Hypertext Pre-class Preparation

Landon Gay

Class 4/5/18 Preparation

Hypertext

Sharon Daniels “Public Secrets” highlights the narratives of women in the public justice system and some of the violence experienced in this system. There was a specific quote that stated how women are giving lengthier sentences for committing the same crimes as a man. Other women state how dehumanized and objectified they felt. One quote in particular states that a woman’s name is Genea and she would like to be known as that. This implies the naming system of inmates and how dehumanizing a number can be as if that individual is known as nothing more than the crime she committed that placed her into a cell.

Thinking about Anzaldua’s “Mestiza way”, these women are citizens of their own country, in a justice system that is meant to correct and not purely imprison for the sake of imprisoning and the overall tone I get from this hypertexts is the alienated feeling these women are experiencing. As a prisoner in their own country’s public justice system, it has been clearly communicated to them that they don’t have the same rights that they were once entitled to as a citizen. They can be strip searched whenever and that perfectly exemplifies one individual’s experience. She describes her experience as being “skin starved”. This image was especially resonating because it perfectly illustrates the emotion of feeling dehumanized and alienated from by your own.

Anzaldua taps into this “otherness” that these imprisoned women have expressed. Narratives of this alienation have a very specific ability to humanize individuals who relate with a “mestizo way” and unifies an otherwise out casted population.