Essay 1 The novel All Our Kin was written by anthropologist Carol Stack about a poor, black neighborhood in the Midwest known as the Flats. As a white, middle class woman, Carol Stack was already at a major disadvantage in gaining acceptance into The Flats. Other anthropologists told her that it would be dangerous for her to research The Flats and if she does, she should only interact with “higher status” members of the community. Stack decided that she would find families on her own and succeeding by becoming friends with the residents and accompanying them in their everyday lives. In Labor and Legality, Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz conducts ethnography on a group of undocumented Mexican immigrants named “the Lions”, after their hometown Leon, Mexico. Gomberg-Muñoz worked in a restaurant with the Lions and developed friendships with them, interviewed the Lions, spent time in their company. She also went to Mexico with the Lions and interviewed their families and other people outside their social network. Both novels deal with people who live in (or were living in) poverty and have been disenfranchised by the American government. All Our Kin addresses strategies of coping with poverty, primarily through the use of social networks, in a neighborhood known as the Flats. Labor and Legality does not delve into poverty much; instead, it focuses on …show more content…
the effects of the status of being undocumented in a group of men known as the Lions. The people living in the Flats and the Lions are motivated and support by their social networks.
The residents of the Flats support each other by participating in an activity known as swapping. Swapping is a crucial survival method of where goods and services get redistributed across families, as resources are scarce and funds run low. Without swapping, a family could fall into crisis because it is unable to meet its needs, whether it may be food, diapers, clothing, or rent money. Swapping helps families stay afloat despite the high cost of living. Because of swapping, there are low rates of starvation and homelessness in the
Flats. The Lions were extremely loyal to their families and were primarily motivated by them. They worked not only for their own benefit, but for the financial stability of their wives and children. Jobs in Mexico were scare and did not pay well, so they made the decision to emigrate to the United States. Each was aware of the risks of cross the border, yet they still made the sacrifice to move to America, even it meant being separated from their families. A common value between the Lions and the residents of the Flats is strong family values. The residents of the Flats value family and unity above all other things. This is evident in the structure of their domestic networks and personal kindreds as well as in the swapping phenomenon. Children are at the core of their culture – women have their status elevated when they have children and are encouraged to do so at a young age, men coerce their women to have children, children are often raised by many people. Children are a form of pride within the community. The Lions all have families back home in Mexico to support and that is usually their primary motivation for working in the States. By working in the US Rene and Chuy are able to finance the education of three of their sisters. In conclusion, the Lions and the residents of the Flats are united by the common notion of loyalty and strong family values. The Lions took great risks coming to America for the sake of new opportunities to support their families. The residents of the Flats call upon their rich and strong social networks to cope with the difficulties of living in poverty. Essay 2, Option 2 Dear Mama, I am thrilled to be to attending university in here America. I would have written sooner, but I have been keeping busy with my schoolwork. There isn’t as much work like in China and the classes are shorter, so it should not be hard to keep my grades up (I know you worry Mama). I have made lots of new friends so far! Their names are Ashley, Jack, Stefen, and Sam. Stefen and Sam moved to America from Italy when they were young; Jack and Ashley were born in America. Sometimes I have slip ups in my English and my friends think it’s funny and cute. The way English is taught in China is not the same as how Americans speak it. There are not a lot of Chinese people that go to this university, which I would have liked a little bit. A few weeks ago, the university had a festival in the middle of campus called “Streetfest.” It was almost like the carnivals you see in the American films except there were no big rides. It was very exciting and my friends and I had lots of fun. I ate the traditional American meal of hamburger and fries (with ketchup!) for the first time. I won a goldfish and named him Candy. We also got water bottles and t-shirts, but the t-shirt I won is a little too big for me. I find the some of the food here to be a little bland and tasteless. One day at the dining hall, they served tofu lo mein. I was very excited to have Chinese food here at the university, but it looked or tasted nothing like the lo mein I am used to back home. It was reassuring when my friends said the food needed spices, because it made me realize that I was not the only one who felt that way and that not all of American food is prepared like that. Last weekend, my friends took me to a place on campus called Birch Grill. I ordered chicken Caesar wrap with French Fries. The flavors were interesting and new to me and I found them to be a weird. Caesar was from Italy and French fries are not from France; this country is so funny! Aside from my friends, I have the feeling that people here judge me. A girl living in my dorm suite asked me the other day, “Why do you hook up with random guys all the time?” I didn’t know what “hook up” meant, so I had her explain it to me. Hooking up with someone is when you get together with someone having no intention to form a relationship. I told her that it isn’t bad to “hook up” with men. She told me that men don’t like it when women are easy and they get jealous when they see their women with other men. She told me that I should stop doing what I was doing. What she said was hurtful and I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand at all. This is what you and Qiaolian ayi do and the men never say anything bad. I’ve never seen a man get jealous before. I’m not even sure the men in our village are capable of jealousy. I want to believe that the girl was lying, but maybe that is the way of the culture in America. How can I come to accept their “dating” life? Should I even try? This is the way our village has always been like this, Mama, and I don’t want to let it go. Please give my love to Ling, Yao, and Jiaying. I’ll write to you again sometime next month. With love, Xiao-Mei
Ngai, Mae M. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton, N.J. [u.a.: Princeton Univ. Press, 2004. Print.
