Civil Rights and Their Impact on One's Life - Essay Example

QUASTION What are civil rights? How do they impact your life? A civil right is the enforceable privilege or right. This civil rights can cause actions if they interfered by any person causing injuries. Civil rights are known to be the rights of an individual where by he/she receives equal treatment (and to be free from unfair treatment or "discrimination) in several settings including employment, housing, education and more based on some legally- protected characteristics. Some of the example of the civil rights include; freedom to speech, assembly and press, right to quality in the public places, freedom from involuntary servitude and the right to vote. When there is denial of these civil rights, or if the civil rights are being interfered with just because that particular person belongs to a certain class or group, discrimination occurs. There have been several Jurisdictions which have enacted statutes in order to prevent any form of discrimination basing of a person’s sex, race, age, and religion, previous condition of servitude, national origin, and physical limitation and also depending with the sexual orientation. Civil rights have great impacts to the normal living of persons who have been discriminated. For instance, civil rights have been used in describing the advancement of peoples’ quality regardless of their sex, race, disability, age, religion, national origin, or many other characteristics. However, through the enactment of the Fourteenth and the Thirteenth amendment in the United States Constitution, there has been an expansion of these civil rights where there is an abolishment of slavery in the U.S. This has helped many individual to be free from discrimination. Due to the civil rights, there have been less cases involving discrimination in courts. This means that those who were involved in discrimination issues have feared the consequences that they might face thereafter. QUASTION 2: What were the challenges faced by Chicana women within the Chicano and the women’s movement? There are several challenges that the Chicana women face during their activities in reducing discrimination in the country. Some of the Chicana feminist reviewed the movement as a colonial imposition. This meant that the women’s’ movement acted as an obstacle to the authentic Chicano cultural assertion. They were also referred to as “sell-outs”. More so, they also faced physical molestation. These are just some of the sever backlash that they faced. The other set back that they faced was the claims that the Chicana feminists had. The feminists claimed that Chicana women were the true hindrance to the Chicana liberation. The Chicana feminists claimed that they were not the separatists. They also framed feminist issues to be Chicana issues by the claims they had on the Chicana women (Briggs, 81). There were several activists who took pains to identify the figures of the Chicana feminist in the past proving that feminism was more intrinsic to the Chicana culture than the submissive female roles: “Asserting indigenousness for Chicana feminism itself was a counterclaim to charges of feminist “being sell-outs”, and thus was useful regardless of whether or not it was true in all parts”. The Chicana feminists then further adopted the assertive stance about the Chicana family: “whereas white feminists tended to turn their backs on the family they were intent on making it egalitarian, and insisted on Chicano family values of solidarity while stigmatizing the “Anglo” family’s materialism”. This shows the struggle for the women’s freedom on the discrimination issue and how hard it was for the Chicana women to over con the brutality they underwent on their quest. The opposition party on the issue had strong arguments basing of the facts which were believed in their culture. QUASTION 3: What were the challenges confronting Chicano highs school students during the 60s and how did they confront them? It was in 1968 when Chicano high school students took thing into their own hands by forcing changes through a student strike. The main reasons to the strike ware the dire school conditions and academic prejudices. It is believed that these problems were not only in the public schools but all throughout the Southern part where most of the Mexican American lived. More so, it was evident that this condition was even worse in some areas. The schools in the Southern region were characterized by a heavily vocational curriculum, a marginalized academic one, few academic counsellors, high dropout rates, overcrowded conditions and the worst of all, the low expectations of the students by the White or Anglo faculty. In addition, it was believed that there were no means in which the schools would reflect the cultural and ethical background of the students. In these schools, students were not allowed to speak Spanish in their classes (Briggs, 52). They were also not allowed to use the restrooms when they were in their lunch break. The students were taught the curriculum that totally denied or ignored the Mexican American history. The students were also steered to menial labour away from their college either by the school officials or the counsellors. The only way that the student saw to be effective was to take power in their hand and strike. During the strikes, there were several things that the students demanded. These demands were grouped in terms of; Academic, administrative and facilities. They demanded changes on the academic sector, the facilities that they learned from and the administration. QUASTION 3: Address the creation of the United Farm Workers Union? Who were architects and what were the objectives? The United Farm Workers Union was initially known as the United Farm Workers Union (UFW) or the United Farm Workers of America is a labour union formed for farm-workers in U.S. the union was created by merging two workers rights organizations which are: “Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC)” and “National Farm Workers Association (NFWA)” that were led by Larry Itliong and César Chávez respectively. The reason behind the unity is the series of strikes that took place in 1965 whereby most of the Filipino farm-workers who were in the AWOC in California and Delano initiated a grape strike. As a result, those from the NFWA supported the strike and this made them to strike too. Because of the commonality in methods and goals, the AWOC and the NFWA united to form the “United Workers Organizing Committee” in 1966 which later changed its name to United Farm-workers Union. The main objective of the union is to fight to then rights of the farm workers. It protects the workers from the laws that tend to affect them directly. The union also protects the workers from the lower revenues and high taxation (Briggs, 123). QUASTION 5: What was La Raza Unida Party and what was its agenda? The La Raza Unida Party also known as the National United Peoples Party was one of the American political party which was centred on the Chicano nationalism. The party started with many efforts in the Southwest of the U.S. the party was formed on January 17, 1970. It is believed that the party had originated from a WOW group “Workmen of the World”. The main objective of the party was to campaign for better housing, better works and better educational opportunities for the Mexican-American people (Briggs, 72). Work cited Briggs, V., & Fogel, W. (1977). The Chicano worker. Austin: University of Texas Press. Read More