"Love at the Border"

As long ago as early television's hit situation comedy, I Love Lucy, a Cuban male was presented as an extremely sexually desirable husband for a prototypically American woman. Gustavo Perez Firmat (1, 219) points out that Lucille Ball in this comedy attempted on many occasions to "Americanize" her Cuban husband, but that "Lucy loves Ricky because he is not American. When she calls him her 'Cuban dreamboat,' as she sometimes does, she intends the phrase without any irony whatsoever." Lucy's love for Ricky is very much the centerpiece of this comedy in which the Cuban "other" loves an American woman precisely because she is American û suggesting that what attracts Lucy to Ricky and Ricky to Lucy is their cultural differences a

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women alike considered sexual liaisons with Mexican-Americans to be inappropriate, such liaisons did occur and were perhaps far more common than was admitted. In fact, the colonial order, in the view of Limon (2, 152), tacitly encouraged Anglo men to become sexually involved with Mexican-American women who were placed "at the sexual and social margins of society." It was this cultural system that permitted Buddy to engage in a liaison with Pilar's mother and to hide the fact that he was the father of her child, Pilar. The character of Pilar in the film, said Limon (2, 152-153), challenges the traditional iconographic image of Mexican women. Pilar has "appropriated the image of the Anglo 'school marm'à (and) Pilar is an accomplished civilized and civilizing individual even while maintaining a full and healthy display of her sexuality." This is a somewhat different image of the Mexican woman and one that Limon (3, 171) says was associated with Selena, who used both her voice and her body to assert her right to be free of the stereotypes of Mexican women accepted by Anglo-Americans and male Mexican views regarding the proper role of Mexican women. Selena was successful in "crossing over" to English performances û and, intere
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1785
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)