Differences in Expectations an Argumentative Analysis of Aurora Guerrero’s film Mosquita y Mari In Aurora Guerrero’s film Mosquita y Mari discusses the lives of two high school classmates Mari and Yolanda who are growing up in Huntington Park a predominantly Mexican neighborhood in Los Angeles California. In this film characters Mari and Yolanda have contrasting backgrounds. Because Mari’s upbringing contrasts with Yolanda’s it allows for the viewer to question both sides of the immigrant experience and furthermore examine what that contrast can mean for the maturing women. The expectations of Yolanda and Mari are drastically different due to their culture and cultural identities. Immigrants are depicted as having more of the traditional …show more content…
In Aurora Guerrero’s Mosquita y Mari those expectations that have been traditionally set by society are demolished. Even Mari who has very low societal expectations to meet is seen as valuable in the class room even as she is working to help support her family, even though a child working in this novel is seen as being inappropriate but in other works seen as necessary. In works such as Chicana Goes to College, the main female characters are projected to the reader as being less useful than a man and that they should be at home having babies not be going to school to create a future for themselves because society in Chicana Goes to College believes she will end up in that position anyway. Where as women are expected to work and run a household in Chicana Goes to College, Aurora Guerrero wrote, Mari working to be inappropriate since Mari is a child and should be living as such, but still allows for the reader to see the traditions stuck in her families ways, more so when compared to Yolandas family
She explains how she didnt act like the other students, and did not speak like them, leading her to feel left out. She tries to “become” American, but she is still a little different because of her background. She can't ever fully get rid of her “immigrant origins” because they are a part of her history and life. Yolonda also describes her sisters' same conflicts with their identity as immigrants in the US, all four of them struggling to become American while also holding onto their roots. This further communicates Alvarez’s message and how immigrants often have a hard time “becoming american” and getting accustomed to the culture here.
Juan de Solorzano y Pereyra says that the Indians practiced savage customs or they attempted to commit treason against the Spanish people. Bartolome de Las Casas says that the Indians were gentle sheep and the Spaniards rushed in like a bunch of starving wolves, tigers and lions ready to devour. The Spaniards slew the Indians as if their lives did not matter what so ever. All of this happened throughout Cuba, Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Mexico (Hispaniola). Juan Gines de Sepulveda Sepulveda said that the Indians are a savage and cruel race and that the Spanish are a superior race that is why the Indians should be treated as if they are inferior.
In the essay "Children of Mexico," the author, Richard Rodriguez, achieves the effect of relaying his bittersweet feeling regarding how Mexicans stubbornly hold on to their past and heritage by not only relaying many personal experiences and images, but also by using an effective blend of formal and informal tone and a diction that provides a bittersweet tone. Among the variety of ways this is done, one is through repetitive reference to fog. The word is used many times in the essay, especially in segments relating to Mexican-Americans returning to Mexico for the winter. One of the more potent uses reads as follows: "The fog closes in, condenses, and drips day and night from the bare limbs of trees.
The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named María is an essay by Judith Ortiz Cofer that addresses the impact of stereotyping on Latino women. Throughout the essay, Cofer relates her personal experiences with stereotypes to discuss how they have negatively affected her life and the lives of other Latinas. She also explains how these stereotypes originated and calls on her audience, the majority-white non-Latino population, to stop propagating the stereotypical portrayals of Latino women. In The Myth of the Latin Woman, Cofer speaks out about how stereotyping hinders the process of assimilating to a new culture by appealing to ethos through her personal experiences, using similes that show how stereotypes create isolation, and adopting
In Mexican American society , women are deemed inferior to men, evident in traditional family roles, the male is the head of the family who provides for the family , while the woman stays at home to look after the children she is expected to provide for her husband . In the third vignette of ‘The House on Mango Street’ titled ‘Boys and Girls’ the reader is informed of the division between men and women when Esperanza refers to herself and her sister Nenny , and her brothers, “They’ve got plenty to say to me and Nenny inside the house. But outside they can’t be seen talking to girls”. The male dominance begins at a very young age.
