Instructor: Zaida Godoy Navarro
Course title: Spanish II
Lesson title: Maid in Manhattan (2002) and Spanglish (2004)
I taught two sections of online SP 112 (OL1 & OL2) in the fall of 2021. The vocabulary of chapter 8 (studied within Unit 5) is about “cleaning” and it is quite detailed and specific. As part of their Unit 5 assignments (due November 12th), I created a discussion board that showed the trailers of two chick flick movies: Maid in Manhattan (2002) and Spanglish (2004), and then asked three questions for students to reflect on (they also had to comment on two of their classmates’ posts): 1. What are some of the similarities between the main protagonists of both movies? 2. What difficulties do these women face? 3. What stereotypes do these movies reinforce? Students were divided into 2 groups so that their answers wouldn’t repeat themselves that much. They had to answer the three questions and comment on two classmates’ posts. Most students criticized the stereotype that Latinx people work in the cleaning services. Some students corrected other students who said that both protagonists did not speak English well enough to have a different job (Marisa/Jennifer Lopez spoke English). After meeting with my colleagues, I realized that for next semester I could add a couple more questions such as: Are these stereotypes different these days? What other movies, books, tv-shows, etc. show the same stereotype? I would also like to find a short and easy reading that discusses the history of Latinx people working on the cleaning services or a literary text that shows a different perspective.