Pick 2-3 of the major themes from this week’s readings (and film) and write about them. You can use the questions that I wrote for each reading as a guide to the themes.
Using quotes from the readings (or scenes from the film), write about the critiques, analysis, and vision that women of color feminists from this time period were engaging. What are your thoughts about their writing? Do you see these issues as resonant today, or do you feel as though they are no longer relevant? Be specific.
The theme of the readings include the duality of culturally complex women and the obstacles that women faces because of racism.
In the reading by Anzaldúa “La Conciencia de la Mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness” Anzaldúa expresses the duality that being from multiple cultures it allows more exposure to ideas. It starts off explains that it is a good form to understand many cultures and what they mean. As well Anzaldua includes the term mestizo/a which is inclusivity showcasing the high level of intellect to connect both cultures and analyze both very critically and still be submerged in those cultures.
“The new mestiza copes by developing a tolerance for contradictions, a tolerance for ambiguity. She learns to be an Indian in Mexican culture, to be a Mexican from an Anglo point of view. She learns to juggle cultures. She has a plural personality, she operates in a pluralistic model nothing is thrust out, the good the bad and the ugly, nothing rejected, nothing abandoned.”
In my point of view it is beautiful the way that people have more than one culture. There is more of an acceptance of the culture now however that does not get rid of the colonizer history that underlies.
Being a Chicano and a mestiza meant you were to be familiarized with the cultures of the United States and the Hispanic with indigenous culture. Not only society was different for every single culture but the individual needs to fit in. In order to feel comfortable in their atmosphere the individual must know the “rules” and the customs of each culture.
In another way I’m not shown much Indio culture from my Mexican parents from Oaxaca, and I would love to go to Mexico and other Hispanic/Latinos country. There is so much culture. It is oozing out from everywhere and it is beautiful but it also has its ugly side, the machismo for instance.
In the poem by Carillo, “And When You Leave, Take Your Pictures With You” the theme is the against women of color. The poem simplistically says white women like to have women of color as a keepsake. The image of them, the idea of them. Women of color are used as fetish and when the white women has to finally interact with a women of color they are dissatisfied with the outcome.
“And when our white sisters radical friends see us in the flesh not as a picture they own. They are not quite as sure if they like us as much. We’re not as happy as we look on their wall.”
