Smeltertown existed as a smelting industry company-community and border town in El Paso, Texas. Through her own familial connection to Smeltertown, Monica Perales “traces the formation, evolution, demise, and collective memory of one of the largest single-industry Mexican-American communities on Mexican-US side of border.” Smeltertown, as a community, was was made up of several real and imagined social worlds that were constantly shaped by ASARCO. The community that was forged in Smeltertown served as a way of survival for its residents, allowing the influence from ASARCO to be lessened. Smeltertown tells the story of how its residents ordered their immediate socials. Perales beings Smeltertown by tracing the development of El Paso as a …show more content…
Perales “charts the contours of the web of overlapping and interwoven communities that existed in Smeltertown.” The author notes a great chasm that existed between living conditions of the white managerial families and the families of the Mexican laborers. Also, Perales explains that the separateness extended to social places as well. The ice skating rink on the company cooling pond and the company-owned bowling alley were only used by whites living in Smeltertown. In reality, there were two company towns, one Anglo and one …show more content…
side of a border town made Smeltertown residents American, Perales looks at how they also never left their Mexican culture and customs behind. The San Jose’ de Cristo Rey Catholic parish served as a place for Esmeltianos to reimagine what it meant to be racially and culturally Mexican in an American border town. The Catholic chapel on the hill became the locus of what it meant to Mexican in a border town. Through their sense of community and the Catholic parish, Esmeltianos retained many aspects of their Mexican culture: Spanish language, Mexican patriotism, Catholicism. “Blending elements of national and ethnic pride, shared language, and a common experience with Catholicism provided a foundation on which Esmeltianos reconfigured what it meant to be Mexican in a U.S.
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.
In Richard Rodriguez’s “Proofs,” Mexican immigrant’s destination is described, as well as their perceptions and expectations of America. Rodriguez describes the passage to the United States as difficult, yet worthy. He states: “The city will win. The city will give the children all the village could not- VCR’s, hairstyles, drum beat. The city sings mean songs, dirty songs. But the city will sing the children a great Protestant hymn.You can be anything you want to be.” He also states: “Mexico is poor. But mama says there
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 ...
In the late nineteenth century, many European immigrants traveled to the United States in search of a better life and good fortune. The unskilled industries of the Eastern United States eagerly employed these men who were willing to work long hours for low wages just to earn their food and board. Among the most heavily recruiting industries were the railroads and the steel mills of Western Pennsylvania. Particularly in the steel mills, the working conditions for these immigrants were very dangerous. Many men lost their lives to these giant steel-making machines. The immigrants suffered the most and also worked the most hours for the least amount of money. Living conditions were also poor, and often these immigrants would barely have enough money and time to do anything but work, eat, and sleep. There was also a continuous struggle between the workers and the owners of the mills, the capitalists. The capitalists were a very small, elite group of rich men who held most of the wealth in their industries. Strikes broke out often, some ending in violence and death. Many workers had no political freedom or even a voice in the company that employed them. However, through all of these hardships, the immigrants continued their struggle for a better life.
The focus of analysis will consist of Southern Chicago Mexicans and the way by which they established themselves as important features of US civilization. Within the late 1910s and early 1920s the first major waves of Mexican immigrants ventured into the Southside of Chicago. Members of the community overcame the discrimination against them while organizing themselves in way that introduced Mexican pride and community building across their
In the years following the Spanish conquests, the southwest region of the United States developed into Spanish colonial territory. Indians, Spaniards, and blacks occupied this territory in which the shortage of Spanish women led to the miscegenation of these cultures. The result of mixing these races was a homogenization of the people of various cultures that came to be called mestizos and mulattos who, like present day Mexican Americans, inherited two distinct cultures that would make their culture rich, yet somewhat confusi...
Weber, David J. Foreigners in Their Native Land: The Historical Roots of Mexican Americans. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973.
