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Chicano movement
Chicano culture history
Mexican American civil rights movements
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In the 1950’s and 60’s Mexican Americans were not widely treated like Americans here in the U.S.. The Mexican American Community here in the US had to join together and fight for a change. During the 50’s and 60’s Mexican Americans did this in a massive way for common struggles like oppressive farm labor conditions and poor education. The fight became known as the Chicano Movement, Chicano being a term with roots to indigenous pride. What the movement meant for millions of Mexican Americans was a change from the status as foreigners to locals. With many setbacks and turbulence the movement was widely successful with their goals. Ethnic studies is much more widely taught in college and even high schools. Many more Mexican Americans are now
registered voters than ever before and Mexican Americans are now represented at every level of government. The Chicano movement exhibited real ingenuity in their means of instituting change. The first action which I found really impressive was the pilgrimage which Cesar Chavez embarked on. Cesar marched of 300 miles from Delano to Sacramento wearing inappropriate shoes which caused his feet to be in anguish the whole way. Not only did he suffer but hundreds of Chicano farm labor workers joined the march, often leaving behind the place they held at the farm where they were working. The pilgrimage shows tremendous commitment as well as a clear sense of worthiness. The second major action of the Chicano movement i see as very impressive is the student walkouts. Its most impressive aspect is perhaps that it was carried out in multiple school districts in LA and over 100 other school districts accross the rest of California, Texas and nearly a dozen other states. The student walkouts showed immense unity among Mexican Americans accross the country. I believe strength of numbers was the most valuable aspect of Chicano student action.
During this years America experience a lot of major transformations with culture because a lot of people were migrating here from all parts of the world. Some believe that people who migrated should look up to Americans because Americans believe they were superior to anyone else, and they thought it would only be fair if they follow their customs and beliefs. There was debates weather the Mexican-American culture could draw from two rich culture traditions in the United States. Acculturation was being sued at this time and many people supported because there was a lot of changes that was happening in both cultures but there was also assimilation that was occurring. Assimilation let people adapt to new changes and change their own culture to the new culture they were learning. For many Mexican Americans assimilation was hard for them because of dominant Anglo society and their exclusionary rules. Some were rejected and but they didn’t care to put them in any of the middle class white societies. Many came to a agreement that they could practice there own beliefs without interfering with the other cultures beliefs. This helped created less conflict even if there was still people who had many differences. Assimilation and acculturation is a very hard thing to distinguish where each person should go based on there culture because not a lot people want to adapt to the new life but
Introduction to Chicano Studies or Chicano Studies 1A is an introductory course at UC Santa Barbara on the historical development of Chicano people that covers topics ranging from the Aztec Society to the contemporary Latino Generation. The class includes a lecture, with 500 students, and is taught by Professor Mario T. Garcia. It is held on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:00 to 3:15 PM in Isla Vista Theater 1. There is also a mandatory section which is taught by a teacher’s assistant. The section is 50 minutes long, and in my case led by Sarah Latanyshyn on Friday afternoons in Girvetz Hall.
Many Mexicans immigrated to the United States throughout the 1920’s forming their own communities like East Los Angeles. Throughout the years, they overcame hardships like segregation, bad stereotypes, etc. They created a movement for civil rights, where their culture began to flourish around the country, known as the Chicano Movement. One big contributor to the Chicano Movement is Cheech Marin. “Being a Chicano in Hollywood, my experience is that you're not given credit for any sophistication... You're just kind of some guy that just crossed the border, you know, on the back of a truck and that's it (Cheech Marin).” Cheech Marin has brought many talents to the Chicano community from the 1970’s to now. He is an author, actor, director, writer, and art collector. His most famous works include the famous comedy duo Cheech and Chong, his solo film Born in East L.A., and his wide-range collection of Chicano art.
This is critical for the readers to know the show the bias, injustice, and premeditated ignorance of the United States educational system. It also demonstrates that Chicano Studies is not important regardless of the Hispanic population in this supposed “free” country. It seems as if the Chicano Studies was made only to fail by keeping it under funded and understaffed. By doing so, it has an affect on keeping away good scholars to maintain the historical development of Hispanics in the United States as well as its own history.
The Chicano Movement was a time that pressed forth for the equal opportunity of the Latino community and proved to America that Mexican Americans were a force to be reckoned with. In the documentary Latino Americans – Episode 5: Prejudice and Pride, it centralizes on the success of the oppressed community through significant leaders in that period. Union activists César Chavez, along with Dolores Huerta, playwright Luis Valdez, teacher Sal Castro, US Congressman Herman Ballido, and political activist José Ángel Gutiérrez all contributed to egalitarianism of Latinos across the nation. This documentary reflects on the importance of equal prospects within the workplace, the academic setting, and the social and political features in society.
