The Tortilla Curtain: Women Of Color

After World War II, the United States has emerged as the world's number one power in both economic and military. However, the consequence of this strong emergence makes the contradictions internal of the US more painful than ever. These are the gap between rich and poor is increasing in large cities, the discrimination that people of skin color suffer every day, and the inequality gender between male and female in American society. In the 1950s after the war, women still played the traditional role in the life of the family as a housewife. However, it seems that the war brings them a taste of another life and an opportunity that pushed them slowly breaking out to become more independent. Through the main character Rose in the play Fences, a Modern play was written in 1985 by the African-American playwright August Wilson, it is not difficult to recognize the black women’s true images in the 1950s whose were limited in the role of expected being a good wife and mother, trying to become stronger, as well as filling of altruism.

I was once told I had the world in my hands by my vice principal. The reason for his statement was because I was a Hispanic young woman with above average grades, and my involvement in extracurricular activities. Why was being a Hispanic young woman so much more special? This is where the harsh reality set in; Hispanic women have the tendency to not achieve their goals.

Julia was criticized for constructing a “white negro.” The show “played it safe” to not scare away any white viewers by sugarcoating its messages. As a medical show Julia suggests that the networks have not been responding to black’s desires to be seen as much as they are responding to what and how much white viewers want to see of black life. However, Matthew Fogal author of “‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Goes Color Blind,” makes the point that “Grey’s Anatomy has differentiated itself [from other medical shows] by creating a diverse world of doctors - almost half the cast are men and women of color - and then never acknowledging it” (Fogel 2005).

TV shows have made some changes since then but policewomen are still being shown as unrealistic, for example the show “Hawaii Five-0” has a female police officer and she is over sexualized. “Hawaii Five-0” last week put on a skimpy bikini to go undercover to make contact with three female surfers who had just killed a business executive during an armed robbery they staged on a Waikiki tourist trolley bus” and “Kono in her tight jeans and high-heeled boots is not only a thin, beautiful, champion surfer but also a skilled sniper who can fire a steady shot from a moving car to knock off a thug rushing to escape on the upper floors of a high-rise”(Fawcett, 2015).

I took an Uber the other day, and my driver, an African American woman, gave me a deeper insight on what I have learned in Chicano studies this quarter. It so happens she was writing a dissertation on minority women in leadership positions. What struck me the most about her findings was that one of the biggest determinants for minority women being able to be promoted to leadership positions was their partner’s race. If the woman’s partner was aso a minority the woman was less likely to be in a leadership position. Minority women in top leadership positions were mostly single, or married to white men. She believed minority men preferred women who stayed at home. I saw this as a consequence of minority women being marginalized by men within their communities. This was evident in founding of the Chicano movement and the exclusion of women from the beginning of the movement. The movement was founded to challenge ahistorical borders by recovering the Chicano narrative. The transition from Chicano to Chicano/a aimed to challenge the marginalization of women in the movement by acknowledging that women had been historically wounded and violated. The final transition to

Since children, girls are always told to act a certain way and which behaviors are appropriate or “lady-like.” Even as little girls, we have a lot of expectations set on us and the way we should handle things. We grow up with skinny Barbie dolls with makeup, baby dolls and kitchen playsets to play mom. We love to argue that women oppression isn’t a thing nowadays, so why it is the women still have to fight for basic equality and rights? As a Mexican women I stand for the Chicana Feminist movement because I believe I have to go through a “double-struggle” being a woman and Mexican as well.

It would be foolish to assert that gender plays no role in the criminal justice system, just as it would be equally foolish to say that race plays no role in this system either. Covington and Bloom cite the work of Kivel (1992) in reminding all that "Where sexism is prevalent, one of the gender dynamics frequently found is that something declared genderless or gender neutral is, in fact, male oriented. The same phenomenon occurs in terms of race in a racist society, where the term "race neutral" generally means white" (2003). The criminal justice system reflects the needs of men and the values of men in a highly patriarchal society; the issue becomes more complicated when some scholars argue that women should fight for equal rights in all areas of life, including the criminal justice system, arguing that while equal treatment might hurt women in the short run, in the long run, it's the best policy for women (Covington & Bloom, 2003). On the other hand, opposing groups argue that women are inherently different from men and that insisting on equality will always create a situation where women lose out (Covington & Bloom, 2003). This debate creates an uncertain situation about how women should be treated in the criminal justice system and whether gender should play a role accounting for differential treatment.

