Comparison Paper Borderlands vs. Always Running In Gloria Anzaldúa's novel Borderlands: The New Mestiza, she uses the ancient Aztec goddess Coatlicue as a gateway towards a new consciousness and identity for herself, as a Chicana. In a world full of opposites and polarity, a one sided view of life is often what is adopted in mainstream western thinking. In the chapter "The Coatlicue State", Gloria Anzaldúa describes her childhood of feeling abnormal. To come to a new state of consciousness, she describes how she must embrace Coatlicue, the ancient Aztec mother-goddess. The first metaphor Anzaldúa uses to bring about the new consciousness of the Coatlicue state is that of the mirror. In the section "Enfrentamientos con el alma" or "Confrontations With the Soul", she calls the mirror a gateway to the underworld, as mirrors were once believed to be a door to the other side. Because the Aztec goddess transcends both the underworld and our conscious minds, Anzaldua uses the figure of Coatlicue to show how she represents the subject and the object, the I and the self. Coatlicue is the part of one's self that becomes objectified. To find Coatlicue is to stare into the mirror, and see that part of you that is she. The part of ourselves that we do not call I, but rather it. To embrace Coatlicue, our hidden and painful parts, we must look at her in our own reflections. We must find the beauty in her hideousness, and realize that the parts of ourselves that we have always considered unacceptable, contain beauty and to acknowledge it, is to become one with those parts of ourselves. The author uses the needles of a cactus, or "Nopal de castillo" as a metaphor for the feelings of defense and the walls that we put up to distance ourselves from...
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...e epilogue, as well as a useful glossary of Spanish terms he uses in the book. Rodriguez's autobiographical account although obstructed by occasional philosophical digressions, is a straightforward retrospection that is timely, authoritative and convincing. There has never been a more clear and forceful account of a gang member's life than Always Running, Luis J. Rodriguez's eloquent, impassioned, terrifyingly vivid chronicle of his youth in Los Angeles in the late 60s and early 70s. Growing up in Watts and East L.A., Rodriguez joined his first gang at age 11 and was drawn into "la vida loca" the crazy life. Gangs were "how we wove amazing out of the threads of nothing," he remembers. (Luis J. Rodriguez, Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L. A., 1994.) Rodriguez's inspirational story should be read by anyone who cares about the future of children in America.
The book emphasizes the idea of how difficult it is to leave the gang lifestyle. There are frequent cases of relapse by individuals in the book, who were once out to again return to gangs. This case is brought by what gangs represent to this in the book and what leaving entails them to give up. The definition of gangs presented to the class was, three or more members, share name, color, or affiliation, or must exist in a geopolitical context. To members associated with gangs, this definition can include your family members, neighborhood, everyone that they associate with. Take for example Ronnie from Jumped in by Jorja Leap it states,” Ronny’s role models are gangbangers. His family is a hood. His mentors are older homies in county jail.”(102). Ronnie and other gang members like him do not
"American Me" is a fictional film having a factual basis, starring and directed by Edward James Olmos. Released to the national theater circuit in 1992, "American Me" depicts the life of Rodolfo Cadena, a ranking Carnal (gang member) in the prison gang La Eme, also known as the Mexican Mafia. To therapeutically approach the salience and pervasiveness of gang membership, including its allure and reinforcers, would be a challenging task for any human service practitioner involving accuracy of assessment and effectiveness of treatment. However, endeavoring to find and implement such therapeutic methods and procedures for positive outcomes, while preserving Latino cultural identity and integrity, is precisely the purpose of this paper.
Over the past 60 years there has been a recent phenomenon in the development and rise of gangs and gang violence. This is exceptionally apparent in South Central Los Angeles where the Bloods and the Crips have taken control of the social structure and created a new type of counter culture. Poverty in this area is an enormous problem caused by a shear lack of jobs; but just because there is a lack of jobs doesn’t mean that there will be a lack of bills to pay, so sometimes selling drugs in order to keep a roof over your head seems like the most logical option. Crime often times flourishes in these regions because the inconvenient truth is; crime pays. Senator Tom Hayden stated “It’s been defined as a crime problem and a gang problem but it’s really an issue of no work and dysfunctional schools.” this statement is in fact true, but with an exception it is a more broad issue than just involving school, and lack of jobs but goes beyond into social structure as a whole and more specifically the judicial system, this can all be supported by three sociologists Chambliss, Anderson, and Durkheim.
In the book Luis thinks that by joining gangs he will be empowering others.The author exposes the readers to gang violence, rape, drugs, and trouble with the police.
The Life of Two Different Worlds In “Into the Beautiful North,” Luis Alberto Urrea tells a well-known story of life for thousands of Mexican people who seek a better future. He presents his novel through the experiences of the lives of his main characters that have different personalities but share a common goal. Through the main characters we are presented with different situations and problems that the characters encounter during their journey from Mexico to the United States. Urrea’s main theme in this novel is the border that separates both the U.S. and Mexico, and the difficulties that people face in the journey to cross.
