Central American Literature

Oscar Handlin believes, as he explicates in The Uprooted, published in 1951, that American history is best explained by the immigration, specifically European peasants who journeyed to the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s, that caused the most drastic change and growth to the country’s political, economic, and social factors. Instead of telling this story in a mainstream historical way including specific dates in chronological order, the author narrates the lives of these voyagers using sentimental information about multiple different themes to show how challenging it was for immigrants to face life in the New World. This strong, emotional tone creates a sympathetic feeling in the reader and shows the passion Handlin has for not only history, but also the peasants’ lives displaced during their struggles. The Uprooted was intended for a common audience of educated people interested in the history of America or immigration and is especially useful for students

What I believe Kimberly Koza meant in “The Literature of the Americas,” where she wrote , “By discovering the literature of our neighbors, we may learn more about ourselves.” is that if we take the time to get to know the people around us and in other countries around the world, we will find that while we may be different, we are also alike and we’ll possibly find we are more alike than different. The story from our unit 1 selection that I think applies to my interpretations of Kimberly Koza’s quote is the “Aztec Creation Story.” The author of this story would be the Aztec’s who were from Latin America. One example to show proof of this interpretation would be where both the Aztec and North America believe their higher powers went to work

The first part of the movie was titled the father’s name of the main characters. The father was killed by armies because he and other men were trying to make a protest or rebellion. Before dying, the father told Enrique how he would be a successful man without being “arm” of the riches. This wisdom word kept Enrique hold his dream about going to the north, where most people in that little village believed that they would get a freedom of everything and live in a modern world without slavery. Afterward, the mother was abducted by soldiers and the siblings must live in hiding to not get caught. The orphans decided to go to the north with the hope of a freedom land in the north was really existing even for minor Indian like them. This part of the film showed that even in the 80s, there still naïve and traditional citizens that living poorly even though Guatemala already proclaimed its independence in 1820s. This is one of the reasons that young people preferred to move from developing country and immigrate to developed country to chase their dreams and treated fairly like another human being. Other reasons why people immigrate were a lack of access to services like hospital or education, slavery, or poverty their old country. These reasons made the immigrants to expect improvements in income and living conditions in the designated country.

Enrique’s journey from Honduras to the U.S. unveils the innate loyalty of a loving child to their mother and presents the dangers that a migrant faces on the road with consistent angst; nevertheless, it supports the idea that compassion shown by some strangers can boost the retreating confidence within a person. In Sonia Nazario’s “Enrique’s Journey,” he seeks the beacon of light that all migrants hope to encounter; “El Norte.” Like many children before him, it is the answer to the problems of a hard life. While being hunted down “like animals” leading to “seven futile attempts,” he is

Gregory Nava’s 1983 film, El Norte, is by far one of the most honest and eye opening depictions of the experience many undocumented immigrants and refugees have when trying to come to the United States. By challenging the ethnocentric tendencies of the North American film industry and the general negative stereotypes of Latinos in film, Nava is one of the first writers/directors to break away from the typical representations of Latinos and give such true representation and discussion of many issues surrounding Latinos, immigration, and American society and values. The film focuses on two young Mayan brother and sister, Enrique and Rosa, from their flight from their village in rural Guatemala to their life of hardship and isolation in Los Angeles,

Central America Central America, just south of Mexico and North of Panama, consists of just six countries; Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. Of those six, all share a distinct common history except for Belize. Belize for one is incredibly small, and while Spanish is the official language of other Central American countries, in Belize English is spoken. So throughout this paper as I carelessly say 'Central American' I am not including Belize whose history and development was far different than the others. Although Central America is located close to the United States in relation to the Eastern Hemisphere, our ways of life are indescribably different.

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.

Imagine living in a country where you know you could die at any moment but don’t know how much longer till it happens. That was how much of the population of El Salvador used to feel when the government could not control the big coffee corporations. These out of control corporations, highly feared that the people would want to revolt against them so they hired murderers to kill innocent people to spread fear in the minds of the people of El Salvador. Fear, hate, and sorrow were the common feelings felt by the poor and innocent major population of El Salvador caused by the evil wrongdoings of the government during October 1979 – 16 January 1992. This is how the main character, Jose Luis, of the novel “Mother Tongue” by Demetria Martinez, felt before escaping his beautiful yet over constantly dangerous country, which depended on its cash crop, coffee beans to sell on a foreign market as the country’s main income. However, following the stock-market crash of 1929, a drop in coffee prices became apparent and affected everyone in El Salvador, but the poor especially. Making things worse, the glorious United States was funding the men whom were doing all the innocent killings with more weapons and money to increase their military power. So for Jose Luis the safe haven that he had escaped to was also blatantly funding the war that was killing so many innocent people he knew and had forced him to escape for his own safety. With nowhere else to go in order to find safety the United

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

The textbook Crucible of Struggle has a darker theme to it, where it brings out darker touching stories about the Mexican struggle and their oppression throughout history. The resistance chapter in Steel Barrio scratches the surface at the struggle of Mexicans being pushed to assimilation to live a better “American” life, and it explains how they surmounted that hindrance. The Crucible of Struggle mentions Mexicans migrating into the United States for more opportunity, but does not go into full detail explaining their defiance against

Each year, thousands of Central American immigrants embark on a dangerous journey from Mexico to the United States. Many of these migrants include young children searching for their mothers who abandoned them. In Enrique’s Journey, former Los Angeles Times reporter, Sonia Nazario, recounts the compelling story of Enrique, a young Honduran boy desperate to reunite with his mother. Thanks to her thorough reporting, Nazario gives readers a vivid and detailed account of the hardships faced by these migrant children.

“Things will be easy for you. But they will be hard for us (p. 111).” These words, spoken by Ántonia, the protagonist of the novel ‘My Ántonia’, give light to the situation immigrants found themselves in after moving to the North America’s Western frontier. This novel reveals how immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s had to overcome numerous obstacles on the path towards ‘The American Dream’ which those native to the area did not have to face.

I started this essay off with a quote one of the characters mention in the book because it basically gives us the main idea the author is trying to get readers to understand throughout the book. By looking at the title of this novel, “The Book of Unknown Americans” and by looking at the author’s name- Cristina Henriquez, we can already get an idea of what this novel is going to be about. When someone first takes a look at the title and author of this book they would assume that it is going to be about immigrants who moved to the United States and struggled to fit in. After reading this novel, I now understand how difficult it was for these Latino immigrants to leave everything they have in hope for better lives here in the United States. Each person has their own meaning of what it means to be an American and their own reason of what most immigrants come here for. The Rivera family came here in hope for better resources to help treat Maribel because they didn 't have the resources they needed back in their country.

Every immigrant has a personal story, pains and joys, fears and victories, and Junot Díaz portrays much of his own story of immigrant life in “Drown”, a collection of 10 short stories. In each of his stories Diaz uses a first-person narrator who is observing others to speak on issues in the Hispanic community. Each story is related, but is a separate picture, each with its own title. The novel does not follow a traditional story arc but rather each story captures a moment in time. Diaz tells of the barrios of the Dominican Republic and the struggling urban communities of New Jersey.

Dinaw Mengestu, Richard Rodriguez and Manuel Munoz are three authors that have been through and gone through a lot of pain to finaly get accepted in their societies. They are all either immigrants or children of immigrants that had trouble fitting in America’s society at the time. They struggled with language and their identities, beucase they were not original from the states and it was difficult for others to accept them for who they are. They all treated their problems differently an some tried to forget their old identeties and live as regulalr Americans others accepted themselves for being who they are, but they all found a way to deal with their issues.