Gilbert Alvarez

handing them over the rights that they can�t use and don�t deserve. �He (Cardenas) doesn�t know

Hispanics have been immigrating to America since the beginning of the Spanish Colonial era. Up until the 1920’s Mexican Americans have boomed in rural places in america. The 1920’s was meeting the beginning of a renaissance, a better promised life for both native americans as well as immigrants. Businesses were booming, wages were higher, and the industry was creating a bright future for America. However, Mexican Americans continued to face hardships as well as few successes leading up to the 1920’s. Whether these were Native born Americans with a Hispanic background or newly immigrated Mexicans, Mexican Americans faced the hardship of poverty, discrimination, segregation, and struggles during the 1920’s.

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.

Chicanos faced another problem along with their land being taken and being treated as second class citizens. Assimilating into American culture was difficult. Do you keep in touch with the roots of your homeland or do you change and adapt to the new ways of American culture? This was a struggle for Chicanos and it was difficult to adapt. A new language and a new culture in a place they once called their home. Some people tried to fit into both cultures, putting them into somewhere else entirely. This didn’t help their sense of belonging, and ultimately casted them farther as outsiders than before.

In this century, Mexicans continue to be a minority in America. Most of them, don’t feel American, even though they were born in this country. This goes to tell how unfair the Americans were to the Mexicans. As Acuna states, “on January 19, 1903, the Arizona Legislature passed a law prohibiting mines from working more than eight hours per day underground” (Acuna, 158). This law prohibit that any “white male” should work more than eight hours. However, it was implied by the Americans that Mexicans were not included in this law, therefore, they would still work regular work time, plus overtime at the same minimum wage. Which was absolutely outrages how discriminating the Americans could be. As Acuna mentions, “[the] true purpose was to eliminate foreign-born Mexican who had to work 10-12 hours a day to make ends meet with their lower wages” (Acuna, 158). As a result of this bigoted wage treatment towards the “raza,” many Mexican workers took little money to their

The reason why there were so many Mexican was because after the Mexican-American War, when the United States (US) took two-thirds of Mexican land, part of this land became California. Many Mexicans who lived in that land were still allowed to stay, but they were stripped of their property.3 Thus, most Mexican Americans became poor. One of the few jobs that would allow Mexicans to work in were in cannery farms. These jobs, however, did not pay enough for the Mexicans to afford their living expenses.4 Many Mexican families needed to live with other families in small houses to keep up with the rent.5 Since these Mexican families were living in such poor conditions, they felt they needed to negotiate with the companies and get better wages. There is also the possibility that the effects of American culture on Mexican women swayed them to unionize. Women were becoming more independent, and teenage girls, including Mexicans, wanted to be able to go on dates without chaperones. These teenagers needed to argue with their parents or get around them to succeed in doing this.6 It is possible that these rebellious attitudes toward their parents would create that mindset needed to “rebel” against companies by forming

With the increase in salary many Mexicans would feel the money made would be enough to support their family, and live a more comfortable life. The growth of immigrants sparked around the 1970’s, and continued to grow as decades passed. According to the pewhispanic.org the immigrant population had a seventeen fold increase from the decades before. (seven hundred sixty thousand immigrants were currently in the United States in the nineteen seventies.) Even with the increase in salary Mexican americans were still unsatisfied, and believed they deserved more money, more respect, and less racial segregation. The leader of the United Farm Workers movement Cesar Chavez helped organize boycotts and strikes against the farm owners, and got others to stop buying grapes; this severely hurt the grape growing business. Not only did the increase in salary encourage others to immigrate to the United States, but better working conditions did as well. With more immigrants entering the United States, many Mexicans would find themselves to be illegally in the US. Chavez was strongly against those who were in the US illegally and would refuse to help them. Though these people were not receiving the UFW benefits, it encouraged them to apply for citizenship.

