People like us

..."In the meantime they'll just have to move a little farther north from Mango Street, a little farther away every time people like us keep moving in"...The house on Mango Street, 

The last text that we studied was The House of Mango Street where we discovered among others, the topic of immigration. In order to get to know and understand Latin America, it’s not only necessary to analyze different theories the make up its origin and possible causes of its development, but it is also neccessary to examine the topic of immigration of Latin Americans to the United States. 

 The author, Cisneros, being from Mexico, does a good job in this book that helps us see the topic of Latin American immigration and integration into the American culture from the internal perspective and through the eyes of the immigrants. It’s interesting that she being a “chicana” would have written this book while she was in the University.   She is a Latin descendent and found herself in a similar situation as those Latin Americans who come to the United States. She decided to go study and challenge the reality of the Mexican woman and not stay in the house, get married young, or have children; all this in order to get a University Education. The immigrants that come into the United States in a similar way challenge the future and leave behind their lives as they know them in order to chase their dreams.

It points out in this work the diverse situations in which immigrants find themselves in far-away lands.  Cisneros explains between the lines the reality in which the immigrants live in the United States. It is not the same for all of them, but in one way or another something more than just speaking the same language or the same roots from which they come unites them; it’s simply being an immigrant.  Because of immigrants, the distances between countries don’t seem to be so far and the borders seem to be even more marked than ever in the history of the world, where they are even building walls and guarding the illegal passage to other countries.  These are example of the surety that the world is getting smaller, and this is demonstrated by the steady increase in the flow of immigrants to this country. However, it’s quite interesting that today we put forth so much effort as human kind to unite the world, but the distances between Latins and gringos would seem to be too blurry.

Hum 260.

My vision of Latin America before this class was of one united culture that did not have any great difference more than their accents or their food.  I have always been conscious of the differences that exist at the political or economic level between the different countries within Latin American.  However, the truth is that because of this class I have come to understand more of my personal identity and the essence of Latin America.

Sometimes I cannot deny that in class I have found that I have feelings of frustration as I feel like a stranger in my own land.  A lot of the time I have felt that the Latin America  where I was born and grew up and thought I knew, isn’t the one that I was learning about or the one that I was discussed about during class.  But as the more the time and semester went on the more I learned how to know more of Latin America and its extensive diversity, and the more I learned of my own diversity.

I believe that this feeling of discovering myself began in the first day of class when we listened to the song about Latin America by Calle Trece.  I remember watching the video and thinking, “ ok, this is going to be another class at BYU where we analyze a Latin America submerged in poverty and the suffering of the social injustices that it is composed of.”  Now that we are getting so close to the end of the semester and now I listen to the song, I feel that it really makes sense and that It really does represents the reality of my own identity. This is not only because he cites Neruda in the lyrics, but he includes in them the essence of the Latin American culture while he talks about its traditions, beliefs, the people and their customs. Many of these traditions, beliefs, and customs were unfamiliar to me before this class, but as I have learned more them it has helped me to recognize the immense cultural variety that Latin America is made up of.

The past is not even past.

Ultima to Antonio : "You are growing, and growth is change…make it a part of your strength." Bless me Ultima.

Latin America’s past lives in the present.  Our memories are absolutely connected in the daily lives of its people.  Collective memories exist presently in the cultural reality of Latin America. The past of Latin America is what we live because it is what we remember.  In the same way we grow as a culture because we learn from it, and it is from these memories that we can come to understand its people.  The past will never die as long as the memories are alive in the people and culture.

Latin American culture has a specific characteristic and ability to smile and be happy with very little material things.  But, it may be during these times of happiness when suffering emerges in their eyes.  Where does it come from? Personally, I don’t think that these sad memories emanated from the Latin American people come from the idea that the past was better, but moreover the feeling that something is absent in our today; the virgin jungle of the amazon, the smell of fresh bread coming from the Panaderia (Bakery), the brother lost in the military coup, the sacred books gone up in flames, the country free from dictators, that seem so far because of the time that has past but is still so alive in our memories.

In the book Bless me Ultima, while Antonio is growing up he does not wish to return to his childhood because during the maturing process he comes to understand himself, who he is, and the world around him. Antonio grows thanks to Ultima’s help, and he comes to understand that the memories, the ones that decipher who we are, transform us into our strengths as we find our identity. Memories help us to grow and understand who we are.  Last week I suggested that in order to get to know the soul of Latin America, we must look at it through the eyes. I believe that the more we try to hide the past or our memories, the more our eyes betray us.  Through the help of memories, we can then reach the hearts of the people, the heart of Latin America, where they hide their secrets and their history.

If the formula is to come to know the soul of the Latin American Culture through their eyes, this week I propose that it is through the memories of this culture and their history that we can reach their hearts to understand them.

The window to the soul.

 "I had been afraid of the awful presence of the river, which was the soul of the river, but through her [Ultima] I learned that my spirit shared in the spirit of all things" (p.15). Bless me, Ultima.

During this semester we have talked about the complexity of trying to decipher the origin of Latin America due to its extensive diversity.  How, in the middle of so much cultural diversity, do you come to the conclusion of the existence of just one Latin American culture? Maybe the answer to this question does not yet exist. However, through the book “Bless me, Ultima” we learn that the true focus understand the soul of a culture is through getting to know the people, their traditions, and customs.

It is interesting that Ultima, being the curer, is the figure that unifies the diverse races from which Tony comes.  It is Ultima who helps him then understand his identity.  The figure that symbolizes the traditions and beliefs of his people is the one who helps Antonio understand this in order to be able to understand himself.

In diverse occasions during the course of this semester, I have found myself meditating and contemplating the questions of my origin or my identity, and they have made me doubt the existence of a Latin America that I once thought was inseparably united in its history and beliefs.  Through this book, however, I have really understood that the analysis that are made of a culture or different postulates that come about to verify its existence or origin shouldn’t focus far-fetched theory or analysis, but better in their traditions and customs, and their people.

This reminds me of a quote that Elder Holland used in the MTC for the missionaries referring to the importance to reach the souls of the people they would teach in order to get to know them and understand them.  In this same talk Elder Holland says that the only way to read the soul of a person is to look them right in the eyes, and that their eyes will tell us what their soul needs.  So to understand a culture, we should reach for the soul of it, of what it is composed of, and go further than analysis or comparisons. We should focus ourselves on the people that actually form such diverse culture through their traditions and customs. If we want to get to know and understand the soul of Latin America, then we must look it right in the eyes.