The film, Lemon Grove Incident, depicts the hardships a community of Mexican Americans endured as education, a tool commonly used for upward mobility and inclusion into the dominant American society, became another form of racialization against them. In this community discourse driven by stereotypes and actions geared by academic profiling, denied Mexican Americans students from co-existing in the same school as their white peers. Members of the Lemon Grove PTA and School Board, believed that segregation of the two races would create better learning environments for both parties because the Mexican students lacked full ability of speaking the English language. Mexican American students were targeted because their ability of speaking Spanish …show more content…
In the Anglos eyes, Spanish is an inferior tongue that should be erased and replaced by English. For example, Roberto, an older student, who was highlighted as an example to the class by Ms. Katherine Elliot as “someone they should aim to be.” A student who is fully assimilated into “American culture” by carrying manners that shows respect and who speaks English fluently. Here the ability of speaking Spanish is stigmatized as holding back the Mexican American students from fully integrating with American society. Most importantly, they are not only pushing students to adhere to the dominant language but they are also teaching them that one linguistic capability is preferred and legitimized over the …show more content…
Even if the Mexican students assimilated through the Americanization classes, like the student Roberto, they were academically profiled as deficient and non-white and casted away to the “New School” based on their race and not on their academic fall backs. Borrowing the words from Ofelia Garcia, “The Spanish language (and bilingualism) in the United States have become markers of being nonwhite, of being out of place, thus minoritizing the position of U.S. Latinos and excluding them” (Garcia, 2009). Anglos in this community were creating a visible divide by using Spanish language as a marker of “otherness” and framing racial stereotypes to this linguistic
A Rhetorical Analysis of Gloria Anzaldua’s, “How to Tame A Wild Tongue.” The latin american and mexican diaspora have continuously been at odds as to which dialect of spanish tends to be the most proper or rightfully utilized, in being examined by each other as while as the anglo society. Well the multi-ethnic diaspora that resides within Gloria Anzaldua’s (the writer) home, the Borderlands, tends to exude the conceptualization of multiple dialects of spanish speech into one.
However, the fact is that most Americans have the impression that Hispanic immigrants are perceived as a threat for not assimilating into the American mainstream, more so into the Anglo-Protestant values. Why is that? Is it for fear that the Spanish Language may overrun the country? Similarly, Neil Foley, author of, Mexicans In The Making of America, asks the same questions, why fear? In his prologue chapter, Foley makes a point by proving the fact that in the past, Mexican immigrants were not a concern but were, “ let in to provide the labor force for the rapidly expanding economy”(2).
Growing up Mexican-American in the United States can be a challenge itself. Throw in the task, of learning two languages, it made for a very confused little girl. There was often times growing up when I wondered why no one, but my family spoke Spanish. Why everyone at school and all my friends spoke this different language. Sometimes it even seemed like I was two different people.
Spanish language in the classroom was banned because due to its type of linguistic terrorism, and only English was the official language that was accepted in the classroom. Assimilation was the word they used to promote to revolt against the racial and political injustice in the Chicano Movement in the
Language plays a vital role in a person’s sense of identity and connection; despite that, however, many face issues of discrimination of language throughout the United States for speaking another language. Former lawyer-turned-poet Martin Espada addresses these issues in his essay “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School,” through the use of anecdotes and his work, Espada continues to fight and serve as a voice for Latinos across America. Espada states how language isn’t a means of communication, but instead integral to an individual’s identity and culture, he recounts the story of attending a protest for a bill to make English the official language of Massachusetts, during the demonstration, a state legislator threatens to rip his tongue out for speaking Spanish, later, when Espada goes up and conveys to the crowd, he calls out to the audience that even if his tongue gets ripped, it won’t stop him from speaking Spanish with his heart, “He can rip out my tongue if he wants. But it won’t work, porque yo hablo español con el corazón,” (97-99). Espada conveys to the audience that Spanish epitomizes a person’s identity and pride.
