Skrentny's The Minority Rights Revolution

Patricia Gándara writes about the crippling segregation within our modern school system for Latino students in her essay Overcoming Triple Segregation. She examines the Latin American’s struggle for education by pointing out how not only are they segregated racially; but socioeconomically and linguistically. Gándara states that segregation towards Latinos will result small amounts of academic success and fewer citizens entering the workforce. Then the article takes a turn to advocate the use of bilingual classrooms, stating that by assimilating them into our culture, they will be able to become successful future contributing members of society. Gándara states that Latinos are forced to overcome the racial hostility placed before them, a lack

Although Lau v. Nichols had a positive impact on the education of non-English-speaking students, the Supreme Court stopped short of making revisions that would force school district to reexamine the school board’s illegal practices. The Supreme Court didn’t give the SFUSD a clear directive regarding provisions of specific programs that would satisfy Section 601 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This shortcoming keeps the debate alive as to whether or not appropriate programs for non-English-speaking students have been implemented correctly throughout the Unites States. Discussions are still prevalent in school districts, state legislatures, and

During the 1920s, the Chicano movement faced many political challenges. One of the many problems was many teachers didn 't put in effort to teach Chicanos. In addition, schools had student’s graduate high schools without even being ready for college. One example of the political challenges the Chicano movement suffers is discussed in the History of a Barrio by Richard Romo the author asserts; “the Los Angeles School District maintained separate schools for Mexicans on the premise that Mexicans had special needs” [Romo 139]. In other words, this demonstrates that school districts separated Chicanos from normal classes because they had trouble learning.

Many of the students attending the Ysleta Independent School District and other schools in El Paso wait on the bridge for hours every morning and cross the border, in order to attend school. The schools in this district are a mix of students from both Mexico and the United States. Even though these students share the same schools, teachers, and class as their American counter parts they still face many different challenges. However, school districts in El Paso such as Ysleta and El Paso Independent do a phenomenal job in not only helping Mexican migrant students obtain the skills needed to succeed in school but also provide a quality education. Schools are well adapted to meeting the needs of cross-border students in part because Texas boasts a rich and vibrant bilingual tradition and not just for Spanish-English instruction, but for many other languages.

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.

“The 1970 OCR memorandum and the Lau V. Nichols Supreme Court decision led to expansion of Title VI enforcement under the Ford and Carter administrations” (Ovando 79). The 1975 Lau Remedies provided the United States office for Civil Rights guidelines for compliance. These guidelines provided ideas for identifying language minority students and assessing their English proficiency, determining appropriate instructions, deciding their grade level, and determining the standards of teachers. The Lau Remedies created a background to develop and implement bilingual language wherever it is possible.

Minorities in sitcoms were less portrayed in contrast to an accurate representation of the time period. Ironically, minorities in sitcoms were not always represented by minority actors and actresses. Sometimes makeup was used on a white actor so he could portray an African man. It was not until the 1950’s when African Americans were shown on television. African Americans were often portrayed as crooked people with poor English and less education. In the sixties, segregation and racism dominated in most social settings. In the seventies, most minorities were trying to deter from old beliefs of prejudicial ideas. In modern times, minorities have equal rights and respect to their white counterparts. Four sitcoms, Amos ’n’ Andy, Julia, Sanford and Son, and The Cosby Show depict how the role of minorities changed throughout different time periods.

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.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a large portion of Americans were restricted from civil and political rights. In American government in Black and White (Second ed.), Paula D. McClain and Steven C. Tauber and Vanna Gonzales’s power point slides, the politics of race and ethnicity is described by explaining the history of discrimination and civil rights progress for selective groups. Civil rights were retracted from African Americans and Asian Americans due to group designation, forms of inequality, and segregation. These restrictions were combatted by reforms such as the Thirteenth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, the Fifteenth amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, etc. Although civil and political

The parent’s perspective towards bilingual education was like the student’s opinions because both individuals felt immersion classrooms benefit the students and the parents. The father of Jason was proud his son was the first in his family to read, write, and speak in English. Jason’s father knew his son would have many career opportunities by learning English at school. Learning the English academic language was not the only proud language Jason’s father encouraged for Jason to learn but also the Spanish language as well. Jason’s father only speaks Spanish so if his son was to lose his home language, a language barrier would form between father and son.

Both readings claim that Hispanics are here to stay, but with opposing views on how this affects society. One place where Hispanic presence is on the rise is in schools. However, some Hispanic students know more Spanish than English, and therefore struggle in school. This idea of exemplifies the stereotype that Hispanics are “dumb”.

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.

“Empirical studies also show that some immigrant parents sometimes fail to implement effective bilingual education because they firstly, are unable to keep speaking continuously at home out of habits when living in a foreign country; secondly, they fail to push hard enough for education; and thirdly, they try to help but do not know how” (Fan-Wei 115). Often times when children start going to a new school and make new friends, they get used to talking in the language spoken at school (their non-native language). Therefore, when a student starts learning a new language, they tend to practice it as much as possible and start talking to everyone they know in the new language. This causes the child to not speak enough of their mother tongue and eventually forget how to read and write it. On the other hand, parents may fail to make the effort to teach the child their native language because they are so focused on having their child and themselves excel at the new language.

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.

Furthermore, in the 1960s, nothing could slow down the Chicano movement once it had sparked. So much so, that Rodriguez claims that it “led to colleges and universities becoming targets of protest” and the