In Bettie’s analysis of Mexican-American and white girls, she finds that race, gender and class are extremely crucial in the outcomes and futures of these girls. The unmentioned and hidden effects of class, race, and gender provide the explanation for much of the inequality seen between the white middle-class girls and Mexican-American working-class girls. Much of this inequality is itself perpetuated within the school system, both by the faculty and students. Distinguishing features between the preps and las chicas are highlighted through symbolic boundaries. The most prominent symbolic boundaries between thee groups revolve around fashion, race, sexual activity, and academic involvement. The preps have a school-sanctioned fashion style. …show more content…
Their style and actions were deemed inappropriate because it did not adhere to the school standard of conduct. Thus, they were left on their own, without support or comprehension from the school staff. Because of this belief held by the school personnel, las chicas would be placed on a vocational tracking system. Once placed on this track, las chicas were essentially denied any chance of escaping their current socio-economic class. Las chicas and other hard-living girls were often told that college courses would be too difficult for them. Many of las chicas actually had high grades in their classes, but the grades didn’t matter because the courses they took wouldn’t qualify them for a four-year college. For many, the prospect of college dwindled, and with it, any hope for escaping their class in the future. They would head either to community college or straight to work in low-wage jobs. They were systematically excluded from any chance of improving their …show more content…
Race becomes important because it is often the unconscious method of discrimination in the educational structure in Waretown. The Mexican-American girls who become upwardly mobile are seen as the exception. White girls who became upwardly mobile didn’t face any dissonant reactions when they achieved mobility because it was normalized of the white race. Mexican-American girls, however, did face dissonance because it was not typically expected of them. They would often fight the administration much more than white girls in order to avoid being placed on the vocational track and have to work harder to stay out of it. The exceptionality of these girls proves how important and influential cultural capital is in shaping class futures. Only a small fraction of working-class and Mexican-American girls were upwardly mobile, largely due to the fact that they didn’t have the needed cultural capital. There had to be intervening factors, such as sports, private schools, or siblings, in order for these girls to gain the cultural capital needed to be mobile. Without this cultural capital, many of the working-class girls would have had the same future as their parents and remained working class. Cultural capital becomes key for shaping class
“We all use stereotypes all the time, without knowing it. We have met the enemy of equality, and the enemy is us,” quoted by Annie Murphy Paul, a journalist. Human beings typically have varied mindsets as they grow up with different cultural values as well as social environment. Author Gary Soto’s “Like Mexican” compares his Mexican life with his wife’s Japanese background, while author Deborah Tannen’s “Gender in the Classroom” contrasts the “gender-related styles” of male and female students. From the two perspectives Soto’s and Tannen’s experiences’ give a universal, stereotypical point how different gender tendencies, conversational styles, and cultural background can result in a miscommunication of one’s behavior.
The novel “Women Without class” by Julie Bettie, is a society in which the cultural you come from and the identity that was chosen for you defines who you are. How does cultural and identity illustrate who we are or will become? Julie Bettie demonstrates how class is based on color, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. The author describes this by researching her work on high school girls at a Central Valley high school. In Bettie’s novel she reveals different cliques that are associated within the group which are Las Chicas, Skaters, Hicks, Preps, and lastly Cholas and Cholos. The author also explains how race and ethnicity correspondence on how academically well these students do. I will be arguing how Julie Bettie connects her theories of inequality and culture capital to Pierre Bourdieu, Kimberle Crenshaw, Karl Marx and Engels but also how her research explains inequality among students based on cultural capital and identity.
In the story Jubilee by Kirstin Valdez Quade A young very bright Latin American woman, Andrea, struggles with feeling like she’s been accepted in today’s society despite all of her achievements. These feelings tend to peak and turn negative whenever she’s around the family of her father’s lifelong employer, the Lowells, and in particularly their daughter Parker. Although the Lowells, as a whole seem to love Andrea and her family, she finds that their success and good fortune directly correlates to her family’s second rate citizenship. This story reveals that obsession with being accepted as an equal can be an ever increasing stressor that can severely damage a child’s identity, social skills and ultimately lead to misplaced resentment and
Although we live in a democratic nation, many job opportunities are offered mostly based on race, nationality, and social class. The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara illustrates how the society limits lower class citizens, mostly African Americans in New York, from career prosperity. The undemocratic economy system in America positions the values of money and limits career opportunity based on social class difference. Bambara demonstrates the harsh realization of reality for the financially unfortunate kids after they went to “F.A.O. Schwarz”, an expensive toy store in New York. Miss Moore took the children on a field trip to Fifth Avenue to show them the important economic issues many Americans currently faced. Miss Moore’s effort is to teach the children about how much ...
In her book, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, Annette Lareau argues out that the influences of social class, as well as, race result in unequal childhoods (Lareau 1). However, one could query the inequality of childhood. To understand this, it is necessary to infer from the book and assess the manner in which race and social class tend to shape the life of a family. As the scholar demonstrates, each race and social class usually has its own unique way of child upbringing based on circumstances. To affirm this, the different examples that the scholar presents in the book could be used. Foremost, citing the case of both the White and the African American families, the scholar advances that the broader economics of racial inequality has continued to hamper the educational advancement and blocks access to high-paying jobs with regard to the Blacks as opposed to the Whites. Other researchers have affirmed this where they indicate that the rate of unemployment among the African Americans is twice that of the White Americans. Research further advances that, in contrast to the Whites, for those African Americans who are employed, there is usually a greater chance that they have been underemployed, receive lower wages, as well as, inconsistent employment. This is how the case of unequal childhood based on race comes about; children from the Black families will continue residing in poverty as opposed to those from the white families.
