Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Acosta On The Run
Chapter 10 of Acosta's "The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo" starts with "I'm still on the run" (121). This idea invokes the image of the buffalo, but it is important to figure out what he is running from and to. We see when Acosta began to disassociate himself with other hispanics when he was elected as Jr. Class President and "had forgotten about being a brown buffalo". The various careers he tries can all be identified with American culture, especially the Air Force and being a lawyer. His attempt at being a lawyer is his final attempt to integrate into the American way of life, but he feels ill-suited for the job. The blood in Acosta's vomit could signify the crisis point where Acosta must decide whether to continue to assimilate (and potentially get worse) or reject the American way and find a personal link to his ancestry. Acosta is running from the American institution and trying to find his place as a Mexican by returning West.
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3 comments:
It's a deadlock. If he continues his career as a lawyer he won't be able to fully assimilate. He will probably never be fully at home either if he tries to go back to Mexico. Blood in his vomit is pain. It is painful to be left with two choices, neither of which does not seem to be the answer. Like in the SAT test, is there an option to omit?
Or maybe it's not. The final pages of the book give Acosta hope--going to Los Angeles, the epicenter of the "Brown Power" movement, taking up the mantle of Chicano pride and attempting to establish a state where the Brown Buffaloes can freely roam. It is interesting, though, that he ultimately rejects both the American and the Mexican sides of the dichotomy in searching for his identity. Without the Brown Power movement, I wonder what would have been of Oscar Zeta Acosta.
Acosta is trapped. He is neither content as an American nor as a Mexican. I think the blood and his ulcers (though they may be real) represent the lack of balance in his life. The more he tries to become one or the other, the worse off he is.
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