Analysis Of Life Along The Border By Mireles

Montejano’s book on the local history of the Chicano movement zeros in on the city of San Antonio, Texas as well as its surrounding cities. The city itself was severely segregated by Anglo elites at the top

Norma Elia Cantu’s novel “Canícula: Imágenes de una Niñez Fronteriza” (“Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera”), which chronicles of the forthcoming of age of a chicana on the U.S.- Mexico border in the town of Laredo and Nuevo Laredo in the 1940s-60s. Norma Elia Cantú brings together narrative and the images from the family album to tell the story of her family. It blends authentic snapshots with recreated memoirs from 1880 to 1950 in the town between Monterrey, Mexico, and San Antonio, Texas. Narratives present ethnographic information concerning the nationally distributed mass media in the border region. Also they study controversial discourse that challenges the manner in which the border and its populations have been

     The author of Mexican Lives, Judith Adler Hellman, grapples with the United States’ economic relationship with their neighbors to the south, Mexico. It also considers, through many interviews, the affairs of one nation. It is a work held to high esteem by many critics, who view this work as an essential part in truly understanding and capturing Mexico’s history. In Mexican Lives, Hellman presents us with a cast from all walks of life. This enables a reader to get more than one perspective, which tends to be bias. It also gives a more inclusive view of the nation of Mexico as a whole. Dealing with rebel activity, free trade, assassinations and their transition into the modern age, it justly

Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso 1880-1920 analyzes and discusses the Mexican immigrants to El Paso, Texas. The most western city of the vast state of Texas, a city in the edge of the Chihuahuan desert; a place too far away from many regions of the United States, but as Mario García explains a very important city during the development of the western United States. He begins explaining how El Paso’s proximity to different railroads coming from México and the United States converged there, which allowed El Paso to become an “instant city”, as mining, smelting, and ranching came to region. (García 2)

Gloria Anzaldúa writes of a Utopic frame of mind, the borderlands created in and lived in by the new mestiza. She describes the preexisting natures of the Anglos, Mexicanos, and Chicanos as seen around the southwest U.S. / Mexican border, indicative of the nations at large. She also probes the borders of language, sexuality, psychology and spirituality. Anzaldúa presents this information in various identifiable ways including the autobiography, historical/informative essay, and poetry. What is unique to Anzaldúa is her ability to weave a ‘perfect’ kind of compromised state of mind that melds together the preexisting cultures while simultaneously formulating a fusion of genres that stretches previously

Louise Pubols, Fathers of the Pueblo: Patriarchy and Power in Mexican California, 1800-1880, article concentrated on the de la Guerra family from Santa Barbara, California. Pubols expresses to her audience that she wants to depict Mexicans from California Mexico in a different style from the usual. Pubols starts off by giving the reader a simple description of the way the California Mexican is usually presented. Typically, Californian Mexicans have little to no agency; they lose all their land and belongings and are lost to history. Pubols uses the de la Guerra family to show that California Mexicans not only had agency but also played a large part in society. Pubols second argument was that patriarchal language was being used to describe the de la Guerra’s family governance within their community.

Texas in it self is a highly diverse multicultural society. It takes on many aspects of many different cultures. One very noticeable culture that has a great impact on Texas would be that of the Mexican culture. Because Mexican culture is so apparent in Texas, that it is easy to compare and contrast some cultural aspects between Mexican and American cultures. This attempt to compare and contrast these two different yet similar cultures will increase awareness and acceptance of cultural differentiation. In order to examine these two cultures closely, I will use Hofstede's

Texas–or Tejas as the Mexicans called it–had technically been a part of the Spanish empire since the 17th century. However, even as late as the 1820s, there were only about 3,000 Spanish-Mexican settlers in Texas, and Mexico City’s hold on the territory was tenuous at best. After winning its own independence from Spain in 1821, Mexico welcomed large numbers of Anglo-American immigrants into Texas in the hopes they would become loyal Mexican citizens and keep the territory from falling into the hands of the United States. During the next decade men like Stephen Austin brought more than 25,000 people to Texas,

When Octavio Paz first visited the largest Mexican population center outside of Mexico’s international borders, Los Angles, he said the city had a "vague atmosphere" of Mexicanism in that manifested itself through "delight in decorations, carelessness and pomp, negligence, passion and reserve." But he felt that his "ragged but beautiful" ghost of Mexican identity rarely interacted with "the North American world based on precision and efficiency." Instead, this Mexicanism floated above the city, "never quite existing, never quite vanishing.1By the time Paz visited the exterior Mexico, a generation of Mexican revolution immigrants had their children in the United States and they had matured. These people had heard the corridos of the Revolutionary

During a decade of political and social chaos in Mexico, an uprising was conjuring against President Porfirio Diaz and the dictator style of his reign. As stated in Mexicans in Revolution, 1910-1946: An Introduction, “The roots of the Revolution reached back to the successful programs of the government of Porfirio Díaz and his regime, called the Porfiriato, that governed the republic from 1876 to 1911.”1 Francisco Madero, a representative for the common people and a candidate in the presidential election in 1910, promoted a resistance that opposed the reelection of Diaz. Eventually, the struggle to overthrow Diaz resulted in the Mexican Revolution. Madero’s forces, as well as the federal army, were compiled from middle and lower class men as well as las soldaderas, women soldiers. Las soldaderas represented the brave women that fought next to their brethren on the front line of battle, but also aided the cause behind the scenes by serving as nurses, washers, and cooks. The women’s involvement in the Mexican Revolution was portrayed solely as assistance in the movement to reinvent their country’s government. However, the soldaderas not only aided in the future of their country, but the future of women’s right as a whole. The soldaderas’ contribution in the Mexican Revolution sparked the desire to demand equality and a life free of constraints bound by male ideals of a women’s domestic responsibilities.

