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Borderlands/La Frontera

Decent Essays

When reading Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, I was reminded about the struggles of being an immigrant in the United States with all of the barriers with learning a new language and culture. I really saw this when it came to all Spanish words that are written in the book. To be able to understand her own culture, the reader has to have a basic understanding of Spanish. Culture is really taught through language, and there is a lot missing if the reader does not have this basic understanding. When immigrating to the States, people have to learn English not only to communicate well, but to fill out paperwork, and to understand the culture. For this essay I am going to focus on one story that resonated a lot with me when I was reading …show more content…

This example can be seen in the quote “in the confusion, Pedro ran, terrified of being caught. He couldn’t speak English, couldn’t tell them he was fifth generation American,” (Anzadua 1987:26). This quote really resonated with me because of the power of language and how it is learned. They ended up deporting him to Guadaajara when the furthest he had ever been to Mexico was the Reynosa a city on the boarder. This really reminds me a lot about many people I know who have grown up in the States and had to go back. I know many people who have been fighting to get citizenship for years, people who have grown up in the states but could not get citizenships so at the age of 18 had to move back to the country they have citizenship even when their lives were always here. It took my own family ten years to get a green card, and then 17 years to get a passport from the States (Anzadua 1987). Citizenship is really difficult for many people to get, but there are also many obstacles that in the way. There are many barriers that the new administration has put on immigrations. One example the Economic Times says that the new administration is tightening immigration. There are even reports that the H-1B visa for working immigrants is becoming to get a lot harder to get. This visa is used for immigrants who are looking to get their green card. There are many people who are discriminated because of their race (Chaudhury

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