University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2007 Let The Children Come To Me Andrea Ramirez University of Central Florida Part of the Creative Writing Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. STARS Citation Ramirez, Andrea, "Let The Children Come To Me" (2007). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 3310. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/3310 LET THE CHILDREN COME TO ME by ANDREA RAMIREZ B.A. University of Central Florida, 2002 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of English in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Fall Term 2007 © 2007 Andrea Ramirez ii ABSTRACT My thesis, a collection of personal essays, explores my parents’ affinity towards their native Colombia and how this connection to their homeland, through their faith and their customs, affected my definition of self. When I think about my parents’ emigration from Colombia to the States, I picture the illustrations in the Bible I had as a child: the couple running from Sodom and Gomorra, running away from the place they had always known and holding on to each other. My parents, like the couple in the Bible, were in the middle of nowhere when they first set foot on the cold, concrete streets of New York City.