Lexi Storch
In Mean by Myriam Gurba she tells different stories about her childhood. Her memoir shares her interactions through her childhood. Myriam Gurba clearly describes her difficult upbringing. Gurba experienced sexual assault, homophobia, and racism while growing up. Gurba struggled with her own identity as a gay woman of color while negotiating the difficulties of coming out and finding acceptance in a traditional setting. “This White girl who I frenched-kissed went to Catholic school with me.” (Gurba 57) Being a young child and to come out gay could be a struggle for some, but Gurba is happy to express and write how she feels for the audience. Gurba highlights the challenges she experienced and the resilience she built in the face of adversity through compelling and genuine words. She takes her own personal stories of her childhood and explains all the challenges she has faced and overcame. Although there are some gruesome stories of her childhood she also adds humor to her stories and shares good ones aswell. Some things to think about while still reading the memoir is how Gurba reacts and deals with everything she went though as a child. In the sections I Wandereed Lonley as a Dissociated Cloud and Señoria both share Gurbas sexual assult experinces.
Throughout Gurba’s memoir we see how she challenges the way some normally think about childhood. Gurba reveals the harsher aspects of growing up, such as bullying, racism, and sexual assault, rather than portraying childhood as a period of innocence and wonder. “She looked me up and down and said, “Your mother… is a wetback.” I lost control of my limbs. My hands attacked her and they shoved her chest, making her lose balance and fall to the sand.” (Gurba 19) Gurba dealt with bullying throughout her childhood, and tells these stories with the details that she went through. By her doing this it allows the audience to feel like they were there and that they could visualize the incident. By showing how our formative experiences influence who we become as adults, she also questions the notion that our childhood experiences are somehow apart from our adult life. Gurba has expirenced a tramaful childhood, she felt helpless and scared. In the section I Wandered Lonley as a Dissociated Cloud shares another one of Gurbas sexual assults. “He was enjoying our closeness, relishing it, pressing himself to my backside, holding me captive. We were close enough to kiss. I saw the stubble in his pores.” (Gurba 118) Gurba shares her stories with intimate details, so the audience can feel the realness of the situation. While reading the memoir some may feel that the detail is too much from her childhood, but Gurba feels that it is important to showcase the details. While rewriting her stories she must go back through her childhood, which could be hard for her, but she does it to speak out about her past.
Another thing Gurba touches upon in her memoir is sexual assults she and others have lived through as a child. Many children and adults don’t have to think about this because many have not experienced it. “Macaulay set his pencil down. I knew where his cheating hand was headed. I felt it land.I blushed as his fingers snuck into my crotch. I clenched my developing jaw. I looked at Mr. Hand.” (Gurba 30) The reason this passage Señorita was made is so Gurba can share one of her sexual assult stories with us. In this passage we also know that Mr Hand knows this is going on, and he does nothing about it. To have this happen as a child is very scarring, Gurbas childhood is not one many experience. The section Strawberry Picker Speaks up about another of Gurbas experiences as a child along with Sophia Torres’ story. “The man who’s about to sexually assult me murdered Sophia Torres. That’s sort of how I know her.” (Gurber 112) In this section it shows how strong Gurba was as a child. She explains how she shares some things with Sophia Torres, except for the fact that Gurba lived and Torres didn’t. “The privilege of surviving doesn’t feel good. It makes me feel guilty.” (Gurba 112) These two quotes from this section and the memoir show how traumatic Gurbas childhood was at some points. She is explaining how she doesn’t feel lucky that she survived, and feels like she shouldn’t have. Another thing that Gurba went through as a child was having to deal with family sickness and racism. “Dr. Hamilton chuckled. He said, “She isn’t anorexic. She can’t be.” Why asked mom. “Your Mexican,” he answered.” (51) Gurba is with Ida at the doctor and they have to deal with racism when they are trying to get Ida help. Throughout her entire childhood she had to go through sexual assults, racism, and homophobia.
- How is our view of this period of life as Gurba’s emphasis on the social and cultural surroundings of childhood?
- How does Gurba question the idea that childhood is a period of development and progress, and how does this viewpoint affect our understanding of the significance of early experiences in shaping our identities?
