Summary Of ' An American Folk Tale ' By Americo Paredes

Despite most Americans associating the word “immigrant” with Mexicans, there is a whole wide spectrum to the word “immigrant”. Not only did Mexicans and other Latino groups come to the U.S. to find jobs, but Central Americans also came to the U.S. to escape the chaos that was occurring in their home countries. The Tattooed Soldier by Hector Tobar, illustrates these aspects of power, difference and inequality by describing the story of Antonio Bernal traveling to the U.S. to escape his death by a Guatemalan death squad only to find himself in the same city as the killer of his wife and son. Throughout the novel we see how the discrimination against race, class, gender, and sexuality make it difficult for those who migrate to the U.S. in

Acclaimed American author Richard Rodriquez’s autobiography “Days of Obligation” conveys that his feelings for both Mexico and the United States can be expressed through contrasts. Rodriquez uses pathos, tropes, and schemes to articulate his feelings. His purpose for writing about the contrasts between Mexico and California is to help readers understand the differences that affected his life. Rodriguez’s relationship with his literate audience is personal, since he is opening about his personal life and his views on it.

In Cormac McCarthy's All The Pretty Horses, John Grady Cole's departure of America and search for identity leads him on a tortuous journey. Sprouting in San Angelo, Texas, John Grady Cole blossoms into life on a ranch his grandfather presides over. His grandfather dies when he is just sixteen, causing him to depart America - the country he once called home - with his best friend Lacey Rawlins for Mexico, to be cowboys. As he explores the southern country, he feels that Mexico is exactly where he belongs. But, during his visit, he runs into trouble as he falls in love with a ranch owner's daughter who comes from a strictly traditional family, he is jettisoned in a moral-absent jail, and he stabs a man to death. Because Cole has nowhere else

Sherman Alexie’s Indian Killer is filled with racism, stereotyping, anger, and hate. You can feel Alexie’s mood throughout the novel, and it’s easy for readers to see that Alexie is arguing through his fiction novel that there is systematic oppression against Native Americans. However, there is also an underlying argument trying to be made in Indian Killer other than the obvious. Sherman Alexie makes this argument through the characters of Aaron Rogers and Truck Schultz. The topic discussed is one that we see outside of the book in society during times of fear, distress, and tragedy. Indian Killer illustrates a situation uncertainty where individuals take advantage of the panic to push their own agenda on emotional and naïve audiences.

In my analysis of this novel, The Adventure of Don Chipote or, When Parrots Breast-Feed by Daniel Venegas, I kept in mind that Nicolás Kanellos put great effort into getting this novel circulated in Spanish and in English. Kanellos argues that Spanish-language immigrant novels more accurately present the “evils” of American society such as oppression of the immigrant workers and deconstructs the myth of the American Dream, which permeates in English-language ethnic autobiographies. I believe Kanellos felt so passionately about circulating this particular novel was due to the fact that in Venegas’ novel we see clear representations of the three U.S. Hispanic cultures that Kanellos presents which are the native, the immigrant, and the exile cultures.

Patrick J. Carrol’s Felix Longoria’s Wake: bereavement, racism, and the rise of Mexican American activism is a book of significance in the fight for equal rights for all Americans especially people of minority ethnicities like Mexican Americans. Carrol takes the reader on a tour of South Texas, where Mexicans and Anglos are segregated by train tracks whether that be schools, housing and even the cemetery where after death Mexican Americans are being segregated and discriminated against. The Mexican American activism fire grows red hot when Felix Longoria a private in the United States Army is killed in active duty during the Second World War on November 11, 1944 in the Philippines. When his body is set to be reburied in his hometown of Three Rivers, only to be rejected twice by the undertaker Tom Kennedy, who just recently purchased the chapel, because white people in the town would not like a Mexican American to use the chapel. This revelation of discrimination, racism and ethnocentrism in the small town of Three Rivers will lead Felix Longoria family, Dr. Hector P. Garcia and LBJ on a three to four months crusade on a national level and local level fight for Mexican American civil rights in South Texas. Even though Private Felix Longoria never gets the wake he is rightfully deserved, he is buried with full military honors.

Although I can’t specifically relate to Gloria Anzaldúa’s struggle between her languages in “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” I can relate to her “kind of dual identity” in which she identifies with neither Anglo-American cultural values nor Mexican cultural values (1566). Being half white, half Chinese, I struggle identifying as either identity, especially because my mom (who is Chinese) never learned Cantonese and largely became Americanized in her childhood. It’s an uncomfortable position to be in when racial and ethnic identity are so significant in America and when I must interact with the world as part of both the majority and the marginalized. Considering my own struggle and the conflict Anzaldúa describes, it became clearer to me the way race relations in American not only marginalize people of color but train our consciousnesses to damage ourselves. Before I turn back to Anzaldúa, a novel I’ve recently read, William Godwin’s Caleb Williams has also been on my mind, particularly in Godwin’s portrayal of how police surveillance transforms us into agents of our own oppression. Although Caleb is a white man, he also experiences a split consciousness as his values and characteristics are whittled away by the paranoia of constant surveillance.

