Racism On Trial : The Chicano Fight For Justice

No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed delivers an essential explanation of the Mexican American civil rights movement through a complete social history of the League of United Latin Americans Citizens (LULAC). The author Orozco, reveals the obviously racist incursion many Mexicans and Mexican Americans faced in Texas. Significantly, the author breaks new ground by presenting a clear explanation of how race, class, gender, and origin played an important part in shaping this social movement that would test open racism aiming at anyone labeled “Mexican.”

Race and ethnicity is another important aspect in the nationalism of a nation. In the United States, racial differences are usually based on one’s skin color and physical characteristics as well as one’s origin, and they do not change due to varying classes or cultures (Marger 212). Before the twenty first century, the racial minority were highly discriminated, both socially and economically. But currently, there exist several races in America like the Asians, African Americans, Native Americans and the European Americans. On the other hand, Hispanics are racially assorted and are therefore an ethnic group rather than a race (Marger 133). Language is argued as the sole binder of the Hispanics other than skin color or other physical characteristics. They are in fact of mixed racial ancestry (Arreola 19).

Racial segregation in America has long been foretold throughout the generations; however, racial discrimination is not limited between African-Americans and Anglos, racial discrimination also extended its racial barriers to Mexican-Americans. “In 1954, the United States Supreme Court extended constitutional rights to Mexican Americans in the landmark civil rights case Hernandez v. Texas” (Cobb, J. 2015). This case is the beginning front of Mexican-Americans taking a stand to fight for their civil liberties and demand equality and justice. In the case of Hernandez v Texas, Pete Hernandez, was indicted for the murder of a bartender in Jackson County, Texas. This trial presented the cultural disparity in society and quite frankly was an outright discrimination against Mexican-Americans. The

The movie Stand and Deliver, released in 1988 tells a true story of Garfield High School in East Los Angeles about a South American teacher, Mr. Escalante, who strives to make a difference in the lives of a group of young Chicanos. The students faced many struggles such as discrimination, home struggles, poverty, and gang violence. The

Richard Rodriguez’s essay “Blaxicans and Other Reinvented Americans” illustrates that the race of people should be identified by their culture and not their race. For example, he states, “I am Chinese, and that is because I live in a Chinese city and because I want to be Chinese” (164-165). Richard Rodriguez identifies himself as Chinese because of the culture he is surrounded by on a daily basis. For instance, Richard Rodriguez states that culture should be the way to identify someone’s race, and he identifies himself as Chinese because that’s the culture he lives in. Richard Rodriguez also denotes, “I wear an Indian face: I answer to a Spanish surname as well as this California first name Richard” (39). This illustrates that Richard Rodriguez

Ramon Cruz remembers walking into Chicago’s now-defunct Coliseum to a sea of brown faces waiting to hear the late farm worker and union leader Cesar Chavez.

Scholars are quick to neglect the beginning of the fight when discussing the Mexican-American struggle for justice. People claim that “the first major rumblings...were heard in California in 1967,” citing radicalization in universities (Rosales 175). However, they blatantly disregard the foundation for the movement as whole. The beginning of the 20th century Mexican-American revolution dates back at least to depression-era America, starting with the case Alvarez vs Lemon Grove, a monumental decision prohibiting de jure segregation of Mexican-Americans in public school and followed by multiple other lawsuits similarly challenging segregation and discrimination (Castro). Rosales’s reading does however differentiate these cases as well as early

In the book, Sanchez, (1995) focuses on ethnic studies and how prior to World War II, Mexican Americans had formed a unique identity that was not oriented toward Mexico but America, their new home. Despite facing unequal opportunity in social and economic spheres, immigrants nevertheless proceeded to build cohesive communities and strove to adapt their cultural identity to the American way. Mexican immigrants were beset by pressures from America to assimilate to the American way while facing more pressure from Mexico to remain loyal. In response, however, Mexican immigrants found the middle ground where they remained Mexican while being American citizens. In the analysis, the book alludes to cultural identity as stipulated by Stuart Hall where cultural identity is regarded as becoming and being.

Racialization and white supremacy appeared to be a common theme in California during the mid nineteenth century. Primarily natives and Chinese immigrants in California were affected by the presence of white Americans during this time. With the presence of “foreign” groups, white Americans had to establish means of asserting themselves as the dominant group. This usually manifested itself as laws. As a result, the laws passed legitimized the racialization of Indian and Chinese people.

