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."