"Gordo" - Mexican comic strip

                            

    “Gordo” (strip) ran from November 24, 1941 to March 2, 1985 and chronicled the life of Mexican bean farmer Gordo Lopez. The character was design to reflect popular conceptions of Mexicans at the time, with a highly caricatured style and a lazy overweight title character who spoke in heavily accented English and took naps under a tree wearing a sombrero.

    The strip’s author - Gus Arriola was born in Florence, Arizona, the youngest of nine children. He was raised in a Spanish-speaking household. He learned English by reading the Sunday comics.

     The early strips were criticized for Hollywood - style cultural stereotype— partly because that's an understandable shortcut when introducing an audience of one culture to characters from another. But mainly, the author later explained, because that was simply the way things were done at the time, and it took a little while for him to realize it didn't have to be that way. As his characters developed, they became richer and more fully rounded, and author felt less need to saddle them with dialect and stylized behavior. Eventually, Gordo even started wearing American-style clothes — sometimes, at least. American who lived where people could go years without hearing Spanish spoken on the street, were exposed to the everyday lives of ordinary folks in Mexico. Without Gordo, tortillas, tamales and burritos might not be quite so popular in English-speaking America today.

    At the height of its popularity the strip appeared in 270 newspapers. The strip was praised by the Mexican government, and the California's state legislature voted a resolution commending Arriola's professional excellence and thanking him for his many years of promoting inter-ethnic understanding through entertainment.

        Stereotype represents the false understanding of a culture by a group of people from another culture. But the reason why Gordo be accepted by Americans so quickly in the beginning is probably because the character was created under American stereotype to Mexican. Stereotype shouldn’t always be defined negatively, sometime it can make a culture introduction become more acceptable to another group of people under different culture.


Reference:
1. "Gordo (comic)." wikipedia. n. page. Web. 20 Feb. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordo_(comic_strip)>.
2. "Gus Arriola." wikipedia. n. page. Web. 20 Feb. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gus_Arriola>.

Success

Hispanic actors and singers seem to be growing over the years. The Latino community has proved many aspects. Though, when it comes to success Latinos are not viewed as the successors. Artist like Selina Gomez, Christina Aguilera, and Demi Lovato prove victory in America. They all started when they were younger. Selina Gomez began her acting career as a young child on Disney Channel along with Christina and Demi. Christina is the oldest out of this group and she has overcome many accomplishments in her career. She has acted in movies and performed in multiple important events such as the Grammys, Super Bowl and movies. Super Bowls are only performed by well-known artist.

Selina Gomez is a new artist who just recently became famous. Though, she was an actress when she began her career. As she got older her career began to expand. She showcased in Wizards of Waverly Place. This show helped her career expand because it aired on Disney channel. Demi Lovato along with Selina Gomez was from Disney Channel. Demi Lovato participated in the Disney movie Camp Rock.

These previous artists are perfect examples of Hispanics achieving goals that are not accomplished by Latinos. Though, the U.S. may oversee Latinos as the typical "7 children family" doesn’t necessarily mean it’s necessarily true or that every Latino has a large family. There are many Latinos in the U.S. that are large contributors to the United States.

Bajo La Misma Luna : Under the same Moon

            Bajor La Misma Luna, Under the same Moon, is a Mexican movie that talks about the journey of an 9 year old kids to get to his mom before Sunday. Carlitos, the nine year old kid is Adrian Alonzo, and his mom is Rosario acted by Kaite Del Castillo. Carlitos was left in the hands of his grandmother when Rosario had to immigrate to the United States to be able to provide to his kid. Carlitos’ dad abandoned him, so all he has left is his grandmother in Mexico.  His mother has two jobs, and calls Carlitos every Sunday from a public phone in East Los Angeles.  When Rosario calls him, Carlitos always asks her how the place where she is standing on is, so Rosario describes it to him. When Carlitos grandma passes away, Carlitos is determine to get to his mother before the next Sunday when his mother will call him only by the description of the corner of East Los Angeles. In this journey he will meet people who will help him and others who will just try to rob him, but at the end with the help of Enrique, Eugenio Dervez, Carlitos is able to get to his mother safe.

              In this movie we can see the struggle families go through to provide to their love one in their native land.  It gives us a visual of the suffering families have when they are apart and when they want to immigrate to the United States illegally. Bajo La Misma Luna is a film that made it to the big screens in the Unites States. Since it was a movie in Spanish it was only shown in selected theater. However this film still brought profit not only to the producer and the cast but the theaters where it was shown. Just in its opening weekend, March 2008, it made $2,770,000 dollars shown in 266 screens. Once again showing their talent, Latinos had made themselves present in the big screens of America. Their talent has not only benefited them but the economy of the U.S. as well when money is being spend here to see a Mexican movie. So, why do our stereotypes have to be negative, when we have proven that not every Latino is lazy and gang member and that we can even bring profit to this country?

Eugenio Dervez; a Hispanic Pride!

             Eugenio Dervez is a Mexican comedian well recognize in Mexico.  Eugenio was born in Mexico City September 2, 1962.  Son of two great actors and publicists in Mexico, Silvia Dervez and Eugenio Gonzales, Eugenio grew up in the television industry. From a small age Dervez was attracted by the acting that his mother did, starting his career as an actor in a novel with his mother Dervez decided to continue his career as an actor. Dervez  was not only an actor but a producer as well. As he grew up  he started to get involved more in the comedian side of the TVshows. He created high rating shows such as, La Familia P. Luche, Dervez en Cuando, XHDRVZ, Al derecho y al Dervez and many more.  Two years after his mothers’ death, as Dervez tells us in a Spanish interview in “Aqui entre nos” with Andre Legarreta, he had his breakthrough to the American media with his debut in a Broadway play. He tells us how that play open up many doors to the Unites States.

