Most Moving Books example essay topic

Book Review of "Hear My Testimony " By Maria Teresa Tula This is probably one of the most moving books I have ever read in my life. It is basically a narrative story of the life of an El Salvadorian women named: Maria Teresa Tula. Maria is a wonderful storyteller and the fact the she is describing her own real life experiences greatly add to the impact of the book. Most of the chapters in the book are just her telling about her life. She was born a very poor and sickly child, growing up with her mother and grandmother, after her mother had left her abusive husband.

This was only the beginning of a very rough and trying life that she would face. She went on to describe her childhood, how other Salvadorian women were treated and the Salvadorian way of viewing women. Raised as a strict Catholic, she was taught by her grandmother at a young age to "act like a proper young women". From there on she continues to talk about her adolescence where she quickly learned about the threat of physical abuse and molestation towards young girls. She did not continue with school pat the age of 9 and in her small job of working in the local market she was confronted with true and absolute poverty on a daily basis.

She got pregnant at age 15. At 16 she had her first fist fight with her abusive physically brother. And at 17 met the father of her other future children. While with this man, Rafael Canales, she learned first hand the hardships of poor domestic life. She also learned to assert herself even towards her own husband. In 1978, the year I was born, Maria Teresa joined a human rights group called CO-MADRES.

(The Mothers and Relatives of Political Prisoners, Disappeared and Assassin d of El Salvador) Due to her husband being jailed and severely tortured after a sugar mill strike she found herself unsuspectingly thrown into a political arena. It is her work with this organization that begins to completely consume her life and is the core of the entire book. Once aligned with this organization Maria's eyes are opened to the bigger picture of political oppression in her country. She, along with many other women of El Salvador, watch as hundreds of their men are unjustly jailed, tortured and disappeared.

She was also a witness to the inhumane exploitation of workers. Starting with a peaceful takeover of the UN building by 8 mothers of disappeared civilians, and a three-month hunger strike at the El Salvadorian Red Cross, the women continued to spread their word of freedom and justice using peaceful methods of protest. They organized hunger strikes, rallies, protests, distributed food to starving families, and did whatever they could to receive national as well as International attention to their cause. They even were invited to the World Peace Council on a trip to the Royal Palace in Costa Rica and received the first ever John F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, and members of the CO-MADRES Organization even toured Europe. Many of the women in the group had very difficult times at home due to their involvement with the group, many were beat, cheated on, and abused for belonging to a group, which took them away form, their family duties. Maria herself went through a very difficult time after her husband severely beat her because of her work with CO-MADRES.

But the women remained strong; Maria kept working with the CO-MADRES and organizing political protests Months before her last daughter was to be born her husband was captured and killed. This was the saddest part of the whole book for me. I cried, at the part when she had to tell her daughter that her father was dead. As her life goes on, Maria goes through many other horrible experiences like the bombing of the CO-MADRES offices, being jailed, drugged, tortured and violently raped. To me the most poignant aspect of this book is the fact that it is told and written as a true account. The fact is, that when you read this book you feel like you are listening to your own aunt or godmother tell a story.

This book was incredibly fascinating and took me only two days to read in spite of my busy schedule due to the fact that I could not put it down. This book really draws you in and that is what really appealed to me about this book. Not to mention, all of the true and moving facts that were reviled. I think it's really important that books like this are required material for college student, especially in the United States where many people are unaware of the true political situations in other countries. I think that a lot of times History can be an easy subject to detach ones self from.

It is easy to see things that happened in the world's history and view it as something far for your own reality. I feel that the beauty of this book really lies in its ability to really to capture the readers mind and expose it fully to such a raw and relevant reality. Through the real life experiences of this amazing and courageous women people are able to really truly identify with the imaginable struggles that those living in oppressed third world countries deal with on a daily basis. This book brings a real human voice to all the torture, the killings all the atrocities that occurred not only in El Salvador but throughout Latin America. This book really affected me, it got me thinking about my life, and most importantly it moved me to talk about her story to my own family members and friends. This book enraged me, it troubled me, it saddened me, yet somehow, it made me feel a part of it and it opened my mind to things that I really didn't could ever impact my every day life.

After saying all this, it is hard for me to find a weakness. The only minor weakness that I could see would be that of intense emotion. The way that this book is written is such that it is truly soaked with emotion. This being a first hand account also added the level of intimacy one feels when reading this, and for some this may translate into uncomfortable feelings. It is also clear that Maria does express her own personal opinions, on her government, on her views of women's roles in society, and especially on the American government.

Maria does use the words "they" and "them" to describe Americans sometimes and some may feel that her generalizations are unfair, especially seeing as how she did receive support from sympathetic Americans while in the US. Some may also feel that she is overly critical and excessively faulting the US for the events in El Salvador, however all I could say to people who feel this way is; it would be very difficult to not find American policies and actions accountable for many unthinkable tragedies all over Latin America. Personally however, I do not feel that these small weaknesses in any way, take away from the strength of the book or her story.