Summary Of The Legend Of La Llorona

While going through a hard time of her husband being gone and he grandmother passing away, Lilia wanted so bad to cross into America to have her family together. An old friend of Lilia’s from school offered to help get her and her child across to America. Seeing that she trusted the man she decided to allow him to help her. Lilia and her baby had to go with different coyotes. She went to the house of the man that was to be her coyote; he took Lilia to a woman coyote that would bring the child across. After leaving her baby with the woman, Lilia and her coyotes started their journey in a truck. She was to ride on the back that was covered with the man that was not driving; along the journey, the coyote raped her. They arrived at a river, which she had to swim across. Once across the water, she had to wait in a junk yard in the back of a car for someone to show up and call for her. She was taken to a house, where she would get her new identification, a new life. This is where she awaited for her child and her husband. While she was waiting she had to cut and dye her hair, she also watched a man being murdered. Day’s passes and her child never arrived, but Hector did. Hector was grateful to see his wife, but very upset that his child had not arrived. Hector, Lilia, and Miguel tried to figure out how to find the child, but had no luck. Hector asked his boss and his wife to help but they also had no

You can see how Maria’s El Salvador is empty of people, full only of romantic ideas. Jose Luis’s image of El Salvador, in contrast, totally invokes manufactured weapons; violence. Maria’s “self-projection elides Jose Luis’s difference” and illustrates “how easy it is for the North American characters, including the big-hearted María, to consume a sensationalized, romanticized, or demonized version of the Salvadoran or Chicana in their midst” (Lomas 2006, 361). Marta Caminero-Santangelo writes: “The main thrust of the narrative of Mother Tongue ... continually ... destabilize[s] the grounds for ... a fantasy of connectedness by emphasizing the ways in which [Maria’s] experience as a Mexican American and José Luis’s experiences as a Salvadoran have created fundamentally different subjects” (Caminero-Santangelo 2001, 198). Similarly, Dalia Kandiyoti points out how Maria’s interactions with José Luis present her false assumptions concerning the supposed “seamlessness of the Latino-Latin American connection” (Kandiyoti 2004, 422). So the continual misinterpretations of José Luis and who he really is and has been through on Maria’s part really show how very far away her experiences as a middle-class, U.S.-born Chicana are from those of her Salvadoran lover. This tension and resistance continues throughout their relationship.

Sandra Cisneros’s short story “Never Marry a Mexican” deals heavily with the concept of myth in literature, more specifically the myth La Malinche, which focuses on women, and how their lives are spun in the shadows on men (Fitts). Myths help power some of the beliefs of entire cultures or civilizations. She gives the reader the mind of a Mexican-American woman who seems traitorous to her friends, family and people she is close to. This causes destruction in her path in the form of love, power, heartbreak, hatred, and an intent to do harm to another, which are themes of myth in literature. The unreliable narrator of this story was created in this story with the purpose to show her confusion and what coming from two completely different

Restall, Matthew. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2003

Malintzin had an important role in the ancient history and colonization of Latin America. She would rise from just a simple servant girl and slave, to become one of the key factors of the Spanish colonization of the indigenous natives in the New World. She helped translate for the Spanish conquistadors and even Hernando Cortés himself. Malintzin’s interpreting skills would prove crucial in the dealings between Hernando Cortés and the Aztec emperor Montezuma. Camilla Townsend uses the story of Malintzin to display the conquest of Mexico in a different aspect and first person point of view.

Leon-Portilla based the stories told in this book upon old writings of actual Aztec people who survived the Spanish massacres. The actual authors of the stories told in this book are priests, wise men and regular people who survived the killings. These stories represent the more realistic view of what really happened during the Spanish conquest. Most of the history about the Aztec Empire was based on Spanish accounts of events, but Leon-Portilla used writings from actual survivors to illustrate the true history from the Indians’ point of view.

This particular story is like a complementary to the note lectures about the Aztecs. Also, this lecture help to understand

Moved from their land, forced into a new religion and way of thinking the natives were also mostly extinguished by European microbes. Not everyone was passive however and one of these people was Popay, being the leader various groups was very well known for his successful revolts in pueblo communities across New Mexico, keeping Spaniards for 12 years. The book also talks about the communities built by the natives and how they were mostly eradicated by disease. The story of Apolonaria Lorenzana is also talked about, living through the early days of Spanish missions to the closing of the American frontier and her importance as “La Beata” in San Diego missions. The identity crisis of those with Spanish ancestry and of Mexican decent by in new American soil is also mentioned. The legacy left by the Seguin family, to be more specific the importance of Juan Seguin’s role as a Mexican taking the American side for Texas

For decades, the history of Latin America has been shrouded in a cover of Spanish glory and myth that misleads and complicates the views of historians everywhere. Myths such as the relationship between natives and conquistadors, and the individuality of the conquistadors themselves stand as only a few examples of how this history may have become broken and distorted. However, in Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest Matthew Restall goes to great lengths to dispel these myths and provide a more accurate history of Latin American, in a readable and enjoyable book.

