The supposedly more upwardly mobile

While reading Arlene Davila's book one of the things that she briefly mentions, and that I was curious to hear more about is the stereotype of the upwardly mobile Cuban. I had never heard of this stereotype before I guess I am wondering what are its origins. As we all know stereotypes are often derived from truth that represents a few individuals. So when my friend was interviewed she mentioned that she thought there were differences among Latino groups in terms of who is more upwardly mobile and more motivated to succeed. The only reason that comes to mind from such opinions is what Davila mentions when the U.S. first began to have higher amounts of immigrants from Cuba, they were mainly middle-class citizens and were used to such status. Perhaps in this sense they may not have been much different from the U.S middle-class and this facilitated their integration into U.S. society. Needless to say that the key to success here in the U.S. is assimilation. Another reason that also has to do with assimilation is that approximately 81 percent of Cubans residing withing the United States identify themselves as white. I am not arguing against this because there are certainly a large number of Latinos that identify as white and technically there are Latinos who come from white European backgrounds or something similar. But this mostly likely plays a large role in their assimilation.

M&M's Commercial

When thinking back on this commercial I do think that there are certain aspects that can be considered cultural more than they are stereotypical. Most likely this commercial would have been produced by the Mars Company in Mexico and what to them is seen as culture we may interpret as stereotypes. A part of me knew that the image of Mexico that was represented was more than just the stereotypical Mexico, but for some reason I felt compelled to view it as a representation of stereotypes. As a society we have always been lectured that stereotypes are not true and that they do not represent a true population of people, but at the same time there is also a culture that people share that makes them different from other groups and it is this living in difference and different cultures that creates distinctions among people. There are certain traits that become part of a culture and at times may be considered stereotypes. For example the pinata, the boat ride, and the serenade are all things that are part of the culture, they are actions and something that people that visit Mexico hope to experience. They want to experience a new culture and these are all aspects that form part of this culture, and therefore they are not so much stereotypes as much as they are aspects and form part of the culture. For us when we watch these videos I think that we are so conditioned to reject anything that might be seen as remotely stereotypical and immediately dismiss it as just another stereotype, but in this case it is more of an issue in representing culture.

Affect

As I was doing some interviews I spoke to many Latinos, and they recognize the fact that their way of being is indeed different from white cultures within the United States. They refer to their personalities as loud and vivacious at times, and it seems not to bother them because from their perspective white people are boring. The fact that they are able to admit there is a difference is quite something in contrast to the very popular views that we are all essentially the same. I agree with this as far as we are all human beings, but there are certainly many things that make us different and affect is one of them. Being different "together" as one of my previous reading stated is not necessary something that is bad. Why is it such a good thing to highlight people's likeness as a good sign when, but highlighting their differences something that is looked down upon. Of course the answer is evident, but I think that if we are to take a lot of the traits that makes us different that may help us more that the futile attempts to assimilate. There are many proven draw backs to this, assimilation has been proven to be a key component of may people's success and sometimes highlighting differences in this world do not turn out for the best, but maybe at some point in the future this will chance and cases were being contrary to the norm will be seen in a good light.

Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman

Yesterday, I watched the movie "Eat Drink Man Woman" by Ang Lee the film that Tortilla Soup is a remake of. After watching the film I began to wonder why they decided to make an American remake with a Mexican-American family as its main characters. There is something strange about this dynamic. A Mexican-American family who is fairly assimilated to American culture but at the same time, we see that there are certain aspects that still separate them from fully assimilation into American culture. Why is it that they decided to do a remake and specifically with a Latino family. Does this give the film and entirely different meaning from its original or is it still attempting to keep some of the messages that Ang Lee was attempting to portray in the first version of "Tortilla Soup"? In Ang Lee's version there is a concentration of images that emphasize the consumer culture of Taipei, which is where the story is set. This story appears to be more of a message of the loss taste as a symbol for the loss of cultural identity through food. Food has become one mixture that no longer taste like anything specific. This is what the dad in the first film says. Therefore, when he regains his taste, it implies that there is hope for the food and revival of taste/culture that his daughter will bring. In the American version the story and message portrayed could be read similarly, but the fact that it is a Latino family creates a lot of differences. The story becomes more about the birth of a "New Latino" fusion of food, and concentrates more on the family's racial background. This "New Latino" still falls within the Latino category and although it may attempt to assimilate more of its food style with that of American food it is still considered a separate entity.

