To start this off, a rite of passage is like a big step for you in your life, a milestone, an event of epic proportions (at least for you). A rite of passage is a coming of age, where you learn to ride a bike, learn to drive, even little things can be one, like starting high school or learning how to read. Things like this are important to people because it shows you’re getting older/coming of age. In no way is everyone the same, so some of these things listed people might not look at as a rite of passage, but others might. That’s one thing I do like about these “rites of passages”, it’s all up to interpretation. Everyone has a rite of passage, we all accomplish something big or have something happen to us that is really important. I mentioned how it deals with your interpretation, an example of this is to some people a rite of passage can be about meeting a goal. So, if someone was losing weight and they finally met their weight goal, that can be a rite of passage to them. There is no way to know what others think is their rite of passages unless they speak about it.

Out of all the text, we have read the common idea of them is how they all grew and did something big or meaningful for themselves or had an event which led to a meaningful change. The characters all made a big step in life. For example in “Snow”, by Julia Alvarez, deals more on the side of a significant event happening for the character to go through her rite of passage. Actually, more you read the piece you can see there are many rites of passages deep in it. A couple can include learning English, coming to America, then the final one (and the one we’re really gonna focus on) her seeing snow for the first time. Even in this little but yet significant moment there can be a couple different rites of passages identified. What I mean by this is she had a physical rite of passage and a mental one. The physical one can be the actual act of her seeing and learning what snow is, and the mental one can be how her mind opening up to the concept of little pieces of ice coming from the sky and what else this “new” world has in store for her to experience.

Another part of the rites of passages journey is how they all form you as a person. These passages make you who you are because they’re the experiences and lessons you have learned from. A perfect example of combining all your memories/lessons/feelings is in the short story “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros. In a nutshell a little girl talks about how she is not just one thing but is many things and that is because of her age. There is a quote from this story that I really like; “…when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one.” I like this because she is saying, in my opinion, you don’t suddenly forget who you are or the things you’ve learned because a day changes. The things you learn pile and pile up and the pile makes up who you are. In the end that is all these rites of passages lead you too, finding who you are and making up yourself as a person.

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