Dear Professor and Classmates, The concept of race is a topic that has not changed much over the many years human have been on this earth. Race by definition is a group of people who share a set of characteristics not always physical characteristics, also it is said that these groups of people share and common bloodline (Conley, 2015). Many sociologists argue that race is a social construction.…
• What does the author say in Chapter 4 about the ethnic label “Chicano” and word association with lower class peons? The author says “the ethnic label ‘Chicano’ was probably derived from the word ‘Mechicano,’ a sixteenth-century pronunciation of Mex (ch) icano” (Vigil 81). And, he also says “The word finally became synonymous with the dispossessed lower-class peons” (Vigil 81). • Refer to pages 88 and 89, Vigil writes, “…
In the essay, “Blaxicans”, by Richard Rodriguez, states that using race as a basis for identifying American in not valid, rather culture should be what defines Americans. For example, the author says, “One sees white Hispanics, one sees black Hispanics, one sees brown Hispanic, who are Indians, many of whom do not speak Spanish”(95-96). This evidence reveals Rodriquez’s perspective about how he sees race, which is that culture defines a person. Although, Hispanic can have different skin color, what really defines them is their own culture. Their unique culture comes from their family’s, or the place he or she was born.…
Both Gonzales and La Chrisx write about issues and stereotypes that people had about Chicana/os. Initially, the term “Chicano” was seen as an insult to Mexican-Americans. We learn though that it was later embraced by Mexican-American activists as a way to transform an insult into a signifier of ethnic strength and pride and as a refusal to assimilate into mainstream white culture. Gonzales speaks about how…
Question #1 Chicanos have gone through a lot and specifically thought out the 1970’s. The Chicano movement in the 1970’s can be described as powerful, political, and history changing. It was just not the adults who struggled, the Chicano youth took a part too. For instance, the youth were struggling with identity, equal education, and just plain discrimination. Chicano youth struggle with identity because when they are in the United States they are pressured into giving in into the dominant culture, but they still hold on to what is their Mexican culture.…
In How Race is Made in America author Natalia Molina introduces the concept of racial scripts which also become and overarching theme throughout the book. Racial scripts highlight the ways in which the lives of racialized groups are linked across time and space and thereby affect one another, even when not directly crossing paths. (Molina 2014: 6) Molina argues that the perceived position of a group is represented when its members are seen as relative to other groups through this space identified in the definition of racial scripts. For Mexicans, the lack of citizenship in combination with racial scripts has led to the dominant group expropriating a resource produced by members of racialzed groups preventing them from realizing the full value…
The Chicano Movement was used to describe the moment of ethnic empowerment of Mexican descent beginning in the 60's. Chicano had long been a term among Mexican Americans before to this time. By the 60's young Mexican Americans took pride in the label reintroducing it with pride in one's Mexican heritage/culture and rebelling against institutions and people who practiced or who were for discrimination against Mexicans. The movimiento was really a conglomerate of multiple movements that researchers have broken down into at least four components A youth movement represented in the struggle against discrimination in schools and the anti war movement the farm workers movement the movement for political empowerment, most notably in the formation…
This group of people assigned a specific name to identify their ethnicity. ‘Chicanos’ was the term they assigned to themselves, which it has the same definition as ‘Mexican-Americans’. George Sanchez explains that the culture concepts between Mexicans and Mexican-Americans was a problem since there was not an agreement between these groups. Mexicans had their Mexican culture and Americans had their own culture as well. However there existed two cultural poles: ‘Mexicano’ which is was considered as the Old World ethnic and the other culture was the ‘Anglo United States’(Sanchez 5).…
Chicano Literature is a relatively new literature movement that encompasses writings that focus on the documentation of Chicano history in the United States starting in the 20th century and in analyzing the Chicano experience through the years of various important socio-political changes. The main event that influenced this genre was the Chicano movement in the 1960's, which resulted in a better social environment—both in schools and in work places—and an established guarantee of human rights for Chicanos. Chicano literature can be observed from two viewpoints; the first viewpoint concentrates on literature produced before the 1960’s (or works that reflected beliefs and events in that time period) that depicted the buildup of dissatisfaction…
Race, the idea that the human species is divided into distinct groups on the basis of inherited physical and behavioral differences we see that race can be interpreted in many ways such as physical description and being described as a color wheel. Canada has been a multicultural and multiracial society. People arrived from all parts of the world and from all walks of life. There are five identifiable stages to the history of Canadian immigration. Each stage is characterized by at least one crucial feature.…
The Chicano Movement of the 1960s, also called the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, which fought for Mexican American Civil Right with the stated goal of achieving Mexican American empowerment. Chicano movement goals included many issues like restoration of land grants, improved education, farm workers' rights, and to voting and political rights. Generally, the Chicano Movement addressed negative cultural stereotypes of Mexicans. Chicano movement included many people from different culture to fight for their rights; it included Mexican-Americans, African Americans, Asian- Americans, Puerto Rican-Americans, and more; Mexican Americans demanded better education, working conditions, political empowerment, and social freedom.…
In the 1960’s there where many movements that started to be heard around the U.S. Most notably the African American civil rights movement. This movement sparked a lot of other groups to fight for their equality and rights now more than ever. One of which was the Latino movement also known as the Chicano movement which had been around since the early 1900’s but it was during the 60’s that they made their biggest impacts. These are the events that helped them progress in their fight for rights and equality.…
Is the race concept biological or is it socially constructed? All of these questions will have been answered by the end of this paper. In this paper, I will explore how anthropologists in different fields of anthropology view and define race. Most racial studies have been done my biological or physical anthropologists. They study race as a concept; how to define it, how to classify it,…
I grew up in the San Fernando Valley here in California where a large number of Hispanics make up the population. The word Chicano/a was always spoken of in my community, but I never understood what it actually meant. As a child, I understood the word Chicano was just another word used to call Mexicans, or Mexican-Americans. In middle school, I began to build interest in history, specifically in the history of California that was tied into my race and culture. That is when I began to see the word Chicano used I various movements such as the walkouts in East L.A for education reforms, and even the struggle for farm workers rights.…
Growing up with a Chicano (Mexican-American) and a Native-American background, I’ve experienced much of the fulfillment of being included with the URMs (Underrepresented minorities) experience. URMs is defined as African Americans, American Indians/Alaska Natives, and Latinos— who have historically comprised a minority of the U.S. population are growing in size and influence (nacme.org). Growing up in a small town, with primarily Caucasians, can really be intimidating, as most minorities are looked down upon as going nowhere and having no goals coming from a small town. The residence I grew up was located in a small country town, which not many minorities would choose to live in. The reason for this, is because in most small towns, the most prominent race is Caucasians.…