The 70's

I was wondering more about Latinos in the entertainment industry and was upset that I could not find more. I actually had a very hard time thinking of some, but one that recently came to mind is Wilmer Valderrama. He evidently plays a Latino character on "That 70's Show," one of the ongoing mysteries in the show is Fez' lack of a background. All that is known of him is that he is of some sort of Spanish/Latin background which is alluded to in many instances and reinforced by his accent. It makes me wonder why they purposely chose to leave out his exact background. Is it perhaps because regardless of this his affect and his character is still representative of most of the Latino population, and by leaving specifics there is no real distinction between all the countries that he could have come from. I have talked to some people, and even though as Latinos we are separate in our countries of origin people think that our ways of acting and modes of affect are the same. From an outside perspective affect amongst Latinos seems to be the same. I guess its that fact that we know our own group so well we are able to distinguish it from others, but surely there must be some other factors. These could be like the ones that I have cited above, that depict Latinos as a whole when it comes to our character and our way of being.

Latino Sterotypes within Latino Comedy

I was watching a video that does a parody of three hundred the movie with Mexicans crossing the American border. It was a bit upsetting, but then my friend told me that it was produced by a Latino Comedy group and that this was probably the reason that it was not taken off youtube for racism. This video has had 4 million views already. But this begs the question of whether material such as this truly changes in the hands of people that are also part of the group that is being stereotyped. Does the fact that Latinos are the ones that produced and created this video make it any less wrong? These kinds of representations, do not take the immigration issue very seriously and they portray the wrong image. I get the fact that it is not supposed to be taken seriously, but in watching the video itself there must still be something that one sees as representative of Latinos in order to entertain. Just because something does not give the entire picture and is an exaggeration, once this representation is released to the public, the reception is different for everyone that watches it. Even though, they may know that this is an exaggeration, in seeing this there may be certain aspects that do influence them because, as we said in class, this audience reception is something that cannot be entirely controlled. In terms of the right that other Latinos have to make and spread this material I still and not sure if they should, because there is always the danger that these types of representations may only enhance false stereotypes.

Jennifer Lopez' Body

By incorporating the the Rey Chow's theories into analyzing the way that Jennifer Lopez' body was advertised we attain a view of the difficult situation she found herself in because of the image that she was trying to sell of herself, that also ended up hurting her as well. In the readings it is mentioned how her butt became the object of many jokes, but before this she was attempting to sell the image of a woman with a large butt that could use it to become successful. It worked and she gained a lot of recognition because of how open she was about talking about her curves and her body, but in the end that is all that people thought of her as. They automatically associated Jennifer Lopez with a large rear-end, and I do not think that this was the image of herself that she was trying to cultivate. All though it is true as Chow mentions that some of these association may indeed help use become visible, for Jennifer Lopez it seems that it was the wrong kind of visibility. She became like the caged animal that Chow uses as a metaphor to refer to people that are trapped by certain ethnic identities that are associated with them. In the case of Jennifer Lopez she trapped her self into an image that for the U.S. was not taken very seriously and she had to find a way to rid herself of it and become more of the American ideal in order to achieve success. She had to rid herself of this identity that she forged for herself because the associations that came with it eventually became a type of cage for her, and people could not see past her butt to the many other things, that as a person she had to offer.

