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Essays on chicano literature
Essays on chicano literature
Literature and different cultures
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Alexandra Loebrich Women’s History 10/6/2014 Borderlands/La Frontera Gloria Anzaldua was born to a sharecropper/field-worker parents in South Texas. She spent most of her time as a child reading and writing. She has won a lot of awards for her work, the Lambda Lesbian Small Book Press Award, an NEA Fiction Award and many more. Borderlands La Frontera was chosen by the Literary Journal as one of the top 38 Best Books of 1987. The book goes into detail and examines the lifestyle of women in Latino and Chicano culture, Chicanoes in white American society, nonetheless being a lesbian women. It is written as a personal and history narrative, which allowed me to view the life of a prisoner between culture both close-up and as an overview. This …show more content…
She lived as a Chicana women in a society of oppression and confusion. I feel like the overall theme of the story could be, Who am I? She’s questioning herself throughout the whole thing, trying to figure out how to be and who she is going to be. “It is a part of me that refuses to take orders from outside authorities”(38). She also shows her awareness of disobeying authority. All the standards that were placed upon Chicanas and women were coming from a need to control and disguised to ‘protect.’ Men were keeping women in a defined role. No one asked questions or went up against authority. You can look at these stories in numerous ways. She states that they are never alone with men, not even the ones in her family. “The culture gave us mixed messages...Which was it to be- strong, or submissive, rebellious of conforming?”(40). They are first a mother, father, or sibling, and lastly they were to think of themselves. Selfishness was condemned. They have very strict rules about how they were supposed to act. You couldn’t act like you were better than anyone else, you didn’t want people to get envious and do acts of ‘witchcraft’ on you. I see this as the men being threatened by the women. Men always have been. They must obey and not speak out because they know that if the women are free to say what they want in this time then all hell will break loose. It makes it hard to
Norma Elia Cantu’s novel “Canícula: Imágenes de una Niñez Fronteriza” (“Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera”), which chronicles of the forthcoming of age of a chicana on the U.S.- Mexico border in the town of Laredo and Nuevo Laredo in the 1940s-60s. Norma Elia Cantú brings together narrative and the images from the family album to tell the story of her family. It blends authentic snapshots with recreated memoirs from 1880 to 1950 in the town between Monterrey, Mexico, and San Antonio, Texas. Narratives present ethnographic information concerning the nationally distributed mass media in the border region. Also they study controversial discourse that challenges the manner in which the border and its populations have been portrayed in the U.S. and Mexico. The canícula in the title symbolizes “The dog days of 1993,” an intense part of summer when the cotton is harvested in South Texas. The canícula also represents summer and fall; also important seasons and concepts of that bridge between child and adulthood. She describes imaginative autobioethnography life growing up on ...
On one hand we can see that she pushes back and challenges her tradition on the other hand it is difficult to not see emotion expressed by herself when she is alone. One scene that does do this is when she is buying condoms for the first time but does not know what to purchase. This small but significant scene revels that although she is strong and ready she also needs guidance through her path of adulthood. She is able to ask a pharmacist for advice but not her own mother. This lack of connection to be open up to mothers is emphasized enough to create awareness that young Mexican American women need someone to talk to and it should preferably be their
Gloria Anzaldúa was a Chicana, lesbian feminist writer whose work exemplifies both the difficulties and beauty in living as one’s authentic self. She published her most prominent work in 1987, a book titled Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. In Borderlands, she write of her own struggle with coming to terms with her identify as a Chicana, an identity that lies at the border between Mexican and American. For instance, she writes,“we are a synergy of two cultures with various degrees of Mexicanness or Angloness. I have so internalized the borderland conflict that sometimes I feel like one cancel out the other and we are zero” However, even as she details this struggle she asserts pride in her identity, declaring, “I will no longer be
At the opening of the book Borderlands, La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldua conceptualizes the borderlands as being a burden and a cause of her pain and hopelessness. Anzaldua expresses her feelings towards the boarder using physical traits, but also using non-material descriptions. Anzaldua then goes on to talk about the experiences of oppression and, violence and discrimination of those queer folks of color and how her metaphors used in this book help understand better the meaning of such experiences. She also examines how the queer bodies are marked as locations for all kinds of violence through the power of gender binaries. In the first chapter of her book, Anzaldua explores many aspects of the borderline, and she portrays strong feelings about this matter.
Sandra Cisneros once said “'Hispanic' is English for a person of Latino origin who wants to be accepted by the white status quo. ’Latino' is the word we have always used for ourselves.” In the novel I read, The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros the main character a twelve-year-old Chicana (Mexican-American girl), Esperanza, saw self-definition as a struggle, this was a major theme in the novel through Esperanza’s actions and the ones around her. Esperanza tries to find identity in herself as a women as well as an artist throughout the novel through her encounters. Esperanza was able to provide the audience an image that was vivid of her surroundings by her diction and tone. Esperanza presents a series of stories that she deals with in her neighborhood as she is growing up. Esperanza arose from poverty and always dreamt of having a house of her own. Sandra Cisneros' strong cultural and gender values have a tremendous influence in The House on Mango Street. Cisneros feels that the Mexican-American community is very abusive towards the treatment of women because men are seen as the powerful, strong figure. Women are seen as failure and can’t strive without men in a Mexican-American community. In this novel you can see a cultural approach which examines a particular aspect of a culture and a gender studies approach which examines how literature either perpetuates or challenges gender stereotypes.
