In Gary Soto's story called, " Looking for Work, " he uses the element of comparison to show the life of this Mexican-American child compared to the "perfect lives," that are shown on television. By using this, Soto is showing how some lives really are and that not all lives are made up of perfect families with their perfect house and perfect jobs. This style of writing is effective in the way that we, the readers, get to see the point of view of this nine-year-old Mexican American, who wishes his life could be like the one on Leave it to Beaver. If Soto had not used pop culture references like these the point of view would have been a little different. The child would have probably been okay with his life and not compare it to the ones of those on the television. Therefore the story would have just been about a child talking about his day.
Now when we look at Stephanie Cootntz passage called, " What we Miss About the 1950's," it is also comparing life of the 1950's to the life we have now. She talks about how her mother had so much respect for her when she was a child and let her make her own decisions on many things. Although as she looks back she would not let her own twelve- year-old son do whatever he wanted now in this day and age. It even said in the text that the people who said that 1950's had been the best decade did not mean in a literal sense. The 1950's might have been a good period, but really no one wants to relive it again.
My interpretation at first when i started reading was that Cootntz was going to talk about how everyone loved the 1950's and how they wished they were back in that time, but really that was not it. In the 1996 poll by Knight Rider, most people might have chosen the 1950's for the best time to raise children but really they didn't seem to mean it. It was as if they were contradicting everything they had just said. The passage maybe called, " What we Really Miss About the 1950's," but really do they miss anything at all.
Both of these authors though both convey the same message that life is not really all that it seems to be. There are not the "perfect lives that are seen on T.V. and no one really wants to go back to the 1950's. The first author uses a story so that readers can interpret it for what the true meaning of it really is and the second one states fact based on a poll so that people get the literal sense of what life was really like in the 1950's. They both really make you think and see how your life is right now.
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I thought it was cool how you pointed out that both of these authors used different techniques to illustrate the same message, because this can be said about a lot of different authors. Also, the misconception of the 1950s was also intriguing because it is true, you would think that they are reminiscing on the good old days but in reality they are taking the wool off of everyone's eyes and showing us the imperfections in the so called perfect time.
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