In Cristina Henríquez’s novel The Book of Unknown Americans she presents her readers with a striking and dramatic tale of her definition of what it means to be an American with a certain community, and this community who just so happen to be composed of Latino immigrants in the United States. Through the trials and tribulation that is day to day life for these people with the added constraint of discrimination the group continues to prevail as a positive community. With this and a mostly pathos or emotional approach, Henríquez establishes an effective argument on the reality of who these “unknown” Americans truly are and not just the negative view that many Americans may gauge the group: such as criminals or intellectually inferior. With the utilization of the …show more content…
With the uses of point of view, the elder wounded veteran states the following on why he chooses to go into the armed forces, “I enlisted in the navy, I always wanted to do something heroic” (Henríquez, 217). There is a romanticism that is held by many Americans with the American people and our armed forces, especially with veterans, e.g. veteran’s hospitals and the holiday Veterans Day. Henríquez utilizes the view of a former veteran to tap into the gold mine that is the sympathy for these people. To added to theses sympathies the war caused Mercado to become crippled. This man sacrificed his own freedoms of time and of health, for his country. This is the type of altruism that radiates the idea of a strong American hero, who so happens to be Latino and integrated in the community found in Delaware. It is again a second guesting of the audience initial view the point of view of Mercado provides like we have seen with Celia and Rafael. Henríquez argues more than just the idea of the positive Latino community in America, the idea of self-blame is also articulated in her
Immigrants come to America, the revered City upon a Hill, with wide eyes and high hopes, eager to have their every dream and wild reverie fulfilled. Rarely, if ever, is this actually the case. A select few do achieve the stereotypical ‘rags to riches’ transformation – thus perpetuating the myth. The Garcia family from Julia Alvarez’s book How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, fall prey to this fairytale. They start off the tale well enough: the girls are treated like royalty, princesses of their Island home, but remained locked in their tower, also known as the walls of their family compound. The family is forced to flee their Dominican Republic paradise – which they affectionately refer to as simply, the Island – trading it instead for the cold, mean streets of American suburbs. After a brief acclimation period, during which the girls realize how much freedom is now available to them, they enthusiastically try to shed their Island roots and become true “American girls.” They throw themselves into the American lifestyle, but there is one slight snag in their plan: they, as a group, are unable to forget their Island heritage and upbringing, despite how hard they try to do so. The story of the Garcia girls is not a fairytale – not of the Disney variety anyway; it is the story of immigrants who do not make the miraculous transition from rags to riches, but from stifling social conventions to unabridged freedom too quickly, leaving them with nothing but confusion and unresolved questions of identity.
The autobiography Journey of Hope Memoirs of a Mexican Girl and the documentary short “Children in No Man’s Land” has brought into light three important topics that are results of immigration. The first is the “American dream” and the notion of yearning to migrate abroad to seek dreams formed by misconceptions of the limited knowledge one has of their destination. The second is assimilation and the process of assimilating oneself to their new homeland. The third is a unique situation presented in both these works, which is estrangement from their family members. This paper attempts to critically analyze the unique journey of immigration for Rosalina, Maria de Jesus, and Rene. It argues that glorified images and dreams of what America could be like falsely creates a sense of hope. It focuses on the dual task of reviewing the process of assimilation based on each immigrant situation, and an examination of familial estrangement as
Harvest of the Empire is a valuable tool to gaining a better understanding of Latinos. This book helps people understand how varied Latino’s in the United States are. The author also helped give insight as to how Americans reacts to differences within itself. It does this by giving a description of the struggles that every Latino immigrant faced entering the United States. These points of emphasis of the book were explained thoroughly in the identification of the key points, the explanation of the intersection of race, ethnicity, and class, in addition to the overall evaluation of the book.
In this story, the reader can see exactly how, many Puerto Ricans feel when living on other grounds. Throughout this time, the boy that Rodriguez presents us realizes he has his culture and that he wants to preserve it as much as he can. “Because I’m Puerto Rican”. I ain’t no American. And I’m not a Yankee flag-waver”
It is crucial to understand the historical context of immigration in America. Initially, most immigrants were from Europe and were not restricted by any immigration laws. Now, most immigrants come from Latin America but are restricted to severe immigration laws. The Latino/a community is one of the most severely affected groups because the current immigration system disproportionally affects Latino/as. Recognizing how the experience of Latino/a immigrants have been both similar and different in the past from other immigrant groups and dispelling common misconceptions about Latino/as today brings awareness of how Latino/as are affected.