Selena's Family

Throughout the movie I could not help, but think of the way that Selena's father was portrayed throughout the film. They may have been attempting portray the type of Latino father that is demanding with his children, but sometimes his nature became too demanding. Selena's father is more of a person that was vicariously living through his daughter. He buys the children instruments and he tries to make them into something that he cannot achieve. This demonstrates a very selfish nature on his part. He takes a lot from Selena's life and its seems that he is continually demanding things from her, whether it is to give up Chris, or to take up Spanish music, and etc. Most of the time the things he demands he sees as needing to be done. He manages to convince her to sing in Spanish because he wants Selena to break into the Latino market; indicating that he perhaps learned from his own mistakes as a Dino attempting to sing anglo-pop culture music. Therefore, he decided that such a change was necessary and he seems to be behind the scenes of everything and shifting everything so that his daughter can achieve success, and in a way this makes him successful in the industry that he previously failed in. In the end the father figure of Abraham Quintanilla is more of a marketer than a father, and it seems that he disregards his daughter's wishes for his own.

The Second El Cargadero

One of the things that highly surprised me about the book was the fact that the village that most of his family came from in Mexico seems to have started a mini El Cargadero in Anaheim. Most of the people that were from El Cargadero moved and joined family members in Anaheim. It is almost like the entire community was uprooted and placed in the United States. He mentions how they had parties with people Jerez and all the villages living near there. There were about thousand people present for something like a baptism. The fact that they were all a lot like family has its down sides though, Arellano for example had trouble finding a girlfriend because all of the girls that he met were from El Cargadero and they were all somehow relate to him, distant cousins. But the fact that so many people from this town were able to immigrate to the United States and form decent lives for themselves and managed preserve a lot of what they had back home is a great feat. Most of them kept their Mexican roots in dress, music, food, and parties. I found it really interesting that they were able to do so especially in an Americanized society where assimilation is very difficult to overcome given the pressure from peers and society as a whole. Even if one does not necessarily want to assimilate they may have to do to such pressure, and I think what makes this case so unique is that they practically tried to recreate a similar community or one that blended with the U.S. communities, but still had the same family feel that they had back home, and this was evidently very important to them because they tried to get together as much as they could and recreate this feel. In a sense they were building a more middle-class environment (mean they still had money problems but had a far better living environment than they started off with) and contrary to the idea of what is middle-class--which in many ways defines assimilation and perhaps this is the reason that there is not that much focus on the assimilated because invisibility is what defines assimilation, they have managed to keep a lot of the culture that they had in El Cargadero.

The OC

I guess I never really realized just how diverse Orange County, California really is. Nowadays whenever it is mentioned most people think that the community is much like the one portrayed in the show. I guess a large part of it is true and there certainly are a lot of elite living there, but I feel like Arellano's book shifts our focus more to the other communities living within Orange County and lets us know that there are thriving Latino communities within Orange County that have done well for themselves, and living in a middle-class environment. It is something that was mentioned before. I am also surprised about a lot of the politics in Orange County, I am aware that there is racism everywhere, but a lot of the politicians really say some of the most awful and atrocious comments, but what I find interesting is that whenever an incident like this happens there seems to be more press coverage about it, more outrage, and especially more outrage in the Latino community. Even governor Schwarzenegger chimed in on reprimanding the person responsible for putting intimidating guards at the mostly Latino voting stations in order to prevent them or intimidate them out of voting with the excuse that they just wanted to make sure that no illegal aliens were taking part in the voting. Of course no one bought this excuse, but the responses of outrage from all over the nation are a really great sign that people do not just want to sweep such forms of discrimination under the rug like what was done not so many years ago.

Tragic love

The first thing that came to my mind as I was watching West Side Story were the extraordinary similarities between this and Romeo and Juliet, and therefore I am very certain that it is meant to be a modern adaptation of it. What I found to be very compelling about the musical other than its elements of Shakespeare was the perspective that this was shot in. The viewer sees both sides of the argument both sides of the scuffle. Although the Jets are the white gang they are still confronted with a lot of the same issues that the Sharks go through. Both groups come from very underprivileged backgrounds, and we are able to see both their perspectives and their differences. Both unwilling to budge and each protecting what they believe is the only thing that gives them power from what they have grown up as. In the end the death of the leaders of both gangs and the death of Tony demonstrates the impossibility of their happiness because of these opposing houses. In the end both sides seem to recognize the ridiculousness of their feud that has now caused the death of three people. Despite their having similar backgrounds and in terms of personality they share a lot of the same characteristics they are both still very different in the issue of race and this is too big of a difference for them to overcome. I think that the ending is very pessimistic in that sense because all the hopes and dreams of living together as a race that Maria and Tony had are shattered.

