Tam Nguyen
Professor Escalante V.
English 101: MW
May 8, 2014
Chicanos: Oppression to Success
Achieving the best education is a rewarding accomplishment for many students, especially for minority groups. It allows the individuals to pursue careers they love and be financially secure. But not everyone has been able to receive the best education possible . Throughout history Chicanos had to face inequality in the education system. They have been segregated, tracked, and denied culturally relevant programs. These problems have driven Mexican American student to fight for education rights with protests and lawsuits. Even though Chicanos have continued to struggle for many years, no progress has been made in the American education system. To this day, Chicanos continue to struggle with inequality in the education system such as the concerns with the increase dropout rates of no English speakers.
During the 1930s, Chicano parents, who suffered from Mexican revolution and hard labor, had hope for their America-born children to get the best education possible only to be obstructed by anti-Mexican Anglos that wanted a separate school for children of indigenous background. This issue was addressed in southern California within the Lemon Grove community. The Lemon Grove School District’s reason was that almost half of the students enrolled were Mexican descendant became a threat and claims that Chicano students were handicaps for Anglo students. A secretary of the Lemon Grove parent teacher association, Ms. Mandy claimed, “Overcrowding in the present classrooms, Mexican children are deficient in knowledge of the English Language, causing their classmates to learn at a much slower rate and a separate school would improve morals” (Espinosa)...
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...e to districts with large number of language instruction. So with all these propositions going against bilingual students like Mariam’s daughter who was able to learn better with a bilingual instructor, Chicano students will continue to struggle in school with all the political changes going against them.
CONCLUSION
Chicanos have faced inequalities in segregation of school, unequal treatment of school officials and the ban of ethnic classrooms. They did not accept being walked over without a fight. There was many victories and loses that provide changes in the education system but not all have been resolved. Their struggle in education will continue and to ensure the changes are being met, we must provide the equipment such as facilities, teachers, programs; supports of family, teachers and educators; and provide the funding need to improve the education resources.
In Subtractive Schooling: US-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring, Angela Valenzuela investigates immigrant and Mexican American experiences in education. Valenzuela mentions differences in high schools between U.S born youth and immigrants such as how immigrants she interviewed seemed to achieve in school as they feel privileged to achieve secondary education. However, she found that her study provided evidence of student failure due to schools subtracting resources from these youths. Both are plagued by stereotypes of lacking intellectual and linguistic traits along with the fear of losing their culture. As a Mexican American with many family members who immigrated to the U.S to pursue a higher education, I have experience with Valenzuela’s
A student should never be denied the right to learn and become successful because of a different skin color, or because they speak a different language. “No saco nada de la escuela” by Luis Valdez is a play that discusses the racism in schools. The play starts with students going to elementary school and then ascending to middle school and college. At the beginning the students were not aware of what racism really was because of their innocence. However, the teacher that they had was very racist and bullied the students of color. That experience made the other kids realize that not everyone was the same and because of color or language they should be treated differently. There are five different students who take part of this play, two of those students were white, and there were two Chicanos and one black. That is great diversity of cultures. The teacher that the students have in elementary school was an example of the other professors they were going to have throughout their school years. Very arrogant and not understanding of the minority students. Their teachers were not really interested in teaching the minorities and always showed her discontent of having students of color. Their teachers didn’t believe that students who were part of a minority should be placed in the same classroom as the white students. Maybe that was because they didn’t know the potential a minority student could have. One Chicano student named Francisco never denied his roots and became very successful. He had many obstacles in his learning environment, but at the end he becomes a great example of perseverance. Francisco is the student who I think showed the greatest development in the play. He had to deal with racism all the time, but that didn't stop ...
Imagine seeing 10,000 of your classmates walking out of your school because they wanted a better education - a better way of life. In the 1960s’ Chicano students were being “pushed out”(Esparza) of school or being pushed towards vocational programs. East L.A was home to schools were “one out of every four Chicano’s completed high school”(Esparza). Instructors and the school board alike did not have an interest in helping Chicanos finish school to become someone other than a laborer and was expected of them to keep being a laborer. In “Taking Back the Schools”, Sal Castro a high school counselor claims, “I think the bottom line is the lack of concern of the teachers towards the kids and whether the kids were really getting an education or not...the reality set in that the teachers weren’t really concern for the kids.”(Esparza).
The essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal”, by Jonathan Kozol, discusses the reality of inner-city public school systems, and the isolation and segregation of inequality that students are subjected to; as a result, to receive an education. Throughout the essay, Kozol proves evidence of the inequality that African American and Hispanic children face in the current school systems.
Mexican Americans have been denied access to a well proper education in any good district school that don't allow any Latin or any other race in a one diversity school. People don't understand that Latin students have played a big role in legal struggles regarding
The Chicano community has endured and overcome many struggles since the conquest by conquistador in 1491 and eviction from Atzlan. Race was used by the white community as tool to structure inequality for the Chicano community by classifying the Chicano community as white but treat them as a minority community. Chicano activist during the Mexican American generation found community self-determination by becoming actively involved in their community and taking hold of their own destiny. The Mexican American activists created a new way of seeing themselves by taking the term Chicano and making the term a symbol for who they truly are and who they want to become. The new ethos of the new identity of a Chicano is community self-determination; it is a community that is in total control of its own destiny.
