Spanish Caste System Essay

The Ap Spanish Language and Culture Exam contains two sections, each worth fifty percent of the final composite score. The first section is all multiple choice and the second section is all free response question. The first section tests over reading and listening, which it would evaluate how well one could comprehend. (30 questions, 40 minutes) The reading section contains multiple texts that is in a variety of forms. (Journals, Literary text, Letters, and etc.) After each text, there would be questions that tests one’s understanding of the materials, which includes vocab, author's purpose, main idea, and details. The listening portion of the exam contains two audios, one that is provided with printed materials, possibly the text, and one that’s solely the audio.(35

the climax of racism, the idea of racial inequality was introduced and nourished in the pre-colonized

Although mistreatment caused considerable suffering for Mexican-Americans, it also forced them to overcome internal differences in order to form a secure community, and contributed to the eventual development of a sense of mexicanidad. Gutiérrez explains how the abuse faced by Mexican-Americans caused the formation of such ties, stating, “it is common for such newly created minority populations to develop a new sense of identity as a natural defense mechanism or as part of a larger ‘oppositional strategy’ against the prejudice and discrimination shown them by the majority or dominant group.” The Mexican-Americans developed barrios and colonias throughout the Southwest to act as such defense mechanisms. These were communities of Mexican-Americans

Wright. They were followed by the Natives and Africans. Both were subject to work under the Spanish, but African slaves seemingly received harsher treatment. Natives were expected to provide labor, but this was not to the same degree as the Africans who’s fate lie in the hands of their masters. (Wright, 22-24). This order clearly places people of color below those of European, which is the major part of the hierarchy that has persisted into the modern era. Though some Latin American societies have attempted to end this legacy, by egalitarianism in Cuba (Wright, 225) or the creation of the first black republic in Haiti, many other areas had persisting threads of the legacy weaved into their peoples’ everyday lives.

Throughout our experience, we have encountered so many challenges when it comes to gender in the society. Gender is being used as a basis for stratifying people in the society. In this article, the racial caste system that used to exist in the United State is depicted. In that the black women were denied the access to justice because of their status. They were perceived to be people who do not have any right within the society and no one could believed them when they were raped by the white men because all the court judges were white men according to this article. The women were classified to be from poor background and they should remain at a low class in the society.

The writer portrays a people too conscious to lose their culture. Hence, they establish ethnic organizations, business, cultural institutions that would meet their varied “social, cultural, economic and political needs” (Miguel 6). Supreme in these establishments’ values was to selfishly guard “Mixicanist identity” (Miguel 6) by encouraging dual identity that was “neither American nor Mexican but a synthesis of both” (Miguel 10). The title, Brown, Not White is perhaps a reflection of this consciousness. In a country that has spanned decades clinging to nothing else but color binarity of white versus black, Mexican Americans find it hard to identify with either of the two. The Mexican Americans feel aggrieved by the mistreatments they continually receive from the whites, identifying with the African Americans whom they considered inferior in the American pecking order is unfathomable. The emphasis on the title, Brown, Not White is, therefore, a reflection of the Mexican American’s struggle with the problem of identity in the face of the looming assimilation from the most dominant

At my all-girls high school, I’ve always stood out for having a “thick accent”. Aside from not fully understanding English, being different has taught me how to be a creatively gifted, intelligent, and influential entity among my peers. Throughout the years, I grew frustrated with myself for being unable to speak clearly to my classmates. Additionally, my friends did not understand how I spoke, where I came from, or what I cared most about in my culture. This stood out to me to make a change and prompted me to take action towards it. In tenth grade, I became the founding Vice President of the Spanish Honor Society, an organization that executes community service and immerse students in the different Hispanic cultures. Our school was on the need for a display of diverse Hispanic cultures. For example, the school's student profile tends to show a racial disbursement of “51% African American, 40.4% Hispanic, and 4.5% White.” Additionally, that “40.4% Hispanic” for students is only “Mexicans.” Taking this issue, Spanish Honor Society (SHS) presents students with an exciting way to learn more about their diverse peers and their cultures such as music, food, and beliefs.

