Becoming Mexican American Summary

The story “Woman Hollering Creek" by Sandra Cisneros describes the lives of Mexicans in a Chicago neighborhood. She depicts the life that women endure as Latino wives through her portrayal of the protagonist, Cleofilas. For Cisneros being a Mexican-American has given her a chance to see life from two different cultures. In addition, Cisneros has written the story from a woman’s perspective, illustrating the types of conflicts many women face as Latino wives. This unique paradigm allows the reader to examine the events and characters using a feminist critical perspective.

Despite being outcasted by other feminist groups such as the mainstream Chicano movement, and the second wave feminist movement, they wanted to set themselves apart through the use of their own personal experiences with gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, class structure, and so forth. This term relates to Mexican-American and Hispanic women who oppose the traditional “household wife” role. They challenged the fundamental ideologies women, and young women are taught at an early age, and breaks away from the idea that men have dominion over women. This can also be categorized as a movement that fights against stereotypes against women. This term is important in context to our reading’s because this movement paved way for Chicano women to make their voice heard in their community. Just like we familiarize ourselves with key men in the Chicano movement, women also wanted to describe their experiences, and social injustices they were challenged with because they were women on top of other

Before World War II, the Mexican American community had a very rich history in the United States; also they were suffering racial, economic and educational segregation. They still were foreigners in a land that once belonged to them. The women had a very specific part in this community´s development.

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.

The Progressive Era is generally applied to a variety of responses to the economic and social problems to rapid industrialization introduced in America. Although the era can be narrowed down to focus on the history of Mexican American women living in the Southwest and Midwest of the United States between 1890 and 1919. Some of the events involved within in the Mexican community during the time were a variety of processes including restriction, deportation or Americanizing immigrants from Mexico. Women and their children were especially involved in some of the American groups trying to assimilate large numbers of the Mexican community. The history of Mexican American Women in the Southwest and Midwest is mentioned in detail in Vicki L.

“Wow, you are so rich”, these words have been repeated many times by close friends and relatives. I am perceived as a rich and spoiled girl who sleeps on top of a pile of money and lives in a mansion in the United States. As much as I would like to live up to that assumption, in reality, I am just a middle class citizen that lives in a small town. Yes, we have cars and a big house, but we are not loaded with money. In the country of Mexico I have had numerous occurrences where its citizens have seen me differently, not a Mexican, but as an American.

I can also feel the rigid gender roles and norms in the Mexican American culture. In Movimientos de rebeldia y las culturas que traicionan, Anzaldua mentions that the Mexican culture barely accepts deviant behaviors. Their culture expects women to be commitment to men and if they are not, they are labeled as a selfish. Women are valued as a wife and mother, and “women are made to feel total failures if they don’t marry and have children.” Because of fear of being unaccepted and abandoned by their own culture, “some conform to the values of the culture, push the unacceptable parts into the shadows.” The Mexican women fight for women’s rights in their mother culture first, before they fight against the racism or sexism in white dominant culture.

Dixie: I really enjoyed this seminar and talking about the wall that President Trump is going to build. I learned a lot from the discussion board. In chapter 10 on page 227. I learned about the Mexican American experience and what it was like coming to the United States. I thought this was great, as I am doing my final assignment for this class on Mexican American’s. In the book on page 226, it talks about the long history that Mexican American have in the United States. I have known that they have been here a long time. In the textbook on page 246, I got to learn about the Muslim Americans. Islam, with approximately 1.6 billion followers worldwide, is second to Christianity among the world’s religions (Schaefer, 2015.) I didn’t know this about

Latin American immigration to the United States and the growth of the latino and hispanic population is currently one of the most controversial topics being debated right now. What started as a small, regionally concentrated population of fewer 6 million in 1960, is now broadly scattered population of more than 50 million. Latino population keeps growing and exerting enormous impact on social, cultural, political, and economic aspects in the U.S. However, unlike what a lot of people think, Latino immigration to the United states is more than a population’s aspirations to the american dream, it has been influenced by multiple factors such as national, regional, and global developments, the history of the U.S. military and its foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere, the controversial history of international border enforcement. When latino immigrants get to the United States, they make it their nation. However, their nation often fails to protect them and their interests, as well as embrace them. In this essay, I will explore in detail the various factors that drove the Latino community to immigrate to the U.S., and how the role of the U.S. as their nation shapes their experience.

Being a Mexican-American, who was raised in the small town of Encarnación de Díaz – located at Los Altos de Jalisco, MX, – and then moved at the age of seventeen to Corpus Christi, TX, was not a smooth transition. The most difficult things I have encountered in my life must have been speaking a new language and adapting to a new type of living. I was fortunate enough to have amazing teachers who taught me to read, write and speak in English back in Mexico, but I was still not confident enough to speak the language when I arrived here. Although, many have told me that my English doesn’t sound as if I just moved here five years ago, I still believe I have so much more to learn.

The foundation for Texas came after the Spanish settlements in the Rio Grande were established. The thesis gives a clear overview of how low the economy and the social life struggled before the development of Rio Grande. However, it seems that she does not think highly of the ‘founding fathers’ since they were not necessarily heroes in the Revolution and the developments therein but rather Mestizo and Criollo who helped in establishing ranches in the Rio Grande during the 18th century. She says that the two groups were “Fiery-spirited man, wild if you please, over whom the master had no control” (76). It is also obvious that her narration on the Mexicans reveals that they lived in a deplorable state and were almost invisible. As a result, they focused on creating positive changes and destroying “any attempt to create racial prejudice” (106) against their people. Fundamentally, the author presents in her thesis is an account of Texas history as well as a negative representation of the Mexican culture as people who were perceived to be inferior, despised, and were treated lower in society. Although Eugene C. Barker, who is a historian alleged that Mireles’ work “lacked sufficient “historical references” (17), it is alarming how she managed to have a detailed account of the Mexican border and the social life thereof of the women living along the borders and their day to day life. It is evidently clear that although Mireles fails to give specific details on the major constraints during this period and has focused a lot on the ordeals of the Mexicans in a white-dominated city, it is an model classic that can be recommended to people of all different ethnic

The role of strong female roles in literature is both frightening to some and enlightening to others. Although times have changed, Sandra Cisneros’ stories about Mexican-American women provide a cultural division within itself that reflects in a recent time. The cultural themes in Cisneros’s stories highlight the struggle of women who identify with Mexican-American heritage and the struggle in terms of living up to Mexican culture – as a separate ethnic body. The women in Sandra Cisneros’ stories are struggling with living up to identities assigned to them, while trying to create their own as women without an ethnic landscape. In Sandra Cisneros’ stories “Woman Hollering Creek: and “Never Marry a Mexican” the role of female identities that

Growing up Mexican-American is similar to living a dual-identity. It feels as if I’m stuck in-between a border where I am unsure if I’m more American or more Mexican. Mexican-Americans have to live a life of proving themselves to the world. Am I Mexican enough to my family and am I American enough to the people of the United States.This idea was new to me even though I had been living with this.

I was raised in a close-knit family household, which has left me with great memories and many stories, but I have also had first hand experience the troublesome transition of Mexican immigrant parents to America. However, the trajectory my of success my parents have had without any resources has encouraged and impacted me greatly to go out and help those in need, because everyone has the potential of greatness. Even though I didn't always have the dolls, clothes, home, or shoes I wanted, I was too busy to mind, because school academics and dance have been a passion of mine since I was smaller; it fills my heart with joy every time I am part of these things. Besides, having two brothers made everyday something special, and I still love taking

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