the books that we read during the class definatley made me think of borders although being a physical reality, is quite a socially made up concept. All the books we read showed us that its hard to be either here or there, or to be this or that. The characters have all been quite fluid as well as the authors and described to us the difficulties of having to accustom to new life in a new place, as well as accustom to how the old life is viewed while living in your new world. I think that these books, especially the last three have shown the different ways remembering is portrayed (like in Rodriguez’s memory is portrayed through the body), becoming accustomed to something (dont like the word assimilation) because no one really fully assimilates when you come to a new place. I really liked the themes we delt with in these stories and it was really interesting to see how even though the stories took place in different places, with different latino cultures..its still the same themes that are brough out. My favourite book by far was sandra cisneros’s Women Hollering Creek. i loved everything she had to say and the way she writes is just so blunt and powerful. I felt that some of her stories she put in for the reader to think about if it really ties into chicano life and if so for what reason (like the marloboro man one). i think the notion of identity will always be one of the strongest themes that comes out throughout chicano literature because in th end, its kind of what we all strive for. To identify ourselves with a place, a religion, a race, a gender…its all those things that make up our identity but its not just black and white and thats why these authors write in the way that they do, to try and show us the hardships one goes through to identify themselves to sense that they belong to something or somewhere. i wonder if thats been ingrained in our minds by society that we need to label ourselves by where we come from in order to feel like we exist in the world? hmmmm…something to think about…