Invisibility of Culture

Roxana M. Maldonado

Professor Susana Marcelo

CAS 113A

19 September, 2016

Invisibility of Culture

      In today’s society, diversity is a common space that we all share. The U.S tends to be recognize for that, for its cultural diversity. As living in a country where people from all around to world lives, culture tends to be more complicated to explain. - What’s culture? - In the article Central American Identities, Douglas Carranza and Beatriz Cortez say “we cannot define culture a permanent, rigid way. While there are elements in a certain culture that can be remain, there are other dimensions of it that are ever-changing, for every group.” (Carranza and Cortez 1) I personally agree with Cortez and Carranza because I believe that culture cannot be defined, but examples can be shown or explain in order to recognized one’s identity.

When it comes to the Central America culture, people are not recognized for its unique culture because of the European influenced that had on it back then while the European expansion was “the discovery of these new lands”. When Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492, he and his people “…came to the world in context of a racial prejudice where peoples were classified through a taxonomy that included many categories Castas…” (Carranza and Cortez 3) As you see since the time of the “Reconquista” its purpose was to divide people in social classes base on their ethnicity which I believe is a social issue that we still affront nowadays.

There is millions of people who have emigrated to the US from Central America countries, either because they are running away from civil wars or bad situations of its country. When a country has gone through a hard time period, people tends to go away and wants to forget about what’s happening in their homeland; they flee away from that situation seeking a better one. “The history of Central America Illustrates the ways in which the construction of an empire requires the colonization and oppression of others, as it happened during the colonial period in Central America…” (Carranza and Cortez 4). Such a tyranny, has created the way Central America is seen. Culture is very diverse in CA but, there is some similarities between each country. An example could be religion which has a huge influence on people identities.

Central Americans are not usually seen as an important part of the US population, but we are. A immigrant coming from Central America or Mexico is usually related to a stereotype of criminal or gang members. Because of this stereotype, Central Americans tend to be seen as a bad influence to this country and tends to underestimate this culture. This is an example of how Central Americans tend to be seen. Robert A. Yarbrough says in the editorial Latinos studies /Latinidades –Under construction “… Central Americans remain invisible both in conceptualizations of Latinidades and discussion of marginalized communities in the United States…” (Yarbrough48) immigrants regarding where they come from, they have played and would keep playing an important role in the United States.