Definitions of the Terms Chicano and Aztlan

Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity. By David G Gutiérrez. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).

In conclusion, the Chicano subculture has a profound history and is distinct in itself from the other

Even by the 1930s, this was particularly among young people who, “born and educated in the United States, demanded to be included in the city’s future … ” (Sanchez 226). At a crucial meeting of Mexican-Americans in 1927, facing an Anglo led municipal incorporation move that would have raised taxes and driven them out, many Mexican-American leaders opposed applying for U.S. citizenship. Even though it would have given them more of a target, specifically, the right to vote on a subsequent ballot measure. The affront to Mexico and their heritage was, for them, a crime that outweighed the benefits (Sanchez 4).

However, Pitti’s examines the Chicano civil rights movement, seeking its strengths and weaknesses, to is an important step in the developing historiography of the broader civil rights movement, seeking to place it in a historical aspect and broadening the field of vision beyond the more radical, attention-seizing groups while accepting their donations to the maneuver for justice within the Mexican-American communities. Which this can be tied to the concept of cultural citizenship (refers to the right to be different and to belong in a participatory democratic sense. Over time, the word has been used in relation to the Mexican-American struggle and how they have been depraved of their original culture and have instead tried to “Americanize”

The formation of segregated barrios and the development of a wealth of community-provided services showed that Mexican-Americans were not content to be marginalized by the United States. Instead, they were embracing an empowering new sense of self-determination and referring to themselves as “Mexicanos or as members of a larger, pan-Hispanic community of La Raza.” At this time La Raza referenced individuals of the Mexican “race”, whether they were in Mexico or in the United States, and was particularly important in the United States, where race was more important than citizenship. In the late 19th and early 20th century United States, race was determined by purity of blood, and there were only two races—white and black. White meant the individual had “pure blood” (European blood); black meant that the individual’s blood included indigenous or African influences. Being white meant being able to exercise one’s constitutional rights and being treated as a normal member of society’s dominant group. Being black meant that, regardless of whether he or she was a citizen, the individual would face discrimination similar to that which I described earlier. When the Spanish conquerors mixed with the people of Latin America, forming the mestizo, or mixed race, population that now composes most of the region, they removed themselves from a “white” classification in the United States. Thus, by engaging with the concept of La Raza, which connotes a mestizo race and population, Mexican-Americans rejected the binary nature of race in the United States and embraced what made them different—their indigenous-mixed blood and the cultural heritage that accompanied it. While the abuse directed towards Mexican-Americans may have

More than a century of prejudice against one of the largest minority residing in the United States that continues today. To these days Hispanics are targets of discrimination and are not offer equal opportunities in jobs and education. The roots of discrimination go back to the end of the Mexican War when thousands of Mexicans became American citizens overnight. The sign of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo not only transfer land to the United States but also the people that live there before it became territory of the United States. These people began to suffer from discrimination in their owl land. Their sons and daughters did not have better luck because even thought they were born in the United States therefore they are American citizens

In George J. Sanchez’s, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles 1900-1945, Sanchez brings forth a new understanding of Mexican-American culture through the presentation of how the culture made substantial adaptations under limited economic and social mobility (Sanchez 13). Unlike other historians who studies the variations of Mexican American cultural identity from a national prospective , Sanchez creatively selects Los Angeles as his site of research because, not only is the city home to the largest Mexican population in the United States, but also because Latinos play a profound role in shaping the city’s culture. Growing up in an immigrant family himself, Sanchez undoubtedly has many personal

In his book Racism on Trial: The Chicano Fight for Justice, Ian F. Haney Lopez studies the change that in racial politics brought about by the Chicano movement. He examines why Chicano activists embrace their identity as members of the Brown race, an action that is a rejection of previous generations ' attempts to gain civil rights by claiming to be White. He analyzes this racial transformation in the context of race as a socially constructed idea meant to preserve power dynamics.

