Week 5

One point that I got from the La Frontera article, which is something we discussed in class last week, is how divided as a people those who we consider "Mexicans" and "Mexican Americans" are. While last week we were talking about the different gangs, their territories, and the power/money games that divide them, this week, these men and women are further divided by their language. It was striking to me that the author stated that "we use our language against each other" and that "we oppress each other trying to out-Chicano each other, vying to be real Chicanos... there is no one Chicano language just as there is no one Chicano experince."

I wanted to relate this article to the Latino Threat Narrative article. The Threat implies that the Latino threat is a unified nation that will come and "reconquer land formerly theirs." I feel as though the La Frontera article disproves the implication that Latinos are incapable of integrating as well as of being a unified force. It seems to me that their culture is so divided within themselves trying to define who they are in relation to each other and their northern neighbors that their goals and desires are not to recapture anything. I also note that their language is proof that they are capable of integrating. They have created a hybrid of English and Spanish, therefore incorporating parts of the American community into theirs. While this article discusses how further this Spanglish alienates the border crossers, the incorporation of English into their own language shows they do reject the American community all together.

However since the Latino Threat is alive and well, especially within border states like New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas, Latinos continue to inherit an identity and a language that is a social stigma. Their identities and language divide them from Americans as well as divide their own people, fragmenting their culture. As their language keeps their culture fragmented, in what ways in our own culture do we find this same linguistic divide? For example, an "AR-ange" and an "OR-ange"?