Sanchez 3

Jennifer Sanchez

Keaton GLOS 3550V

Final Draft

Friday, December 12, 2008

St. Paul’s East Side: Transcending the Melting Pot with Actions of Community Identification

Abstract

Mexican Americans are a diverse population in the United States whose internal cultural distinctions and identities are not often evident to the broader US public for whom they are indistinctly part of the “Latino” or “Hispanic” category that homogenizes all groups identified by it. Popular representations of the barrio, or neighborhood synonymous with so-called “Latinos,” often reinforce the notion of such homogeneity in terms of being a type of “Latino” melting pot of people assimilated into the barrio communities, but not the mainstream US culture, particularly linguistically. The community on the East Side of St. Paul, Minnesota illustrates how the diversity of a barrio is not exclusive to the “Latino” or Mexican American population. Drawing upon autobiography as a lived expression of theory, and other data sources, I argue that the East Side, by embracing diversity, serves to disrupt the melting pot theory through exhibiting its limitations (Alba Acevedo, 13). By being a structured space reformed into an incorporating place, identities and the lines of classification blur in ways that transform cohesion from ethnic homogeneity to community consciousness, as experiences produce cultural knowledge and association with more than a single ethnicity. The East Side’s achievement negates the success of the melting pot theory nationwide, and its method suggests that introducing a theory that empowers diversity may be beneficial for all of the nation’s citizens.

Introduction

America’s melting pot theory of assimilation claims that “all the different immigrants, ‘races’ and national groups of the United States could be assimilated into a single homogeneous ‘American’ identity” (Sperling Cocrkroft and Barnet-Sanchez, 7). I argue however, that there is no such thing as a single homogeneous assimilated immigrant in the United States. Furthermore, as I will show, the idea that there is a single, unitary notion of a Mexican-American identity is equally a fabrication (Moraga, 148). While there is a dominant culture in the United States, which I will term Anglo or mainstream society, its overshadowing systemic practices do not deny the ability to form a divergent culturally affirming identity. I argue, the cultural fusion found in the East Side barrio in St. Paul, Minnesota leads to a redefinition of space and identity. Unlike other barrios in the U.S., the East Side is distinct because of its demographic ethnic diversity. Moreover, the community, government, and private investment work cohesively to improve the area for all ethnicities residing within it. A fusion exists as all ethnicities of the area interact in the realms of business, community programs, festivals, and everyday lives, permitting associations with more than a single ethnic identity. The East Side challenges the melting pot through exemplifying the theory’s limitations both communally and individualistically. The East Side produces its challenges to the theory through embracing cultural difference with barrio-logos, a process of promoting cultural knowledge and enabling the community (Villa, 6).

St. Paul’s East Side covers nearly a third of the city and this huge area has always been working class and industrial (Caperton-Halyorson, 75). The two interconnecting sections of importance for this study are the Payne- Phalen area, where Payne Avenue is the main thoroughfare and the Dayton’s Bluff area, which includes Swede Hollow Park. During the first half of the twentieth century, Swede Hollow, located under the geographically dominating bluff held the “worst housing in St. Paul” (Kunz, 82). It was where all new immigrants re-started their lives (Leons, 36). In the 1910s and 1920s, Mexican Americans migrated to St. Paul as agricultural workers; those who stayed the winter months found jobs at the railroad and meat packing plants (Holmquist, 93).

The Mexican American migrants, along with Eastern European Jews, were the ‘last’ ethnic group to inhabit Swede Hollow and contribute to the already diverse area (Kunz, 82). Italian American East Side resident Don Tucci remembers Irish, German, Swedish, African-American, and Chinese neighbors while growing up through the Depression (Milburn, 37-38). The majority of the original Mexican American population migrating to the East Side was existing American residents, coming from the south and southwest. However, there were large influxes of immigrants in the coming decades (Holmquist, 93). Over time, a Mexican American community formed the foundation of the barrio culture enjoyed by all residents.

A barrio is a Spanish term for a neighborhood with a predominant Latino population (Villa, 4). With an existing group of Mexican Americans, it is estimated that the Latino population in St. Paul’s East Side expanded 400 percent between the 2000 census and 2006 (Milburn, 85). The majority of cultural researchers define a barrio as a more concentrated locale of residents. Non-profit organization Hispanic Advocacy and Community Empowerment through Research [HACER] reports, while the Mexican American community in the East Side is sizable, it is not condensed into a single section; instead, they live throughout the area (18). This dispersed presence extends the Latino culture throughout the barrio. However, Latinos share this space with the African American, Anglo, and Asian cultures as well.