Making it in the Entertainment Industry

I think that John Leguizamo is very frank about the realities that he had to live with growing up Latino in a mostly poverty stricken area. He does not attempt to sugar coat the realities that happened in his childhood, even though he got criticized because of the way he portrayed Latinos in his one-man shows. I guess he was trying to show how these stereotypes were reinforced in his life and how although they do not apply to everyone there is some truth to them. It really demonstrates the difficulties of making it in the industry. He had to resort to taking many roles that portrayed him as the stereotypical Latino drug trafficker in order to get enough screen time to be noticed and to get paid enough to fund his own projects which involved a whole new view of the Latino. His work with Empire shows many different angles of the Latino character and that is what he is trying to portray, and perhaps give a more three dimensional view of the character one that does not simply embody the stereotypes that everyone expects to see. It took John Leguizamo an extremely long time to break into a industry that type casts all of the actors and it was very difficult for him to try and break out of the role of the gangster Latino and while he embodied these people he himself was disgusted for degrading the race even more. But in the end I think he saw that to a degree this was need for him to gain money and then in turn use that money to fund projects that were what he as an artist worked on creatively, and were his brain children. This hopefully gave him a sense of redemption and undid some of the negative damage that his other performances caused.

It is a very inspiring story because given his very troubled family background he managed to rise about it and pursue his passion; it is a very romantic story and I think that in his autobiography makes his accomplishment seem very real to the reader. When reading it one really understands the pain he had to go through it, and it is not your typical Hollywood fame story. One often hears stories about people that make it big in the entertainment industry and their rags to riches stories, but here the detail of everything that influenced him throughout his life and that was his aspiration to show the world his creative side that motivated him really allows the reader to see from his perspective.

Crossing Over

I have always been very interested in the so called "cross over" between cultures that some people think to be the goal of all of their entertainment careers. I have been especially looking into the crossover case of Shakira. She is one of the very few people to cross over to the the English speaking market, and in reading a few articles on her success; it does seem that she is almost moving freely between these two markets.But this cross-over has sparked some tension among her fellow artists such as Carlos Vives, a popular Colombian singer and song writer, who criticizes her for "selling out" on her culture and crossing over. I realize why an artist would want to cross over due to he money that they will earn as a result, but at the same time I feel that it is almost disrespectful to cross over for that reason, and almost like a rejection of what actually made them famous and well know enough to cross over. I have a problem with a successful crossover becoming the goal and marker of success for many people in Latin America. Breaking into this market and abandoning the culture that made you. I may not completely agree, but success is also defined by the amount of money earned and I think that this is the goal for many artists.
But another aspect about Shakira's crossover that interests me is the the fact that it still seems that she has not lost a lot of her Latino fan base while gaining a new one; which I think makes her a very unique case because one either loses one and gains the other, and I think it is a rare occasion when an artist gains the best of both worlds. She has marketed and sold herself in a way that she maintains both of her markets still interested in her, and I think this has to do with the fact that she has not ignored either of her audiences and I continually see her doing interviews in both Spanish and English. She is involved in both of the worlds that she is singing for and I think this is one of the aspects that allows her to retain her appeal.

