THE SOUTHWEST BORDER AREA: TRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

The southwest border area is located in the southern part of the United States. From the Southern California Pacific coast to the Texas Gulf Coast, North of the Rio Grande. The southwest parallels the US-Mexico border. The textbook Regional landscapes of the United States and Canada mentions the cultural impact of Indian and Spanish groups in the regional landscapes is obvious in many aspects. For example Spanish place names are abundant, especially along the Rio Grande in Texas, New Mexico and in the coastal southern California. A great number of California's cities and streets have Spanish names as well. I live in the city of Santa Paula, which has a great Hispanic population. According to the 2000 US census, there were 28,598 people, 8,137 households, and 6,435 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,400.4/km² (6,214.6/mi²). There were 8,341 housing units at an average density of 700.1/km² (1,812.6/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 10.2% White, 0.41% African American, 1.02% Native American, 0.70% Asian, 0.19% Pacific Islander, .37% from other races, and 4.68% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 71.2% of the population.^[2]

I love my neighborhood and the community I live in. Spanish is spoken everywhere you go, Mexican markets and bakeries are abundant as well. I am proud to be part of the "melting pot" to live in the United States but am also proud of my Mexican-Spanish roots. The book mentions that the Southwest Hispanic communities were founded more than 200 years before the Anglos started settling in the region during the early nineteent century. YeeeaaaaH am another immigrant not an invader.

 THE SOUTHWEST BORDER AREA............

The melting pot theory of ethnic relations, which sees American identity as centered upon the acculturation or assimilation and the intermarriage of white immigrant groups, has been analyzed by the emerging academic field of whiteness studies. This discipline examines the 'social construction of whiteness' and highlights the changing ways in which whiteness has been normative to American national identity from the seventeenth to the twentieth century.