Critical Reflection #2: “Sabrina Needs Her Identity Back” and “Desde Entonces Soy Chicana”
Lorena resists identifying herself as a Latina or a Chicana because she wants to avoid pigeonholing herself into how many others fight the cause she’s fighting. She describes the stigma of being Latina or Chicana as “the fighter Latina, but not the good fighter. The troublemaker. Chicana, the same way. Chicana is, ‘Oh, you’re always protesting for something, you’re always angry at something or somebody’” (198–99). She leaves her home country and pursues education to go to medical school solely because she wants to help people, which doesn’t possess any identity.
Meanwhile, Nelda embraces her two identities, notably because of her upbringing nearby the US-Mexico border. She sees protesting and being angry about something as a good thing. She wants a better life for her people, discussing with her parents about “how possible it was for Mexican Americans to become middle class. Although she was exposed to a lot of criticism about Chicanas/os, even in her own family, Nelda felt that through reading history she had come to see their struggles as her own. Nelda further explained that while she will always consider herself Mexican, she sees herself as different from other Mexicans who “look down” on Chicanos. Thus, she manages the dual identities of Mexican and Chicana without seeing any conflict between the two” (181).
Both girls realize the negative connotations that go with their identifications. Both are threatened with assimilation to become an American to fit in. If there’s the label ‘American’ tagged in your identity, it seems that you’ll most likely be more respected rather than being called an ‘immigrant.’ Lorena describes her job as a human being because she didn’t have very many tools to defend herself. She knew that knowledge is the only thing she could arm herself with, followed with, “When you have an MD after your name, very few people are going to tell you no, for anything” (202). Her perspective is that no matter how you describe yourself, knowledge is universal, and anyone who is determined enough can attain it. Both Lorena and Nelda have this idea.
The distinctions between these ethnic identities are so important to the young women because they want to make a difference and promote the possibilities of young women with the same identity in the United States. However, many of those who are US-born are afraid of that social change that schools like Nelda’s high school in Houston are attempting to subtract and standardize Mexican culture. According to the author of Desde Entonces, Soy Chicana, “The educational process [at Seguin High School] fails to promote bilingualism, biculturalism, and biliteracy. Instead, schooling is more about subtracting than adding these competencies, and in so doing compromises the achievement of immigrant and nonimmigrant youth alike” (178). The author derives her inspiration from Nelda as someone who can fit into the American norm while maintaining her Mexican identity, an example of biculturalism. The author sums up how Nelda (as well as women like her and even Lorena) work to redefine what it means to be Mexican American in the US: “When immigrant youth…are allowed to maintain their cultural identities…they can develop an enhanced sense of…personal control over their futures and reap immense psychic, social, emotional, and academic benefits” (182).
Lorena’s experience at her internship allowed her to see the stigmatization of the cultural and ethnic identities of the people she was serving: “My experience at the internship opened my eyes to a lot of injustice that I didn’t want to know about before. The way that farm labor is in North Carolina is very different from how it is here in California…There’s H-2A camps, where the workers who are here legally live, and there’s undocumented camps. The undocumented part of it is so dark and kept in the back. It’s like a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ type of thing. And undocumented people are very scared in North Carolina to let anybody in…We went to several of these camps, and it broke my heart the way that they lived…” (193).
Although the organization I’m working with, The Spahr Center (Marin AIDS Project) doesn’t work with people of one ethnic identity; however, it does deal with the LGBTQ community, specifically those who are HIV+. These are people who already feel disadvantaged by society not only for being LGBTQ but living with HIV limits them in so many ways. Fortunately, the Marin AIDS Project serves them with free needle exchanges, counseling appointments, food services (for clients only), as well as counseling for family members of those who are HIV+ and LGBTQ youth. They accept everyone, regardless of ethnic identity. Being exposed to this side of life that I don’t always open myself up to reinforces why I want to help as much as possible.
