Why is it difficult for Mexican Americans to live in America?

The movie Selena tells how difficult it is for Mexican Americans to live in a country like America. There are great expectations from people who live there especially for artists and other people who wish to conquer the entertainment industry. Mexican Americans in the United States are often ridiculed in their manner of speaking and performances.

Many American racists will not hire group of Mexicans as performers. If there is a chance to get them for programs and performances, the audience has dual expectations from these groups.

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Moreover, they are also subject to discrimination by the Mexican American community when they perform English-American instead Spanish songs. When a flashback of Abaraham, Selena’s father, as a member of a family band playing “Blue Moon,” was presented in the film, the way they were rejected by the Mexican American audience shows that the Mexican American community was not ready to accept Mexicans who play English songs. When Abraham discovered Selena’s golden voice, he knew that Selena was meant to be on the limelight.

With his support, Selena was convinced that she can become successful “in a field where every other Mexican American woman had failed” (Bernardinelli, 1997). When Selena grew older, she wanted to have a musical identity that she can call her own, which was mostly influenced by American pop music. As a Tejano singer, she was singing Spanish songs while she idolizes American pop singers. Because of this, there were times when Selena and Abraham clashed about the direction of the band’s music.

However, he never failed to respect her and prod her to choose her own path. Thus, Selena is a film that deals with a clash of two different cultures (Bernardinelli, 1997). An example of this in the movie includes the part where Selena was to be interviewed by a TV reporter. Abraham told Selena that her English and Spanish should be perfect. She has to look like she can understand and identify with icons of both cultures. This was a lesson that Selena took to heart.

However, in the interview, she made a mistake. After the interview, Abraham expressed his frustration by saying that to be fully accepted in America, Selena must become “more Mexican than most Mexicans” and “more American than most Americans” (Quintanilla & Nava, 1997). She is an American, but she is also a Mexican, and she has to learn to draw from both cultures to form her own style (Berardinelli, 1997). When Selena died, nobody quite knew where to place her culturally (Rodriguez, 1997).

But her tremendous popularity on both sides of the border is a symbol of how hyphenated Mexican-Americans have gone from the margins to the mainstream (Rodriguez 1997). Selena's story is one of the “burden of leading hyphenated lives, and of the need to forge a place for ourselves between the dismissive Anglo-American and Mexican mainstreams” (Rodriguez, 1997). She was indeed a dreamer who preferred to go on discos rather than ranches.

When she was already popular among the Mexican Americans, she still dreamed of becoming a “crossover” star to sing English songs. It is said that in the past, Mexican-American identity and having a Latino culture is a great shame for the immigrants’s children and grandchildren. “Mexicans called their English-speaking, ‘Scooby-Doo’-watching American cousins ‘pochos,’ which meant something like ‘watered-down Mexicans’” (Rodriguez 1997). Selena's popularity both in the Mexico and America marks the changes in the new generation where

“’pocho’ no longer connotes a marginal position in a culture that was never fully [Mexcian], but a growing pride in Mexican-American hybrid status, and the ability to sample and absorb the best from both sides of the border. ” (Rodriguez 1997). Living in America with traces of Mexican-American blood is never easy because not only they are discriminated by Americans, they are judged by other Mexicans, especially when they act “too American” However, these things never discouraged the late Selena to reach the top.

Reference: Berardinelli, J. (1997). Selena. Reel Reviews. Retrieved February 18, 2008 from: http://www. reelviews. net/movies/s/selena. html Quintanilla, Jr. , A. (Producer), & Nava, G. (Director). (1997). Selena. [Motion picture]. Warner Brothers. Rodriguez, G. (1997). Selena's story "pochos" have come of age. Pacific News. Retrieved February 18, 2008 from: http://www. pacificnews. org/jinn/stories/3. 06/970321-selena. html

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