JE # 6

10. Mama Chona chooses to ignore her indigenous ancestry by up scaling her Spanish ancestry. Therefore, I believe she is the number one character with cultural schizophrenia. She refuses to get any darker than she already is. Her insistent need for wanting to be light skinned is then reflected by her conscious need to carry an umbrella around, to shield her from the sun’s rays. 

9. Miguel Grande strays away from his family and by pushing them out he is denying his roots. He has internalized racism as he works under a police department, which often times targets people of color. Miguel Grande is suffering from colonized mind as he continues to work at the police department, where he wants to be in power. This then plays onto his cultural schizophrenia because it oppresses people of color when he himself belongs to the same group.

8. Felix embodies cultural schizophrenia because he not only has two conflicting cultures but he has two lives. He is married with children and his hiding his homosexuality from them. He aware that he belong to a culture that is only  accepting of heteronomative relationships and therefore finds an insistent need to hide his sexuality. 

7. Miguel Chico has to put up with his parents racism. His parents cut off his connection from Maria and in the instant his connection to Mexico is no longer there. Shortly after he refuses to have the same beliefs as his parents and distances himself from religion through education. This makes him culturally schizophrenic as he is dislocated from one aspect of his roots, and therefore tries to denounce them altogether.

6. Lola means to be an empowered woman but uses her sexuality as her primary source of agency. She manipulates Miguel Grande and makes him believe that he posses control over her when in reality, it’s the other way around.

5. Juanita knows about the affair Miguel Grande and Lola are having and does nothing about it. She is suffering from Cultural schizophrenia because her culture tells her that she must cater to his, even if that means that letting him have an affair.

4. Angie is suffering from colonized mind, this is visible through her favoritism of her son Berto because of his physical abilities. She also suffers from linguistic terrorism as she struggle with her broken English.

3. Joel has internalized racism against his mother and he finds joy in watching his mother struggle with speaking English. He is ridiculing her for having let his father take advantage of her and in a way for being “too Mexican.”

2.Nina doesn’t demonstrate much suffering from cultural schizophrenia. The only instant I can think that she is being affected through cultural schizophrenia is when she is attempting to connect to the spiritual and doesn’t seek out guidance.

1. Lena is the least culturally schizophrenic because she is conscious of the government system and chooses not to rely on them as she continue to seek for the murdering of her father.