In this week’s reading, Gamio addressed “The Mexican Situation” he says that Mexico has many problems including education, hygiene, decent housing, and food. He explains that many believe that Mexico is “incapable of working unguided” suggesting that Mexico can’t thrive independently and without any outsiders help. He speaks of development but then explains that there has been no development for the good of Mexico. The example he gives in the text is the railroads that were built to cater to American needs rather than uniting Mexico as a country. There is no one single cause that is troubling Mexico’s development. He says the improvement of the country must come from its people. I believe that this is true. If Mexico is ever going to completely thrive it will have to do so independently. Gamio says that the main problem is that the country is made of of two groups of people native Indians and Europeans. Having to distinctly different groups living in the same country is bound to cause issues. The Europeans are the more developed population and see the Indians as exotic. The Indians view the Europeans as confusing and evil. Gamio’s solution to solving the problems between these to groups is to not “Europeanize” the Indians but to “Indianize” the Europeans. It wouldn’t benefit the Indians to be educated when they don’t use it in their day-to-day lives. Same with hygiene they do not understand the importance or reason to practice good clean habits. The solution is get the two groups to understand and appreciate one another’s culture. This way they will understand together they create a diverse country.
Whiteness is defined as being completely Caucasian. The term whiteness had to be defined because South Asians and other races with lighter skin were considered white. Whiteness became a term because they aimed to keep America white or pure. Additionally, they wanted to keep Europeans and white people as the superior race. This idea set the course for many conflicts to come in the future, tension between the superior race and “them”. There were laws put in place to establish what requirements you had to meet to be apart of the “white” race. One law prohibits incest because white families were trying to procreate within the family to keep their bloodline and genes pure. Another law put in action was the limitation of Chinese immigrants into the United States. These laws were made largely to discouraging interracial relationship and multiracial offspring.