Abstract
This article discusses that despite the substantial economic growth that occurred within Mexico during the reign of the government of Porfiriato Diaz from 1877-1910, the legacy of this period remains a dark one in the Mexican imagination and historical memory. The writer notes that despite Diaz's expressed intentions to modernize the nation he led, his policies instead sewed the seeds for social stratification and the Mexican Revolution, which followed shortly after his government's dissolution. Further, the writer discusses that during the Diaz years, the economic expansion of the Mexican elite was fueled by the systematic and often bloody suppression of the nation's growing ranks of urban laborers, such as textile workers and miners, in a fashion that created an inequitable and unstable base for a modern, capitalist system in Mexico.

From the Paper
"The mania for modernization also created an intellectual justification within the Diaz regime for the continued oppression of Mexican agricultural workers, whose labor was deemed to be less necessary for the expanding Mexican industries favored by the regime. The period was also marked by the unjust possession by the government of the land of the nation's traditional peasantry, again a casualty of urbanization and modernization. These orchestrated inequities reinforced the Mexican class system within the developing Mexican industrial and agricultural economy in a fashion that swiftly created a land that had evolved into what almost seemed like a parody of the traditional Marxist view of history. In other words, there was an extreme imbalance between the working classes and the classes who owned the nation's means of production and institutions of government."

Tags:modernization, Mexican, urbanization, agricultural, economy

Abstract
The paper explores the short story, "Ysrael" by Junot Diaz and attempts to show how Diaz's unusual perspective paints a picture of the modern history of the Dominican people and their struggles in the New World. The paper offers a summary of the storyline and highlights how Diaz's work can be considered a cultural experience for the reader.

Outline:
Summary
Pictures of Dominican Life
Conclusion

From the Paper
"Junot Diaz is renowned for his stories that reflect the intricacies of growing up. In the story Ysrael, Diaz details many facts of Dominican life that are often absent from the minds of the rest of the world. Diaz relies on his own memories of childhood and a vast repository of historical knowledge already in his head (Zuarino). Like many of Diaz's stories, Ysrael lets us peak into the lives of the fascinating characters that he creates.
"Ysrael is the first story in a collection called Drown, which was a huge success. Ysrael represents a story to which many readers can relate, albeit the situation in which the main character must face is anything but typical. Every writer uses experiences from their own lives to illustrate their works. This happens regardless of the setting and plot of the story. If one looks into the attitudes and reactions of the characters, one can decipher the personality of the writer and gain insight into their own experiences and background."

Tags:Dominican, Republic, culture, Diaspora

Abstract
This paper discusses how the family in the story "Aguantado" by Junot Diaz is poor and living on the outskirts of a city and how the main issue for the family is the absence of the father. It examines how the idea of absence is increased by the way the story is told, with the narrator observing the comings and goings of others and always being outside of decision-making, in effect paralleling the role of his country, Santo Domingo, in its relationship with the US.

From the Paper
"The story takes place with minimal description and little clear shaping of the narrative. It unfolds in a series of incidents that come to be related around the central issue of the missing father. The narrator notes at the beginning that he has not had a father for many years, yet the idea of the father clearly affects him greatly. He mentions his father often and relates the fortunes of the family to the missing father, also suggesting that the fortunes would improve if the father returned. When he wants so badly to know what letter was delivered and what was in the letter, he seems to suspect even before he is told that the letter comes from his father. The family seems to be suspended in time to a degree, waiting for the father to return, and unable to move forward very much until he does."

Tags:Santo, Domingo, poverty

From the Paper
"The purpose of this research is to examine the career and life of Porfirio Diaz, the political leader of Mexico between the late 1870s and 1911. Diaz, whose period of rule spanned the time between the Juarez Wars and the Villa-Zapata Revolt, helped to define the future of Mexico in many ways. Some historians view him as an evil, brutal dictator, while others see him as a hard-headed but highly productive founder of a modern nation. One fact is certain: Very few of his contemporaries and compatriots regarded him lightly. It was virtually impossible to be indifferent about a regime as extensive and long-lasting as that of Porfirio Diaz.

One critical account of Diaz divides his life into four parts. The first is from birth to age 24, when he joined the army to fight the ruling dictator, Antonio Lopex de Santa Anna, ... "

Abstract
The paper discusses Junot Diaz's "Drown," a collection of stories that tell of the contemporary misery and urban despair that can grow from poverty and distance from one's own cultural setting. The paper looks at the intersections of race and immigration in American history and then looks at the protagonists in Diaz's "Drown." The paper argues that the issues faced by the characters - poverty and racism - were quite similar to the ones faced by the earliest immigrants to this country. The paper concludes that the United States has long benefited from this cycle of immigration, assimilation and change. The paper argues that immigration is therefore an intrinsic part of the American Dream and as such, it should be allowed to continue.