A leading American historian on race, policing, immigration, and incarceration in the United States, Kelly Lytle Hernandez’s Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol tells the story of how Mexican immigrant workers emerged as the primary target of the United States Border Patrol and how, in the process, the United States Border Patrol shaped the history of race in the United States. Migra! also explores social history, including the dynamics of Anglo-American nativism, the power of national security, and labor-control interests of capitalistic development in the American southwest. In short, Migra! explains
Harvest of the Empire is a valuable tool to gaining a better understanding of Latinos. This book helps people understand how varied Latino’s in the United States are. The author also helped give insight as to how Americans reacts to differences within itself. It does this by giving a description of the struggles that every Latino immigrant faced entering the United States. These points of emphasis of the book were explained thoroughly in the identification of the key points, the explanation of the intersection of race, ethnicity, and class, in addition to the overall evaluation of the book.
Labor and Legality by Ruth Gomberg-Munoz is an intense ethnography about the Lions, undocumented immigrants working in a Chicago restaurant as busboys. The ten undocumented men focused on in Gomberg-Munoz’s are from Leon, Mexico. Since they are from Leon, they are nicknamed the Lions in English. She describes why they are here. This includes explaining how they are here to make a better future for their family, if not only financially, but every other way possible. Also, Gomberg-Munoz focuses on how Americans see “illegal aliens”, and how the Lions generate social strategies, become financially stable, stay mentally healthy, and keep their self-esteem or even make it better. Gomberg-Munoz includes a little bit of history and background on “illegal”
. . She grew up in a black neighborhood that was one of the poorest and most dangerous in the country; I grew up in a safe, quiet middle-class neighborhood in a predominately white city and went to high school with a total of two black students. I was a science journalist who referred to all things supernatural as “woo-woo stuff”; Deborah believed Henrietta’s spirit lived on in her cells” (p. 7). Here, Skloot tells us where herself and Deborah Lacks are from and their feelings about “supernatural” occurrences. Skloot draws a contrast between the backgrounds and sentiments of herself and Deborah to demonstrate the differences that upbringing and environmental influences can arouse in two people; Skloot introduces the dynamic of race to demonstrate that race and economic status were, and still are, prevalent issues in relation to the success of two racially different groups.
Martinez, Demetria. 2002. “Solidarity”. Border Women: Writing from la Frontera.. Castillo, Debra A & María Socorro Tabuenca Córdoba. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 168- 188.
In the Pulitzer prize-winning novel Evicted, sociologist Matthew Desmond follows eight families as he exposes how the lack of affordable housing perpetuates a state of poverty. He even goes so far as to assert that it is eviction that is a cause of poverty, not the other way around (Desmond 229). While this latter argument is as engrossing and it is striking, analyzing it with justice is simply not possible within the scope of this paper. Nevertheless, it is these two factors—inescapable poverty and eviction—that engender an unrelenting condition of financial, emotional, and communal instability, effectively hindering any chance of upward mobility.
