Section 04

Jos Ortiz: Accepting His New Luck Jos Ortiz was a man, who born in a dangerous town of Puerto Rico. Very young he moved to Levittown in Toa Baja (Puerto Rico) with his family. His life changed totally, he improved his situation and he had the opportunity to enjoy of his passion: the baseball. For certain reasons, the life of Jos changed. Hand of his best friend, Jos got involved in the politics of his people, protested the veracity of a newspaper called "El Mundo" and endangered her life for such protest. To 16 years, the mother of Jos sends to Jos to United States for save her son of the FBI. Jos Ortiz is not the only person who emigrate to United States for improve his life, the immigrants are very common in development countries and in United States the quantity reaches about 2,000 unauthorized foreigners a day settle in the United States. (Philip Martin y Elizabeth Midgley) and with over 1 million legal immigrants arriving in the United States annually, immigration is changing the demographic makeup of the United States as Hispanic and Asian Americans (PRB). Is important that we should be clear the Assimilation theory. About Weinstock, the assimilation is the complete loss of original ethnic identity in an individual or group of individuals leading to absorption into the dominant culture (1969: 4). Above we can see that the person who assimilate a culture of its new home, lost his culture for adapt to the core society. This essay wants to persuasive to the reader that this story does not illustrate the Melting Pot theory of assimilation. First of all, Jos Ortiz could not have assimilating the American culture because he did not want to adopt their costumes, he maintains his traditions and he had always

presented his Puerto Rican origin. I can say even that he hates the American country and the army, which promised him, come back to his natal country and failed his promise: So I told the U.S. army, Kiss my black Puerto Rican ass! , and I went a wall.. Jos Ortiz does not adopt the American culture or their customs. He maintains always his Puerto Rican culture: We have not assimilated. We are Puerto Rican, not American. We are a proud people, our culture is strong. After being colonized by the Spanish, then America, we have kept our traditions, and our spirit will not be broken. The American values were not those which Jos decided to follow: It is the plan of the USA to work people till they are almost dead, but not me. Also, Jose Ortiz devotes his life to help to his fellows Latinos without abandon his values. In the text, appear many examples that check this premise: He (The City Manager) promoted me to the Park and Recreations Department, to do outreach and run programs that would keep kids off the street. I used my privilege of being an American Citizen to help my Latino people. We got a lot of people into better living conditions, and to this day people still call me to help them do paperwork, and fight slum landlords. I have now moved on to work in the Community Colleges trying to recruit and help Latino students. He learned English in the AC Transit only when he saw impossible overcome without know the language and he did not return to Puerto Rico by his wife was not happy here because she did not know Spanish. Jos Ortiz devotes his life for help to maintain his culture despite his culture is an invasive in the Yankee country. He gave reasons for their culture was appreciated: When people disrespect Latinos, immigrants or not, I get mad, I take it personally. I think the US policies toward immigration are ridiculous; the government needs to

stop punishing the people the United States needs to survive. These undocumented immigrants, they come, they do all the work. The work no one else can do, for cheap. If all the immigrants left, we would collapse, the USA would be paralyzed. They need to just let people come in and work, and give them citizenship. They are here anyway, and when you pass laws to make something illegal, it creates opportunities for more criminal things to happen. Why are they going after the people we need to make this economy function? They pay taxes, but the government targets them. All Latino immigrants should have the same advantage I did. If more Latino immigrants had my advantages, they would be more people contributing to society as I did, instead of living in fear. (Jos Ortiz) In conclusion, Jos moved to United States because his life is in danger. He had to endure the U.S. Army hopping to can return his country, but he in love a women, only for her, he learned English, he devoted his life for help immigrants like him but without documents. He has worked for the city (Oakland) for over 25 years. He has four boys, a grandson and a daughter in laws. He is proud of his family. He wants to come back to Puerto Rico soon and help his community back home. He wants to enjoy his family and explore his island: Maybe in my early fifties I am retiring a little early, but he wants to enjoy my life before I die. The story of Jos Ortiz does not illustrate the Melting Pot theory of assimilation because the assimilation is the complete loss of original ethnic identity in an individual or group of individuals leading to absorption into the dominant culture, and Jos Ortiz did not lose his culture nor adopts the United States culture. On the contrary, he fought so that their culture could be defended and respected. The life of Jos Ortiz was a struggle to avoid at all costs the assimilation of his people before a ruthless

culture which wanted dominates and strip them of all their rights. In short, the life of this Puerto Rican is the farthest that there of Melting Pot of Assimilation.

REFERENCES

Philip Martin and Elizabeth Midgley. Population Bulletin Update: Immigration in America 2010. June 2010. Population Reference Bureau. http://www.prb.org/Publications/Reports/2010/immigrationupdate1.aspx Snchez, Sofa. Jos Ortiz, June 2010. Migration Story: California State University East Bay. http://www.migrationstory.org/Jos__Ortiz_93UK.html Weinstock, S.A. 1969. Acculturation and occupation: A study of the 1956 Hungarian refugees in the United States. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. http://sdonline.org/48/us-immigrants-and-the-dilemma-of-anglo-conformity/