Throughout the book “Let Me Speak! Testimony of Domitila, a Woman of the Bolivian mines,” Domitila Barrios De Chungara exemplifies the hardships of the people in Bolivia by uncovering the exploitation of the masses, especially the women. In the time period that the Housewives’ committee was created, the idea of feminism was not commonly embraced by the majority of Bolivians, Making it a courageous move for the women to fight for equality. Being an extremely influential woman, Domitila used her voice to fight the people in power with her pro-Marxist views, protesting to let the poor be heard. As a feminist, she worked to change the social class of the Bolivians, which led her to undoubtedly face difficulties.
She studies their background and circumstances, explaining how “whether living in a labor camp, a boxcar settlement, mining town, or urban barrio, Mexican women nurtured families, worked for wages, built fictive kin networks, and participated in formal and informal community associations” (p. 5). These are the ways, Ruiz found, that helped Mexican American women make them part of the American society. She also talks about the attempts made by groups like Protestants that tried to civilize or Americanize the immigrant women but were unsuccessful due to the religious and community groups as well as labor unions that were formed to give them
However, she, too, understood the way women’s lives was expected to look like. Sofia was of a bold personality. “He had never called her by her family pet name, Fifi, even when she lived at home. He had always had problems with his maverick youngest, and her running off hadn't helped.” (Alvarez, 51) Sofia had always been independent-minded and now that she was in the United States, she felt much more freedom to do whatever she wanted, even if her Doninican roots appeared to be jeopardized or if her parents disagreed of her doings.
“Never Marry a Mexican” is both the title of Sandra Cisneros’ short story published in the collection Woman Hollering Creek, and one of the most ironic as well as provocative statements present in the Chicana literature. The story itself is a critical as well as self-reflexive exercise in understanding concepts such as gender, race and ethnicity. Working with the presumption that the affiliation to distinct gender as well as racial and ethnic background is determined by the certain level of performativity, Cisneros illustrates difficulties in performing a double role , frequently faced by the second and the third generation of Mexican immigrants in the United States. Following paragraphs will consider Cisneros’ story with Judith Butler’s concept
In The New Latino Studies Reader: A Twenty-First-Century Perspective by Ramon A. Gutierrez and Tomas Almaguer, chapters “Gender Strategies, Settlement, and Transnational Lives” and “She’s Old School Like That” talk about the gender issues first and second generation Latinas faced. In the first generation, Robert Smith articulates how gender structures impact the lives of men in women. Whereas in the second generation, Lorena Garcia communicates how mother and daughter relationships worked during that time period and how sexual behavior played a big role in their relationships.
Chicana women have suffered oppression, racism, sexism among other problematics. Nonetheless, they have been able to face these difficulties and fight for their rights. Two main difficulties were faced by these women, the fact of being women and the right to use their cultural heritage, specially their home language. This motivated them to get involved in social movements to fight for their rights. They had played an important role in such movements which contributed with better conditions not only for themselves but also for all Mexican Americans.
However, much like Esperanza, in recent years people have offered their own views to the world in hopes that traditional and considerably out-dated women’s roles will change. These individuals hold a key to a better home for themselves and for others far away from Mango
The women were expected to create a happy home, guard the religion, and the morality of her family. The unmarried and married women who tried to seek work outside the home faced limited employment opportunities because of their gender. Women were expected to only focus on domestic duties and her role were limited to continue living in the man’s world. Women roles were expected to be in line with the culture and norms set by the society. The American culture perceived that women were not intellectually and emotionally stable to be involved in the complex world of work and, therefore, women did not take up leadership and political roles.
When my grandmother lived with us a few years ago, every day she would rise at the crack of dawn to water, collect, and care for the abundant vegetable garden in our backyard. We savored the fresh cucumbers, the succulent lettuce, and the sweet peppers that came straight off the vine. As a child, I once asked her, “Why don’t we sell these for money or trade with neighbors?” feeling it was a very novel concept at the time. Little did I know what I proposed was a rudimentary definition of the locavore movement, which encourages people to eat locally grown or produced products as much as possible.
When some mexicans shifted to Mexico City they struggled to adapt. However later “A third of labor in Mexico City was made up of women, 82% of whom were indians or mestizas”(Vigil 136). Shifting from an hacienda to a city was very different for both females and males. However women could not believe that they could soon begin working as domestic workers as well. Such as being waitresses, food preparers, and street vendors.
The Myth of The Latin Woman Analysis Latin American women face challenges every single day and moment of their lives. They are strongly discriminated against in all sectors of employment, in public places, and even while just walking down the street. In her essay, "The Myth of the Latin Woman," Judith Ortiz Cofer describes her own experiences using illuminating vignettes, negative connotation, and cultural allusion to exemplify how she used the struggles in her day to day life as a Latin woman to make herself stronger. Cofer uses illuminating vignettes to illustrate the different situations she encountered as a Latina while growing up and living in America.
Sandra Cisneros, the author of the book The House on the Mango Street, conveys that girls or women do not have as much freedom as guys do, the girls or women are always ruled or controlled by someone mostly male, and they always have to be the one to follow the rules. As Esperanza grows up she observes many girls who are in the conditions that they are not supposed to be in. The girls have no freedom and they are always supposed to listen to the guy in the family. One observation Esperanza observes is that girls are controlled by men all the time and because of listening to men those girls are locked inside. For example as Esperanza says, “And then Rafaela, who is still young but getting old from leaning out the window so much, gets locked indoors because her husband is afraid Rafaela will run away since she is too beautiful to look at” ( Cisneros # 79 ).
A Homage to Feminism Feminism revolves around the notion that men and women are equal, an idea that is seldom accepted or embraced at the end of the twentieth century in Latin America. In the autobiographical novel, The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende weaves a story about the lives of women through four generations during the revolution of 1970. The idea of male dominance is prominent throughout both the political and social arenas of Latino communities. However, Allende uses members of the Del Valle family to portray the theme of feminism evolving during this time. Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits, highlights the intertwined lives of two Latin American women, Clara and Alba, to parallel the feminist attitudes that associate with
In Mexican American society , women are deemed inferior to men, evident in traditional family roles, the male is the head of the family who provides for the family , while the woman stays at home to look after the children she is expected to provide for her husband . In the third vignette of ‘The House on Mango Street’ titled ‘Boys and Girls’ the reader is informed of the division between men and women when Esperanza refers to herself and her sister Nenny , and her brothers, “They’ve got plenty to say to me and Nenny inside the house. But outside they can’t be seen talking to girls”. The male dominance begins at a very young age.
In her conventional view, a woman must support her husband by creating an organized home and nurturing him. Women are not only in charge of doing the housework and childcare, but they have their own individual dreams they want to reach. It is discriminatory towards women when they live under the social expectations of being uneducated and a supported wife. From the textual support, it is evident that women struggle to reach their individual goals under a male-dominant society that require women to be
