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Essay about Chicano, A Community That Has Overcome

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The Chicano community has endured and overcome many struggles since the conquest by conquistador in 1491 and eviction from Atzlan. Race was used by the white community as tool to structure inequality for the Chicano community by classifying the Chicano community as white but treat them as a minority community. Chicano activist during the Mexican American generation found community self-determination by becoming actively involved in their community and taking hold of their own destiny. The Mexican American activists created a new way of seeing themselves by taking the term Chicano and making the term a symbol for who they truly are and who they want to become. The new ethos of the new identity of a Chicano is community …show more content…

Instances such as this sparked the Chicano community to begin to take matters into their own hands and shape their own destiny.
By becoming actively involved in the community and in politics, Chicano activist began to achieve community self-determination. By starting to speak up and act for the Chicano community, Chicano activist broke free of the chains which have tied them down since the white man came to their homelands and drove them from out of Atzlan. A great example of Chicanos involving themselves in their community came from the walkouts staged by the Chicano youth in East L.A. In Ian Lopez’s Racism on Trial, Lopez states, “the student strikes symbolized the awakening of Mexican youth to a political consciousness of themselves and of their ability to fight for equal treatment.” (Lopez 23). By organizing the walkout the students began the Chicano communities search for self-determination and pursuit of equality. Then there are movements such as the farm workers movement which brought to the public’s attention the dehumanization of the Chicanos field workers. People such as Cesar Chavez took the political approach to win the Chicano community equality (Chicano!).

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