Contenu du sommaire : La mexicanité aux Etats-Unis.

This essay addresses the question of the Mexicanness of Chicanos in the U.S. and, relatedly, that of Mexicans living in the Border regions of North Mexico. Contrasting views have been expressed by Mexican and Chicano scholars alike on a question which is still controversial. In this paper, the phenomenon, real, symbolic or imagined, is more specifically studied through a close examination of the way Chicanos celebrate Mexican festivities, and more generally the values that pass through the border.

Laredo, South Texas, with its 115,000 inhabitants, 90% of whom are Spanish-speaking, is an isolated town equally distant from San Antonio (Texas) and Monterrey (Nuevo Leon, Mexico). This border town is located just across the Rio Bravo/Rio Grande from Nuevo Laredo ; workers commute daily between the two cities. This paper concentrates on Laredo's Mexicanness as seen through its linguistic and cultural patterns, which make this particular border town one of the best showcases of Mexican culture in the U.S.

This article attempts to assess the respective importance of the stakes for the U.S. and Mexico in the North American Free Trade Agreement and points out the expectations generated on both sides. Is this agreement likely to be equally beneficial to the United States and Mexico and is free trade the only condition for a developing country to achieve economic health ? Though only one year after NAFTA has been enforced it may be premature to jump to any sweeping conclusions, a few trends are already discernible.

After the passage of the major pieces of Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s, « ethnic groups » have redefined themselves as « minorities », thereby seeking empowerment on new terms. Chicano advocacy groups, at the local or national level, have since been fighting for greater participation in the electoral process through redistricting and registering in order to be able to elect representatives. They have also used the courts to benefit from affirmative action guidelines and have secured passage of the 1968 Bilingual Education Act which has made it possible for Hispanics to build a power base through the school boards.

Present in ever-increasing numbers on the U.S. territory, Mexican Americans are trying to recover some of the political clout they lost back in 1848. The elections of 1992 marked a significant rise in Mexican or, more generally, Hispanic politics, following over a century of apathy and discrimination. After a brief historical survey, this paper proposes to fathom the reality of Mexican-American power in the United States and to discuss the optimism that accompanied the election returns of 1992.

The Chicano cinema, whether produced by the Independents or by the Hollywood major companies, by Mexican-American or Anglo directors, has undergone significant changes in the past decade. This article contends that the more outspoken and explicitly « ethnic » forms and contents of the latest releases, because they basically rely on postmodern parody, may be less representative of Chicano life and culture than both the early militant films and the « assimilationist » output of the mid-eighties.

Destabilizing both English and Spanish in its refusal to respect the integrity of national codes, interlingual Chicano poetry may well be a transitory form of combativity. Beyond the stigma of linguistic anarchy, and far removed from the predictable postulates of sociolinguistics, it has refined code-switching into an aesthetics. Endowed with euphonic and yet jarring beauty, it stands out, in contemporary literary history, a symbol of embattled cultures.

Dwelling on both Cisneros' poems, My Wicked Wicked Ways, and on her two collections of short stories, The House on Mango Street and Woman Hollering Creek, the article attempts to analyze the ways in which Cisneros' writings move beyond the cultural authenticity precept of Chicano literature. Through a permanent questioning of feminine identity in an increasingly heterogeneous world Cisneros reaches a more comprehensive vision of American society on both sides of the Mexican-American border.