Now in the town of El Caballo, which means The Horse, there lived a Mexican gunfighter named Terrible Tomas. Whenever the people of El Caballo saw Tomas swagger through the streets, his hands on the oak handles of his .44s, they let him pass. His black eyes shot fire at anyone who dared to bar his way. A stocky six-footer with dark skin and black hair, Tomas was very intimidating. There rode into town one day, a stranger. He had brown hair and eyes, wore a battered brown hat and a .44 on his right hip. “Whoa Lady.” he said in a Texan drawl, “We’ve reached a hotel tonight, a good thing too. Ol’ Smilin’ Sam was getting sore ridin’ from San Antonio.” “Now listen here,” came a thick Spanish voice, “I look you over first. No one sleeps in El Caballo without me deciding if he can. Okay, let’s have that gun of yours.” “Now hold on ye Mexican! Why do you want my gun? Do you own this town? Do…” “Well, as a matter of fact I do! And you can have it if you beat me in a gunfight.” “Give me some thinking time.” “You got one hour.” Sam went and got a room at the El Caballo Hotel, sat down and thought. Two minutes later ha jumped up, shoved his gun in his holster and raced out into the street. “Tomas, where do we have our fight?” Sam called out. “This afternoon at …show more content…
Chief White Wing hopped on his fastest horse and rode with many valiant braves around him. With a Comanche cry and bent bows, the chief and the braves thundered toward Tomas. With a twang and a hiss, Chief White Wing’s arrow pierced Tomas’ back. He fell forward without a cry. Sam stood up and thanked the chief. When he returned to town later, mounted on Lady, Sam was greeted with cheers and shouts. He stood atop Lady’s saddle and cried, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I declare El Caballo free! I will become its Sheriff if you
In her novel Borderlands, Gloria Anzaldua explores the nuances and complications that come with being a member of the Mexican-American community. Her physical home is the border between Mexico and the United States, but she acknowledges that the “psychological borderlands, the sexual borderlands and the spiritual borderlands are not particular to the Southwest” (Anzaldua 19). “In fact,” she continues, “the Borderlands are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other…”(Anzaldua 19). Such is the focus of her text, the often uncomfortable meeting space between mainstream white culture in the United States and the indigenous culture of Mexico. The clashing of these two civilizations is personified in the mestizas, people born of both the United States and Mexico, of which Anzaldua is one.
Rudolfo Anaya is a big contributor, as well as many others, that led to a role model any Chicano can relate to. Anaya is New Mexican and puts his background into his Chicano stories. For example, he wanted to include oral storytellers in his book. As a boy he revealed that he listened “to cuentistas, oral storytellers, and wanted to bring their magic into his writing” (“Anaya, Rudolfo A. 1937”). In addition, other Chicanos have thanked him for the exposure.
Throughout “The Mexican in Fact, Fiction, and Folkore” examines the term “Mexican” as it is applied in Southwest literature and argues the Anglo society has made a conscious effort to misrepresent Mexicans (Rios 60). He states the people of Mexican descent are viewed as un-American because they are perceived as filthy, lazy, and dumb. Ricatelli adds to the conversation of Mexican stereotypes by examining the literary expressions of Chicanas and Mexicanas in the literature of both the United States and Mexico. In “The Sexual Stereotypes of The Chicana in Literature” Ricatelli explains how in Yankee literature, the Chicana is referred to as the “fat breeder, who is a baby factory” meanwhile the Mexican is described as an “amoral, lusty hot tamale” (Ricatelli 51). He makes note of these stereotypes in order to highlight the ethnocentric and nativist points of view that dominated Anglo literature.
The Broken Spears, by Miguel Leon-Portilla, is an all-inclusive and compelling account of the Spanish conquest, told by the Aztecs also known as the conquered. Leon Portilla’s choice of events depicted in this book collides together giving the reader a broad view of the Spanish conquest. This book gives a history of emotional and spiritual human experiences, allowing the readers to comprehend, and relate to the Aztecs as they went through terror and faced their fears. This book provides an extensive amount of details concerning lack of leadership, bias and technological hardship that led to the Aztec defeat. After reading this book the reader will start to understand how and why the Aztecs suffered .
From Diaz, we learn details of the culture, architecture, and daily life of the native people of Mexica. He pays attention to small details such as the games Montezuma played with the Spanish, the shoes of his, the changes the caciques had in their clothes, to the market square and the amazing zoo this great city of Tenochtitlan. He even gives us an insight in the military weapons of natives: “In fact they cut like razors, and the Indians can shave their heads with them” . This is just an example of how good Diaz explains everything he saw. This type of explanation may seem as exaggeration, yet it is important to know smaller details about these people’s lives.
you don't look Mexican. Just change your name and you have the job.". In other words, he is denying his heritage to get a job and support his family, which I think is wrong. Although, in "The Pink Hat", Sarah actually gets to choose to do what she does by wearing her pink hat. She wears it so that people don't know she is black.
