Social Struggles In Luis Valdez's Los Vendidos
Social Struggles in Los Vendidos
Racial differences and their effects on economic and social status are important, often controversial issues in America. These topics have inspired many artists to create pieces that convey their ideas about race, although it is sometimes difficult to pick out the political messages in these works. The social-class lens is one tool that readers can use to see the author’s commentary on economic power and social-class and the inequities they can create in our society. One play that was written primarily to target such problems and how they relate to Mexican-Americans is Luis Valdez’s Los Vendidos. Valdez uses this play “ to humble the audience...allowing readers to fully analyze and comprehend the prejudices they may very well hold against the race.” (I Need to Do This Citation Still) While other critical lenses
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At the time when Valdez wrote Los Vendidos many white Americans viewed Mexican immigrants as a group of people that existed solely to be used. The absurdity of this notion is illustrated by Honest Sancho’s Used Mexican Lot which satirizes the idea that Mexican people could be bought and sold as a commodity. The stereotypes presented by Sancho represent what many Americans assumed to be realistic Mexicans, while they were really only generalized caricatures. The Farmworker Los Vendidos subtly portrays the racism and colorism experienced by Mexican-Americans in order to bring awareness to it. Miss Jimenez, the secretary, who represents the upper class and white people, is the primary source of this bias. Her feelings towards Mexicans are revealed in her first three lines, when Honest Sancho mispronounces her name. His blunder prompts her to ask, “Don’t you speak English? What’s wrong with you?” (Valdez 1198). While it can be frustrating
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