Why puerto ricans are so loud

Denotations fade into connotations. I always felt my voice was not girly enough. Growing up, I heard people tell me time and time again to keep my voice down, that I was talking too loud, that people next door could hear me, et cetera. Grandparents, cousins, parents, friends: I got it from every corner. Just another flaw. So loudness, something that at its base means high volume, ends up being constructed as more than just decibels.

The voice was described as hard, harsh, shards of glass. It hurt to be called loud. It hurt to be called hard. Especially when you understand that society accepts only certain ways of being a woman: soft, delicate, fragile, dainty.

I learned early on that a lower voice was more appealing than the loud voice hiding in my vocal box. I was already well-aware of stereotypes and digs about my being born in New York, even at a young age.

My cousins would tell me I was stuck up, I thought I was better than other people because I had cable, I only listened to music in English I guess that was a bad thing to them.

The loudness of my voice was not just a marker of where I came from the country, with all of the classicism that the phrase entails but for me became conflated with gender.

Baja la voz. As I reflect upon my college years living with roommates in a crowded apartment in a crowded city, I remember that we often got together and laughed, talked over each other, shouted across the apartment.

But I would get carried away and then someone would say something about it. Mira que nos van a mandar a callar. It was in college, however, that I learned to modulate my voice. I am physically capable of whispering, but when I spoke in English in a classroom setting I was an English major in a school whose language of instruction was Spanish I felt even louder in English.

So I made the effort to tone down my voice, literally. I equated English with career, and by extension with my professional persona. Ultimately, English would be the language I spoke and still speak in academic circles; with the language came also the tone and the volume. Men in my classes seemed more often to initiate conversations in my classes, and sometimes even in the ones where they were a minority.

Meanwhile, the driven graduate student that I was, I wanted to step in but not stand out because of my voice. Eventually I learned how to switch back and forth. So did my fellow female classmates. I remember as a teacher modulating my voice so I would be less loud and less abrasive in a college classroom. I wanted to assert my authority. If some women resort to vocal fry in order to be taken seriously, as this article in The Atlantic o nline suggests , I resorted to modulating my voice.

From late morning, when a group of male retirees gathered to pass the day on the landing, to late in the evening when drink turned up the volume, people around us yelled. The house behind ours was occupied by an old man in a flat-topped legionnaires hat who raised roosters for cockfights, which had been banned in January.

The roosters crowed day and night and his yard stank. Feral chickens, dogs and cats were everywhere. Just outside our bedroom window rose a papaya tree. At dusk it would fill with roosting hens that rained droppings onto the cars below.

They were joined by a single rooster that crowed on and off through the night. On our third night in paradise our host shot the rooster from his balcony. Unfortunately, the chicken-loving lady next door, whose small, chained-up dog yapped on and off day and night, was on her balcony. She called the police, who in loud voices with blue lights flashing, stood in the street and interrogated our host about the chicken murder. And when they do go outdoors, it never occurs to them to keep it down, because they are unaccustomed to having neighbors who care.

I grew up in eastern Wisconsin. People talk very loudly in public there, too. In a store, you can hear and understand every conversation, even if the people talking are right next to each other.

Originally Posted by Mach Originally Posted by macmeal. A good many of them are; and the number is growing each year. Cultures are different, though not as different as they once might have been. Meanwhile, my wife who you would THINK would be understanding of 'hispanics' often remarks, upon returning from a trip to Wal-Mart, "Why do Mexicans need 6 people to push a shopping cart, and why does it take 5 adults to pick out a blouse?

Dusty Rhodes. I think they learned their manners from gringo tourists, pretty much the epidome of crude and loud, being a gringo myself, I try to avoid them like the plague. Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick.

Additional giveaways are planned. November 2nd, I am thankful for sweets. I love them. Sweets can make me joyful when I am upset. They make my sweet tooth go at ease. Especially Lava Cakes. November 3rd, I love my family.

They push me to be the best I can be. My family supports me and always cheers me up when I am down. My family cares so much about me and will do anything for me if it is legal. I really couldn't imagine a world without them. November 4th, I am thankful for my teachers. They might give me a lot of hassle and work to do. Yet they come through by trying to help however they can. Teachers can be funny and kind of cool.

November 5th, I am thankful for my character traits. My hard-working trait, my try to be amazing at things trait, my sweet trait, my fashion trait, and my smart trait, and my love trait.

But I also am thankful for those who stick around when my bad traits come out like my sassiness, my moody trait, my sensitiveness, my grumpy trait, my angry trait over dumb things, and even my trying to be amazing at things trait because I always try to be perfect. Thanks, friends, and family for sticking around.

Arthur Bozikas has penned a memoir that is heart-breaking and gutsy, as well as being full of hope and gratitude. This book is guaranteed to lift up readers and have them believing in the resilience and transcendence of the human spirit, making it a must read for years to come. When reaching adolescence, most teenagers want more freedom, independence and control in their lives.

For Arthur, it was the opposite, as he discovered that his lifespan would only last up to adulthood. After becoming an adult, Arthur was waiting for his death. It was at the eleventh hour, at the age of twenty-one, when Arthur was introduced to a miracle treatment, but only after the damage of iron overload from all the blood transfusion was done to his body. Grateful to be given a chance to survive for a few more years, Arthur decided to do something with his life; to get married, buy a house and also to have children, knowing he had no prospect of any future for himself.

At the age of sixty, Arthur and his wife Helen celebrated their thirty-five-year marriage anniversary. Recently we caught up with Bozikas so we could learn more about this amazing human and very talented writer. Why was you story Iron Boy one that you felt you needed to share with the world?

I promised myself if I made it to the age of 40 years old, I would put it all down in writing. I didn't know it will take me another twenty years to do it? When reading Iron Boy, the book struck me as a story on struggle, but more so about survival and endurance. How has that challenges you faced growing up helped shape you as an individual today especially as it pertains to business and entrepreneurship?

This is the first of its kind worldwide, from the prospective of a patients' point of view and not from a specialist or doctor. I wish I had something like Iron Boy when I was young and very afraid of my prospects! As a professional CEO for over twenty years, the challenges in business is that you need to equip yourself with the right information or you are dead in the water!

People with my condition now do have my book to prepare for the future because there is one and it's up to the individual to believe! Being married for 35 years is a huge accomplishment, what is the secret to your success that you can share with younger couples looking to hopefully have the same success in their marriages?

I think if both couples feel like they can't wait to share a new idea with one another or are not prepared to go anywhere without their partner by their side, then this is the only secret that any younger couples must desire for a successful marriage! These two examples will resolve all arguments that every couples get into a marriage too or later! From a life lesson perspective what are some of the key points that you hope others can take away from your story 'Iron Boy' and even more so what is something that you hope you leave behind to your children that you hope they can apply to their own lives?

My children have been raised to see the person, and not the disability, that they have. I would like for a life lesson that the world can refer to us as "people first" regardless the disability one has.

People with a disability and not disabled people…always put "people" first.