Spanglish_ an American comedy of manners movie directed by James L. Brooks in 2004. The film includes 2 cultures as North American (USA) and Mexican-American (USA) cultures. The film carries an issue of multiculturalism in the United States between the White Anglo Saxon Protestant (WASP) and the Hispanic. The main conflict is about the struggle of maintaining identity. The WASP is represented by the Clasky family. Flor, the representative of the Hispanic culture, tries to keep her only daughter, Christina to stay authentic in a multicultural society. The audience will be clearer about some distinctive features like culture identities, value, cultural integration and the way Flor maintain the identities during this film. With the great soundtrack, …show more content…
To make daughter lived as a Mexican, Flor decided to move in Los Angeles, where Mexican made up more than 45% in population. Living among the Mexican community, Flor kept her daughter in safe place with Mexican culture. However, Christina was still got bad effects from others because her mother spent all her time for working. Wanting to protect and share all best thing for the daughter, Flor had to find a new job in new place for earning more money. She worked as housekeeper in Clasky family without speaking English. There was some conflict between Deborah_ mistress of the house and Flor when she and Christina moved to live with the Clasky in Malibu in the summer. Deb tried to change Christina as an American but it made Flor feel unhappy about that. Besides, the connubial life of Deb and John was in disharmony, Deb had an adulterous relationship with another man; John and Flor also felt in love with each other. In the end of the film, Flor decided to quit the job and leave far from the Clasky to finish all the …show more content…
It is association of 2 cultures, according this film we can know more about the significant features. The first feature is culture identities. According to Oxford Reference, “Cultural identity refers to one’s sense of belonging to a particular culture or ethnic group. It is formed in a process that results from membership in a particular culture.” At the first scene, Flor decided to move to America with the hope of a better life. Although it shows that she was stepping into a new culture, she herself tries to maintain culture identity. The evidence is the language she used in communicating with the Clasky, she continued speaking Spanish in America and her clothes are still skirt and sweater. She tries to help her daughter absorb Hispanic culture by keeping her daughter in Mexico as long as possible to help her learn all Hispanic culture and choosing the place that has much Hispanic community. She never got out of their community in first 6 years in
It is also interesting to mention how in a subtle way it also portrays Vergara’s character as a “gold digger” because of her marriage with an older man. The stereotypes are still present in films and shows “although substantial improvements have occurred over the decades, in many ways these groups remain defined by a limited volume and range of representations” (Tukachinsky, Mastro & Yarchi, 2017). As mentioned before, Latinos are the second largest ethnic group in the U.S., which means the diversity that exists within the group is huge; however, the stereotypes seems to be always the
She explains how Mexican and Chicano literature, music, and film is alienated; their culture is considered shameful by Americans. They are forced to internalize their pride in their culture. This conflict creates an issue in a dual culture society. They can neither identify with North American culture or with the Mexican culture.
The emotional letter that Juan left for his mother might be one of the most emotional scenes in the documentary. The pure emotions that the letter was written by Juan to her mother leaves the audience with the bonds and emotions felt between the kids and families. Juan Carlos’s father abandoned the family years ago and left to New York, consequently Juan believe it is his responsibility to provide for his family. He also wants to find his father in New York and confronts him about why he has forgotten about them. The story of Juan is not just about migration of children, but also the issue of family separation. The documentary does not dehumanize but rather bring the humane and sensitive lens to the story of Juan where the human drama that these young immigrants and their families live. Juan Carlos is not the first of Esmeralda’s sons to leave for the United states, his nine-year-old brother Francisco was smuggled into California one month earlier. Francisco now lives with Gloria, his grandmother, who paid a smuggler $3,500 to bring him to Los Angeles, California. Once Juan Carlos is in the shelter for child migrants his mother eagerly awaits him outside. After she sees him she signs a paper that says if Juan Carlos tries to travel again, he will be sent to a foster home.
Sandra Cisneros portraits Clemencia in various ways in “Never Marry a Mexican”. Clemencia is stuck in an interracial world, she wants to fit in, not only fit in but become better, become more powerful and loved. Clemencia is a very resentful woman, she is full of hatred, not only for others but also within her own self. Clemencia is a mistress of several men, but one in particular who she happens to find herself in love with, Drew. Clemencia becomes extremely obsessed with her relationship with Drew. “You think I went hobbling along with my life, whimpering and whining like some twangy country-and-western when you went back to her. But I’ve been waiting. Making the world look at you from my eyes.” (pg. 59) Clemencia’s resentment against Megan, Drew’s white wife, goes beyond the necessity of having Drew, but also involves the belief that she will never be like that “ redheaded Barbie Doll in fur coat” (pg. 64) referring to Megan due to the racial inequality she has grown to experience throughout her life.