Discrimination was a very harsh case to all Mexican Americans and also for the African Americans. In the 1950’s it was a very difficult time for the Hispanics, they were considered people who weren’t intelligent and invisible. There was too much racism in everywhere and every place of Texas. There were also many signs out the restaurants, parks, and in public places that said, “No Mexicans,

The "majority" or "creoles" (Mexican born natives) as they were called, "out number all the others ten to one." (Robinson, Fay) Yet they were treated the worst and, by the way, they were the ones who paid most taxes. These lower class peoples were forced to barely survive on meager pay for manual labor and menial jobs. Many of them ended up peddling or begging in the streets. (Americana)

The next day a large number of protesters were tearing down the tall fence surrounding the construction site. They were yelling repeatedly, “Gym Crow, no go.” In minutes the police arrive and force, pulled, and shoved the protest away from the fence. Some of them refused to move and they get arrested the rest. The protest march back to the campus in the way to the campus, he saw a young man with a bullhorn on his hand hi introduce as the president of Columbia. Jimenez stops and listened to his speech, against to construction of they want to build in the Morningside Park. He talked about ending racism and sexism. They also want better jobs, housing, schools, and equal treatment. He was saying a rang true to him, at the end of his speech he made his way out a few students follow he passed by Jimenez and they stretched out hands and said, “Thank you.” All these remind Jimenez went he and his brother were punished because they caught speaking Spanish at school, they also called us wetback. It was painful and humiliating for us, but we were proud of our heritage. Jimenez explains how he and his older were depot to Mexico went they got caught by immigration

On this track, Reies Tijerina Lopez leader of Federal Alianza of free City State was interviewed. I n the beginning him and the interviewer who was not named, talked about a shooting that involved police cars and black and white high school students. The interviewer commented “lord help us all” where Lopez commented that god wouldn’t help us because he is tired of the violence behavior in our society. After that he talks about how he meets Martin Luther King and talks to him about a plan he had to bring 100 leaders to march for human rights. Than they talk about what he is doing in Northern New Mexico which he gets side tracked and never comes back to what he was doing. He moves on and talks about how the states took land from Mexico that they

Born in Colombia in 1949. The son of Benilda Lopes De Casteneda a prostitute along with twelve others siblings. His father Midardo Reyes was shot and killed before Pedro was born. Pedro grew up in a very poor life full of political violence and with neither of his parents support.

I have been friends with Mr. Dino Estrada for over 10 years and I know him to be a caring, loving, dependable, loyal and trustworthy individual that really loves his children “Dielle" and “Damien” very much. When Dino has his children every other week, he is busy spending time with them and not available for social activities unless he can bring his kids and/or if our friends’ children that they are close are attending the function. Additionally, when he does not have his kids for the week he is still is involved in their lives, such as, having conversations with his ex-wife in regards to issues their children are having or going to his son’s football practice and attending his games. Furthermore, I aware that Dino does support his kids

I interviewed Nicolas, his full name is Nicolas Garcia Cardenas. He's  a funny guy and sarcastic. Some Random things about Nicolas are that red is his favorite color and he likes video games. His favorite genre is comedy. Family Guy is his favorite T.V show and Paul Walker is his favorite actor. His favorite movie is Brick Mansion. Nicolas favorite genre of music is latino music which came from his family. Radar and Porsha are his two dogs. He has a baby half brother and a step sister. Math is his favorite class is math because it's not complicated for him. Sometime in the future, Nicolas wants to go to collage to do something with math like a video game creator. His goal is to go to ether UCLA,Stanford or Berkley. Aaron is his best friend

The fact that I am allowed to have an option on whether to ignore or exclude so much of what is given within the story, I would have to say I value more to everything that is being said throughout the story. I view Alejandro Zambras work to be very helpful in understand the purpose behind these unusual narrations so that we can know what the author is conveying within his fiction. It illustrate that I am wrapped in the context of various stories which impacts my deeper understanding of the story. It is also extremely self-aware and challenges my own interpretations as well.