{"id":557,"date":"2018-12-10T14:09:41","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T19:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/?p=557"},"modified":"2018-12-10T14:13:24","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T19:13:24","slug":"american-but-hyphenated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/dominguez\/american-but-hyphenated\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cAmerican but hyphenated\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the Chicano Movement, Chicanos were faced with the dilemma of not having a \u201chomeland\u201d to call their own. They were struggling between the binary of being Mexican-American. They could not call Mexico home, but they also could not call America home. Within the movement, the idealization of a mystic land called Aztl\u0101n prevailed (Anzald\u00faa <\/i>1). Aztl\u0101n eventually became synonymous with the southwest United States and a place Chicanos could call home, and specifically the border between Mexico and the United States. The \"\"border plays a vital role in illustrating the binary of being Mexican-American. Gloria Anzald\u00faa\u2019s\u00a0Borderlands <\/em>opens with a poem detailing her experience and perception of the Mexico-United States Border. Within the following stanza, the reader can detect the tension within the poem.\u00a0 The \u201c1,950 mile-long open wound\u201d is a reference to the border, and the word choice indicates the pain that is manifested on the border. Anzald\u00faa clearly states that the border that is meant to divide the United States and Mexico divides her.\u00a0Anzald\u00faa describes the border as \u201cuna herida abierta* where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And before the scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of the two worlds merging to form a third country\u2013a border culture\u201d (Anzald\u00faa 3).<\/p>\n

Pat Mora\u2019s \u201cLegal Alien\u201d also focuses on this area of tension as well without explicitly mentioning th\"\"e Mexico-United States Border. Mora begins \u201cBi-lingual, Bi-cultural\u201d establishing the duality of the Chicana, of her lifestyle, and of her language. She hits the central point of tension: \u201cAmerican but hyphenated.\u201d In the eyes of Americans, she is an inferior Mexican. In the eyes of Mexicans, she is an alien American. She does not have a solid space she can claim as her home. She expresses this discomfort as \u201csliding back and forth \/ between the fringes of both worlds.\u201d Her life as a Mexican-American will constantly be subjected to \u201cbeing pre-judged\/ Bi-laterally.\u201d This judgement and discomfort is unique to Chicanas, individuals without a home base.<\/p>\n

Anzald\u00faa and Mora attribute different personal meanings to the label Mexican-American.\u00a0Anzald\u00faa focuses on the physical structure of the border and its symbolic significance to her, while Mora illustrates the day-to-day realities of Chicanas. Despite the different focuses of the poem, the pain and discomfort Chicanas faced is clearly articulated in both.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/p>\n

Anzaldu\u0301a Gloria. Borderlands : The New Mestiza = La Frontera<\/i>. Fourth edition, 25th anniversary ed., Aunt Lute Books, 2012.<\/p>\n

Mora, Pat. \u201cLegal Alien.\u201d Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana <\/i>Literature. <\/i>Edited by Tey Diana Rebolledo and Eliana S. Rivero, University of Arizona Press, 1993.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the Chicano Movement, Chicanos were faced with the dilemma of not having a \u201chomeland\u201d to call their own. They were struggling between the binary of being Mexican-American. They could not call Mexico home, but they also could not call … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2047,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dominguez"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2047"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":560,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions\/560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}