The American Political Systems in General and Political Institutions - Essay Example

Exam III Why is San Antonio the “Mexican American Cultural Capital”? San Antonio is located in Texas America and has in the past viewed by different scholars as one of the special cities in the history of Mexican American cultures. In spite of being such a charismatic city, San Antonio was also a tourist attraction center and more so unique in its different cultural perspectives since it was the only city across the entire United States that originally had Mexican population (Arreola, 1987). Today, it is viewed as a unique cultural image in America. Initially, the city was founded by the early visitors as a Spanish town in the early 1870s in a province then called New Spain (Arreola, 1987). Concentration of several institutions serving the early settlers made the San Antonio quite important to the early settlers and the town evolved to become the capital of Texas in the early 1770s (Arreola, 1987). However, the San Antonio had grown into a city by early 1811 following the influx of Mexican and Spanish settlers and served as a special border town during the colonial period. Due to this fact of being a border town, its sovereignty changed several times in the early eighteenth century. According to Arrelola (1987) San Antonio was first Spanish; it then became a part of Mexican republic in early 1920s and finally a city in the Republic of Texas in 1930s what would later make it statehood in the United States in 1840s. As the time passed by, the population of this city doubled and the Mexicans continued to represent quite a significant proportion of the population of San Antonio (Meier & Ribera, 1994). In 1930s, San Antonio’s population was reported to be plainly dominated by Mexican. The Mexicans were later joined by the Americans, Germans, Irish and French immigrants who also became inhabitants of this city (Arreola, 1997). Following the intermarriages between the different individuals, the separateness of the ethnic groups became the order of the day with Mexicans reducing to approximately forty six percent of the entire population of the city. Even though the Mexican population of the town continued to decline through the 19th and 20th centuries, the nearness of the city to Mexico and the fact that among the early inhabitants were Mexicans helped the city grow as an important Mexican cultural city in United States by being the best location of settlement of the Mexican immigrants into the US (Arreola, 1997). In 1980s, the development of the railway network system across America and it connection to Mexico further shortened the distance between Mexico and the Central and Southern American regions through San Antonio (Arreola, 1997). Later on in 20th century, San Antonio became a Mexican cultural stronghold of all cultural traditions that would later be spread to other parts of America (Arreola, 1997). The city was full of Mexican norms, customs ,believes and other Mexican practices such as music, politics and cuisines that eventually started to distinguish the San Antonio city from other American cities. It became an influential point of the Mexican culture to the whole of America by molding the early Mexican American political ideologies (Meier & Ribera, 1994). Who were the Mothers of East LA and what did they do? In the early 1980s, the American government sought a place to establish the first major prison in the county of Los Angeles. The governor officials of the time established a common place within a one mile radius in East Los Angeles that was the most appropriate location for the facility. These officials further established that the construction of this facility would affect several neighborhoods and approximately thirty four schools (Pardo 1990). Without even minding the conventions or the harm to the environment and with no community public hearings to the residents of East Los Angeles, these officials started informing different groups and business owners of their r intentions. Following pressures from both from the public who mostly the affected individuals of the community and the district officers, the government through a special department agreed to convene several public hearing meetings with even the political representatives of the area around where the proposed prison site laid (Pardo 1990). Different individual members based in Los Angeles embarked on demonstration to rebuke the idea of a prison in East Los Angeles. These demonstrations would then become a major source of the most powerful coalitions in grassroots to ever emerge from the Latino community in America. Amongst these grassroots coalition groups was the ‘Mothers of East Los Angeles’ (MELA). A group formed by more than four hundred women who were basically of the Mexican American Origin (Pardo 1990). The MELA women were commonly residents of East Los Angeles who had lived there for quite a long time. They were bilingual Mexican Americans, Native Americans or even Mexican or Spanish born (Pardo 1990). To posses attributes as bilingual means that these women had lived in America for a period of more than thirty years. They had gained experience from different community activities they had engaged through different groups or even from the working experience as community workers in different schools and hospitals across America (Pardo 1990). MELA highly contributed in the opposing the construction of a prison facility in East Los Angeles. These contributions further saw the group become a great opposition to many