La Raza Cosmica By Jose Vasconcelos

In the story, ”Like Mexicans” by author Gary Soto explains how he was always told him to marry a girl from his same ethnicity, but unexpectedly fell in love and married a Japanese girl. Sotos grandmother advised him to marry a girl that fitted the stereotype of a Mexican girl. He decided to ask his mom about the issue. His mom agreed that if he were to find a righteous Mexican women to marry her. Soto decides to ask Scott as well, who happened to be a second generation okie. An okie was what his grandma would call any person that was from a different ethnicity than them. They talk about their future how one day they hope to reach the American Dream. They share the same vision of marrying someone. It was shocking to him, that he ended up marrying a Japanese woman because he never imagined marrying someone that wasn 't Mexican. When he was twenty years old, he fell in love with a girl that he knew his grandma would be concerned about. Soto told his mom about the woman and how she was the one for him and the more he talked about her the more his mom seemed to be worried. That’s when he realized that his mother wanted him to marry someone from his own social class. Everyone agreed that indeed he wasn 't good enough for his fiancee. One day Carolyn took Soto to her home to meet her parents. Soto was nervous, until he sees her house and how alike their houses looked. He acknowledges how alike their ethnicities were, mainly in the economic sense. As Soto is in the roadway he

The idea of mestiza consciousness is an acknowledgement of both the genetic and cultural mixing that come from falling between the cracks of two cultures. Gloria Anzaldua uses the idea of mestiza consciousness to describe the constant shifting between two or more cultures that Chicana women experience. She describes the issues that arise within various communities due to an “us vs. them” mentality, and argues that mestiza consciousness can also act as a tool to heal these wounds, and to reshape one’s identity by merging various identities.

There was a time when America was segregated; Caucasians and African Americans were forced to attend different restrooms, restaurants, and water fountains. However, the era of segregation has been terminated; now America embraces and appreciates the various cultures and ethnicities that create this melting pot several people call home. Likewise, it is this melting pot, or mosaic, of races that multitudes of individuals have identified themselves with. Thus, race and ethnicity does matter for it portrays vital and crucial roles in the contemporary American society. Furthermore, ethnicity and race brings communities together in unity, determines which traditions and ideals individuals may choose to value, and imposes an impediment for it categorizes humans unjustly.

There are different approaches used when discussing the survival of indigenous visual cultures. Each essay provided for analysis interprets the conquest of the Americas differently and connects it to Colonial Mexico artistic production at various degrees. Each essay also advocates for its own term that can be used to represent the process of Spanish and Indigenous art forms coming together in a complex cultural context. Kubler advocates for the term, folk art to describe colonial art because it is art production that is devoid of its past meaning. His views on conquest explicitly claim that the Spanish conquest was successful due to Spanish superiority over Indigenous cultures. However problematic his claims are, he is able to dissect the forms used by the Spanish conquest to gain control over artistic production. Mestizo, is the term used by Neumeyer to describe the mixing of two art forms that can only be apparent when Indigenous people reached a high aesthetic culture during the conquest. He also promotes the idea that Colonial art was continuously developing. However, his views of Indigenous art is that it is unable to compete with European modes of art. Finally, Dean and Leibsohn use to the term hybrid as a production and enactment that challenges norms. “Hybridity and Its Discontents” is the most liberal of the three readings. It uses the term hybrid as a way to critique the cultural context in which it was able to be produced; Spanish conquest. It also, critiques

Born in 1803, in the village of La Côte-Saint-André, France, Hector Berlioz produced some of the most invigorating and exciting music of the Romantic period (Holoman, 1, 6). Romanticism primarily focused on subjectivism, therefore people were concentrating more on their emotions and spirituality and less on logical explanations for the problems of humanity. Those of the Romantic period valued nature and depended upon the creativity of artists in order to gain a deeper and different outlook on the world, one that was not strictly rational. Of all the Romantic art forms, music, especially

A cultural analysis is a combination of many elements. Cultures have traditions, customs, habits, beliefs, practices, and values. Each culture can have different traditions in their own essence. These traditions can come from their ancestors ' and passed down the generations. However, some people don’t like to continue their ancestors traditions and adapt others customs from another culture. The culture change depending on the time and place. The enrichment of cultures consists of adaptation and acceptance of another culture 's beliefs. Not all of the people can tolerate other cultures, traditions, languages or stereotypes. Cultures attack or support other cultural values The Mexican culture is hard-working and are strict in their values and traditions. The power and oppression of the cultures are current; social and economic conditions in the people in cultures. The Mexican culture has social and economic conditions oppressed by the power of its Government. In the play “Los Vendidos” Luis Valdez, talks about the multiple accent and background of Mexican people.

Ana Castillo’s novel, So Far From God, propels the reader on a vibrant and surreal journey through the tragic ordeals of Sofi and her four daughters. The first chapter, which offers certain similarities to the Bible’s story of Jesus Christ, in that Sofi’s three year old daughter, La Loca, seems to succumb to a violent and horrifying death, and at the wake, she returns to life with a tale of her journey beyond the veil. This scene creates a notable comparison between the patriarchal religiosity of the story of Jesus Christ and the Chicana-centered resurrection, complete with the hypocrisy of a male-centered system of beliefs, the acts of acquiring selfhood as a female centered savior, and the phenomena of the “death” of the saviors.