Jose Antonio Vargas’s article on My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant is a writing about his childhood journey from the Philippines to the United States as an Undocumented Immigrant. Vargas writes this article to emphasize the topic of immigrant and undocumented immigrant in the United States. He uses all three appeals: pathos, ethos, and logic in his writing, in specific, he mostly uses pathos throughout of his entire article with a purpose for the reader to sympathize and to feel compassion for him. The use of these appeals attract many readers, they can feel and understand his purpose is to ask for others to join and support other people who undocumented immigrant like himself. In addition, it gives other undocumented immigrant people courage
The contrast between the Mexican world versus the Anglo world has led Anzaldua to a new form of self and consciousness in which she calls the “New Mestiza” (one that recognizes and understands her duality of race). Anzaldua lives in a constant place of duality where she is on the opposite end of a border that is home to those that are considered “the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel and the mulato” (25). It is the inevitable and grueling clash of two very distinct cultures that produces the fear of the “unknown”; ultimately resulting in alienation and social hierarchy. Anzaldua, as an undocumented woman, is at the bottom of the hierarchy. Not only is she a woman that is openly queer, she is also carrying the burden of being “undocumented”. Women of the borderlands are forced to carry two degrading labels: their gender that makes them seem nothing more than a body and their “legal” status in this world. Many of these women only have two options due to their lack of English speaking abilities: either leave their homeland – or submit themselves to the constant objectification and oppression. According to Anzaldua, Mestizo culture was created by men because many of its traditions encourage women to become “subservient to males” (39). Although Coatlicue is a powerful Aztec figure, in a male-dominated society, she was still seen
Sacrificing a leg, arm, hand, foot, or even a life is what immigrants go through when crossing the border from Mexico to the United States. Enrique’s Journey: The True Story of a Boy Determined to Reunite with His Mother by Sonia Nazario in 2006. Sonia Nazario being an American journalist and daughter of Argentinean immigrants. This novel can be classified as a biography. Enrique’s Journey involves many themes; however, the main theme of the book is family. Mothers ‘abandoning’ their children and then reuniting. Another main theme would be immigration, which connects the book to history. The author’s purpose is for one to be able to transport themselves into the characters shoes by having sympathy. As well as to those who have empathy and suffered through the same or similar experiences. This will review the overall point of Enrique’s Journey and my own critique of the book itself.
The struggle to find a place inside an un-welcoming America has forced the Latino to recreate one. The Latino feels out of place, torn from the womb inside of America's reality because she would rather use it than know it (Paz 226-227). In response, the Mexican women planted the seeds of home inside the corral*. These tended and potted plants became her burrow of solace and place of acceptance. In the comfort of the suns slices and underneath the orange scents, the women were free. Still the questions pounded in the rhythm of street side whispers. The outside stare thundered in pulses, you are different it said. Instead of listening she tried to instill within her children the pride of language, song, and culture. Her roots weave soul into the stubborn soil and strength grew with each blossom of the fig tree (Goldsmith).
Ngai, Mae M. 2004 “Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America” Publisher: Princeton University Press.
As long as civilizations have been around, there has always been a group of oppressed people; today the crucial problem facing America happens to be the discrimination and oppression of Mexican immigrants. “Mexican Americans constitute the oldest Hispanic-origin population in the United States.”(57 Falcon) Today the population of Mexican’s in the United States is said to be about 10.9%, that’s about 34 million people according to the US Census Bureau in 2012. With this many people in the United States being of Mexican descent or origin, one would think that discrimination wouldn’t be a problem, however though the issue of Mexican immigrant oppression and discrimination has never been a more prevalent problem in the United States before now. As the need for resolve grows stronger with each movement and march, the examination of why these people are being discriminated against and oppressed becomes more crucial and important. Oppression and Anti-discrimination organizations such as the Freedom Socialist Organization believe that the problem of discrimination began when America conquered Mexican l...
A main theme in this novel is the influence of family relationships in the quest for individual identity. Our family or lack thereof, as children, ultimately influences the way we feel as adults, about ourselves and about others. The effects on us mold our personalities and as a result influence our identities. This story shows us the efforts of struggling black families who transmit patterns and problems that have a negative impact on their family relationships. These patterns continue to go unresolved and are eventually inherited by their children who will also accept this way of life as this vicious circle continues.
Throughout the story, the writer uses the different lives of an African family and their union with an African American to show the cultural rift that occurs. Their daily lives show how people of different cultures strive to live together under the same roof. The clash of cultures is portrayed in the way they react to each other in the different circumstances.