Multicultural Identity

According to the Hay’s addressing model, my cultural identities as a Latina woman of low socioeconomic status makes me part of non-dominant groups. My identities set me apart from the majority population which means that; I am perceived inferior than those of dominant groups. My lineage constitutes of indigenous ancestors that like me, share a darker skin tone that till this day is seen imperfect.

Enrique created a larger than life image of his mother, and when he was reunited with her, his depression soon began to return. Quickly after, Enrique finds himself in the midst of a multiculturalism society like the United States. In the states, he learns what potential he has there, and how much better it would be if he could eventually have his girlfriend Maria Isabel and their daughter, Jasmin smuggled in from Honduras. Like his mother, Enrique begins to take the money he earns from his job in the United States, and saves enough money to have his family smuggled in the United States, so that they too can get the experience of what it is like to live in a multiculturalist society, and enjoy the freedoms and joy every migrant family should be able to

Gary Soto attempts to make it understandable, in his short story “Like Mexicans,” that a person’s race is not what defines them completely. Soto married Carolyn, a Japanese woman, after having claimed that he would only marry a woman of Mexican descent. Soto’s best friend Scott highly disagreed with Soto’s decision in being with Carolyn. He felt Carolyn was too good for Soto, and therefore this false assumption brought Soto down and distorted his thoughts on race and economic status. The essay by Gary Soto was well-written because it can be highly relatable to one’s life, especially to someone who is of Hispanic descent.

In “Antojos”, Alvarez shows a strong sense of characterization to portray real life experiences. For instance, “‘What exactly does it mean, antojo?’ Yolanda asked. Her aunts were proven right: After so many years away, their niece was losing her Spanish” (259). In this short story, the main character, Yolanda, doesn’t feel that she fits into the place she grew up in. Her aunts see that she is losing her native tongue. This shows that Yolanda is distanced from her heritage, and has a sense of lost identity. Her experience of feeling set apart from her native life incorporates the emotions of illegal immigrants that have had to adapt to a different life setting. Alvarez herself writes, “This was what she had been missing without really knowing that she was missing it all these years. She had never felt at home in the States, never…” (262). Yolanda misses her homeland where she was surrounded by her culture, and her native language. She feels like she has lost that part of her identity -where she originated from. This incorporates the emotions of how all illegal immigrants must feel. There is a sense of relation between the experiences of the strong character, Yolanda, and illegal immigrants who have felt a similar

I was intrigued by these differences in perspective, and attempted to understand why this was occurring. I first asked my parents, as I was only in the fifth grade, and their answer was simply that we were different, and that that wasn’t a bad thing. Feeling displaced, I began to question everything that I did on a regular basis, and if there was a proper manner in which to act for someone in my situation. The constant choice between my Mexican and American identity was always present.

Julia Alvarez is the narrator and author of this book, in which it describes her and her families life adjusting their immigrant ways to their new life in the United States. Alvarez has grown up with her Dominican culture but throughout the book she tries her very best to fit into

The personal essay titled “The Space In-Between” by Santiago Quintana details the struggles he dealt with while trying to figure out his identity as a member of both the Mexican and American cultures. Even though Santiago was born and raised in Mexico, he was often questioned about his ethnicity because his physical appearance did not align with that of a “true Mexican.” Instead of having brown skin, black hair, and brown eyes, he has white skin, light brown hair, and blue eyes. Since Santiago looked so different, he was singled out, bullied, and treated as if he were a foreigner in his own country. The difficulties he faced clearly had numerous negative effects on him emotionally, however, there was an unexpected and overwhelmingly positive

Cristian Henríquez’s novel The Book of Unknown Americans explores a variety of topics throughout her first three chapters. The themes of family most often come up when revisiting the opening chapters of one, two, and three: whether that being in the form of parental care or in sibling pressure. Through the perspective of Alma, Mayor, and Rafael, all Hispanic Americans, the author presents these “unknown” people and their lives in the opening chapters.

