Abstract
In this chapter, “Crossings,” the experience of undocumented workers and the struggle of child labor engage in a critique of transnationalism that results in new ways of understanding “Americanity,” or what Bill Ashcroft calls “transnation.” This chapter, in particular, engages with the experience of undocumented immigrants and presents the despair and difficulties of child labor and the farmworkers’ experience in search of realizing the problematic American Dream. This chapter also shows how, by challenging fixed notions of language and citizenship, these writers propose a rethinking of home, community, and nation.
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Notes
- 1.
The Spanish edition of The Circuit was published by Houghton Mifflin in 2000; the short story “Cajas de cartón ” was published in The Bilingual Review 4.1 and 2 (January–August, 1977): 119–22. His latest book, Taking Hold (2015), came out when this manuscript was finished.
- 2.
These terms of identity, in places like Latin America, have been imposed with violence to calm down the tensions created by ethnic differences.
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Considering the inherent dangers of such a political maneuver, what stands out is Chávez capacity to understand some of the cultural virtues that became a true source of power for these workers. His decision to lead the march carrying the Virgin of Guadalupe was successful since the use of spirituality in his leadership undoubtedly attracted and enlarged the cultural and nationalist awareness of the participants. As a religious, political, and cultural element, this icon awakened nationalist pride among farmworkers, and also served to unify all Mexicans under the same cause.The fundamental difference between his union and others that had failed in the past was Chávez use of faith, Mexicanness, and political awakening. By using images, which appealed to the workers’ spiritual strength, the Farmworkers Union was able to ground their long-held dreams in a new political terrain.
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Velasco, J. (2016). Crossings. In: Collective Identity and Cultural Resistance in Contemporary Chicana/o Autobiography. Literatures of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59540-9_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59540-9_3
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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