Posts

Children of Undocumented Parents Resposnse

Image
Once finishing this documentary, the immediate first connection I made was to Anzaldua's borderlands theory (which was likely intentional on your part). I remembered that borderlands are not necessarily physical but can be abstract in nature. The cultural difference (i.e. language, time zones) between undocumented Latinx migrants who are victims of deportation and their children who are permitted to stay in the US on the basis of citizenship, as well as the physical distance between displaced people and their in, is a borderland in it of itself. It is a tool of separation and distinction and a physically violent reinforcement of settler colonialism. It literally makes it harder for the two generations to relate to one another, marking a very significant (though abstract) separation. The documentary also illuminated the reality of the separation of indigenous families being a key factor in settler dominance. Black parents watched their children get sold, Native Americans were f...
Post a Comment
Read more

Response to Anzaldua's Borderlands

Image
This was such a cool reading!! I have never heard the history of Aztlan told from a source I actually trusted. I was telling my friends this week that I want to visit an Indigenous reservation. Then I realized that that's not very cool because it's like spectatorship. I finally decided that I hope I meet an indigenous friend who would take me to their reservation. I felt, while reading this, that Anzaldua was that friend. The oral history is so fascinating and I am so impressed/grateful that this information was preserved for so many years. I enjoyed reading about the Aztec migrants led by the God of War to where would eventually become Mexico City. Anzaldua's poetic style enhances the writing and makes me feel as a reader that I'm receiving the oral history from an elder directly. It is so extremely unfortunate that the Idigenous of what we now know as the Americas had to suffer the genocidal violence of European colonialism.
Post a Comment
Read more

Response to Latinx Experience In Care Work

Image
Today's reading was compelling for a number of reasons, but primarily because of how easy it is to make the historical inference that the devaluing of black women's labor was the predecessor for the discriminatory care work practices that Latinx people, especially women or femme-presenting ones, face. It was also interesting making the connection that the already-low value of black women's labor went down even lower during the Great Migration (to the American North). Latinx women's labor is also valued less once they immigrate. Both experiences reflect the exploitative forces of capitalism that prey on the most vulnerable populations and try to extract labor at the lowest cause. In both migration scenarios, the inhabitants of the destination capitalized off of the women's unfamiliarity with the area ad economy as well as off of ethnic stereotypes in order to extract labor from care workers at a lower rate. It also sucks that in both scenarios, the womens investm...
Post a Comment
Read more

Response to “What Does ‘Latinx’ Mean? A Look at The Term That's Challenging Gender Norms,” Yesenia Padilla

Image
I learned something new from Padilla's work! I did not know that non-binary people can be gender conforming simultaneously. I learned that one could adopt "non-binary" as an identifier as an act of solidarity with other queer people to undermine Western gender and sex categorizations. This adds even more fluidity to the idea of gender (the idea that someone can *not* be gendered). That's cool. It makes me wonder as a bisexual person if I'm bisexual? Because sure, the "bi" refers to the binary categories of "man" and "woman", but if everyone isn't gendered, and if gender isn't really told by appearance, how could one truly know how many genders they are attracted to? I'm not having an identity crisis or anything. I'm probably still gonna identify the same after this. Bu t it made me realize these words really mean nothing........ but so much at the same time.
Post a Comment
Read more

Response to “Spanglish” Tato Lavier; Gloria Anzaldúa, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” Borderlands/LaFrontera

Image
Tato Laviera's "Spanglish" was way more easily understood when read aloud, which I found ironic since Anzaldua's article is about the importance of the tongue. Surely, hearing Laviera's poem read aloud reminded me of the power of the tongue. Its unrelated, but this emphasis on the tongue reminds me of the emphasis of speech into my traditional religion. Sacred knowledge is transmitted only orally, with no written sacred text. Many indigenous cultures from which Indigenous Latinx people descend also practiced this. My cultural anthropology professor taught us that in cultures where there are shamans (applicable to many Indigenous Latinx cultures) there is very rarely oral texts. Knowledge is transmitted orally through generations. I wonder if this played a role in why the oral transmission of Laviera's work was such a different experience than reading it.
Post a Comment
Read more

Response to Precious Knowledge

Image
The contradictions of racism are extremely extremely exhausting for people who live within the margins that social constructions have created. It's exhausting because no matter how many times you point out the contradictions or explain the reality of things, the people who have the most power will be committed to misunderstanding you because it is those contradictions that secure their comfortability in society. I finished Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad for a class immediately before I began this documentary, and the theme of white people not being able to recognize the inconsistencies in their values is present in both works. In Whitehead's book, slavecatchers boast about America's superiority and say it is because the noble white men take whatever they want; yet they dedicated their lives to brutalizing and chasing Africans in America who took  what they wanted (freedom). That's all I could think about when in the documentary, Legislator Horne had ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Response to Los Que Se Fueron, Refugees or Economic Immigrants?

Image
The article by Maria Garcia begs the unanswerable question, "to what extent has the US used immigration and immigration policy to repress left wing agendas and reinforce racism throughout the years"? The reason I say it is unanswerable is because even if we analyze large scale incidents of US being politically strategic in their refugee admission (i.e. with Cubans during the Cold War) there are likely so many other minor movements that US policy affected before they could fully expand and that are not well documented enough to fully study. It's also always fascinating how well-designed colonialism can be despite how immoral it is; it is equally as interesting how colonialism and racism go hand in hand. Garcia's emphasis on Cuba reminded me of all the Cubans I know who tell stories of their parents and grandparents legally immigrated to the US during the Cold War, namely in places like Miami. The people who have told me this have always been white or non-black mestiz...
Post a Comment
Read more