Themes And Symbolism In The Film: Refiguring Aztlan

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What exactly does Aztlan mean? There are various definitions, such as the ancestral homeland of the Aztec people and their descendants or everyone’s individual Aztlan which is ones’ personal sanctuary. A place one creates in their own image consisting of features that show what kind of person they are, while at the same time still recognizing their ethnic culture. We all have this place though not everyone’s is the same. Your hobbies, interests, the way you dress all make up this special place. Without it, we would be metaphorically lost. For example, in the essay “Refiguring Aztlan”, it says, “Through Aztlan we come to better understand psychological time, regional make up, and evolution. Without any one of these ingredients, we would be contempo-rary displaced nomads, suffering the diaspora in our own land, and at the mercy of other social forces. Aztlan allows us to come full circle with our communal background as well as maintain ourselves as …show more content…

Throughout their whole experiences in the movie there was racist comments thrown at them. They faced racism both in South Central and Beverly Hills. In South Central they faced racism because they didn 't conform to liking hip hop and in Beverly Hills for being Hispanic American. When they go skating in Beverly Hills, a cop pulls over and calls all of them over. He starts questioning them and he asks Jonathan and Eddie Ve-lasquez why they gave him different last names. One of the other boys responded with “they 're brothers” and then the cop says “Why do you have different last names? Oh different fathers, that’s typical.” He was being racist to them simply because they looked Mexican and since there’s that stereotype that Mexicans have a lot of kids then they must have had different dads. Just because someone is Mexican and choose to use their mothers last name while their brother uses their dads doesn 't make them half siblings. There was no reason to make that racist

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