Mexican Women and Immigration to the United States

Abstract

Many Mexicans, women especially, feel scared when coming to a new country, just like any other immigrant. After the immigration process, they will have to endure assimilation and acculturation. Cleófilas Hernandez from “Woman Hollering Creek” and Elena from “Elena” are Mexican-American women facing these challenges. How do they endure these challenges? They are both married, mothers, have language barriers, and trying to get out of bad situations. While they have their similarities, they have their differences as well. Cleófilas from “Woman Hollering Creek” is young, pregnant, and severely abused by her husband. Cleófilas‟s idea of love stems from the telenovelas she watched as a young girl. But, when she gets the physical and verbal mistreatment from her husband, her hopes of a wonderful, loving life are destroyed. Elena from “Elena” is a middle-aged woman, who is married with children, who are in high school. Her children spent their childhood and adolescence in the United States, so they learned to speak English while they were going to school. The main problem is Elena doesn't speak English, but she wants to learn it in order to communicate with her children. These two women are so tied to their original cultures that they are torn between sticking to them and solving their problems in the fashion that Americans would.