Through Antonio and Ultima, readers identify the creation of a culture that has been forge by war, discrimination, and common hardships. With Ultima being a powerful curandera, the story shows the importance of the female character within Mexican culture. Today, this is prevalent in many Mexican-American households, as the elderly women are held in the highest respect. Another aspect of Mexican-American Culture is masculinity, which is shown in Bless Me, Ultima when Antonio’s father says, “a man of the llano does not run from a fight” (Anaya, 1999, p.37). There are countless examples of Mexican-American masculinity in this novel, like when it mentions that Gabriel’s two eldest sons are fighting in WWII.
In 1519, Hernándo Cortés, a Spanish Conquistador ventured into Tenochtitlan, the capital of Aztec empire, searching for gold and glory. He set out to conquer the empire and to capture the Aztecs in order to achieve his ambitions. Moctezuma, the highly respected leader of the mighty Aztec Empire, came confronting with Hernán Cortés, the leader of a small band of professional European soldiers from a huge island that lay six day’s sail to the east. In “Malintzin’s Choices: An Indian Women in the Conquest of Mexico” and “Mexico and the Spanish Conquest”, Camilla Townsend and Ross Hassig respectively present one histories in their own interpretations of the conquest of Mexico.
Situated near the U.S.-Mexico border during the early twentieth century is the fictional setting of Fort Jones, the outskirts of which is where Americo Paredes’ short story “Macaria’s Daughter” takes place. Emblematic of the disappropriation of Mexican land, as well as the increased marginalization of the Mexican people, the overbearing presence of Fort Jones reveals the struggle for preservation that characterizes the Mexican-American community of the story. “Macaria’s Daughter” is the tragic account of what happens in a small community when the upholding of Mexican values and institutions, and opposition to Anglo-American culture, become more important than a young woman’s life. In this essay, I will argue that “Macaria’s Daughter” is a text
“Oranges,” “The Seventieth Year,” and “Avocado Lake,” showcase Soto’s ability to move a reader using an emotional story without the use of rhyme or rhythm. Through Soto’s poetry, he indicates the traits that define Mexican-American community
In order to write this book, the author clearly uses different manuscripts and papers that helped him to explain and show the situation of this social movement. He also uses and gets information from people that were living those situations, for instance in Chapter one, he mentions a note from Journalist Ruiz Ibañez: “Contrary to the common belief that those groups are composed of “punks” and hoodlums….”1. Related to him, he is an American historian and sociology that obtained his sociology and political science degrees in the University of Texas at Austin and Yale University, as well. Currently, he is a professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and he is president of the Center for Latino Policy Research. He wrote not only Quixote’s Soldiers but also, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1986.
Cofer addresses the cultural barriers and challenges that Latinos experience through emotional appeal, anecdotal imagery, parallelism and the use of effective periodic sentences. In her article, Cofer assesses the difficult cultural hurdles of Latin Americans with emotional appeal. She provides insight on her cultural barriers by first conveying the way she had to dress and her struggle, as it shows in this piece of text, “That morning I had organized… which to base my decision” (Cofer 5). This poignancy works to stress an agonizing feeling of uncertainty and restraint towards the author.
“One Hundred Indians should dye for every individual Spaniard that should be slain”, “Spaniards breed up such fierce hunting Dogs as would devour an Indian like a Hog”, and “they erected large Gibbets, but low made, so that their feet almost reached the ground, under which they made a Fire to burn them to ashes while hanging on them” are just some of the few atrocities committed by the Spanish on the Native Americans. These accounts are first hand experienced by the Spanish Dominican Priest, Las Casas, who objected to the Spanish treatment towards the natives. Not only did he tell how the Spanish conquistadors treat the peoples of the New World, but also told how his views on the Native American population, what he thought should be done with
“Aztlan, Cibola and Frontier New Spain” is a chapter in Between the Conquests written by John R. Chavez. In this chapter Chavez states how Chicano and other indigenous American ancestors had migrated and how the migration help form an important part of the Chicanos image of themselves as a natives of the south. “The Racial Politics behind the Settlement of New Mexico” is the second chapter by Martha Menchaca.
Octavio Paz, a Mexican poet and essayist, is one of the many philosophers with a written piece regarding his understanding of Lo Mexicano. Paz’s “Sons of La Malinche” was first published in the Labyrinth of Solitude in 1950 and is a rather grim interpretation of the Mexican character, however, it captures the crisis of identity that Mexico was burdened with after the conquest. Paz uses the Spanish term “chingar,” (when literally translated means “to screw, to violate”) and its associated phrases to understand the conquest and the effect