Entry Question
What topics from the second half of the semester (the Puerto Rican Diaspora) would you like to see included in the final?
Keyword
Manifest destiny was a widely held cultural belief in the 19th-century United States that Anglo-white settlers were destined —by God, its advocates believed— to expand across North America. The settlers saw the expansion as both justified and inevitable. The Spanish-American war was the last stage in the territorial expansion associated with this ideology of imperial domination.
Arguably the ideology continued through foreign policy that supports neo-colonialism (corporate takeover), religious expansion, and military intervention.
How the title of round 8 and the critical perspective about Manifest Destiny presented by Nazario himself (pages 159-160) points towards a big dilemma regarding underground economies and the dream of Puerto Rican empowerment through ownership and capitalist warfare?
Bodega Dreams (Book II Rounds 8-12)
This last section of Book II involves the confrontation between the main couples in the novel and between competing forces in the turf war. Most of the characters in the novel are in an existential crisis and at the crossroads. They must decide who they trust and why. What relationships are going to be left behind or destroyed, and how to execute their plans for individual and/or collective betterment.
Oral presentation on the novel Bodega Dreams (Book II Rounds 8-12; Pages 158-200)
Discuss how rounds 8-12 present a crisis or full split-ups between the characters down below. What is the significance of these separations for the plot?
.Julio (Chino) and Nancy (Blanca)
.Roberto (the anointed) and his mother
.Vera and Vidal
.Bodega and Nazario
