El Norte

Takaki’s chapter 12 El Norte is basically the Mexican version of chapter 10. Chapter 10 showed how Japanese men and woman came to Hawaii and the United States in hopes for a new and improved life. In chapter 12 Takaki enlightens us on the hardships and struggles of the Chicano people.

2.) The significance of this chapter can be summed up in one quote of Takaki. He says, “To the Jewish exiles, America was the Promised Land, and to the immigrants from Mexico, it was El Norte. A land across the river, this country became the stuff of boundless dreams for Mexican migrants.”

1.) Mexicans came to this land on foot, but once the Mexican Railroad was built they came in car loads to the states. Much of this was not by choice, most Mexicans wanted to go to America to wait for their civil war to end and others went because of the poverty and horror of war aka an economic depression. Many relatives that were in the States and came back to Mexico told their families of the money, shoes, and good clothes they could possibly obtain. For some Mexicans this was a sense of motive to find work in the States.

3.) “Like Caliban, they were isolated by the borders of racial segregation.” Many Mexicans were thought to know their place. They were not aloud in public buildings and could not eat amongst the Anglo Americans. In one instance they were told to go eat with the colored people and this was a major demeaning remark to their race. Social construction also came into affect when their kids tried to advance beyond their so-called required education level.

4.) The Mexicans tried many tactics to resist this discrimination. They held a Mexican Revolution. They also tried moving eastward to other jobs were they could find better accommodations. They also held strikes in 1933 and the women set up picket lines. The last but not most affective resistance was the Barrio. A small town set up by the many Mexicans already in the U.S.A. to get away from the American torture and still maintain their homeland culturist views.

5.) Race- “Clearly, race was being used as a weapon by the American Federation of Labor: Mexicans not only constituted “cheap labor” but were regarded as incapable of becoming fully American.” Takaki pg. 331

Ethnicity- “The religion of the Chicanos was a uniquely Mexican version of Catholicism, a blending of a faith brought from the Old World and beliefs that had been in the New World for thousands of years before Columbus.” Takaki pg 335

I believe that the Mexicans endured nearly the same of amount of discrimination as the Japanese people. There was on advantage to being Mexican though, the fact that their homeland bordered the United States and they could easily go back to their birth homes. At one time there were actually too many Mexican workers in the United States and they were encouraged to take the Railroad back to their homes in Mexico with a little persuasion and punishment if they didn’t.