As Chicana women, we’re left to process our true Identities. Chicana women are stuck between the cultures of both Mexico and the U.S. which make the process more difficult than others. In Real Women Have Curves, we are presented with a borderline struggle where it seems that Carmen’s daughter, Ana wants more for herself and wants the chance to pursue her education and make a career in writing, however, Carmen her mother, alongside the rest of her family throw obstacles in Ana’s direction by pressuring her and using her culture against her to stay and continue sewing in Estela’s factory. Carmen blames her actions towards her daughter by mentioning that the reason for her making Ana’s life miserable is due to the love and adoration she has for her daughter. With Carmen’s actions, we are able to decipher that Carmen’s love is ‘tough love’ a philosophical term by which Chicano parents are able to manage their children, which we are able to see that in every Hispanic household, how they show love and how Carmen is doing the same with daughters. …show more content…
In Act 1, scene 1, Carmen and Estela get into it over certain work situations due to Carmen trying to justify how her way of doing things is better which leads Estela to tell her mother, “Why do you think your way is better? All my life your way has been better. Maybe that’s why my life is so screwed up.” As Hispanics, parents guide their kid’s life in the ways that they were taught through generations, thinking that the “machismo” way is the correct way. Being “machismo” is being tough and showing no sign of affection and if it is, it has to be through lessons of life and doing it the parent’s way. Unfortunately, if we begin to whine about it and not do it their way and say that we are not shown love, it’s considered disgraceful towards our parents, and we are considered ungrateful
Julia Alvarez attempted to rewrite the immigrant experience from the female perspective by sharing her own life story as an immigrant seeking asylum from her oppressive dictatorship ruled homeland, the Dominican Republic. Alvarez’s novel How the García Girls Lost Their Accents is a semi-autobiography of her own journey to and from the Dominican Republic to the United States by drawing on her own experiences and observations about the fractured sense of identity accompanying immigration to the United States.
They way a person reads is greatly influenced by their personal background; their story, their culture, anything that led them to who they are today. When reading How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents written by Dominican-American Julia Alvarez, many controversial points are brought up that can be interpreted in many different ways depending on who is reading. In many scenarios, it’s the matter of where the reader comes from, in this case the Dominican Republic, or the United States. By having written from both Dominican and American perspectives, Alvarez teaches how a character’s sexuality or sexual tendencies can be perceived differently depending on the reader's personal background.
Barbara Carrasco works in advocating to change treatment of women. I decided to do my research paper because I believe that there's a difference between how a Chicano depicts and paint
Not only did these Chicanas fight for their reproductive rights, but they also wanted the freedom to have a life outside of being a caretaker. New Voice of La Raza: Chicanas Speak Out (1971) states, “The resolutions also called for ‘24-hour child-care centers in Chicano communities’ and explained that there is a critical need for these since ‘Chicana motherhood should not preclude educational, political, social and economic advancement.’” This same idea has been brought up in consciousness-raising; women shouldn’t revolve around men but instead should live the lives they want. Through Women’s Eyes: An American History With Documents states, “Ultimately, consciousness-raising rested on the conviction that ‘the personal is political,’ that the massive power inequities from which women suffered could be found in the tiniest details of daily existence.”
Chicanas in in America faces difficulties when seeking their identity. Although Chicanas/o find it difficult to balance two cultures, they feel isolated doing so. In the story, Lorenza Calvillo questions about “who am I?” “how do I see myself?” and “how am I seen by others?”
Furthermore, he describes the multiple forms of control Chicana women face when he states, “The Chicana is first of all oppressed economically, socially, and politically by virtue of her being a woman. Secondly, the Chicana as a member of an oppressed ethnic and/ or racial group is limited to the same extent as the Chicano by the dominant Anglo society” (50). However, he fails to mention the experiences of queer women, which implies how the Chicano
The Myth of The Latin Woman Analysis Latin American women face challenges every single day and moment of their lives. They are strongly discriminated against in all sectors of employment, in public places, and even while just walking down the street. In her essay, "The Myth of the Latin Woman," Judith Ortiz Cofer describes her own experiences using illuminating vignettes, negative connotation, and cultural allusion to exemplify how she used the struggles in her day to day life as a Latin woman to make herself stronger. Cofer uses illuminating vignettes to illustrate the different situations she encountered as a Latina while growing up and living in America.
