In a story of identity and empowerment, Juan Felipe Herrera’s poem “Borderbus” revolves around two Honduran women grappling with their fate regarding a detention center in the United States after crawling up the spine of Mexico from Honduras. While one grapples with their survival, fixated on the notion that their identities are the ultimate determinant for their future, the other remains fixated on maintaining their humanity by insisting instead of coming from nothingness they are everything. Herrera’s poem consists entirely of the dialogue between the two women, utilizing diction and imagery to emphasize one’s sense of isolation and empowerment in the face of adversity and what it takes to survive in America. The two women, while hailing
Ruben Martinez was fascinated with the tragedy of three brothers who were killed when the truck carrying them and 23 other undocumented migrants across the Mexico – United States border turned over in a high-speed chase with the U.S. Border Patrol. “Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail” is a story about crossing and life in the United States.
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 ...
Many of the people trying to cross the border were not given same luck. Their efforts to leave the situations they are in only cause them a different kind of pain. The lack of safety for these people was astonishing. As Jessie was, I was impressed by Anazulda’s description of living there and the realistic depiction of how it was to live there. As Natalie put, I also loved the realistic writing that Anazulda brought to this piece. She did not try to ease the tone or make it lighter than the reality of the situations. She brought the realness of what happened there to life in her writing, which I greatly admire. The imagery that Brooke points out from Borderlands from page 2 is such a clear image of being trapped within a place you cannot escape from. While I had not thought of the curtains in such a way, I understand the reasoning behind it. Curtains are supposed to provide privacy, shelter from the outside world. Yet, these steel curtains are prisons, keeping those near them from getting away. As Jessie pointed out, the United States is governed to protect the rights of each American citizen, including each of us. Nevertheless, Anazulda and many others who try to cross the border can be subjected to the rules of those who live near the borders and not the laws of the United States that are in place to protect them. I did not think about the call for unity as Natalie described until I read her essay. While she does not make light of the situations caused in the United States, she does leave this impression of hope that we can fix this. We can make it so these borders are less of walls that divide us, and we can make the journey in our country a less terrible and horrifying
The female, adolescent speaker helps the audience realize the prejudice that is present in a “melting-pot” neighborhood in Queens during the year 1983. With the setting placed in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, the poem allows the audience to examine the experience of a young immigrant girl, and the inequality that is present during this time. Julia Alvarez in “Queens, 1963” employs poetic tools such as diction, figurative language, and irony to teach the reader that even though America is a place founded upon people who were strangers to the land, it is now home to immigrants to claim intolerance for other foreigners, despite the roots of America’s founding.
His audience can see, from his initial introduction to language, to his cultural education, to his superiors’ reaction to his literacy, that Baca’s willingness to speak out, to write poetry, and to communicate are inherent acts of resistance and revolution, no matter how inconsequential they may seem at face value. As his memoir is a depiction of a real life, whether liberation is or is not achieved is up for debate (if liberation is achievable at all), but, through the use of language, Baca establishes the beginning of his resistance to many of the vicious cycles which marginalization can perpetuate, a form of resistance that will hopefully continue on to aid the generations that may follow in his footsteps. Through language, Baca finds his self-worth and is able to acknowledge the systematic injustices that have plagued and destroyed facets of himself, as well as most of his family. Though language does not provide the opportunity to entirely reconstruct what has been lost, it can act as a safeguard against the possibility of even more devastation. Thus, the existence of A Place to Stand is a form of resistance in itself. Just like other texts by incarcerated figures, such as Wall Tappings and Mother California, Jimmy Santiago Baca’s memoir is a staunch reminder that incarcerated men and women desperately and unequivocally believe they need to be
Islas, Arturo. From Migrant Souls. American Mosaic: Multicultural Readings in Context. Eds. Gabriele Rico, Barbara Roche and Sandra Mano. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1995. 483-491.
“As long as Latino kills Latino… we’ll always be little people,” stated Ernesto Quinonez. This statement comments on the integration of society within an individual’s identity and it’s long lasting effects. The perception of who we are behind closed doors and who we are in public greatly influences our state of mind and our internal well-being. Throughout Quinonez’s Bodega Dreams, the reader can clearly see how one’s traditional culture and perception of private vs. public image is valued amongst the characters. At times, the reader may notice an internal struggle within multiple characters. The thought of going against what may be considered “normal” can be quite nerve-racking for
In Lives in Limbo, Roberto G. Gonzales dissects the disastrous effects of US immigration policy on young Latina/os struggling in the often untouched, unnoticed, uncared for, American underbelly. Through a striking ethnography, Gonzalez examines 150 illuminating case-studies of young undocumented Latina/os, shedding light on their shared experience in the struggle for legitimacy in the United States - their lives, effectively, in limbo. He develops two major groups with which to classify the struggling youth: the college-goers, like Cesar, who received strong marks in high school and was able to land himself a spot within the UC system, and the early-exiters, like Silvia, who was unable to attend college, resigned to a paranoid life plagued
In The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail, Oscar Martinez comments on the injustices that occur while migrating from Central America. Central Americans are forced to leave their countries in fear of the inevitable consequences. The systematic abuse Central Americans endure while migrating is founded on that fear which results in more repercussions for migrants. The psychological effects of migrating is used by Martinez to give insight on the atrocities that happen in Central America. The corruption involved while migrating in Central America is against human rights and should be brought immediate attention internationally. Martinez uses the experiences of migrants to expose Mexico’s passivity on the subject and to expose readers’ to the hard truths that occur while migrating.
Martinez, Demetria. 2002. “Solidarity”. Border Women: Writing from la Frontera.. Castillo, Debra A & María Socorro Tabuenca Córdoba. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 168- 188.
The poem appears to display a free verse. The poem has an interesting way of showing the point of view of the protagonists. The poem is made up of two stanzas, and each stanza has a different point of view. The first stanza is written in the perspective of the Border Patrol and the second stanza shows the perspective of the Mexican women. The first stanza is the Border Patrol talking about the advantage they have over her. “I get the badge and sunglasses./ You can hide and run,/ but you can’t get away/ because I have a jeep” (Mora 1216). The Border Patrol agent thinks he has an advantage because he has the resources to stop the woman and she has nothing to fight back. He is implying that she can run and hide, but in the end he will find her because in his perspective he thinks he has an advantage. The second stanza shows the perspective of the Mexican woman. “I know this desert,/ where to rest,/ where to drink” (Mora 1217). The woman thinks she has an advantage and although she does not have all the resources the border patrol has she knows how to survive. The border patrol agent is alone but she is in her land and knows her way around. The perspective of both the Border Patrol agent and the Mexican woman shows irony. Each think they have an advantage in the setting. The tone demonstrated in the poem is optimistic because both seemed to be confident. They are confident of their sources to survive.
Erika Lopez’s Flaming Iguanas addresses various constitutions of American identity, including ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. The protagonist, Jolene, is illustrative of how these constitutions of identity are complicated as she travels west. In particular, traveling westward typically consists of white men who reject the constraints of middle class life and decide to get on the road in hopes of finding selfhood. Flaming Iguanas demonstrates that gender, class, and ethnicity tie into the ability or inability to finding one’s self of self. Therefore, Jolene is unable to find her true sense of self because she is a woman. Lopez directs her readers’ attention to situations in her protagonist’s life where her mixed ethnicity, and ambivalent
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”.
Imagine a world without a race with diversity and a culture without differences. The world would be bland and a useless place to live. A place where life would truly be absurd.
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).