The Young Lords Movement Analysis

The Young Lords Movement is national movement that allowed Bodega to obtain the favor of Spanish Harlem easily because of its failures. The Young Lords movement was a Puerto Rican civil rights movement in the 1960’s that implemented violence to obtain recognition and equality as Puerto Ricans and better living conditions within their communities in New York and Chicago. As the Young Lords Party, the branch in New York, became increasingly involved in using armed movements and guerrilla tactics to make a stance in America, they ultimately reached their downfall. The new movement that Bodega inspires, however, is not one that uses weaponry to make proclamations about Nuyoricans to the outside world but one that restores the barrio from within

Spanglish is the future. It’s a new language being born out of the ashes of two cultures clashing with each other… Words that aren’t English but at the same time are both….Our people are evolving into something new” (Quiñonez 212). As language is a dominant culmination of a culture, to deny a full adoption of the English language is to deny a complete assimilation to Anglo-American culture, and to deny a rejection of

When Chino reflects upon hearing about Bodega he says, "It 's important for me to remember that night, because once I heard that name it was never about Blanca or Sapo. As important as they were to me, it was always about Bodega. We were all insignificant, dwarfed by what his dream meant to Spanish Harlem"(Quinonez 19). In this excerpt, Bodega has such a powerful effect upon Chino, that Chino is willing to put Bodega and his dreams for the barrio above his relationship with his wife and his friendship with Sapo. He becomes so involved in helping Bodega realize his aspirations that he loses Blanca in the end. His desperation to find a way to consolidate living in El Barrio and being able to be successful clouds his judgement and he completely devotes himself to Bodega’s cause. He does this regardless of the costs that come with it or the knowledge of Bodega’s wrongdoings. Chino, along with the rest of Spanish Harlem place Bodega on a pedestal because of his influence over them. The evidence of a desperate society yearning for a leader to carry them out of poverty and distress is best echoed when Chino says “Bodega did something to the neighborhood, something with staying power, like that song that no one could possibly like but you, because you heard it at a time when your heart was breaking" (Quinonez 85). These inhabitants of SPanish Harlem are “heart-broken” because of the falsehood of the American Dream, making their diasporic experience