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lecture notes |
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Distance between Us, second meeting
paper copies of midterm2 exams
copies of Baca poem
review Mexican American literature
minority or immigrant? resist or assimilate? (or negatively assimilate?) (detailed objective 4)
on the inside or outside?
10 Indian peon meets newly arrived Spanish bishop
Mary becomes symbol of New World Catholicism
1 esteem v. jealousy
military companies, adventurers
caught in middle, dark intrigues, jealousy [mestizo, Hispanic / Latino]
3 Texan war for independence,
many noble hearts
also many bad men
[frontier as stateless society, no protections, only strong and week, with hopes that strong are good]
4 first city of Texas . . . also the receptacle of the scum of society
my countrymen ran to me for protection against the assaults or exactions [demands for payment] of those adventurers
Were not the victims my own countrymen, friends and associates?
foreigners x countrymen
22 my services paid by persecutions
immigrant . . . assimilation, joining dominant culture (sooner or later)
minority . . . isolation, resistance
Discussion Questions: Continue questions from 19 March
1. Traditional / dysfunctional family associated with minority / socioeconomic behaviors): Since nearly everyone has some sentimental feeling for traditional families, how do we discuss the fact that traditional families often limit individual achievement in modern America, which emphasizes individualism and separation from past traditions to embrace the new?
163 Broken
families > back together
170 school = strangers x Iguala [trad / mod]
170 father drinking
205 Papi: no boyfriends
Mago: U.S., not Mexico
206 Barbie &
Ken sex
207 Elida
run off with boy from neighborhood
x-babies, useless as woman > Elida to
U.S., neighbors stop talking (shame)
207 broken relations with children
Immigration took a toll on us all
226 Used Betty to
hurt each other
234 Papi x-cholos (gang members)
Gang
family, father takes rap for son, another on drugs [minority]
267 scam - men
relation with father >
other men
267 Axel from Guatemala
273 Carlos marries, drops out, son, divorces
280 Uncle Gary > El Otro Lado?: “poor but together”
But
something good: future
301 father having an affair
301 Betty into gangs
302
Papi arrested
302 Betty chola > frightened teenage girl (human)
314
How could I leave now . . .
Diana: out of comfort zone . . . difficult to
leave families
317 UCSC: nuclear family + grandparents
1a. similarly sensitive issue: "unprotected sex" and early child-bearing. Compare "Red Families v. Blue Families."
240 completed ESL, become
senorita, body bled [poet]
247 never been kissed [adolescence]
261 Officially become a little woman in eyes of God
285 virgin at marriage (traditional; “red family”)
289 Carlos's wife and Mago expecting
298 unprotected sex
298 Papi:
child rearing cf. oxen
1b. Why are women more equal—at least legally or potentially—in the USA than in more traditional societies from which many immigrants and minorities arrive? Many potential answers, but what cultural attractions or risks to equality?
149 bad things come to women who don’t know their
place
149 Mila
looked furiously at my grandmother fnf
149 It’s different for women in the
U.S. . . . not treated like servants [traditional / modern]
187 x-typical Mexican woman
304 Diana: my
home your home
Diana no family in LA, forged her way alone
I didn't know
then . . . resemblance [mimesis, identification]
305 Mila drops charges, disappointed, different kind of woman
2. Overall, Reyna's story or career mixes minority and immigrant identities or cultural narrative: like minorities, she sometimes clings to an identity separate from the USA's dominant culture, but like immigrants she learns English, trusts authorities, excels in public education, and chooses the modern future over the traditional past, positively assimilating.
299
English teacher a Greek American . . . Latina? (minority as appearance?)
Spoke excellent Spanish
299-300 groups outside of family
300
Latino literature unfamiliar
2a. How do Reyna's siblings' lives or careers compare in terms of minority or immigrant identities. How much do they negatively or positively assimilate?
