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Model Midterm2 answers 2018 Web Highlights Index to Midterm2 Web Highlights |
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Ambrosia Alderete
Insight and Discussion
Minority literature explores the cultures, identity, and group voice repressed
minorities in the United States have experienced from the country’s birth up to
modern society. In the course students discuss and write about these subjects as
they read literature from minority authors who give insight to the historical
and cultural struggle others have undergone at the hand of the dominant culture.
Objective 1c of Dr. White’s Course objective describes the idea of alternative
identities that minority cultures adopt in order to gain back the voice and
choices that have been taken away by the dominant culture. Objective 3c further
discusses identity as it explores the “ambivalence” Mexican Americans experience
as they find themselves in between immigrant and minority cultures not finding
complete belonging in either yet possessing distinct characteristics of both.
Victoria Ortiz, Catherine Louvier, and Alexandra Alvarado are former students of
Dr. White’s who have explored these objectives, defining them and identifying
their meaning to distinguish the identity of the Mexican Americans of
literature.
What
Ms. Ortiz taught me in her essay that I had not thought about before in the
course is that the Virgin of Guadalupe is not only a symbol of the Mexican
influence on Catholicism, but also a symbol of the ambiguity that Mexicans as a
minority experience when having choose between adhering to the dominant culture,
holding fast the their traditional ways of life, and finding a resting place-a
compromise-between the two that they can be comfortable with. This is a
characteristic Mexican Americans apply to many aspects of their lives as they
attempt to reconcile the traditions and culture of their native heritage with
the dominant culture of the country they have come to call home in order to make
a better life for themselves or their families. (“This
combines the populations of Mexico, the contemporary Mexican and the traditional
Aztec, in worshipping in the vein of Catholicism. More importantly, the
adoption of this image symbolizes the acceptance of Catholicism”).
I
enjoyed this new idea because before I had simply accepted that the Virgin of
Guadalupe was a holy symbol only, representing only the Mexican American
reverence to the Virgin Mary deity of the church.
Catherine Louvier also presented a new point when she posed that the Mexican
American people were tri-sided “losers” in wars between Texas, Mexico, and the
United States. (These
people were either losers in a war between Texas and Mexico or spoils of a war
between Mexico and the US.”)
Caught in a turf war amongst settlers and the original land owners, Mexicans
were outsiders forced to live among enemies as they were rejected from not only
the dominant Anglo culture but the Native American culture as before the
European conquest the peoples had been enemies. Having been conquered once by
the Spaniards in their homelands, Mexicans thinking about moving to America were
forced to decide whether they wanted to subject themselves to yet another
takeover from foreigners. When learning of the conquests of Europe in North or
South America, it is easy to regard the initial takeover as the first and last
invasion, however, the conquest continues when the dominant culture overshadows
and erases the immigrants’ original heritage.
In
her essay on education in immigrant culture Alvarado introduced a new idea by
stating that education is primarily a second-generation American concern, rather
than a concern of all immigrants. She proposes that, driven by success,
immigrants arrive in America chasing better lives and escape from the poverty of
home. When they arrive however, they find themselves blocked by lack of
education, the immigrants may be satisfied to remain in the same economic
status, because it is better than what they had in their native country. The
children of these immigrants however, (according to Alvarado) seek better lives
than what their parents have and seek education and higher status like their
American peers. These new Americans may even shun lower paying jobs if it means
they cannot use them to move upward in society. (“…the
second generation is generally not willing to accept low-paying jobs with little
likelihood of upward mobility.”)
I
like that Alvarado stresses the next generation seeks to better themselves and
will work hard for it, so that their lives can be easier than the struggle they
have watched their parents live.
Each
of these authors used a different aspect of Mexican American identity to define
them as a minority using the course objectives as outlined by the instructor. In
doing so, they also taught me aspects about the subjects which I found
interesting that had not been discussed in peer discussion or personal though in
my section of the Minority Literature course. I enjoyed reading thee web
highlights because they gave an outlook into a subject I have been studying and
discussing in class but had not thought of in all this time. These assignments
exemplify how diverse thoughts are on the same subject, and that other students
can have valuable insight one may not ever see without open discussion.