Some kids have no other choice but to join the gangs at an early age. Lack of parent supervision has been shown to be linked with both boys and girls joining a gang. Even though most have men to prove they are the violent ones, not every gang member is shown to be violent. While the rest of Luis’s gang members treat women with disrespect, Luis seems to respect everyone no matter what gender they are. Being told his own mom the pain she had to go through influenced his ways of viewing and treating
The book "Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys" is written by Victor M. Rios, who was a former gang member in his hometown and later turned his life around. He went to Berkeley and earned a doctorate in sociology. This book explores how youth of color are punished and criminalized by authorities even under the situation where there is no crimes committed and how it can cause a harmful consequence for the young man and their community in Oakland, California. The goal is to show the consequences of social control on the lives of young people of color and try to remind the authorities. This is important Since society plays a crucial part in shaping the lives of people. And the authorities have biases towards them and mistreat
This book was about a street gang called the Mighty Vice Lords. They were the second largest gang in Chicago with about 30,000 members. The Vice Lords started in the Illinois Training center (Juvenile Correctional Facility) for boys in St. Charles Illinois during 1958 and was led by Edward “Pepalo” Perry and Alfonso Alfred. This group was known to be brutal and violent. It discussed how a violent gang can become a community organization and change the way things were done for the betterment of the community. This information is important because it showed that gangs can become a positive force.
3. Maclure, Richard, and Melvin Sotelo. 2004. "Youth Gangs in Nicaragua: Gang Membership as Structured Individualization." Journal of Youth Studies 7:417-432.
Corky Gonzalez’s I am Joaquin was a powerful rallying cry against the socioeconomic conditions, especially in education. “Street hop” artists use music to express their “loco” identity discussed in “Barrio Locos: Street Hop and Amerikan Identity” by Pancho McFarland. Often politically charged, this rap is much like spoken word poetry. Music has often been associated with identity and history in the Latino culture like in corridos. In the modern setting, these artists continue to resist and tell their own stories. “Barrio loco” is quite a political term as it refers to the resistant class that has “the right to rebel” because of societal conditions. The economic and social construct are important for the street artists that choose to rebel as they are against the capitalist and colonizing empire, and they are not a part of other artists who have become a part of corporate America and are sell-outs (120-121). These sell-outs could be considered the incorporated into America, while the “barrio locos” resist. The street artists are concerned with assimilation and the preservation of their culture. There are generation anxieties about assimilation; there has been a discourse on this since the term “barriology” was used in the 1960s. There are questions Chicano youths face about if they are Chicano enough and Thief Sicario discusses the barriology test in his song “La Prueba” (123). The
Slick showed Rios the “hotspots” where life shapes these youth environments. The structure, as well as the constraints, that shape these young boys life in the neighborhood, slick points out a corner where one of his best friends got shot by a drive-by shooting. The lifestyle of these young boys is tragic.
Family is one of those words that have a significant meaning to various individuals. Family may be viewed one way to an individual and another way to someone else. Family consists of those who have played a particular role in one’s life, whether it is positive or negative. In this paper, I will assess Reymundo’s family both nuclear and extended and speak of how his family has become significant in his life and how they have played a role in his decisions. I will also speak of my personal reactions to the story as well as address ways that as a social worker I could work to impact the gang problems in Orlando.
No country is devoid of violence, but it is especially prevalent in Latin America. The Organization of American States labeled violence in Latin America as an “epidemic, a plague that kills more people than AIDS or any other known epidemic” (Carroll). Brazil and Colombia are two countries that have been shaped by gang violence; both are gripped by some of the largest, most violent, and institutionalized gangs in the world. In Donna Goldstein’s ethnography of life in a Brazilian shantytown, Laughter Out of Place, the power and prevalence of gang violence is apparent. In Colombia, gangs flourish nationwide and have direct consequences on the country’s economic, political, and social structure. Despite existing in entirely different countries, and though they are unlike in some regards, gangs in Brazil and Colombia, as a whole, share similarities in their power, function, and effect on the lives of the poor.
The contrast between the Mexican world versus the Anglo world has led Anzaldua to a new form of self and consciousness in which she calls the “New Mestiza” (one that recognizes and understands her duality of race). Anzaldua lives in a constant place of duality where she is on the opposite end of a border that is home to those that are considered “the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel and the mulato” (25). It is the inevitable and grueling clash of two very distinct cultures that produces the fear of the “unknown”; ultimately resulting in alienation and social hierarchy. Anzaldua, as an undocumented woman, is at the bottom of the hierarchy. Not only is she a woman that is openly queer, she is also carrying the burden of being “undocumented”. Women of the borderlands are forced to carry two degrading labels: their gender that makes them seem nothing more than a body and their “legal” status in this world. Many of these women only have two options due to their lack of English speaking abilities: either leave their homeland – or submit themselves to the constant objectification and oppression. According to Anzaldua, Mestizo culture was created by men because many of its traditions encourage women to become “subservient to males” (39). Although Coatlicue is a powerful Aztec figure, in a male-dominated society, she was still seen
...Halevi-Wise, Yael (1997). Story-telling in Laura Esquivel's Como Agua Para Chocolate. The Other Mirror: Women’s Narrative in Mexico, 1980-1995. Ed. Kristine Ibsen. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997. 123-131.