"Bad Influence" by Judith Ortiz Cofer

This story amazed me! The girl, Rita, was like another teenagers who would sneak out to see her boyfriend without parents knowing.  This reminded me of my cousin girl, I had seen her sneaked out of the house to see her boyfriend without parent knowing often. One night, her parent busted her, and she was sent to Military school because her parent didn’t want her to involve with his brother in bad way such as drug addictions, and do crazy things. In comparison of “Bad Influence”, Rita’s parent wanted her to be exiled and visit her grandparent in Puerto Rico or go to the Catholic girls’ retreat. But Rita chose to visit her grandparent instead of being stay with the Catholic girls’ retreat because she didn’t want to spend out the three meals per day with the nuns. Her parent wanted her out of contact with her racy boyfriend, Johnny Ruiz.  She approached in hot, humid Puerto Rico from Paterson, New Jersey with a bad attitude. Rita has never spent more than two weeks at a time on the island and she has no desire to get better acquainted with it now. She finds her grandparents and their friends annoyingly gregarious and overwhelming; when she tries to calm herself in the car by practicing deep breathing, her grandmother assumes she’s having an asthma attack and harangues her with asthma stories. But in the end, she was cured with asthma because of her grandmother kept giving her tea.

In my opinion of that story, I think they did right things to send her own daughter to Puerto Rico because she needs to be educated, disciplined and understood.  As long as she is fine with that, she will learn a lot from her grandparent. She turned to into a better person because of them. I used to live with my grandparent for few months since I was suspended from school for being a bad boy. However, they had been taught me how to cook, wash my clothes, and mechanic the car. Now, I can cook, fix my car, and wash my clothes because of them. I can build a car from a scratch. One time, my grandmother saw my leg with the mosquitos’ bites. She decided running to the back yard, getting the Mexican cactus and then putting it on my leg. It actually reduced my swollen skin. I am so grateful that I used to live with them. My grandfather had taught me to be handy boy. Now, I am capable to fix anything.