Analysis Of Once Upon A Quinceanera

In “Once Upon a Quinceanera” Julia Alvarez follows the Hispanic coming of age tradition for females to explore how evolution of culture has shifted throughout generations. By doing this Alvarez discovers perceptions are influenced by cross cultural boundaries. In “Leave Your Name at the Border” Manuel Munoz, discusses the barriers between Mexicans and Americans when it comes to language and how it affects future generations. He does this by acknowledging socially expected norms for Mexican Americans in public and the tensions created when assimilating to such norms between a non-dominant and dominant group. In “What’s Black, Then White, and Said All Over,” Leslie Savan discusses how black talk and pop talk is connected because white people

have drawn from experiences of black exclusion which has also created racial tensions. Savan does this by emphasizing how a dominant group pulls down an excluded group to be included but doesn’t have the right to borrow. By looking at these three essays we can see that while language, ethics and generational boundaries emerge, people face challenges of assimilation which is important because cultural practices are negotiated or lost under pressure to assimilate.
Language creates a barrier that causes a culture to assimilate in a negative way.

In Munoz’s essay language is used as original assimilation for non-dominant people to fit in with a dominant group where minorities have grown accustom to assimilate by speaking Spanish at home and English in school (308). Munoz observes that “the English-only way of life partly explains the quiet erasure of cultural difference that assimilation has attempted to accomplish” (308). By creating certain levels of acceptance in society such as English-only in public, cultural differences such as language has slowly depleted where many groups are being held back. Whereas in Savan’s essay this concept is twisted, “Today the language of an excluded people is repeated by the non-excluded in order to make themselves sound more included” (436). This means that when a dominant group attempts to assimilate with a non-dominant group, reverse assimilation is evident. White people pull in language by repeating language of blacks who are in someway excluded in order to be included (436). Munoz and Savan are interconnected by demonstrating the difference between demonizing a minorities language in Munoz’s case and idolizing black talk in Savan’s instance. Both cultures represent erasure of cultural difference created by assimilating one culture over

another.
A person’s historical influences has caused the divide between cultures. Savan discusses how society assimilates “black” as a whole; however, “black slang can’t describe black language” because standard English is intertwined (439). This statement is a stereotype by assuming blacks only speak one variation at all times and it’s an overall lack of understanding with baseline knowledge of speaking a language. Society contradicts itself when black language is perceived as “cool” by white Americans, yet renders it unacceptable for blacks to speak in school (Savan 455). Similarly, cultural profiling can be identified as an individual. Rose Carbonell in “Dinero vs. Money” found that “capital accumulation is not a characteristic of Hispanics, especially because being wealthy has a negative connotation” (Alvarez 62). This means that hispanics have negative connotations with wealth which is associated with others experiences because of endured slavery and poverty (62). As an individual, they have lower economic expectations because of where they come from. Alvarez’s quote connects to Savan’s quote by acknowledging how ethnics function on a larger scale compared to an internally one. Each profils a racial group’s culture which causes a divide between one another.
Tradition binds cultures and ties them together when generations become unrelated in terms of language.

Alvarez demonstrates generational boundary when discussing,“The quince tradition has always been important, but there’s this retroculturation going on right now” (56). Alvarez illustrates that retroculturation is a pattern within the Hispanic community where loss of culture is present for a generation. Alvarez explains how the first generation wants to assimilate in America with their culture, while the second generation has adapted to American norms so they have lost their culture and no longer speak spanish; however, the third generation is born and bred in America and now wants to learn about their hispanic culture by learning Spanish. Teens shop at popular American malls but listen to Spanish radios to embrace diversity (56). Similarly, Munoz is confronted with the issue of generational boundaries when he admits, “I was born in 1972, a generation that learned both English and Spanish” (308). The generation before Munoz grew up speaking only Spanish which causes a barrier between one families generation to the next. Munoz speaks Spanish at home and English in public along with his other cousins who serve as translators for their household. While the second generation before Munoz have no way of following Spanish because they have already adapted to American norms and in some ways lost an important cultural aspect (308). Alvarez and Savan are interconnected because each

generation has traditions that are important to pass on so that cultural heritage isn't lost.
It is important to look at how language, ethics and generational boundaries function individually and on a larger scale within a community because people are all genetically the same, but as a society people will always strive for difference. The need for difference results in the need to borrow from others who are different that have something else of value. This is evident throughout each essay with language’s between groups. The problem is borrowing alone doesn’t bring people together; it ultimately pulls cultural practices apart.