Those Alienated Humans - Essay Example

?Those Alienated Humans The early 20th century witnessed a drastic transformation in the pattern and forms of literary works which constantly reflected the connections with the Trans American experiences. Among the various significant works of the modern era of American fictions the most appropriate ones seemed to be Both Paredes’s George Washington Gomez and Anzaldua’s Borderlands. These texts have been prepared in the context of instable political background in the border areas of the American nations, specifically in Texas. Both the piece of writing represents the turmoil that took place in several lives due to the concepts of nationalism and sub-nationalism that viciously separated the people on the basis of their color, race, religion, culture and language, making the inhabitants of the border areas suffer the most. The novel George Washington Gomez written by America Paredes talks about a boy who grows up in Jonesville by the river (the author used a fictional city to symbolize the town of Brownsville) during the initial part of the 20th century, when there was an worldwide turmoil in economic , social and political front. United State of America was slowly consolidating their position and was emerging out as a new global power. There was internal conflict among various states over the issues of different culture, races, language, social practices and what not. Texas was not an exception due to its close proximity to Mexico the perennial problem of illegal immigrants was added to distort the social and cultural fabric of the localite, who used to suffer from the identity-crisis, which is vividly depicted in the character of Gualinto, the central character, who came to be known as George Washington Gomez in the later part of his life. In his early life Gualinto nurtured the hope of helping the poverty-stricken Chicanos, in his hometown. But life changed dramatically and Gualinto got married to the daughter of a Texas-ranger, a white man, and slowly became a tool of the upper strata of the society, whom he used to despise since his childhood days. This is the case of identity conflict within the kid who experienced an Anglo-Texan ambience specifically in the educational system in his growing up days, but slowly swayed away from his belief, his character, his society, with passage of time (Paredes 1990). The protagonist gradually changes as time passes and all his ideals vanishes leaving behind an invisible mechanical soul of his much like ‘Hollow men’ of Eliot (Brauhardt 2010). He wears suits, disrespects Uncle Feliciano and forgets his own values, cultures and identity. The protagonist falls a prey under the dominant groups and deviates from his real self. Here he is different from that of the Invisible man, who does not change his identity at any cost. From both the novels we get to know about two different protagonists who more or less hail from the same background but their journey towards life changes due to their different socio-economic- cultural aspects. The schooling of Gualinto varies from that of the nameless protagonist of ‘The Invisible Man’. The Invisible man attended a Negro school whereas Gualinto attended a school which made him Americanized thoroughly. His teachers also helped him in the process. Gualinto never recognized group solidarity from school instead he came to know about how to be a polished, sophisticated human being in the long run. He actually learnt to act like a white. The character of Gualinto grows up under a constant pressure of his race who wanted him to be a successful person and to help his community. Gualinto only fulfills a part of this hope as he becomes a successful tool in the hands of the white men but fails to lend a helping hand towards the betterment of his community and thus he betrays his own people. In his early life he gets teacher like Miss Cordelia who forced him to forget Chicano culture and Spanish language to get established in the school culture. Miss Cordelia too was a Chicano teacher and her character is a mockery for the whole social system. His identity crisis starts at a very early age to be specific when he started attending school. He was compelled to learn both the cultures (one at home and the other in school) in order to adapt himself in the changing scenario. We, the readers, feel sad as we try to understand the critical situation felt by Gualinto in his early life. Gualinto betrays his people but that is not deliberately. He learnt to lead a mechanical life and successfully impersonates white men. In the contrary the invisible man never forgets his duties and responsibilities towards his people. To some extent his schooling helped him. He remembered his grandfather’s last words “Livc with your hcad in thc lion's mouth. I want you to overeome em with yeses. undennine "em with grins. agrcc "em to death and destruction. lei em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open”. The main character of the invisible man has a conscience which is constant. He is very specific about his motive. He knows his purpose in life. Whereas Gualinto is confused and distorted in his purpose. We understand his difficulty but cannot empathize with him and thus he has been referred as a betrayer. He is much like the “Hollow men’’ of T.S. Eliot , without morality a barren