Work Cited
Gurba, M. (2017). Mean. Coffee House Press
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Hi Lexi, this was a great blog post! I love how you highlighted how Myriam Gurba focalizes the bad parts of her childhood much more than the happy ones, and it was really interesting to hear your take on why she does this. The idea that Gurba gives us these awful experiences not to make us pity her, but to show the reader how resilient and powerful all of these transgressions have made her throughout her childhood. To me, it almost seems like Gurba has a certain level of happiness that she had the tough life she had, she brings a uncomfortable level of optimism to situations most would portray as grim and without hope. One quote that I felt really sums up my point was on page 30 when Myriam writes, “But at that point, I was getting better at spotting the exits. I knew which buttons to press and where to tug to get free. I was becoming an escape artist” (Gurba 30). This quote is an extended metaphor. Gurba does not literally mean she knows were exits and buttons are, but instead as a young girl she was beginning to understand how the world worked and how to get herself to the top despite her perceived differences. She takes the bad that is thrown at her and somehow turns all of that into triumphs and female empowerment that should inspire anyone who reads her story.
To answer your 2nd question I think Gurba questions our understanding of childhood because of how uncommon hers felt. I think the overwhelming majority believe things like sexual assaults’, racism, and homophobia happen at a much lower rate than what the numbers will show you. And this leads many who are effected by these transgressions to feel like they are the only one’s who are having this happen to them. Gurba is not different in this case and has us all question the traumatic experiences we faced as children and to possibly connect some of these events to common flaws in our adult self today.
Hello Lexi! I really enjoyed reading your blog post. I like how in your second paragraph you talk about Gurba explaining the challenges she has faced and others have faced growing up. Gurba does a good job showing the reader the harsh reality of bullying, racism, sexual assault and more that some individuals face in life. Gurba shares every detail in her stories no matter how gruesome they may be to allow the reader to better understand what she and others have gone through. An example of this is right in the beginning of the book when Gurba shares the story of Sophia being sexually assaulted. Gurba says “He pushes her legs apart. He pulls out his corn and kneels. Blood pours from her cheek, nose, and head as he feeds himself into her. He thrusts to the rhythm of her death rattle. Her agony sustains his erection, holding it. He freezes. He moans and shivers. His slack corn slides out of her. Cum oozes from between her legs.” (Gurba 2). This quote is an example of how Gurba goes into gruesome details when telling stories to allow the reader to better understand what is happening.
I am going to be answering your second question. I believe that Gurba questions our idea of childhood by showing that not everyone has had a good childhood and how that has molded them into the person they are today. When I think about childhood the first thing that would come to my mind was happiness and innocence. While reading these stories that Gurba has shared about her childhood and others, it made me rethink what I thought about childhood. Gurba has helped me to better understand what childhood is and what it means to others. An individual’s childhood has an impact on them throughout life and who they are when they are older.
Hey Lexi you did a really great job organizing your ideas in this blog post! I think it’s super important how you emphasized that Gurba shared the more harsh aspects of her childhood. While she still gave the readers some of the positive aspects, she made sure that they understood the negatives are also what shaped her into who she is today. To answer your second discussion question, Gurba questions how childhood could be a time of development and progress by sharing stories of her own that aren’t as common as most people. She shares her dark experiences with sexual assault, bullying, and racism. For example, “He lifted my skirt. Fingers were in me, his breath and his mouth were on me, and the rest of the details belong to me” (Gurba 119). This quote shows how Gurba goes into detail with her experiences as a child to show her readers how differently she was shaped. With that being said, readers are able to look at childhood experiences from a different angle and how it compares to their own.
Hi Lexi! Your blog post was well-thought-out and very organized! To answer your second discussion question, Gurba’s childhood isn’t the normal childhood that you commonly see; however, you could see this type of childhood from many people. After learning about Gurba’s childhood, I could not imagine myself having to go through that and then having to live with it for the rest of my life. As a future early childhood educator, I will watch out for inappropriate touching from students and if everyone is feeling uncomfortable, I will address the problem and make sure everyone feels safe inside my classroom. When Gurba wrote, “His eyes left the page he was grading. He saw” (31). The saddest part of the situation was that her fifth-grade teacher saw the child touch Gurba and he could have stopped it, but he chose not to. Gurba’s childhood could have been less terrifying if he had stopped it. I do not want to be like Gurba’s fifth-grade teacher and I would have stopped the situation from happening.
