A Woman's Mentor

Goldie Barajas

English 1A

9/3/10

A Woman's Mentor

            "My Rosetta", a memoir from the book Woman in Front of the Sun by Judith Ortiz Cofer, was based on the author's memory of Rosetta, the sister that taught Judith’s confirmation classes, while Judith was fourteen-years-old living in Paterson, New Jersey. Keeping in mind that during this time her awareness of the outside world was arising within her, I, as a reader noticed, that Sister Rosetta provided Judith with a different perspective of life. Since, Sister Rosetta was unlike Judith's family.  For example, when Sister Rosetta provided Judith with Ravi's Shankar music album, Judith's mother disagreed with it. She would call it "the cat-fight-album"(pg.3.) and when Judith was starting to wonder about "lust, sex, and drugs," Sister Rosetta was there to provide her with books that would inform her about those certain topics avoided by her family and this lead Judith to finding an accomplice in Sister Rosetta. Sister Rosetta introduced Judith to a world of knowledge, in which language had an extremely "seductive power"(pg. 18.) Therefore, considering the fact that Judith is now a writer I would say that Judith wrote about Sister Rosetta simply because she introduced her to a very essential key factor to writers, which is language and this makes me curious and hungry for more of Judith's interesting writing.