The central idea of being persecuted until assimilation occurs is emphasized through the text. In the essay “I, Too, Sing America” it states, “For the first time in my life I experienced prejudice and playground cruelty.” Alvarez is depressed with her experiences, and was…
Whether it is fear of deportation or of speaking up, undocumented individuals are always dominated and limited to what they can say or do. Therefore, “Transborder Lives” experiences can be evaluated through the lenses of internal colonialism. With the recurring cycle of the oppressed and the oppressor, the concept of internal colonialism becomes present. The dominant society has and still creates political and economic inequalities to exploit minority groups. Stephen provides the Bracero Program as an example, which was designed to recruit Mexican laborer to substitute for those who left the farm labor industry to serve in the U.S. armed forces. The program played an important role in the arrival of the Mixtecs and Zapotecs in California and Oregon, since their migration decision was a result of labor recruitment. Just like all those indigenous people were recruited, my grandfather, Jose Regalado Yepez also formed part of the Bracero program. He was recruited at a young age, but the desire for a better life and the need to go back and be an impact for those he left behind was what guided him. However, accompanying the Bracero Program was also Operation Wetback, a program that focused on deporting and preventing undocumented people from entering the U.S. Similarly, the poem I am Joaquin by Rodolfo Gonzales captures the unity and pride of Indo-Mexican culture, along with the struggles against racial prejudice and social injustice they experienced. The poem states “Lost in a world of confusion, caught up in the whirl of a gringo society, confused by the rules, scorned by attitudes, suppressed by manipulation, and destroyed by modern society”. With their policies once again we can see the U.S. dominance and the lack of consistency, where the U.S. approves immigrants for cheap labor, but discards them when they are no longer…
Race Migrations: Latinos and the Cultural Transformation of Race is a novel written by Wendy Roth, explaining how immigration from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic to the United States has impacted the changing cultural conceptions of race. In her study of immigration, she explores the societies of those who chose either to leave or remain in their home countries. The results from this study allowed her to understand and explain how migrants adopt an American idea about race without abandoning their earlier ideas of race. In other words, Roth explains how racial schemas are developed and transferred across borders, creating the possibility for schemas to be learned without an individual leaving his/her home country. Also, she uses this study to answer how Hispanics/Latinos integrate into the United States and where they fit into its racial structure. Overall, Roth’s study shows how racial classification and stratification are ideas…
"Los Chicanos" ethnic identity is described as a mix between two backgrounds: Spanish of the Mexicans and on the sounds of the the Anglos' incessant. This is similar to DuBois concept of Blackness because Anzaldua was pressured into shedding her cultural values during the migration to the states. The similarity between the two can be understood with the contending images of blackness–those images produced by a racist white American culture, and those images maintained by African American individuals, within African American communities. Both are being forced by the whites to alter themselves to fit the “mold” that they want them to maintain. Anzaldua connects language to race because she says that she is a woman with many cultural backgrounds…
Tuesdays/Thursdays, 9:40-11:00 a.m. Ernest Everett Just [Biology Building] Auditorium2 Greg Carr, Ph.D., JD, Associate Professor3 Office: Founder’s Library, Room 3194 [202.806.7243 (direct office); gcarr@howard.edu; Twitter: @AfricanaCarr5 Office Hours: Tuesdays, 5-7 p.m.; Thursdays, 5-7 p.m.; Also by Appointment…
Pérez, Emma. The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas Into History. Bloomington, IN: U of Indiana P, 1999.…
Summon a vision of yourself in a crowded setting, surrounded by white men, women, children and seniors. With that image carved, draw yourself as a young African American in the 1960s, despised by the white man. Though you stick out like a sore thumb, eyes glance past you, blinded in your midst. An ‘outcast’ has now become your terminal label- segregated, judged, despised. Does this story sound familiar? Yes, it does, as millions of books in the 21st century alone, have exhibited these themes. While eloquently written, Melba Patillo Beals unoriginality in the subject of hardships in African American lives in the time of severe oppression makes this story a tale told too often, which should not be exposed to a classroom of easily distracted teenagers.…
1970’s race relations were strenuous at best, and many people in the Chicano movement felt discouraged by their minority status. Organizing for workers’ rights, educational rights, and brown rights were at the forefront of Chicano activists struggles. Yet women in the movement felt that their voices were not being heard by the white feminists or the men in their own communities. Chicano’s were creating a sense of nationalism that mirror Eurocentric and colonial gender roles in their own culture and “Chicana feminism emerged not only from the gender contradictions of the movement…but also from how gendered movement discourses, based on idealized nationalist recovery of cultural ‘tradition,’ did not resonate with many Chicanas’ lived experiences” (Blackwell, 47). Chicana’s felt the need to create their own spaces and spend time reflecting on their own experiences.…
