As last week’s readings showed me how the Native Americans influenced Frontier culture, this week’s readings are showing me how much the frontier or la frontera has and is being influenced by people of Hispanic decent, and how the influence of their culture is continuing to grow as a result of “The Mestiza“(how the author calls it so I will call it the remainder of this post.) In the borderlands reading I saw the Aztec term mestiza many times which means the: product of the transfer of cultural and spiritual values from one group to another. Also as we all know America has been the “melting pot” or cultures ever since the beginning of our fine country. I feel many people, including myself; think of America just as a melting pot of European Cultures, which is defiantly not the sole case. We now, in these times white culture vs. Hispanic culture, view that the mixing of culture should be avoided and even looked down upon, but where would we be if we had this mind set for all of American history? I am not sure I can totally answer that question but I guarantee that we would certainly not have the diversity that makes this country great. Also towards the end of the borderlands reading it makes clear that the author thinks that the only way we will survive is “straddle two or more cultures, and that it is the way of the mestiza to be our future. In Davis’ writing I get the feeling that he is talking about the mixing of culture as well. “When you say America you refer to the territory stretching between the icecaps of the two poles and to hell with your barriers and frontier guards”- Diego Rivera. This first line in The Magical Urbanism and I think he intends it to insinuate that America not just land, but people in the land and no barriers can keep people from being American. This then leads us to the main part of his essay about the immigration and the mixing of cultures. Any barriers we have, won’t be contain culture to a specific region, which I think Davis is really trying to get across with this opening quote. Also in this article I get the impression that he almost has the same general ideas that are expressed in borderlands.
Weather us as Americans like it or not we have to adapt to the inevitable changes that are happening to us. Now more than ever we need to be reverting back to “old America” style thinking and start accepting and integrating our mix of American cultures with the new ever growing Hispanic culture that has been booming since the 70’s. I feel that this is what these meanings are telling us and us as Americans need to be ready for another culture being added to our melting pot. Ready or not.
Library Dan--
ReplyDeleteGreat thoughts.
Did you know that the "melting pot" metaphor has been criticized by scholars as outdated? The critique is that it implies that immigrants assimilate--or "melt"--to the dominant U.S. culture.
Do you think Davis, Anzaldúa, and/or Mora are pro-assimilation? What are the alternatives? Is this a dumb critique based on "political correctness," or does it have merit?
Ponderingly,
Dr. K.
First I want to say excellent work on this weeks blog, and I have to agree with your views 100 percent. If we as a country were to look from those who live on the opposite side over the borders point of view then it would be easy to see the monstrosity that this country has built. It is definitely unfair to judge a population of people because of their economic, political, or social status. The effects of the frustration that we are causing can be witnessed in the story written by Pat Mora “La Migra”, where the immigrant in the story explain the details of the abuse that they had fell victim to. The suggestion that the border police are abusive sexually and physically may not be fair but it does paint enough of a picture to start a negative representation of America.
ReplyDeleteAnother factor that I agreed with was the fact that America has to remember that this country is nothing but a mix of cultures. And if the day came that Hispanics were the larger majority the of the population then that is some thing that the society is going to have to accept whether they agree or not. It seems that a certain number of people is being so strongly focused on that we are forgetting the fact the mixture of new cultures and ideas may have a positive impact on or country and help us to either better economize or thrive during hard times.