Born in East La
At the end of Cheech Marin's Born in East L.A. (1987), a pair of undocumented Chinese immigrants who have been trained by Rudy (Marin) in the art of walking, talking, and gesturing like Mexican-Americans successfully act Mexican-American in front of a police officer to convince and assure him that they indeed are "natives."
Of concern to both Lowe and Oboler is the unequal status of minorities as members of the United States national community and citizenry. Basically, the U.S. citizen has been defined as a white male. This subsequently has meant that especially persons of color have been "conceived in the popular mind as outside of the 'boundaries' of the 'American' community" (Oboler 19). Thus, persons of color are denied "the extension of full citizenship rights" (Oboler 28); they are denied protection of their "privileges and. . . local body" (Berlant 113).
Fregoso indicates that with Born in East L.A. Cheech Marin parodies the second level of meaning at which "'Born in the USA' had been disarticulated from its signifying elements of working-class discourse and rearticulated as an expression of racist and patriotic discourse" (56). Marin basically uses to his advantage the nativist logic which results in "Born in the USA" being taken to signify "foreigners (or non-whites) go home" (Fregoso 56). His objective is to intervene into the definition of "Americans" as whites. Underpinning white nativists' appropriation of "Born in the USA" is the extremely narrow reasoning that America belongs to whites because whites are born here. Marin intervenes by indicating that Mexican-Americans also are born in the USA. Thus, "brown people are natives too" (Fregoso 56) .
When caught up in an Immigration raid, Rudy declares, "I was born in East L.A.," to the INS officer to announce his right to be in the United States unharassed. Rudy is also implicitly telling the officer that by birthright he (Rudy) is an equal citizen to the officer and entitled to the
Of concern to both Lowe and Oboler is the unequal status of minorities as members of the United States national community and citizenry. Basically, the U.S. citizen has been defined as a white male. This subsequently has meant that especially persons of color have been "conceived in the popular mind as outside of the 'boundaries' of the 'American' community" (Oboler 19). Thus, persons of color are denied "the extension of full citizenship rights" (Oboler 28); they are denied protection of their "privileges and. . . local body" (Berlant 113).
Fregoso indicates that with Born in East L.A. Cheech Marin parodies the second level of meaning at which "'Born in the USA' had been disarticulated from its signifying elements of working-class discourse and rearticulated as an expression of racist and patriotic discourse" (56). Marin basically uses to his advantage the nativist logic which results in "Born in the USA" being taken to signify "foreigners (or non-whites) go home" (Fregoso 56). His objective is to intervene into the definition of "Americans" as whites. Underpinning white nativists' appropriation of "Born in the USA" is the extremely narrow reasoning that America belongs to whites because whites are born here. Marin intervenes by indicating that Mexican-Americans also are born in the USA. Thus, "brown people are natives too" (Fregoso 56) .
When caught up in an Immigration raid, Rudy declares, "I was born in East L.A.," to the INS officer to announce his right to be in the United States unharassed. Rudy is also implicitly telling the officer that by birthright he (Rudy) is an equal citizen to the officer and entitled to the
Cited: Baker, Jr., Houston A. Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance. Chicago: The U of Chicago P, 1987. Berlant, Lauren. "National Brands/National Body: Imitations of Life." Comparative American Identities: Race, Sex, and Nationality in the Modern Text. Ed. Hortense J. Spillers. New York: Routledge, 1991. 110-140. Fordham, Signithia and John U. Ogbu. "Black Students ' School Success: Coping with the 'Burden of 'Acting White. ' '" The Urban Review 18 (1986): 176-206. Fregoso, Rosa Linda. The Bronze Screen: Chicana and Chicano Film Culture. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1993. List, Christine. Chicano Images: Refiguring Ethnicity in Mainstream Film. Garland Studies in American Popular History and Culture Ser. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1996. Lowe, Lisa. Immigrant Acts. Durham: Duke UP, 1996. Oboler, Suzanne. Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives: Identity and the Politics of (Re)Presentation in the Unted States. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1995. Padilla, Felix. Latino Ethnic Consciousness: The Case of Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans in Chicago. Notre Dame, IN: U of Notre Dame P, 1985. Simmen, Edward. The Chicano: From Caricature to Self-Portrait. Introduction. New York: New American Library, 1971. 15-26.