Test_Aguirre

Juan Aguirrre
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Chapter 8. Constructing Race: Readings in Multicultural Semiotics

Jack Lopez: Of Cholos and Surfers PG.684__**

On this reading the author talks about growing up in Los Angeles which is a city with a reputation for hardcore hispanic gang members. The author who is hispanic mentions in his reading how he enjoyed being a "surfer" even though he was of hispanic descent and did not feel obligated to become a gang member. In the end, he ends up finding out that it does not matter what other people think about how you dress.

- Jack Lopez mentions a part of the reading where he is at a store and goes to the magazine section in order to buy his surfer magazine while his father bought his beer. He also mentions how his father was the primary provider for the family and raised four children. While Lopez was purchasing his magazine his father would look at him as if it were no big deal but to Lopez it meant a lot.

-Jack Lopez also states his father would always ask people if they were mexican only if he knew they obviously were because he knew their answers in advance.

Question #1-Do you feel obligated to dress a certain way because of the race you come from?

Question #2-Regardless of what race or culture you come from, do you have the same feelings towards it than your family does?

**Chasity Aparicio**
 * __Jack Lopez “Of Cholos and Surfers”__**

“Just before the cholo was going to initiate the fight, I said, I’m Mexican. American of Mexican descent, actually.” “He seemed unable to process this new information” “How can someone be Mexican and dress like a surfer?”

First of all, Jack is trying to talk his way out of a fight. He is defending his surfer style instead of being a cholo in a city where Mexican American’s were usually cholo’s. So, the cholo kind of accepted him being a surfer because they did not fight. In the 1960’s in Los Angeles it was either one or the other, but not both. He was not like his peers and people around him. He was discovering his identity and who he really was.

“This revelation, this recognition verbalized, molded me in the years to come.” “A surfer with a peeled nose and a Karmann Ghia with surf racks driving down Whittier Boulevard in East L.A. to visit my grandparents.” “The charmed life of a surfer in the midst of cholos.”

[]

“I was a pioneer in the sociological sense that I had no distinct ethnic piece of geography on which pride and honor depended.” “Something gained, something lost.” “I couldn’t return to my ethnic neighborhood, but I could be a surfer.” “And I didn’t have to fight for ethnic pride over my city street.”

He was one of the few kids in his city that distanced himself from the gang stereotype norms. He did not want to be apart of a gang, but wanted his freedom.

“I could be a surfer, if I chose, and even cholos would respect my decision.” During my adolescence I went to my grandparents’ house for the holidays.” They lived in East Los Angeles.” “I was able to observe my Los Angeles Mexican heritage, taking a date to the placita for Easter service and then having lunch at Olvera Street.” “An Orange County girl who had no idea this part of Los Angeles existed.” “I was lucky; I got the best of both worlds.”

Jack does not forget where he came from and has the knowledge of both types of people and their behaviors and styles to take with him throughout his life.

[] Can anyone relate to either being in a clique or being able to relate to many cliques in their high school or college careers?

Can you think of any cliques that dominate or give people grief for not participating in their beliefs or practices?


 * Juan Serrato**
 * __Jack Lopez “Of Cholos and Surfers”__**





1. In Jacks response the cholo’s question, he stated “ His question was not like my father’s. My father, I now sensed wanted a common bond upon which to get closer to strangers.”

2.“The most Important thing I learned was that I could do just about anything I wished, within reason. I could be a surfer, if I chose, and even cholos would respect my decision. During the adolescence I went to my grandparents’ house for all the holidays. They lived in East Los Angeles. When I was old enough to drive I went on my own, sometimes with a girlfriend. I was able to observe my Los Angeles Mexican heritage, taking a date to the placita for Easter service and then having lunch at Olivia Street. An orange county girl who had no idea this part of Los Angeles existed. I was lucky; I got the best of both worlds”.

-According to Jack Lopez his experiences in East Los Angeles involved a diverse and sometime’s conflicting community. Overall, however, he felt that he was lucky to have experienced the diverse culture that Los Angeles had to offer. This is an interesting contrast to his father who befriended others who were culturally similar to himself.

Question #1 Has anyone had an upbringing similar to Jack’s in which their diverse background has enriched their perspective on life?

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Question #2 Is community possible in an environment in which there are many different cultures and beliefs?

__Nell Bernstein: Goin' Gangsta, Choosin Cholita PG.691__** The article begins with a description of an Anglo girl, April who wants to be Mexican.
 * Reba Lawson

"Her lipstick is dark, the lip liner even darker, nearly black. In baggy pants, a blue plaid Pendleton, her bangs pulled back tight off her forehead, 15-year-old April is a perfect cholita, a Mexican gangsta girl."

