In Martha Menchaca’s sixth chapter she focuses on the events proceeding the Mexican War for Independence and the results of the racial legislation passed. One of the components of the legislation changes she mentions with greater emphasis is that that Indians, mestizos, free afro-mestizos and whites were given citizenship status and political rights. She does signal to the fact that although the legislation changed it did not mean the change occurred within the people. Her claim being that the alleged change implemented was not functional since the people like the afro-mestizos where not treated the same as the other citizens. It aids to what we have been discussing in lecture with the changes being implemented to help the citizens that are…
In the short story “Borders” by: Thomas King the main character, who is the mother of a Blackfoot family living in Standoff, Alberta, will not directly identify her citizenship as Canadian or American at the borders One day, the mother decided that she and her son would go to visit the boy's sister, Laetitia, who had moved to Salt Lake City when she was seventeen years old. When the boy and his mother were asked their citizenship at the American border the mother answered “Blackfoot”. The guard told the mother that she had to be either American or Canadian but she just kept answering that she was Blackfoot. After many hours spent talking to guards at the American border the mother was told that if she does not tell them her citizenship then…
Ian Haney Lopez, a Professor at Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California at Berkeley primarily works in the areas of racial justice and American law. Lopez is also the author of White by Law, The Legal Construction of Race, which presents a critical look at how race has been recognized by law and it’s legal actors such as judges and policy makers throughout history. The author mainly focuses on analyzing prerequisite cases that in affect, have changed the way that race is perceived today. The book particularly focuses on the legal and social construction of whiteness.…
How Gender and/or Sexuality challenge Chicana and Chicano identity The Main Character in Gil Cuadros City of God, does not clearly state his name. In “Indulgences” the main character is the only non-adult sitting at the table when someone says “Eat Gilberto, eat” which is a statement usually associated between an adult and child. Asking Gilberto to eat is similar to parent saying, ‘eat before you go out to play’ and because Gilberto is the youngest at the table it seems appropriate and most likely that an adult is telling the youngest to eat. Another reason why Gilberto is the name of the main character is because this is the author’s auto biography.…
Barbara Welke, author and Associate Professor of History and Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota discusses the makings of a citizen in her book, Law and the Borders of Belonging in the Long Nineteenth Century United States. Throughout the book, Welke explains her core concepts as to how she defines the borders of belonging. Borders of belonging, in this case, refers to the ability to create an exclusive environment based on the credentials of race, gender, and ability through law and society. Henceforth, the additional core concepts surrounding that foundation are legal personhood and citizenship. Legal personhood is the ability for an individual to have legally recognized self-ownership.…
Globe and Mail’s article “Bill C-24 is wrong: There is only one kind of Canadian” suggests that categorizing people into these two categories may result in being “treated less Canadian”. Chris Alexander explains that “citizenship is not a right, it’s a privilege” (Black, 2014), dual citizens’ citizenship privileges are inferior to those who are not dual…
Thomas King's short story’ Borders’ talks about the experience aboriginals go through while crossing the American and Canadian border. When latecia’s mother was asked about her citizenship, she calls herself a ‘blackfoot’, signifying the pride she had for her culture and wasn’t willing to accept any other kind. She was not keen on telling the border guards either she was American or Canadian. The reply she kept giving was not on the border official’s application, so the Blackfoot family had to keep going back and forth from one border to the other. But when they got to the Canadian border, their response was still the same, so they had to return to the American border.…
Combining race and ethnicity to resolve racial stigmas, or ethnorace, does not disrupt the black/white binary. I believe the black/white binary is something that will always be present in America. People of different ethnicities and races, coalesced or not, will always be treated differently, whether it be because of their skin color, other physical features, cultural origin, or nativism. Ethnorace is a term used for someone who has assimilated into a different society than their ancestry, in this case the American society, by being raised with American cultural values and a Christian religion. Despite their parents and ancestors’ race and ethnicity as African, Asian, Latino, etc., ethnorace allows this person to classify themselves as an American…
Consequently, today Canadians have a great sense of who they are and the Constitution is responsible for that pride. Included in the Constitution is the Charter of Rights and Freedom and is the first “law of rights” included in the Constitution,guaranteeing Canadian rights that are harder to change (Colyer, et al, 2010, p. 369). Additionally, the Charter covers equality of gender, race, nationality and disabilities, indigenous rights and freedom of…
If I was the instructor and I could only assign one of these films to my students, I would choose Diego Luna’s 2014 film “Cesar Chavez.” I chose this film because Mexican American Civil Rights are underrated. It is a very important part in history that most instructors tend not to express as much or even skip the chapter. In high school, I remember learning about the Renaissance Era, Civil War, WWI and WWII, Cold War, African American Civil Rights, slavery, even wars in other countries that don’t involve the U.S.; however, I’ve never had a chapter or even heard about Mexican American Civil Rights. Schools need to instruct and teach about Mexican American Rights.…
Citizenship.. Where Do ‘Trans’ Stand? Yuval-Davies (2010) defines the notion of citizenship as, a more total relationship, inflected by identity, cultural positioning, social positioning and belonging. Citizenship has always been linked to concepts of inclusion and exclusion, this makes it harder for Trans people to feel accepted. The difficulty of trans identity positions and identity politics mean the transgender citizenship is an uneven and challenged environment (Hines, 2007).…
In Chicana Power by Maylei Blackwell the chapter “Spinning the Record: Historical Writing and Righting” talks about feminism and how different people have defined it and how it's been seen throughout history. I think it is the significant take away from this chapter because it's something that it's not really taught or discussed but should be. It is broken into different wave models although the author does bring up a good point about it being divided in this way. She says many challenge the dominant narrative of periodization embodied by the wave model because we need to consider that women of color feminists are different from each other. I think it's hard topic to teach specially since many neglect somethings and there is many opinions to…
As people look at others around them and guess what cultural background they come from without knowing, in most cases, they are either slightly off or on the opposite end of the spectrum. Most everyone has been guilty by their assumptions of race or ethnicity at some point. When interviewing John Killingbeck, a twenty-year-old student at SIUe, I learned that he has background that surprised and interested me immediately. I recently met John and was aware that he was Latino, but I did not know enough of his unique cultural background. He was born and raised a United States citizen.…
Discrimination Against Aboriginal People In Canada: The Fight Isn’t Over The lives of the Aboriginal people in Canada have never been the same since European settlers unjustifiably stole their native land right from under their feet. Life for Aboriginal people will always be affected by the European colonization of Canada, and discrimination against the first nations community still exists to this day.…
Nevertheless, before discussing how effective the multiculturalism act has been, it’s necessary to discuss parts of Canadian identity, and asses how multiculturalism shapes Canadian society. Canadian identity is ambiguous; often been describes described as an inclusive nation, rather than exclusive nation. Instead of promoting its own interest Canada has been known as a compromising, pace-making, compassionate nation filled with virtue. Canadian identity is closely associated with the promotion of diversity and multiculturalism. Unlike their American neighbors in the South, Canada is said to have embraced distinct cultures and language, without forcing in assimilation.…