The most popular definition of a Chicana is a Mexican-American female who is raised in the United States. La Chicana “has minority status in her own land even though she is, in part, indigenous to the Americas and a member of one of the largest (majority) ethnic groups in the United States. She is a woman whose life is too often characterized by poverty racism, and sexism, not only in the dominant culture, but also within her own culture”1 The term Chicana was coined during the Chicano Movement by Mexican American women who wanted to establish social, cultural, and political identities for themselves in America. Chicana refers to a woman who embracers her Mexican culture and heritage, but simultaneously, recognizes the fact that she is
Parents know that they are spoiling kids, but don’t
She studies their background and circumstances, explaining how “whether living in a labor camp, a boxcar settlement, mining town, or urban barrio, Mexican women nurtured families, worked for wages, built fictive kin networks, and participated in formal and informal community associations” (p. 5). These are the ways, Ruiz found, that helped Mexican American women make them part of the American society. She also talks about the attempts made by groups like Protestants that tried to civilize or Americanize the immigrant women but were unsuccessful due to the religious and community groups as well as labor unions that were formed to give them
The movie “Real Women Have Curves” tells the story of Ana Garcia, a high school graduate on her way to pursuit the American dream. Ana lives in barrio in Eastern Los Angeles, she is a brilliant student whom teacher really admire. Although she wants to go to college, her family, especially her mother, Carmen, tells her not to. In her mother’s eyes, Ana is a spoiled child who only thinks of herself. As the movie rolls along, the conflict between Ana and Carmen grows larger and Carmen turns into Ana’s biggest obstacle in achieving her American dream.
“The common denominator all Latinos have is that we want some respect. That 's what we 're all fighting for” - Cristina Saralegui. Judith Ortiz Cofer published the article, “The Myth of the Latin Woman,” where she expresses her anger towards stereotypes, inequality, and degradation of Latin Americans. Cofer explains the origins of these perceived views and proceeds to empower Latin American women to champion over them. Cofer establishes her credibility as a Latin American woman with personal anecdotes that emphasize her frustration of the unfair depiction of Latinos in society.
Cofer utilizes moral and, enthusiastic interest to communicate as the need should arise to others that the generalizations of Hispanic ladies can have negative impacts. Cofer utilizes moral interest to depict her Hispanic childhood. Growing up as a young lady Cofer was instructed to dress a specific path on account of her Hispanic culture and now and again it was confounded, "... Puerto Rican moms likewise urged their little girls to act and look like woman...". Young ladies were raised to act and look more developed than they really were.
In her ethnography account Women without Class, Julie Bettie explores the relationship that class along with race and gender work to shape the experiences of both Mexican American girls and white working class students. In her work, Bettie finds that class cannot only intersect to impact the school experiences of both working class and middle class girls, but also their transition to adulthood and their future outcomes. Thus, Bettie explores how working class girls are able to deal with their class differences by performing symbolic boundaries on their styles, rejecting the school peer hierarchy and by performing whiteness to be upwardly mobile. In women without class, Bettie describes the symbolic boundaries that both las chicas and the preps
Both the play Real Women Have Curves by Josefina Lopez and the movie adaptation make an attempt to communicate the message of female empowerment through their respective protagonists, Estela and Ana. Men resolve most of Ana’s problems, whereas Estela relies on herself and other women. The play conveys the theme of female empowerment because it is female-centric, successfully addresses the issues of body image, and focuses on women’s independence and self-validation. Lopez’s play serves as an example of what can happen when women uplift and depend on each other, as opposed to men.