Gender inequality still plays a huge role in today’s society. Women comprise only a small percentage of the local law enforcement agencies across the nation. Women have been a part of law enforcement since the 20th century but have only been noticed within the last 40 years. Back in the 1970’s women rarely held positions in law enforcement and if they did it was mainly clerical/desk positions. Even though the amount of women in law enforcement today has increased, women still only make up roughly around 13 percent of the law enforcement work force (Public). Women can make such an impact in the Law Enforcement field if given a fair chance but they may face many problems when doing so. Some say that women don’t belong, while others suggest

When it comes to race within law enforcement, male police officers still question whether women can handle the dangerous situations and physical confrontations that officers may be confronted with, while it is shown that most police women have easily met the expectations of their superiors. Indeed, studies have found that, in general, male and female officers perform in similar ways. In addition, research has found that most citizens have positive things to say about the work of police women (Worden,

Women usually assume they need to act like men to be respected. They feel like they don’t have the choice: either they act in a masculine way and they succeed or they stay as they are but success won’t be part of their lives. Jane Rizzoli strongly believes that she has to act like a man to be respected. She is blunt, tenacious, proud and unmaternal and her work is all she knows, it’s her universe. In the books, Jane Rizzoli is a thirty-three-year-old detective who newly works at the Boston Homicide Unit and used to work at Vice and Narcotics.

The Tortilla Curtain tells the story of two different couples. One is the average American couple while the other is an illegal alien couple. The novel contrasts the very different lifestyles of the two couples and details the problems that each experience. The Tortilla Curtain aims to provide insight on the hardships of illegal immigrants by detailing issues like racism, documentation, and competition to educate and make readers more aware of the struggles of illegals.

The tortilla curtain is a wonderful book showing a typical life of both a Hispanic family chasing the American and a white family that is born in. The white wealthy stay at home father Delaney mossbacher is faced against life as a modern day America and an immigrant from Mexico, Candido rincon looking for nothing but to fulfill the American dream that for him and his young wife which begins to seem unreachable due to the constant troubles begin to face. These two character throughout the story show very similar traits both positive and negative, while both sharing ways they overcome struggles of living life in modern day America. Both being fathers and/or soon to be fathers, how they

Is wanting a better life a crime? Does everyone not deserve the right for a better life and to be considered a human being despite the means that they used to try and get it? In this novel The Tortilla Curtain, by T.C.Boyle he brings up the theme of racism that is constant towards those who are struggling for a better life even if it’s through illegal means. He shows this by using main character Delaney Mossbacher a Caucasian self-proclaimed liberal humanist, Candido Rincon a Mexican illegal immigrant and their families (Boyle 3). Boyle starts the novel off with Delaney running someone over and first worrying about the car before thinking of this stranger who could be dead. There’s also other characters that see illegal immigrants as less

Americans think that they have come a long way since a gap of equality between men and women existed. Because of this progress, many people make the assumption that there is no inequality left in the United States and women have the same opportunities as men. Yes, it is true that the American society has come from one of inequality to that one that is more equal. Yes Americans have come a long way, but unfortunately women are still not equal to their male counterparts. This inequality towards women is evident within several different aspects in life, ranging from politics, gender roles, marriage, society as a whole and, especially, women in the Police Force. The history of women in the criminal justice system as police officers has been

Jafari S. Allen’s “Venceremos? The Erotics of Black Self-Making in Cuba,” and Deborah Pruitt and Suzanne LaFont’s article “For Love and Money: Romance Tourism in Jamaica,” both assert arguments on how the changing of established gender roles impact the interactions between members of different sexes. As hegemonic masculinity was heavily emphasized during the Cuban Revolution, Allen shows his readers how heteronormative masculinity and expected female receptivity is still clearly presented in Cuban culture today. Pruitt and LaFont explore in their article what happens when resistance to an established heteronormative masculinity in a culture is present, as Euro-American women adapt masculine characteristics and assert authority over their male Jamaican lovers. Therefore, this paper will investigate how both authors explore masculinity and femininity as heteronormative constructs and how they must be looked at in regard to specific localities to see how individuals are affected in everyday life.