The issue of Latino/a identity is not an easy one. Like many other ethnic groups in the USA, Latino/a community demands respect for their historical experience and political ideologies as well as recognition of their civil rights and socio-economic status in the U.S. society.
Suzanne Oboler et al. in Latino Identities and Ethnicities try to emphasize the complexity of Latino/a identity both in terms of terminology and national references. Though not differentiating the terms “Hispanic” and “Latino” in Latino Identities and Ethnicities, Suzanne Oboler et al. point out that many others do see the difference since a great number of Latin Americans have no Spanish decent which the term “Hispanic” presupposes. So, in general, the word “Latino” includes such national groups as the Mexican-origin population and Puerto Ricans who became U.S. citizens through conquest and colonization and, thus, they are not immigrants, exiles, or refugees. Therefore, it is more correct to name them U.S. historical minorities, or colonized minorities (Oboler et al.).
At first, José Martí’s The Brooklyn Bridge seems to have nothing to do with the issue of Latino/a identity. It describes the day when the Brooklyn Bridge connecting New York and Brooklyn was opened to the public and floods of people eager to see that architectural miracle crowded the place. The narrator of the story is shown to be among those people, as astonished by the magnificence of the construction as all the others. The author does not make any emphasis on the ethnicity of those present. They are all equal. He says: “We are pounding at the door of the New York station” (Martí, 142). And all these people at the station are united, just like the two cities which are now embracing each other “with arms of steel” (Martí, 144). Thus, Martí tries to depict the new bridge as an embodiment of liberty for all people living in the USA. With admiration, he writes about the bridge that befriends people living on different sides of the East River and serves as “a steel hyphen between these two words of the new Gospel” (Martí, 142). Martí emphasizes the importance of this connection and the significance of the fact that there are no soldiers guarding population any more. People are free to move without fear.
José Martí’s The Brooklyn Bridge illustrates the author’s understanding what freedom should be like and what he wants for his people, both for those living in Cuba and for those living in the USA. He wants them to have no fear in expressing themselves, in moving whenever they want, and in living whenever they wish. The bridge does not change the people but unites them. It lets them live connected and in peace. It embodies the nation’s development which allows its people to live better and feel more free. The bridge also embodies the people’s confidence in their future security. By describing the construction of the bridge as safe, José Martí underlines his wish for a safer life for all his people. Thus, The Brooklyn Bridge is definitely not a story of the bridge, but rather about the values the bridge embodies for the author and his people. These values are freedom, peace, development, and unity of different ethnic groups.
It can be said that though Latino Identities and Ethnicities is a work of another style, it writes about the same values. Suzanne Oboler et al. also emphasizes the fact that the key interests of the U.S. Latinos/Latinas are the freedom of expression, freedom of feeling equal in the U.S. society, and freedom of development and education. Just like the two communities, New York and Brooklyn ones, got free access to each other, the Latinos/Latinas of the USA want to have that free access to everything they have rights for as citizens of the United States.
Works Cited
Martí, José. “The Brooklyn Bridge.” Selected Writings. Ed. Esther Allen. New York: Penguin Books, 2002. 140-144. Print.
Oboler, Suzanne, et al. “Latino Identities and Ethnicities.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Web. 21 Feb. 2016.
