Analysis Of The Film Gringos At The Gate

For my cultural activity, I watched a Spanish-language movie with English subtitles in order to better understand the film. The purpose of this paper is to express my reactions concerning the Puerto Rican film Casi Casi. In summary, Casi Casi is a high school romantic comedy about a boy who runs for Student Council President who is attracted to a girl who also decides to run against him. At the beginning of the film, my initial reaction was that the film was going to be very difficult to view and interpret due to the fact that it was produced in a foreign language that I am not fluent in.

The legacy and impact of the Spanish conquest is continually discussed and analyzed. The struggle in finding native identities while also acknowledging Spanish heritage is a continuing process in Latin America. Modern film and art, such as Salvador Carrasco’s La Otra Conquista and Diego Rivera’s mural the arrival of Cortés speak about the conquest and its effects on Mexico identity. The film challenges myths about the conquest by arguing against the greatness of Cortés, showing power in native agency, and Spanish dependency on interpreters. The mural upholds myths of the conquest like the black legend, minimizes

The Alamo is a 2004 American war film about the Battle of the Alamo amid the Texas Revolution; it is a motion picture that catches the dejection and fear of men sitting tight for two weeks for what they hope to be sure passing, and it some way or another succeeds in taking those popular society brand names like Davy Crockett and James Bowie and giving them human structure. The film was coordinated by Texan John Lee Hancock, delivered by Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, and Mark Johnson, dispersed by Touchstone Pictures, and featuring Dennis Quaid as Sam Houston, Billy Bob Thornton as Davy Crockett, and Jason Patric as James Bowie. The film relates to history, the Alamo looks exact, and, in reality, we find that San Antonio de Béxar was deliberately re-made with small saving of cost. In any case, a feeling of the way the occasions at the Alamo are joined with the national story of slavery, development, and the evacuation of Native American from the eastern United States in the 1830s and 1840s is missing. On the off chance that we incorporate this bigger story, we can maybe figure out the more extensive point of view that at first created enthusiasm for the venture.

Gutiérrez’s analysis spans almost a century worth of history between Mexican Americans and Mexicans and how their relationship developed. Throughout his discussion he argues that the root of the conflict between these two groups long existed. He argues that “although most Mexican Americans retained their Mexican cultural orientations and maintained strong affinities to Mexico,” factors of American assimilation and essentially ideals of nativism

Foreigner in their own land, as “Latino Americans” individuals faced many challenges that test their fate in faith, home and identity of family. As war divide and conquer part of land and that advocacy of political independence of a formation of the United States. Latino Americans outline main points in part of the race and racism in America being language, majority’ and ‘minority’ stratification that alter and expand the differences that expand in culture, race, and religion classes. Thus, construction of territory that outline the bordering disputes of the Republic of Texas with Mexico wars begins with the struggle over Southwestern territories that once belonged to Spain through the establishment of building Catholic Missions. With the defeat

The film La Bamba showcases one of the most important historical moments in not only music history but also Latino music history. The star Lou Diamond, portrays Ritchie Valens originally Valenzuela. Ritchie was a boy who did not grow up in a normal childhood. In the film Valens played by Lou diamond is shown working hard alongside his mother Connie trying to make an honest living. His older brother Bob finds his way to his mother and young brother convincing them both to leave the fruit fields where they were working. While Ritchie should have been at school he was working. Once they moved to Los Angeles, Ritchie started attending high school like a normal teen should. His love for music grew strong as he became fond of a young girl named Donna. Donna was from a middle class white family, while Ritchie was from a poor Latino American family. Donna’s parents wanted to keep the two apart from each other as her father did not approve of the romance because Ritchie had nothing to offer his daughter. Ritchie had nothing to offer Donna but his music and hope of someday making a name for himself. One-day Ritchie and his band mates are having a show and a man by the name of Bob Keane stops by to see the performance, while there Keane shows a great interest in Ritchie and reaches out to him. Keane soon convinces Valens that he didn’t need his band mates, that Ritchie was all the talent. Bob Keane not only manages to get Ritchie to drop his band, but he also convinces him to change

For decades, the history of Latin America has been shrouded in a cover of Spanish glory and myth that misleads and complicates the views of historians everywhere. Myths such as the relationship between natives and conquistadors, and the individuality of the conquistadors themselves stand as only a few examples of how this history may have become broken and distorted. However, in Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest Matthew Restall goes to great lengths to dispel these myths and provide a more accurate history of Latin American, in a readable and enjoyable book.

