German Valdes: The Chicano Culture

Regardless of its political isolation and the dismiss of the Mexican intellectualism , Chicanos had a cultural impact in the media. The most more memorable figure was German Valdes who interpreted a charismatic Pachuco that spoke Spanglish in many of his movies. he was of great relevance since he was the first person to include a Chicano in his personages. Despite this particular attempt to incorporate the Chicano culture in the Mexican culture, there were also significant people who hated this idea. The only Nobel prize of literature of Mexico, Octavio Paz, who refused arduously to accept this minority group. In his book, the labyrinth of solitude, describes the issues related with Chicanos, in this time the term Chicano was not well-known

13. Which proved that his representation of the Chicanos was shared by all the Mexicans in that time. Octavio Paz also signaled that “Queramos o no, estos seres son mexicanos, unos de los extremos a que puede llegar el mexicano.” chicanos also are Mexicans but who were born in the other side of the border and that follow an absurd stereotype that was not widely accepted. More interesting is that he also acknowledged them as Mexicans, but because of his absurd new culture, they denied their culture of origin “Pero los pachucos no reivindican su raza ni la nacionalidad de sus antepasados.” pg 13. Not only did they deny the Mexican origin, they also incorporated some traits of American culture in his new culture, this for Octavio Paz seemed contradictory and incoherent a “tangle of contradictions” p.17. “Incapaces de asimilar una civilización que, por lo demás, los rechaza, los pachucos no han encontrado más respuesta a la hostilidad ambiente que esta exasperada afirmación de su personalidad”