In-Class Essay

In her article “Getting Angry Can Be a Good Thing”, Cecilia Munoz explains

how her friend’s opinion about what would happen with her family if the U.S. go

to war somewhere in Latin America, outraged her, and at the same time made her

realize that she and her family were seen as foreigners that do not belong to the

American society. Moreover, Munoz’s friend thought that her family belong in an

internment camp in case of war. Munoz indignation is the force that motivates her

to take part of the civil rights movement, advocating for immigrant rights through

her life. In her activities she reaches many good outcomes for immigrant people,

but also she withness how many immigrant people stay out of the benefits of the

new immigrant laws passed. Even though Munoz experience with her friend made

her realize that she and her family, Bolivian immigrants, were in fact rejected by

the American Society, a true that hurted her, affected her in a positive way

because her anger was transformed into positive social effects that helped

immigrants and herself.

In spite of the pain that Muñoz felt when she realized that a friend who

knew her family and was very aware of their good sentiments regarding the U.S.

expressed in a xenophobic way, she was able to transform all that anger into
concrete actions in favor of immigrants rigths. She, in fact, dedicated her life

working in the civil rights movement and was able to be part of many

achivements, for example, she helped pass a bill in Congress to help Americans

reunite with their immigrants families. Also, her actions were well noticed by the

American society and the immigrant community when the newspaper reported

her in news.

Many would argue that Munoz is not a happy person because she lives in a

constant state of anger. However, she uses this anger to get strength to continue

to advocate in the political arena despite loses, for example, she still remember

“the names and the faces of those who lost”, and she still have “the article about

the farmworker who took his life after we lost a political fight”.

In my own experience I had to turn many negative emotions into action in

order to follow my path instead of being paralyzed in a negative event. When I

was a child my father lost his sigth in an accident right after he lost his job.

Consequently, my older brother and I had to work after attending our classes at

high school. We were teenager and our feeling were a mixture of sorry and anger.

My brother and I decided to work in any kind of job instead of being sorry forever

and we found strength in what happened to our father. We learned to work hard,
to value our family and feel proud of our desition of taking action in favor of our

family.

In sum, a feeling of anger can cause us sadness or could turn us violent or

any other negative effect; however, in the same way Muñoz transformed her

anger into positive social effects that helped immigrants and herself. Everybody

should overcome negative emotions into positive actions and get the fuel from

the anger we could feel.