Desilu

I had always thought that a portrayal of an interracial marriage in the 1950's was almost and impossibility. But sure enough one of the most popular tv shows of all time happens to be one about at Cuban and and all American girl. Desi Arnaz who plays the role of Ricky Ricardo on "I Love Lucy" and is married to his co-star Lucille Ball, is Cuban and part of the Latino family, and Lucille Ball's ancestry can be traced back all the way to the first European settlements in the United States. They were not only married on television but in real life. At the time I am certain that there was much controversy in letting someone like Desi Arnaz, Spanish accent and all, be married to what was considered a very American girl. In the end the show evidently proved to be a success and that was something that could not be ignored, and the show is viewed as one of early television's greatest achievements. I looked up in a forum what people's views were on interracial couples on television during those times. Many were surprised that the show was successful because racism was something that people were not even afraid of outwardly expressing back then. Another person stated that Desi Arnaz was of Spanish decent and that for that reason would just be considered a "white person with and accent," it seemed that the rest of the people that commented were hinting at this as well because they were discussing Desi Arnaz' European heritage. From the episodes that I have seen of the show, Ricky Ricardo, aside from his name, accent, and a few Spanish words when he rants here or there, are what we see from his Cuban heritage. He seems to be lacking in affect which would indicate assimilation because in the United States a lack of affect is considered the norm perhaps hinting at his assimilated nature and that he was in fact American. But at the same time these subtle traits of his Cuban heritage add an exotic flair to the show that is perhaps what makes it so unique. The fact that they were not the average all-American or what is considered all-American couple might be part of the appeal, just because it is something so unique.

Who put the "Speedy" in Speedy Gonzales?

Speedy Gonzales is a very popular cartoon for this country and his identification as Mexican certainly gives the impression that many of his qualities are those that are attributed to Mexicans. I personally never really knew much about Speedy Gonzales save the fact that he was a sombrero wearing mouse with a Spanish last name. I might have caught a glimpse of him on an advertisement of some sort but I never really knew much about him or watched any of this cartoons. Some might claim that the origin of his name, although contrived from a "dirty joke," has nothing to to with the personality or persona of the character, I would have to disagree. His name came from a dirty joke dealing with the lecherous nature of the Mexican in both versions of the joke the Mexican is seen as such and overly sexual being. In the second version he cannot be satisfied and has sex with the wife of and Anglo. The claim that the name is not attached to the origin is absolutely absurd. Baptizing this mouse with such a name means that many of the qualities that these producers saw from the original "Speedy Gonzales," they must attribute to Mexicans. Surely there was something in this dirty joke that they found slightly funny or interesting enough to name the witty mouse after this "Speedy" character. It is like deep in the origins of this charming and intelligent mouse there lies a past that is dirty and sexual. His origins are such and although the producers many not agree that he is representative of the qualities that the original "Speedy" had, nonetheless, they are naming him after a stereotype of the Mexican. Speedy Gonzales is a walking talking stereotype. What can this tell us about his creators other than they are promoting this stereotype? It tells us that they too on some deeper level also buy into the stereotype of the lecherous womanizing Mexican. Even in the cartoon itself Speedy is surrounded by many women and is seen as a type of Romeo.

Intuition

The end of "Touch of Evil", seems to undue a lot of the evil characteristics that were equated with Captain Quinlan. Throughout the entire film it is excruciatingly obvious that Quinlan is very racist and perhaps this has to do with the murder of his wife by a Mexican, but in the end although he is seen throughout the movie as falsely accusing Manolo of the murder of his wife's father; he is correct at then end. His intuition about the guilty party is correct almost in a redeeming sense. Almost undoing the evil nature of this character that we have been constantly presented with. Vargas is continually seen as this ultimate figure of justice that goes against the evil Quinlan, but the end he is partly responsible for the death of a man that was right all along and although he has evidence to prove that Quinlan framed Manolo this evidence is practically nullified because of the fact that Manolo confessed and was proven guilty for the murder. Making all of Vargas' attempts to clear him and to find the truth seemingly worthless. His intuition compared to that of Quinlan is therefore portrayed as essentially inferior because he seems to rule out the Manolo as a suspect in comparison to Quinlan who had a strong intuition of his guilty, but no evidence to back it up. In the end we are presented with a representation of a Mexican who did not accomplish much in terms of capturing the real criminal that he was supposed, and is partially responsible for the death of an Anglo cop, whose methods are indeed corrupt but in the end he "was right all along."

