Leen, Catherine
(2002)
Three Border Films:
El Mariachi, El Jardin del Eden and Lone Star.
In:
Cultura Popular: Studies in Spanish and Latin American Popular Culture.
Peter Lang, pp. 97-112.
ISBN 9780820456126
Abstract
Through the many changes in American cultural history, from the notion
of the melting pot to the current preference for celebrating cultural difference,
the border has continued to fascinate. The bulk of discussion on
the border focuses on the various issues surrounding the constant
movement of people from Mexico to the United States of America. One
sign of just how wide the differences between these countries are can be
seen, ironically, in the fact that for many North Americans, the crossing
of boundaries suggests a movement from east to west. Richard
Rodriguez examines his own confusion while growing up in California
the son of an immigrant father who still referred to their new home as 'el
norte' [the North]. He reflects that 'American myth has traditionally
been written from east to west, describing an elect people's manifest
destiny' (Rodriguez 1996: 37). The notion that Americans are a chosen
people whose mission is to conquer wilderness and if necessary
subjugate native peoples to advance the course of what they consider
civilisation was enthusiastically taken up by Frederick Jackson Turner.
In his 1893 essay 'The Significance of the Frontier in American
History', Turner (quoted in Taylor 1949: l-2)describes this expansion in
glowing terms and considers it a defining force in America's formation
of a national identity:
American social development has been continually beginning over again on the
fron tier. This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion
westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of
primitive society, furnish t11e forces dominating American character.
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