Border Corridos And Badman Ballads

Despite most Americans associating the word “immigrant” with Mexicans, there is a whole wide spectrum to the word “immigrant”. Not only did Mexicans and other Latino groups come to the U.S. to find jobs, but Central Americans also came to the U.S. to escape the chaos that was occurring in their home countries. The Tattooed Soldier by Hector Tobar, illustrates these aspects of power, difference and inequality by describing the story of Antonio Bernal traveling to the U.S. to escape his death by a Guatemalan death squad only to find himself in the same city as the killer of his wife and son. Throughout the novel we see how the discrimination against race, class, gender, and sexuality make it difficult for those who migrate to the U.S. in

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.

For many years, Sam Houston’s speech at Refugio was closely associated as being racial and prejudice towards the Tejanos. As Crisp put it straightforwardly “the words of the speech were harsh. They accused the Tejanos, the Mexicans living in Texas, of aiding the enemy in great numbers.” Additionally, San Houston referred to the Tejanos as “half-Indians” and emphasized the superiority of the white man by saying “nor will the vigor of the descendants of the sturdy north ever mix with the phlegm of the indolent Mexicans, no matter how long we may live among them.” Houston’s discriminatory language against the Mexicans, as well as, the negative manner in which he portrayed the Indians stunned Crisp. Crisp declared “the words seemed so unlike Houston” and “ given his long and friendly relationships with Native Americans, how could Houston revile Mexicans by calling them half-Indians?” Those questions compelled Crisp to search and investigate much deeper.

As a kid I used to like watching those old Texas Ranger movies, on how they would take out a bunch of bad people, rescue the people in trouble and save the day. In chapter 3 we read that was not the case and how there really job was to oppress and to “keep the peace “after the Mexican American war, the book uses the lone ranger as an example, which is a Disney remake. Along the movie the “lone ranger” has a side kick who’s named “Tonto”, which is the Spanish word or equivalent to “Dumb”. The movie had “use of racist stereotypes in most scenes” (Urbina 2014 pg.37). this chapter also spoke on how the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gave “cover” to the greed of “white men “ to steal the lands of those Mexicans that stayed after

In 1846 throughout 1848, a war to conquer land from Mexico were orders held by James K. Polk. An unjust war is about to occur, In 1846 Texas becomes Independent from Mexico and the United States. To begin with, Mexico approves for the Americans to settle onto Texas with one condition to not bring slaves along with them. During this time period, slavery was one of the most important political concerns and they opposed slavery. The Americans didn’t hold the values of anti-slavery, during this time they valued Manifest Density strongly. Accepting some restrictions from Mexico placed was nothing compared to its own destiny to occur from preventing America to stretch outward towards the Pacific Ocean. The main conflict started with the annexation of Texas, a dispute on the nation’s border, the Mexicans consider the Nueces river to be the border of Texas as for Americans that wasn’t enough land so they consider, Rio Grande the border. A way to aim to

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

Beyond the Alamo: Forging Mexican Ethnicity in San Antonio, is an analysis of the Anglo-Mexican

     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

In my personal experience, Mexican music has revolved around my life for as long as I can remember. Growing up in a bordertown has its Hispanic heritage. Whether I was at home, school, or even in public places, I would hear Spanish related music playing in the background. I believe Spanish music holds many values when it comes to different occasions. The music can manipulate the minds of its listeners using love, passion, and outstanding rhythms. After reading an article online, I can explain how three different genres of traditional Mexican music influence people’s culture.

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

Alberto Rios claims that the border is unnatural, complex, and seen as a boundary. He discusses empathetic relationships in a global society when he uses many literary devices to claim that the border is an unnatural thing in a natural world, it has become so complex that it is unrecognizable, and that many people view it as a boundary when it should be viewed as what joins us together. The border is unnatural because it is something manmade placed in the natural world as if the people believed that it was supposed to be natural as well. What started as a simple rancher’s fence to fix a simple problem, quickly escalated to be something as complex as a third grader trying to understand calculus. The people view the border as a boundary meant to divide when in reality, it is what joins us together as a global society.

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

Mexican Americans in Texas have a long and detailed history spanning from the arrival of Cortez all the way to the present day. Through historical events, the culture and identity of Mexican Americans have shifted, diverted, and adapted into what people chose to identify as. The rise of the Chicano identity during the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement was an adaptation as a culture to oppressive and unjust treatment from white, Anglos that had almost all political and social power over all minorities. To stop the oppressive voices from silencing and oppressing the Mexican Americans, they had to stand up to fight for their rights as American citizens that also had Mexican or Spanish heritage to be proud of. In Oscar Zeta Acosta’s novel, The Revolt of the Cockroach People, he dives into the Chicano Movement as a witness and an active participant. His larger than life character is on the front lines of the movement and examines the shift in identity among the group. It was particularly rising of their Chicano identity that gave the people cause to organize politically and socially in order to fight for a worthy cause.

While Texas leader Stephen Austin initially had no contempt toward Mexicans, the Anglo-American citizens in the area did. The American Texans of the 1800’s defined Mexicans as “a race alien to everything that Americans held dear” (De Leon 4). This sentiment would serve as the primary catalyst to the Texas secession from Mexico. When Austin began colonizing the area, he envisioned a place in which Anglo-Americans and Tejanos, Mexicans living in Texas, could live together. Eventually, though, the public opinions of North American settlers in the territory and in Washington would make him realize that the goal of unity between the two groups was impossible.