Lone Star and My thoughts

           At first I thought Lone Star was a very old and boring movie, but then I realized it illustrate very important facts that were discussed in our Ethnic Literature class such as racism, social class, politics, immigration, stereotyping, "being an American". Lone star was about different stories of people’s lives that somehow were intertwined or directly connected with each other. 

I will not do a summary about the movie because its a movie that you should really watch for yourselves to really understand and get a actually visual of it. But in this Blog I will mention the things I did point out from the movie that had some similarities of our class discussions:

In watching this movie I quickly noticed in the beginning that in this town, the whites were in control and became Sheriffs a type of portrayal of "what is the law". And everyone else was the contrary, a constant battle between them (the whites) and the rest of the world (Colored’s).

The Mexicans were constantly stereotyped in this movie; ironically being that the majority of the population in the time were Mexicans, but disrespectfully referred to as "Wetbacks". The Black Americans towns were called "Dark Town". I can't think of a most racist name for a town than that!

And it was interesting how the producer showed the movie in a sort of flash back to the present, illustrating us on how it was back then and the present. Blacks were allowed in the Army, interracial marriages were somewhat accepted. It’s a movie about change even though not all the world changes there are some ignorant people out there that don’t have the mind set to change or want to change because they believe or afraid of that soon they (White) will become the minorities of the world. Another interesting point I noticed in the movie was the teaching of our history back then it was taught in a one sided point of view and anything else was believed to be wrong. This made me wonder and can it be STILL possible in the 21st century can be true? This also made me think about the movie of Mirrikitani how it was said that the US bombed his home town because they believed they were some sort of threat. But in reality the US were the ones that are the threat bombing everyone who did not follow the US control. I believe many times the US bullied other countries manly minorities like in comparison to Sheriff C. Wade. Sheriff wade is a bully who pan handled the minorities into paying him for some sort of protection, because if not they would be put in jail or worse killed. 

And as mentioned above change was a major theme in this movie. Change came in both good and bad for the characters. The controls of the whites were changing little by little but the change in the Mexicans struck me as significant. I saw significant because the Mexicans no longer saw themselves as "Mexicans" such as Mrs. Cruz. Mrs. Cruz was a hard working single mother that carried herself with strength and a lot of dignity in "being American". She did not like the fact in speaking Spanish and throughout the movie she continued to teach her workers in to talking "English, English" because she would constantly say "We are in America you have to speak English". This made me wonder and do a comparison of what I thought of "Being an American" to me. I came to conclude that to me personally to be an American I don't have to give up my rights or ways of being Latina. I believe so many people that come to American get changed and molded to being one of "them" like some type of droids or something.

But I do not wish to be like everyone else in this country nor do I want to be seen as the typical Latina. To be an American to me I believe it’s all about knowing and never forgetting where you came from and molding oneself to become "better" in life. Reaching and getting the opportunities our ancestors worked so hard for us to strive. It's all about making a difference in your family line like Sheriff Deeds Jr. he came one because if his father’s name but he still believed his father was a cruel man. His father was not a saint sort of say but he did make things "better" for the people and give people a better opportunity in getting or achieving thing in their lives. 

So, in conclusion at first I thought Lone Star didn't have much to do what was discussed in our Ethnic Literature course But I came to realization after watching the movie that it had plenty to do with the course and bring up many interesting topics and facts that even today he face in the 21st Century and it’s a movie that I recommend you watch for yourselves and let me know what topics or interesting moments that stood out to you?