Through impeccably examining the historical events that transpired through out the period of post-war global transformation amidst the backdrop of a looming Cold War that spanned the four corners and thus became localized in Guatemala with the culmination of the 1954 overthrow,…
Proceeding the 335 pages that make up Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is an excerpt from a poem by Derek Walcott entitled “The Schooner Fight” that ends on the line “either I’m nobody, or I’m a nation.” Diaz’s novel follows the character of Oscar, as well as the entire Leon-Cabral family, and their relation to diaspora from the Dominican Republic. Through the eyes of narrator Yunior, readers come to understand the complications of preserving one’s own national-identity within a foreign population. The character’s within the novel, much like the speaker of Walcott’s poem, feel the immense responsibility of representing their entire nation as singular individuals.…
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…
Berry addresses the affects experienced in our country by the people who have emigrated to the U.S. from Cuba. The breakup of families. A human touch is put on the outcomes of the invasion.…
In I, Rigoberta Menchú, Menchú, an Indian woman from Guatemala, explains the repression of Indians in Guatemala and the subsequent formation of a resistance movement. One of the most memorable parts of the book is her description of the Indian peasants’ 1980 occupation of the Spanish Embassy, in which at least 36 government officials and peasants, including her father, died. In her account, she helps the readers to understand the event through the perspective of the affected Guatemalan population. Though her depiction of this event is likely accurate, it is completely different than the portrayal of the event in The New York Times. Differences between the descriptions of the participants, purpose, and unfolding of events in these two accounts…
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is not a happy book. The Author, Junot Diaz, does a great job fooling the reader into believing the story is about the De Leon family, specifically Oscar who is an over weight nerd trying to find the love of his life, but due to a family “fuku” or curse Oscar is having a lot of trouble doing so. Instead, the story actually portrays the dark history of the Dominican Republic under the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. Upon reading the stories of Oscar’s relatives the reader feels a powerful message of fear and oppression due to the actions of the Trujillo regime. Even after the demise of Trujillo, people were so accustomed to the lifestyle they had to live during his regime, that Trujillo’s practices and dictator concepts still existed and is portrayed by Oscars run in with the captain after his relationship with Ybon.…
In the Early 1980’s political injustice and illegal immigration were big problems in America. These topics were also issues in the literary works The Bean Trees by Barbra Kingsolver and “El Salvador” by Noel Paul Stookey. Both works make many points of the wrong doings of the government and the hardships of Immigrants.…
This document was titled “Nuestra Lucha Permanente por Dignidad, Independencia y Sobernía” (Our Permanent Struggle for Dignity, Independence, and Sovereignty). During September 1999, RSCC planned to show the three-part documentary La Batalla de Chile which captures the political unrest leading up to the violent counter-revolution against Chile’s peaceful socialist revolution. This film was intended to educate viewers on Chilean history and the RSCC planned to show it in three parts throughout the month. In mid-September, La Raza scheduled a presentation on “Human Rights in Latin America: An Analysis of Chilean Dictator Augusto Pinochet’s Case” to be presented by Professor Kathryn Sikkink. Sikkink’s presentation analyzed how the “on-going” case surrounding the Chilean dictator would influence human rights claims in international law. The cultural center also held multiple panel discussions throughout the month of September. The first, on September 13, 1999, was on the topic of “Social Conditions of Chican@/Latin@ Workers in the Americas” and was led by two professors who had conducted extensive research on the topic. Their discussion intended to provide insight into the multiple social costs of contemporary globalization needs. The second panel discussion took place on September 15 and analyzed contemporary…
“Our America” by Jose Marti expresses the Creole sentiment against tyranny; it tells that Latin America is a mixture of different ethnicities and races. They are a good race that respects and admires the superior intelligence, but this superior intelligence takes advantage of the admiration by damaging and ignoring their pure ideals, and their pride of belonging to a beautiful continent. Jose Marti puts an emphasis that Latin America has to wake up and fight for their liberation from oppression.…
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz unmasks the effects of politics, diaspora, and gender in the development of the hyphenated Dominican-American culture. Trujillo’s regime reveals the impact of militarism and dictatorship on a culture and people. Díaz represents how the violent and corrupt nature of the Trujillato shapes gender stereotypes and sexuality and the portrayal of Oscar illustrates the discriminations against hetero-normative masculinities. Díaz also represents the role of Dominican diaspora and worries migrant characters encounter when moving from their homeland in pursuit of the American dream. However, Díaz exhibits the inevitable failure migrants face when attempting to completely rid themselves of their cultural identities, admitting, “Santo Domingo will always be there. It was in the beginning and it will be there at the end,” (210).…
El Norte, a 1983 film directed by Gregory Nava, depicts the life of two indigenous teenagers who flee their native country, Guatemala, in search for a better life in America. The reason for fleeing is due to the ethnic and political oppression of the Guatemalan Civil War. The film builds up a strong connection shared between Enrique and Rosa, one of genuine feeling and fierce emotion. This connection is foregrounded by the exaggerated style and is often compared to adulterated relations among Hispanics. Such a differentiation is proposed to underline the strain on the social connection created by the financial aspects of migration. In both Enrique’s and Rosa’s hopes of pursuing the “American Dream”, their fantasies of a better life are both…
In the course of their travel, Ernesto and Alberto discover the reality of their country filled with suffering, injustice and oppression affecting the lower classes of the social hierarchy. The journey allows the two protagonists to face self-discovery and come to terms with the class distinctions which are prevalent in the Latin-American society. Salles explores the concept of self-discoveryThe time spent at San Pablo, a leper colony in Peru served the purpose of further developing the self-discovery within the characters. In the leper colony, a river physically and metaphorically represents the social inequalities and differences which separate the classes of the social hierarchy that is, the staff living on the north side of the river, separated from the lepers living…
The Dominican Republic was ruled by one of the most ruthless dictators, Rafael Trujillo. Julia Alvarez’s father was involved in the underground movement to overthrow the country’s dictator, which was uncovered and forced the family to flee the country four months before the founders of that underground, the Mirabal sisters, were brutally murdered by the dictatorship. Determined to show her adult independence from her family, Yolanda returned to the Dominican Republic. Aware of the region’s fluctuating political climate, she must decide whom to trust and whom to fear. Longing for connection with one’s heritage can cause them to tell their story about experiences and challenges they faced.…
In anthropological discussions it has been said that cultures are never separate, pure objects, but rather are shaped and interact with the forces around them. Latin America is more than evincive of this, but also serves as a warning, with the violence caused by the conquistadors embodied in the construction and language, and the eternal aftermath reverberating in the collective memory of society (Shelton, 2007).…
Unfortunately, this poem was written in the wake of a gruesome civil war in El Salvador. Some even describe it as “one of the bloodiest political contests in Latin America’s recent history...that cost near 80,000 lives” (Sprenkels…