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The history of chicano culture
Chicano community
The history of chicano culture
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La Plaza de Cultura Artes The mission of LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes is a non-profit organization/museum founded to celebrate and cultivate an appreciation for the enduring and evolving influence of Mexican and Mexican-American culture, with a specific focus upon the unique Mexican-American experience in Los Angeles and Southern California. The museum itself is near where Los Angeles was founded in 1871 and includes a 2.2 anchor campus that includes two historic and renovated buildings (Vickrey Brunswig Building and Plaza House). All surrounded by beautiful public gardens. La Plaza is also located near the heart of Los Angeles surrounded by other ethnic sites like Little Tokyo. (However after visiting one can 't help to realize the homeless problem in the Los Angeles area, and realizing some are even Chicano.) Through visiting La Plaza De Culturas Y Artes, I have learned a lot more interesting, yet, surprising new information about the Chicano history in California. For example, in the 1910’s and on the high immigration of Mexicans and other Chicanos, into coal mines and farms by major corporations, made California one of the richest states in the US. I also learned that most of California 's economy was heavily reliant on immigrants. Immigrants were the preferred worker for major corporations because they didn 't have American rights and were given the harder jobs for less pay. However, in Los Angeles and throughout the southwest, the Mexican population had shifted from heavily immigrants into United States-born citizens. These new English speaking, young generation no longer thought of themselves as “Mexico de afuera” but, started to embrace the American clean-cut style at the time. Resulting in new Deal youth programs... ... middle of paper ... ...rises me that little to few people know the true past of California and I believe that it should be taught in high school. I also never knew about the unfortunate circumstances of all the Chicanos that were relocated and lied to in order to build the Dodgers Stadium. Being relocated by force essentially and promised a better living condition where they have priorities that was never built. I have been a Dodger fan my whole life and never thought about the location of the stadium and how they obtained it. The worst part is I see so many Chicanos at the games and are die hard Dodger fans that don 't know the complete story. Overall, I feel enlightened by the new information and history I have learned in the past few months and at the museum. I can now embrace and express my Chicano background, knowing my history and make sure we don’t take anything for granted.
The tone of Whitewashed Adobe delivers an ethnic and cultural history of Los Angeles. The author, William Deverell, indicates “Los Angeles has been the city of the future for a long time.” The book takes a revealing and harsh look at prejudice, political power and control in the early vision of 19th century Los Angeles and its surrounding communities. Deverell’s main interest is the economically, culturally and politically powerful Anglos and their view of ethnicity and race that enabled them to distance themselves from the Mexican people. Whitewashed Adobe’s six chapters illuminate how these men “appropriated, absorbed, and occasionally obliterated” Mexican sites and history in going forth with their vision for Los Angeles.
After the end of World War I in 1919, a group of thirty Japanese settled in San Joaquin Valley, California making their ethnic community in Cortez. Despite the Alien Land Law of 1913, which prevented Asians from purchasing land or leasing it for more than three years, most of the families were able to establish fruit orchards in large land areas. It is this community that the author of the book conducted her research.
Monroy, Douglas. Thrown Among Strangers: The Making of Mexican Culture in Frontier California . 1990.
The focus of analysis will consist of Southern Chicago Mexicans and the way by which they established themselves as important features of US civilization. Within the late 1910s and early 1920s the first major waves of Mexican immigrants ventured into the Southside of Chicago. Members of the community overcame the discrimination against them while organizing themselves in way that introduced Mexican pride and community building across their
Years ago, there was once a small town called Chaves Ravine within Los Angeles, California and this town was a poor rural community that was always full of life. Two hundred families, mostly Chicano families, were living here quite peacefully until the Housing Act of 1949 was passed. The Federal Housing Act of 1949 granted money to cities from the federal government to build public housing projects for the low income. Los Angeles was one of the first cities to receive the funds for project. Unfortunately, Chavez Ravine was one of the sites chosen for the housing project, so, to prepare for the construction work of the low-income apartments, the Housing Authority of Los Angeles had to convince the people of the ravine to leave, or forcibly oust them from their property. Since Chavez Ravine was to be used for public use, the Housing Authority of Los Angeles was able seize and buy Chavez Ravine from the property owners and evict whoever stayed behind with the help of Eminent Domain. The LA Housing Authority had told the inhabitants that low-income housing was to be built on the land, but, because of a sequence of events, the public housing project was never built there and instead Dodgers Stadium was built on Chavez Ravine. Although Chavez Ravine public housing project was the result of the goodwill and intent of the government, rather than helping the people Chavez Ravine with their promise of low-income housing, the project ended up destroying many of their lives because of those in opposition of the public housing project and government mismanagement.