April's father Miller works in a San Leandro glass factory, he expects NAFTA to take over. He teases April about her "Cholita" looks, and April teases back with,"Wait till you see how well I manage my welface check. You'll be asking me for money."

According to Bernstein San Leandro once had a majority of white, in 1990 it was 65 percent white, 6 percent black, 15 percent Hispanic, and 13 percent Asian/Pacific Islander. California demographers predict we will be the first state with no racial majority by 2000.

In the 2000 Census Demographic of San Leandro, white make up 51 percent, (14 percent decrease), black make up 10 (4 percent increase), Asain and Pacific Islander are 23 (10 percent increase) and Hispanic at 20 ( 5 percent increase). Bernstein claims that with minorities moving in, the boundary between cities and suburbs is disappearing. For all of California White 77% Hispanic 37% Black 7% Asain/Pacific Islander 13% According to the U.S census.

April explain her current choice of ethnic identification as," I don't have enough attitude to be a black girl". For April and her friends they believe that this choice of ethnic identification is up to them. Skin and eye color have nothing to do with it. The attitude they carry, and the music they listen to helps identify them with the chola lifestyle.

[]

Bernstein believes it is radio and television that introduce the adolescence to their ethnic differences and fights have broken out as a result. Bernstein contributes this to adolescence being at an impressionable age where they mimic the power closest to them. His examples were older sisters clothing, or the ruling clique at school. He explains "claiming" to be the central concept around this.

Another girl Nicole talks about her ethnic backgrounds, if anyone were to mock her she says she would say, "white pride". She is proud of her race and wouldn't wanna be any other race. Heather is Nicoles friend and she also feels this way about her race. Their friend Jennifer rebels and says she is Mexican. Both Heather and Nicole remind her of her moms blond hair and that she should'nt be embarrased to claim who what she is. Nicole argues that people white is looked on as a "bad race". 1.) Do you think that California demographers were correct in their predictions? (that we will have no racial majority) 2.) Do you agree or disagree with Heather when she says white is looked on as a "bad race"?

__Nell Bernstein: Goin' Gangsta, Choosin Cholita PG.691__
 * Joseph Gim**

//In this article, Nell Bernstein probes some of the feelings and motives of teens who are “goin’ gangsta” or “choosin’ cholita”—kids who try on a racial identity not their own.//

Will Mosley, Heather’s 17-year-old brother, says he and his friends listen to rap groups like Compton’s Most Wanted, NWA, and Above the Law because they “sing about life”—that is, what happens in Oakland, Los Angeles, etc. Will says, “No matter what race you are, if you live like we do then that’s the kind of music you like.” It’s interesting though because Will admits that he doesn’t live in such a bad neighborhood, but just considers himself a “city” person.

Will and his friends believe that they can live in a suburban tract house with a well-kept lawn on a tree-lined street in “not a bad neighborhood” and still call themselves “city” people on the basis of musical tastes. “City” for these young people means crime, graffiti, and drugs. The kids are law-abiding, but these activities connote what Will admiringly calls “action.” With pride in his voice, Will predicts that his city of Hayward will be like Oakland. What he means is that Hayward will have more crime, more graffiti, and just more things happening.

Not only white kids believe that identity is a matter of choice or taste, or that the power of "claiming" can transcend ethnicity. The Manor Park Locos (a group of mostly Mexican-Americans who hang out in San Leandro's Manor Park) say they descend from the Manor Lords, tough white guys who ruled the neighborhood a generation ago.There are three generational groups and they are the Manor Lords, Manor Park Locos, and Manor Park Pee Wees. The Pee Wees consist mainly of the Locos' younger brothers, eager kids who ciricle the older boys on bikes and brag about "punking people."

Not every young Californian embraces the new racial hybridism. Andrea Jones, 20, an African American who grew up in the Bay Area suburbs of Union City and Hayward, is unimpressed by what she sees mainly as shallow mimicry. "It's full of posers out here," she says. She also goes onto explain that it is hard being white in the schools out in her area. She believes, "It's beautiful to appreciate different aspects of other people's culture-that's like the dream of what the 21st century should be. But to garnish yourself with pop culture stereotypes just to blend-that's really sad."

Nell Bernstein believes there is something going out there that transcends adolescent faddishness and pop culture exoticism. When white kids call their parents "racist" for nagging them about their baggy pants; when they learn Spanish to talk to their boyfriends; when Mexican-American boys feel themselves descended in spirit from white "uncles"; when children of mixed marriages insist that they are whatever race they say they are, all of them are more than just confused. They're inching toward what Andrea Joes calls "the dream of what the 21st century should be."

__//Questions://__ 1) Do you ever feel like you can relate to another ethnicty/race/culture better than your own at times? 2) Do you agree with Bernstein when he says that the youth these days are more than just confused? What do you think he meant when he said this?