"And the Earth Did Not Devour Him" by Tomas Rivera

This short story focuses on a migrant boy whose family works in the fields. His father gets sunstroke, and the family worries that he will die. The boy, who remains unnamed throughout the story, became angry because he “was unable to do anything against anyone” (71). I don’t understand this. Why would he want to do something against someone? Shouldn’t he be made because he isn’t able to do something for anyone? His anger at God steadily boils, and when his nine-year-old brother also gets sick, he snaps and curses God. His parents had instilled a fear in him of talking badly of God, and the boy feared that the Earth would open up and swallow him, but it did not. By the morning, his father and brother were doing better, on the road to recovery. The part of this story that had the most impact on me was when the boy was talking to his mother about their lives and being poor, and his mother said, “Only death brings us rest” (74). I think that this phrase most accurately describes the lives of the migrants and Mexican Americans living or working in America during the 1940s and 1950s. Between working all day, taking care of their families, and constantly being ridiculed by Americans, it seems true that only once they passed into the next life would they finally be in absolute peace and rest.

Where I'm at right now

My topic is Hispanics, and I've done articles from the ABC Cleo and The American Reader. I don't really know what I want to narrow my search into. Even though I haven't, I want to read an article about Cesar Chavez and do a response about him because he sounds like an interesting topic, and an important part of Hispanic history.

"Stupid America" by Abelardo Delgado

This poem, written by Abelardo Delgado, is from his first collection of poetry entitled Chicano: 25 Pieces of a Chicano Mind, published in 1969. The first thought that came to my mind after I finished reading this was wow. This poem was very powerful; it made me see things in a different light, and I want to read more of his work. His poem brings to the forefront all that Americans use as examples to label Hispanics as bad, stupid, or dangerous. In one part of the poem, he says "hear that chicano/shouting curses on the street/ he is a poet/ without paper and pencil/ and since he cannot write/ he will explode." I had heard this view before, of rap being considered poetry, so this did not suprise me. However, when I read the line "he cannot write," I asked myself why can't he? Is it because he does not physically posess a pencil and paper? Is it because even if he wrote poetry, no one would publish it? Or is it that, because of racial prejudices, he was not able to attend school, and was therefor literally unable to write? This thought angers and saddens me because everyone should be allowed free public schooling, especially in elementary school. Not allowing children in on the basis of race or color of skin is simply disgusting. The most impactful part of the poem for me was at the end. It goes, "stupid america, remember that chicanito/ flunking math and english/ he is the picasso/ of your western states/ but he will die/ with one thousand masterpieces/ hanging only from his mind." How sad it is to realize that so many wonderful people - painters, poets, and so many others - will not be offered the opportunities that present themselves to us, but will get turned down time and time again solely because of their ethnic background. How unfortunate it is that we may never get to enjoy what they have to offer because of our silly misconceptions.

League of United Latin American Citizens

This article, entititled "League of United Latin American Citizens," was another article on an organization based around supporting Hispanic Americans. This organization has a goal of bringing about positive social and economic changes for Hispanic Americans. What I like about this organization is it's uniqueness. The LULAC started out as three seperate organizatons, that merged together in 1929. These groups remind me of SNCC because they were started by Mexican Americans as a means of defense against prejudicial attitudes and discrimination acts, much like the SNCC was formed for African Americans so they could defend themselves. This unifaction of three smaller organizations created one strong group that works hard to "reverse widespread unequal treatment of Mexican Americans." This group also reminds me of cases such as Brown vs. board of Education because of their involvement in the court system. In 1945, a LULAC council in California sued to integrate the school system in Orange County, and won. Another landmark case for them was in Texas in 1954 when they protested that not a single Mexican American in that state had ever been called to jury duty. This was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. All of these things are great, but I think that the best thing this organization does is to raise money for the LULAC National Scholarship Fund, which has helped send almost 10% of the Hispanic American students in the United States go to college.

Alianza Hispanico-Americana

This article, entitled "Alianza Hispanico-Americana," provided me with a lot of new information on my topic of Hispanics. Alianza Hispanico-Americana was a fraternal aid organization led by three men, Carlos Velasco, Pedro Pellon, and Mariano Samaniego, who founded it in Tuscon, Arizona on January 14, 1894. Velasco became the organization's first President. This organization provided low-cost insurance, fought to protect civil rights, and promoted Mexican-American social and cultural activities. I liked this article because groups supporting Mexicans are not discussed often, especially those as old as this organization, so it was good to read about this. I like most of their aims, but I disagree with and don't understand some of them. For example, "the group limited membership to Mexican Americans and did not allow convicted fellons, African Americans, or Asian Americans. It also attempted to preserve the Mexican culture and gave its members lessons in civic virtues like freedom of speech." I definitely agree that convicted fellons should not be allowed membership, but not permiting African or Asian Americans to be members seems unfair. Seeing as it was formed in response to racial discriminations, I would think that the organization would include the other groups being discriminated against. Also, the group did not allow women to be members. They only lifted this rule in 1913, "in reaction to the growing power of the woman suffrage movement." This angers because this is one more group that they discriminated against. Shouldn't the organization's goal be to unite and band together the groups being discriminated against so they can gain strength and courage against their oppressors?

Here is the article and the citation in MLA format.

the bracero program

After I read the article about Latinos in U.S. society, I clicked on a link to a picture on the right of the page. This picture shows 5 young children posing under a sign that says "US Department of Agriculture Farm Security Administration Farm Workers Community". These are the children of migrant farm workers brought in from Mexico to provide agricultural workers in the Southwest during the late 1940s. This angers me because even though this was a good thing for the growers because the Mexicans provided cheap, unorganized labor, it was not beneficial in any way to the workers. The people that were brought over were paid low wages, forced to live in horrible conditions, and did not recieve schooling for their children. It maddens me to hear the way that immigrants were treated when they came to the U.S. because Americans think of themselves as loving and accepting beings, but in reality are cold-hearted, and afraid of anything or anyone that is remotely different than them. These children, being as young as they were, probably did not understand why people were so mean to them, and probably thought that it was something they did. We know from studying African Americans during first semester that this can have a degrading and lasting effect on the children and their futures. As one of the leading countries today, we need to take a look at what our ancestors did and how they acted, and learn NOT to do what they did. We need to learn from their mistakes.

Latinos in U.S. society

This article, entitled "Latinos in U.S. Society" gave me more knowledge than I had expected to find in the very first article that I clicked on. I knew very little of what was said in this article, but I did know a few things. For example, I knew that Latinos are the fastest growing ethnic group in America, and that people of Latino descent are known most commonly as Hispanics, Latinos, or Chicanos. Thdere were many facts that I did not know, such as the fact that there are seven main states that Latinos live in. these states are New York, Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Illinois. The mention of the Lemon Grove incident of 1931 brought to mind the blacks' fight for integration, which we studied for a while during first semester. Indeed, "feeding from the fervor generated from African-American struggles for equality, young Latinos created the Chicano Movement in the mid-1960s. A broad-based unit, it enlisted the support of students, adult groups, and otherswho advocated cultural nationalism, or seperation and independence for people of Latino descent". They also formed a group called the "Brown Berets," modeled after the Black Panthers. As the article says, "Latinos in the United States are increasingly securing prominent roles in all aspects of society".

"Latinos in U.S. society." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 28 Jan. 2010. http://www.americanhistory.abc-clio.com/.