The East Side is a barrio and it faces systemic issues that prevent economic and social progress for some of its residents. As I will show, these issues include unemployment, poverty, deteriorating housing, and a rise in crime (Wilder Payne, 3; Caperton-Halvorson, 77). The ethnic community of Mexican Americans also face obstacles surrounding language and discrimination. As I will show, a history of racial profiling exists, as there was an effort to limit upward mobility for Mexicans in Minnesota. The repercussions of this are still visible in the East Side today. For example, children attend schools where English must be spoken and their parents are facing obstacles in creating new businesses due to their linguistic abilities (HACER, 29). However, Minnesota Congresswoman Betty McCollum states that residents combat the linguistic isolation in the area with the sense of community cohesion around the goal of economic and social success (Milburn, 1). For the Mexican Americans, this translates to a creation of two common languages, Spanish and English.

I argue that the practice of barrio-logos has extended beyond the Mexican American population in the East Side. Residents of all ethnicities use communal agency to respond to dominating factors of city planning and job loss. They restructure projects’ significance to improve living conditions. An example of this is the Phalen Corridor. The community came together to transform an idle wasteland into a productive space. Instead of fighting with outside pressures and city planning, the community cohesively acted from within the system to shape the project to improve their lives (Milburn, 70; Caperton-Halvorson, 77).

Living on the East Side of St. Paul allowed me to find a cohesive balance of my dueling identities, because I was able to experience the two in a co-existent environment. Through this, I saw the commonalities between all ethnicities in the East Side and transformed how I saw myself from the experiences I had with others. In this study, I will illustrate how it is possible to achieve upward mobility while maintaining an ethnic identity in an environment embracing cultural difference. This is conflicting to the melting pot theory. As the community is contradicting the theory, I will draw on my own lived experience to provide the viewpoint of an actor within its structure, as autobiography is credible evidence, as experience that can translate in theory (Alba Acevedo, 13). For a theory that addresses an entire population, it only takes a single individual to disprove it.

The mixed cultural interaction of the East Side allows a Mexican American redefinition of mainstream practices and spaces, or barrio-logos, and a redefinition of Mexican practices and spaces for all ethnicities of the East Side (Villa, 6). This redefinition of space and identity blur the lines of classification within the East Side, as it breaks down distinctions between ethnic groups and forms a cooperative identity as an equal member of the community, an East Sider. Thus, the East Side identity allows residents to maintain their ethnic identity. This goes beyond responding to the obstacles presented through the system; it is communal agency to define themselves as an incorporating group and to transform the system. Therefore, this collective agreement of diversity denies the realization of the melting pot theory.

A combined textual and theoretical analysis of data will provide a basic context of this argument. A personal narrative will provide extended, individual proof that the argument stands. My methods will provide valid answers to my research questions because they are a direct application through demographic data, documented interviews and personal experience. While individuals may still identify as Mexican American, that does not necessitate that they speak Spanish; they have individually modified the term’s meaning through cultural interaction, as I will further illustrate.

Conceptual Framework

Theorist of Latino Studies Paul Allatson defines identity as “the imagined, yet often deeply and necessarily felt sense of personal sameness over time and place that enables a person to differentiate him or herself from, or liken him or herself to, another person” (128). The nature of identity is fluid and complex; there is no possibility for absolutes when defining a collective of people as the borders surrounding their definition are constantly in transition (Anzaldua, 25). It is only possible to have a category of relative sameness in which the majority chooses at least some qualifications with which to relate. Individuals form identities through lived experience within a shaped environment of mixed cultural interaction.

Still, there is an existing trend to categorize individuals into pan ethnic sections. An example of this is “Latino”; it is a broad term allocated to all peoples with heritage from Mexico, Puerto Rico, or any Latin American country (Allatson, 140). As this term is so general, there are many tensions within its meaning, and it takes a journey of self-discovery to identify oneself with it (Alba Acevedo, 2). Peoples of Latin heritage generally favor Latino as a pan ethnic term over the government-imposed and media-preferred “Hispanic” (Allatson, 140). These terms separate peoples and create a distinct sense of identity for dominant and minority groups.