La Otra Conquista was set in 1520 in colonial Latin America. The story focuses on Topiltzin, a young Aztec scribe and son of Moctezuma and his struggle with religion during the conquest. A Spanish Friar named Diego makes it his mission to convert Topiltzin into civilised Christianity. Hernan Cortes who is the voice of power in Tenochtitlan grants Friar Diego his wish to take Topiltzin, who is now called Tomas by the Spanish, to the mission. Topiltzin must learn how to navigate this new world while still holding to his own culture. Struggling against both spiritual and personal difficulties, Topiltzin tries to show Friar Diego how similar Christian beliefs are to the Aztec beliefs. Overall, the film stays fairly true to history with some exceptions that director used to move the storyline forward. Religion played a key role in the film as it did in the conquest itself. The Spanish conquistadors and friars were there for converting the Aztec to Christianity through whatever means necessary. Whereas the Native Americans were trying to hold onto their beliefs and culture throughout the horrific takeover. In order to communicate their wishes, the Spanish needed someone who could translate so they taught Native Americans to speak Spanish who could then communicate into the tribal language. The most famous of these was La Malinche, who is referenced in the film although at this time is her replacement, Dona Isabel or Tecuichpo. The film is fairly accurate to how this would have looked historically. The conquistadors are appropriately harsh, cruel and violent. At any moment trying to exert their power over the Native Americans and quick to subdue. In summary, La Otra Conquista was a fairly historically accurate film that portrayed the tension and violence of the time.

The legend, La Llorona or the weeping woman is one of the best known classic Hispanic tales. Many versions of La Llorona are told universally, but has origin roots from Mexico. This folklore typically involves a restless, ghostly entity as a beautiful lady dressed in white who wanders at night and is seen or heard wailing for her dead children. Because of a heartbreak la Llorona killed her own children. It is said that her soul now wanders sadly calling her children appearing mysteriously in different areas especially along rivers, oceans or other bodies of water. Many believe myths or legends are only for entertainment, but some can have an underlying message.

As haunting as Antonio finds the owl, it is Lupito’s death that shows him his first horror in life. He sees the blood in the river, the blood on Lupito, and throughout the whole scene he hears the ever-present “lapping of the river” (20), as if the river was lapping up Lupito’s blood and his life like a thirsty dog. He is faced with, again, the difficult division between two identities: man and

The fourth technique that was used in the play was Historia. In lecture we learned that theatrical history lesson were to remember history and uncover lost lessons. Also, it is a “theater of anachronisms” that is parts of understanding and making accessible to the audience (Kinan Valdez 04/18). The play used historia perfectly by reclaiming the lost history that happened between the Sleepy Lagoon Murder and the Zoot Suit Riots because this era was swept under the “proverbial rug” (Kinan Valdez 04/18). An outstanding factor of this technique was that Valdez re-positioned the “Pachucos” as community heroes and the first “Chicanos” to be present because the Pachucos were viewed negatively at the time and were not welcomed whatsoever. This transformation changed many people’s assertions on the Pachuco lifestyle.

The massacre was a horrific spectacle. The men were decapitated in front of their families. "the soldiers dragged the bodies and the heads of the decapitated victims to the convent of the church, where they were piled together" (Donner 70). Next came the women. They took the women into groups and lied to them citing that they would be able to go free to their homes, once they had been separated. Instead, the soldiers marched the women into the hills surrounding El Mozote known as El Chingo and La Cruz (Donner 71). The women were systematically raped, some as young as ten years old. These barbarians came back and took the women group by group. Eventually, once they were done,

Living in Mexico throughout her teen years was very rough. Unlike other teenagers where their parents constantly provide for their children, Marisela’s life was a lot different than the usual parent- child relationship. She lived with her Abuela ( Grandma) Lupe, along with her 3 brothers and sister. She constantly had to take care of her brothers and sister at such a young age, that she became the mother-like figure of the