The article “The Life of Carlos, an Undocumented New Yorker” exposes the dehumanizing atmosphere Honduras reveals to the population at a young age, causing many teenagers such as Carlos to be in search of a new life in the United States while losing their innocence along the journey to survive. Carlos makes it to the United States, but quickly is thrown to an adult detention center, but temporarily released to be with his U.S. citizen Grandmother. Alexandra Starr’s article is coupled with Edward Keating’s photography of Carlos. Starr’s writing focuses on the story of Carlos which vividly includes many experiences an average person will never experience in their lifetime expect Carlos experienced this all before the age of 20. Carlos’s court
In the novel, “The Book of Unknown Americans,” by Cristina Henriquez, she writes about the life of peoples migrating from Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, Venezuela and many similar Spanish-speaking countries to the United States. This novel talks in deep about the hardships faced by such peoples. Many characters are involved to make this story interesting. But the story mainly revolves around Alma and Mayor. Alma is married to Arturo Rivera and belongs to Mexico. Also, she is the mother of Maribel. Basically, she is the one who cares for the betterment of her family first rather than other materialistic things around her. She is a great character with many redeeming qualities who sincerely plays her role as a supportive wife and as a dutiful mother.
Their purpose: to get rid of our accents.” Anzaldua also recounts how she was often ridiculed by her own people for not speaking proper Spanish, “Even our own people, other Spanish speaker nos quieren poner candados en la boca. They would hold us back with their bag of reglas academia…..Chicano Spanish is considered by the purist and by most Latinos a deficient, a mutilation of Spanish.” The author claims that instances such as these have left her people, Chicanos, with an identity crisis, even a feeling of nothingness “ Chicanos and other people of color suffer….This voluntary (yet forced) alienation makes for psychological conflict, a kind of dual identity- we don’t identify with the Anglo-American cultural values and we
Ngai, Mae M. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton, N.J. [u.a.: Princeton Univ. Press, 2004. Print.
El Diario sprung up to capture the evolving audience of the Latino community, giving them a platform to voice their concerns. Over the last centenary, the newspaper has shaped the Hispanic community’s destiny and championed causes, which remain dear to their hearts. El Diario has empowered the community through information and civic engagement in the past, and will continuously touch the lives of future generations (“National Institute for Latino Policy” par. 7). Today, the paper serves the distinct Latino population to who immigrated to New York, from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and South America. Although capturing over 36500 days of journalism is daunting, this essay offers a glimpse of the role El Diario has played in developing Latinos.
Being a Latino in the United States is a scary thing. But so is being in the country where they are fleeing from. But through Latino literature, that fear can help smooth interactions among the diverse ethnic groups and cultures in the United States. We Were Here, La Linea, and Loteria are novels that relate to the issues of many Latino people. La Linea deals with children crossing the border. Loteria and We Were Here are both journal formatted novels, telling the story through a first person perspective. These novels have a great significance to the genre as they bring to light the issues that normally no one talks about in the Latino community; such as abandonment and abuse. These novels have a common running theme of the search for a place
The Hispanic American immigrant experience is one that is both unique in its own right and profoundly American. Although they all may be labeled within the same group, each of these individuals has a story that clearly demonstrates this. Cristina Henriquez is able to capture many of these feelings and experiences that are faced by Hispanic American immigrants quite successfully in her novel The Book of Unknown Americans. The novel covers the story of the Rivera family in the beginnings of their new life in America. They come to this country seeking better schooling for their mentally handicapped daughter. Assimilating into American culture does not come easy, and the Riveras face many hardships
History has been told through the stories that are found in The Latino Reader. The stories explain how the indigenous civilizations that were present when the conquistadores invaded their lands were affected as they transitioned from one government to another. Along with the changes of government, there were also a change in religion, currency, language and customs. The indigenous tribes that had once inhabited the lands uninterrupted, were now prisoners of a new invading civilization. Confusion would arise as the indigenous people attempt to assimilate, never completely gaining a sense of belonging. From contact to the creation of borders, these events are what trigger the phenomenon known as the “Chicano experience”.
According to the 2010 U.S. census the Latino community makes up 16% of the country’s population and grew 43% from 2000 (Humes, Jones & Ramirez, 2011). Within this large community there is great diversity both culturally and linguistically (Schreffler, 2007), from newly arrived immigrants to individuals whose families have been established in the region for generations.
“I was chaos on the first day, waiting for the Word,” Judith Ortiz Cofer, a longtime Puerto Rican mother resident of Georgia once said. She became one of the numerous Latina writers whose reputation rose during the 1980s and 1990s. Her stories about coming-of-age experiences between the Puerto Rican communities and New York City were what gave her poems and essays the basis about the cultural conflicts of immigrants. Having a father in the U.S. Navy, Judith spent her a lot of her early years traveling back and forth between Puerto Rico and Patterson New Jersey to stay with her grandmother while her father was away. Ortiz Cofer’s constant traveling exposed her to the difference in cultural life between America and back in Puerto Rico. Judith gained a passion for storytelling from the tales her grandmother would tell of