My Family is a film depicting the struggles of a Mexican American family during three generations of life in East Los Angeles. While watching the film, a recollection of memories came to my mind as I was reminded of certain events from my younger days. I couldn't help but observe how similar the Sanchez family was to mine. Like the character of Jimmy, I too, was born in the United States to Mexican immigrants. A lot of the customs depicted inside the residence of the Sanchez family, exist in my family home as well. For example, the women is constantly in the kitchen, cleaning and fixing dinner while the man of the house is out working for the daily bread. Come night time, the Sanchez family gather in the living room and watch "I love Lucy" …show more content…
Later he marries Maria and together, they have a hoard of children. My parents immigrated to East Los Angeles, California in the mid 80's, I was the first born of four and I, like Chucho was looked up to by a younger brother. Though the character of Chucho was born in Mexico, he was still raised in American fashion like me and most of my friends. Chucho hates Mariachi music, speaks street slang, listens to Oldies, sells weed and is part of a street gang. A large amount of my friends dislike Spanish music, listen to Hip-Hop, smoke reefer and speak street slang. All in all, I feel that though the times have changed, every generation of Latino youth, stick to the same script in terms of trends. I did think it was weird how Jose and Maria picked up the English language really fast and almost enforced it inside the home. My parents on the other hand, never learned how to speak English, so Spanish was the only language that was spoken in my home.
Earlier in the film, there is a scene where the character of baby Chucho is being dragged by a river current as his mom intends to cross them into the United States. Though baby Chucho survives, in his teens, he is brutally shot down by police officers. His brother Paco then narrates that his mom knew that Chucho was meant to die at the river and that he was living on barrowed time. But, eventually the spirit of the river returned to claim what was his. That saying
In the case of José, born and raised in Mexico, he had to assimilate by eventually learning English to acquire a job to support his wife, María, and his children. Movie critics may argue that Rosa and Enrique’s journey to Los Angeles has a greater impact than that of José. Traveling from Central America to North America is a hard journey to go on. While the path Rosa and Enrique had to take to reach the United States may have been more arduous, comparing the two journeys is an unfair assessment. José’s expedition to Los Angeles, while it was not shown as a visually dark time of his life, did portray how an immigrant may cross the border into America in a different way. In addition, since both films have the same director, Gregory Nava, his decision to emphasize the act of illegally crossing into America in one film and not the other allows him to the artistic license to portray other portions of life as an immigrant. In My Family, Mi Familia, Memo and Toni’s characters depicts the generational changes a family living with two cultures may
Depiction of Latinos in 20th Century Film Graphs Not Included Over the course of this past century, the depictions of assimilated Latino characters has improved a great deal. Early portrayals of Latino assimilation generally proved to be a montage of unrealistic caricatures which seemed to convey the filmmaker's creativity more so than true representations. This formed the manner in which the American people at large viewed not just Latino characters attempting to assimilate, but also those who were not. As Cine-Aztlan puts it, film "manipulates the human psychology, sociology, religion, and morality of the people, in a word the ideological super-structure of modern capitalist society" (pg.275, Chicanos and Film).
Growing up in a Mexican-American family can be very fun and crazy. Having two different perspectives on two different cultures almost daily really shapes you to become a certain way as you grow up, which is what happened to me. Ever since I was about three months old I have been taking trips to my parents home town for a month time each time we have gone. Practically growing up in both Mexico and the United States for six years has really helped me understand my cultural background and the different parts of my whole culture, such as the food, heritage, language and culture.
The Chicano Movement was a time that pressed forth for the equal opportunity of the Latino community and proved to America that Mexican Americans were a force to be reckoned with. In the documentary Latino Americans – Episode 5: Prejudice and Pride, it centralizes on the success of the oppressed community through significant leaders in that period. Union activists César Chavez, along with Dolores Huerta, playwright Luis Valdez, teacher Sal Castro, US Congressman Herman Ballido, and political activist José Ángel Gutiérrez all contributed to egalitarianism of Latinos across the nation. This documentary reflects on the importance of equal prospects within the workplace, the academic setting, and the social and political features in society.
Latinos beyond Reel documentary film presented how US news and entertainment media portray Latinos. Latino American is an ethnic minority group of whom origin was from Latin America or Iberian Peninsula. Latino American is the fastest growing population in the United States. However, media has had negative effects for the Latino community. News media and entertainment had strongly influenced the perception of non-Latino about Latinos. These media portrayal of Latinos had implications for real world perceptions of Latinos.
Growing up in a marginalized minority is a difficult task because there are a lot of differences between cultures. In the Mexican American culture, family is crucial, this is where one comes when one needs someone to talk to. In my experience, I had was raised being stuck in the middle of two different cultures I had to know what my identity was through, family, school, and through my travels.
