Gordo tells the story of a young fat, gay, Mexican kid who struggles with body image and achieving his father's ideas of masculinity. Throughout the chapter, we see multiple forms and attempts at assimilation. Primarily done through shaming Gordo whether it be for his body and his feminine mannerism and personality. Both when his father and Miguelito attempt to shame him for his size, this is being done in an effort to make Gordo change himself to be more like the majority. Similarly, when his father yells at Gordo for singing or calling the boots pretty, this is an attempt to have him assimilate to fit into the mainstream ideas that society has placed on men. It is these gender roles that his father is perpetuating and attempting to pass down and push onto Gordo. Yet, we see Gordo somewhat push back against these internally, like when he continues to sing after his father leaves. This reflects my definition of assimilation as it shows how assimilation can take more than one generation to work. His father is attempting to pass down the assimilation of male gender roles that he learned to his son. Yet. Gordo pushes against this and attempts to not change himself, he instead finds community with others who allow him to be himself.

Here we see another but different example of a found community with Gordo being friends with girls his age, rather than the boys. This is another example of segmented assimilation, Gordo did not feel community with other boys his age, due to his feminine personality. Instead of changing himself to fit in with the boys, he instead found community with girls and remained to be himself.

Here we can notice that his father often speak Spanglish, meaning he has experienced some form of classic assimilation, hence why he is speaking in English for the majority. Yet, because they find themself also in a community that fosters a space where they can speak English as well, this also displays a small act of defiance against assimilation.

Here we can see a deeper insight into the type of community Gordo finds himself in, which can be seen as a segmented assimilation. Being Mexican he is accepted into a community that is majority Mexican and creates an environment for blending of ethnicities. This is why we see and hear his father speak in Spanish as well as English, the environment created allows him the comfort to speak his native language as it is most likely used to communicate with other native speakers in their community.

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Assimilation is defined as a process of absorption of mainstream. This process can take many forms, from learning English, changing of names or personalities, and upward mobility (“moving out of the ghetto”, home ownership, etc.). Absorption in the US varies among effectiveness and timeline, sometimes it is a slow process across generations, or some never assimilate at all.

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