The movie “El Norte “is the one of the most successful and influential movies to represent the immigrants state. Director Gregory Nava’s gives the story of Guatemalan siblings Rosa and Enrique’s journey in a melodramatic way. The movie is divided to three main parts, Guatemala, Mexico and United States. The story of Rosa and Enrique’s shows us community, the power of language and culture in different countries.

Cristina Henriquez’, The Book of Unknown Americans, folows the story of a family of immigants adjusting to their new life in the United States of America. The Rivera family finds themselves living within a comunity of other immigrants from all over South America also hoping to find a better life in a new country. This book explores the hardships and injustices each character faces while in their home country as well as withina foreign one, the United States. Themes of community, identity, globalization, and migration are prevalent throughout the book, but one that stood out most was belonging. In each chacters viewpoint, Henriquez explores their feelings of the yearning they have to belong in a community so different than the one that they are used to.

Juan Gonzalez uses Chapter 12: “Speak Spanish, You’re in America!: El Huracán over Language and Culture” of his novel Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America to introduce a truly polarizing argument that has plagued the Latino community in the United States of America. Gonzalez is quick to point out that English is the common language in this country, though he is quicker to note that it should not necessarily be so. This author is so incredibly biased in this chapter that it is nearly impossible to disagree with his opinion without feeling like one is completely shutting out the entire Latino community. However, speaking as a member of this community, perhaps it is this unique insight that allows for not only a contending opinion, but also the framework to make the opinion relevant. Gonzalez makes brash claims with little supporting evidence and relies heavily on argumenta ad passiones to manipulate the reader’s emotions instead of focusing on rationalism and sound judgment. Quite possibly, it was the abundance of this logical fallacy that made it difficult to sympathize with his argument; though, it lays the basis for this chapter analysis.

1. In the “Latino Threat Narrative”, Chavez believes that the international terrorism of 911 acts as a trigger and strikes which raised the alarm of the national identity crisis of the United States in 2011, meanwhile, it also further threatens the survival and image of Latino unlimitedly. When the American witnessed the tragedy and the danger of their country in 911, their patriotism leads them to perceive the foreigners, specially the Latino and Mexican as a threat, heresy or even enemy who threaten the stability and security of the national identity. Due to the rapid growth of the Latino population in the United State, the Latino not only constitutes as a threat on the national security, but also labeled as an illegally radicalized ethnics groups or even “illegal Aliens” who rejects to assimilate into the mainstream of American culture and their alienation even make the United State further loss its cohesion. As a result, the American is facing the danger of disintegration.

     It is hard for them to seek true identity when Whites did not want to give any acceptance to their culture. Between language and culture barriers, Mexicans could not find any means to gain freedom in America. The discrimination facing them not only set them back as a society, but did not allow them to grow personally. We see this throughout The House on Mango Street and Zoot Suit. Both of these books give clear examples how Mexicans on a personal level could not keep struggling with the stereotypes being pushed on them.

During the Mexican-American War the border moved, but the people didn’t. History has shown us that no matter how thick the border might be Latino Americans have a strong connection to their culture and roots; instead of assimilating, Mexicans live between two worlds. The film, Ballad of Gregorio Cortez gave us a perspective of two cultures; “Two cultures- the Anglo and the Mexican- lived side by side in state of tension and fear” . Cortez is running for his life as he heads north, while the Anglo believe that because of his Mexican ethnicity, he would travel south to Mexico. Throughout the film there were cultural tensions and misunderstandings; language plays an important part of someone’s identity, and for many Latino Americans Spanish is their first language. The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez also shows us that language plays an important role, and can cause confusion between two different groups. For example, Anglos refer to a male

Ewa Cybulska and her sister Magda come to America seeking a better life escaping the Great War in Poland in the movie “The Immigrant.” Many people view this movie as a modern visual for what the life of an Immigrant was like in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. How accurate does this movie depict the life of an Immigrant from the gilded age? Can one watch this movie and fully understand how these immigrants live their lives in this time period. The movie “The Immigrant” does a good job in the aspect of showing the way a women immigrant that was desperate for money such as Ewa had to live but it focuses on this particular situation such as Ewa and Magda’s. To fully understand what immigrants that were flooding to America in this time

Anderson’s concept of the imagined community highlights how the Media Luna regional identity—as distinct from the highland—is socially constructed. In Anderson’s study of the formation of nationalism in Latin America, he notes how the boundaries of national identity have been re-drawn by the creole elites to encompass non-Spanish speaking, indigenous groups. In so doing, that which was Spanish was made foreign and that which was indigenous was native, even if the creole elite maintained racial hierarchies. Understanding national identity as malleable and social constructed helps us understand how the cruceños movement can re-shape their identity, drawing on indigenous identity to legitimize their claim to autonomy.