The immigrants entering the United States throughout its history have always had a profound effect on American culture. However, the identity of immigrant groups has been fundamentally challenged and shaped as they attempt to integrate into U.S. society. The influx of Mexicans into the United States has become a controversial political issue that necessitates a comprehensive understanding of their cultural themes and sense of identity. The film Mi Familia (or My Family) covers the journey and experiences of one Mexican-American (or “Chicano”) family from Mexico as they start a new life in the United States. Throughout the course of the film, the same essential conflicts and themes that epitomize Chicano identity in other works of literature
Anzaldúa was a Mexican American who was a well-known writer and had a major impact on the fields of queer, feminist, and cultural theory. Her most famous work is Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza which includes poems, essays, and short stories. Anzaldúa was no stranger to the use of literary theories in her writing, which is evident in her short story “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” Here, the author uses a combination of feminist, reader-response, and psychoanalytic theory to show the struggle of being oneself when they’re Mexican-American. Through the use of feminist theory, she explains how a female is labeled as an “habladora” when she tries to voice out her opinion about something; reader-response theory provides the reader with an understanding of the struggles of self-identity, which they are able to relate to, especially Mexican-Americans; and lastly, psychoanalytic theory illuminates on her childhood experiences, which could explain why Anzaldúa believes in what she does, such as the idea that Anglo people have tried to tame her tongue—in other words, her language.
This can be seen with Poh Poh and Appa and Umma’s relationship with tradition, and their different interactions with it as first generation immigrants. Another example is Liang and Janet, and their shared love of pop culture. These comparisons raise questions about the correlation between immigration and whether it or not it upholds and encourages
“The common denominator all Latinos have is that we want some respect. That 's what we 're all fighting for” - Cristina Saralegui. Judith Ortiz Cofer published the article, “The Myth of the Latin Woman,” where she expresses her anger towards stereotypes, inequality, and degradation of Latin Americans. Cofer explains the origins of these perceived views and proceeds to empower Latin American women to champion over them. Cofer establishes her credibility as a Latin American woman with personal anecdotes that emphasize her frustration of the unfair depiction of Latinos in society.
The female characters are portrayed as independent, strong willed women that are full of determination to fulfill their dreams, who also defy stereotypes. Minerva is portrayed as a strong woman when she fulfills her dream of getting a form of higher education, which also goes against social norms in the Dominican Republic. She says, “I want to go to the university[...]I’ve always wanted to study law” (Alvarez 98). By attending the university, Minerva is completing her dream and going against female stereotypes. Another example of women being strong willed in the novel is when the Mirabal sisters fight and die for a cause they believed in.
In her ethnography account Women without Class, Julie Bettie explores the relationship that class along with race and gender work to shape the experiences of both Mexican American girls and white working class students. In her work, Bettie finds that class cannot only intersect to impact the school experiences of both working class and middle class girls, but also their transition to adulthood and their future outcomes. Thus, Bettie explores how working class girls are able to deal with their class differences by performing symbolic boundaries on their styles, rejecting the school peer hierarchy and by performing whiteness to be upwardly mobile. In women without class, Bettie describes the symbolic boundaries that both las chicas and the preps
There are countless families with impoverished, single mothers with many children of a minority race that are discriminated against. Especially around the 50s and 60s when the novel is set, immigrant women did not have high chances of being hired for a stable enough job to support their family. This then causes the mother to grow tired and weary, too drained to take care of their children like they should. After a while, the neighbors stop caring and ignore them rather than help them, and the children run about without any care for the consequences of their actions. Some of these consequences aren’t that bad; however, in cases like the Vargases’, the lack of proper supervision, guidance, and care can lead to horrible occurrences like the death of a
The first piece of artwork I critiqued was the famous Virgin of Guadalupe. The Virgin of Guadalupe is currently exhibited in the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City. The piece of art is not solely a painting, but an enconchado. It was made into wood, and it essentially creates a reflective surface that appears as moving. Also, I like how they explain their theory on the woman of the apocalypse and how it relates to this piece of art.
Because of this, she also believes there is a lack of respect for Hispanic culture. It is also unfair that Spanish is taught with little respect, yet English is usually a “pretentious” subject. She majored in English in college to show her teachers that she was capable of learning about the language, but still has her Hispanic identity. On top of being Hispanic alone, there are even more stereotypes about Hispanic women that both authors talk about.
As a young child, after being told of how poor her houseboy Fido was, Adichie did not believe his family could also be hardworking. “Their poverty was my single story of them. ”(Adichie) She also details how later, on a trip to Guadalajara she was overwhelmed with shame because her only image of Mexicans was the “abject immigrant” due to the “…endless stories of Mexicans as people who were fleecing the healthcare system, sneaking across the border, being arrested at the border, that sort of thing.” (Adichie)a She was caught by surprise when she saw Mexicans happy and at work in the marketplace.