African American Social Interaction Analysis

David G Gutiérrez’s Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity discuss the deep and complex understudied relationship between Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants. This relationship was a natural consequence of the mass illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States that had constantly been increasing the population of “ethnic Mexicans” and along with it brought tensions between those who were Americans of Mexican descent and had been living here for generations and those who had freshly arrived to the United States and as such did whatever they had to do to make a living.

It appears to be that the discussion of race and class in America has become amplified, especially in the last couple of years. For many, it is a touchy subject that hits close to home. With the presence of social media and news that feeds off of racial tension in America, the issues are polarizing and difficult to productively discuss. America’s handling of race and class relations is generally not something to be proud of, and there exists a long history of issues with race. It is clear that there is a lack of understanding and empathy of what others experience toward those who are oppressed. So often it is too easy to dismiss another human’s experiences as reality if one has had no prior encounter with the same challenges. Race is easy to sweep under the rug, but we must address the problem, and it is not a one size fits all solution. It is a problem that has been years in the making and continues to have an enormous impact on our human capital from an economic standpoint. And most of the time, there is a correlation between race and class.

There was a time when America was segregated; Caucasians and African Americans were forced to attend different restrooms, restaurants, and water fountains. However, the era of segregation has been terminated; now America embraces and appreciates the various cultures and ethnicities that create this melting pot several people call home. Likewise, it is this melting pot, or mosaic, of races that multitudes of individuals have identified themselves with. Thus, race and ethnicity does matter for it portrays vital and crucial roles in the contemporary American society. Furthermore, ethnicity and race brings communities together in unity, determines which traditions and ideals individuals may choose to value, and imposes an impediment for it categorizes humans unjustly.

Race relations have always been a very controversial topic in this country and still are. In the mid-1900s there were many writers who felt very strongly about how African Americans and white people interacted together. In this paper three individual excerpts by three different authors will be discussed. All three of these authors have different viewpoints because of how they see the world based on their individual life experiences.

The writer portrays a people too conscious to lose their culture. Hence, they establish ethnic organizations, business, cultural institutions that would meet their varied “social, cultural, economic and political needs” (Miguel 6). Supreme in these establishments’ values was to selfishly guard “Mixicanist identity” (Miguel 6) by encouraging dual identity that was “neither American nor Mexican but a synthesis of both” (Miguel 10). The title, Brown, Not White is perhaps a reflection of this consciousness. In a country that has spanned decades clinging to nothing else but color binarity of white versus black, Mexican Americans find it hard to identify with either of the two. The Mexican Americans feel aggrieved by the mistreatments they continually receive from the whites, identifying with the African Americans whom they considered inferior in the American pecking order is unfathomable. The emphasis on the title, Brown, Not White is, therefore, a reflection of the Mexican American’s struggle with the problem of identity in the face of the looming assimilation from the most dominant

My pre-adolescent years were spent in a community thick with diversity. My friendships were as diverse as the environment in which I lived. It never struck me that racial and ethnic ideals separated people in society. However, upon moving to a predominately white upper-class community I began to question such racial and ethnic ideas. From my adolescent years through today I began noticing that certain people are viewed differently for reasons relating to race and ethnicity. As a result, the most recent community I grew up in has kept me sheltered from aspects of society. As a product of a community where majorities existed, I found myself unexposed to the full understanding of race and ethnicity. Prior to the class I had never fully dealt with issues of race or ethnicity, as a result I wondered why they would be of any importance in my life.

