"A day without a Mexican": a persuasive analysis

Part I: Introduction to the campaign

Rhetorical History

The United States has been described as a melting pot, i.e., a place where the previous identities of each immigrant group are melted down to create an integrated, uniform society. Since the 1960s, many Americans have rejected the melting pot metaphor in favor of the image of the mosaic, a picture created by assembling many small stones or tiles. In a mosaic, each piece retains its own distinctive identity while contributing to a larger design. Advocates of the mosaic metaphor assert that it better represents the diverse multicultural society of the United States. Today, many Americans value their immigrant heritage as an important part of their identity. More recent immigrant groups from Asia have established communities alongside those populated by the descendants of European immigrants. Although the United States has been shaped by successive waves of immigrants, Americans have often viewed immigration as a problem. Established Americans often look down on new immigrants. The cultural habits of immigrants are frequently targets of criticism, especially when the new arrivals come from a different country than those in the established community. Despite such tensions, economic needs have always forced Americans to seek immigrants as laborers and settlers, and economic opportunities have beckoned foreigners. The vast majority of immigrants to the United States have come in search of jobs and the chance to create a better life for themselves and their families. In all of American history, less than 10 percent of immigrants have come for political or religious reasons. Economic immigrants from Europe, Asia, and Latin America have come to the United States voluntarily. Others were involuntarily transported to North America to do forced labor or to be sold as slaves. Regardless of the reasons they come to the United States, new immigrants typically work in menial, labor-intensive, low-paying, and dangerous jobs—occupations that most other Americans shun. They are often treated with disdain until they assimilate, that is, adopt the mainstream American culture established by earlier immigrants. Of the 224 million people reporting their ancestry in the 1990 census, only 13 million, or 6 percent, identified themselves as Americans only. The rest chose one or more broad racial or linguistic groupings (such as African American or Hispanic) or national heritages (German, English, Irish, and Italian were most common) to define their origins.^[i]

American people with Hispanic origins have been inside the political-geographical borders of the United States since the Conquest of Mexico in the sixteenth century. That population has been in the Southwest territory of this country—Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and California— until it was ceded in a consequence of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed after the war, establishes some agreements that have not been accomplished today, such as the guarantee of legal and property rights. In those times when Mexicans became Mexican-Americans, they suffered from discrimination and their rights were violated. With time, Texas established a lineage relations system, from which American people underestimated the Mexican-Americans socially, politically, and economically. History has witnessed discrimination in America from the middle of the twentieth century, when it was legal, and how the Mexican-Americans, and also Hispanic-Americans, still deal with these problems today. Those issues come from the conquest epoch, a legacy of attitudes that assign an inferiority role to other Latin-American people who arrived in the twentieth century. Nowadays, it seems that these people are defending their rights and are not giving up on being accepted in this society.^[ii]

Relevance to today

People from Hispanic origins will become the largest minority group in the United States early in the twenty-first century, and Mexican-Americans will constitute a substantial proportion of this group. Many new immigrants are following economic opportunities to regions of the United States that previously had very small Mexican-American populations, such as Alaska, Maine, and Hawaii. As the Hispanic community grows, its political influence steadily increases. Mexican-Americans increasingly affect decisions made by the national governments in Washington, D.C., and Mexico City. Many American politicians now speak to Mexican-American constituents in Spanish and take part in parades through Mexican-American neighborhoods, such as La Villita (Little Village) in Chicago and East Los Angeles.

Mexican-Americans have begun to use their political power to influence legislation in the United States. Mexican-Americans have organized lobbying efforts and public demonstrations in opposition to attempts to drastically restrict immigration into the United States. They have formed coalitions with other minority groups to support threatened bilingual education programs. The Mexican-American community has also helped defend affirmative action programs designed to increase the presence of minorities in the workplace and in educational institutions.^[iii] In this paper I will analyze the Latin-American people’s struggle in the United States reflected in the movie “A day without a Mexican” according to its persuasive content.

Literature Review

California 2004: 14 million Hispanic people, or a third of the people living there, disappear because of a natural disaster—a dense pink steam which attacks the city. California wakes up one morning and finds there is chaos in its social, political, and economic structures. Crisis ensues when California is disconnected from all of America and the rest of the world. California’s society becomes weak due to the loss of all Latino and Hispanic-American people who have mysteriously disappeared. American people see how their world starts collapsing with the absence of hard workers: cooks, gardeners, police men, baby sitters, farmers, doctors, construction workers, artists, athletes, and so forth. This loss for American people makes them appreciate and understand that Latin-American people maintain the “American Dream” by working.^[iv]

“A day without a Mexican” is a movie released in May 2004, which shows through a comical satire a reality of some of the events about the discussion of topics such as immigration and Latino people from several perspectives. Sergio Arau and his wife, Yareli Arizmendi, are the directors and the scriptwriters of this controversial movie filmed in Los Angeles. The movie, reviewed well by movie critics, reflects veracity in the in the information and diverse interpretations. The topic of this movie is not innovative. It is something that people in America have seen for several years. They are blind to this problem, and they have let it grow up. According to Arau, the movie was filmed to make people conscious of this topic, and also to bring to light some of the issues that they wanted to show throughout this movie:
*The NAFTA has not had fair results. The proof is in how factories in Mexico and Latin-American countries have been closed.

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^[i] “Immigration.” Encarta Encyclopedia. 2003. MSN. 08 April. 2006 <www.encarta.msn.com>

^[ii] “Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.” November 22, 2005. The Library of Congress. 08 April. 2006<http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/ghtreaty/>

^[iii] “Mexican Americans.” Encarta Encyclopedia. 2003. MSN. 09 April. 2006 <www.encarta.msn.com>

^[iv] “The movie.” May 2004. Televicine. 09 April. 2006< www.adaywithoutamexican.com>