Hi Lexi, I really enjoyed your blog post. I especially loved the part when you brought up that Gurba doesn’t live the ideal childhood because she is worrying about sexual assault, racism, and homophobia. To answer your first question, It’s sad to think that some children aren’t out in the world having no worries or responsibilities during their childhood and throughout time its going to get worse; mainly about sexual assault. It almost feels like society is normalizing these sexual assaults because it is happening so much and almost as if people aren’t surprised that it happens to someone, which is completely not right. “ “You’re going to have to get over this” she said, “These kinds of things happen. You’re going to have to get over this.”” (Gurba 122). For another women to tell another women to get over a sexual assault because it happens so much breaks your heart. Reading this made me realize that this nurse is so used to sexual assault cases that she is telling Gurba to get over it because these things happen. As time goes by, it’s believable to think that it’s progressively going to keep happening and more people are going to prepare and warn their children about it. This leads to the children to be living their childhood in fear that it might happen to them and unable to live that worry free childhood. As much as it should not be happening, you should still make sure that their feelings and events are valid. Gurba is not living that free childhood she should have been because she was focused and worried on sexual assault, racism, and homophobia.
Hi Lexi, I really enjoyed reading your second paragraph that analyzed Gurba’s struggles through bullying, racism, and sexual assault because it changed Gurba’s whole future ahead when people are faced with these kinds of drawbacks. To follow your first questions, I wanted to point out that Gurba also had a different childhood because her father wanted her to attend a Japanese school. The only people in the class were Gurba and her friend Yuka. Together the two eight-year-olds would hang out after Japanese class and look through nude magazines. Which changed the academic affected the classes were supposed to have; “Attending Japanese school taught me about femininity, nudity, and parting your lips a certain way: making sure people can see them forming vowels” (Gruba 103). This iconic line shows Gurba playing with the idea of knowing the right vowels for pronouncing words correctly while relating it to the women in the nude magazines she would get to look at after school. I enjoyed this chapter because it reminded me of my friends who took Mandarin in high school but I can’t say I remember a time when I was eight looking through nude magazines with my friends.
Gurba, M. (2017). Mean. Coffee House Press
Hey Lexi, great blog post. To touch on your first question, I think the social and cultural surroundings of childhood are very important in terms of the development of a child. Gurba gives many examples of this throughout the book, but a specific incidence that stands out to me is when Gurba is describing her assault to her roommate Carmen. After describing it and trying to show it was not a big deal, Carmen responds by laughing and saying, “I can’t believe you chased him! You are such a Latina!” (Gurba 128). This moment stands out to be because of the reaction of the friend. It is strange to laugh when someone is telling you about their assault that has freshly occurred and I wonder how much of this incident stuck with her, and if it helped or hurt her in recovering from the trauma of the assault.
Good afternoon Lexi, your blog post was really intriguing. You caught my attention by talking about Gurba’s Childhood. To answer your second question As we are reading we know that Gurbas childhood isn’t normal or a common one. But when we said it isn’t normal or common it still happens and people can relate. It’s hard for me to put myself in her shoes because I wouldn’t want to go through the stuff she went through and have to deal with it for the rest of my life. As I’m about to graduate and go in their field I can watch out for this problem at an early age. On page 31 Gurba wrote, “his eyes left the page he was grading.” At this point in the book, it’s terrifying because they saw the touching incident but never did anything about it. So it’s kind of messed up that people can see things that are inappropriate and won’t do anything to stop it. Anyway, can’t wait to hear what you are going to talk about in class today.
Hi Lexi! I like the direction that you chose for your blog post especially when you mention Myriam Gurba revealing her connection with Sophia Torres.
Gurba opens the book with a graphic description of a woman getting raped, which was confusing for readers. However, Gurba has revealed that she was raped by the same person as Sophia. She opens the book with Sophia because Sophia was the beginning of the story that eventually became Gurbas. The beginning pages describe the rape and state, “he presses his blade to her skin and slides it along her cheekbone” (2). This shows that the man that raped Sophia also murdered her. However, Gurba’s encounter with him was different since she survived. Gurba states, “We both understood that he wanted us dead. She wound up dead. I mostly didn’t” (112). Gurba and Sophia share a connection to the man who raped them. The only difference between them is that Sophia was murdered by him after that was his plan but Gurba was not. Gurba started her story off with Sophia’s story because she is guilty that she survived. This is shown after she tells Sophia’s story, stating, “Sophia is always with me. She haunts me. Guilt is a ghost” (2). Gurba has survivor’s guilt about Sophia and the PTSD that is given after being raped so even though she is alive, she lost a big part of her life to him that she will never get back. Gurba opens the book with Sophia’s story because they share a similar one, the only difference is Gurba carries the guilt of knowing that she survived him and Sophia did not.
