The Transformational Politics of Identity in Luis Rodriguez's Vida Loca Luis Rodriguez's memoir, Always Running, La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A., offers a vivid description of the struggles that many Mexican-Americans faced in Los Angeles. As Luis develops throughout the novel, he transforms from a criminal to a community activist by politicizing and historicizing his identity as a Mexican-American. Luis is able to connect his personal experiences to a larger community struggle and, in doing so, transcends the violence and destruction that plagues his barrio. This connection between the personal and political is developed through education and authentic community engagement as he crosses borders, breaks free from constraints, and removes the …show more content…
For Luis and other Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles, they were either invisible and ignored or they were a pathology to be eradicated through police violence or random assaults by Anglos. Throughout the novel, Luis attends countless funerals as he watches his friends and neighbors die one by one because of the constant violence. “We were constant prey,” he says, “and the hunters soon became big blurs: the police, the gangs, the junkies […] We were always afraid. Always running” (36). When the Latinos are constantly castigated and told they don't belong, called spics and beaners and hounded by the police from the age of seven, joining a community of like-minded people is a natural form of protection. Gangs were supposed to offer physical protection but also social support, camaraderie, and some sense of sanity in a world of chaos and endless assaults. Gangs, Luis says, “is how we wove something out of the threads of nothing” (41). Luis shows that gang violence is a reaction to the powerlessness of these disenfranchised youths: “I had certain yearnings, as a lot of us had, to acquire authority in our own lives in the face of police, joblessness and powerlessness. Las Lomas was our path to that” (113). The gang culture offered a means to regain control over one's life, to claim power and authority in a world which emasculated them and denigrated their heritage and identity. It was a collective assertion of potency and masculinity that, ironically, fed into the pathologizing stereotypes and labels of the broader dominant society. In a moment of clarity, Luis recognizes the self-destructive cycle of la vida loca, saying “I was frustrated because I felt the violence was eating us alive”
In Sueños Americanos: Barrio Youth Negotiating Social and Cultural Identities, Julio Cammarota studies Latina/o youth who live in El Pueblo, and talks about how Proposition 187, the anti-immigrant law, is affecting Latina/o youth in California (Cammarota, 2008, p. 3). In this book review, I will write about the two main points the author is trying to get across. The two main points I will be writing about are how Proposition 187 is affecting the Latina/o community, and about how Latina/o youth are copping in the El Pueblo barrio. Afterward I write about the two main points the author is trying to get across, I will write a brief description of the author and write about the author’s strengths and weaknesses.
In both the movie, La Misma Luna, and the newspaper series, Enrique’s Journey, migrants are faced with many issues. The most deadly and scarring issues all relate back to bandits, judicial police, and la migra or Mexican immigration officers. The problems that arise are serious to the point of rape, robbing, and beating. It is not easy crossing the border illegally and secretly, but the successful ones have an interesting or even traumatic story about how it worked for them.
The book, “Y no se lo trago la tierra” by Thomas River grasp a point of view of a migrant community, as manifestations of Chicano culture, language, and experience as understood by a first person point of a young male protagonist. The setting of the book takes place of a year during the 1950s and uses a variety of perspectives and voices to follow the boy’s passages into adolescence. As the setting of the book moves from Texas to upper Midwest to the ye...
In Mike Sager’s Death in Venice, Sager creates a vivid story about the gang in Venice as well as their addiction to cocaine. What I enjoyed about this article, was that it told a story in the perception of the gang members. It allowed me to see a glance through the lives of the gangs in the late twentieth century. Throughout the story, I felt multiple emotions, it ranged from disbelief to anger. It is astounding how Sager documented the lives of young males in Venice. As a Chicana, I was surprised by the actions in the article, I grew up in an environment where my daily life was not surrounded by gangs and drive-bys.
