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Journal on Chicano Issues

The Chicano movement in the United States is well document in The Lost Land, I Am Joaquin, and Yo Soy Chicano. All three of these works demonstrate the dilemma between retaining cultural identity and trying to assimilate into a mainstream culture that is distinct from oneÆs native culture. In The Lost Land, we see how the land inhabited by Chicanos was basically undermined and taken from them. While the U.S. was more than willing to welcome Chicanos during the need for labor and military personnel during World War II, when the war was over Chicanos were once more relegated to an inferior status from the perspective of mainstream American culture. As Chavez (2004) reports the words of one fatherÆs son whose dad was a veteran of WWII, ôAfter he came home and found that things hadnÆt changed, he felt that he would rather be just another sailor than the kind of human being the Anglos treated him likeö (41).

Likewise, we see how many Chicanos often try to sublimate their own identity and culture in order to avoid the discrimination and ostracism that are projected at them from mainstream U.S. culture. This often means many Chicanos abandon their own cultural group in order to fit into the dominant Anglo culture. As one Mexican-American maintained:

I think like an Anglo and I act like an Anglo but IÆll never look like an Anglo. Just looking at me, no one could tell if I am an American or one of those blasted Mexicans from across the river. ItÆs hell to look like a foreigner in your own countryö (Chavez 2004, 44).

In the poem I Am Joaquin, we see the same kinds of sentiment and emotion over the loss of oneÆs land and identity due to the dominating influence of other cultures. The poem is a heartfelt rendering of the injustice and pain felt by one Chicano whose title of the poem underscores his struggle to retain his identity in spite of the devaluing influence of a dominant ethnocentric culture. As Gonzalez (2...

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Journal on Chicano Issues. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 16:31, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1710826.html