The Racial and Ethnic Mexican American World - Assignment Example

Final Exam Part Big Concepts i. Epistemology Epistemology is the study of origin and meaning of knowledge in acertain field. It involves the study of how certain events came into existence and how the society of community responds to certain issues. Epistemology is important to a society because it enables its people know about how things happened in the past and how the society has adapted to the changes in terms of culture and identity over time. Epistemology in Chicano and Mexican American communities originated from the Chicano studies which allowed the people to understand the origin and meaning of their Mexican American identity, culture and language. The Mexican American scholars who wrote various books and articles about the Mexican American history tend to provide the community with information about how the society developed from its initial position as immigrants from Mexico to the current Chicano identity. The epistemology of Mexican Americans describes clearly about the racial and gender views of the community. ii. Assimilation Assimilation is the process by which a group adopts or absorbs the culture and language of another group. One of the mechanisms of assimilation among Mexican Americans is segmented assimilation whereby people are assimilated through acculturation. In this case, dissonant assimilation involves parents taking on acculturation faster than parents and consonant assimilation involves acculturation occurring at the same time. Assimilation was important to Mexican Americans because it provided them with material rewards and acceptance. They were assimilated to American culture and language as they learnt to adopt American education system and started speaking English in preference to their native Spanish language. Mexican American youth and immigrants from Mexico were assimilated by being taught that their Mexican culture was inferior, so they needed to be assimilated into the culture of the colonizer. Assimilation was occasioned by the rising racial and ethnic differences between the Mexican-Americans and the Whites. Mexicans chose to be assimilated in order to be accepted as citizens of America and to belong to America where racism had caused them a lot of problems of lack of access to basic necessities. Race and ethnicity had become a barrier to progress for Mexican Americans. Discrimination is a natural reaction to foreigners which is overcome through assimilation. The rise of Mexican American middle class in 1960s and 1970s led to the adoption of reformist politics of assimilation. Most Mexican Americans rejected their nonwhite origins and developed Latin American or Spanish identity in America. Assimilation led to the Mexican-American identity. iii. Race Race means the grouping of humans into different categories based on their culture, ethnicity, nationality and/or language. People with certain national affiliations and language preferences identify themselves to a given race, and subscribe to and defend the culture and beliefs of that nationality. The Mexican American race is one of the races that have had the challenges of maintaining its culture and identity. Racial discrimination was a common threat to the coexistence of various races in America. However, Mexican Americans fought against racial discrimination together with other marginalized races through the Chicano Movement, and this led to the Chicano identity. There are various authors who described the racial problems faced by Mexican Americans in America. According to Gloria Anzaldua, racial discrimination was imminent in education, work and politics. The Chicano members were among those who were considered to be of race while the whites were considered to be just human. The Mexican Americans can be classified as a race that is racially discriminated and oppressed because their language was not recognized. They were given low pays at work and certain types of low-paying jobs were reserved for them. Racialism played a significant part in the development of the Mexican American group. In 1970s, they started to protest in schools where racial discrimination was mainly prominent. Mexican immigrants were considered to be a race of ignorance which accepted wretched working conditions that were unbearable to white people. They were considered to be criminal and mentally retarded in nature. Generally, race is seen in American Mexicans through racial oppression and desegregation which were fought by the Mexican Americans against the Whites. iv. Identity Identity is a situation of belonging to a certain group as defined by social relations and constituted through relationship with other members of a community. Members of a given identity share common characteristics, attitudes, believes and values. Identity can either be cultural or national identity. The rise of Mexican American identity began in 1930s through the actions of Mexican American organisations which advocated for the progress of Mexican Americans. Originally, the Mexican Americans were characterised by racial discrimination and desegregation whereby they were given specific low-paying jobs and oppressed in many ways. As the Mexican Americans progressed in 1970s and started to appreciate education and sociopolitical participation in America, they identified themselves as Chicanos alongside other small ethnic groups which formed the Chicano identity. The Chicano identity differentiated the Chicanos as Hispanic speakers who advocated for the liberty and rights of people of color in America. Through the Chicano movement, a typical Chicano identity emerged in which colonized minds of Mexican Americans were liberated. Because the Spanish language was banned in schools and other public places, Mexican Americans fought to