Facing our Communities and Awakening

Erika wrote our first entry on chapters 16 and 17, and drew some comparisons between her own culture and Priscilla's. Happy reading!

While reading these chapters, there were many thoughts that went through my mind. I realized that these women have gone through their fair share of struggles within their communities. In the chapter Facing our Communities, the women talked about the different, somewhat harsh situations they have faced in the past. Priscilla explained that the Holocaust had caused many of the struggles people from her faith went through. The other two women were there to listen to what Priscilla had to say. The thing that I see with what Priscilla talked about is that people are still caught up with appearances. Judging others by the way they look is still a part of everyone’s life.

Out of the three women, I think I related to Priscilla’s story the most. Priscilla and Suzanne compared many of the things that Jews and Israel have in common but I noticed a lot of pain in Priscilla’s voice. She talked about the Holocaust and the bad situations Jewish people faced, from having to look for a new country because they could not handle the situation in Germany, to not finding an actual place to live until they went to the motherland.

Being Mexican, this brings out a lot of feelings in me. Mexican people are, in some ways, going through the same struggles. Most of us had to leave our homes in order to escape harsh treatment, only to find out that our life was going to be just as hard once we moved here. For my family, creating a new life in a new and entirely different country was very hard. It has been harder because we have had to deal with a lot of racism. We are looked down upon every day for everything we do, and Priscilla’s story only made me think of my own struggles.

The other chapter I read was Awakening. In this chapter the women talked about the way they have each found inner peace. Priscilla spoke about the way her friend was helping random people while the World Trade Center was coming down. She said that the way he helped them made her realize that everyone prays to the same God. She then noticed that no matter what others might think, we all come together because we all believe in a higher power, and that we can come through for each other when we need to. Because of all these situations, she was able to find inner peace.

The way Priscilla spoke about her inner peace is the same peace my family feels now. Like I mentioned before, my family migrated and had to deal with many different struggles. While reading this chapter, I came to understand that I’m not where these women are. They feel peace and understand who they believe in, but I don’t have a specific religion. I was raised Catholic and family continues to practice this religion, but it’s different for me. I hope that I can soon be in the place where these women are now.

I really don’t disagree with anything that these women talked about. All of their opinions and thoughts were very enlightening. I came to find that it is important to look at other’s opinions before you can determine your own. These women believe that at the end of the day, we all believe in different variations of the same God, and it is important that we all come to understand that it is ok to believe in different things.