If only he was given the opportunity when he first came here from Mexico, he wouldn’t have had to live the violent life he lived. Luis and his Family weren’t excepted nor given any hope. Sadly, Luis’ story is the story of many. Racism is real, it exists and it is affecting young people causing them to turn to a life of gang and violence in order to gain acceptance. It all starts at a young age and something that will determine the direction of one’s life. Luis’ life was a prime example of what society and statistic said he would be as if he would never amount to anything but against all odds the fire that has always lived in him, that desire to be someone and rise above out of the pits of hell is exactly what he has done. Giving others hope. “There are choices you have to make not just once, but every time they come up” (132). Unfortunately, there will always be obstacles, weather its racism, violence, drugs, gangs in life battling against you but it’s a choice you have to continue to make, it’s all up to the individual to persevere and raise above to get out of that life and become someone before that life takes
The Latino Generation: Voices of the New America is a book written by Mario T. Garcia. This book tells the individual life stories of individual Latino Americans all attending the same class at University of California, Santa Barbra. The book discloses stories and events told by 13 students each who narrate from first person and give us a brief description of their life. The book is composed of 13 sections with an additional introduction and conclusion (Garcia, Kindle). Within this reflection I will describe the key points within this book and compare the stories within this book not only to each other, but also to additional stories of Latino Americans and how Garcia’s book rids the general public of misconception of Latinos.
Los Angeles, California is often seen as the city of dreams. Hollywood paints the picture of Los Angeles as a place of endless possibilities. Los Angeles is also thought as the city where dreamers can come with nothing in their pocket and become an over night success story. Many Americans and immigrants come to Los Angeles with the same dream of success. In The Tattooed Soldier Tobar describes how this fictionalized “American dream” version of the Los Angeles affects immigrants. In the novel Tobar followed two Guatemalan immigrants Antonio and Longeria who live very different lifestyles in their home country and in America. Los Angeles seemed to be the land of dreams and promise to both characters, however; Los Angeles becomes a place of harsh reality for Antonio and Longeria. In the novel we watch how Antonio and Longeria adjust to the struggles of being immigrants in Los Angeles, , and what makes man a man.
Gonzalez, Juan. Harvest of Empire a History of Latinos in America. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc, 2000.
Victor Rios is a previous gang member, whom “was given the opportunity” to get out of the youth control complex. In his book “Punished”, he analyzes the experiences of young black and Latino boys in Oakland, California. Rios gives us an intimate description of some of the everyday forms of “hyper discrimination” these minority boys experience. This book review will focus on the main concepts explained in chapters one through three from the book Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys.
Some kids have no other choice but to join the gangs at an early age. Lack of parent supervision has been shown to be linked with both boys and girls joining a gang. Even though most have men to prove they are the violent ones, not every gang member is shown to be violent. While the rest of Luis’s gang members treat women with disrespect, Luis seems to respect everyone no matter what gender they are. Being told his own mom the pain she had to go through influenced his ways of viewing and treating
Using both English and Spanish or Spanglish the author Gloria Anzaldua explores the physical, cultural, spiritual, sexual and psychological meaning of borderlands in her book Borderlands/La Frontera: A New Mestiza. As a Chicana lesbian feminist, Anzaldua grew up in an atmosphere of oppression and confusion. Anzaldua illustrates the meaning of being a “mestiza”. In order to define this, she examines herself, her homeland and language. Anzaldúa discusses the complexity of several themes having to do with borderlands, mestizaje, cultural identity, women in the traditional Mexican family, sexual orientation, la facultad and the Coatlicue state. Through these themes, she is able to give her readers a new way of discovering themselves. Anzaldua alerts us to a new understanding of the self and the world around us by using her personal experiences.
Torres, Hector Avalos. 2007. Conversations with Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Writers. U.S.: University of New Mexico press, 315-324.
Montoya, Margret E. "Masks and Identify," and "Masks and Resistance," in The Latino/a Condition: A Critical Reader New York: New York University Press, 1998.
Although, Capitalism brought change to the city of Los Angeles, it also created racial apprehension. As described by Sanchez, “deportation and repatriation campaigns pushed almost one-third of the Mexican community back to Mexico. Increasingly, changing demographics and limited economic resources stunted the growth of the ethnic market, reflecting the changing composition and nature of the Mexican/Chicano community.” ... ...
The eternal endeavor of obtaining a realistic sense of selfhood is depicted for all struggling women of color in Gloria Anzaldua’s “Borderlands/La Frontera” (1987). Anzaldua illustrates the oppressing realities of her world – one that sets limitations for the minority. Albeit the obvious restraints against the white majority (the physical borderland between the U.S. and Mexico), there is a constant and overwhelming emotional battle against the psychological “borderlands” instilled in Anzaldua as she desperately seeks recognition as an openly queer Mestiza woman. With being a Mestiza comes a lot of cultural stereotypes that more than often try to define ones’ role in the world – especially if you are those whom have privilege above the “others”.