Every culture has its own unique values, beliefs and norms. Culture defines the identity and interests of a society. Understanding other’s culture is crucial in preparing ourselves for the global experience in the twenty-first century. As the world is becoming more connected to each other, interaction between cultures is unavoidable. I consider myself lucky to live in one of the most diverse cities in the world where I get chance to interact with people of different cultures. In this paper, I will discuss my findings about Family Structure in a Mexican culture, and Dating and Marriage in an African / Gabonese culture. Having a chance to understand various cultures, I realized that beliefs and practices tend to vary from culture to culture.
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.
To help me understand and analyze a different culture, I watched the film Selena. The film tells the life story of the famous singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez. Not only does it just tell personal stories from her life, it also gives insight to the Mexican-American culture. Her whole life she lived in the United States, specifically in Texas, but was Hispanic and because of that both her and her family faced more struggles than white singers on the climb to her success. Even though the film is a story about a specific person, it brought understanding into the culture in which she lived. Keeping in mind that these ideas that I drew about the Mexican-American culture is very broad and do not apply to every single person in the culture, there were very obvious differences in their culture and the one that I belong. Mexican-American culture identifies with their family rather than individualized or spiritual identities and the culture has gone through significant changes because of discrimination and the changing demographics of the United States.
During the early twentieth century, my family, along with millions of other Mexicans immigrated to the United States, in efforts to leave the increasing levels of crime, unemployment, and poverty we were facing in Mexico. My father found work in Los Angeles as a farmer; so my parents’, along with me and my siblings, moved to Chavez Ravine, a segregated urban barrio where many other Mexican American families began to reside. By the 1940s, the urban neighborhoods of Los Angeles were booming, and young Mexican American boys and girls began creating a distinct culture of their own. I was nearly 18 at the time, my best friend Ricardo and I would always hang around my older brother, Arturo, and his group of friends. Although they saw us as pests
In this paragraph I am going to characterize the Ewell family. First off, their family life is bad because they have a mean father and they do not have a mother. Their father does not work and can not hold down a job to save his life. When he does get money he spends it on whiskey, and does not care for the children. Imagine life without your mom, the woman that cares for you, cooks for you, and listens to you when you need a friend. The Ewell children do not have that important piece in their life, the piece that helps them grow and become profound people. They have to figure it out on their own, and that is a tough task because while they are trying to do that they are also trying to be children. In addition to that, their father does not make them go to school, so they only go to school
When defining family, the U.S. Census Bureau defines it as "a family is a group of two or more people related by birth, marriage, or adoption, and residing together". Essentially, this definition pulls a broad pool of people together. In Jack's case, he considers his mother, father, two siblings, both of his grandfathers, his aunt, his wife, and almost newborn baby to be in his family. A household, on the other hand, is anyone that lives together in a particular space (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014). Jack explained that his household consists of himself and his wife. Soon, it was also consist of his newborn child.
As a child, I was surround by political standpoints, my republican grandfather, my democratic grandmother, my liberalist cousins, and thus, there was a lot of conflict when it came down to who was better and why they were better. However when I decided to take a lean towards the independent route due to the circling in my family, despite the fact even independents can get confusing at times too. I will go in depth about what independents are, our ideologies, a last known candidate and of course what I believe in that makes me this way.
The television sitcom Modern Family produced by Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd shows the many different types of a modern American family. According to Andrew Hampp, “The show is among the most-viewed scripted programs in prime time in its second season, averaging 11 million viewers during original airings and often ranked as the most DVRed program most weeks” (2). The television show is a frequently watched show and is liked by many viewers. Modern Family's storyline helps the families of viewers by being an influential and relatable show to different types of families. The show is about the lives of three different families that are all related. In the show there are Jay and Gloria, an intergenerational couple with two sons-- Manny (from Gloria’s previous relationship) and Joe, their new baby. Jay’s adult son Cameron is married to his gay partner Mitchell, and they adopted Lily from Vietnam. Finally, Jay’s daughter Claire is married to her heterosexual partner named Phil and they have three children. The show is influential to our culture today because it shows these different types of families and addresses controversial themes such as gay adoption, the different family connections and communications, intergenerational coupling, and acceptance of diversity within an extended family. The family is easy to relate to while watching because it is based off of real family situations.
It was evident that there were many differences between Marj and myself. Although I was considerably younger than Marj, do not have any children and had a very different family structure, I reflected on the importance of understanding the context of Marj’s life and experiences to make a fair assessment. As a child I lived in numerous countries with my family so my experience of family was of a small nuclear family. While I could empathise with Marj, and understood that although overwhelmed, I felt that she was trying to provide a safe and supportive home.