Mary Louise Pratt

             Tailgates as a Cultural Contact Zone
             "Arts of the Contact Zone" by Mary Louise Pratt is an article that talks about how critical and history-making it is when different cultures meet for the first time. She describes this moment with her coined phrase, the "contact zone". She gives the perfect example of when the Andeans, who were native Peruvians, were encountered by the Spanish. Even though my experiences in life can not compare with those of Andeans, this example prompted me to think back to my personal experiences which took place in such an environment. This "contact zone", as Mary Louise Pratt puts it, is " the space in which peoples geographically and historically separated come into contact with each other and establish relations, usually involving coercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict"(527). In my own interpretation, the "contact zone" is a place or moment in time when two different cultures are forced to interact with each other for the first time. Throughout my life I have had experiences of this nature. My frequent moving around has enabled me to interact with many different cultures. Though my experiences may not have been to such an extreme, such as the example given by Pratt, I still consider them to be occasions in my life where I was put in the "contact zone."
             Before I talk about my personal experiences, I would first like to talk a little bit about my cultural identity. I am a male Latino, born of a Peruvian mother and Puerto Rican father. Many people may think that all Spanish speaking countries share the same culture, but this is untrue. There is a huge difference between, for example, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans. They speak Spanish differently than each other. They eat different foods and have different music. There is nothing I hate more then when I am assumed to be from a certain country. Ask me and I will tell you my background. I have had to adopt culture from both sides of my family, al...

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Mary Louise Pratt. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 03:05, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/33331.html