This is an excerpt from "I am Joaquin" [1], of which wikipedia [2] says:
> I Am Joaquin (also known as Yo soy Joaquin), by Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales and translated by Juanita Dominguez, is a famous epic poem associated with the Chicano movement of the 1960s in the United States. In I am Joaquin, Joaquin (the narrative voice of the poem) speaks of the struggles that the Chicano people have faced in trying to achieve economic justice and equal rights in the U.S, as well as to find an identity of being part of a hybrid mestizo society. He promises that his culture will survive if all Chicano people stand proud and demand acceptance.
He played an important role in the post-assimilation movement. When all of my grandparents came over after the war, they were strict about speaking English and trying to assimilate into American values. In the 1960s, there was a strong desire to maintain heritage of where you were arriving from.
I’m a bit sad that the assimilation was so strong in our family because we lost some of the heritage and stories, but I can see the tension when you see what happens today: e.g. People waving Mexican flags while stoning police cars in California.
I wonder if that's tension caused by lack of assimilation, or more because of fundamental injustices towards people with that heritage. There isn't a racial "Latinx" flag, so I can see waving a country's flag, not as a political statement but as a "I and those with my heritage and skin color should not be second class citizens".
Lack of assimilation can also look like, say, ethnic neighborhoods within a city; neighborhoods where local businesses clearly target particular ethnicities, such as where English is given second class status for signage, if it appears at all. And while that makes some people mad, honestly, I kinda like it. Anyone who has gone to a city's "Chinatown", or headed for restaurants on Buford Highway in Atlanta, or similar, knows that creating cultural enclaves like that can create enough economic demand to sustain non-Americanized practices, and that's both beneficial on the individual level, and I can't help but think also beneficial on the broader societal level in ensuring a feeling of emotional comfort and safety for those of that ethnicity, and allowing others to be exposed to different cultures and expectations, beyond simply "the foreigners they see on TV".
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 22.2 ms ] threadClick the doodle, slide 7.
https://imgur.com/a/ARkyfuS
And even if Latinos or Asians or black folks do it, it's internalized white supremacy.
https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/latinos/joaquin.htm
And Wikipedia has a high level description of the context it takes place in - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Joaquin
> I Am Joaquin (also known as Yo soy Joaquin), by Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales and translated by Juanita Dominguez, is a famous epic poem associated with the Chicano movement of the 1960s in the United States. In I am Joaquin, Joaquin (the narrative voice of the poem) speaks of the struggles that the Chicano people have faced in trying to achieve economic justice and equal rights in the U.S, as well as to find an identity of being part of a hybrid mestizo society. He promises that his culture will survive if all Chicano people stand proud and demand acceptance.
[1] https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/latinos/joaquin.htm
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Joaquin
I’m a bit sad that the assimilation was so strong in our family because we lost some of the heritage and stories, but I can see the tension when you see what happens today: e.g. People waving Mexican flags while stoning police cars in California.
Lack of assimilation can also look like, say, ethnic neighborhoods within a city; neighborhoods where local businesses clearly target particular ethnicities, such as where English is given second class status for signage, if it appears at all. And while that makes some people mad, honestly, I kinda like it. Anyone who has gone to a city's "Chinatown", or headed for restaurants on Buford Highway in Atlanta, or similar, knows that creating cultural enclaves like that can create enough economic demand to sustain non-Americanized practices, and that's both beneficial on the individual level, and I can't help but think also beneficial on the broader societal level in ensuring a feeling of emotional comfort and safety for those of that ethnicity, and allowing others to be exposed to different cultures and expectations, beyond simply "the foreigners they see on TV".