In her book, From Out of the Shadows, Viki L. Ruiz argues the contributions to history that was made by farm workers, activists, leaders, volunteers, feminists, flappers, and Mexican women. She explores the lives of the innovative and brave immigrant women, their goals and choices they make, and how they helped develop the Latino American community. While their stories were kept in the shadows, Ruiz used documented investigations and interviews to expose the accounts of these ‘invisible’ women, the communities they created, and the struggles they faced in hostile environments. The narrative and heartfelt approach used by Ruiz give the reader the evidence to understand as well as the details to identify or empathize with.
In The Homeland, Aztlán/El Otro México by Gloria Anzaldúa she writes about “border culture” (41). Using both English and Spanish in her writing and inserting poems, songs and films she talks about the Mexican-American war and the aftermath. She writes about the creation of the borderland as Anzaldúa describes it “a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition. The prohibited and the forbidden are its inhabitants” (41).
Mestizaje is defined by the interbreeding and cultural intermixing of Spanish and American Indiana people. The term dates back to the Spanish conquest of Mexico in the 16th century. Mestizos were the sons and daughters of the foreigners and native women. Progressively, “more and more children were produced by marriages, informal liaisons, casual affairs, and rapes” (Mundy). The mestizos grew in numbers and became a dominant presence in colonial Spanish America.
Situated near the U.S.-Mexico border during the early twentieth century is the fictional setting of Fort Jones, the outskirts of which is where Americo Paredes’ short story “Macaria’s Daughter” takes place. Emblematic of the disappropriation of Mexican land, as well as the increased marginalization of the Mexican people, the overbearing presence of Fort Jones reveals the struggle for preservation that characterizes the Mexican-American community of the story. “Macaria’s Daughter” is the tragic account of what happens in a small community when the upholding of Mexican values and institutions, and opposition to Anglo-American culture, become more important than a young woman’s life. In this essay, I will argue that “Macaria’s Daughter” is a text
Gloria Anzaldúa, in the essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” (1987), claims her experiences as a Chicano taught her that her culture was not looked at highly in comparison to the English language. Anzaldúa argues her view about her Chicano language by giving examples of both cultures Chicano Mexican and American cultures. Anzaldúa’s purpose is to inform her audience on how it is to grow up in a Chicano speaking family. Anzaldúa writes in a frustrating tone throughout the story of her life experiences. Thesis: Anzaldúa use of her personal experiences, and Music, Film and Literature are relevant sufficient and
Both authors go in detail about their ethnic backgrounds and blend their language for us to better understand throughout their story. Gloria Anzaldua describes herself as a Mexican-American Chicana
The immigrants entering the United States throughout its history have always had a profound effect on American culture. However, the identity of immigrant groups has been fundamentally challenged and shaped as they attempt to integrate into U.S. society. The influx of Mexicans into the United States has become a controversial political issue that necessitates a comprehensive understanding of their cultural themes and sense of identity. The film Mi Familia (or My Family) covers the journey and experiences of one Mexican-American (or “Chicano”) family from Mexico as they start a new life in the United States. Throughout the course of the film, the same essential conflicts and themes that epitomize Chicano identity in other works of literature
Who Are You? Shy, timid, quiet, modest, cautious, and hesitant are all words that anybody could describe Walter Mitty with. In his 2013 film, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, director Ben Stiller shows the importance of identity. He does this through his search for negative 25. The main idea from this movie emphasizes how this timid little man found his identity.
Whether through art or language, representations of identity ensue from processes that communicate what manners of being are considered culturally valid within a society. The expression of these expected conditions of existence depends on normative forms of social conditioning, and it is from within this fixed set of self-reproducing actions that hegemonic apparatuses possess power over people. Owing to an ideological foundation situated among various terms pioneered by Gloria Anzaldúa in her piece titled Borderlands/La Frontera, José Esteban Muñoz develops an ability to comprehend how the performance of intersubjective queerness disturbs essences of normativity, and comforts those who disidentify with mainstream perception. The following concepts
Within each book, it questions the message of “culture and gender” (Louelí, “An Interpretive Assessment of Chicano Literature and Criticism”). Clearly, positive figures influenced how the Chicano community acted then and now. Rudolfo Anaya and other Chicano writers
The Challenges of Mexican Immigrants: A Thematic Analysis of Jeanine Cummins’ American Dirt Jeanine Cummins’ novel American Dirt (2018) is a story that talks about the migration of Lydia and her 8-year-old son Luca as they travel from Acapulco to El Norte while facing numerous challenges such as the cartels. In Cummins’ novel, the term fear is a frequent motif that pushes the plot forward as the author involves the readers in a world marked by fear, unpredictability, and violence. In American Dirt, Jeanine Cummins uses Lydia’s characterization and tactile and kinesthetic imagery to illustrate that fear is the defining emotion for migrants immigrating illegally to the United States.
Furthermore, Anzaldúa describes the border in her book Borderlands/La
Gloria Anzaldúa’s “La Prieta” tell her struggles with identity by talking about prejudices she dealt with while growing up. These prejudices, such as colorism, sexism, and heteronormativity, were not only held by people outside her social groups but within them as well. Anzaldúa goes on to explain the way identity is formed by intersecting factors and not only one aspect of someone’s life therefore denying one factor of identity can cause isolation and self-hatred. The fact that Anzaldúa developed faster than is deemed normal the first struggle in forming her identity.
In the poem “To live in the Borderlands means you”, the borderlands become a place of change, such as changing from just one culture or race into a diverse culture or race and not-belonging. (Singh, A., & Schmidt, P. 2000). The poem describes how the author’s own background ethnicity people, mixicanas, identifies people like her, chicanas, as “split or mixture that means to betray your word and they deny “Anlo inside you.” (Anzaldua, F. 1987). The poem describes that the borderland is a place of contradiction, such as of home not being a home.
As there will be no border thinking without double consciousness, border thinking and double consciousness are like two-sides of a coin that can never be parted. One exists because of the other, and both complement each other. They also emphasize that double consciousness functions as a foundation of border thinking. This critique is especially well exemplified by Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera where she comes up with her new mestiza consciousness and proposes it, as an alternative offered to bridge the rigid binaries. The new mestiza consciousness is the middle ground, a third space invented to settle the contradicting binary in life.
