Times of Crisis

Nobody could have known of the crisis awaiting the Latino community in the early 1990’s, and how far their reactions to the crisis would affect them in the future. After the Los Angeles riots in 1992, which had erupted when white police officers on trail for police brutality against Rodney King had been declared not guilty, Latino immigrants were victimized and took the blame for the riots and were punished with proposition 187 that would deny them any federal aid of any kind. Proposition 187 lead non-Hispanic whites to believe they were living in a state over flowing with Latino immigrants who were to blame for over crowed schools and hospitals, unemployment, water shortage, clogged freeways, over consuming of county-funding, along with many other issues. The proposition was a scapegoat targeting Latino immigrants as one of the top three issues in the polls along with gang crimes and unemployment, prop 187 set the scene for Latinos to make their own mark in history.

In the reelection campaign of Governor Pete Wilson, he brought attention to Latino immigrants convincing the majority of California that Latinos were definitely the problem. Glenn Spencer paved the way for Governor Pete Wilson’s reelection campaign when he and his group put together a state initiative and gathered the 40,000 required signatures blaming undocumented Latino immigrants for every one of California issues and denying public service in health or education to anyone who appeared to be illegal. Children could be expelled from school and pregnant women could go medically uncared for. The daunting commercial of Senator Dianne Feinstein’s campaign which stated “And they keep coming! Two thousand each night” damaged the imagine of Latinos, as if they were an infectious disease taking over the nation two thousand of them at a time. “A Los Angeles Times reporter was interviewing an older, non-Hispanic white resident of Orange County about the state’s strict tobacco laws. Complaining about its unfairness to smokers, she suddenly launched into an accusation about what was really bothering her: “Everyone in the country voted for proposition 187… the law against the Mexicans… and they still have those kids in schools (David E. Hayes-Bautista, La Nueva California Latinos in the Golden State, pg. 134).” Fears of Latino voters had been confirmed, the concerns were not with Latino immigrants but with Latinos in general. They were not just blaming some of Latinos, they were blaming all of them.

In 1994-1995 TV ads sending out warnings of millions flooding the state but for the first time in nearly 150 years the state was losing population, in 1991 the Department of Finance announced more non-Hispanic whites are moving out of California than moving in. People complained about schools being over crowed because of Latino immigrants, but only six out of every hundred Latino children were undocumented immigrants. Los Angeles school district enrollment was actually 2.7 percent lower than it had been in 1969, when it peaked at 650,324. Schools were over crowed in result of Los Angeles Unified School District’s decision to close schools in the 1970’s. Around 12,000 Latinos were leaving each year, but by the late 1990’s Latinos were still moving into the state at an annual average of 89,401, less than half the number of the peak of 1982-1986. In 1992 the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors estimated the numbers of Latino immigrants and other immigrants as well as the cost of county funded services for them. “To summarize the report estimated that for every dollar in county-funded services provided to an undocumented person, that person paid $4.56 in taxes. Accusation to the contrary, undocumented immigrants were not costing more than they paid in taxes; rather they paid far more in taxes than they used in county-funded services (David E. Hayes-Bautista, La Nueva California Latinos in the Golden State, pg. 133).” After being discriminated against U.S. born and immigrant Latinos came together to support each other and had the highest voting rate against proposition 187. “U.S. born Latinos did not shrink from immigrant Latinos, by and large, but joined with them to defend the Latino presence in the state from outside attacks. In doing so, together, both U.S. born and immigrant Latinos have created a new political power based and are beginning to capture statewide offices (David E. Hayes-Bautista, La Nueva California Latinos in the Golden State, pg. 146, 147).” “Our image is changing. We’re not by the cactus anymore with our sombrero on… we’re college students, we’re senators, we’re congresspeople. We’re people who are moving up (David E. Hayes-Bautista, La Nueva California Latinos in the Golden State, pg. 146).”

Battered and Traumatized: Gay Bashing in Chicano Communities

The Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (L.G.B.T.) community faces many issues of their own added on to the struggles of every day life. As younger generations begin to become sexually active at a younger age, the question of “am I queer” also comes in to play with such activity. On April 6, 2009, an eleven-year-old boy hung himself after enduring bullying at school, including daily taunts of being gay. Verbal and physical “Gay bashing” have been an issue in the L.G.B.T. community for ages, leaving hundreds of homosexual, bisexual, and transgender males and females battered, traumatized and even dead. In most cases, harassment and assaults go unreported, out of fear or out of belief that solutions are few and ineffective.