When one thinks about Hispanics, all too often the image of a field full of migrant workers picking fruit or vegetables in the hot sun comes to mind. This has become the stereotypical picture of a people whose determination and character are as strong or stronger than that of the Polish, Jewish, Greek, or Italian who arrived in the United States in the early 1900's. Then, the center of the new beginning for each immigrant family was an education. An education was the "ladder by which the children of immigrants climbed out of poverty into the mainstream." (Calderon & Slavin, 2001, p. iv) That ideal has not changed, as the Hispanic population has grown in the United States to large numbers very quickly and with little fanfare. Now, the

This chapter talks about the deculturalization of Hispanic Americans in education and etc. Anglo-Americans didn’t consider Hispanic/Latino Americans white, more as an inferior race. The Mexican War mark a change in Mexicans. The Mexicans lost half of its territory to the United States/Already losted half of their territory in the war; the ratification of a new treaty came about, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The treaty stated, that Mexicans remaining in their lost territories have the right to become U.S citizens (page 90). The Mexican congress ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in 1848; ceded the United States Mexican territory from Texas to California. Mexican leaders wanted all Mexicans living in ceded territory to be given citizenship

A group usually excluded from the Chicano social identity, undocumented immigrants, also face similar hardships. This group can be considered as excluded from the Chicano social identity due to the fact that they are not always “Mexican Americans.” These undocumented immigrants can be just Mexican, from another part of a Spanish-speaking country, or even neither. Though they may not fall under the traditional mestizaje component of the traditional Chicano social identity, undocumented immigrants have consciousness and commitment to

In the Preface of Major Problems in Mexican American History Zaragosa Vargas writes, "Nearly two thirds of Latinos in the United States are of Mexican descent, or Chicanos- a term of self definition that emerged during the 1960's and early 1970s civil rights movement. Chicanos reside mainly in the Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, and the Midwest. Their history begins in the precolonial Spanish era, and they share a rich mestizo cultural heritage of Spanish, Indian, and African origins. The Chicanos' past is underscored by conquest of the present-day American Southwest first by the Spanish and then by the United States following the Mexican American War" (xv). When one thinks of a Chicano one thinks of the Mayans and Aztecs, the conquests,

I totally agree with you, in how Chicano Movement had a huge impact in our America Society and the Education. Like you say we are having an increase of new Hispanic, Latino, and Chicanos immigrant population, where we can see new adaptation of our people in this country. Also I can say this big changes are based on the 2nd and 3rd immigrant generation, referring that this young Chicanos, are the new movement where they are helping to create new education system. For example how I mention in my post our people are incorporating new Ideas for our education, new way of teaching, new school programs, based on the school Hispanics, and Latino and Chicanos professors. I can say based on the Chicano movement we have this acceptation in the society

Additionally, I will outline the static nature of Afro Mexican identity through an analysis of the popular cartoon Memin Penguin. I will explain how this stagnant representation of Mexican blackness isolates the Costa Chica of Guerrero from other spaces in Mexico. I will conclude by addressing why this topic is significant to my scholarship as a student and what I hope further scholarly investigation will uncover.

According to Almaguer, “nineteenth-century relations between Mexicans and Anglos in California were powerfully determined by class division within the two populations, divisions that led to the divergent historical experiences for the Mexican working class and the ranchero elite” (45). The biggest division of class happened during the Mexican and Spanish periods, Spanish and Mexican governments issued a total of twenty land grants of “415,959 acre of land and represented 38.6 percent of the total land area in the [Santa Barbara County]” to families such as “Juan Camarillo, Isabel Yorba, Jose Arnaz, Juan Sanchez, and the de la Guerra brothers” who will later become “‘gente de razons,’” the largest landholders (Almaguer 76-77). What this 1860s act did, was separate the Mexican class as a whole, if you were a gente de razon, you were Rancho elite, you were royals of the town, dominating everything from economics and agriculture to political and social affairs. If you were not Rancho elite, you were “rancheros and farmers with small land holdings, skilled rancho laborers and foremen, artisans in the Mexican pueblos”, or as they were often referred, “mestizos (mixed racial ancestry) and was typically viewed as “‘middle class’” by travelers visiting California during the Mexican period” (Almaguer, 48). Now with this vision in mind it is not hard to see how different of an experience the Spanish had when the Anglos came because of their already dominant positions in life creating this image of