Lit min etn C2

14citate din chicanos, native Americans , asian Americans (4chicano/6native/4asian, or 3/8/3) The Chicano or the Mexican Literature The American continent can be considered the last region of the world to be discovered by the Europeans. Thus it was mainly discovered by the Spanish, the Portuguese and the English speaking peoples. Afte its discovery, the New World turned into the so called promised land. According to Alfonso Reyes, a famous Mexican humanist, and well known essayist, since the sixteenth century, America has been thought of as the realm where a perfect republic could be established where utopia could become a reality, and even today , according to Alfonso Reyes The continent can be encompassed as a hope and offers itself to Europe as a reservation for humanity Alfonso Reyes is well known for his Ultima Tule and one of his main themes is that for the search of the Mexican identity. The spanyards who conquered the New World were looking for more than gold, they were looking for the promised land. From Tenoclititlan the Aztec capital, they set out to search for the Utopia. Some moved to the south, to the realm of El Dorado, some went to Florida to look for the fountain of youth, and others moved to Aztlam, later to be called Texas or they moved to Arizona, California, or New Mexico. In Aztlam, which was considered to be the promised land, the Chicanos would create one day their own literature, slightly different from that of Central Mexico and quite different from that of the anglo-americans, living on the periphery of their territory, which according to the legend , was the land of the origin of the Aztecs. In 1836, Texas became independent. In 1845 Texas received its statehood. In 1848, a very important treaty was signed, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and this treaty ended the Mexican war. Mexico City, the rest of the Mexican territory, north of the Rio Grande, to the United States. Some of the Spanish speaking inhabitants decided to move southwards to Mexico, but the majority refused to move, and they turned into American cities. Acc to the treaty, they were to be aloud to preserve their culture, their language, and their customs and traditions, thus a new minority was created. Their number increased gradually as immigrants arrived from mexico being attracted to Texas or Aztlam, especially by the economy of the US(wealth). However, the dream was not to become reality for most of the immigrants, or for the native settlers of the southwest, because they discovered that the English speaking majority considered them outsiders. Thus they were caught between two different cultures. They were segregated into the so called barrios. They were ignorant of the law and at a certain disadvantage, due to the language difficulties. They were relegated(assigned) an obscure condition/status. of second class citizens. In 1945 they were considered to be the forgotten people. Even later, in the 1969, they were considered to be the so called invisible minority. If they are forgotten or if they are considered invisible it is not because of their number, but because members of the dominant culture chose to ignore them. In fact , the Chicanos are considered to be the 2nd largest minority group in the country. In fact, the Chicano movement came into being in the 1960s and it has began to spread rapidly throughout the whole nation; One of the positive outcomes

regards the wealth of literature. The rejection of the Chicano in the US is well documented. One of the first studies to explore the plight of the Chicano in the US was done by Carey Mc Williams in 1949 when he published a famous work entitled North from Mexico This rejection of the Chicano is reflected in literature as Cecil Robinson stated, and one of her famous works are With the ears of the strangers , the Mexican in the American Literature, and also by Edward Simmen the Chicano From caricature to selfportrait. If Chicano literature has not entered the mainstream of American literature, neither has it become part of Mexican literature, in which it holds its origins. Chicanos have not always been accepted in Mexico or even by the Mexicans visiting the United States and that they themselves have often rejected both groups, especially true in the 1940s when the so called Pachucos tried to assert their identity through a special or very distinctive manner of dress and speech and by developing a very close group consciousness. Pachucos were young Mexican Americans living in the southern part of Texas and California. According to Octavio Paz, the Pachuco does not want to become Mexican again. At the same time, he doesnt want to blend into the life of North America. This desire to establish a separate identity has resulted in the creation of a certain type of literature which in fact reflects a unique culture having certain features which differentiate it. Characteristics Chicano literature is considered to be new, only in the sense that in the last 25-30 years, writers have made great efforts to describe the Chicano reality, authentically. In fact, this so called newness also lies in the recently rich production of outstanding writers, which in fact approves of the Chicano awareness that the literary expression fulfills a historical goal. The Chicano literature is extensive, but we should analyze earlier writings , in order to determine the point at which they stopped describing a reality and in certain circumstances, different from the Mexicans. The colonial Literature of the South-West has never been given serious attention. The American Literature began with the settlement of Jamestown, and consideration is given to a corresponding literature of Spanish settlers in the South-West. What was written in Spanish much earlier is disregarding. Thus any literature written by Americans in languages other than English has been ignored. In fact, only the literary forms that were created in Europe are consistently studied. The saddest truth is that ethnic prejudice exists in the study of literature. Acc to Gerald Haslam in his work entitled Forgotten pages in American Literature we quote the cruel fact is that the same Americans who have been denied social, economic, and edicational equality, have been consistently ignored by literary scholars. The result has been an apparent gap in history. In fact, a people who seem to have existed without self expression and without self image. This particular gap has been filled in by damaging stereotypes and by the extremist works written by the anglo-americans. The Chicano literature is of revolutionary nature. Its writers try to present la raza(the Mexican race). This stands for the Spanish speaking community and its complex nature, thus the Chicano literature presents a picture describing not only the Chicanos social and economic circumstance, but also their past history. Thus the Mexican-American writers search for their own identities by means of their literature thus they create self definition and identity only through action.

Action is much more effective when supported by knowledge. The Chicano literature is full of references to the Indian heritage. Sometimes they are simple allusions, but theyre also faces in which they take a form of strong symbols. Rodolfo Gonzales I am Joaquin This is full of Aztec images and the poet aims at presenting the character and the composition of the chicano. Alberto Baltazan Urista Heredia (stage name Alurista) makes use of the Indian culture in his whole work , e.g. Floricamto en Azlam Philip Ortego The coming of Zamora here Ortego describes his protagonist as entirely Indian. Miguel Mendez a few quotes of his work entitled Tata Casehua Mendez by means of this work succeeds in offering the best characterization done by a Chicano writer. Tata Casehua is a Yaqui Indian who in fact resists death itself as the extermination of la raza ( the race) These Indians live in a certain desert called Sonora belonging to the state of Arizona