174 x-freedom, neighborhood; x-outside to play
174 streets empty except
for cars
186-7
Mila's advantages: English, U S citizen, woman, + education; not invisible
192 He-Man
192
TV as American pop culture assimilation
193 Santa exists in USA
193-4
Barbie
197 Santa scam
209 Saturday: choices > church tomorrow?
[secularized home] x-Virgen
Sunday drink and watch basketball
241
reading Sweet Valley, glimpse of world I wished to belong to [dominant culture,
assimilation]
246 Mago x ESL > “better
circles”
"Look Asian," like sisters
x-stripped of my Mexicanness
246
Mexican immigrants from Asia
247 charcoal lighter + carne asada on grill
250 Mago history: High School diploma
Future = “ganas”
(desire)
One day I would be somebody in this country
251 Mago:
lawyer’s secretary > lawyer
251 green cards, legal
residents
258 Mago x-desire to be best in school
259 Waterson
College > full time job > car and clothes, go out with coworkers
268 Mago debt, credit cards
Dress
her own way, develop own style
270 classy young woman, but Mago drops out
274 Mami, Papi, among 2.9
million legal residents through Immigration and Reform Act of 1986
274 Mami
sells Avon at Starlite Swapmeet
Learn English > better job > living as in
Mexico or undocumented
x-drive car, x-job with benefits, get off welfare
274-5 x-take advantage of opportunities
Mami’s children without education
Classes in Spanish
Disadvantage, drop outs, gangs, teenage mother
278 Betty and Leonardo overweight
Scent of almond oil
and epazote [herb]
280 friends married plus children; maids, garment
factory
I was living in that beautiful place they all yearned for
81 Spanish or English? Like a pocha
No longer considered Mexican
enough [assimilation]
282 Mago and Reyna fight
282 Mago erase Mexico, English no accent [assimilation]
289 a room . . . now only mine (ct. Woolf)
void inside me,
women I loved far away
308 sold fourplex, bought house
309 UC Santa Cruz, fresh start
319 first college graduate in family
2b. Back to sensitive issues, how much do the siblings' differences track class-differences as marked by wealth, education, geographic location or isolation?
178 Papi’s blue work uniform [color
code]
178 retirement home: Kingsley Manor
181 Victorian and Craftsman homes
181 apartment buildings,
immigrant families
182 toothaches x-dental insurance
222 Crossed into another world, winos, homeless, prostitution, stench
223 Share kitchen and bathroom
[x-privacy]
Roaches
225
Junk food > overweight [negative assimilation]
270 classy young woman, but Mago drops out
272 dream: major in
criminal justice
272 Papi: school x married > job [compassion, small
apartment]
277 privatized railroad
Train station a relic,
open wound x progress [Mexican Miracle]
321 leave emotions (dominant culture as professional)
Literary devices (Obj. 2)
180 dress as symbol
210 smells > back in Iguala with grandmother [mimesis?]
320 Mex Am: from both places . . . they coexist with in me
. . . writing as bridge
writing the bridge
3. How does Reyna's journey transition from oral / spoken culture to a written / literate culture?
21 shack where first lived
Day I was
born, as Mami used to tell (oral culture)
29 [spoken culture] scrubbed clothes, told me stories
48 first day of first grade; Books, poetry, fun stories
139 Mago slams door
Mago letter to Papi
167 Miss radio and fairy tales [oral /
spoken]
215 writing books
> make Papi proud
Limited English [reading materials]
216 stories in
Mexico: little pine tree wished gold [fairy tales]
Story of my birth
237 Notebook [literacy]
240 addicted to reading x making friends +
unfashionable clothes
Arroyo Seco Library (California)
Fairy tale
collections
Cf. Iguala
300
Latino literature unfamiliar
First book ever given
A world similar to my
own (mimesis)
Same color skin
Life at home x books and writing (beyond
personal)
305 house with books . . . heaven
Cisneros, Mango Street, impact
306 chapter “Sally,” abusiive father [mimesis)
Connection to author
Chicano / Latino lit x wrong kind of books (Sweet Valley)
What makes us more or less human? (obj. 3)
4. What literary devices or events exceed immigrant-minority divisions to make the characters more or less human?
22 dialogue as humility, compassion
Don Bartolo: left because they love you
25 Elida x-chores, never shared
46 Elida heartbroken girl
113 Abuelita Chinta
not much money as healer
Distributed evenly [human, contrast other
grandmother]
Fruit as pay [barter, pre-capitalism?]
145 wanted Papi to be kinder [Elida] [i.e., x-revenge]
145
Mami, understood her anger
158 sunflower seeds . . . Mago reached out her hand
[characterization]
183 Papi x-English, < tools, silence
empathy for Cindy [human]
200 It’s the way he was raised [traditional]
187 gringa > Mila
223 Mami’s pride [inhuman]
232 music--in Mexico, nothing free in school
Put out my
hand (cf. Mago)
268 empathy > objectification [human]