Hey Lexi, this is a great blog post. I really liked how you pointed out the difference in most childhood stories that we hear compared to Gurbas, in which most stories portray children’s innocence and Gurbas is about actual problems that we face as children. I think in a way that all the stories she shares can be looked at as a period of development and progress. Gurba went through a lot of traumatic things as a child, and she learned many lessons from these instances. Even when she was sexually assaulted. It is a horrible thing that she had to went through, but to come out and tell these stories in such detail takes a lot of guts and may be very hard for her, but in sharing the stories she is growing through the pain that she experienced and is making herself stronger mentally. For instance, Gurba says “Did you know PTSD is the only mental illness you can give someone? A person gave it to me. A man actually drove me crazy. He transmitted this condition. Like the man who gave my gay cousin HIV, or like my grandfather, who gave my grandmother the clap” (109). She shared her experiences with us the reader and explained to us that she had been “given” a mental illness, which for a lot of people is hard to do. But to not only say what happened to you, and in such detail, say what happened to you from it, and grow through that pain, is very inspirational and shows her character growth from these events. These experiences changed her into who she is today, which directly shows the influence of early experiences in shaping our identities.
Really enjoyable post to read and think about, and to give my thoughts on your questions, I believe Myriam Gurba questions the traditional notion of childhood as a period of innocence and wonder, as well as how it is influenced by children’s cultural surroundings. Her youth was riddled with cultural judgments, physical confrontations, and bullying, as you described, and she discusses it in great detail throughout her biography. She emphasizes the difficulties she encountered and the perseverance she developed in the face of adversity. Her book explores the more difficult elements of growing up and the influence these events may have on a person’s life. I also like how you touch on Gurba detailing the impact of our formative experiences and how it influences who we become as adults by providing personal anecdotes from her upbringing. It’s also as if she is warning us at expense of herself for the greater good. Telling us how life really is and not how its portrayed to be. An example is seen in the section called Omnipresence (I don’t have the page number because it’s an online version) where it says, “God is like rape, rape is everywhere too, Rape is in the air, Rape is in the sky, Rape is in the bible, Rape happens at the neighbors, Rape happens at home, etc.” Gurba takes a bold approach and saying that rape occurs at places where children think it is innocent and fun. A style that is known to be expected by now in this memoir.
Hi Lexi! You included a lot of important quotes from the book in your blog post. I especially liked that you brought attention to how Gurba expressed her guilt for surviving her sexual assault. This part of the book really stood out to me. Gurba says, “If I’d chased him into that alley, caught up to him, taken off my shoe, and beaten him with it like Mom taught me you’re supposed to do with cockroaches, then he wouldn’t have been out stalking, grabbing, and mutilating women” (139). I really sympathized with Gurba. I could understand where her guilt for surviving and not being able to stop her rapist would come from, but I just wished that was not the case for her. As a college student, I could not imagine having to feel that type of guilt at such a young age. That is a lot to process when you’re trying to develop and grow. Trying to figure out life can be very difficult when going through a traumatic event at the same time. This is just one of the events that happened early in Gurba’s life that shaped who she is today. It changed how she viewed people, and also how she treats people. She wants to be liked, but does not want to be taken advantage of.
Hey Lexi, I really enjoyed reading your blog post– It was super insightful and you made really excellent points! To answer your first question, “How is our view of this period of life as Gurba’s emphasis on the social and cultural surroundings of childhood?” I’m a little confused about the phrasing of your question, but I’m interpreting it as how my view of childhood differs from Gurba’s based on her specific social and cultural instances. I touched on this in my blog post, but reading about Gurba’s life and childhood is fascinating to me because it is so different from my personal experience. Like her experience with Macaulay, “I knew where his cheating hand was heading. I felt it land” (30), I couldn’t imagine going through that as a child. Childish naivety and innocence is something that was so important in the happiness of my childhood, so to have that taken away so young must be such a hard thing to deal with. I think it really shaped her childhood because Gurba describes her youth in such a mature manner, and I think that situation with Macaulay forced her to grow up too fast.
Great interpretation here, Gianna! That’s such a compelling idea: that the “situation with Macaulay forced her to grow up too fast” and robbed her of her “childish naivety… innocence…[and] happiness.”