Some African Americans living today share a Spanish heritage, with their parents or grandparents, or the generation before. This leads to increase to the umbrella group known as “Hispanic”. So eventually, Africans made their way into becoming Hispanic. Shade in the Hispanic group is actual diverse. One can be black, and a Mexican and one can be white and have Spanish backgrounds. Nowadays, though, a Hispanic individual is puzzled as a white person who has Spanish backgrounds. However this is not the circumstance, in various areas of the world, there are African men that have Hispanic backgrounds or heritages, counting the United

Social science teaches that a person’s self identity is a reflection of that which other people put on the individual, in other words a person’s behavior steams more from what they see of themselves from someone else’s perspective and less from how they see themselves. In the case of the Mexicans, this concept holds true. From that, which has been studied thus far this semester, Mexicans/ Mexican Americans are good examples of this concept. Their sorted past has resulted in a new kind of Mexican American and perhaps a new kind of Mexican. Certainly the Mexicans American’s experience in this country has brought about some changes from the first generation of Mexicans who were born in this country to those who

and for thousands of years. (Greif, Hewitt 367) The African American culture use body art as a method of nonverbal interpersonal communication. The word tattoo became part of the English vocabulary in 1769 when James Cook visited the Pacific Island of Tahiti.

     Through our readings of the Mexicans in the U.S. and the African-American experience modules, we begin to understand the formation of identity through the hardships minorities faced from discrimination. In this paper, I am going to compare and contrast the ideas of identity shown through the readings. These two modules exemplify the theme of identity. We see how Blacks and Latinos tried to find their identity both personally and as a culture through the forced lifestyles they had to live.

In the period from 1515 to 1765, the native American society was almost destroyed unlike the wealth of societies of European settlers since contacts with alcohol and diseases like smallpox which Americans did not face before Columbian exchange make Americans lose power to resist toward colonialism. Europeans looted the gold and silver of America and did not respect Indian culture and civilization, so Americans lost both their economical and cultural assets. Moreover, because of sugar plantation and slavery, many Africans were taken from their home to America. It results foundation of African American society in many countries in Americas in modern days. First of all, native Americans lost their power because of drastic population decline caused

Latino Crossings: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and the Politics of Race and Citizenship is a book based on ethnographic research that details the racism and hostility that Mexicans and Puerto Ricans have found in relation to other ethnic groups. The book examines the perceptions and constructions of differences both culturally and biologically between Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, as groups, and how it operates within a larger social framework of racialized inequalities of power and opportunity in the space of Chicago. The objective of the book is to not only highlight the boundaries that divide these two groups and how they have been constructed over time but to see if they could possibly find common ground in order for both communities to overcome these disparities that help separate them and in turn help them forge a common identity and find a political space beneficial for both.

Furthermore, the researchers divide white racial consciousness into two: achieved and unachieved. A person who has achieved white racial consciousness has explored and developed some sort of belief system when it comes to racial issues. Conversely, those with unachieved white racial consciousness have not grasped their own racial identity and its link to other minority groups, which may stem from either intentionally avoiding dialogue surrounding race or depending on family members to form an ideology. In his book Faces at the Bottom of the Well, Bell argues that this relatively loose grasp of white racial identity creates an environment that serves a significant detriment to advancing racial progress in the country, as “few white people are able to identify with blacks as a group –the essential prerequisite for feeling empathy with, rather than aversion from, blacks’ self-inflicted suffering” (Bell, 4).

In the twentieth century, the American theater was open to African-American writers that open a dramatic force throughout the theater. During the 1950s, African American was debate more because of the civil right movement. Arthur P. Davis believes that the 1950s were the decade of African- American integration. Integration is to give or cause to give equal opportunity and consideration to a racial, religious, or ethnic group or a member of such a group. Langton Hughes uses integration by letting both whites and blacks be a part her plays most noticeably “The Raisin in the Sun”. Lorraine Hansberry, the fifth female playwright, saw Hughes’s optimistic tone and racial pride which is both echoed in her work. Accommodation is when the majority

Race relations are an ever prominent issue in American society. Controversies focusing around race are a commonly seen smeared across the front page of the newspaper or headlining on the evening news. The opposition is usually between a minority group and "The Man," a colloquialism used by many Blacks to refer to the overwhelming power stemming from white racist tendencies. This racial tension can sometimes can cause the oppressed to band together against the oppressor. Many times, the most prevalent link is between the African American community and the Latino community. Here we find two groups of people with very similar lifestyles who find camaraderie between themselves when dealing