was unusual for someone else in Tizon family’s members. Tizon in order to develop his purpose of exposing his family’s secret in “My Family’s Slave” Alex Tizon incorporates an anecdote and analogy.
In “My family’s Slave”, the author Alex Tizon uses an anecdote to expose his family secret. A secret that was revealed after several years later. Lola was a teenager when she agrees with one deal, “not grasping that deal was for life.” Tyzon grandfather gives Lola like a gift for his daughter.In the beginning, she does not accept Lola’s to be her slave, but she did not have an option. Because Lola was a gift from her dad, he gives Lola so she can take care of her daughter. Lola at the age of 18 Lola’s starts taking responsibilities as an adult. Tizon mom slowly accepted Lola, not only did she help her all day long and at night Lola’s had more activities. One day when his dad comes back from the war, he caught his daughter in a lie. She was forbidden to talk to a boy. His furious father ordered for her to “stand at the table.” But she took refuge
…show more content…
As Lola suffered abuse on the part of the author's family. In her life as a slave, Lola was not free to be the person she really was. According to Rafael's words, author Alex Tizon gives us an overview of Lola's daily life, a life, we would never have imagined that slavery still existed in the 60s. But Tizon had to have the courage to expose the secret that his family has been waiting for many years. About the abuse that Lola had with the Tizon parents. Lola had many injustices in her life and abuses, but Tizon, even as a teenager, defended Lola from the mistreatment his parents gave

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    The educational level of the characters of this book also help to connect the readers to the story. The cruel standards in the setting of slavery…

    • 189 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    Today, when the country of Dominican Republic comes to mind, some ideas that are commonly associated with the country consist of vibrancy, festiveness, beaches, and exoticism. What many do not realize is that the Dominican Republic was once a disastrous place to live in. In Before We Were Free, Julia Alvarez explores this world and the harsh circumstances that the characters deal with. It is a captivating piece of historical fiction in which the author focuses on the three themes of freedom, power, and maturation. Alvarez develops the main character Anita’s unfortunate situation through the theme of freedom.…

    • 1549 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Celia A Slave Summary

    • 859 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The story of Celia, A Slave highlights different social, political, and sexual outcomes that occur to slaves during this time. In Celia’s story she was a sexual partner to Robert Newsom. She was always raped by her master, until one day she murdered her master and disposed of his body by burning it. Celia’s action of killing Newsome, the “master” caused a lot of different outcomes. She had to go through trial and it was influenced by individuals that were trying to restore the personal rights for slaves with moral codes, politics and economic rights.…

    • 859 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Emancipation - A Fable Life” & an excerpt from “A Boy’s Life” Once I wanted to escape from a really bad party that my friend threw in Blackwood; the party was bad and the whole time I couldn't help but wish I could escape like the characters in a “Boy's Life” and “Emancipation - A Fable Life”. I finally escaped after three hours of suffering from boredom, and it felt great to be free just like the animal and the boy. This essay will compare and contrast the theme of freedom in the stories “Emancipation” and a Boy's Life.…

    • 416 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Some characters in the novel conform to the roles that are given to them, but even though they followed what was normal they did not end up happy. The characters that conformed to their gender roles had their lives negatively impacted. This theory can be applied by analyzing the characters: Dede Mirabal, Mama, and Jaimito Fernandez.…

    • 1133 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Harriet Jacobs

    • 788 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Faith as a Defence Mechanism In the memoir, Incidents in the life of a slave girl, Harriet Jacobs embraces her impeccable knowledge and creativity to her own benefit to escape the unfortunate life of slavery. Throughout the book, Harriet Jacobs uses religion and the illusion of her own faith to control the reader and their perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes towards her. Her faith is a defence mechanism for her to feel secure to the people around her and herself, for her to feel accepted in the slave community and to grandmother. She values her Faith to try to convince the reader that she truly has piety.…

    • 788 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The critical piece of literature, “A Black Feminist Statement” by the Combahee River Collective, provides its readers with the backbone of what Black feminism is. The Combahee River Collective is a collection of Black feminists that established itself in 1974. Their fundamental cause is fighting “against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression” (A Black Feminist Statement 210). The Combahee River Collective, in other words, sees Black feminism as “the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppression that all women of color face” (A Black Feminist Statement 210). The theory of Black Feminism found in “A Black Feminist Statement” prepares an essential foundation for the novel Corregidora.…

    • 841 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Wealth plays a massive role in America. Society places a lot of attention on celebrities and other people with enormous fortunes. Americans constantly read about these wealthy people in magazines or watch them on television, desiring to have a similar life. The American Dream is the idea if people work hard, they will be able to obtain their own fortune. Numerous people believe that having a massive amount of money can resolve many of your problems.…

    • 1352 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    In the Autobiography of a Slave, Juan Francisco Manzano (1797-1854), a former mulatto slave, captures the unjust and horrific events of Cuban slavery during the nineteenth century. Cuba needed a large slave population to work on the islands various sugar mills and plantations to maintain its economic status. As a child, Manzano avoided the typical life of a slave labor because of the Marchioness Justiz de Santa Ana. She allowed to lead the life of a young intellectual, which caused him to feel a strong connection to Cuba’s white dominate population/ In 1809, his mistress died and the young boy began to experience the harsh reality of slavery that forever changed his perception of life.…

    • 1972 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Meeting parental expectations and completing all of the “requirements” to be a successful son or daughter has always been part of the main goal and developing process for everyone, no matter how old the “child” is. Sandra Cisneros and Amy Tan, authors of two unique essays - "Only Daughter" and "Mother Tongue" - with the similar theme, are sharing their experiences and thought processes regarding that question. They have something in common – both women immigrated to the United States with their families and both decided to major in English to become writers. However, these are the only few similarities that authors have. Everything else is different and almost antithetical – mother that had her own “broken” English for Amy Tan and…

    • 808 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The importance of family in dystopian literature is prominent in every aspect of the protagonists’ lives. In the short story, “Amaryllis”, by Carrie Vaughn, the created family has an important part in the creating of a biological family. Nina came to Marie “... a clumsy thirteen-year old from bernadino, up the coast. [Marie’s] household had space for her and [Marie] was happy to get her” ( Vaughn, 131). In order for a household to be granted the right for a new child, they have to have enough food and space to support another person.…

    • 1077 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This novel expresses three themes, rebellion, freedom and maturation, which are developed throughout the story and allows the reader a unique perspective on a time on in history. Freedom is a right in everyone’s life. Freedom is something that everyone should have…

    • 741 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    She had to tell herself on a daily basis that her mother did indeed love her very much and the only reason she had accepted to go was to give them that big house they always dreamed of and that happily ever after they all so deeply yearned for. That dream is crushed when she takes her own journey to “El Otro Lado” and came to the realization that nothing was as she dreamed it would…

    • 1220 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He traumatically witnessed his father’s outburst and physical aggression. Manuelito was also experienced acculturative stress due to the challenges of adapting to his new environment. As an older brother, Manuelito’s family had high hopes and expectation of him. Family plays an enormous role in shaping a child’s future.…

    • 719 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In “My Family’s Slave,” Tizon uses repetition of events and moments to display his love and care to Lola, unlike his mother and father to reduce the guilt he feels towards Lola’s treatment in his house. The first time in his life that Tizon stands up for Lola was when he was 13 years old. His father was angry at Lola because Tizon’s younger sister, Ling, did not eat dinner. His father thought that it was Lola’s fault that Ling did not eat and he ended up punching her on her face. He describes, “‘Ling said she wasn’t hungry,” I said again, almost in a whisper.…

    • 969 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays