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Cultural influences on personal development
Women's roles in hispanic culture
Decline of the traditional family structure
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Recommended: Cultural influences on personal development
For this paper, I decided to interview Jonathan Delgado, who I met in my writing class last semester. During our time talking, the three main themes that we discussed were family, education, and identity, so I will be talking about those things. The first thing that we started to talk about during the interview was about college and how he had gotten here. That lead to talking about his supportive family. Last, we talked about his identity, and why he doesn’t consider himself to be ‘Chicano’. These three themes were the ones I noticed that Jonathan really enjoyed talking about and had a great stories to tell.
Literature Review
As seen in the film ‘La Mission’ (Peter Bratt, 2009), family and family expectations are very important among Chicanos. Certain things are expected from each family member and many times the expectations depend on gender. In the film, Jesse, Che’s son, was expected to be macho, to be religious, and to live his father’s lifestyle. Whether that included dressing like a ‘cholo’ or ‘pachuco’, driving the low-riders, or doing the Catholic blessings, Che assumed that Jesse was like him, and wanted him to be and act a certain way. This shows the strong significance of family in Chicano’s life. ‘Machismo’ and ‘marianismo’ are key points in this as well, determining the roles of the different genders, which is very common in Chicano families.
Additionally, as stated in the presentation about ‘Family Matters’ (02/28/2014), Catholicism in the Chicano community is huge. Religion plays a large role in a Chicano’s daily life, from blessing each other to kneeling down for prayer at their home ‘altarcitos’. Of course, not every single Chicano is Catholic, and there are some who are considered to be ‘bad Catholics’....
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...ow have a more accurate and deep understanding of what he means by not being Chicano, but Mexican. What matters isn’t really the word itself, it’s the satisfaction one personally receives from knowing that nobody else is choosing what and who you are. You get to decide who you want to be, despite of what the politically-correct word might be.
I learned that you have to be proud of who you choose to be. Take Jonathan for example. People have made fun of him for speaking Spanish and for having an accent. They make fun of the things that he can’t control, things that he didn’t choose to have or know. The sad thing is that even when you’re with your “own people”, someone wants to be better than the rest, instead of being supportive of each other. However, it’s you who makes the decision to either ignore the pessimism and instead indulge in what makes you you.
In the novel Chulito author Charles Rice-Gonzalez creates a familiar world seen through the eyes of a young, gay Latino from New York to strip the reconstructed masculinity that is inherent to the urban Latin communities' sense of machismo and expose the realities of outdated views on gender roles and sexual orientation, and the internal power struggle against the machismo aspects that entrap its members in a cycle of poverty and violence. The majority of young Latinos growing up in impoverished areas of urban society think machismo is necessary for survival and acceptance within the community. Rice-Gonzalez reveals this to be an oversimplification by the members of the community of the social dynamics that are at work behind the scenes and,
This book was published in 1981 with an immense elaboration of media hype. This is a story of a young Mexican American who felt disgusted of being pointed out as a minority and was unhappy with affirmative action programs although he had gained advantages from them. He acknowledged the gap that was created between him and his parents as the penalty immigrants ought to pay to develop and grow into American culture. And he confessed that he got bewildered to see other Hispanic teachers and students determined to preserve their ethnicity and traditions by asking for such issues to be dealt with as departments of Chicano studies and minority literature classes. A lot of critics criticized him as a defector of his heritage, but there are a few who believed him to be a sober vote in opposition to the political intemperance of the 1960s and 1970s.
The film, "Couple in the Cage", represents how indigenous people were taken around the United States like circus acts. Oboler and Flores had similar ideas about what it means to be Hispanic. The "Monroe Doctrine" proved Latinos have been seen as dependents in the United States since the beginning. Finally, Joseph and Roseberry investigated the term “culture” in their pieces. This essay will explore how the film “Couple in the Cage” illustrates concepts written by Flores, Oboler, Monroe, Joseph, and Roseberry about to Latinos in the United States. (90)
Many writers focus their works of written art on life situations. They focus on drugs, poverty, stereotypes, young adults living in a difficult world, and of course a topic that has been present for many years, male domination. Abraham Rodriguez Jr. in “The Boy Without a Flag” captures all these themes and more in his Tales of the South Bronx, that relate to the lives of many Hispanics and minority residents of the United States.
