Borderlands Saints: Secular Sanctity in Chicano/a and Mexican Culture

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 112-114
Author(s):  
Rebecca Moore
Keyword(s):  
2008 ◽  
Vol 89 (4) ◽  
pp. 631-639
Author(s):  
Ruth Ann Belknap

Although studies have identified the importance of the mother–daughter relationship and of familism in Mexican culture, there is little in the literature about the mother–daughter experience after daughters have migrated to the United States. This study explores relationships between three daughters in America and their mothers in Mexico, and describes ways in which interdependence between mothers and daughters can be maintained when they are separated by borders and distance. Data collection included prolonged engagement with participants, field notes, and tape-recorded interviews. Narrative analysis techniques were used. Findings suggest mother–daughter interdependence remains. Some aspects may change, but the mother–daughter connection continues to influence lives and provide emotional and, to a lesser extent, material support in their lives.


Author(s):  
Javier Pereda ◽  
Patricia Murrieta-Flores

Lucha Libre has played an important role in Mexican culture since the late 1950s. The sport became famous mainly due to its masked wrestlers, who incorporated their own family traditions, beliefs and fears into the design of their masks, transforming an ordinary person into a fearless character. After the introduction of the Monsters Cinema in the 1930s, Mexican audiences welcomed and adopted characters like Dracula, Nosferatu, Frankenstein and The Werewolf. The success of Monster Cinema in Mexican culture was based on the integration of national legends and beliefs, placing them in local and identifiable concepts in the Mexican popular imagination. Later, Lucha Libre Cinema mixed with Monster Cinema resulting in the birth of new heroes and myths. These emergent paladins of the Mexican metropolis set the cultural and moral standards of that time and how Mexicans wanted to be perceived. Through an anthropological and historical analysis of Mexican Cinema and Lucha Libre, this paper investigates the main social interaction of male wrestlers who perform as heroes inside the celluloid world and outside of it. We explore how masculinity and the male figure evolves in Lucha Libre Cinema, and the processes that wrestlers have to undergo in order to be able to portray themselves as superheroes of an evolving and fast growing Mexico.


Author(s):  
Marina Burgete Ayala

The article examines the conquest of the New World in the focus of interaction of different types of thinking in the clash and conflict of two civilizations, which develop in different ways and which are at different levels of social and economic development. The result of this clash was the destruction of the material, spiritual and intellectual traditions of indigenous cultures that existed on the American continent. The conquest of America is one of the most revealing examples of the clash of civilizations, analyzing which, with particular clarity, one can observe contradictions between different types of world perception. The answer to questions about what kind of knowledge Nahua-speaking people possessed, what role knowledge played in their society, who was the creator, carrier and translator of knowledge about the world, reveals one of the main reasons that led to a rapid and irretrievable destruction of culture of “metaphors and numbers.” The author reveals the role of Catholic monks in preserving the spiritual, scientific and philosophical heritage of the Mexican culture, thanks to which we have the opportunity to touch the thought of the Nahua people, existing not in the form of traditional texts but in the form of an oral tradition, which accompanied visual images of graphic semantic writing. It shows how important the system of education and upbringing in the society of pre-Columbian Mexico was, how it solved the tasks of preparing young people for the performance of social functions. The destruction, as a result of the con- quest, of the system that regulated the daily life of each person and determined the ultimate destiny of the people in the shortest possible time led to the death of the entire civilization.


NASPA Journal ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gwendolyn Vendley

The purpose of this case study was to describe the impact of a multi-ethnic, multicultural program on participating students. The program was designed to immerse students in Mexican culture as a means of combating ignorance of and violence against members of ethnic groups at Fairfield University. Interviews, pretests and post-tests, and participation observation were used to determine whether the training program was responsible for changes in student perceptions and judgements. Four instruments were used, each of which provided a distinct vantage point for viewing developmental change. The study demonstrated that through personal contact changes in attitude can be effected.


Author(s):  
John H. Flores

This chapter compares liberal and traditionalist understandings of empire, race, and gender to explain why liberals often declined U.S. citizenship and why traditionalists became more amenable to U.S. naturalization. Mexican liberals defined themselves as anti-imperialist mestizos and, in Chicago, they joined with Puerto Ricans and Nicaraguans to protest U.S. imperialism. Most liberals rebuffed U.S. naturalization, in part, because they were put off by U.S. imperialism, racism, and gender norms. By contrast, traditionalists celebrated the United States for granting them religious freedom, and challenged the liberals by exalting all that was Catholic and thus Spanish and white in Mexican culture. In so doing, traditionalists became more open to a U.S. understanding of whiteness and citizenship, and many traditionalists decided they could create new lives for themselves in the United States.


Author(s):  
Jacqueline Avila

Silvestre Revueltas was a Mexican modernist composer and violinist. Known mainly for his references to modern Mexican culture, Revueltas is regarded as an essential figure during the Mexican modernist and nationalist movement in music. He composed chamber works, vocal pieces, and music for larger symphonic orchestras, and was also one of the most successful film composers in the Mexican film industry during the 1930s. Suffering from severe alcoholism and health problems, Revueltas died of pneumonia in December 1940.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document