Instead of loving and caring for her baby, and forgetting about Danny, she became worse than him. Rodriguez presents many aspects of the minority class that live in the United States, specifically the South Bronx. Even though the cases presented in Rodriguez’s short stories are difficult to mellow with, they are a reality that is constant in many lives. Everyday someone goes through life suffering, due to lack of responsibility, lack of knowledge, submission to another entity or just lack of wanting to have a better life. People that go through these situations are people who have not finished studying, so they have fewer opportunities in life.
As the United States developed and grew, upward mobility was central to the American dream. It was the unstated promise that no matter where you started, you had the chance to grow and proceed beyond your initial starting point. In the years following the Civil War, the promise began to fade. People of all races strived to gain the representation, acknowledgement and place in this society. To their great devastation, this hope quickly dwindled. Social rules were set out by the white folk, and nobody could rise above their social standing unless they were seen fit to be part of the white race. The social group to be impacted the most by this “social rule” was the African Americans. Black folk and those who were sympathetic to the idea of equal rights to blacks were targeted by the Ku Klux Klan. (Burton, 1998) The turning point in North Carolina politics was the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898. It was a very bold and outrageous statement from the white supremacists to the black folk. The Democratic white supremacists illegally seized power from the local government and destroyed the neighborhood by driving out the African Americans and turning it from a black-majority to a white-majority city. (Class Discussion 10/3/13) This event developed the idea that even though an African American could climb a ladder to becoming somebody in his or her city, he or she will never become completely autonomous in this nation. Charles W. Chesnutt discusses the issue of social mobility in his novel The Marrow of Tradition. Olivia Carteret, the wife of a white supremacist is also a half-sister to a Creole woman, Janet Miller. As the plot develops, we are able to see how the social standing of each woman impacts her everyday life, and how each woman is ...
In Schools’ Discipline for Girls Differ by Race and Hue Tanzina Vega describes the situation with race discrimination in modern American schools. The author gives the history of a 12-years-old African-American school girl Mikia Hutchings, who was accused of a trespassing misdemeanor and a felony.
In order to broaden your understanding of [gender, race, class, incarceration, injustice, or any other social issue] , you should read Richard Rodriguez’s “The Achievement of Desire.” This piece of writing is a perfect example of working hard to achieve one 's goals even after crossing into a new country. Twenty years ago Richard first came to this country barely able to speak English, Richard had an ambition to be successful in life at an early age. The first time I read his article i thought i can relate to it at a personal level. I came to this country at the age of 9 years old. I remember when i first walked into my first middle school with my mom. She was registering me and my sister to the local middle school where some of my cousins were already attending. Since the “No Child Felt behind Act” was active, even kids like me with no papers were permitted to enjoy the same education like everyone else.
Color and brand worked as a tool of race/class distinction that not only showed class differences but it was also understood as different sexual identities among school members. Las chicas were seen more sexually active by their peers because of their appearance and behavior at school. Las chicas chose their outfits to show their bodies as much as they could but this was not parallel with that they were more sexually active than preps. Both the school personnel and preps misread las chicas’ styles because it was not about showing sexuality toward men but it was more about bonding and showing resistance against middle-class preps’ norms. However, las chicas more likely got pregnant during school and kept their babies than their white counterparts. But this was not because they were more sexually active but it was because they acquired different cultural capitals from their parents. Las chicas traditionally did not believed in abortion and did not get the knowledge about the usage of birth control pills from their parents. In contrast, middle-class preps were aware about birth control pills and their
Chicano/as and Mexican have the similar culture and yet it is different. In the short story, it explores the culture difference on ‘freedom’ within Mexicans and Chicanas based on the characters P.O.V, archetype, and the ironic name title.
People who come from low class families are always looked down. People believe that since we come from lower class income families that we can't change our status because we will fall into the trap of society which is telling us to either sell our bodies,sell drugs or join a gang to make ends meet.We know the importance of education and how valuable it is so we are going to college to and are going to have high paying jobs to change our economic status.In a novel called “Bodega Dreams” by Erensto Quinonez its taken from a perceptive of a Latino man called Chino trying to challenge society so he can change his status both economic wise and social wise.There was a time when Chino was taking a class that talked about changing the cultural identity
It would have been helpful if more information was provided, other than the repeated theme of there being lack of support offered to youth by counselors and teachers. This documentary could have been boosted through quantitative research showing that Latino schools (and those who resource them) are inherently at fault for Latino youth being failed by the education system. Research like the kind done by Anyon would be perfect to pair with the anecdotal evidence provided in The Graduates. Anyon’s study shows that low-class students are taught in a completely different way than working and upper-class students, and a memorization-focused, innovation-lacking curriculum works to reinforce existing power structures (Anyon, p. 90). Infusing this type of research into the film would have provided supplementary evidence for the actual difference that exists in minority
The novel identifies the three main social classes which are the upper class (Da Ros), the middle class (Arroyo Blanco residents) and lower class (Mexican immigrants), and this further explains the characteristics of the people in each class. The lower classes is associated with the poor, people who have little control over resources, power and prestige, compared to the middle class who are better off than the former. The novel focuses on two main class which are the middle and the lower class and the effect of socioeconomic status on people.
There are many structural equivalence models of how school context combined with class, race, gender, language, and ability status play a role in education access and opportunity. The way students perform in school can be identified by his/her engagement and attachment. Students can also be categorized by the type of student they may become the ideological feature of their racial and ethnic identities (Cater: 2005: 27). Being a female, first generation, Mexican-American, I have experienced many advantages and disadvantages in the educational system. As a result, human, cultural, and social capital has been imported in education, which is essential in student’s educational career.