There are many reasons that supporters of Chicano Studies think the classes should stay available to students in schools. Statistically, “out of 100 Chicana and Chicano students who start elementary school, only 46 graduate from high school, eight receive a bachelor's degree and only two earn a graduate or professional degree...Less than one Chicana and Chicano of the 100 earns a doctorate” (Marquez 2006). This statistic is important because it shows the how much Chicano students have struggled in school at every grade level. Compare these
I never realized the seriousness about Hispanic students questioning their identity and not attending college until I experienced it in my previous course Chicano Studies. I was very fortunate enough to have a class that demonstrated how students not taking courses related to their cultural history history become less motivated to attend college expenses and lack of motivation. Being a Chicano student is very difficult because the number of Chicano students attending college is very small and causes students to lack of motivation. STEM m...
It has often been said, that high quality education is a privilege base on Race and ethnicity. Let’s take Susan’s example, an enthusiastic Mexican teen who aspires to be a lawyer. She came to the U.S. when she was only twelve, she has work twice as harder
Segregation in schools has been around for a very long time. Recently, schools have become equal to all students, but schools still experience forms of segregation. "African American and Latino students continue to lag behind white students on achievement exams, in high school graduation rates, and college completion rates." (The Pursuit of Racial and Ethnic Equality in American Public Schools : Mendez, Brown, and Beyond by Bowman, Kristi L.) Over the last century American school's racial and ethnic equality has changed significantly.
Many teachers took pride in the way they ran their classrooms. The classes provided a new style of teaching that encouraged students to learn cultural relevance, cultural competence, social justice emphasis, alignment with state standards, and academic rigor (Acosta, 2012). They witnessed many improvements in their students' academic progress and likelihood of graduation. The teachers affected by the ban take the position of being completely against the ban. They believe that the school officials are antagonizing a program that has helped students academically and personally. Another reason is that they have a preconceived notion of the ban being a hate act towards Mexicans. Out of all the ethnic classes offered at Tucson high school, the Mexican American class was the first to go. This notion could have been a result of the adverse thought of Mexican immigrants entering the United States illegally. Most teachers attempted to convince officials to overthrow the bill by creating petitions, protesting, publishing articles, rallies, and sit-ins. Their audience is composed of other high school teachers, students, and parents. They persuade their audience by putting themselves in the same shoes, that way they resonate together to complete a common goal. Teachers are able to talk to every other stakeholder, except school officials. These teachers claim that government or school officials do not wish to listen their pleas because they do not want to differ from their own opinions (Soto, S. & Joseph, M., 2010). The decision of banning Mexican American Studies classes was ultimately finalized by school officials. School officials did not discuss the pros and cons of the ban with teachers, but instead decided on the ban on their
In a world filled with useful resources, everyone dreams to be able to achieve great things; however, in order to do so, one must attain a respectable fluid and crystallized intelligence; education is a significant part of human resource development. The imparting of education leads to the development of understanding, perception, attitude, and efficiency of the working population. It has been considered as a lever to raise one's position in society as well as a tool to fight against poverty and ignorance; it is a gateway to the American Dream. However, nowadays, the quality of education for the citizens of America is now based on race. For many years now, evidence of discrepancies in accomplishments for students have shown up in grades, drop-out and graduation rates, test scores, and mostly every other pertinent indicator of academic success and performance. Even worse, these significant differences in levels of achievement by African American, Native American, and Latino students (who generally are located in the lower end of the achievement spectrum), with larger numbers of Asian and White students more likely to be found at the higher end, have been accepted as an unproblematic norm. The constancy of such patterns in almost every school district in the nation reinforces suppositions regarding the relationship between race and education.
Even though he was born in the United States, his parents are illegal immigrants. As the first generation in his family to enter go to college, Herick is was academically outstanding in his high school. He designed his own webpage in high school while working at in several technological companies to sustain helping his family financially. I asked him how he felt in his high school. His answer surprised me. “Public schools in Denver that admit both white and Hispanic students divide the whole class into two different sections. One part is equipped with the best teachers and resources whereas the other one has the worst teachers and has totally different study pattern.” “Then which part were you in?” I asked. “My school had a test at the beginning of freshmen year of high school to divide students. Since I did well, I was placed in the better group. Hispanics on the other hand were underprivileged and therefore at a disadvantage because they were not properly educated in middle school.” Herick was one of the exceptions who realized the inequality and worked extremely hard to make it into the better part of his high school. The segregation Herick experienced in high school reminded me of Mendez v. Westminster’s story in which Hispanics students were sent to different schools intentionally opposed to different classes. However, even if when he, with his own effort, made it into the better part of his high school tried making the best of it, he
The United States of America has long been considered the “melting pot” of cultures, ethnicities and even languages. For decades, the experience of immigration into America has influenced the linguistic assimilation into the English language, a prevailing characteristic of American society. The rapid growth of English assimilation and the clash with cultural identity extends to modern generations, especially in modern education. David Nieto’s history of bilingual education discusses the influence of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, having initiated the use of bilingual Education in America. Eventually, the Bilingual Education Act of 1974 defined and legitimized bilingual education in schools, which added special programs for minority students
Carger explains that incompetency of teachers attempting to educate students who are limited-English proficient. “The problem… is educational systems which have not adapted successfully to such diversity, which have not looked into the face of such a child and seen beauty and potential, but function instead in a deficit finding mode” (Carger, 7). Carger reveals how society was reluctant in accepting and adapting the culture of Mexican immigrants, which left many to suffer. The suffering is not only seen in Alejandro’s academic challenges, but also in the obstacles of his family’s everyday life. “The Juarez family, which reflects the bronzed race that is Aztlan (decedents of Aztecs), had experienced persistent and abiding prejudice from employers, educators, and community members in general” (Carger, 11).