Although I can’t specifically relate to Gloria Anzaldúa’s struggle between her languages in “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” I can relate to her “kind of dual identity” in which she identifies with neither Anglo-American cultural values nor Mexican cultural values (1566). Being half white, half Chinese, I struggle identifying as either identity, especially because my mom (who is Chinese) never learned Cantonese and largely became Americanized in her childhood. It’s an uncomfortable position to be in when racial and ethnic identity are so significant in America and when I must interact with the world as part of both the majority and the marginalized. Considering my own struggle and the conflict Anzaldúa describes, it became clearer to me the way race relations in American not only marginalize people of color but train our consciousnesses to damage ourselves. Before I turn back to Anzaldúa, a novel I’ve recently read, William Godwin’s Caleb Williams has also been on my mind, particularly in Godwin’s portrayal of how police surveillance transforms us into agents of our own oppression. Although Caleb is a white man, he also experiences a split consciousness as his values and characteristics are whittled away by the paranoia of constant surveillance.

Both men and women were affected by it, but women were the main targets because they were thought to be feeble and vulnerable. African-Americans as well as Native Americans were affected by this discrimination. People could purchase the Native- and African-Americans and treat them however they wished without being reprimanded or punished. More and more people began to follow in these people’s footsteps and purchase slaves as well.

In The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met A Girl Named Maria, Judith Ortiz Cofer addresses the problem of racial discrimination. Cofer was grown up with two different cultures. As a Latin Woman, she tries hard to fit in American culture. Cofer discusses how she has been treated due to her identity during her childhood and become an adult. And when facing those embarrassing situations, Cofer treats them with proper manner. Though demonstrating some examples, it is noticed that the Latin Woman were stereotyped as those who can only do simple work.

modules gives many examples how strong cultural pasts lead to identity problems in a new society. Also, the module shows us that many Mexicans were not happy with the stereotype formed about their identity. In Between the Lines, we see how Mexicans in America suffer through harsh discrimination, while trying to stay close to their relatives and culture. The letters talk about how Whites did not have concerns with family values or cultural beliefs. Whites based many of their values off succeeding in the economy. Whites in general had no regard for Mexicans as people.

Even before the establishment of slavery the Europeans already had racist sentiments towards dark-skinned people and this just made it seem like it was okay to enslave them and dehumanize them. In 1619 a dutch ship carried the first africans to the New World Colonies. At first the Africans slaves were treated like indentured servants and had an opportunity for freedom like the white indentured servants. Trenado observes “In 1619 the first black Africans came to Virginia...Landowners turned to African slaves as a more profitable and ever-renewable source of labor and the shift from indentured servants to racial slavery had begun” (1-2, Trenado) As the labor demands had grown and so had the cost for indentured servants landowners turned to African slaves and after that it became the dominant labor. This quote demonstrates that the colonists gained power by switching from indentured servants to African slaves that are a more profitable source of labor. Africans had been forcibly brought from Africa and had to work as slaves. As the Black and White reading states “The Africans’ having been torn from their land and cultures made enslavement easier” (26, Zinn) They couldn't enslave the Indians because the Indians outnumbered them and they were in their home but the Africans were taken from their land and brought to a place where they didn't know anything about and this made it easier to enslave them and make them do

In The White Scourge, Neil Foley gives detailed facts about the construction and reconstruction of whiteness and the connection of this whiteness to power, mainly on cotton culture in central Texas. Foley 's book analyzes “whiteness” through detailed analysis of race, class, and gender. What was most intriguing about this book is its comparison of whiteness on various racial groups and classes, for and how each struggled in comparison to the other in order to thrive and exist with one another. In this book, Foley shows a racial system that continues to produce both poverty material wise and poverty of where you stand racially. It is also very interesting that the system exploits not only Mexicans and Blacks, but also the poor whites who competed with them for work.

When British and other European white countries were going around dominating the colored people they generally looked upon them as the inferior race “whose interest ought to be systematically disregarded when they come into competition with their own”. Keep in mind that the capitalist exploiter being opportunistic and practical, will utilize any convenience to keep his labor and other resources freely exploitable. Meaning they were willing to do anything to get cheap labor. The way they made slavery seem “okay” was by creating an ideology that would justify involuntary servitude. They made people of color seem “innately degraded and degenerate, consequently they naturally merit their condition” so in the minds of the white people this made

Racial discrimination started in 1619 when Americans brought the first slave to Jamestown. Slavery was considered the cruelest thing someone can do to another human being. The racial discrimination was between white and black. The black people was considered as a property and they could not have last names. Racial discrimination cost separation between school education, work, social life, and living area amongst black and white. Black human beings were punished for having a different skin color. Racial discrimination gave power to certain individual color to have authority over dissimilar skin colors. Racial discrimination also cost separation amongst nations and cultures with diverse languages.