other projects that interfered with the life of the ordinary citizens in Los Angeles. Amongst the other opposed projects was the toxic waste incineration site that was proposed to be constructed in Vernon; a city that was just adjacent to East Los Angeles (Pardo 1990). MELA argued that the incineration of toxic wastes in Vernon would spoil the air quality and worsen the environmental conditions throughout the county and throughout the entire American nation (Pardo 1990). MELA further received a lot of support across the entire America from different environmental groups. The incineration matter became a major issue of concern to the entire American society. The fruits of MELA’s push were soon witnessed when a bill protecting Californian citizens from damages arising from incineration of toxic wastes was later signed into law (Pardo 1990). Mother of East Los Angeles (MELA) would later become and form a great network for grassroots’ activists in America. According to Pardo (1990) the MELA women not only transformed their socio-ethnic identities, classes and female genders but also transformed the community social networks into what later became critical political networks in the grassroots which are a major part of the political history in America (Meier & Ribera, 1994). Describe three examples of chicanas in Texas politics. Chicanas is a general term referring to Mexican women and those of the Hispanic origin. According to Garcia (1980) in the pas American history, Chicanaa are described as just mothers and wives who were only associated with family households while their husband were casual laborers in the American cities and big farms. Over the years as a result of the participation of such women in community serving groups and other social functions that would bring such women together, there started to grow characters within such groups who felt they needed to stand up and fight for their rights and positions in the society. They did so by forming some small ethnical based groups. These are the same groups that would in future make remarkable reform on the lives of individual Mexican American citizens and make remarkable changes and contributions not only to the politics of Texas but also to the American political systems in general and yet very few credit has been given to the Chicanas who were the fore founders of political institutions (Gutiereez and Deen, 2000). In a nutshell, Chicanas were the founders of the early organizations that fought for the civil rights of the Mexican American community not only in Texas but also across the entire American nation (Meier & Ribera, 1994). They also contributed a lot to the history of Feminists organizations in Texas which can be traced back to as early as 1911 with formation of organizations such as La Liga Femenil Mexicanista and League of United Latin American Citizens that were some of the early organizations involved in the fight for the civil rights of the Mexican American citizens across the entire United States. Chicanas have therefore ever since been such an important aspect of the Texas politics as well as the American politics for their contributions and mostly through the Chicano movement. According to Gutiereez and Deen (2000), even though there are no accounts of how much the Chicanas contribute to the Chicano movement, Chicanas formed an important part of the population that was involved in the social protests conducted throughout the country aimed at pressing for promotion of aspect of cultural nationalism as well as human rights of different individuals in America irrespective of their ethnicity (Meier & Ribera, 1994).. There have however been outstanding characters in the Texas political struggle. Such characters include: Severita Lara, Norma Villareal Ramirez and Dolores Briones. The three are amongst the County judge candidates to have run in the history of Texas and bearing in mind the fact that a county judge is the most powerful position amongst all elected positions within the Texas government; these women really portrayed a fighting spirit and an urge to make change in the society (Gutiereez and Deen, 2000). Severita Lara ran for the position of County judge in Zavala County in 1986 (Gutiereez and Deen, 2000). It was a remarkable impression but she never made it she lost in a run-off with the holder of the office as at that time and further lacked financial resources to seek legal redress to the situation. Norma Villareal Ramirez was a candidate for county judge in Zapata County in the year 1994. Norma Villareal Ramirez lost in the normal election, won in the recount but lost again in the re-election (Gutiereez and Deen, 2000). Dolores Briones also a candidate in county judges of Texas ran in 1998 in El Paso County. Unlike the other two, Dolores Briones won the elections in 1998 (Gutiereez and Deen, 2000). References Arreola, Daniel, D. (1987).The Mexican American Cultural Capital. Geographical Review, 77(1), 17-34. Garcia, T. (1980). The Chicana in American History: The Mexican Women of El Paso, 1880-1920: Pacific Historical Review, 49(2), 315-337. Gutierrez, A & Rebecca, E. (2000). “Chicanas in Texas Politics,” JSRI Occasional Paper #66,The Julian Samora Research Institute, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan. Meier, M & Feliciano, R. (1994). Mexican Americans/American Mexicans: From Conquistadors to Chicanos, ISBN 978-0-8090-1559-7. Pardo, M. (1990). Mexican American Women Grassroots Community Activists: "Mothers of East Los Angeles". A Journal of Women Studies, 11(1), 1-7. Read More