To fully understand the term, one must first pay attention to three central ideas. To start off you must first simply define the word mestizaje, and understand how mestizaje plays a role in Latin American societies by blending and dividing cultures. By defining this principal one may then illustrate how these cultural differences translate to racial differences in the United States. Furthermore, I will be able to explicate personal experiences on how the University of Alabama addresses some of the principles of mestizaje and how it has affected my life in general.

Gloria Anzaldua is among the many feminist theorists that has moved into the realm of addressing post-modern identities. In Gloria Anzaldua’s articulation of the new mestiza consciousness, she makes the argument of identities as multiple, hybrid, and more specifically created as a result of the Borderlands. However, according to Anzaldua, and despite the difficulties engendered by her very existence, the mestiza is also a figure of enormous potential, as her multiplicity allows a new kind of consciousness to emerge. This mestiza consciousness moves beyond the binary relationships and dichotomies that characterize traditional modes of thought, and seeks to build bridges between all minority communities to achieve social and political change.

In his book “Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free,” Hector Tobar recounts the story of 33 miners who spent 69 days trapped more than 2000 feet underground in the Chile’s San Jose mines following the collapse of the mine in 2010. According to Tobar (2015), the disaster began on a day shift around noon when miners working deep inside the mountain excavating minerals started feeling vibrations. A sudden massive explosion then followed and the passageways of the mines filled with dust clouds. Upon settling of the dust, the men discovered that the source of the explosion was a single stone that had broken off from the rest of the mountain and caused a chain reaction leading to

The English term ‘race’ is believed to originate from the Spanish word raza, which means ‘breed’ or ‘stock’ (Race). People use race to define other groups, this separation of groups is based largely on physical features. Features like skin color and hair don’t affect the fundamental biology of human variation (Hotz). Race is truly only skin deep, there are no true biological separations between two ‘racial’ groups. Scientifically speaking, there is more variation between single local groups than there is between two large, global groups; the human variation is constantly altering (Lewontin). The majority of today’s anthropologists agree that race is a form of social categorization, not the separation of groups based on biological

Sandra Cisneros’ short story, “Never Marry a Mexican”, indirectly underlines her perspective, her interpretation, judgement, and critical evaluation of her subject, the work and its title. This perspective is evident in her use of literary devices, diction, and language structure in her narrative. The purpose of the use of these elements in the way that she does is ultimately linked to understanding her viewpoint on the subject. The author’s perspective is embedded in the meaning of the story and its theme. Her interpretations are valid, and justified in detail throughout the story to add color and vibrancy to her characters. Her judgment is lightly touched upon but only clearly and directly given at the end of the story, to allow the

Queer Theory is the best approach by which to examine Angels in America because using Queer Theory allows us to see/ illuminates the difference between socially constructed gender and sexual acts based on sexual identity. Queer theory argues that gender is a cultural construct, that the social norms of men being masculine and women being feminine were manipulated as a culture to be seen as normal. In Angel in America, Roy Cohn is an attorney with power in his work place; he expresses a strong masculine character with “clout”, strong political power. He mentions that he is a powerful man and how with only a few phone calls he is able to get a hold of the president. These are expectations of how a masculine male is supposed to act, with power, confidence, and without fear. Being a man of politics, Roy lives up to the expectations of what society believes a strong man is supposed to be and how he is supposed to behave. When he goes to see his doctor and he is told that he has AIDS, Roy refuses to admit that he has AIDS and Homosexual. Roy tells his doctor, Henry, “You Think these are names that tell you who someone sleeps with, but they don’t tell you that.” (Pg. 51) He argues that his identity is not homosexual because they do not have “clout”; that he is a man of clout and has a lot of it. Roy states, “Homosexuals are men who know nobody and who nobody knows. Who have zero clout.”(Pg. 51) An example of Queer Theory, Roy tells his doctor that labels like Homosexual, Gay,

According to Esposito, reading in another language is interesting but also challenging because he did not know how to speak Spanish before. We are all studying a foreign language which is English and we are totally agree with his perspective. We have done that experience and we went through the same circumstances. In the beginning it is hard but then we become more enthusiastic about knowing more in English, we want to spend so much time in promoting ourselves to be better in English. We just feel that we want to be perfect in speaking, reading and writing the language that we are learning. Esposito also mentioned in his article that when he read in Spanish he took a break after an hour of his reading. That is also one of the challenging thing,

. If the galaxy is a gravitationally bound system of stars, astral remains, interstellar dust and gas, and dark matter, and gravity is what ties matter down to a specific spatial place; then, one can think of “race” as the gravity by means of which matter is held together in embodied form, and through that form creates worlds, and eventually universes-nevertheless within this material existence, there is great hope, alternatives, promises, spontaneity, and what comes into view, at times is something close to the