In the opening pages of the text, Mary, nineteen, is living alone in Albuquerque. Vulnerable to love, depressed and adrift, she longs for something meaningful to take her over. Just as she is “asking the universe whether or not there was more to life than just holding down boring jobs”, she takes on the job of helping an illegal (political) refugee, José Luis who had been smuggled from El Salvador to the United States, to adjust to his new life in Albuquerque. She instantly falls in love with him and hopes to start her life over with the new aim of “taking the war out of him.”(p. 4) Providing a refuge for him, Mary, as Fellner suggests, “imagines herself to be whole and complete in the experience of love”. (2001: 72) She willingly puts José Luis as the “center” of her life (p.5) with the hope that “love would free her from her dormant condition” (Fellner 2001: ...
...a car accident, and her father is woken up. After the horrendous trip to Mexico, Maya and her father return home to find his girlfriend enraged. In an outburst, the girlfriend calls Maya’s mother a whore. Maya slaps her, which provokes Dolores, the girlfriend, to attack her. After that situation, Maya goes and lives with children in a junkyard. After living in the junkyard, she returns home to her mother. Later on after that, she gets pregnant.
...her father’s intense racism and discrimination so she hid the relationship at all costs. Connie realized that she could never marry an African American man because of her father’s racial intolerance. If she were to have a mixed child, that child would be greatly discriminated against because of hypodecent. One day, Connie’s dad heard rumors about her relationship so he drove her car to the middle of nowhere, and tore it apart. Then, he took his shotgun and went to look for Connie and her boyfriend. Connie was warned before her father found her, and she was forced to leave town for over six months. Connie’s father burned her clothes, so she had to leave town with no car, no clothes and no money at sixteen years old. Connie had lived in poverty her entire life, but when she got kicked out she learned to live with no shelter and sometimes no food at all.
In this story, “Never Marry a Mexican”, written by Sandra Cisneros, a woman named Clemencia, who is also the narrator of the story, portrays her experiences about cultural, social, sexual and economic difference between her parents and shares her negative experience resulting in forming a real-life relationship. Clemencia goes through seeing different events in her parents’ life, which turned her to be different than others. Clemencia wants to be a normal lady, but her past leads her in the reverse direction. Clemencia’s mom, American born Mexican and father from Mexico and their family structure, which totally forces Clemencia to turn into disrespectful and cruel human being.
To help me understand and analyze a different culture, I watched the film Selena. The film tells the life story of the famous singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez. Not only does it just tell personal stories from her life, it also gives insight to the Mexican-American culture. Her whole life she lived in the United States, specifically in Texas, but was Hispanic and because of that both her and her family faced more struggles than white singers on the climb to her success. Even though the film is a story about a specific person, it brought understanding into the culture in which she lived. Keeping in mind that these ideas that I drew about the Mexican-American culture is very broad and do not apply to every single person in the culture, there were very obvious differences in their culture and the one that I belong. Mexican-American culture identifies with their family rather than individualized or spiritual identities and the culture has gone through significant changes because of discrimination and the changing demographics of the United States.
Topic 1: An Analysis of the Theme of Agger’s Multiculturalism and the Concept of Feminism
Rothman, Jason, and Amy B. Rell. "A Linguistic Analysis of Spanglish: Relating Language to Identity."
Papa for example is a hardworking man and does what he must do to make ends meet. Esperanza’s family may represent the typical immigrant family; Hence, Esperanza’s parents are both hardworking, loving, supportive and very caring. Many immigrant parents are very selfless and give everything they have for their child to succeed. Esperanza is the Chicana who is fortunate enough to have this support and move ahead in life. Although she may not have the money, she has the support and Sandra Cisneros does a great job emphasizing on the importance of a community, of a family in order to
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.
I must admit that before I began taking this class I took for granted how much racism still exists in this country. I have started to put more thought in to the way the world really is, the topics discussed in class have started to catch my interest. When I first started reading the Tatum book I was mad when I read her version of the word “racism”. I thought to my self “I personally have never held down the black race, what does she mean?” As I progressed in the book I was starting to understand what she meant about the system of advantages that white people are given. I also understood this better when I read Elizabeth Munich’s list of examples of how there are advantages to being white. I couldn’t help agreeing with her argument based on what I have seen in my life so far. I have seen blacks harassed in stores and denied housing. At the time I simply felt it was too bad and forgot about it. According to Tatum I was practicing “passive racism” and I agree with her on that. I have never done anything to try and change the system and I do reap the advantages of being white whether or not I like it. I believe that reading this book has opened my eyes to how much racism still exists in this country that claims to uphold equal rights. Another argument that Tatum discusses is how everybody is prejudiced in one way or another. I also believe this is true, almost everyone I know has made a racist joke or laughed at one at least. I believe that this is because of th...
Multiculturalism is not just a concept. It is an important term for teachers to integrate into their daily classroom instruction. In many ways, people are separated into groups such as Mexicans, Blacks, and Whites. Many people see and confused Multicultural with diversity and wrongly associated with reverse racism. Multiculturalism has allowed many people to express themselves without diversity our entire country would all believe in the same thing and do the same thing. There would not be any creativity among us if there weren’t differences among each other. If we did not have the diverse blend of people and cultures, we would not grow as people and still believe in all the same things. We would be stuck in the past and never develop, be different