Generations Of Exclusions By Edward Telles And Vilma Ortiz

Hispanics have been immigrating to America since the beginning of the Spanish Colonial era. Up until the 1920’s Mexican Americans have boomed in rural places in america. The 1920’s was meeting the beginning of a renaissance, a better promised life for both native americans as well as immigrants. Businesses were booming, wages were higher, and the industry was creating a bright future for America. However, Mexican Americans continued to face hardships as well as few successes leading up to the 1920’s. Whether these were Native born Americans with a Hispanic background or newly immigrated Mexicans, Mexican Americans faced the hardship of poverty, discrimination, segregation, and struggles during the 1920’s.

Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity. By David G Gutiérrez. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).

Becoming Mexican American is George J. Sanchez’s document how Chicanos survived as a community in Los Angeles during the first part of the twentieth century. He goes into detail of how many thousands of Mexicans were pushed back in to Mexico during a formal repatriation. Those that survived in Los Angeles joined labor unions and became involved in New Deal politics.

Several communities are known for having residents from a specific ethnic group. Oscar Casares delves deeper behind this topic in his essay, “Crossing the Border without Losing your Past,” where he discusses how vital it is for an individual to hold onto the roots of their ancestors as well as practicing its rich culture and traditions. Due to prominent similarities in culture, language, life style, and cuisine, many individuals from a certain race live in a community with others of their kind, hence the gathering of neighborhoods in unison. Thus, Casares states, “In my hometown, Brownsville, Tex., almost everyone I know is Mexicano: neighbors, teachers, principals, … rich and poor, short and tall, fat and

In Harvest of Empire’s “Mexicans: Pioneers of a Different Type” Juan Gonzalez outlines how Mexican descendants contributed to U.S. prosperity and culture. Gonzalez’s assertion is that the Mexicans and their culture have been in the United States long before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the establishment of settlements and trade along the Rio Grande by Mexican pioneers, and the important factor Mexican-American workforce had in the nation. He supports his argument using historical records, individual’s stories and local papers. Respectively, Gonzales provides information that Mexicans greatly affected the economic uprising and culture of United States across the border.

There are three iconic symbols of the presence of Mexican Americans in the history of the United States: The role of Mexican Americans in the WWII, the Bracero movement, and the Zoot Suit Riot. All three moments provide insight on the participation of Hispanics in the construction of the American society and more importantly, on the way the Mexican American identity has been constructed and on the ways this community has been considered, in general terms, a group of domestic aliens. As a consequence, Mexican Americans have been segregated and denied equal opportunity historically. However, they are here to stay, an Anglos better learn to deal with their presence.

The formation of segregated barrios and the development of a wealth of community-provided services showed that Mexican-Americans were not content to be marginalized by the United States. Instead, they were embracing an empowering new sense of self-determination and referring to themselves as “Mexicanos or as members of a larger, pan-Hispanic community of La Raza.” At this time La Raza referenced individuals of the Mexican “race”, whether they were in Mexico or in the United States, and was particularly important in the United States, where race was more important than citizenship. In the late 19th and early 20th century United States, race was determined by purity of blood, and there were only two races—white and black. White meant the individual had “pure blood” (European blood); black meant that the individual’s blood included indigenous or African influences. Being white meant being able to exercise one’s constitutional rights and being treated as a normal member of society’s dominant group. Being black meant that, regardless of whether he or she was a citizen, the individual would face discrimination similar to that which I described earlier. When the Spanish conquerors mixed with the people of Latin America, forming the mestizo, or mixed race, population that now composes most of the region, they removed themselves from a “white” classification in the United States. Thus, by engaging with the concept of La Raza, which connotes a mestizo race and population, Mexican-Americans rejected the binary nature of race in the United States and embraced what made them different—their indigenous-mixed blood and the cultural heritage that accompanied it. While the abuse directed towards Mexican-Americans may have

Many Mexican Americans have been able to accomplish their own versions of the American dream by attending a 4-year college, owning businesses, and taking on political and public service careers. However, Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants continue to face the hardships that their ancestors went through in the 20th century. The ethnic Mexican experience in the United States has been a difficult one for Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans of the first generation. Two key factors that continue to shape the lives of Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants are labor laws and the citizenship process. Focusing on the research, statistics, and information provided by Mai Ngai “The Architecture of Race in American Immigration”, Natalia Molina’s, “In a Race All Their Own": The Quest to Make Mexicans Ineligible for U.S. Citizenship”, and George J. Sanchez, “Becoming Mexican American” will provide the cause and effect of labor laws and citizenship laws that made an impact on the lives of Mexicans during the 20th century.

