La Mujer Guerrera

A Reflection

During first semester in my Spanish 4 class, I completed a multi-step project that made up a large percentage of my semester grade. Everyone in the class was assigned a Spanish legend ("una leyenda") to read, answer questions about, and summarize in English and Spanish. Once that part was finished, we created holiday ornaments for our class tree and we all drew storybooks representing our legends through images. The legend I was assigned was called "La Mujer Guerrera" which translates to "The Woman Warrior". I really enjoyed the story and it was my first time reading a full-length story in Spanish. Translating the story was one of the first things I did and I was surprised at how much I already knew and did not have to look up on WordReference. The plot was basically the Spanish version of "Mulan" - which is one of my favorite Disney movies. In the legend, the main character Catalina lived in Spain with her family that consisted of seven sisters. When Spain went into war, the King declared that every family must send a son into battle but Catalina's family had no sons. Catalina disguised as a boy and went into battle to protect her family. Her secret remained a mystery until a knight, who happened to be the king's son, had some suspicions. In the end, Catalina confessed her indentity to the king and queen, and she and the knight fell in love and got married. The ending was totally cheesy but I think the main purpose of the tale was to focus on the bravery and loyalty Catalina showed when she went off to war to protect her sisters and her country.

#haveread