Analysis of Racism in the Film Novia que te vea
Novia que te vea is about two Jewish girls named Oshinica (Oshi) and Rifke that live in Mexico. The movie paints a picture of the Jewish community in the city of Mexico as it tells the story of the struggle of these two girls to find their identities.
The movie starts out with Oshinica (Oshi) and her Sephardic conservative family coming to Mexico from Turkey. Even from the moment they step off the ship, the feeling of not belonging is very obvious. They mainly speak Ladino and are unable to find where they are going in this new, strange place.
When Oshi grows up to be about 17 or 18, she meets Rifke who introduces her to a Zionist Socialist youth movement. As Rifke, Oshi and the other people of the group sit around talking, they talk a great deal about the question of returning to Israel. They feel torn because they are Mexican citizens, but at the same time they are Jewish and Israel is their homeland.
Throughout the entire movie, this torn feeling between their Mexican identity and their Jewish identity is the central theme. As a little girl, Oshi visits a catholic church where she pretends to be catholic and says to herself, "I hope they can't tell I'm a Jew." Similarly, Rifke, as a little girl, demands a Christmas tree and nativity set like all the other kids have.
In addition to the torn feelings they have, they have to deal with the way others in the community treat them. As a little girl, the other kids point at Rifke and chant "Jew, Jew." At an older age, Rifke and Oshi pass by an Easter play. Rifke comments, "This is the reason they don't like us. They portray us to be murderers. But they've never even met me." Throughout the movie, you see the girls' desperate desire to be accepted.
In addition to the harsh feelings shown toward the Jews by the non-Jewish community, this film shows the cold relationship between the different groups of Jews.
Throughout Anzia Yezierska’s novel “Bread Givers,” the character Sara Smolinsky goes through an elliptical journey from a rebellious youth appalled by the individual limitations of her cultural heritage to her gradual acceptance of her inability to escape her ancestry. At first rejecting her Orthodox Eastern European Jewish culture, Sara views the world in terms of a sole American identity. As ...
Anzia uses the narrator Sarah, to tell the story of family who newly moved to America and is living in New York City. From Sarah’s narration, we can see the idea that some first-generation immigrants had a resistance to assimilating to American culture, whereas their children quickly became Americanized. Sarah describes her father Reb Smolinsky as the patriarch of the family, who is often accused of keeping his children only for their wages. By her father relying on his daughters to bring in money for the family, he can continue to practice Torah like he did in the old country. We can further see this resistance to assimilate by Sarah’s father when he says “Sell my religion for money? Become a false prophet to the Americanized Jews! No. My religion is not for sale” (111,cite). By Sarah’s father refusing to get a job and contributing to his families American Dream, it shows that he has no desire to assimilate to new American ideals. Reb Smolinsky becomes a representation of a generation that is so deeply rooted in the past and has no intention to move forward. Sarah and her sisters are the newer generation and their view of assimilation is clearly different. Sarah recognizes that her father is stubborn and his difference in ideas of how life is supposed to be when she states that “he was the old world. I was the New” (cite). Unlike her father, her sisters work to further themselves and fulfill the American Dream. Sarah engages in hard work and doesn’t want to beg on the street for food, instead she has the desire “to go into business like a person” and proves this when she buys herring to resell on the street and despite her little knowledge of business she ends up earning an unexpected twenty-five cents profit (21
“Der exige Jude”: Quellenkritische Analyse eines antisemititschen Propagandaf ilms, Institute Fur Wissenschaftlichen Film, Gottingen, 1995,p.134
Denial is another theme in this film which helped to save the Jewish race. Even as they are forced into the ghetto and later into labor camps they are in denial of their real situation. When they are in the ghetto they are optimistic and believe that the bad times will pass, and even when killing surrounds them they won’t let themselves believe the worst.
Danny came from a family where his mom is white and his dad is Mexican. He was made fun of at school for being white by the Mexican kids and made fun of for being Mexican by the white kids. He tried out for the baseball team, and they made fun of him for not making it because he was Mexican. He didn’t fit into any group. So that summer he went to stay with his aunt, uncle, and his cousin Sofia, in National City, California. He was in a place where everyone was Mexican. Even though he was Mexican he still didn’t fit in because he was also half white. He didn’t know any Spanish like the rest of his friends and family did in National City. That made him feel left out when they would speak in Spanish. They still accepted him though.