...ewish enclave to a predominantly Mexican community” (Sanchez, 2004, p. 640) due to the fact that the “Jewish community of Los Angeles as a whole was transformed by the demographic changes, clearly becoming “white” in the racial hierarchy of the region both geographically and politically” (Sanchez, 2004, p. 640). The place of the Jewish community changed along with their identity. Once they became “white” they no longer were restricted to living in Boyle Heights. In Los Angeles, it is clear through what happened to this one group of people that one’s metaphorical place in society, meant to be one’s racial and class status in what Sanchez refers to as a hierarchy, has a direct link to one’s literal or geographical place in the city. The ongoing divisions within society caused by stratification have become the basis of the meaning of place in contemporary Los Angeles.
Literary magazines were not remotely interested in publishing Gilb’s stories, which focus primarily on the professional and personal struggles of working-class Mexican Americans. But his unapologetic stories about working-class Mexican Americans have made him a voice of his people (Reid130). Gilb’s short stories are set vividly in cites of the desert Southwest and usually feature a Hispanic protagonist who is good-hearted but often irresponsible and is forever one pink slip or automotive breakdown away from disaster (Reid130).
Samuel Truett’s provides a very rich history of the borderlands and their significance during the nineteenth century. Truett split this book into three segments, titled “Frontier Legacies”, “Border Crossings”, and “Contested Terrain”. He chooses to focus on the Sonora region, how groups perceived and used the borderlands, and the ‘forgotten history’ of these landscapes. He interprets the relationships between the many immigrants and groups that inhabit this region. Truett argues for a better understanding of the borderlands because of the unseen and untold prosperity and development it brought. Finally, he ends the book with an epilogue that provokes theories of borderlands, and how people interpret geographical locations differently. “Border
Because of the importance of original Tepeyac for Spanish governors to render the religious conversion of indigenous residents under the name of the Lady Guadalupe during the colonial Mexico, Pena points out the physical significance of the first Tepeyac, which is also shown by the replica in Des Plaines. However as Pena emphasizes, “the act of reproducing a place... Is only the first step”[ Elaine A. Pena, Performing Piety: Making Sacred Space with the Virgin of Guadalupe (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2011), 43.]. She believes that the space becomes sacred only when devotees’ embodied performances “inscribe their histories, beliefs, and aspirations on the environment”[ Elaine A. Pena, Performing Piety: Making Sacred Space with the Virgin of Guadalupe (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2011), 43.]. Pena also clarifies that “the Second Tepeyac solidified its dual role as religious sanctuary and political safe haven”[ Elaine A. Pena, Performing Piety: Making Sacred Space with the Virgin of Guadalupe (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2011), 48.], which is not only a place in which the worshipers can fulfill their spiritual appeals, but also a center for immigration services. As a result, the Virgin of Guadalupe here embodies the struggle of immigrants from all over the world rather than just being a national symbol of Mexico, as that
Monroy, Douglas. Thrown Among Strangers: The Making of Mexican Culture in Frontier California . 1990.
Steltzer, Ulli, “The New Americans: Immigrant Life in Southern California.” Kiniry and Rose 346-347. Print.
Los Angeles is unique in that it captures the essence of a multi-ecological setting bringing the ocean, the skyscraper, and the happiest place on earth under one rooftop. Its deep-rooted culture engulfs the city’s character and overwhelms the spirit of L.A. Los Angeles has encompassed the circle of the Mexican pueblo that began in 1848 and has returned over two hundred fifty years later. Hordes of “land hungry Anglo-Europeans” began to migrate to Los Angeles from various parts of Europe. They viciously took land from the inhabited Mexicans by fraud, force, and imposing ridiculous property taxes. Although Mexican rancheros fought gallantly for their land, they could not afford to pay the property taxes and as a result lost a vast part of their holdings. The Mexican ranchero lifestyle gradually vanished as new settlers took over. As the Anglo-whites became the majority in Los Angeles, they also became the major influence on the development of the city and its capitalist structure.
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