In addition, in terms of the reader response assignment of Jimmy Santiago Baca, I found it surprising how Baca was originally illiterate and how his times as an inmate in prison had served as a pathway to him to eventually become a writer. Originally, I had some confusion after reading the “Coming into Language” essay excerpt since I did not fully grasp/understood why he was falsely accused as a murderer. In order to clarify and make sense of this information, I referred back to Chapter 9 from the textbook. After reading Chapter 9, I have learned that the possible reason why Baca was a victim of a false murder accusation was due to him being subjected to racial profiling. His status as a Chicano served as an obstacle, but I found it inspiring
On his journey to the New World, Bartolome de Las Casas encounters the “Indians” of the New World, in which he describes as an innocent, undeveloped, people. As a first observation, Las Casas pays close attention to the Indians social appearance and clothing. He notices, “as to their dress, they are generally naked,” usually with minimal clothing worn and, instead of traditional European customs , “ they have no beds, but sleep on a kind of matting or else in a kind of suspended net called hamacas.” Specifically within this quote is the emphasis of the rhetorical device pathos. Las Casas’ diction is written in such a way that portrays the feeling of empathy toward the reader, and because an individual is more likely to help another individual
In the reading, “Who Is a Chicano? And What Is It the Chicanos Want?” by Ruben Salazar we learn that during the era of the Chicano Movement, we see how this specific era has been an influence on ethnic labels and identity of the Chicanos. To begin with during this era a lot of people didn’t know what Chicano meant or who a Chicano was. Ruben Salazar mentions, “A Chicano is a Mexican-American with a non-Anglo image of himself” which means that they pertain and identify to belong to this group because they are nothing like the Anglos, the Anglos where the White Americans (Salazar, 1970).
In order to write this book, the author clearly uses different manuscripts and papers that helped him to explain and show the situation of this social movement. He also uses and gets information from people that were living those situations, for instance in Chapter one, he mentions a note from Journalist Ruiz Ibañez: “Contrary to the common belief that those groups are composed of “punks” and hoodlums….”1. Related to him, he is an American historian and sociology that obtained his sociology and political science degrees in the University of Texas at Austin and Yale University, as well. Currently, he is a professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and he is president of the Center for Latino Policy Research. He wrote not only Quixote’s Soldiers but also, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1986.
However, the fact is that most Americans have the impression that Hispanic immigrants are perceived as a threat for not assimilating into the American mainstream, more so into the Anglo-Protestant values. Why is that? Is it for fear that the Spanish Language may overrun the country? Similarly, Neil Foley, author of, Mexicans In The Making of America, asks the same questions, why fear? In his prologue chapter, Foley makes a point by proving the fact that in the past, Mexican immigrants were not a concern but were, “ let in to provide the labor force for the rapidly expanding economy”(2).
Throughout his writing career, Soto has written eleven poetry collections for adults and has been awarded both the Bess Hokin Prize and the Levinson Award. He is a recipient of the Tomas Rivera Prize and has earned awards from the PEN Center and National Education Association. His works have been critiqued and praised on numerous occasions, and he was named NBC’s Person-of-the-Week in 1997 for his advocacy for reading. However, as a young boy, Soto never expected any of this. It was in college when one book of poetry would change his life forever.
When a person first hears the title “Oranges” by Gary Soto, they might think that it is about a person on an orange farm or someone that newly discovered oranges. In this poem, the speaker talks about how he had met a girl and they walked until they were at a drugstore, they went inside and he bought her chocolate with a nickel and an orange. They were walking, she was eating her chocolate and he was eating an orange, and they were enjoying their time together. Taking chances can often result in good outcomes. Gary Soto uses similes, metaphors, attitude, and varied stanza structure in “Oranges” to highlight the importance of taking chances.
Oftentimes when reading texts about liberation, whether the liberation is physical, metaphorical, or otherwise, there is a tendency to expect an overcoming narrative of sorts. Namely, when presented with a figure that is suffering, an audience expects a clean ending. However, concerning memoirs, this isn’t always the case. If anything, overcoming narratives within autobiographical texts can flatten out the nuances and struggles that are presented within, making the arc of the text seem flat and unconvincing. This is far from the case with Jimmy Santiago Baca’s autobiography, A Place to Stand.
La Migra is a poem written by Pat Mora about the Mexican - American immigration issue. It’s purpose is to acknowledge the emotions and sentiments of the Mexican immigrants who try to come to the United States illegally. The denotation of the poem’s title means immigration and the connotation is referring to the police officers standing at the Mexico-United States border. The poem is divided into two stanzas to acknowledge immigration through the different perspectives of the illegal immigrant and also through the eyes of the border police. The first stanza is through the perspective of the male border cop, who thinks his power and nonessential items make his superior to the immigrants.
Chavez examines the assumptions made by the media and the public by drawing in sources like magazine articles and illustrations to provide the audience with exactly how these accusations are made and shared with the public. Chavez questions what it means and what it takes to be considered an American citizen and how Latinos, particularly Mexicans, have many things stacked up against. There are no doubts that the number of undocumented immigrants has steadily increased each year. Leo R. Chavez argues that because of the rise in the numbers, it makes it easier for the media to assume that undocumented immigrants, particularly Mexicans, are a threat to our nation through an invasion. Chavez’s idea of a Mexican reconquest is developed through something he calls the Quebec model.
CRA: Anzaldua Borderlands In her poem “Borderlands,” Gloria Anzaldua strategically exposes readers to the true form of the Borderlands region as she conveys the internal incongruity that is rife with this state. As she characterizes the nature of the Borderlands, extending the idea of the Borderlands from a geographical region to an extensive social phenomenon, Anzaldua emulates an experience that is shared by many; conquered by fear. Anzaldua cogently employs the use of distinct structural elements within her poem as a form of illustrative depiction in order to express to readers the strenuous relationship between the inhabitants and their environment.
Octavio Paz, a Mexican poet and essayist, is one of the many philosophers with a written piece regarding his understanding of Lo Mexicano. Paz’s “Sons of La Malinche” was first published in the Labyrinth of Solitude in 1950 and is a rather grim interpretation of the Mexican character, however, it captures the crisis of identity that Mexico was burdened with after the conquest. Paz uses the Spanish term “chingar,” (when literally translated means “to screw, to violate”) and its associated phrases to understand the conquest and the effect
The poem fully develops the idea of the limited of privileges that some might have according to the their races and the racial division. The “borderlands” is the division of a place, but in the eyes of Gloria she makes the character grow up in a place where there is a racial division. The character is in the middle of how of her race is important as her cultural ways get in the way of trying to practice each one of them. The poet writes in both english and spanish to explain how she speaks to the different races she carries. As you read the poem you can feel how the tone changes as the author is speaking of the different events that she goes through in her life.
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.
This poem is about a Mexican-American speaker informing the reader about the struggles in which people from different ethnic backgrounds
