Mexican American Experience

Reflection Hays and Erford (2014) define the factors affecting our counselor identity as our culture, lifespan period, gender, sexual orientation, and the last but not the least our prejudicial beliefs. In the country that I have grown up, we did not have too many Asian descents living among us and the insight that we have about both Native Americans and Asian Americans were just a paragraph length of information in sociology books. I would just add a couple American movies have had some people included in the film as side characters or neighbor members. Preparing for this week’s assignment gave me a lot different perception about Asian Americans, Native Americans and multiculturally component counselors.

Culture is an essential part of a community’s identity, because it links individuals to a collective bond. The Americas have always contained a vast variety of cultural communities, especially in the United States. The US is known for being one of the most diverse nations in the world, housing hundreds of different cultures. Mexican-Americans display a strong sense of a cultural background, which falls as a subset of the bigger Latino culture that links all Latinos. Oral history is a major aspect on the Mexican culture, which contributes to the truth of how history in the United States actually happened.

The history of gang violence has a similar pattern that minorities whom are discriminated and outcaste deal with their oppressors by grouping up with others in the same situation. The Zoot suiters or Pachuccos, were a Mexican- American gang prevalent in Southern California during the 1940s. They are significant to Mexican-American history because of their discriminatory background growing up an immigrant or native to the United States both seen as outsiders in Mexican and American communities. The Zoot Suiters challenged segregation and discrimination through their clothing and actions to find pride within their Mexican-American culture. However, society marginalized the Zoot suiters through media producing the clash between zoot suiters and military during WWII putting into question the character those on either side.

Essay Questions for Section I 1) The key point of the Reconstruction was to reconstruct the South, in order to, bring it back into the United States. However, there were many issues that the federal government had to deal with during this time period. In my opinion, I would say the primary issue that the federal government was faced with, would be figuring out how to bring the South back into the United States. The other main issue that the federal government was faced with, would be to figure out was what to do with the freed slaves.

1. Who is this subculture group? Where are they from? The Mexican Americans are a population of Spanish speaking individuals whom inhabit an area of Southern Texas named Hidalgo County. This cultural group often refers to themselves as being “true Texans” while referring to those individuals who speak English as being outsiders.

As immigration and relations between races become more influential issues in politics, there have been many opposing views on the treatment of minority groups. Some people believe that diversity and immigration is a threat to original identity while others believe that they are extremely beneficial to society. Writers Samuel P. Huntington in The Hispanic Challenge and Herbert Marcuse in Repressive Tolerance express these differing views regarding these important topics. Huntington takes the ‘threat to identity’ side when explaining how Mexican immigration is extremely different from European immigration. On the other hand, Marcuse takes a different route when explaining the idea of tolerance, claiming that majority groups who oppress the minority

Right between the United States, South America, the Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea lies the country of Mexico, known around the world for their bright and festive culture and rich heritage. It is one of the most visited countries in the world, and it has been the primary destination of choice among tourists and religious practitioners. From its food to their national holidays, Mexican influence is prominent and traditions often practiced outside of the country as well. Four famous civilizations existed within this country—the Mayas, the Olmecs, and the Aztecs—before the Spanish Conquistadors conquered the land in the 1500s.

When making a permanent move to a new location it is known as migration, but what triggers this movement? It all relates to push and pull factors of why one may move or leave to a new country/territory/state. The factors that contribute to this is through economic, political, cultural, and environmental. Since the 1820’s till now there has been a big move of US citizens to California but lets dig deeper as to exactly what may have influenced them to make this move.

Living in the 1920s was a struggled with attitudes of racism and discrimination towards immigrants whom people blamed for many social and economic problems. Both in modern times and in the 1920’s there was a lot of discrimination against immigrants entering the United State. The United State at first had welcomed immigrants into the country to help develop its growing potential; however, this policy changed when the immigrant population dramatically increased. They started to not like it and think that the economic problem and the issues they had been because of immigrants and African Americans are causing these economic problems.

After the Civil War, our country was battered and beaten, but it rebuilt itself over time and spread its policies, as well as manufacturing practices, throughout our country. Early in the 20th century, members of our nation started to look at some of these practices and policies and began to question their merit and whether they assisted our population or not. Many people were involved in the progressive movement in America from the presidents to a slew of popular authors and photographers. The one thing that they had in common was that they saw problems with how various industries in our nation performed that they knew needed to be fixed. They did not always agree on everything, such as immigration, but they always had the nation’s best interest at heart.

When filling out surveys or job applications, all Asians must check off the “Asian American” box regardless of national origin or place of birth, forcing a single classification on an extremely diverse group. This aggregated approach to understanding Asian American is not new, it has been present since the us versus them Occident-Orient approach that powered racism against early Asian immigrants. With the increasing presence of second and third generation Asian Americans, it is time to redefine what it means to be Asian American and to discover a new manner of framing the Asian American experience as unified yet diverse. The best approach to emphasize diversity is through stressing the national, socio-economic and gender differences within the Asian American