Mexican-Americans in United States and Politics

Mexican-Americans in United States and Politics

"We need a Mexican but it’s more important that he be American"

This quote, taken from the play Los Vendidos by Luis Valdez, well illustrates the ambivalence and hypocrisy Anglos have projected towards Mexicans for the last two centuries. Specifically, this quote refers to the United States government needing a "brown face" in the crowd at one of their meetings to showcase their supposed support and inclusion of Mexican-Americans in the U.S. However, it is more important that the "brown face" act American, or embody Anglo characteristics deemed to be more reputable and civilized. Valdez’s play showcases an important theme in Mexican-American history and still today which, as the title implies, is that Mexicans and Mexican Americans have been forced to sell, or disregard their culture, language, and ideals for Anglocized ones in order to become citizens of the United States. Moreoever, their presence in history has been romanticized or has gone unnoticed by American citizens. By examining the characters and dialogue in Valdez’s work Los Vendidos, along with complementary written and oral historical accounts, I will first describe the stereotypes and racism Mexican-Americans have endured both historically and presently. Secondly, I will detail how the Chicano’s struggle for equal rights in education, workforce, and politics, has been thwarted by the Anglo Americans’ desire to "mold" or "control" Chicano’s destiny in the United States and maintain them as second-class citizens. Finally, I will argue that even those of Mexican descent that have attempted to assimilate themselves into American culture still face an insurmountable task due to the racism that clouds the cultural len...

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...e in America have tried to shape them into something different. One of the last phrases uttered in Valdez’s play is a poignant display of this fact:

"We are not robots or machines. God help us to be men and women."

It should come as no surprise then that the whitest, most Anglocized Mexican-American model was, in fact, a robot.

Works Cited:

Martinez, Oscar J. U.S.-Mexico Borderlands: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1996 (pp. 139-141).

Oboler, Suzanne (1995). "So far from God, so close to the United States": The Roots of Hispanic Homogenization. In M. Romero, P. Hondagneu-Sotelo, & V. Ortiz (Eds.) Challenging Fronteras: Structuring the Latina and Latino Lives in the U.S. New York: Routledge, 1997.

Vargas, Zaragosa (Ed.) Major Problems in Mexican-American History. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999.