     The author of Mexican Lives, Judith Adler Hellman, grapples with the United States’ economic relationship with their neighbors to the south, Mexico. It also considers, through many interviews, the affairs of one nation. It is a work held to high esteem by many critics, who view this work as an essential part in truly understanding and capturing Mexico’s history. In Mexican Lives, Hellman presents us with a cast from all walks of life. This enables a reader to get more than one perspective, which tends to be bias. It also gives a more inclusive view of the nation of Mexico as a whole. Dealing with rebel activity, free trade, assassinations and their transition into the modern age, it justly

The Land of Open Graves was a dynamic piece that followed stories of the Mexican-American Border land through a series of anthology-like stories. What made chapters 1 -5 so impactful were the ways in which the stories were conveyed. The author began with a tale of people scouring the desert for undocumented, human remains. Then there was a fictitious journal that mimicked the reality of four migrant workers. Other entries included an explanation of death in the desert, the following of humor in migrant workers and life in the deported role. Although all of these different stories seem divergent, they have central theme that the author draws on throughout the first 100 pages – the unparalleled hostility and negligence perpetrated by the government. The author is adamant about the idea of “Prevention Through Deterrence” and the harsh reality about the border and the way the United States treat those who cross the border. I would like to explain my reaction to each of the chapters below.

During the Mexican-American War the border moved, but the people didn’t. History has shown us that no matter how thick the border might be Latino Americans have a strong connection to their culture and roots; instead of assimilating, Mexicans live between two worlds. The film, Ballad of Gregorio Cortez gave us a perspective of two cultures; “Two cultures- the Anglo and the Mexican- lived side by side in state of tension and fear” . Cortez is running for his life as he heads north, while the Anglo believe that because of his Mexican ethnicity, he would travel south to Mexico. Throughout the film there were cultural tensions and misunderstandings; language plays an important part of someone’s identity, and for many Latino Americans Spanish is their first language. The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez also shows us that language plays an important role, and can cause confusion between two different groups. For example, Anglos refer to a male

Mexican Americans in Texas have a long and detailed history spanning from the arrival of Cortez all the way to the present day. Through historical events, the culture and identity of Mexican Americans have shifted, diverted, and adapted into what people chose to identify as. The rise of the Chicano identity during the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement was an adaptation as a culture to oppressive and unjust treatment from white, Anglos that had almost all political and social power over all minorities. To stop the oppressive voices from silencing and oppressing the Mexican Americans, they had to stand up to fight for their rights as American citizens that also had Mexican or Spanish heritage to be proud of. In Oscar Zeta Acosta’s novel, The Revolt of the Cockroach People, he dives into the Chicano Movement as a witness and an active participant. His larger than life character is on the front lines of the movement and examines the shift in identity among the group. It was particularly rising of their Chicano identity that gave the people cause to organize politically and socially in order to fight for a worthy cause.

The racist connotation that Miss Jimenez associates with who she thinks would “fit in” society’s box is a definite reflection of the hardships Valdez witnessed in his community. For example, the Zoot Suit Riots that occurred in 1944 was rooted by a reaction by young Mexican-American males against a culture that did not want them to be a part of it. Stuart Cosgrove examines this issue when he states, "In the most obvious ways they had been stripped of their customs, beliefs and language.” (*Vargas 317) These youths were going through an identity crisis because they did not know which culture they could identify with. Miss Jimenez is a character that embodies that repression Valdez explains in “Los Vendidos.”

Listen. The sound of the blood rusted chainsaw roars over the eerie silence that plagues the yard. Feel. Rough brick massaging the back of a bald middle-aged man. See. A crimson splatter-painted corpse on the fresh, sticky licorice colored pavement. Smell. The fresh blood oozing out of a rogue head that had been rolled across the alleyway. Taste. The irony tar like saliva laced with blood as you wait for the masked man to steal all sense from your body (Beith n. pag.). With the increasing influence of Mexican drug cartels, all impoverished citizens become subject to violent hate crimes against the government. The government 's lack of control over their people, criminal justice system, and economics demonstrates the instability plaguing Mexican borders. The Mexican government must rise together to legalize marijuana in foreign countries, increase safety in underprivileged communities, and better organize the government in order to save thousands of innocent civilians from horrific chainsaw massacres.

Folktales have the power to take us back to the beginnings of peoples’ lives, from their hopes to their defeats. African American folktales originated from people, most of who were long ago were brought to America from Africa to this country against their will. This group of enslaved people was torn from their individual cultures when they were forced to their past, families and their languages and customs behind him with their native land. The black people coming to America entered as slaves, and they were suppressed by white slave holders. They were not permitted to speak their own native tongues. The slave owners enforced that they speak American English but it was forbidden for them to read or write. They were forced to do hard labor

Based on extensive research of the folktale genre within the Caribbean, a trend forms: multiple versions of folktales existing, and their narrative elements varying depending upon the country from which it came. My research began from this observation and I have found that many folktales have similarities and differences, however, ol’higue/ soucouyant tales most prominently manifest this trend. I will make the claim that two folktales of ol’higue, one from Trinidad and one from Guyana, can be used to examine differences and similarities. From this point, I will prove that each element, whether similar or different, can be explained by historical, cultural, or social factors of its originating country. The similarities of the two tales include the creature taking the form of an old woman by day, babies being the most common victims, and the second form being a ball of fire once the skin has been shed. The differences include how the ol’higue became the way they are and how the people decide to deal with the creature.