Through out history we see that people of different genders and different races treat each other differently. They don’t interact with one another the same way they would with people of the same gender or the same race. This established somewhat of a gap, which differentiated a variety of cultures and ethnicities from one another. Eventually, this lead them to change their ways of life and as well as their approach to pursuing their dreams and goals. Along with the increased rate of immigration in the U.S, the rate of conflicts between different cultures began to grow. All of these factors collectively worked to change the way one perceived the American Dream, pursued their goals, and treated one another in the process. Real Women Have Curves portrays a story of a very intelligent teenage Latino girl, who is trying to earn an education, but is influenced by her family to work instead. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life and Gender, Race, and Class in Silicon Valley both do a great job of explaining the factors responsible for the way someone perceives the American Dream.
Everyone has a different way of approaching his or her goals, and at the same time everyone has a different goal. In the movie, Real Women Have Curves, this exactly what we see. This is a story that has to do with teenage Latino girl named Ana, who lives in Los Angeles, in an area, which densely populated with Latino families. As Ana graduates from high school, she gets accepted into Columbia with a full scholarship. Unfortunately, because she is from a lower class immigrant family, her family needs her most and she declines the acceptance and decides to work with her sister in the summer. Also, throughout the book we see that in her household, a man holds the power, and makes all final decisions in the house. This is related to what we have learned in class about “Patriarchy”. In a patriarchal family, the man is known to be the head of the family. Also, it was made very prevalent that Ana’s mother was pushing for her to lose weight as she was worried that Ana would never find a man that would marry her if she remained the same size. This only goes prove even more that even the women in that culture believe that a women should do only what is beneficial to the men of the house or her spouse. In this story we saw that Ana was influenced by both culture, and gender in the process of pursuing her dream of receiving an education. In Gender, Race, and Class in Silicon Valley, we see that Hossfield also paints the picture that women are considered to be the