Racial discrimination “is a term used to describe unfair behavior afflicted on individuals based on their race” (LegalCyberTips, 2007, Para 1). The concept of racism has existed for decades. The act of one race attempting to exert supremacy over others has often resulted in racial discrimination (LegalCyberTips, 2007). Racial discrimination is a constant reality in the lives of Hispanic Americans in the United States. Due to alarming migration rates over the past several decades, the United States has experienced significant growth in ethnic and racial diversity. However, racial minority groups like the Hispanics; “the largest and fastest growing population in the United States, continue to struggle for full acceptance and equal

The Dominican people face the daily struggle of not knowing their racial identity. Racial identity is how an individual identifies themselves, it is a sense of belonging to a certain ethnicity group. Before slavery the Dominican people were known as “Arawak” (Levine 1) /Taino Indians. The authors Edward Telles and Tianna Paschel who wrote, “Who is Black, White, Or mixed?

Society in Los Angeles was molded to view certain minorities as criminal, especially those who are brown, forming huge racial disparity between brown and white. Although many Mexicans were the backbone of labor (bricks) and many were citizens, they “could do little to transform the biased views of Mexicans that Americans continued to entertain” (Deverell, 2006). Despite Mexicans being an integral part of Los Angeles history and the population, they were nonetheless seen as aliens. While the hateful image of Mexicans was institutionalized after the Mexican War, it seems to be “unending” as the culture of Mexican hating becomes the culture of Los Angeles. This deeply racialized sense of bias and hate towards one group has marginalized the race in many ways. For example, the Zoot Suit Riots in 1943 demonstrated that “juvenile delinquency is a result of natural characteristics of people of Mexican ancestry” (Leonard 2006). This assertation indicated the ‘never-ending war’ of how Anglo-Americans depicted Mexicans. During the zoot suit riots, white public servants purposely targeted brown people and called them gangs, criminalizing an entire race. Not only were whites diminishing their race, but they also acted like vigilantes to justify the hate-crimes. Amongst other instances of racial bias and hate, race conflict in Los Angeles is a result of white power trying to control and oppress minorities by granting them certain images. This way, there is less mobility for marginalized groups to become successful if they are constantly deemed as criminals.

racial measurements is the need to screen racial separation. This article means to show how investigations of Hispanics-who may formally be of any race-tend to miss segregation taking into account racial appearance by depending on information that rather catch racial self-distinguishing proof, an alternate part of race that frequently does not compare. The study investigates 60 subjective meetings with Dominican and Puerto Rican transients in the New York metropolitan region. It utilizes various measures to speak to hypothetically particular parts of the lived experience of race. Respondents translate the Evaluation race question in various courses relating to various parts of race, which regularly don't coordinate each other. In spite of the fact that respondents experience separation on the premise of phenotype, their racial self-recognizable proof is a poor intermediary for measuring their racial appearance. Researchers need to build up a dialect of race that imparts the variety of social procedures included. Social studies must give measures of these numerous segments, including questioner perceptions of racial appearance, to screen separation on the premise of phenotype inside Hispanic

Throughout time Mexicans and Mexican Americans have had to endure a tremendous amount of discrimination, hate, and prejudice. From some of the main events like Mexico claiming independence from Spain, then having a huge conflict and eventually war with the Americans and even now in modern day America, Mexicans are still facing these injustices. In this paper I will go over a lot of the main events in Mexican history like colonization, incorporation of Mexican Americans into the US society, politics, and economy and lastly discuss some important key terms.

Using the methods of categorization and compartmentalization in order to more easily comprehend difficult subjects is natural, yet when the objects subjected to forced categorical placement are human beings, how can this method still be justified? When taking a standardized test, filling out legal paperwork, or taking a census, we are presented with a question that, in some cases, might be more difficult than all of the following questions on an exam. Staring up from the page are the words “Ethnicity: (Choose One)” followed by a series of boxes next to words such as “White”, “Black”, “Asian”, etc. When did the colors “White” and “Black”, a singular phenotypic characteristic, come to define an entire race? This perception of color stems from colonial times when white Euro-colonizers imposed their self-righteous attitudes of white supremacy on their newly acquired lands. These ideals involved in the creation of the binaries of black and white, which originate in the slave and master relationship established in the exploitation of African (black) slaves by European colonizers and plantation owners (white). In L. Kaifa Roland’s Cuban Color in Tourism and La Lucha: An Ethnography of Racial Meanings and Junot Diaz’s “How to Date a Brown Girl, Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie”, the authors explore the trials faced by modern-day colored people. These authors delve into how the color and racial hierarchies effect perceptions of stereotypes, self-image, and overall