“As a person, I, as a people, we, Chicanos, blame ourselves, hate ourselves, terrorize ourselves (“The Coatlicue State” Anzaldua).” The traditions and closed mindedness of Chicano communities are causing controversy among each other between homophobic Chicanos and homosexuals Chicanos. I as a bisexual Chicana have felt the pressure of being abnormal, and have heard the homophobic hateful slurs against queers. Gay bashing is something that has not gone away, and will not just disappear on its own. Homosexuals have become frightened and are oppressed to the gender roles that we are taught to fill in order to fit in and relate to our communities. Suppressing ourselves makes it difficult to fully mature as a person, and in a domino effect makes it difficult to progress in life. Society has built up the image that homosexuality is immorally wrong, so homosexuals deny, insulate their own sexuality to be accepted.


“My resistance, my refusal to know some truth about myself brings on that paralysis, depression-brings on the Coatlicue state. At first I feel exposed and opened to the depth of my dissatisfaction. Then I feel myself closing, hiding, holding myself together rather than allowing myself to fall apart (“The Coatlicue State” Anzaldua).” Refusing to acknowledge ones self as a homosexual is immobilizing ones self to move forward with who they are and where they want to be in the future, moving them in to the Coatlicue state. “I have split from and disowned those parts of myself that others rejected.” (“The Coatlicue State” Anzaldua) In a Chicano community, the males feel pressured to uphold ideal characteristics of patriarchy, as it is for females with ideal characteristics of femininity. They reject whom they are in order to portray the roles their communities believe they are born to fill, and dividing themselves as a person into who they are and who they pretend to be.


“The border is a historical and metaphorical site, un sitio ocupado, an occupied borderland where single artists and collaborating groups transform space, and the two home territories, Mexico and the United States, become one (“Border Arte: Nepantla, El Lugar de la Frontera” Anzaldua).” As a community, we need to come to together and recognize the issues, and our faults. Communities need to bring more awareness to the L.G.B.T. issues, gay bashing, gay marriage, and open up the communities to what we can do to resolve them. We cannot fear change or the unfamiliar, because change is growth, and without growth we are not truly living, we become stuck in a Coatlicue state.

Dear Student

I am a nineteen-year-old college student currently attending East Los Angeles College, my name is Kerin. I moved to East Los Angeles from Hacienda Heights with my family sixteen months ago. I am a middle child, with one older brother and one younger brother. I graduated from Los Altos High School in the year of 2008. This is my first semester at Elac, I am currently working on my general education that includes the basic classes to earn your degree such as Math, English, History, and Physical education. I have recently decided to major in psychology.

So far, college is not anything as I expected it to be. College has opened my mind, challenging me to think and value the importance of education. At the moment I am taking a Chicano Studies class that has enlightened my mind to the history of Chicano/as, for example I did not know that the segregation of the 1950’s through the 1960’s not only affected African Americans, but Hispanics as well. This class caught my interest because of the lack edification on my heritage. I wanted to know more about whom I am and where I come from. Which one of the greater things about college, they offer a wide verity of classes on many different subjects.

One of the most challenging obstacles as a college student is working hard to not become a minority, such as not dropping out of school, or joining a gang. There is a thing called the “educational pipline”, which is a report that shows the progress of students from elementary school to college. In the year of 2000 the educational pipline shows that out of a 100 chicano students that started elementary only 46 graduated from high school, approximately 17 of those 46 went on to enroll in community college. I do not want to be apart of that 79 that did not go on to further their education for a better career in the future. In five years, I see myself with my bachelors’ degree, majored in psychology, working as a social worker or youth counselor. Without my degree, I see myself struggling to find a job.

The advice I can give you as a student getting ready to make the transition from middle school into high school, is to focus solely on school, curricular activities, for example sports and making plans to go college. I have friends that did not graduate from high school, who are now having a hard time, they cannot find a job because of their lack of education and cannot go to college because of their finical situations. I cannot stress enough how important school is to your future. Knowledge is the key to succeeding in everything you do.

Sincerely,

Kerin Acosta

The Art of Losing Simplicity

The Homeland, Aztlan



"In the 1950's I saw the land, cut up into thousands of neat rectangles and squares, constantly being irrigated. In 340-days growth season, the seeds of any kind of fruit or vegetable had only to be stuck in the ground in order to grow. More big land corporations came in and bought up the remaining land"



I remember being a little girl, playing with my mothers pager when i was bored, I remember in elementary school hearing about the rianforest and all its beauty. It is a downcast to be able to start a sentence with the words "I remember back when..." I am only nineteen, and such a sentence sounds as if it came from a story my grandmother would tell, but the changes in the world that have happen durning my life time have been significant enough to point out in such a way. My younger brother who is all of eight years old, owns his every own cell phone, something my mother did not own until her late twenties. I feel that younger genegerations have not been given the chance to fully mature their imagination, because video games and computers have filled the spot where toys that did not require batteries use to be, thus only making them less of a whole person. I feel disheartened that future generations will never know simplicity.