maintain their language and cultural identity. For example, the Denver Conference of 1969 advocated for the ideology of cultural nationalism so that Mexican Americans would enjoy liberty like other people in nation. Through the conference, Chicano identity was recognized as the source of unity because it promotes the pride of Mexican culture. Independent Chicano political and economic institutions were also initiated in order to encourage Chicano identity, and supported by K-12 level Chicano Studies programs that taught the history and culture of Mexican Americans. Part II: Chicano/a Identity The Mexican American identity shifted to the Chicano identity due to the Chicano Movement which was initiated in 1960s to fight for the liberty and independence of Chicano members including Mexican Americans. The Chicano Movement played a crucial role in maintaining the identity of Mexican American identity which changed to the Chicano identity as a result of the fruitful efforts of the Chicano movement. In 1960s, a group of working-class Mexican Americans who were part of the rising college students from the Mexican American community rose above the politics of accommodation and assimilation to protest against racial discrimination. The fundamental grievance of the members of this community was that the community had faced a lot of discrimination, and they needed knowledge about their origin. These goals drove the efforts of the Mexican Americans towards protests among students who played a crucial role in the struggle for liberty and reduced discrimination in schools. The hunger for knowledge or epistemological drive led the Mexican American community to demand the change of school system that would encourage the learning of Mexican culture, language and history. This led to the Chicano movement which was formed to fight for these goals. Learning Mexican culture and language would allow the African Americans to understand their culture and use it to strengthen their identity. Because the movement was called a Chicano movement, the resulting identity changed from a Mexican American identity to a Chicano identity. The Chicano identity described the ways of living, language and culture of the Mexican Americans and other smaller ethnic groups which engaged in the movement. This identity also included an integration of the Native American culture and the English language because Mexican Americans participated in school and public environments with mixed culture and more than one language. However, the Hispanic became dominant as African Americans learnt their origins. Apart from fighting against discrimination, the Chicano movement was also intended to fight for the improvement of quality of education and appreciation of Spanish language by the Mexican Americans. Due to the differences of ethnicities among Mexican American immigrants from Mexico, it was difficult to develop a common identity for the whole community. Therefore, the emergence of the Chicano movement strengthened the cultural and national identity of the Mexican American group in America. The Anglo society enjoyed certain privileges in United States unlike the ethnic communities of the Mexican American community. Therefore, the various ethnic communities differed on whether to integrate into the Anglo society or become independent from it. If they had chosen to integrate into the Anglo society, they would lose their identity. However, they formed the Chicano movement to fight for their identity; hence leading to the Chicano identity. Founded by Rodolfo Gonzales and Reies Tijerina, the Chicano Movement was based on the concept of American nationalism. The Chicano movement fought for its goals through mass actions and protests. Student Movement was initiated and it led to mass walkouts among students in various high schools. For example, Sal Castro organized for a mass walkout among high school students. These protests and demonstrations helped to strengthen the Chicano identity because the Chicano people worked together with the same principles to achieve common goals. They also had common cultural perspectives and wanted to achieve the same goals in terms of language and culture. Therefore, the Chicano movement became more prominent than the Mexican American identity; hence leading to the Chicano identity. One of the authors who supported the argument that Chicano movement led to the Chicano identity was Gloria Anzaldua who wrote the book Borderlands and argued that racial borders separated bad people from good people (Anzaldúa 1987). In this case, the whites on the American side of the borderland were bad while the Mexicans on the Mexican side were good. This argument supported the principles of the Chicano movement; hence giving Mexican Americans the motivation to fight for their identity. The Mexican American identity was also maintained through the crusade for justice which was formed and spearheaded by Rodolfo. Miriam Pawel wrote about this crusade of justice and suggested that when the Chicanos were recruited and sent to Vietnam to fight in the army, Rodolfo considered it as an oppressive treatment of the Mexican Americans. The crusade for justice advocated for the improvement of the lives of Mexican Americans. This shows that the people of Mexican American Origin were bounded by racial identity as they fought to restore their independence; and the Chicano movement was the most prominent of the organisations that fought for the liberty and independence of the Mexican Americans. The Chicanos spoke languages of the Mexican origin. As Latinos, they spoke the Spanish which was different from the language spoken in America. One of the reasons for the Chicano Movement was to encourage the use of Spanish by the Chicanos although America abolished it in schools and encouraged the use