The book Harvest of Empire offers many examples of the factors leading to migration, which include economic and political persecution. The book has a direct connection between the hardships Latinos faced economically and military in their perspective countries. By reading this book it is clearly stated that Latinos are on the verge of becoming the largest minority group in America. Juan Gonzalez presents a devastating perspective on U.S. history rarely found in mainstream publishing aimed at a popular audience. Few of those countries were immigrants from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Dominican Republic and Central Americans.

The assimilation of Cuban Americans has come rather slowly due to the discrimination that this group has faced. Like most other immigrating groups, Cubans have seen themselves rejected and discriminated by the dominant group, making them embrace their own culture and straying away from the dominant expectations for several years. In order to maintain their culture, and as an effort to reject discrimination, Cuban Americans have opened various organizations and enclaves that help promote their heritage. The stratification between Cubans and white Americans is quite high in places like Florida. In fact, affluent Anglos are usually placed in elite private schools that are populated by little to none Latinos. Due to the fact that many Cuban Americans consider themselves to be exiles, their assimilation has come rather slowly. According to Gordon’s assimilation theory, cultural and identification assimilation have come at a slow pace. To elaborate, Cuban American immigrants have faced much discrimination and stereotyping that has led them to stay away from assimilating to the dominant culture. In fact, their cultural patterns have been kept sturdy by promoting their heritage in organizations, clubs and enclaves. With new U.S. born generations, there can be a sense of cultural assimilation, but for the most part, Cuban Americans have not completely assimilated culturally. In the same sense, identification assimilation has not come hastily. As mentioned, Cuban

García’s book can be very dense at times, providing the reader with many numbers, graphs, and statistics. Nevertheless, these statistics provide the reader with a better understanding on how El Paso was being shaped by Mexican immigrants; it also provides a new light on immigration during the nineteen and twentieth century’s in the United States. Many times Mexican immigration is overlooked, and thought of, as a recent event, when people think of nineteenth century immigration many think of the European immigration into the United States, yet García’s study shows that people were

Dr. Jason Richwine discusses the Latino’s absorption and integration into the American culture. He compares the Latino nation with other countries’ immigrants that has rose out of poverty, while the Hispanics have not been rising up out of the lower class after several generations have passed. Richwine mentions that American prejudice might be influencing the Hispanic immigrants not striving. For example, he states, that “popular explanations from the

When one thinks about Hispanics, all too often the image of a field full of migrant workers picking fruit or vegetables in the hot sun comes to mind. This has become the stereotypical picture of a people whose determination and character are as strong or stronger than that of the Polish, Jewish, Greek, or Italian who arrived in the United States in the early 1900's. Then, the center of the new beginning for each immigrant family was an education. An education was the "ladder by which the children of immigrants climbed out of poverty into the mainstream." (Calderon & Slavin, 2001, p. iv) That ideal has not changed, as the Hispanic population has grown in the United States to large numbers very quickly and with little fanfare. Now, the

modules gives many examples how strong cultural pasts lead to identity problems in a new society. Also, the module shows us that many Mexicans were not happy with the stereotype formed about their identity. In Between the Lines, we see how Mexicans in America suffer through harsh discrimination, while trying to stay close to their relatives and culture. The letters talk about how Whites did not have concerns with family values or cultural beliefs. Whites based many of their values off succeeding in the economy. Whites in general had no regard for Mexicans as people.

Latino immigrants have always had many obstacles when coming into the United States, the difference between the American and the Latin cultures is what has caused a huge hurdle that immigrants have found hard to overpass. This obstacle has caused many generations to go through cultural assimilation. Mize et al. (2012) explain that cultural assimilation is the adaptation of immigrants to unfamiliar cultural patterns, which include language and the value systems of other cultures. In order for immigrants to be successful in another country, which is not of their origin; they need to learn how to assimilate to their new homes. Immigrants have learned that they need to adapt in order to get to experience new opportunities and also to learn from new cultures that are not theirs (Mize et al., 2012). Immigrants have learned that they are not leaving behind their own believes and norms, but mixing their norms, this gives them the opportunity to create and mix their culture with the new. Cultural assimilation can be hard to achieve because in one hand it is important to change in order to live within a different culture, but on the other hand it is important for a person to maintain their identity regardless of where they live. At times immigrants find it difficult to achieve a balance and for many families it is a struggle over generations. There are different levels of assimilation, some immigrants come to the