Rather, it criticizes this culture through its portrayal of women. The narrative is focused on a male and is told by a male, which reflects the male-centered society it is set in. However, when we compare how the narrator views these women to who they really are, the discrepancies act as a critique on the Dominican culture. Yunior, who represents the typical Dominican male, sees women as objects, conquests, when in fact their actions show their resistance to be categorized as such. Beli, whose childhood was filled with male domination by Trujillo and the family she worked for, attempts to gain power through sexuality, the avenue the culture pushes women toward. This backfires, creating a critique of the limited opportunities available for women. La Inca portrays a different side to this, working quietly but in ways that are not socially acceptable through self-employment. Society attempts to cage these women, but they continue to fight against it. Diaz, in an interview, quoted James Baldwin, stating, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced" (Fassler). He exhibits the misogyny in the system but does not support it, rather critiques it through strong female characters. By drawing attention to the problem, the novel advocates for change. Diaz writes, at the end of part 1, “Nothing more exhilarating… than saving yourself by the simple act of waking”
Martinez, Demetria. 2002. “Solidarity”. Border Women: Writing from la Frontera.. Castillo, Debra A & María Socorro Tabuenca Córdoba. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 168- 188.
Delgadillo, Theresa. "Forms of Chicana Feminist Resistance: Hybrid Spirituality in Ana Castillo's So Far From God."Modern Fiction Studies. 44.4 (1998): 888-914. Delgadillo, Theresa. "Forms of Chicana Feminist Resistance: Hybrid Spirituality in Ana Castillo's So Far From God."Modern Fiction Studies. 44.4 (1998): 888-914. .
The popular revolutionary poem “I am Joaquin” by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales influenced many Chicana/os to embrace their heritage in the Chicano Movement in the 1960s. The poem created psychological work for the Chicano identity. Moreover, this poem developed and promoted social consciousness, commitment to activism, and cultural pride for many Chicanos. However, Gonzales primarily focuses on the identity and struggles of a Mexican-American male which excludes other narratives. Thus, the lack of inclusivity influenced me to recreate the popular poem, which centers on women from Central America who are rarely acknowledged in Chicano Studies. Therefore, our poem “I am Dolores” is focused on these three main themes: empowerment of women of color, resistance
She is the one that refuses to oblige to societal orders. She is the “Shadow-Beast” (38) with “Chicana identity grounded in the Indian woman’s history of resistance” (43). Although alienated physically, Anzaldua is “immobilized” (43) mentally the more confined she becomes in a culture engulfed in pure oppression. She claims her “shadow-beast” as the depiction of her highly wanted independence as an individual human being, which eventually forces her to leave her family behind to find herself separately from the “intrinsic nature buried under the personality that had been imposed” (38) for people like Anzaldua for many years. Her push for rebellion sets a voice for the silenced anger and pure resistance against the ostracism of herself, her family, culture, and the white-washed society she has been born into. To be the only Chicana, lesbian, and rebellious woman in her family is considered sinful, as women, according to Anzaldua, in Mexico only have “three directions she could turn: to the church as a nun, to the streets as a prostitute, or to the home as a mother” (39). Noticing that women are culturally restricted to these roles, Anzaldua creates the opposite role for herself claiming to take the “fourth choice” by “entering the world by way of education and career and becoming self-autonomous persons,” (39), which she uses to her advantage to transform the prolonged oppression into her long awaited freedom to live as an openly queer woman
“Poverty and exploitation of women in Latin America can never be alleviated because they are rooted in machismo,” meaning that because of the way society was run in Latin American, women can’t advance from the ancient state of mind that they belong in the private sphere and should stay there, because only men are good enough to be out in the public sphere. The reason why society was run in this manner, was because of the machismo feeling engraved in the minds of men and, in some cases, women in society. Alicia, Carolina, and Nancy don’t really have any other choice, than try to survive on their own by doing acts that are not “approved” by the society they live in. Even now, because of their actions, we could even disagree with the way they decided to approach their situation, because even now a day, we could think that selling one’s body or being involved in “off the book”
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).
In the story "Woman Hollering Creek" Sandra Cisneros discusses the issues of living life as a married woman through a character named Cleofilas; a character who is married to a man who abuses her physically and mentally .Cisneros reveals the way the culture puts a difference between a male and a female, men above women. Cisneros has been famous about writing stories about the latino culture and how women are treated; she explain what they go through as a child, teen and when they are married; always dominated by men because of how the culture has been adapted. "Woman Hollering Creek" is one of the best examples. A character who grows up without a mother and who has no one to guid and give her advise about life.
When Gloria Anzaldua writes in The Homeland Aztlan “this land was Mexican once, was Indian always and is and will be again” one can assume or conclude that she recognizes that the land was taken away from the Indians by Americans. Therefore, you can say that she catecterize the border as Indian Land. To my way of thinking,Gloria Anzaldua blends poetry, personal narrative and history to present the view and experiences of people affected by living in the borderlands and to establish credibility to the poem. On the other hand, this chapter and the two poems present a connection because the three of them express the drwabacks of being Mexican- American.
In Latin America, women are treated differently from men and children. They do lots of work for unexplainable reasons. Others for religious reasons and family orders and others because of the men involved. Women are like objects to men and have to obey their orders to either be rich or to live. Some have sex to get the men’s approval, others marry a rich man that they don’t even know very well, and become slaves. An important book called Chronicles of a Death Foretold is an example of how these women are treated. Purisima del Carmen, Angela Vicario's mother, has raised Angela and her sisters to be good wives. The girls do not marry until late in life, rarely socializing beyond the outsides of their own home. They spend their time sewing, weaving, washing and ironing. Other occupations include arranging flowers, cleaning up the house, and writing engagement letters to other men. They also keep the old traditions alive, such as helping the sick, comforting the dying, and covering the dead. While their mother believes they are perfect, men view them as too tied to their women's traditions. The men are afraid that the women would pay more attention to their job more than the men. Throughout the book, the women receive the respect they deserve from the men and others around them.