Indegenous representations

I know that this may not really be an issue that is explicitly in the film, but it is something that I realized while I was watching the film that bothered me a little bit. I admit that this story may serve for very romantic movie purposes, but the absence of anyone that represents the indigenous people of Mexico is something that is not really represented in this film. All of the main characters have a very romanticized European look. They are all evidently high class people withing the country, but there is not a real depiction of what the majority of the Mexican population is made up of. They all look extremely European and the entire atmosphere of the movie is one that is very idealistic of the times and a very Victorian atmosphere; that for the times when there is a revolution do not really depict the truth of the situation in Mexico. As an audience we do acquire a slight glimpse of what is going on in the country at the time with the guerrilleros and the men that are said to kidnap women at the time, but I feel that the atmosphere is not very representative of the time, and maybe its meant to be that way, but this leads into a bigger issue I think within the United States where, even Spanish networks only portray the more anglicized version of Latin American culture. When you flip to a Spanish station all you see are Spanish speaking blonds and like skinned brunettes that are not representative of the majority of the Mexican population. Which is bothersome because there is an unfair representation here.

Depiction of Mexico

I know that this may not really be an issue that is explicitly in the film, but it is something that I realized while I was watching the film that bothered me a little bit. I admit that this story may serve for very romantic movie purposes, but the absence of anyone that represents the indigenous people of Mexico is something that is not really represented in this film. All of the main characters have a very romanticized European look. They are all evidently high class people withing the country, but there is not a real depiction of what the majority of the Mexican population is made up of. They all look extremely European and the entire atmosphere of the movie is one that is very idealistic of the times and a very Victorian atmosphere; that for the times when there is a revolution do not really depict the truth of the situation in Mexico. As an audience we do acquire a slight glimpse of what is going on in the country at the time with the guerrilleros and the men that are said to kidnap women at the time, but I feel that the atmosphere is not very representative of the time, and maybe its meant to be that way, but this leads into a bigger issue I think within the United States where, even Spanish networks only portray the more anglicized version of Latin American culture. When you flip to a Spanish station all you see are Spanish speaking blonds and like skinned brunettes that are not representative of the majority of the Mexican population. Which is bothersome because there is an unfair representation here.

Breaking of Tradition and Attaining Independence

In the film "Como agua para chocolate," Tita is first forced to work in the kitchen, serve her family, and remain with her mother until death. The latter is what causes the most pain. It is a tradition that she does not agree with and hopes that it will end with her. This is telling of a tradition that woman need to live up to, one that, by either society or family is forced upon them and restricts their sense of identity and self. Even though there were no men in the household, Tita, still remains the servant for her family. Her mother is the one that takes on the role of what in society would be called the "man of the house." She is not at all appreciated by the people that she cooks for and serves. The fact that the only outlet she can find is in cooking defies many of the feminist view points that state that women can not find independence as long as they are tied to these household duties and especially those of the kitchen, which they are most closely associated with. But this does not have to be necessarily so. In the mind of Tita this becomes her own independent space where she expresses her deepest feeling through her food. So much her feelings manifest themselves on the people that she cooks them for. Although, food cannot really make people cry as it did in the wedding of her sister; its exaggeration in the movie shows how her food is her mode of expression and her way of making herself independent from the constraints of her mother. Food really becomes and identity for her, and one that she embraces.

Latino-A Really Broad Term

One of the points that Arlene Davila touches upon in her book Latino Spin is this idea of the hierarchy within the Latino community. A sense that not all Latinos are equal and that different nationalities amongst Latinos are considered to be of a higher socioeconomic status than other. This is I think a truth that is not very often talked about but very true. For example the idea that all Mexicans are poor and lower class people when in comparison to other nationalities such as Argentines or Venezuelans but that as a whole the entire Latino community is seen a lower class. Perhaps this is the reason for the tensions amongst the different Latino communities. They probably think that the other Latino communities are holding them down in some sense because of the perception that is given off by the Latino community as a whole. What I think that most of the people of the United States are not aware of is the mix of different nationalities within the Latino community and that a lot of the qualities that they may attribute to one specific group do not necessarily apply to another but because they are all considered Latino does this mean that the other group is seen as embodying the same qualities or stereotypes? Perhaps this is what causes tensions amongst the different Latino groups. A certain group may grow tired of being associated with other groups that see themselves as completely unrelated to. This could be the case with the many successful Cubans in Florida in comparison to the high level of poverty amongst Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. Cubans probably do not like to be grouped with these other nationalities because of the poverty stricken image that they perhaps do not want to associate themselves with.