of English. As the Chicano Movement fought for the Spanish language among Mexican Americans, Chicano identity was encouraged and protected through the community’s common native language. Part 3 Chicano Studies alongside the upholding of methods, origin and Chicano’s nature has also done much in enhancing the tradition of epistemology. Through the formation of people’s knowledge about issues of sexuality, assimilation, race and other issues, the Chicano Studies brings about “other” tradition of epistemology. This also became a motivation to many scholars and authors to write a lot about the knowledge that the Chicanos had about diverse issues like that of gender. The Chicanos have always believed that race is one of the most influential aspects in the tradition of epistemology. To clearly explain this, Anzaldúa (1987) came up with an explanation of differences among races based on the perspective of epistemology using the critique of the people of American-Mexican. Given the fact that that racism was the main factor that brought about the Chicano Movement, the Chicano Studies came up and this is was what led to the origin of epistemology of races. According to Anzaldua then, all that is good and all that is belied to be bad are kept apart from each other by certain boundaries. This therefore, the same for the case of what people think is dangerous and what people think is safe. However, the whites pass those borders to the territory of the people with colour without any oppression while oppression is always there for those people of colour who attempt to cross borders. In that case, Anzaldua having experiences all these as a Chicano as well as an activist of Lesbian took the initiative to bring out the issues of discriminations based on races. Her writing thus came up from the studies carried out by the Chicanos and this led to emerging of complete knowledge and meaning about the Chicanos (Anzaldúa 1987). From this perspective then, one can clearly comprehend the existences of the current racism that exists between the white people and the Chicanos which is carried out in form of education provision, income distribution among other aspects. Chicano studies also led to the rising of an epistemology that was bas3ed on the movement of Crusade for Justice that was carried out in Colorado during the year 1965. Miriam Pawel wrote about this explaining the construction of knowledge regarding the social movements of the Chicano people when the police acted brutally and protests were carried out by students. This further explained why the Chicano people moved to Vietnam and the effect of that particular movement to the community of Mexican-Americans. Due to the Chicano studies, authors emerged to describe the issues that were faced by the Mexican Americans in their struggle for liberty and against discrimination. From the perspective of Miriam Pawel, the Crusade for Justice Movement served as an important platform for the Chicano movement. Led by Rodolfo, the movement condemned racial discrimination against Mexican American community. This understanding of the struggle for liberty among Mexican Americans clearly indicates that the Chicano studies promoted the rise of an epistemological tradition. The studies were focused on not only understanding the culture and language of the group, but also the struggles that the group went through. There are various types of epistemology that can be identified from the epistemological tradition of the Mexican Americans. They include: racial epistemology, assimilation epistemology, colonial epistemology, and intersectional epistemology. These types of epistemologies are categorised in terms of the types of knowledge being sought in the epistemological traditions. Racial epistemology occurred because people wanted to learn about their racial background and know the culture and language that defined their race. The Chicano studies which were supported by the Chicano movement encouraged the racial epistemology because it entailed learning the origin of Mexican Americans, their culture, and several other aspects of the Mexican American race including their language. This epistemological tradition allowed Mexican Americans to maintain their identity and integrate into the community as unique members of the American nation. Chicano studies therefore encouraged diversity in United States and promoted the existence of a race that could have otherwise disappeared. The racial and ethnic Mexican American world can also be viewed from the perspective of assimilation epistemology. The study of assimilation in the Chicano studies allowed Mexican Americans to learn the racial and ethnic barriers to progress; and why and how the Mexican Americans were assimilated into an American community. The studies of race and ethnicity indicate the observation that assimilation epistemology is a necessary part of nature. As races and ethnic groups interact, some groups need to be assimilated in order to encourage national identity. Assimilation epistemology describe these elements and shows how Chicano studies helped in shaping the epistemological traditions of Mexican American community. The understanding of contemporary racism among the Mexican Americans can also be understood more clearly through the colonial epistemology. Through the Chicano studies, people learned about the origin and nature of European colonialism. This encouraged the understanding and development of knowledge regarding the background and evolution of racism in United States. Understanding these colonial backgrounds therefore encouraged the emergence of epistemological traditions among Mexican Americans. Works cited Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands: The New Mestiza/La Frontera. San Francisco: Spinsters/Aunt Lute, 1987. Print. Read More