Texas is known for its rich cultural background that spans from indigenous groups, to Spanish colonials, to Tejanos, and many different cultural groups. Identity in Texas can shift from personal and racial perceptions. Culture and identity can change naturally overtime with major societal changes. Raúl Ramos discusses the formation changes of the Bexareno identity in his book Beyond the Alamo. Ramos explains how identity among the Tejanos, people of Mexican decent born or living in Texas, shift from the early days of Mexican Texas to the after the Civil War. Strategically covering all major points within Texas history, Ramos successfully explains how shifts within society affect the identity of people.

The Spanish Invasion of Mexico was not very subtle and affected the Indigenous Indian’s way of life in nearly every aspect. The Spanish used a standard operating procedure or treatment of the conquered people or nation. First, destroy any written form of history. Second, ban any form of religion and replace it with their’s. Fourth, take and procreate with their women against their will. Fifth, use them for labor for their benefit to increase the wealth of the crown first and foremost. The Spanish crown’s intent was to corner the silver and gold market. The Spanish military was to locate and confiscate any resource that could be turned into cash quickly. The cash would also help finance the war effort which was being fought on many different fronts at that time. The wars and lavish lifestyles of Spain kept them bankrupt, but they had no intentions of changing their spending habits. Instead, it was easier for them to take from others. They considered themselves the top of the food chain or superior to any people of a darker color and not born in Spain. We will examine some of the major changes caused by the three-hundred-year occupation of Mexico by the Spaniards and how these people adapted to the drastic changes in religion, their way of life and language.

There are four international ports that connect the United States to Central America; Juarez is one of these important four. Juarez once known as Paso del Norte (pass of the north) lies on the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo del Norte). Juarez was founded in the 1600s and has since been in the top ten largest populated cities in the world. When people think of Juarez and other cities in Mexico, there are many stigmas held strongly against them. Nowadays, Mexico is perceived as a dangerous and horrible place to live. Of course certain assumptions and stereotypes have some validity with the drug cartel, murders, and high crime rates playing a part in their perception of the country. However, even with the devastation and crime there is beauty and importance that lies at the very roots of Mexico. In my paper I wish to express the many positive impacts the country has made over their long living history. Juarez has been a strong and thriving city with an interesting history of its people, agriculture and the economy.

Mexico has a long history that goes back as far as the 11th millennium B.C which was over 10,000 years before the Spanish intruded. Across the land, Meso-America was inhabited by various indigenous groups with over 14 languages been spoken and some of them ae still being spoken such as the Zapotec and the Nawan and Purepecha. Aside from the civilized curriculums that Meso-America developed then exploited by Europeans, Mexico today inherits some of its culture such as the association of indigenous groups with agriculture, combining its diverse traditions with factors of a developed civilization such as a unified Spanish language as a universal form of communication. If we analyze of who look like a typical Mexican, it’s people have diverse physical features as if they belong from continents around the world. In fact, Mexican peoples are a composition of various races. The Mestizos in one hand are Indigenous-Spanish, Mulatto’s, on the other hand, are Indigenous-African descends. Therefore, the typical Mexican of the 21st century is the person who combines historic roots with today’s globalized norms. In this paper, I will summarize certain events of what I learned about the de-Indianization attempts, the idea of the Cosmic race and the urbanization tragedies that unifies Mexican in the 21st century after the revolution based on Bonfill Batalla’s Mexico’s profound and my CHS 345 class.

In present-day America, the Virgin of Guadalupe is held in high regard for her strength, love, and hope that she emanates to Mexican-Americans. One can say that she is the symbol and role model of Mexico, or even a part of the private flag of Mexicans.1 However, the symbolism behind the Virgin of Guadalupe is ambiguous; it holds both positive and negative meanings.2 The Virgin could also be seen as an image of oppression towards Indians and women during the era of colonization in the New World. To combat those views, Jeanette Rodriguez considers the Virgin as a beacon of hope for those who were marginalized. Richard Rodriguez also argued that the Virgin created a new and lasting identity for Mexican-Americans despite the fact that the Spanish converted them into Catholics. That new identity is explained in Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz’s essay, and highlights the significance of having solidarity within the Latino community and identifying and fighting against the root causes of oppression. Although the Virgin historically carried negative views of oppression among Latinos, she can also be a symbol of maternal love, strength, and hope to fight against oppression that was and is present in American society.