Contact Zones in Chicano Culture Essay Example for Free

Contact Zones in Chicano Culture EssayMeeting someone from other subtlety expands your acquaintance of the world. As you receive new in melodic lineation, you are giving some of your own. The experience of two different backwash meeting is far less than the experience of two different cultures of citizenry meeting. The to the highest degree common subject of these meeting is one culture dominates over the other. This domination eventually leads to hatred towards the oppressors, until the dominated are free. over many years, the dominated population has integrated their culture with the dominant one besides there is noneffervescent conflict. In Arts of a Contact Zone Mary Louise Pratt writes about the lay outs of a pertain zone, when two different cultures meet and interact, and why it is good. Contact zones bring people together to share likings and cultures scarce it can also lead to slavery and conquest . We will focus on one effect literate arts. Some of the lit erate arts are autoethnography, transculturation, bilingualism, critique, and denunciation. These literate arts are ways people use language to express a clash of two cultures.An autoethnographic text, a text that a writer uses to respond to the way other people bring ins their ethnic group, uses things familiar with a dominant race to make a point. Pratt gave us an example of autoethnographic text called New Chronicle and Good Government by Guaman Poma. The title New Chronicle comes from the name of the apparatus used by the Spanish to present their American Conquests to themselves. Poma uses this to create a new picture of the world by rewriting the Christian history with the Andeans at the center of the religion.The new Christian-Inca history resembled European manners and custom descriptions exactly included the meticulous expound of information stored in the Inca societies. Poma used this manner to write his letter to make a parody the Europeans could understand. Glorias Anz aldua essays come in 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 onwards 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 identify with Standard English or Standard Spanish cultures. Since the Chicanos are born(p) in the coupled States but are ethnically Mexican, they do not belong 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 musical style 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, like most Chicanos, did not practice Roman Catholicism but a kindred 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 showing us her experience 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 terms. Repeated attacks at our inseparable tongue diminish our sense of self. The attacks continue throughout our lives. Chicanas savor uncomfortable talking in Spanish to Latinas, afraid of their censure. Their language was not outlawed in t heir countries. But for a language to remain alive, it must be used.By the end 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 forth her sexual identity. Before the Spaniards conquest, the male dom inated Azteca-Mexica culture had replaced all the effeminate deities with male ones. This replacement violate the female deities and the female self. If there were no female (spirit) deities then there was no female identity, gibe 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 find her sexual identity. Pratts definition of a suffer 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 wholly 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 wa s 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 with child(p) parts of Anzaldus contact zones but that is the main result of contact zones with a dominant culture. tied(p) 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.