A Racially Divided System: An Insight into San Antonio Housing and Education
Diversity of education, diversity of wealth, and diversity of race are all hallmarks of San Antonio. Although diversity is typically considered beneficial to a community or city, in San Antonio, it is a detriment. The racial and economic divisions of San Antonio have implications beyond a lack of cultural diversity. In fact, it is detrimental to the education of the Hispanic and Latino communities, as the clear economic divisions heavily influence housing and districting, which is the determinant of public education. The housing disparities among the districts in San Antonio only leads to the perpetuation of poverty in Hispanic communities, as the current
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This is why the affluent, Caucasians tend to cluster in the northeastern parts and suburbs of San Antonio in neighborhoods like Alamo Heights, Terrell Hills, Olmos Park, and Garden Ridge. The annual median incomes in these neighborhoods are around $120,000. This is nearly five times the median income of houses in San Antonio’s poorest neighborhoods, which are found on the west side. Neighborhoods like Westwood Village and Coliseum-Willow Park are the poorest in San Antonio, and are also around ninety percent Hispanic. This clustering of both race and class is not intentional, but it continues to limit the opportunities for low-income Hispanics in San Antonio, as it fails to provide an education that is equal to the education that students in the high-income Caucasian neighborhoods receive.
Education in the United States already excludes people based on socioeconomic status: the poor are often unable to afford luxuries like college educations, private schools, and tutors. The public education system, however, was supposed to enable lower income students to gain an education comparable to private education. However, there is no comparison between private education and public education, especially when public education is not equitably funded. Beyond differences in education funding from state to state, individual school districts have funding disparity from school to
These practices help maintain the status quo, helping low-income families remain poor. Moreover, it requires these low-income families to depend on government assistance, such as low-income housing and welfare. The reliance on assistance programs groups the poorest people in the same housing projects and communities, overwhelming schools with low-income students. Not only do these real estate practices concentrate the poorest in an area together, they also drive the often whiter, more affluent families out. The majority of poor feel they have no opportunity to transcend class restrictions, and the property taxes that fund our schools do not alleviate their stress. Further, homogeneous collections of poor means that school populations are rarely as diverse as we believe.
Professor. Guadalupe San Miguel Jr., the author of Brown, Not White: School Integration and the Chicano Movement in Houston, is a scholar of history. Born of Mexican parents, Prof. Miguel finds himself passionate about issues of segregation and minority’s rights violation. Prof. Miguel is widely schooled and specialized in Mexican education. He attained his
The Houston Area Survey shows how the city of Houston has progressed over the span of thirty-five years into an immensely diverse city that the rest of America will come to look like in the future. The city has grown from being predominately Anglo to having a nice population balance between Anglos, Latinos, African Americans, and Asians. In terms of Latinos in Houston, the study places emphasis on the differences between the first generation who are foreign-born, second generation who were born in the United States with immigrant parents, and third-generation Latinos who were born in America with American parents. The study explores the differences between the generations on their socioeconomic status including education levels and
In Jonathan Kozol’s article Still Separate, Still Unequal, he states the poorer parts of our larger cities have fewer white children and are made up of mostly black and Latino children. These
Adding to the inequalities and misfortunes within communities of color, gentrification has taken the Bay Area by a storm. Gentrification is the purchasing of deteriorated urban homes and areas, then the renovation by higher-end and middle class communities. An abundance of high-end people rush into the Bay Area and purchase up the real estate. Incoming middle and higher class take the Bay Area real estate and revitalise it into up-and-coming neighborhoods, then increase rent prices. Therefore, reducing affordable housing for communities of color. Therefore, this revitalization is changing the character of communities because the Bay Area may appear nicer, the communities of color are unable to afford the standard of living. Communities of
The article from the Austin American-Statesman provides relevant information regarding the history of Austin and segregation policies that ultimately affected the particular East Austin area where we hope to provide and improve better education access and outcomes for poverty-stricken children. Starting as far back as the late 1800s and early 1900s, Hispanics and African Americans lived in different patches throughout the city of Austin, Texas. In 1917, the United States Supreme court issued a ruling of segregation zoning laws and like many other cities in the South, Austin began to develop these news policies to isolate minorities. By doing so, the city of Austin, unintentionally, created a setback for the education of minorities. Additionally,
Back in the 1990’s white was the dominant race in Huntington Park, consisting of 52.87% white but slowly this changed and by 2010 Huntington Park was made up of 97.2% Hispanics whereas in 1990 there was 28% Hispanics. The changes in race have intersected with the changes class because before when the city was mostly white, the percentage of income for those who make less that $24,999 was about 35.52 and 7.86% made more than $100,000 yearly. Today, in Huntington Park 6.52% make more than $100,000 and 38.74% make less than $24,999. This reveals that as white people moved out and hispanic moved in, the income and class decreased. Considering families in my community are non english speaking immigrants, many of their children were tracked by being placed in ESL classes (English as Second Language).This was a disadvantage to them because they did not get the help that those speak the language attain. The high school in my city does not have many programs like AP or Honors courses available in comparison to other schools. The fact that we Latinos do not get the same benefits as others, affects us when applying and attending college because our education was “..hardly comparable to the education received by their white and Asian American counter parts in the state” (Hunter and Ramon). My community has gone though much change that has affected any of the residents living in
Many factors influence why and how residential segregation occurs in our neighborhoods. This literature review will focus on topics surrounding the history of residential segregation, the effects on health through local, state, and national residential segregation as well as its influence on our nation’s school system.