entity, confused and puzzled character ------- the modern man. His conflicting ideals make him a villain but if we introspect the views it will be known to us that he is just the replica of the modern man and nothing else. Another different novel Anzaldua’s Borderlands can also be discussed in the same light. The theme is similar to that of Parades’ George Washington Gomez. The novel opens with the description of the ocean to relate the natural border unlike the borders of United States/ Mexico borders which are not natural. The novel depicts the rigidity and difficulty faced by the people who stay in the border land. Border is not a simple division it is a reality that is full of hardships. In this semi autobiographical novel Anzaldua comes to term with her Chicana self as well as her lesbian identity. In her novel Anzaldua says that the border is there to separate us from them. It’s a division meant for the bad from the good. According to her if the colored people by any chance crosses the border legally or in an unauthorized way they often gets “raped, maimed, strangled, gassed, [and] shot.” But on the other hand the white men can cross the border whenever they want to. She writes about the mestizo’s descendants also. The area of land which is presently known as Central America, was the original land of ‘Mestizos’, who were partly Spanish and partly native. The Mestizos, started their journey towards south-west of United States for a better living, which is now known as Mexico. As United States of America was expanding, both in population and in size, this newly emerged Americans invaded the area, so long occupied by the Mestizos. A fierce war broke out. Mestizos were defeated and finally piece was reinstated with the ‘Treaty of Guadalupe’ in 1848. Hundreds of Mexicans lost their lives in the war and thousands of them became homeless. Though some of the Mexicans fought back, the overall situation of the country was pathetic, full of terror and without having any law and order. American companies now came into the forefront. They entered by force into the Mexican Territory, and set up factories/mills/companies to maximize their profit by exploiting the local labor-force and the natural resources. Peso, the local currency was devalued and the economy of the country suffered due to large unemployment. The people who were staying near the ‘borderline’ between USA and Mexico , now had to take an important decision of their life. Their forefathers had crossed the borderline and came to Mexico for a better living, but with the changing scenario the descendants were now trying to cross the borderline and re-enter USA, mostly by way of unauthorized immigrants, with high risk, since the law of USA is very strict about such immigrants. She describes herself as the "chicana dyke-feminist, tejana patlache, poet, writer, and cultural theorist”. She explores the borderland accumulating her own experiences and the experiences of her community in this novel. She established a conflict with the social norms as she has refused dominance of the patriarchal society. The border land is a story of the integral struggle faced by a woman who challenges the social regulations. She wants freedom from all kind of bondage and therefore she defies the culture also “culture expects women to show greater acceptance or, and commitment to the value system than men”. The protagonist here is a revolutionary and tries to overcome herself from the trapped situation of life. Borderland is about those undocumented immigrants who face difficult situations in their life which in general can’t even be imagined. Both Gualinto and Anzaldua undergo a transformation in their lives because of their Chicano entities. Both of them wish to leave behind their Chicano selves in order to emerge as a new person. In this regard we can draw the context of the “Trans-American imaginary” by moya salvidar which focuses on the earliest phase of the 19th century that marks the US national formation when the American literary works got highly affected by the large diversity of the well-liked forms, styles, modes and genres which restlessly attached the various forms of “plurality and representativeness” together. With the shift of the US borders from the “southwest and the west” during the year 1848, the transformative nature of the American works got historically established. The American literary works of the nations other than the English works saw a vast transformation and idioms that didn’t belong to the English language started to be inadequately and erratically integrated into the greater storyline of the American fictitious historiography. This curtailed integration has partially aided the growth of the “transnational” or “reformed” American studies (Moya and Salvidor n.d.). The effect of the modern aspects that significantly contributed to this transformation can be traced in the writing of Americo Paredes. As was stated by Susan Gillman, the rapid change in “a comparative geography of the study of race, slavery and nation” has been reflected well in Anzaldua’s Borderlands. Both the writing presents the relationship between the history, geography and political structure of the border areas which affected the life of these authors to a great extent. The phenomenon of the literary transformation has been famously expressed by Emerson