Past Present: Jimmy Baca

Baca’s “Past, Present” blends two traditional types of writing the narrative essay and the persuasive essay very well. He goes into great detail in the narrative part of his essay by talking about his own experience in jail. The audience knows exactly the types of emotions he goes through while he illustrates the terrible time he spent in jail. He explains, " I said i hated being back and that no movie could begin to show the injustices practiced here." Baca is being interviewed about his movie, and just talking about it got him all worked up and upset. After, he got up and told them to all "Fuck off", demonstrating his true feelings about the time he spent in jail. Baca uses the persuasive writing style in his essay by truly convincing the audience how terrible jail is. Most people understand that jail is a place that no one ever wants to end up, but Baca takes that feeling and makes the audience share that same feeling he had. He states, " When a man leaves prison, he cannot look into the mirror for fear of seeing what he has become. In the sense, he no longer knows himself". That statement persuaded me into actually feeling like if I ever ended up in jail, I would be miserable. Not being yourself anyone is a very scary feeling to think about because the one person you should know inside and out is yourself. Overall, Baca does a phenomenal job using both the persuasive and narrative writing styles in his essay and I enjoyed learning about his experience in jail and what he took from it.