In the book Chicano Students and the Courts, the author Richard R. Valencia provides a very detailed overlook of the education litigation that the Mexican American students and community went through for education. They fought for education equality and desegregation in schools throughout the country from K-12 and in higher education facilities. The separation of Mexican Americans from their white colleagues around 1848; this started the mistreatment and discrimination of students of Mexican decent. The objective that the author would like to demonstrate is the effort that the Latino community, parents and students, endured for equal opportunities in the educational system. The number of desegregation lawsuits that were created by Mexican
During class we saw this film called “The Lemon Grove Incident” it was a film in which made me feel very comfortable. It showed full on racism towards the Latinos in that location, they literally described Mexican people as dirty people with diseases. It was quite fascinating hearing the outrages claims/reasons the white people had for sending the Mexicans kids to a new school “a barn”. I did feel quite proud when the parents of those Mexican children stepped up and arranged gathers to determine that they would not allow such injustice towards their children. Almost close to the end I was smiling the whole time, during the court scene it was quite clear the white people had no knowledgeable excuse towards their actions and decisions other than
Richard Rodriguez offers a rare glimpse of the world of a racialized American – one that belongs neither in their homeland nor in the American community. Born into a family of Mexican immigrants who had received only basic education, Rodriguez was an early bird in realizing the changes education had brought on him. On numerous occasions, he
Second, there a ton of Spanish speaking people in the USA and especially in the California. So the author Charles Krauthammer states his worry is about Spanish being the “official” language of the USA rather than “English”, which is fair because more and more people migrate from Mexico to the United States and now-a-days even in schools, they teach Spanish. The fear is growing by each passing day. In the article “In Plain English: Let’s Make it Official” by Charles Krauthammer, tells that: “Growing rapidly through immigration, it creates large communities—in some places already majorities—so overwhelmingly Spanish speaking that, in time, they may quite naturally demand the rights and official recognition for Spanish that French has in French-speaking
Regardless of the state the Chicano student resided in, most Chicano students in late 1960’s advocated for school administrators and board members to stop “the blatant discrimination against Mexican American students in [their] school” (Edcouch Elsa Walkout Demands). If the students wanted to gain the same educational opportunities for
Today, you either get educated or you get stuck in a dead-end job without much prospect for the future. The gap between those with a higher education and those without one is becoming wider with advancements in technology and the growing competitiveness of the job market. There are many dangers of this gap. One such danger is the people who have a higher educations having the leisure to ignore those who are less educated. Joy Castro in her essays “Hungry” and “On Becoming Educated” discusses her life and educational journey.
In this book, author Tara J. Yosso demonstrates how institutional power and racism affect the Chicano/a educational pipeline by weaving together critical race theory and counterstories. Critical race theory is a framework used to discover the ways race as well as racism implicitly and explicitly shape social structures, practices, and discourses(Yosso, pg.4). Counterstories refer to any narrative that goes against majoritarian stories, in which only the experiences and views of those with racial and social privilege are told. The counterstory methodology humanizes the need to change our educational system and critical race theory provides a structure for Yosso to base her research. This results in a beautiful hybrid of empirical data, theory, and fascinating narratives that works to analyze how forms of subordination shape the Chicana/o pipeline, while also exposing how institutions, structures, and discourses of education maintain discrimination based on gender, race, class and their intersections.
He shows this through his many experiences with bilingual court and education. At the end of his essay, Espada concludes with a basic summary of what he has learned. Espada claims “The repression of Spanish is part of a larger attempt to silence Latinos, and, like the crazy uncle at the family dinner table yelling about independence or socialism, we must refuse to be silenced.” Through the summary the reader understands despite English being the prevalent language the in the U.S. today the Spanish culture is still being preserved through bilingualism. On the other hand Rodriguez argues that in order to gain a public identity, one must be willing to sacrifice some part of their own cultural identity.
Richard Rodriguez and Gloria Anzaldúa are two authors who both immigrated to America in the 1950s and received first hand experience of the assimilation process into American society. During this time, Rodriguez and Anzaldúa had struggled adjusting to the school system. Since understanding English was difficult, it made adjusting to the American school system increasingly difficult for Rodriguez. Whereas Anzaldúa, on the other hand, had trouble adjusting to America’s school system due to the fact that she didn’t wish to stop speaking Spanish even though she could speak English. Both Rodriguez and Anzaldúa had points in their growing educational lives where they had to remain silent since the people around them weren’t interested in hearing them speaking any other language than English.
Segregation of Mexican Americans from the dominant Anglo race has been around for many years. Since the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Mexican Americans have been treated like a second-class race facing racism and segregation. As a result, segregation in the education system affected Mexican American children. An increasing number of Mexican Americans across California led to an increase of Mexican children enrolling in schools. Author David James Gonzales (2017), explores the degrading school facilities Mexican students were assigned to.