League of United Latin American Citizens

This article, entititled "League of United Latin American Citizens," was another article on an organization based around supporting Hispanic Americans. This organization has a goal of bringing about positive social and economic changes for Hispanic Americans. What I like about this organization is it's uniqueness. The LULAC started out as three seperate organizatons, that merged together in 1929. These groups remind me of SNCC because they were started by Mexican Americans as a means of defense against prejudicial attitudes and discrimination acts, much like the SNCC was formed for African Americans so they could defend themselves. This unifaction of three smaller organizations created one strong group that works hard to "reverse widespread unequal treatment of Mexican Americans." This group also reminds me of cases such as Brown vs. board of Education because of their involvement in the court system. In 1945, a LULAC council in California sued to integrate the school system in Orange County, and won. Another landmark case for them was in Texas in 1954 when they protested that not a single Mexican American in that state had ever been called to jury duty. This was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. All of these things are great, but I think that the best thing this organization does is to raise money for the LULAC National Scholarship Fund, which has helped send almost 10% of the Hispanic American students in the United States go to college.

Alianza Hispanico-Americana

This article, entitled "Alianza Hispanico-Americana," provided me with a lot of new information on my topic of Hispanics. Alianza Hispanico-Americana was a fraternal aid organization led by three men, Carlos Velasco, Pedro Pellon, and Mariano Samaniego, who founded it in Tuscon, Arizona on January 14, 1894. Velasco became the organization's first President. This organization provided low-cost insurance, fought to protect civil rights, and promoted Mexican-American social and cultural activities. I liked this article because groups supporting Mexicans are not discussed often, especially those as old as this organization, so it was good to read about this. I like most of their aims, but I disagree with and don't understand some of them. For example, "the group limited membership to Mexican Americans and did not allow convicted fellons, African Americans, or Asian Americans. It also attempted to preserve the Mexican culture and gave its members lessons in civic virtues like freedom of speech." I definitely agree that convicted fellons should not be allowed membership, but not permiting African or Asian Americans to be members seems unfair. Seeing as it was formed in response to racial discriminations, I would think that the organization would include the other groups being discriminated against. Also, the group did not allow women to be members. They only lifted this rule in 1913, "in reaction to the growing power of the woman suffrage movement." This angers because this is one more group that they discriminated against. Shouldn't the organization's goal be to unite and band together the groups being discriminated against so they can gain strength and courage against their oppressors?

Here is the article and the citation in MLA format.

the bracero program

After I read the article about Latinos in U.S. society, I clicked on a link to a picture on the right of the page. This picture shows 5 young children posing under a sign that says "US Department of Agriculture Farm Security Administration Farm Workers Community". These are the children of migrant farm workers brought in from Mexico to provide agricultural workers in the Southwest during the late 1940s. This angers me because even though this was a good thing for the growers because the Mexicans provided cheap, unorganized labor, it was not beneficial in any way to the workers. The people that were brought over were paid low wages, forced to live in horrible conditions, and did not recieve schooling for their children. It maddens me to hear the way that immigrants were treated when they came to the U.S. because Americans think of themselves as loving and accepting beings, but in reality are cold-hearted, and afraid of anything or anyone that is remotely different than them. These children, being as young as they were, probably did not understand why people were so mean to them, and probably thought that it was something they did. We know from studying African Americans during first semester that this can have a degrading and lasting effect on the children and their futures. As one of the leading countries today, we need to take a look at what our ancestors did and how they acted, and learn NOT to do what they did. We need to learn from their mistakes.

Latinos in U.S. society

This article, entitled "Latinos in U.S. Society" gave me more knowledge than I had expected to find in the very first article that I clicked on. I knew very little of what was said in this article, but I did know a few things. For example, I knew that Latinos are the fastest growing ethnic group in America, and that people of Latino descent are known most commonly as Hispanics, Latinos, or Chicanos. Thdere were many facts that I did not know, such as the fact that there are seven main states that Latinos live in. these states are New York, Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Illinois. The mention of the Lemon Grove incident of 1931 brought to mind the blacks' fight for integration, which we studied for a while during first semester. Indeed, "feeding from the fervor generated from African-American struggles for equality, young Latinos created the Chicano Movement in the mid-1960s. A broad-based unit, it enlisted the support of students, adult groups, and otherswho advocated cultural nationalism, or seperation and independence for people of Latino descent". They also formed a group called the "Brown Berets," modeled after the Black Panthers. As the article says, "Latinos in the United States are increasingly securing prominent roles in all aspects of society".

"Latinos in U.S. society." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 28 Jan. 2010. http://www.americanhistory.abc-clio.com/.

research topic

The topic that I am assigned is Hispanics. I am interested in this topic because a large part of our country is Hispanic, and I don't really know a lot about them. However, I would like to learn more because my family has spent many vacations in Mexico, and I have always been intrigued by them. I am excited to start my research, and find out why some people there live the way they do, and find out more in-depth why so many Mexicans are immigrating to the US.

State of the Union Address

In the Address, Obama said that America must lead the global economy. Do do this, he said, we have to "put Americans to work today building the infostructure of tomorrow". Obama's speech was hope-filled, encouraging, and uplifting, and he is confident that America will come out of the recession back on top. Comparing the US to countries like India and Germany, he said, "I do not accept second place for the United States of America...We gotta get it right".

AmStuds

Today in AmStuds Ivonne and I watched some really funny videos. Here's a link.