During the 1970’s, Mexican Americans were involved in a large social movement called the "Chicano movement." Corresponding with the great development of the black civil rights movement, Mexican Americans began to take part in a series of different social protests in which they demanded equal rights for themselves. Composed mainly of Mexican American students and youth, these activists focused on maintaining a pride for their culture as well as their ethnicity to fuel their political campaign. Left out of this campaign initially though were Mexican immigrants.
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 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...
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1948 would have lasting negative effects on Mexican Americans. The Treaty was signed after America had won the Mexican American war. America gained possession of the southwest states that had been part of Mexico for the price of around eighteen million dollars. In Article IX of the Treaty, it states that the Mexicans "shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property, and secured in the free exercise of their religion without restriction"(Vargas 139). And as Rachel Rivera points out Article VII promised the Mexicans the right to keep their land which previously belonged to Mexico. However, the Treaty would not grant the Mexicans the rights it offered. For the next hundred and twenty years the Mexicans would be oppressed and discriminated against because of the Treaty. The Treaty was the beginning of the hardships for the Mexicans. They would have to survive in the developing white society. The white society would grow and grow in the southwest, turning the Mexicans into a minority. In Zaragosa Vargas’s book Major Problems in Mexican American History, Vargas delves deeper into the problems of Mexican American History. In our Latinos in the U.S. class, we have discussed the fact that Mexicans in the United States have dealt with many problems which have gone ignored by mainstream society. The website Chicano Park illustrates how Mexican Americans have used art as a collective voice. The documentary Chicano! focuses on how the people found their voice. In the film we see that the social movements of the 1960’s allowed Mexican Americans to raise their voice against the discrimination they had lived with for over a centu...
Again we would see the celebration of Dia De Los Muertos. In the 1970s, Self Help helped encourage the art that participated. It helped bring to community together and create large ensemble of art, parades, and festivals revolving around in the Chicano community.
Latinos have struggled to discover their place inside of a white America for too many years. Past stereotypes and across racism they have fought to belong. Still America is unwilling to open her arms to them. Instead she demands assimilation. With her pot full of stew she asks, "What flavor will you add to this brew?" Some question, some rebel, and others climb in. I argue that it is not the Latino who willingly agreed to partake in this stew. It is America who forced her ideals upon them through mass media and stale history. However her effort has failed, for they have refused to melt.
The Chicano history is a history of transformation based on conquest and struggle under a racial hierarchy. The Anglo-Americans’ intentions of creation of this racial foundation and segregating culture was to justify their act of assigning socio-economic functions to Mexican-Americans, limiting them to a cycle of exploitation and poverty. The meaning behind the contradiction of double aims was identified in El Plan de Santa Barbara’s manifesto and Menchaca’s Recovering History, which emphasized the neglect and distortion of Mexican-American history as a political act by Anglo-Americans to generate a negative, inferior image of these minorities, in comparison to their progressive “American” culture. This ultimately kept the two cultures unreconciled,
...an-American culture has differences from American. Mexican-Americans are very family-orientated so much that they identify themselves as familial instead of individualized or spiritual as other cultures do. The culture has changed over time and is receiving less opposition from Americans as they have in the past. Immigration demographics can be used to see how America is becoming more homogenous accepting Mexican-Americans and eliminating discrimination because of ethnicity. Selena gave great insight into her culture and created some understanding on the differences between Mexican-American and my culture. Knowing these differences will create a more successful interaction any potential person from a Mexican-American culture and myself.
Toward the beginning of March of 1968, roughly 15,000 students, lead by secondary teacher Sal Castro, pursued strikes against seven schools in East Los Angeles and neighboring regions to challenge the nature of training in the schools. It was the first major protest by Chicanos; it had the backing of the whole Mexican-American community as well as the locals by the end. The protest marked to be one of the historic movements as after it there was a lot of drastic changes in the way Chicanos would be viewed as in East Los Angeles. The protesters were able to reach their objective and a small example of it is that before the protest only 2% of Chicanos were able to go to college but after the protest as much as 25% made to the college.
The ethnic- Mexican experience has changed over the years as American has progressed through certain period of times, e.g., the modernity and transformation of the southwest in the late 19th and early 20th century, the labor demands and shifting of U.S. immigration policy in the 20th century, and the Chicano Civil Rights Movement. Through these events Mexican Americans have established and shaped their culture, in order, to negotiate these precarious social and historical circumstances. Throughout the ethnic Mexicans cultural history in the United States, conflict and contradiction has played a key role in shaping their modalities of life. Beginning in the late 20th century and early 21st century ethnic Mexicans have come under distress from the force of globalization. Globalization has followed the trends of conflict and contradiction forcing ethnic Mexicans to adjust their culture and combat this force. While Mexican Americans are in the struggle against globalization and the impact it has had on their lives, e.g., unemployment more common, wages below the poverty line, globalization has had a larger impact on their motherland having devastating affects unlike anything in history.