Outline:
Race and Immigration: A Historical Perspective
The New Immigrants in Diaz's "Drown"
Conclusion

From the Paper
"By the 1800s, one-third of the American population was composed of immigrants and their children. These figures show that there was actually much diversity at the dawn of America, and that immigration was an intrinsic part of the American Dream from the very beginning. Even more important, not every immigrant prior to 1900 was considered "white." Variations in European ancestry may seem trivial today, but in the 1790s, there was much tension and dissent among the people of various European descent. Americans who were of English extraction were very critical of how ethnic diversity was threatening the culture of the new colonies. Many even sought to limit immigration and criticized the newcomers for maintaining their own ethnic enclaves and clinging to their own language."

Tags:poverty, racism, assimilation, change

From the Paper
" Lourdes Diaz Soto's 1997 book, Language, Culture, and Power: Bilingual Families and the Struggle for Quality Education, focuses on the Puerto Rican, Spanish/English bilingual community in Steel Town, a small industrial town in Pennsylvania. In particular, the book explores the language dynamics within and outside of the Spanish-speaking community, and it provides a detailed examination of the dismantling of the town's award-winning, twenty-year-old public school bilingual program and the effect of the program's termination on the Puerto Rican families, particularly the children. Soto's goal in writing the book was "to afford voice to the families regarding their perspectives on bilingual education in their community" (1997, p. xix). This research will review Soto's work, paying particular attention to its contribution to the study of bilingualism and bilingual..."

From the Paper
"Two of the most influential leaders in the history of post-colonial Mexico have been Benito Juarez and Porfirio Diaz. Both men were Presidents of the Republic of Mexico; both, ostensibly, were "liberals." Juarez - whose terms as president (1858 - 1872) were marred by civil war, foreign invasion and general turmoil - is considered one of the guiding lights of Mexican republicanism. By contrast, Diaz' thirty-year tenure (1876 - 80, 1884 - 1911) were peaceful "boom" years, yet his period of leadership is generally considered a failure of the democratic process in Mexican history. How can two such opposing images - chaos vs. accomplishment, hero vs. hated - be reconciled with the historical record? It will be the aim of this paper to study the record on Benito Juarez and Porfirio Diaz and determine which is the accurate portrayal."

From the Paper
"Bernal Diaz, in The Conquest of New Spain, tells the story of the conquering of Mexico by the Spaniards under Hernan Cortes. The book is more than merely about Cortes, although he is certainly the center of the book. Diaz accompanied Cortes on his exploits and offers a thoroughly positive view of the Spanish conqueror and of the entire Spanish enterprise in the Mexico. As translator J.M. Cohen writes in his Introduction, Diaz's book is a report on the overthrow of a great empire by a company of adventurers, inspired partly by a sense of mission and partly by a crude greed for gold. Their success, even their survival, could in his belief be accounted for only by the miraculous intervention of God and the Saints, who wished New Spain to be added to the realm of Christ and the Emperor ..."

Tags:BOOK, REVIEWS, NON-FICTION

Abstract
This paper presents an in-depth analysis of Bernal Diaz's "The Conquest of New Spain." The paper examines the shroud of mystery surrounding the details of Montezuma's death and, by utilizing the opinions of David Boruchoff and the actual text of Diaz's book, this paper briefly highlighting the key points that Diaz makes in his retelling of Montezuma's unfortunate murder. The paper then brings to light the rational faults and discrepancies within the original text and counters these apparent errors, by applying common sense and general knowledge of the era.

From the Paper
" The "readable report," a concept from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, is easily applicable to Bernal Diaz's" The Conquest of New Spain. The aforementioned "readable report," in a general sense, indicates that the retelling of a situation or event is portrayed in a manner that benefits the teller even if distortion of the truth is required. Diaz, in his account of Montezuma's death, makes the Spanish appear blameless and seemingly innocent of Montezuma's blood. Throughout the sequence of events leading up to Montezuma's death, there are constant indictments of the Mexicans causing the death of their own leader. "

Tags:aztecs, cortez, diaz, montezuma

Abstract
This paper discusses the theme and style of the short story "Aguantado" by Junot Diaz, in which the family is poor and living on the outskirts of a city, and the issue for the family is the absence of the father. The paper examines the idea of the absent father and shows how it has a dual nature, for not only is the narrator's father absent, so is the paternalistic United States, a point made because the U.S. is where the father has gone.

From the Paper
"The family in the story "Aguantado" by Junot Diaz is poor and living on the outskirts of a city, but the issue for the family is the absence of the father. The story begins as the narrator states, "I lived without a father for the first nine years of my life" (559). The idea of the absent father has a dual nature, for not only is the narrator's father absent, so is the paternalistic United States, a point made because the U.S. is where the father has gone: "He had left for Nueva York when I was four but since I couldn't remember a single moment with him I excused him from all nine years of my life" (559). The idea of absence is increased by the way the story is told, with the narrator observing the comings and goings of..."

Tags:aguantado, junot, diaz