My Pants Are Bloody Character Analysis

There are social and cultural expectations that individuals are expected to adhere to in their society. These expectations, or standards, vary based on location, time, and communities. In This reflection will be analyzing how practitioners of a religion adapt to society without losing their true sense of self. The community in which African slaves had to become acclimated with in Cuba was one of division, inconsistency, and coercion (Olmos 34). The expectations that the slave owners had for the Cuban slave society were the “pervasive and overwhelming interests” of the plantation owners (Olmos 34). Despite the government’s effort to dispose of folk Catholicism, slaves developed a way to subtly resist racialist Cuban society in the midst of their unbearable conditions: Afro-Cuban religion. I believe that the strength and resilience shown during this time is likened to the slaves in the United States in the 1800s. They would organize secret prayer meetings in the woods and devise techniques to avoid slave masters from knowing that they were secretly practicing their religion. A …show more content…
In the reading selection My Pants Are Bloody, Jose has to balance his public and private lives. It is interesting to consider the major, mainstream religions in the United States and how believers can openly profess their faith in society. When a Christian wears a shirt with a bible verse on it, no one looks at them strangely or even questions their humanity; it is societally accepted. However, if Jose were to walk around with bloody pants as a symbol of his devotion and profession of his religion, he would no longer be looked at as a “normal” citizen in the U.S. People would definitely question his humanity for sacrificing animals without even considering that most other religions at some point performed the same practice of animal