Arts Of The Contact Zone Summary

There is always chaos around the world between two countries or cultures because of their disagreement. For most of the time it is to show their dominance over the other group. In “Arts of the contact zone”, Pratt talks about encounter between Spanish and the Incas. Pratt defines this as contact zone where two cultures meet and clash. She talks about how the encounter between these two cultures did not go very well because the Spaniards were too greedy and arrogant. Similarly, in Rodriguez’s story, his encounter with the Americans is also contact zone. When Rodriguez went to American school he was very quiet because of the language barrier. After a while, his teacher noticed the reason of him being silent, so he was forced to learn English …show more content…
Pratt talks about the Spaniards taking over Inca empire where the two cultures meet and clash. Guamon Poma (an Andean who wrote a letter to the king of Spain about their conquest over Inca) argues that the Spanish conquest should have been “peaceful encounter of equal with the potential for benefiting both” (35). Guamon Poma believes that the Spaniards were too violent, they could make treaties that would benefit both party. Peaceful encounter would have helped both parties to bond with each other to have better understanding between the cultures. Violent never achieves greatness. For example, when the British took over India, it was not a peaceful encounter. It was a bad impression of the British. If they were peaceful they could've come up to an agreement where it could benefit both parties. Just like the Spaniards they were too greedy. The clash between the culture was not peaceful which led them to have negativity between the two groups. When cultures meet, they should show no arrogance than the contact zone would be …show more content…
The clash between the two-world made him and his family more educated as they learned English. The whole situation was hard for them but at the end it was worthy because they were getting close to the Americans. Rodriguez said, as he was getting more tangled in American society, “my parents grew more publicly confident” (299). Which means that, becoming part of the superior culture made them more involved in society. Made them more confident in public. They were no longer the minority. Rodriguez story defines contact zone perfectly because the collision between the two-culture evolved them as they adopted the American