Growing-up in a predominately Mexican/Mexican-American community as a first-generation girl, like I did, is no walk in the park. Not only was I to uphold my parent’s traditional Mexican values such as: learning to cook and keep to a household, as well as a marriage, but also to uphold my new American values of independence and success measured in money as well as in property. At school I was taught to forget my first language, Spanish, and speak only in English, reminding me that: “You don’t want to speak with an accent.” At home I was reminded that Spanish, was and still is my first language and to leave English for school use only, reminding me that: “We can’t understand you in English.” Through this tug-of-war, between both cultures expectations of who I was to be/become, there was a desperate need to find my own identity, away from either culture. Sandra Cisneros’, The House on Mango Street, documents the need and struggle to find one’s own identity, through the narrator Esperanza’s experiences growing-up in a predominately Latino community in Chicago. Throughout the book Esperanza tries to understand the many different factors that influence her life and identity: in particular ethnicity and gender. Although, Esperanza suggest that she doesn’t want to be identified by either her Mexican identity or her sex; both of these factors play a major role in her struggle to find her own identity, by the way that they are intertwined in her own thoughts and in the descriptions of

Immigration is a very problematic and debatable topic in many ways. Its isn’t easy being an immigrant no matter what country you come from or where you settle. The novel shares stories of Chinese immigrants and the article shares how it is as a Hispanic immigrant. Although being very differing culture, they are still share many similarities.

What is it that makes a person multicultural? My story is about Daniella a young student at Roger Williams University who has been exposing herself to cultural space in Roger. It all begins with communication and her courage to socialize with different cultures. Intercultural relationships has been the key for her multicultural identity as mention in the book Intercultural Communications Globalization and Social Justice. Intercultural Relationships is the “human interaction with people from different religion, nationality or ethnicity”. (112) in my story I focus how she is been interacting in different cultural spaces. For example “Dia de los Muertos” a Mexican tradition. The event had verbal and non-verbal cultural communication. The behavior,

The first time that Mr. Hernandez and his brother left his home town was when he was 12 years old and the reason why they left was because they were told by a friend who was in Chicago that there was good work and people made good money. He and his brother decided to try out their luck so they crossed the border and set off to Chicago. When they arrived at Chicago they got work in a factory making metal cabinets for offices. During his time there he had experience something new that he had never new about, “I had experience my first act of racism against me for being Mexican”. He says that the food and the climate was not what he had expected and he only stayed there for three months and decided that the American culture was not for him. He found himself out of place and couldn’t relate with the current culture that he was in, so he decided to go back to Mexico to seek the comfort of his home town. Upon arrival to his home town in Mexico he didn’t know that he would have a strange feeling almost of feeling out of place. The greeting of his friends and family that he got was not one to he had expected. Friends would tease him by calling him “Here comes the gringo” meaning here comes the white man. Mr. Hernandez says that he was tease because people in a way felt like if a person would leave Mexico it was because he felt that he was better than the rest of the people. Mr. Hernandez faced many social pressures from his community for seeking to better his finances.

Based on our reading for this chapter, as well as the preexisting knowledge I had of these terms from other courses I have taken, these are the definitions I constructed for social construction, multiculturalism, and social identity. A social construction can be described as parameter or boundaries for a group, based on ethics and values. Social constructions are generally dictated by people in society that possess more power than most. Multiculturalism is the awareness, recognition, and support of diversities within culture. Social identity is a person’s construction of who they are, based on what groups in society they affiliate with/ belong to. After defining theses terms, I think it is interesting to see how the compare and correlate.

On that viscerally vibrant Friday morning, in that urbanized oasis, a group of primarily Black and Hispanic students united at El Cerrito High School to discuss their parents and peers very real struggle to achieve the American dream. The stories of racism, oppression, gentrification, and deportation filled the classroom with the voices of varied languages and vernaculars, a majority of which felt caught between cultures and pulled away at the seams by opposing orientations. These fourteen and fifteen year olds spoke of parents requiring them to speak the language of a place they’ve never been, of teachers demanding a “Standard English” they’ve never been taught, of friends questioning their “Americaness” because they didn’t know the difference between Disneyland and Disneyworld. This youthful minority-majority population is faced with cultural double identity; a term that reflects the cognitive dissonance an individual feels when their identity is fragmented along cultural, racial, linguistic or ethnic lines. This conflict of self is not isolated to this classroom in San Francisco’s East Bay are. It brims over into every classroom within California, where “no race or ethnic group constitutes a majority of the state’s population” (Johnson). It must be said then, that the culturally and linguistically diverse California classrooms must integrate texts that examine the psychological state of double identity. Turning to Luis Valdez’ play “Zoot Suit”, Chester Himes’s protest

We live in a country that is so diverse. No matter where we go we always seem to encounter someone of a different race or culture. So much so, that it has become imperative for many to be able to properly interact with others from a different background. Unfortunately, due to the fact that we are a society that primarily focuses on one’s personal growth, we never look back to realize what effects we inflict upon people of a different race. This topic very well hits close to home for me because I am a hispanic female. This topic not only interests me because of my racial identity, but also with the sudden change in political climate, it is a topic that should be brought up and discussed. I personally believe that for those that are a part of a minority group, or outgroups, the effects of racial identity and interactions are not always the best, whether it be mentally or socially.