Claudia Rankine highlights social injustices that occur in the daily lives of people of color in her book “Citizen”. She put the wrong doings, prejudices and stereotypical situations against people of color into a collective story. It is troubling that these accounts occurred. These sort instances pinches something inside of you. A sense of irritation builds up. It puts into perspective that even in modern times such acts…
In his article, “What Happened to Post-Racial America?” Roger Simon not only questions America being post-racial as a country, but he actually questions if America was ever a country free from racism and racial discrimination. First, Simon informs the reader of a cover on the New Yorker which was printed the summer before Obama became president. Although the cover seemingly laughed off outrageous views that some people supposedly felt about Obama, Simon addresses the fact that “those obvious distortions” on the cover are now seriously talked and debated about today in American media. Simon also mentions that during a trip to Turkey, President Obama stated, “our society has continued to improve; that racial discrimination has been reduced”. Simon informs the reader that some Americans claim President Obama is an alien while others claim he is racist against whites. Simon also mentions the fact that although President Obama did obviously win the presidential election, it was because he had enough white votes when counted with the minority votes to win. In other words, the majority of the white voters did not vote for President Obama. In the end, Simon concludes that America is getting closer to being post-racial, but there are still “mountains yet to climb.”…
In the beginning Locke tells us about “the tide of Negro migration”. During this time in a movement known as the Great Migration, thousand of African Americans also known as Negros left their homes in the South and moved North toward the beach line of big cities in search of employment and a new beginning. They left the South because of racial violence such as the Ku Klux Klan and economic discrimination not able to obtain work. Their migration was an expression of their changing attitudes toward themselves as Locke said best From The New Negro, and has been described as "something like a spiritual emancipation." Many African Americans moved to Harlem, a neighborhood located in Manhattan. Back in the day Harlem became the world’s largest black community; also home to a diverse mix of cultures. Having extraordinary outbreak of inspired movement revealed their unique culture and encouraged them to discover their heritage; and becoming "the New Negro,” Also known as “New Negro Movement,” it was later named the Harlem Renaissance.…
His literate culture is with many different talents: colloquial speech poems praising peasant life in Jamaica, confrontational poems lectured to American white-authority, candid stories of African-American life in America and Jamaica, and, lastly, deep-thinking considerations on the notion of “double consciousness,” which was the foundation of the African-American’s attempts to endure in a racist society. The writer’s literatures depict his disdain for racism and bias, which makes its supporters repugnant and desolate. In seeing the importance of the African-American’s for mankind as a unit, McKay is at once protesting as an African-American and expressing a shout for the race of mankind as a member of that race which means he feels for the African-American community so much that he is writing to show the world that there is no difference between a white man nor a black man and that we are all human beings that deserve to be equal. His empathy for African-Americans was the foundation that made all of this…
It was a cold and rainy Wednesday when I walked into the Costo Hall building. Right when I walked inside the door, I picked up the scent of fresh coffee and doughnuts which were open to anyone who craved them. I was greeted with smiles and instantly felt a connection to the environment within. It was rather busy with students, but no one seemed to be bothered by my presence; instead they smiled and continued with their duties. I admired the beautiful, vivid hand paintings on the walls which were similar to the style used on the streets of Mexico. While standing in that room I reminisced on the time I was 7 years old and visited my parents home town in Guadalajara, Mexico for the first time. During this trip I examined these types of hand paintings and thought they were very beautiful. Paintings of Aztec tribes or the Virgin Mary done with vivid colors gave life to the whole city. Snapping back to reality I examined the enormous painting which depicted a man and woman who were being followed by others with their right hands raised high in…
In this Chapter, the author introduces his backstory and the way people react around him despite the fact that he is a Harvard professor. Many of the residents in his building get nervous because he is black when he rides the elevator with them. However, despite the fact that he is discriminated against when he is out of his suits, he states that he cannot blame them for being nervous around him. Due to the criminal and violent history that African Americans have today, as well as the media portrayal of African Americans, many people get a pre conceived racist notion of how all black males are. Wilson thoroughly explains that because of the changing society, racial inequality has continued. “In the last several decades, almost all of the improvements in…
Cooke, Michael G. Afro-American Literature in the Twentieth Century: The Achievement of Intimacy. Cumberland, RI: Yale University Press, 1984…