Currently the entities developed to increase the success of at-risk populations in San Antonio are dependent upon local, state, federal, and private funding. Research shows that stable housing is an essential part of creating a positive and fluid transition. Although the federal and state governments have created legislation and programs to assist state and local governments ability to provide services for at-risk populations, they are not complete. As a part of community development, Traditional Neighborhood Developments (TNDs) and Transit-Oriented Development (TODs) have been used to revitalize the neighborhood/community through the enhancing the built environment. The idea is that by enhancing and transforming one’s physical environment, you are creating an environment that promotes and nurtures healthy, sustainable, and affordable living. Aside from those services devoted to alleviating current community afflictions, this paper illustrates the possible benefits that combining the elements of TNDs and TODs may have for at-risk populations.
Chinatown, Olvera Street, and Compton all contributed to culturally diversity and the expansion of Los Angeles. Although Los Angeles has become rich in cultures, its evolution did not go without racial tensions and segregation. With the arrival of blacks from the south, white-Los Angeles did always recognize the minority community. Angelenos did not always embrace diversity with pride, but perhaps the sad part is not the fact that racial segregation took place, but the fact that it was not created by just the individual, but also by the organization. Federal programs like the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Homeowner’s Loan Corporation (HOLC) divided up Los Angeles into a complex socio-economic racial-class system. The influences of the local level influenced the federal level and revolutionized the finance industry. (Avila, lecture 2/5/02) These federal organizations blatantly labeled minorities as derogatory, uneducated, second-class citizens that brought down property value in “white” neighborhoods. Latinos and Black were often labeled as a “minority problem” and even as a “disease” on official HOLC documents. The HOLC implemented strict government guidelines and kept maps of white neighborhoods confidential. It also devised a formal and uniform style of appraising homes by breaking neighborhoods into race classifications by letter. As Waldie states, “The Montana Land Company made it clear that lots were
Racial zoning has been a part of America since the post World War II era resulting in housing segregation and discrimination in financing. As industry boomed, whites moved out to the suburbs where employment opportunities, due to their education, were available. According to APA Division 38 (2015), a recent multilevel analysis of school choice and residential relocation suggests that families make residential relocation choices based in part on the percentages of American American and Latino children in the local
Within the city of Fresno lies an educational divide that is impacting the many of its youth. Many children from the area live within concentrated poverty throughout the city. According to an article in the Fresno Bee, Mays (2016) reported 40% of children live in poverty, worsening for minority students. In addition Mays (2016) mentions 30% of 3- to 4-year olds attend preschool, and less than 40% of Fresno County third-graders read at their grade levels, again worsening for the following minorities: Black (23%) and Latino (31%). An important question raised
In the 1950’s Austin was a segregated city in all aspects, by this I mean housing, schools, hotels, parks, and public transportation. This segregation forced African Americans to provide services for themselves. This designated “Negro District” was made up of 150 small thriving businesses and two colleges. These colleges were Tillotson College and Samuel Houston Colleges; by 1940 the African American population had grown to include 14,861 residents. However, by 1940 there was a new growing population in the Austin area; the new residents that were expanding the east section of town were the Mexican Americans. The new influx of Mexican Americans were finding resident in the east side of the city, they were relegated to the east Austin barrios. These barrios were south of eleventh street, as they began to flock to Austin in large numbers they began to thrive. By the late 1940s and early 1950’s they began to own homes and businesses, many of these businesses were restaurants. Mexican Americans also faced discrimination similar to that of the African American
The issue of whether private education is better than public has been debated for many years. Strong advocates of public education feel that children grow and progress better in a mixed environment. Although most private educational institutions do not harbor racial discrimination or discrimination against sexes, they do not have certain classifications that may not suit the masses. For example, a large number of private schools are religious based. Additionally, private school education is not paid for by the state, thus children who attend these facilities generally come from a financially stable background. The danger in this environment is that student
Many schools in America are divided by cities and districts which locks in certain students for specific schools. Some of these schools are well provided, and others are not due to the income of that district which the students live in. These borders for schools causes a problem in which certain educational tools and experience are restricted for those individuals who have a low income. The inadequate funding of schools for certain districts throughout America