in his essay “The American Scholar”, which is known to be a guiding law of the American literary history. The culture plays a major role in the Trans American novels. Nations that once perceived themselves as united are presently facing challenges and are getting threatened by the “nationalism and sub-nationalism” facets around the borderland of the countries and the era however shows no signs of end. Even though the period of the “multi”, “trans” or “ post national” stands with the unavoidability of the historical prerequisite, the concept of the “national” still remains within people, as has been stated by Benedict Anderson, "the most universally legitimate value in the political life of our time". Even though the present enthrallment in our punitive domain for “posts” of all kind, and in spite of the necessity to reconsider the supposed incomprehensibility and integrity of the borders of the nations, it can be argued that the grouping is still significant for the studies related to the modern literature. In order to get a finer distinction of the contemporary American discourse as well as to gain a historiographically precise definition of the transformation, it is primarily needed that we assert to identify the effect of competing nationalism trends on the literature of the country. These trends included “the existence and stubborn persistence of regional voices, popular styles, or minority group identifications” that kept on happening within the boundaries of the country”. At the same time Moya and Salvidar stated in their work that the modern literatures in America act in response to the ideological forces which belong to the external geographical boundaries of the autonomous United States. The eminent authors of the modern era had presented their thoughts about the Trans American effects on the fictions constructed by the authors belonging to the border region of the country. The works of the Cuban independista Jose Marti had influenced the essays of Michael Hames-Garcia, which were aimed at precisely addressing the necessity to recognize the “truth” of the history of America. The careful and restricted research by Hames-Garcia states that the “literature that ends up in a canon is reflective of the preferred self-conception of the canon constructors.” (Salividar 1993) In this regard Kirsten Silva Gruesz demonstrates in her work the factors that contributed towards the development happened within the Latina and the American study of “philosophy of history” which aids the process of sufficient theoretical interpretation of the links between the past, present and future” of the Latin within the US. In a similar way the essay by Rowe articulates the effect of the conventional American studies and their effect on the cultural reform that had been significantly shaped by the western patriarch society and in turn gave rise to a completely different bunch of borderland inhabitants with an American identity. The recent essay by Werner Sollors, titled "For a Multilingual Turn in American Studies”, argues that the study of the US culture involves a polylingual as well as a multicultural point of view (Rowe n.d.). Various research based on the culture of America represents that the final half of the 20th century depicts a fast adaptation of the English language by the immigrants despite of their preservation and connection with their native language, which is more rapid and universal than any other group of immigrants at any other era, in the history of America. The immigrants in America used to get classified which was evident from the social inequality within the educational and economic system. The late 20th century however showcased disparities on the basis of culture and language. Thus in the conclusion it can be stated that Paredes's work of fiction, “George Washington Gomez”, has been framed in the context of the history of cultural, political, social, religious and language divergence in account of the US-Mexican border saga. The story narrates the pain and suffering faced by the people of the borderland who were forced to speak English despite of belonging to a Spanish family. These pains and sufferings later caused the birth of the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and “an early enunciation of coalition politics among internal Third World groups in the US”. The same is true for the novel by Anzaldua’s Borderlands where the author seem to be challenging the paternal society and their thoughts and beliefs regarding the borderlands. People used to identify the dwellers of the borderland as a group who are different, different in aspect of culture and education. Their identity got hidden under the burdens of the social norms, which reminded them every time that they are different, they are separate from others. Works Cited Paredes, Americo. George Washington Gomez: A Mexicotexan Novel. Texas :Arte Publico Press. 1990. Brauhardt, Marcel. Essay on Thomas Stearn Eliot "The Hollow Men". Germany: GRIN Verlag. 2010 Rowe, john Carlos. Post-Nationalism, Globalism, and the New American Studies. Print.n.d. Salividar, Ramon. The Borderlands of Culture: Americo Paredes's George Washington Gomez and Chicano Literature at the End of the Twentieth Century. Print. 1993. Moya, Paula M. L. and Ramon Saldivar. FICTIONS OF THE TRANSAMERICAN IMAGINARY. Print. N.d. Read More