Essay on From a Farm Owner to a Bracero

Through the voice of Palo Alto, a mesquite tree, Elena Zamora O’Shea relates the story of one Spanish-Mexican family’s history, spanning over two hundred years, in South Texas, the area encompassing between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. As the narration of the Garcia’s family history progresses through the different generations, becoming more Mexican-American, or Tejano, peoples and things indigenous gradually grow faint. In her account of South Texas history, Elena devalues the importance and impact of Indians, placing a greater precedence on the Spanish settlers.

Reyna Grandes’s Across a Hundred Mountains was written in 2006, it is a stunning and heartfelt novel about migration, loss and discovery. It was published by Washington Square Press and its two hundred and sixty-six pages will captivate the reader from the beginning. The novel depicts the desperation of undocumented immigrants who make the dangerous journey across unfamiliar land to reach the border for “El Otro Lado” (the United States). The author, Reyna Grande gives the reader a glimpse of the everyday struggles these families are faced with and the heart-wrenching decisions made in the pursuit for a better life. There are different themes in this novel, they range from fractured family ties to heartbreaking poverty affecting the family and how religion is used to seek relief from these events. Therefore, an evaluation of the novel will be made on the social issues affecting these individuals, the challenges they face, and apply the ecological perspective along with its strengths. Lastly, an explanation will be given in which a social worker can help to address the issues that affect these individuals.

My grandfather Frailan Sendejo’s father Gregorio Sendeja would take him to work in the fields every summer. So, just like his father, my grandfather got married and had my father Enrique Sendejo and worked in the fields every summer just like they did with him. My father said to me “My dad and I went to multiple states like North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.” (Sendejo) It was tough for my father because he never got to go to a full year of school, he had to leave during the school year and then come back late in the next school year. My father told me “Some summers were harder than others because I would go on a bus to another state and work without my parents to pick cucumbers.” (Sendejo) He also said ”I had to walk on my knees all across the fields and back to help support my family, and I would only get paid $40 for the day.” (Sendejo) When he went back to Crystal one year he went to school and met my mother Gina Sendejo. My father was going to have to leave to the fields again, so my mother decided to go with him. Though, after a few years they decided to stop migrating up North to focus on their careers and family. I never realized how difficult it was for my father to get to be the person he is today, but I’m glad that he and my mother brought me to where I am today, so I can continue to share their

In his essay Bajadas, Francisco Cantu explores the physical and emotional landscapes that shift during his time as a United States border control agent. He candidly writes about his experiences, using imagery to describe the physical landscape of New Mexico in a way that mirrors his own emotional landscape and answers the question that he grapples with most. Cantu writes, “There are days when I feel I am becoming good at what I do. And then I wonder, what does it mean to be good at this? I wonder sometimes how I might explain certain things…” (7). This important question is what drives Bajadas; it is what compels Cantu to write so vulnerably. Through a journal-like structure, Cantu details what his job requires of him and the way he treats

On Friday I had the honor to visit the historical Rancho Los Cerritos House; also known as Rancho Los Cerritos or Casa de los Cerritos, in Long Beach, California, it was the largest and most impressive adobe residence raised in southern California during the Mexican period. The structure of the house was built in 1844 by merchant Jonathan Temple, a Yankee pioneer who became a Mexican citizen. Los Cerritos means "the little hills" in English. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970. I wasn’t lucky enough to visit this phenomenal and historical place until I took advantage of my history assignment and I decided to visit Rancho Los Cerritos with the company of some of my friends. On a Friday morning we took the chance and we

People in Central America especially, long to have their basic necessities met. Visiting Guatemala and Mexico at the age of ten was a hard site to see. Kids walking on the street barefoot not because they wanted to, but they had no money to buy shoes. Making their dirty feet ache at night. Wearing the same clothes full of filth because they could not afford to buy clothes and soap. Parents struggling to provide for their family. They would often sent their child to school without lunch, making it hard for the student to concentrate at school. Any little money counts and they would make it last. Yet they were so welcoming and loving to guest. They had nothing to offer but the little they had they would offer. Family’s full of frustration and no hope turn to the journey of going to “el Norte”. Hoping to have a better life and help their family improve their social status.

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

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

Into the beautiful North, by Luis Alberto Urea, is telling a story of a nineteen year old girl called Nayeli who is encourage by the movie “The Magnificent Seven” to go to the United States with her three best friends. Their mission was to cross the border and recruit seven men to save their town, Tres Camarones, from the bandidos. But she also wanted to bring her dad back home. He and the rest of the men of Tres Camarones went to the United States looking for jobs to sustain their family. The author wants to show how undeveloped Mexican towns such as Tres camarones can cause poverty, lidding to one of the biggest topic now days which is immigration. Immigration is a cruel and hard path caused by

The story illustrates the overlapping influences of women’s status and roles in Mexican culture, and the social institutions of family, religion, economics, education, and politics. In addition, issues of physical and mental/emotional health, social deviance and crime, and social and personal identity are

The dance of the little old man is a big deal in my home state of Michoacán in Mexico. The imagery of the rurally dressed men wearing ponchos and pink masks of a caricature of an old man are everywhere in my home state. Even foreigners and tourists realize the impact of the figures as Ruth Heelier-Tinoco points out in her book “Embodying Mexico tourism, nationalism and performance” she states,

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

Tapahonso’s novel is filled with poems and short stories that encompass her Native American tribe the Navajos. As you follow along the journey she takes you, you are able to learn about the importance of a child’s first laugh, the creation of her people, and even how in “Tune Up” children have to come home in order to feel at peace with themselves, their lives, and their culture. “The port presents her memories— ‘long time ago stories,’ as she calls them—as explanations of the Dine way of life to her grandchildren (Vasquez).” This novel is written more for her family and tribe then it is for an outsider. However, as a reader you feel that you are invited into a private world that rarely gets seen.

Today I have had the opportunity to explore the Gaucho region of Latin America. Some things that these people like to do and some challenges are… The gauchos very much like poetry. They have to traverse very diverse landscape to get to one place to another. They are also having less and less cattle to run. There is a special tradition day when people praise the Gauchos called La Fiest de la Tradicion. The Gauchos are also very passionate about culture. They are stimulated with romanticism by land. The people are able to overcome some challenges by… They can traverse land by making a trail to the best spots to traverse. They could mate some cattle to make more babies to take care of. I have had a wonderful time today and one of my

I woke up before my alarm. A distant square of eerie half-twilight from the window held the familiar outline of the locust tree. In the dark, I fumbled to dress without waking my parents. I slipped outside.