Contact Zones in Chicano Culture Essay

Meeting someone from an opposite kitchen-gardening expands your companionship of the world. As you receive new information, you be giving some of your witness. The consume of dickens different people come across is far less than the perplex of two different cultures of people meeting. The al almost common outcome of these meeting is one culture dominates over the other. This domination eventu tout ensembley hold ups to hatred towards the oppressors, until the prevail are free. Over many years, the dominated population has integrated their culture with the dominant one but on that point is still conflict.In humanistic discipline of a Contact Zone Mary Louise Pratt writes about the solutions of a meet zone, when two different cultures meet and interact, and why it is good. Contact zones nonplus people together to share ideas and cultures but it can also malarkey to slavery and conquest . We will focus on one effect literate humanistic discipline. Some of the literate arts are autoethnography, transculturation, bilingualism, critique, and denunciation. These literate arts are ways people use verbiage to distill a clash of two cultures.An autoethnographic schoolbook, a text that a source uses to respond to the way other people sees their ethnic group, uses things familiar with a dominant race to take on a point. Pratt gave us an spokesperson of autoethnographic text called newly Chronicle and Good Government by Guaman Poma. The title New Chronicle comes from the name of the apparatus used by the Spanish to pledge their American Conquests to themselves. Poma uses this to create a new picture of the world by rewriting the Christian narrative with the Andeans at the center of the religion.The new Christian-Inca history resembled European manners and custom descriptions but included the meticulous elaborate of information stored in the Inca societies. Poma used this manner to write his earn to make a parody the Europeans could understand. G lorias Anzaldua stresss Entering into the Serpent and How to Tame a Wild Tongue are examples of an autoethnographic text. She uses her essays to destroy some of the stereotypes readers have forwards they read her essays. Some of the stereotypes of Chicano are they are hated by the US and Latinos and have a conflicted identity.The idea that Americans and Latinos hate Chicanos comes from the belief that they cannot strike with measurement English or Standard Spanish cultures. Since the Chicanos are born in the United States but are ethnically Mexican, they do not last in the United States or Mexico. The hatred of Americans and Latinos caused the unknown identity of Chicanos. Transculturation occurs when two groups of people integrate different aspects of a culture with each other. An example of transculturation is Pomas illustrations in New Chronicle and Good Government.The pictures had a European genre but they used Andean systems of spatial symbolism to express values and aspi rations. In Anzalduas essays, we see transculturation in the religion. My family, same(p) most Chicanos, did not practice Roman Catholicism but a family Catholicism with many pagan elements (Anzaldua 73). The Roman Catholicism that was the religion of the Spaniards intermingled with Anzalduas snake religion to form the folk Catholicism version of la Virgen Guadalupe as Coatlalopeuh. Transculturation and autoethnography both manipulate language.Anzaldua wrote the essays in English and Spanish to identify herself with the Chicano and show us her take care with English speaking people. Pomas wrote his letter in Quechua and Spanish so both cultures could understand the main points of the letter. In childhood we were told that our language is wrong. Repeated attacks at our native tongue derogate our sense of self. The attacks continue throughout our lives. Chicanas feel uncomfortable talking in Spanish to Latinas, afraid of their censure. Their language was not outlawed in their coun tries. however for a language to remain alive, it must be used.By the dismiss of this century English, and not Spanish, will be the mother tongue of most Chicanos and Latinos (Anzaldua 89) The language of a culture identifies a person. If someones language is banned it makes the person feel unwelcome so to fit in they speak the main language but wonder what is wrong with their own language. When Chicanos speak Spanish they spoil the language and when they speak English they are traitors. This idea of having a wrong language causes confusion and shame, which will lead to not a Chicano identity but an American identity. By identifying with her culture, she creates a known identity for her people.Chicano Spanish is unlike English or Spanish but a combination of both, which results in bilingualism. Anzalduas first essay shows us what her religion meant to her, and she blames and criticizes the Catholics for taking away her sexual identity. Before the Spaniards conquest, the antheral dominated Azteca-Mexica culture had replaced all the female deities with male ones. This replacement split the female deities and the female self. If there were no female (spirit) deities then there was no female identity, according to Anzaldua. After the Conquest, Guadalupe became a virgin and all the other female deities (snake goddesses) were whores.The change in identity of these female deities encourages the virgin/whore dichotomy. This separation of mind and body made it hard for her to comment her sexual identity. Pratts definition of a contact zone makes it a wonderful and horrible place to be but Anzaldua seems to disagree. Anzalduas experience with Catholic people seemed to be the worst thing that happened to her. These chapters from her book Borderlands/La frontera only show one type of opinion with no other positive outlooks. Her dislike of the Catholics inspires her to write these chapters to show us how her life was like and to blame everyone who reads her book.She was not able to have a true contact zone through her experience so she is unwilling to understand the Catholic religion. Anzalduas essays are another example for Pratt to use in her essay. The concept of literate arts is present throughout. The essays mainly show the bad separate of Anzaldus contact zones but that is the main result of contact zones with a dominant culture. Even though Anzaldua may not agree this is a contact zone. Her bias shows the readers the horrors of her cultures past to encourage a response.