Joan Didion's Barrio Boy

Where I Was From by Joan Didion is a book written about Didion’s perspective of the history of California. Throughout the novel Didion shares her families past experiences and adventures of moving west. Didion not only shows the readers how California has changed but also how it changed her as a person as well. Particularly in “Part One”, the opening paragraph contains an abridgement history of the eventful westward journey of Didion’s pioneer family unit, focusing particularly on the women in the family and tracing vertebral column six generations the blood of her famous hemicranias. Didion makes a very unpersuasive argument in “Part one” by her ineffective use of organization but effective use of grounds and claims.

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

She is giving credit towards California with their growth but she still giving the truth. One of the documents that was chosen was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which prevented Chinese people working. This would be a domino effect. The exclusion did not just stop there either, Ochoa also referenced the Japanese exclusion. This exclusion would separate the Japanese from “the white Californians.” The next document that Ochoa chose was a primary source from the Editors from The Los Angeles Times. In the document they are segregating Japanese from the whites and calling the Japanese “yellow people.” Ochoa is letting her readers know that people in California did not see minorities as people. Which was common all over

Michael Innis Jimenez’s Steel Barrio examines the way Mexicans and Mexican Americans lived in south Chicago during the 1920’s and onward. The book provides a general idea on the lifestyle of people coming from Mexican descent; from the struggle they tried to overcome, to the ideas they developed. It seems like survival was a key part of the Mexican life during that time, especially being surrounded by their white counterparts and hate. The appropriate word for their survival in Chapter 6 of the book is resistance. After reading the chapter on Resistance, it dawned upon myself that most Mexicans living in America were prideful of where they came from even though Mexico was in poor economic shape at the time. The main point in the book is to draw an overall picture of Mexican life in south Chicago, but the main point in the chapter was to point out the will of the Mexican to resist American assimilation also referred to as “Americanization”.

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

The Barrio is where low income Mexican families live and develop social relations with others around them. It is a safe haven for many Mexican families even though it is very run down and lacks certain necessities. The streets of the barrio are poorly paved and it even has a makeshift barbershop in someone’s living room. This, however, does not deter families from becoming close with each other. While in the barrio, families forget about their hardships and gather together to celebrate what they do have. Their gatherings usually take place on their front porches or in their brightly colored gardens.

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.

are often glamorized as the go­to work group in the United States. From popular Latino radio

While today Los Angeles is prided on being one of the most diverse cities in the United States, there was (and still is) a tremendous amount of resistance that had to be overcome. Society’s inclination to maintain homogeneity along with the testing of loyalties and allegiance through pressures of war have proven great obstacles in the evolution of what is now a majority-minority city. Nina Revoyr’s Southland gives a historic fictional recount of Los Angeles’ most tested times from perspectives looking in to the past, present, and future. The discovery of unpleasant truths through grave social injustices provide a painful reminder of Los Angeles’ history and consequently a warning for future setbacks. Southland is an emotional testament to the inescapability of discrimination within stratified cities and the unspoken necessity of assimilation that occurs as a result.

Francisco was born on Mexico but the parents immigrants to California because in California had the opportunity to work and have better opportunity to making money. His father work in California picking cotton. he lost the school time because he need to take care his brothers, his did not English Francisco is a young man, who had to grow faster because his family doesn't have everything and the payment of the father do not help.

Many young second generation daughters of Mexican heritage has grown up with a distinctive gender norm. In the midst of the second world war, the expression of freedom and equality spread throughout the country. This initiates for women to become more tuned to the social affairs the men had left behind. Thus, immigration brought a lot of Mexican families into Los Angeles. Double exposure to familial expectations and the American way of life brought in a sense of desperation of trying to balance both. The second generation daughters who have been exposed to the loudly spoken

First of all, the setting of this novel contributes to the Rivera family’s overall perception of what it means to be an American. To start this off, the author chooses a small American city where groups of Latino immigrants with their own language and traditions, lived together in the same apartment building. All these immigrants experienced similar problems since they moved from their countries. For example, in the novel after every other chapter the author

Both Ernesto Galarza’s “Barrio Boy” and Joan Didion’s “Notes From a Native Daughter” write about Sacramento’s past. Both authors talk about Sacramento during two different time periods. Joan Didion talks about the mid-century and Ernesto Galarza talks about the early 20th century. Although both author’s perspective of Sacramento differs from era to era, there are differences in certain characteristics described by both authors. Galarza’s essay focuses on an immigrant point of view arriving into Sacramento versus Didion’s experiences as a native decedent of Sacramento. Joan Didion’s Sacramento is a very different place compared to Ernesto Galarza’s , for him it’s an

To start, Lorna Dee Cervantes talks about her family and heritage using a freeway as the main idea. She talks about how a freeway now covers a spot where little houses used to exist “near the gray cannery”(Cervantes, 1). Here under this freeway, the author remembers her childhood that now has been covered, but she remembers that when she used to live in this area, she wanted to leave. She wanted to find a place that was different from where she lived, but a part of her wants to relive her childhood. The author states,” Maybe it’s here en los camps extraños de esta ciudad where I’ll find it, that part of me mown under like a corpse or a loose seed”(Cervantes, 20-25). The author wants to remember all the good times she had during her childhood home. She remembers how important her family was to her. On the other hand,”Hunger in New York City,” uses hunger as a way to show the importance of family and heritage. Simon Ortiz talks that hunger can come from anywhere or from anything. In this case, he uses hunger in place of his parents. After moving to New York City, the author

With the increase of Mexican immigrants present around Topanga Canyon, the residents of the suburban gated community, Arroyo Blanco, begin to feel as though their suburban space and spatial identities are being threatened. In an effort to combat that threat, the residents of Arroyo Blanco redefine their space and build a wall around their community. Through Arroyo Blanco's residents' Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher's experiences with Cándido Rincón, José Navidad, and the coyotes surrounding the Arroyo Blanco community of Topanga Canyon, Boyle conveys the futility of erecting walls as a way to preserve suburban space and suburban spatial identities in a post-suburban environment like Los Angeles.