The movie follows Moncho, a child growing up in 1936 in the northern Spanish region of Galicia. The film shows the development in his childhood, which changes abruptly due to the unstable situation of the Spanish Civil War. Moncho is afraid of going to school because he has heard that the teachers hit children. He comes to find out that his teacher, Don Gregorio
The struggle to find a place inside an un-welcoming America has forced the Latino to recreate one. The Latino feels out of place, torn from the womb inside of America's reality because she would rather use it than know it (Paz 226-227). In response, the Mexican women planted the seeds of home inside the corral*. These tended and potted plants became her burrow of solace and place of acceptance. In the comfort of the suns slices and underneath the orange scents, the women were free. Still the questions pounded in the rhythm of street side whispers. The outside stare thundered in pulses, you are different it said. Instead of listening she tried to instill within her children the pride of language, song, and culture. Her roots weave soul into the stubborn soil and strength grew with each blossom of the fig tree (Goldsmith).
The first people introduced are a couple, Agustin and Marcelo, that has been well established in Chicago, Illinois. Marcelo explained his struggle of being both gay and staying catholic because as a kid he prayed to god for a miracle to change him to be “normal”. Marcelo has accepted himself and continues to practice the religion even though Catholicism prohibits being gay. Another man named David described being teased in his school career for kissing another boy in the third grade because of his sexuality. He moved to New York City to get away from his childhood and to finally be happy in a place where he isn’t judged. This homophobia from young kids instigates violence in school that is learned from parents and from the community of others. The last person introduced in the film was a man who transitioned to be a woman that was rejected by her family and had to move out of her home for coming home with hair extensions. This form of violence caused Gabriela to abuse drugs and alcohol to deal with the pain of rejection. These three examples show how people have overcome the cultural normality, but have experienced all sorts of different
Venezuela which capital is Caracas. There current President is Nicolás Maduro elected in 2013. Today Venezuela population is about 30,933,000. The minority group I was interested in is Afro Venezuelan, which has a population of about 3,046,000. (wikipedia)
There are three identities that all people have but depending on the culture, they chose one dimension to emphasize and downplay the other two. In the Mexican-American culture, they tend to value the family identity the most. Martin and Nakayama (2013) define familial identity as, “The sense of self as always connected to family and others” (p. 172). This was shown in the film Selena many times. The family was the most important aspect of their lives and that is the way they wanted it. Every decision that was made revolved around the family and how it would affect it. A specific example that illustrates this from the movie is when Selena married her guitarist, Chris. Her father had told her s...
Hester Street is a 1975 film about a Russian Jew family coming to America during the third wave of the migration era to the United States. The main characters are Jake, Joey (Yossele), Gitl, Bernstein, Mami, and Mrs. Kavarsky. Hester Street is a great example of how to explain migration. In this paper, I will be talking about moving from Russia to America, the opening scene, getting to America, and finally being an American.
The linguistic and cultural clashes that children encounter, and how they negotiate between their ethnic and American “mainstream” cultures, and how these clashes and problems influence their relationship with their parents and their ethnic identities as a whole and how they were dealt with differently as we look at two stories dealing with two girls who are both coming of age in different society from where they originally came from. Jairy’s Jargon a story written by Carmen-Gloria Ballista, is a story that encounters the life of a young girl coming of age in Puerto Rico, except she’s originally from New York. Milly Cepeda’s story, Mari y Lissy, is a story about twin sisters who differ in personality and are often at odds with each other, but are both learning to live in a city that is very different from where they came from.
It has been centuries since slavery ended across Latin America yet racial issues continue to plague these countries. Since manumission, the concept of race has evolved through the meaning societies have given it. Countries have used and continue to use the idea of race as a way to stratify their societies through racial hierarchies. Each country has taken on its own definition of race in terms of blackness, whiteness, and everything in between. These types of labels perpetuate racism and subject People of Color to discrimination, marginalization, and inequalities across society. It is crucial to identify the origins of race and racism, how the term has evolved, and the role race plays in societies across the Latin American countries, especially
The film is concentrated on Mexican-American nationalism and immigration. In the beginning of the film, the main character sees himself more of an American rather than Mexican. He speaks fluently in English but does not know how to speak or comprehend proper Spanish. This is an example of involuntary language loss. Rudy, the main character, who was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, does not see himself as a white man but does not see himself as a pure Mexican either and is stuck in the in-betweens of both ‘Mexican’ and ‘American’ culture. Because of this, he is not of specific origin or descent but rather a Chicano. A mix between both cultures instead of just one.
Another way in which this play explores the social and political history of the Mexican-American is through the analysis of the set. For instance, in the window "Honest Sanchos Used Mexicans" indicates that the stereotypical Mexicans "sold" in the store are accurate representations of all Mexicans.