Chicano Studies theorists Eva Sperling Cockcroft and Holly Barnet-Sanchez state the melting pot theory claims that “all of the different ethnic groups that immigrate to the United States can and will assimilate into a single, homogeneous classification of ‘American’” (7). Sperling Cockcroft and Barnet-Sanchez encompass the multiculturalists’ interpretation of the theory and this will be the central interpretation of this study. Multiculturalists define assimilation as a shedding of all contrasting ethnic practices.[i] With this presumably conscious effort, incoming immigrants uphold American society as a concrete set of traditions and ideological beliefs. Political scientist William V. Flores and Latina Studies scholar Rina Benmayor argue that the emphasis of melting pot over assimilation is because the theory encompasses all that assimilation assumes and frames it as stable, homogenous and continuously occurring (9). With roots in liberal multiculturalism, the central assumption of the theory is that it creates an equal playing field for all ethnicities within the United States.[ii]

A key limitation of the melting pot theory is that it does not account for ethnic histories of oppression (Sperling Cockcroft and Barnet-Sanchez, 7). The histories of discriminatory practices of both dominant and ethnic cultures refute the possibility for a cohesive population that carries the composition of a homogenous America. The repressed histories can lead to the strengthening of ethnic values. Scholar Tamar Jacoby asserts that this emphasis on diversity further distances ethnic groups from the homogenous America, as outsiders do not want resemble those who are persecuting them (6).

The neglection to acknowledge the oppressive history, also fails to recognize the current hierarchical levels of achievement in America. Due to this history, ethnic populations do not exist on a level playing field socially or economically in comparison to the dominant Anglos.[iii] Ethnic Studies scholar Laura Perez explains how racial distinctions came into being as, “Mexicans were incorporated into the body of the nation in a disorderly and ultimately disordering manner, a method that produced a separate/d Mexican American community,” (21). If the dominant Anglo society does not incorporate ‘others’ into its proper social body, these ‘others’ cannot assimilate into what is expected of them. This racial hierarchy does not allow minorities to have the complete ability to assimilate, as the system holds success beyond their reach (Anzaldúa, 34). Moreover, the dominating and dominated cultures are constantly affecting each other through contesting power relations by redefining social spaces and ideals (Perez, 20). The melting pot does not address the historical and existing power relations that shape collective and individual identities and their social significance (Alba Acevedo, 19).

The existence of ethnic enclaves undercuts the theory’s authoritative hold on a homogenous population, as ethnic identities, such as Mexican Americans, continue to exist (Sperling Cockcroft and Barnet-Sanchez, 7). Enclaves are distinct areas where ethnic populations deny cohesive integration (Villa 5). However, as there is no strict definition of what it means to be a Mexican American or what it means to be an Anglo American, America cannot be separated into smaller melting pots of sub-cultural identities (Moraga, 146). Instead, a constant stream of inclusions and exclusions of values and practices amongst both dominant and ethnic identities, places this ethnic distinction in a continual state of transformation (Valdes y Tapia, 12).

Variety is what defines American culture (Gómez-Peña, 5). Mainstream culture incorporates new practices and customs, and makes them its own (Flores and Benmayor, 5). People introduce variety and new mainstream innovation through marketing their individual and cultural practices and values to their community. Simultaneously, these ethnic newcomers reversely redefine mainstream practices to strengthen their ethnic community (Villa, 6). This is undoubtedly against the melting pot theory, as there is a contribution to reform mainstream society instead of a strict practice of assimilation into it.

Sperling Cockcroft and Barnet-Sanchez argue that the melting pot theory is insufficient, because it “ignores the complex dialectic between isolation and assimilation and the problem of identity for people like Mexican Americans who are neither wholly ‘American’ nor ‘Mexican’ but a new, unique and constantly changing composite of a dual identity” (7). Individuals feel they must confront the alleged choice of entering into one identity and abandoning the other. This internal argument over personal values and logical actions to obtain success does not necessarily lead to the formation of a cohesive, homogeneous American society. Instead, Sperling Cockcroft and Barnet-Sanchez argue that both elements must remain present to create a whole individual; individuals isolate themselves to maintain their ethnic identity and simultaneously assimilate into the ‘American’ identity (7).