• Writing my Precís before writing my annotated bibliography definitely helped me complete the assignment much more easily than if I had not because I had all the information that was needed for it. All I had to do next was expand my ideas and provide analysis to the summary of the sources.

    West Side Story Precis: 

“Queer for Uncle Sam”: Anita’s Latina diva citizenship in West Side Story was written in autumn of 2014 by Deborah Paredez, an American poet, scholar, and cultural critic, which is a critical essay on West Side Story and the role Anita played in portraying Latinas during the 1950s. Paredez implies that West Side Story poorly portrays Latinas in America due to the authors being all white and Anita is the only Latina woman who goes against these stereotypes as the musical makes its way towards the end. She states how in the beginning of the film she dances as Americans believe Latinas dance as “musical and performative subjects” preaching about how great America is, but towards the end when her brother is murdered and she is assaulted by white men, the Jets, she realizes how Latinas are actually viewed in society and causes chaos to transpire. Paredez’s purpose in writing this article was to show people how hard it was for Latinas to assimilate into American society, even those like Anita who believed America was the land of opportunity and a fresh start. She uses a very motivating tone in order to show the audience, those interested in the character change of Anita and the reasoning for her actions, that those who tried there hardest to assimilate ending up falling the hardest in the end.  

Paredez, D. (2014). “Queer for Uncle Sam”: Anita’s Latina diva citizenship in West Side Story. Latino Studies, 12(3), 332-352.

West Side Story: Precis  

The Great White Way by Warren Hoffman, a professional theater critic and director, is a research paper on racial issues and the thought process in making West Side Story, which was written in May of 2017. Hoffman implies that the direction West Side Story was originally going in would not have been as influential as it turned out because it focused on an issue that was already being resolved, which was how the Irish and other immigrants were viewed in the early 1900s. People who were viewed as “white” were no longer targeted for racism, but rather people of color, like Puerto Ricans, were, due to being noticeably different than the average white American. The author supports this implication by comparing the musical to another popular musical during that time period, The Music Man, stating how people no longer focused on the social class of others when they were put into a band with all the same uniform. This was much like how people no longer focused on people who were “white” due to other people of color moving into America. The author’s purpose in writing this article was to show people why West Side Story changed its original direction for the audience to understand why it was so important and influential to its time period. The author uses a very inspired tone to show the audience, most likely those interested in the political aspects of musicals, how accurately West Side Story portrayed racism during the 1950s and the shift it took in those who were targeted for it.  

• Although both of these precís were written pretty well, I failed to cite one of them, which is very important when writing because you don’t want to plagiarize. Previous to taking this course, I never would have made one of these when writing an Annotated Bibliography, which would have hurt me in the long run because I would have to summarize my academic sources while also providing enough analysis. This allowed me to already have the summary of the sources to begin with and, in the end, it was far less work at once.