Hispanic American Presentations & Urrea

The Hispanic American population is one of the people groups I have found myself sympathizing less with for some reason. I am beginning to think now it is due out of ignorance for the most part. While I hold to some of my opinions, the statistics we learned in the presentations yesterday surprised me a little. I had never really tried to look at such things from the Hispanic American standpoint. They didn't affect me, so I never really thought to care so much, as awful as it sounds. It reminds me of Critical Race theory tenet 2 only less extreme.

I found that the clip from the movie about Selena where her father tells her tell that they must be "more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American than the Americans" struck a chord with me somehow. It seems to be true of many races in American - like the Native Americans - as Loewen wrote about.

As for the presentations themselves, no offense to anyone, but I really found the Native American presentations to be more engaging overall. That's not to say that these presentations were bad.

I like Urrea a lot better now that I have read his afterword about his life and grace. It really allowed me to connect all of his stories in a way I hadn't quite seen before. I had not realized that all of them ended with mentioning the sky either until we discussed it in class. I really appreciate his works more now that I see these things.

The connection to syncretism like we read about in Loewen through the ending passage in "Bid Farewell to Her Many Horses" was especially touching to me. Urrea's words throughout that could, in my opinion, teach a lot of people about getting along across race lines. Like CRT points out, race is a social construction. Don and Bobby connect across the race lines...while the clip about Selena and her father shows how so many people won't accept even those of their own race. With such contracting examples, how can one not conclude that race is a social construct?