The reading assigned is centered around the discussion of social identities given to the reader by Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey. In this article the discussion of social identities are geared toward the identities we give ourselves and the identities society gives us. Kirk and Okazawa-Rey give plenty examples of how the social groups we tend to place ourselves might not be the same group society places us in. One example used was immigration in the United States. In many places all over the world most people identify with where they are from as their main “identity.”…
Izzie Case Reflection Paper 1. In working with the family system, point out ways that you could assist in diminishing the following (oppression, marginalization, alienation, privilege and power)? Engaging diversity and recognizing difference in social work practice is key to diminishing oppression, marginalization and alienation.…
When examining the word “border” there are various thoughts and emotions that this can trigger for an individual. Before reading, “Undoing Border Imperialism” by Harsha Walia, I thought of a border as something that keeps people in or out, basically a boundary. After reading the text, Walia has allowed for me to realize that borders are much more about who’s included or excluded but rather the ways this inclusion and exclusion takes place and the reasoning behind these ways. Walia offers the reader a variety of key themes in examining what border imperialism is. She describes borders as having characteristics of territorial, political, economic, cultural and social control (p. 22).…
Both Leslie Marmon Silko and Gloria Anzaldia discuss about borders and their functions. Anzaldia claims that borders are meant to separate the safe from the unsafe and ‘us – non-whites’ from ‘them - whites’. However, she argues that borderland – area near a border – is not as fixed as borders. Silko also states that: “…. borders haven’t worked, and they won’t work, not now, as indigenous people of the Americas reassert their kinship and solidarity with one another.…
The central theme of this book is that you can’t understand the huge Latino presence in the United States if you do not understand the US role in Latin America, the Latino presence in the country is, in fact, a product of the harvest of empire. This presence is the result of over a century of domination. Most of the immigrants came from countries that were more dominated by the United States. Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Salvador and Guatemala are the countries from which there has been a mass migration. The majority of them are fleeing civil wars, as in the cases of Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador, where the US government States played a key role in supporting one group or another.…
We live in a world full of borders. Every time we glance left or right, we notice that we are surrounded by borders whether they are the physical, mental or cultural. The physical borders are geographic borders that determine the territory we live in or the territory in which we can walk about as a citizen, these borders separate one place from another. The mental borders are limited to our imagination and our thought process, our mind dictates us what is right and wrong, it separates one thing from another. The cultural borders are the borders that separate one culture form another.…
Question 1: The advancement of capitalism in the United States has greatly impacted Mexican migration by providing the population with a variety of pull factors. There have been many peeking periods starting around the late 1800s and early 1900s where many immigrants, documented and undocumented, have came to the United States due to the large amount of work opportunities that it offers. In fact, many Mexican citizens were requested by U.S. employers due to the cheap labor.…
In the novel The Devil’s Highway, author Luis Alberto Urrea describes the seemingly impassable struggles immigrants must overcome when travelling from Mexico to the United States. The story follows the deadly journey of a group of undocumented male immigrants who in 2001 attempted to cross the Mexican border into the desert of southern Arizona through a desolate area known as the Devil’s Highway. Urrea provides the reader with not only a compelling story but also a complex historical compilation of information on the Mexico-United States border conflict in terms of culture, geography, power dynamics, and immigration policy. The novel is organized into four major sections, with each divided further into separate chapters. Part one provides…
A picture can say a thousand words. Frida Kahlo’s 1932 painting Self Portrait Between the Borderline of Mexico and the United States is thought provoking and captivating in the stark contrast between how two cultures are seen from varying perspectives. Kahlo is a renowned painter whose art is a significant part of Mexican culture and is powerful enough to remain relevant for over 80 years, her legacy influencing 2nd wave feminism and current political movements. Appropriate to the title of this painting, Kahlo is standing on the border of Mexico, to her right, and the United States, to her left. On Mexico’s side of the border, images are shown representing Kahlo’s perception of the country and its culture.…
Many people see the U.S Mexico border as a marker of territory belonging to the U.S and the territory belonging to Mexico. However, to many others the border symbolizes and means much more than that. Gloria Anzaldua, Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz and Alejandro Lugo speak of these other meanings that many times are swept under the rug. In The Homeland, Aztlan from Borderlands: La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldua speaks of the differences between the experiences of people living on the U.S side of the border and of those that live on Mexico side of the border.…
Modern North American politics has focused strongly on the border between the USA and Mexico, with one particular politician claiming that Mexico will provide and erect a wall on the border of the two countries. This politician believes that a barrier between the political entities will end the flow of Mexicans into the United States and will result in an America for Americans. What this politician does not understand is that Greater Mexico has promulgated, and that already dwells within the United States and the whole world. There are no bounds restraining Greater Mexico, because it is everywhere since, as Dr. Spener explained, Greater Mexico is wherever there are “Mexicans living and doing things that are Mexican.”…
This week’s article focused on a few important areas of investments that are vital to any and all cultures and businesses in various regions. Also purpose of this article is to examine with the lenses offered by social theory how borderlands culture is constructed and reconstructed in a time of global transition and security primacy between the United States and Canada. Costing is defined as an outlay or expenditure of money, time, labor, trouble. Capital Investments is defined as a firm's acquisition of capital assets or fixed assets such as manufacturing plants and machinery that is expected to be productive over many years.…
Social intersection occurs, as the Mexican community mingles with the American community. Formation of friendships and intermarriages will bring about an interaction between the two or even more…
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa is a book overflowing with challenging questions and thoughts about cultures and how they interact to shape a person. Throughout the book, Anzaldúa shares her own experiences and relates them to universal problems with sexism, racism and other forms of belittling people and their sense of self. She speaks of a borderland, very much a physical one but even more so a cultural and spiritual one that forces those who are different to feel alienated from their own culture.…
The movies “Mi Familia” and “ A Better Life” both use a image of the border as an obstacle. The border between the United States is not only used and an actual dividing line in the movies but a division between the families. The division between the families is felt between the members who were born in the United States and the members born in Mexico. In the movie “Mi Familia” the son, Jimmy, and his siblings do not remember the struggles that their family had crossing the border. The hardships that their family went through put a border up between the family members.…