5/5
Hi Lexi, I really enjoyed your post and I do believe that cultural social and cultural surroundings affect one’s childhood and upbringing. Throughout many parts of the book, we see how her cultural upbringing and how her race changes the way in which people treat her and how she is ostracized from her white peers. When she attempts to call out the white students in her class she is the one that is told to “Apologize for making them cry”(Gurba 20) by her teacher. Despite not being the one to cause the problem she is told that he must apologize for this, even though she did nothing wrong in this scenery. It sets the precedence of having to see oneself as always being the offending party and having to apologize for things. It makes it seem like she is inferior simply for her skin color and who she is as a person.
Hey Lexi! Great blog post. You have a way with words. Grubs definitely challenges us to explore childhood and the notions surrounding it. It is a much more complex time period that we believe it to be. It is a time of growth and development. So in cases like Gurbas, these huge events in our childhood shape us and develop us into the person reading this blog post. To answer your second question, Gurba forces us to examine her childhood and break it down. Significant experience in her childhood shaped her into who she is today. Because Gurvba was brought up in a world where it rewarded the mean, she began to carry herself that way. And because of the mean actions around her, it also forced her to thicken her skin, because even at such a young age, she was given a little more of an understanding of how the world works. “His eyes left the page he was grading. He saw” (Gurba, 31) Because she was exposed to such a horrific act at such a young age, she understands that the teacher chose to not do anything rather than help.
Hey Lexi, get job on your blog post. Something that I really liked that you touched on and also Gurba does very well in the book, is the toughness and how well she is able to keep herself together when she is faced with discrimination. Yes she goes after the kid who calls her mother a wetback but she still is strong and doesn’t allow it to break her down. She has gone through and been faced with issues that no child or person should have to deal with. Those things have forced her to grow up at a very young age. Her naivety is lost and she gets to see how the world really is. I instantly thought of when Gurba was sexually assaulted by McCauley earlier on in the book. Gurba states “I know what was happening under the table shouldn’t be happening, but my impulses did not command me to fight. I froze. Many animals do this. Deer. Possum. My mother” (21). Although Gubra is scared and freezes, she still manages to make a joke at one of the worst times in her life. She doesn’t allow the situation to make her lose herself. She still manages to rely the audience a sign of her personality.
Good job with this comment, Tim! Those last few lines, where you interpret the quote, are especially insightful:
“Although Gubra is scared and freezes, she still manages to make a joke at one of the worst times in her life. She doesn’t allow the situation to make her lose herself. She still manages to rely the audience a sign of her personality.”
Just make sure to check your spelling (Gubra should be Gurba and rely should be relay).
4.5/5
My view of Childhood is that it is a time of growth and development. We have people in our lives that take care of us, mostly our parents, if we are lucky enough to have them. As a child you are made to go to school to learn and become educated. So socially we are surrounded by other children in our neighborhoods. We all come from different areas so different social cultural backgrounds. I grew up in Syracuse, in a city school so my experience is different than someone who grew up in the suburbs. Culturally I was not surrounded by anybody of my own culture, just my mother who happens to be French Canadian and Polish. My mother was a single mother. So financially we were very poor, my mother took a job as a plumber to make ends meet. She did her best, but she was not there, she was always working. My grandmother and aunt stepped in to help, but they were not there all the time. It was my sister and I, and it was easy to go looking for trouble with no grownups home. Most of the kids in my school were African American, so I connected more with that culture as a youth. It was not until later in life at the age of sixteen, I left this country to go live in Mexico, with my father. So, in a way I am also a “…Molack…Mexican Polack…” (Gruba 34). I shared this with my sister she laughed. Although childhood is a beautiful time filled with innocence, it is not the same experience for everybody. It is brave of Gruba to share her truth and experiences. Sexual assault, racism, and homophobia are not topics, that we think of when we think of childhood. In the text Gruba writes, “A possessive part of me wants to hoard this story, I want to chipmunk or squirrel away the memory of this event, place it in a tree trunk with the memories of all the other rapes, attempted rapes, and gropes, memories that will never be released or consumed” (Gruba 108). This statement says a lot about the consensus around sexual assault. It is a taboo that is not discussed, especially in relation to childhood. She wants to, “chipmunk or squirrel it away” but she does not. Here we have an author sharing her story, to give a voice to others.