Jaslene is America's Next Top Model

Watching this season again, I realized why I did not really like Jaslene during the competition. It mostly has to do with her personality, and she herself seemed to embrace many of the stereotypes of the Latina woman, but it was not really this that made me dislike her as a contestant I think that it had more to do with the fact that she was exaggerating these qualities in order to stand out amongst the rest of the contestants, and I was not entirely convinced that what she presented in front of the camera was who she really was. But I understand why it was so important for her to distinguish herself from the other models and I think that her Latinidad is what made her stand out amongst the contestants. She used many Latino stereotypes, and on many occasions throughout the season and especially in the final episode, we see that she described herself as the Latin spice and the girl with the attitude and fierceness of a Latina. I think these are characteristics that most of the viewers of America's Next Top Model already associate with Latinas. I understand that in terms of marketing herself this was a good strategy because it sets her apart, but at the same I think that it contributes to the overall idea that people have of Latinas, and one which does not apply to many of them. Jaslene in embracing these associations manages to present the persona that makes her unique from the rest because of her culture and in the end most people remember because of her Latinidad. She even spoke Spanish on many occasions as a way to reaffirm this image.

Intersting Film

I just finished watching the movie "A Day Without Mexicans" and I have to say it was a pretty good movie although very cheesy and over dramatic at times which I think was the point at times. But it is a very enlightening movie because it tries to show how Mexicans are viewed from the outside by most people and how devastating it would be to have Mexicans completely gone. As much as some people want Mexicans to stop coming to the U.S. from the movie one can see that this would be devastating for the country. At the same time this movie outright shows or tries to show the rest of the United States' view point and what their opinion is concerning Mexican immigrants. For most of the movie the only Mexicans that are seen are the the ones doing hard field labor and other minimum wage jobs. Even though it is statistically true at the same time that would mean that most of the value that Mexicans hold is for the cheap labor that they provide. There seems to not be any true acceptance of the Mexicans because in the end they are only valued for the services they provide and not as people. Although it may seem that they are more appreciated at the end of the film it seems that this appreciation only comes from the interest that other people have in benefiting from Mexican services. "A Day Without Mexicans" is a nice movie with a happy ending, but it is not real life and at the end even though Mexicans get appreciated, in real life, matters have not changed and many Mexicans are still seen as lowly workers that are not properly recognized for their jobs.

Personal Experiences

People often speak of how Latinos are viewed by the rest of the population, and what we are expected to represent and be as Latinos, but how do we view each other within this country? This question arose when I noticed how many Spanish speaking Latinos living within the United States refuse to speak to Spanish speakers of the same ethnicity even. Why is it that some employers that are Latinos give other Latino customers strange looks if for example they see that the workers in a fast food place are speaking Spanish and they decide to order in Spanish because it is simply easier for them and they enjoy speaking the language? This question resulted from someone telling me their experience with an employee who could speak Spanish but refused to serve a bilingual customer until that customer spoke in English to them. It could be because the employee assumes that the customer has an impression of them as a Spanish speaking Latino and that is the reason that they are ordering in Spanish. It raises issues of assimilation and what this does to the Latino community. It also gives the impression that Latinos are offended by the idea of being labeled as Spanish speakers, so does that mean they should completely immerse themselves in American culture? Is there some kind of shame that goes along with them being labeled as Spanish speaking Latinos that explains this behavior and supports assimilation? How does this affect Latinos who want to go into the entertainment industry do they sell themselves as Americans and abandon their Latino roots and their language as well. Many Latino celebrities do not choose to embrace this aspect of themselves and opt for the choice of making themselves more like white-America. Artists like Jessica Alba for example admit that they have Latino roots but state that they do not consider themselves part of that community because they grew up as Americans. Does this help them sell their image to the public by saying that they are more white-American in character even though their roots are Latin American?