A World of Difference

Article Title: A Countryless Woman; The Early Feminista"Among Latino/as in the United States today there is a universe of difference. There is a universe of difference, for example, between the experience of the Cuban man who arrived here in the United States as a child after feeling Castro's revolution and the Puerto Rican woman who is a third generation single mother on the Lower East Side."

I am a fifth generation college student living in East Los Angeles, despite having been born only miles away in the city of Whittier I consider myself more Mexican than American, because of my upbringing in a Mexican decent family. As a Mexican woman living in the United States I know very little of my heritage or the history of my people. There is a world of difference between my values and traditions then those of my great grandfather who was born in Mexico and came over to the U.S. as a young man and who is still living here today. I feel a great loss of pride and knowledge and lack of heritage because of the traditions my great grandfather kept with him from his homeland there were not passed down to my generation. Many young Chicano/as have little knowledge of who they are in today's society, because of the lack of edification from their elders. Young Hispanics who are born and raised in the U.S. are labeled Hispanic because of their facial characteristics but do not know the meaning or privilege of being so and have become more Americanized then their ancestors.

I find it difficult to be proud of who you are, when you don't know much about where you come from. Although I consider myself a Mexican because of my upbringing in the home, I know very little about the Mexican culture. i have become Americanized through the influence of society and my peers. I lived in Hacienda Heights, between the years of 2002 and 2008 where most of the influence came from to become the person I am today. Hacienda Heights was known as an upper class neighborhood filled with financially privileged adolescents, who were caught up in the world consuming material goods. Having lived there six years, I began to conform to the standards that were socially acceptable, such as what to wear and how to act. In doing so, I also began to ignore my heritage and adopted values and traditions that were not my own.

I feel that the adolescents of today's youth have lost appreciation for the value of their culture. Many young Hispanics do not know any more about their own culture than they know about a blue nose pitbull, a person can recognize a blue nose pitbull by its facial characteristics but know nothing about this dog beyond its distinguishable face. To younger generations being Hispanic is similar to wearing an accessory; it is in style or "cool" to be so. Older generations feel differently about being Hispanic, they have felt the effects of living in a segregated America, leaving them ashamed to be anything but American. The differences between present generations and their ancestors go deeper then just what they wear, it's how they think, feel and even act.

Not only for Hispanics, but people in general do not know who they are, unless they recognize where they come from. Younger generations are growing up without this knowledge, and for some they do not care to obtain it. There are those of us who are proud of what we are and wish to know more about where we come from, there are those who are taught by their elders to be ashamed of being Hispanic and do everything they can to be perceived as White American. There is a world of difference between older generations who have fought to live her in the United States and those who have been privileged to be born and raised here without ever having to know the struggles of our ancestors.

All About Me

Well I guess my name would be a good starting off point. I'm Kerin Shawntae, I was born and raised in Whittier where the girls are prettier. I just recently moved to east Los Angeles a year ago, but my great grandparent have been living here over fifty years. My family has been living in California for the last six generation, but somewhere along the line my family's history of what city in Mexico we came from exactly has been forgotten. The most I can say is that I'm Portuguese and Mexican, I would never be able to tell you exactly where in Portugal or Mexico I'm from.
With that being said, it brings me to why I have decided to take Chicanos studies. This is the first Chicano studies class I've taken, and I wanted to take this class to learn more about the culture that I've been told I'm apart of. I figured if I don't know where my roots come from exactly, I should learn something about the culture I claim. My expectations of this class are to learn more about the Mexican culture, other then what our mothers teach us in the kitchen.
Well, I have no idea what I want to major in. I have no idea what my career goals are yet, but I believe that as a young adult i should be allowed the time to be lost and to figure out what I want to do. If i had to chose a major, I think im leaning towards a physc. major. I don't have a lot of hobbies but my list of interests make up for lack thereof. I enjoy writing, mostly poetry. I really enjoy art of all kinds. My favorite artist would have to be Frida Kahlo. With all that she has gone through, she is such an inspiration to me as a strong and proud Mexican female.