Moraga, Cherrie. “Queer Aztlan: the Reformation of Chicano Tribe,” in The Color of Privilege 1996, ed Aida Hurtado. Ann Arbor: University Michigan Press, 1996.
Latinos often use Christian and religious imagery in their writing. The strongly religious memories and values instilled upon during their upbringing are often also used to represent innocence and/or their childhood ( Najarro ). Most Latinos who were raised in the United States had parents who ardently clung to the strict religious beliefs carried with them from their mother country. Therefore as Latinos struggle to connect themselves with their culture they find the Catholic faith strongly rooted in their past.
Although our society is slowly developing a more accepting attitude toward differences, several minority groups continue to suffer from cultural oppression. In her essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” Gloria Anzaldúa explores the challenges encountered by these groups. She especially focuses on her people, the Chicanos, and describes the difficulties she faced because of her cultural background. She argues that for many years, the dominant American culture has silenced their language. By forcing them to speak English and attempting to get rid of their accents, the Americans have robbed the Chicanos of their identity. She also addresses the issue of low self-esteem that arises from this process of acculturation. Growing up in the United States,
As a traditional, collectivistic cultural group, the Latino population is believed to adhere deeply to the value of familismo. (Arditti, 2006; Calzada, 2014). Familism is an emphasis on the importance of the family unit over values of autonomy and individualism”. (Santistaben, 2012). Family is considered to be the top priority in the Latino culture. Comparatively, at times, this isn’t true of our busy, work devoted western culture. In western culture we think of our family in a nuclear sense made up of a: mom, dad, and siblings. Conversely, Hispanic culture focuses on the whole extended family including aunts, uncles, grandparent, and cousins. Their culture believes having close connections with the entire extended family benefits the development of their children. The entire family helps the child by giving them differing levels of social and emotional support. (American Home Resolutions,
Torres, Hector Avalos. 2007. Conversations with Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Writers. U.S.: University of New Mexico press, 315-324.
Woo-Sam, Anne. "Mexican Americans and the Chicano Movement." Encyclopedia of American Social Movements. Sharpe Online Reference. 2012. n. pag. Web. 12 February 2012.
Secondly, another area that is highly influenced by American society is the religion of the Mexican Americans. Ninety percent of Spanish speaking people are Roman Catholic (C...
Anzaldua grew up in the United States but spoke mostly Spanish, however, her essay discusses how the elements of language began to define her identity and culture. She was living in an English speaking environment, but was not White. She describes the difficulty of straddling the delicate changing language of Chicano Spanish. Chicano Spanish can even differ from state to state; these variations as well as and the whole Chicano language, is considered a lesser form of Spanish, which is where Anzaldua has a problem. The language a person speaks is a part...
Junot Diaz is a Dominican-American writer whose collection of short stories Drown tells the story of immigrant families in the urban community of New Jersey. His short story “Fiesta, 1980” focuses on Yunior, an adolescent boy from Dominican Republic and his relationship with his father. On the other hand, Piri Thomas was a great Latino writer from Puerto-Rico whose memoir Down These Mean Streets tells his life story as an adolescent residing in Harlem and the challenges he faces outside in the neighborhood and at home with his father. Both Diaz and Thomas in different ways explore the dynamics of father-son relationships in their work. Furthermore, both expose masculinity as a social construct.
"Status Of The Historiography Of Chicano Education: A Preliminary Analysis." History Of Education Quarterly 26.4 (1986): 523-536. America: History & Life. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.
The impact ideologies presented by the people in the story create a picture of what it means to be a Latino male. Institutions enforced the ideologies of masculine Latino culture. Family, religion, and culture uphold the standards for machismo. The intersections showed how various aspects of Latino male lives and contribute to their perceived levels of masculinity. People born into the Latino macho community need to carry on the appearance of increased