Weber, David J. Foreigners in Their Native Land: The Historical Roots of Mexican Americans. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973.
Los Angeles is a place with a dynamic history. It has grown to be one of the most diverse cities in the world as a whole. Despite the diversity for which it is known for, the city has always had a striving conflict due to racial and class tension. The social stratification of its past continues to take its toll as dividing lines persist in contemporary Los Angeles. Furthermore, these dividing lines redefine place in Los Angeles, whether geographically or personally, to be subject to race and class. Fluidity has become evident recently however it is more common for the identity of people to be fixed in society. Through the novel Southland, by Nina Revoyr, and various means of academic sources, one is further able to explore the subject of race, place, and reinvention in Los Angeles.
Gonzalez, Juan. Harvest of Empire a History of Latinos in America. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc, 2000.
As gold discoveries slowed down and the Civil War gradually came to an end, the First Transcontinental Railroad was finally completed between Omaha and Sacramento. Over time, unemployment began rising across the country, especially in California, where a vast majority of Chinese immigrants resided in. The welcoming of Chinese immigrants slowly began to wear off as the white working class perceived a threat to their livelihood that these immigrants could potentially cause, leading to an increase in racial tensions. These growing tensions culminated in the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 and eventually closed U.S. borders to all Chinese laborers, with the exception of ethnic Chinese individuals. This paper highlights the significant impact of large-scale Chinese immigration to California during the Gold Rush, the lasting contributions made by the Chinese towards Western ...
The Chicano Movement, like many other civil rights movements, gained motivation from the everyday struggles that the people had to endure in the United States due to society. Mexican-Americans, like many other ethnicities, were viewed as an inferior group compared to white Americans. Mexican-Americans sought to make a change with the Chicano Movement and “the energy generated by the movement focused national attention on the needs of Mexican-Americans” (Bloom 65). The Mexican-American Movement had four main issues that it aimed to resolve and they ranged from “restoration of la...
During the late 1840's California did not show much promise or security. It had an insecure political future, its economic capabilities were severely limited and it had a population, other than Indians, of less than three thousand people. People at this time had no idea of what was to come of the sleepy state in the coming years. California would help boost the nation's economy and entice immigrants to journey to this mystical and promising land in hopes of striking it rich.
Crouch, Ned. Mexicans & Americans : Cracking The Cultural Code. NB Publishing, Inc., 2004. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 21 Nov. 2011.
His original typed proposal and budgets for exhibitions, workshops, performing arts projects, apprentice program, and research and library resources, all to be administered by El Museo del Barrio, are in the archives of El Museo del Barrio, as well as a letter to Puerto Rican artists, where he introduces the institution: “The Museo del Barrio is its title: a neighborhood museum of Puerto Rican culture. . .” El Museo del Barrio receives its primary funding from the Board of Education from 1969 until 1974. Montañez Ortiz stated, “The cultural disenfranchisement I experience as a Puerto Rican has prompted me to seek a practical alternative to the orthodox museum, which fails to meet my needs for an authentic ethnic experience. To afford me and others the opportunity to establish living connections with our own culture, I founded El Museo del Barrio.” (Ralph Ortiz, “Culture and the People,” Art in America, May–June 1971,
incredible. The museum has 24 galleries ranging in Mexican art in every form. After an
It’s hard to imagine a city with secrets, especially one as candid as Los Angeles. Founded by Mexican and Spanish settlers, and along with the rest of the United States, once occupied by Native Americans, the history of Los Angeles seems like a clean cut history of cultivating a heap of land into a bustling city. What is failed to be mentioned is the treatment of those who did the labor, including their conditions and constant struggle with inequality in an era thought to of ended slavery.