The Border’s Affect on Mexican Americans in the United States
Introduction
Borders are generally created within different situations and this has an implication that the individuals may opt to set up borders or distinctions basing on the contemporary issues such as the political backgrounds, the economic status of an individual and the social or the communal status of the involved parties. The migration of the individuals from one state to another are confronted with the fact that they have to cross borders or the boundaries before reaching their expected destination. The borders however, should be noted that they can be natural or unnatural depending on the situation or the event that the individuals will have to be exposed to. Gloria Anzaldua makes a postulation that the borders created may be termed as vague and undetermined or unascertained place created by the emotional deposit that may result from the psychological regulatory aspects which is usually of an unnatural boundary (Amnesty International 2003).
Literature Review
The settlement of the Mexican-American war of the 1846-1848 led to the recapturing of the whole of California, most of the Arizona and the New Mexico parts such as Utah, Nevada and Wyoming were to be possessed by the U.S. This has an insinuation that the Mexican Americans in the United States were faced with difficulties in the expression of their rights; they were denied the freedom of exercising their powers and this had an implication that the Mexicans were culturally, psychologically and economically separated from the rest of the individual in the state that they were living in, thus the idea of the creation of the border between the two categories of the people; the Mexicans and the Americans.
The crossing of the border begins from the initial stages of development where by once the baby is borne it crosses the border by breaking the amniotic fluid and thus enters into the world where there is no dependence but dwell on the aspects of independence. This is also a reflection of the frontier of the cultural border and thus it can be asserted that the personalities or people may create cultural walls or borders that will be intended in the locking of the individuals out of the cultural practices. For instance with regard to the Mexican Americans it can be deduced that the immigrants in the united states of America, whether legally or illegally found in the U.S were exposed to the cultural commingling.
Though the immigrants were staged with the borders that hindered them from attaining the same cultural level of survival and living in the society, the immigrants severed from their roots that acted as an aspect that presented the people with the ideology of learning new guidelines in the attainment of the linguistic capacitance, and having the obligations of getting acquainted with the new methodologies of the community life with regard social, economic and cultural undertakings of the society and in so doing they cross the borders which in essence is the frontier that is emphasized by the author, Salman Rushdie (Rushdie, 2002, p. 350).
The eventualities that the individuals went through for instance the women who were the immigrants in the united states of America were exposed to all sorts of evil, for instance the women were raped, and were thus made to be depressed and this made them to be psychologically disturbed and made them to be weak both emotionally and physically. It is even worse stated that the women were also murdered and this was done by the police officers with whom there is much expectation of security and protection, the experience that they were exposed to clearly indicates the border that was prevalent or that was prevailing between the immigrants and the individuals within their original homeland, the American state (Byrd and Susannah 1996).
In essence the border being referred to is diversified and therefore has a range of the aspects that it refers to, with reference to the social, cultural and the economic aspects of the communities or the society in which they stayed and associated with. The frontier was termed as the basic factor that determined the growth of nationalism and the evolution of the American civic or political institutions and this had an insinuation that there was creation of distinctive features between the immigrants who were the Mexicans and the Americans. The social classes, the religious affiliations and the economic or socio-cultural aspect that acted as a barrier between the two categories of the individuals is what can be attributed to being the border that had to be crossed by the Mexicans so as also to stay peacefully with the Americans (Fregoso,2003, p.231).
The border may be either physical and visible or invisible and thus relate to the aspects such as gender, race distinction basing on the skin colour discrimination and the classes of the individuals with regard to their economic and social levels. The frontier basing on the skin colour or the racial aspects were mainly highlighted or notably recognized during the interracial relationships, if a Mexican gentleman could be found walking with a blonde lady in a suggestive manner, then the lady was considered as the transgression for that particular individual and thus was viewed as a crime against the natural way or order as to how the things were supposed to move (Alejandro 2008, p. 142).
It was also noted that the frontier might also act as a weakness towards the man who, as stated above could be having a blonde who is attacked and therefore the man will have to take the task or responsibility fighting for her and this will reduce the man as he will merely be a man fighting for his woman. This will strip the man of the law, of civilization and thus makes the person to be separated from the rest of the others because of the backwardness that he could have attained from the event that he could have been exposed to (Rosalinda, 2003, p. 107).
Conclusion
The divisions between the individuals were also based on the various factors such as the cultural aspects like the creation of the cultural groups and cultural nationalism which entail the religious and political goals. The aspects of gender are also prevalent as identified or shown by the evils that the women are exposed to for instance it is highlighted that the women were forced to engage in the intensive tasks or duties and those that were culturally unacceptable like prostitution and forced labour, the boundary or border created thus between the women and the men is what had to be crossed so as to enhance the disparities in the social, economic and political aspirations (Lugo, 2008, p. 134).
The borders can be seen to be either physical or visible while in some cases they are invisible and are only shown through the emotional or the psychological aspect of the individuals. The Mexican Americans were the immigrants in the U.S and they therefore had limitations or borders over which they could reach and overriding them meant that they had to pass through various isolations and unfavorable conditions as highlighted in the text (Arnold 2001).
Reference
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Amnesty International (2003). “Mexico: Intolerable Killings.” Amnesty International.
Fregoso, R (2003). “Toward a Planetary Civil Society” in MeXicanan Encounters. Berkeley: University of California Press
Rushdie, S (2002). “Step Across This Line, Part One,” in Step Across This Line: Collected Non-Fiction, 1992-2002. New York: Modern Library.”
Government Accountability Office (2006). Border-Crossing Deaths have doubled since 1995; Border Patrol’s Efforts to Prevent Deaths Have Not Been Fully Evaluated”
Byrd, B and Susannah M (1996). The Late Great Mexican Border: Reports from a Disappearing Line. El Paso, Cinco Puntos Press:
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Liz McCormick , Jul 23, (2009). Interpreting Borderlands – The New Mestiza:
Gloria Anzaldua’s Work Examines Chicana and Tejana Culture in the US
Alejandro, L (2008). Fragmented Lives, Assembled Parts: Culture, Capitalism and Conquest at the U.S.-Mexico Border. Austin: University of Texas Press,
Amnesty International. “Mexico:Intolerable Killings.” Amnesty International, 2003.
Rosalinda, F (2003).”Toward a Planetary Civil Society” in MeXicanan Encounters. Berkeley: University of California Press,
Telles, E. E and Ortiz (2008) Generations of Exclusion: Mexican Americans, Assimilation, and Race United States: Russell Sage Foundation.
Arnold D L (2001). Ethnicity in the Sunbelt: Mexican Americans in Houston, Houston
Center for Mexican American Studies:
