Intro

          Coming to the United States from Mexico as a newborn was not difficult since I did not understand what being American meant and had no understanding of my surroundings. I grew up in a white community and attended preschool with many Asians and whites. While I learned English as my first language, my sister, was battling with her accent at school. While I played with my white friends after school, my parents were struggling to find jobs in a foreign place. I did not understand my family’s struggles. It was not until I went to middle school and high school, when I began to distinguish the racial issues facing America. I began to understand that Mexicans hang out with Mexicans and Armenians with Armenians. From then on I only had Latino friends. I felt isolated from white people because during lunch they ate lunchables while I ate tortas my mom packed me in a plastic bag. I always felt the white men were superior to me and smarter. However during high school, I slowly began dressing and talking like an American. I never realized the change until my friend Michelle said I was "whitewashed" for never speaking Spanish and doing white things like going to coffee shops. I ignored her because I denied seeing that. Without realizing I was slowly assimilating to the American ways even though I grew up with a Mexican family. I was no longer identified as a Mexican.

        Now as a college student I reflect back to the traumatic experiences that my sister and I faced growing up. We battled to fit with the rest of the Americans by dressing and talking like them. We listened to the same American bands that every young American teenager listened to like Brittney Spears and NSync'. After having a heavy accent, my sister later firmly established English as her primary language. We had trouble communicating with our parents and slowly disconnecting with them since they did not understand half the things we talked about. Now we are realizing that we have been Americanized and are finding our way back to our culture. We are trying to understand our identity and who we really are. We were to a point embarrassed to say we were Mexicans. Even my mother and father were slowly being pushed towards the American ways. Before they shopped in El Super now they shop at Trader Joes or some organic store. Without realizing my whole family had to assimilate themselves in order to survive and reach "el sueno Americano". At this stage in my life, I am finally saying loud and proud that I am a woman of color despite the negative comments from my friends about being too American. I am stronger and more proud than ever to claim I am Mexican and American but none at the same time. Both don't fully define me. I am a woman of color.

        In America, certain standards are imposed such as looking and acting a certain way. Their idea of beauty is quite different from those of other cultures. Especially for women of color, their skin color or body shape identifies them. This makes Latinas be distinguished from the rest of the Americans but to some extent women of color are influenced by society's criteria of what is seem as beauty. For this reason I chose to include the play and movie, Real Women Have Curves by Josefina Lopez because the main character Ana faced difficulties trying to please her family by working instead of going to college and on top of that she was oppressed by others about her weight. Her Mexican mother tried to help her lose help so she could get a husband; however, she knew she was not a thin Americana. She was a color woman with curves. She accepts herself as she is despite others. While working at the factory she is suffering from the heat so she takes off her clothes, leaving her bare. The rest of the women in the factory do the same showing the imperfections in their bodies and leave their clothes off to show their pride in their body instead of hiding it. In a similar way, "Colonize This!" by Christina Tzintzun shows the pride in being a woman of color despite the white man's effort to "colonize" her. She redefines the term colonizes to the way people are stripped from “their culture, language, land, family, structure, who they are as a person and as a people." Tzintzun states that colonized people "shame themselves into believing that half of them are inferior. They choose to deny their culture and heritage". In the end Tzintzun she identifies herself not only "a womon or just a person of color" but a "womon of color".  She shows pride in her identity. I also chose to include Only Daughter by Sandra Cisneros because her Mexican father did not want her to go to college since there was no point in going since she was bound to get married. The man was the one who had to go to college to prepare for a job so he could support his family. Cisneros's desire was writing but her father never valued it. She did not wish to get married because she had different goals. She fights against her father’s traditional ways. She isn't assimilating to the American ways like in "Colonize This!" and Real Women Have Curves but she is breaking away from the Mexican tradition of getting married instead of studying. She is trying to find her true identity even when others believe certain ideas of hers are not right.

        Most people that come to the United States come to reach the "American dream". Sometimes they tend to do whatever it takes to get there. To some extent, they lose their identity, assimilate with the crowd to survive and make it big. The art piece "Wet Dreams" by Juan Carlos Marcias shows the process in which people are being "whitewashed" as they cross the border from Mexico to the U.S. They are being stripped down from their culture and transforming them into American.  The same idea is featured in So Far from God by Ana Castillo in which Sofi's two daughters, Esperanza and Fe find ways to be better than her mother and two sisters. They were embarrassed about their sister La Loca since she was viewed as an outcast. They tried to assimilate themselves as Americans, forgetting their culture. Esperanza studied and received a decent job. Her job was the door to escape from becoming like her mother and sisters. Fe also tried extremely hard, even if it killed her, to achieve the American Dream. She had her husband, achieved a decent living but she never really had the time to enjoy it since she was always working and later became ill. Both tend to Americanize themselves to a point where they have isolated themselves from their family and culture. I also chose to include the movies Entre Nos in this anthology because Marianna, a single mother strives to survive in the United States as a single mother. With her husband leaving and being a recent immigrant was extremely difficult to survive. However she never gave up, helped her children feel secure even when everything was falling apart and found a way to support her and her children. She showcases herself as a strong Latina in a country that kept putting obstacles in front of her and telling her she could not succeed. She overcame her struggles which made her only stronger and created the person she is now.

All the stories, artwork, and movies included in this anthology are quite different but similar in that women grow up in America forgetting who they really are because others try to oppress them. They are told that their ways are not correct and should assimilate to their right ways. However, the women figures all rebel against the social norms. They find their true identity and embrace it.

       Through this anthology I want to show the discrimination woman of color face in the United States. Now I understand the pressure that Latinas face when defining themselves especially when coming to a foreign country where one feels alienated from the American culture. I really wanted to emphasize on what identity means and how we lose it when trying to assimilate ourselves to fit in with the rest. Most importantly I want the reader to feel proud about her culture and to embrace herself as a woman of color and not be ashamed about it.