            Being a successful comedian in his country, Eugenio Dervez had now come back to the American media in the big screen. Adam Sandler an American actor and producer invited Dervez to be part of his newest movie “Jack and Jill”.  In this movie Dervez was recognize even on the propaganda posters where his name was shown next to Adam's Sandler.This opened another door to Eugenio Dervez with Rob Schneider. Schneider recently started a new show called “Rob!” where he is a bachelor who marries a Mexican Translator and now has to tell his family in law that they got married in Las Vegas. Part of the family in law is Eugenio Dervez acting as Hector, the black sheep of the family, who came to visit the family for a weekend but plans to never go back to Mexico. Eugenio Derves is a very talented and recognize  actor in Mexico who is now proving his talent to the American population.   Dervez is one of the proves of the talent that Latinos have, and that we are not those stereotypical Latinos that come to the Unites States to rob it, but come here to earn what we eat.

Mark Berndt and the Latino Community

                  Miramonte Elementary School is located at 1400 East 64^th St, Los Angles, California 9001.   This school was involved in a major problem some weeks ago because the media found out about ateacher, Mark Berndt, who committed the lewd act on his students. The “Lewd conduct is any unlawful act committed by an individual with the purpose of arousing the libido or sexual interest of themselves or the person towards which this action is directed.” He had been teaching for 32 years and from 2005-2010 23 children from ages 6-10 were victims from Berndt. However no one had found out about it until the fall of 2010 when Berndt went to print the photographs he had taken the children, the guy who print the pictures decided to give them to the police and investigation started. By January 2011 Berndt was removed from teaching and a month later he was fired. Now the question parents are asking is why they found out about this a year later. In the investigation, police was able to find out that this was not the first time Berndt had committed the act, but 18 years ago a 10  year old girl had made a complain about him, but the Counselor told her that it was not nice to invent things about other people. Berndt is now in jail with a $23 million bailed.

        

   The city of South Gate is where the Elementary is at.  This city is highly populated by Latinos; 88,669 Latinos/Hispanic people live in South Gate. Now the question that many are asking is why do such things happen in communities where most of the people who live there are minorities? Latinos come to the Unites States to provide their children with a better education so no one will think that there would be teachers like Berndt who will be using their kids. Base on the experts, povertyand cultural differences are some of the differences that contributed toMiramonte scandal. Latinos, as we are raised, we learn to have respect for the teachers. They are seemed as a mentor, so no one will think teachers would be doing things like those to kids. Also poverty, some people might not know their rights and don’t know what to do. Or if parents are an illegal immigrant they might be scared that if they do something they might get deported. There could be various reasons why this scandal happened in a community highly populated by Latinos. However, Latinos, we should be aware that we live in another country where things are different, so we should get educated  of our right and know what  we can or cannot do in such situations without a fear.

Self-stereoptype?

                            

    The story of “Desperate housewives” happed in a rich community that most of the residents are white. This short funny video is about a Mexican family which living in the white community when the parents are trying to enroll their girl to a private elementary school.  The school officer expressed that he is willing to admit their girl since he hopes the school can become more diversified. The little Mexican girl is confused by the “diversified” and ask her parents: “Am I Mexican?”, Her parents are so surprised that she doesn’t know she that she is a Mexican, then the girl said: “I think I am an American.”

    Later on the parent find out the reason their girl doesn’t know her race is because they are living in a white community, they argue about which schools they should send their girl to when they back home, the father thinks they can send her to a elementary school which is fill of Mexican children, so that their child can know what her race is, but the mother refused him and insist to send her girl to a private school which most of the students are white, because she don’t want her child to get along with “those children”.

    This short story reflect a general phenomena of rich immigrant families-not just limited to Mexican family that, they has a tendency to send their child to private school which most of the students are white, because they believe the child can get better education there. This phenomena shows the self-stereotype of immigrant families, on one side they against the stereotype from society regarding their race, on another side they are trying to reduce the racial characters on their children, so their culture identities can become more acceptable to the main stream society, for example, by enrolling their children to private school which most of the students are white. Many children from immigrant family only speck English and would more like to described themselves as American, and know little about the culture of the countries their parents come from.

    When the media is reporting racial stereotype in the society everyday, should the immigrants also exam themselves that, whether they are stereotyping themselves or not?

Can English Language Interfere with Hispanics Success?

Selma Hayek is the first Mexican actress in Hollywood to be nominated as best actress. This is enormous in the Hispanic community because Hispanics are not known to be a successful ethnic group. Selma is not only an actress but is also a director and producer. She has participated in the 55 total movies and multiple shows. She started in Mexico doing soap operas. This made her famous in Mexico. She then moved to Los Angeles California in 1991 to study acting. She then was given a starring role in Antonio Banderas in 1995. When Hayek came to the United States she didn’t speak English fluently. She learned English here in the United States with her thick Mexican accent.

Selma Hayek is a Mexican American woman who has inspired the Hispanic community. She came here without being knowledgeable with the English language. Nothing held her back with what many Hispanics have trouble with when they first deport here. She has proven to the American community that she is a hard working Latina. People who stereotype should take this to account and see that Hispanics can do successful things. Such as, acting and become professional in the professional world.

For the amount of time that she has here in the United States she has done so much in such little time. When she first came here she was offered an opportunity to be part of the movie Antonio Banderas. Not many people get this type of opportunity.