Barrio Boy

Where I Was From by Joan Didion is a book written about Didion’s perspective of the history of California. Throughout the novel Didion shares her families past experiences and adventures of moving west. Didion not only shows the readers how California has changed but also how it changed her as a person as well. Particularly in “Part One”, the opening paragraph contains an abridgement history of the eventful westward journey of Didion’s pioneer family unit, focusing particularly on the women in the family and tracing vertebral column six generations the blood of her famous hemicranias. Didion makes a very unpersuasive argument in “Part one” by her ineffective use of organization but effective use of grounds and claims.

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.

In the film “Mi Familia,” we follow the story of the Mexican-American Sánchez family who settled in East Los Angeles, California after immigrating to the United States. Gregory Nava and Anna Thomas introduce the story of this family in several contexts that are developed along generations. These generations hold significant historical periods that form the identity of each individual member of the family. We start off by exploring the immigrant experience as the family patriarch heads north to Los Angeles, later we see how national events like the great depression directly impact Maria as she gets deported, although she was a US citizen. The events that follow further oppress this family and begins separate identity formations. These

In my analysis of this novel, The Adventure of Don Chipote or, When Parrots Breast-Feed by Daniel Venegas, I kept in mind that Nicolás Kanellos put great effort into getting this novel circulated in Spanish and in English. Kanellos argues that Spanish-language immigrant novels more accurately present the “evils” of American society such as oppression of the immigrant workers and deconstructs the myth of the American Dream, which permeates in English-language ethnic autobiographies. I believe Kanellos felt so passionately about circulating this particular novel was due to the fact that in Venegas’ novel we see clear representations of the three U.S. Hispanic cultures that Kanellos presents which are the native, the immigrant, and the exile cultures.

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.

While today Los Angeles is prided on being one of the most diverse cities in the United States, there was (and still is) a tremendous amount of resistance that had to be overcome. Society’s inclination to maintain homogeneity along with the testing of loyalties and allegiance through pressures of war have proven great obstacles in the evolution of what is now a majority-minority city. Nina Revoyr’s Southland gives a historic fictional recount of Los Angeles’ most tested times from perspectives looking in to the past, present, and future. The discovery of unpleasant truths through grave social injustices provide a painful reminder of Los Angeles’ history and consequently a warning for future setbacks. Southland is an emotional testament to the inescapability of discrimination within stratified cities and the unspoken necessity of assimilation that occurs as a result.

First of all, the setting of this novel contributes to the Rivera family’s overall perception of what it means to be an American. To start this off, the author chooses a small American city where groups of Latino immigrants with their own language and traditions, lived together in the same apartment building. All these immigrants experienced similar problems since they moved from their countries. For example, in the novel after every other chapter the author

When one visualizes Latino culture, the prevalent images are often bright colors, dancing, and celebrations. This imagery paints a false portrait of the life of many Latino’s, especially those that are forced to leave their home countries. Latinos often face intense poverty and oppression, whether in a Latin country, or a foreign country, such is true in Pam Ryan’s novel Esperanza Rising. Ryan chronicles the issues that many Latino immigrants face. The first is the pressure from the home country. Many of the countries face turmoil, and many are forced to leave their homes and culture. Once in a foreign place, people often struggle with standing by their own culture or assimilating to the new culture. Latino authors frequently use young adult literature as a platform to discuss the issues they face, as young adults are coming of age they struggle with their identities, personifying the struggle of old culture against the new culture.

During the 1840’s, the United States saw a huge increase in pioneers, or people who left their homes in the east to settle in the West. Some people saw California as a place where they would be free to live in a fully

Didion repudiates the San Berdnardino valley as a façade as artificial as the post-war culture within. For in the duplicity of the objective correlatives, the foliage of lemon, which is “too lush, unsettling glossy, the greenery of nightmare” foreshadows the diabolical nature of this Californian city, signified in the prelapsarian allusion “a place where snakes go to breed”. Thus, this underscores the sins enabled within this landscape, where Lucille Miller murdered her husband by “spread(ing) gasoline over her presumably drugged husband … and gently walk(ing) the Volkswagen over the embankment, where it would tumble into the lemon grove”, imitating how San Bernandino transmutes the biblical burning bushes into burning Volkswagens. Hence, Didion

Three people undertook a mission and they have a different background...but they still undertook a mission.There was a boy name Ernesto galarza and he moved from where he lived to another place,and when he went to a school and he learns English. Another person who undertook a mission was a Girl name Farah Ahmedi. The third person he is a dog and his name is buck ,he is also brave.

What drives us to undertake a mission? Is it impossible to know what drives people to take risks? People do crazy and dangerous things when they undertake a mission. Undertaking a mission faces many challenges. For example , Ernesto Galarza had to learn a new language. He found it hard to learn. Farah Ahmedi climbed a mountain on a prosthetic leg to reach freedom. Bucks was to get revenge from those who treated him in a bad way. All three shared an ability to endure hardship to accomplish their goals.

The Californian Dream can be regarded as one of the most paradoxical concept in history. The story and paradoxes written by Rawls is strongly supported by the anonymous accounts in many scenarios. Although the anonymous accounts limit itself to only the gold rush era, it still depicts some of the things mentioned in the story written by Rawls. To the weather of California, the reality of the gold rush, and the population growth of California, Both stories compliment each other as they both accurately describe the lifestyle of California in the 1850’s and beyond.

This can be seen in the writing styles of Borges and Marquez. This time has passed with the introduction of stories like the House on Mango Street the life of a Latino/a is on on full display to the world. In her story Cisneros use colorful language to express what it is like for her in Our America. This can be seen in her vignette The house on Mango Street. Her she confesses that this is not the house she had been promised “ it is not the way they told us at all, it is small and red with tight stairs in the front with windows so small you would think they were holding their breath” (Cisneros,2009,p.4). This was in stark contrast she was told that “her” house would be one with a yard and no fence in the front. In her writing Cisneros speak of this new and different place as though it has promise for her. In contrast to her hope Latin American author Jose Marti states that “that land for them, go and live with the English during the years when he saw the English marching against his own land? These incroyables who drag their honor across foreign soil, like the incroyables of the French Revolution, dancing, smacking their lips, and deliberately slurring their

Ernesto Galarza’s family were required to adapt to many different socio-cultural challenges in the novel Barrio Boy. This novel describes his childhood journey from a small mountain village to California, with the revolution in Mexico being the underlying issue. The entirety of Galarza’s family had a specific known role in their mountain village of Jelco. They were well off, but the threat of a civil war and the possibility of a draft pushed some of the family, including Galarza, to move.