Tag: Social Issues

From Chicano Studies Department to Mexican-American Studies Degree Program

 

This is part of a longer blog series, which you can find links to the previous as well as the next blog posts at the bottom of this blog. 

Back in 1968 the United Mexican American Students (UMAS) of Loyola-Marymount presented a proposal for the development and implementation of a Chicano Studies Department on nothing more than white paper and a typewriter. But after looking in the Chicana/o Studies Department’s archives in the University’s Archives found in the library’s Archives and Special Collections, I found a very interesting document. I found the Mexican-American Studies Degree Program description.

Finding this document comes at a shock for many reasons. One of which is simply at just looking at this document versus the proposal presented by UMAS. One of the big visual differences include the letterhead this document has. Not only does it have an official Loyola Marymount of Los Angeles letterhead but it also has a sort of seal for the program itself. This shows us that this document although not stated anywhere is not brought up by the students.Through its presentation, we know it means business because it is a formal document  that a faculty or even staff member might of worked on.

Aside from the way it looks, the language used is sophisticated and formal. It does not present an attitude or voice like the UMAS proposal did, to the contrary it presents itself very politically and states its desire in a way that it remains neutral yet confident in what it wants. The only thing that is left unclear though is what gave rise to this and why did it take 5 years for it to appear, as this document is dated from February 14, 1973. Since for the moment those questions remained unanswered we can review it so as to share its contents and try to answer the questions.The document is comprised of 5 different areas. It starts of with the rationale behind the program, then continues into the proposed program of studies which is followed by the class list for humanities and social sciences and ends with the costs of the program.

The rationale begins by first stating the demographics and then gives points as to why the program is vital to an university education. The author behind the document brings the reader’s awareness around the issue that there exist irrelevant issues to the minorities of color, which includes the nation’s second largest minority, the Mexican-Americans. A minority whose unique situation “necessitates academic attention from interdisciplinary perspectives” which would encompass analysis of their historical, social, economical, psychological, cultural and political aspects. It continues on by stating that a degree in such a program not only would develop a student but also “fulfill one of the most important goals of Loyola University” as stated by Father Merrifield in his address on the goals of liberal education which says that there must exist an understanding of social -political realities and awareness of and sensitivity to the deep social problems in America. At the core of it stood the University’s goal  to serve the community which included the presence of the largest population of Mexican descent outside of Mexico City and Guadalajara, including the presence of Mexican-American students whose presence is eluded from the 11% of Spanish surname population at Loyola. (Only to be compared to the approximate 21% currently found now at LMU.) These students need to be well prepared to pursue advanced degrees and strong foundations that a degree or double degree in Mexican-American Studies would provide them with.

The preparation would be coming from the proposed program of studies that included a focus on humanities and social sciences. The proposed program required the student to either take or test out of Spanish, a course in Race, Political Power in America, an Introduction to Mexican-American Studies and a course from one of the Research Methods list of classes. Then they would continue by pursuing one of two paths. One path required the students to take 4 courses from each section III and IV of the document course which are the list of Humanity and social science courses, respectively. Or if they preferred to develop a specialized skill in a particular area they could take any 4 courses in their area and any 4 courses in the other major section, e.i. 4 in history and 4 in social science. The student had some degree of liberty to what they wanted to take as section III and IV list of 33 classes to chose from.

The final section of the document is more at the administration level. As this section deals with the salary of the Director of the program and cost of the program as a whole.

This document seems to fit the needs of the population but still does not give us much to grasp on as to the change in the demand over the course of 5 years.

 

Sources:

Loyola University. Bellarmine College Record Group. Mexican-American Studies Degree Program, February 14, 1973. RG 12, Record Series D:  Departments and programs, Box 14. Loyola Marymount University Archives, Department of Archives and Special Collections, William H. Hannon Library, LMU, Los Angeles.

Photo:

Special Collections Entrance, Los Angeles. Personal photograph by Carmen Castañeda. 2012.

Read more:

The Birth of the Chicana/o Studies Department, Setting the Stage, Students Propose a New Program, Capstone Project Gone Blog, So You Want to Take Introduction to Chicana/o Studies?, So Let’s Put Some of the Pieces Together

Importance of cry-smile mask

The cry smile mask is described by Jid Lee as a smile on your exterior face, while inside you are really lamenting,  crying, or sad. Jid Lee descibres the Cry-Smile mask as, ” effective, but its use came with collective as well as personal harm; it condoned my audiences’ self-righteousness(398)”. When Lee hears people say racial comments against other people, or when she talks about racial struggle to her class, she must use the cry-smile mask. When Lee is at a function with a white coworker, they have a conversation about race that starts as, ” I wish they were all like him”, Susan whispered looking at the back of the black man who had just turned around after asking her for a dance. ” He’s so nice. No bitterness or anger. If all black people were like him, we’d be living in heaven”. Lee thought, ” Susan stung me with her rudeness; I had to bite my tongue, struggling to smile… Facing this forty-year-old lady so mature and loving yet filled with hackneyed racist cliches(397)”. In this situation, Lee wanted to address Susan’s ignorant and rude remark, but the perceived stereotype that was plastered all over the Korean-American Lee, is that Asian-Americans shouldn’t complain about racial struggle.The oppression on Asian during  World War II, specifically with the Japanese concentration camps in America, is forgotten by most of society. It is forgotten by Susan in this instance that Asians  had to suffer in America like Blacks, and had negative stereotypes attached to them as well. Since Lee is able to not be viewed with negative stereotypes like the Black man by Susan, instead of tell her she is wrong for her views, she puts on the cry-smile mask.

 

The reason it was hard for Lee to speak up and tell Susan that she was wrong for her comment is because she is supposed to be on the same page as Whites. Susan shows how Whites view Asian American when she writes, ” Frankly, it’s a little hard for me to believe what you say about Asians being discriminated against. They’re white.” ” Those concentration days are over. We don’t want to bring them up again.” ” Immigrants like you work so hard. They rise up so fast. (401)” Such complements and great expectation of the White race is very hard to disregard since Asians have been coined the “model minority” over Blacks, Chicanos, Indian, etc. , in America. If Lee were to speak up to tell Susan that she was incorrect to stereotype all Black people as bad in a serious tone, Susan most likely would not take her correction seriously, since she doesn’t expect her to know anything about other races struggles. Lee might be taken more serious by Susan if she corrected her racial stereotype if she said it with a cry smile-mask. The method of the cry-smile mask Lee used when teaching about racial issues in her class was ” This new layer,…, would be more concealing and suggestive, softer in appearance but harder in reality.” Lee found out while testing her new cry-smile mask technique, that the less serious she appeared when talking about racial issues to her students, the more receptive they were to listening to her and contributing to the discussion. The more serious Lee was in talking about racial issues to her students, the less free they felt to discuss racial problems with a Korean -American that seemed to know nothing about experiencing racial issues. If you are the “model minority” like Asian Americans, in some aspects of your life,  the cry-smile mask can have some importance.

 

Sources:

 

Jid Lee “The Cry-Smile Mask: A Korean American Woman’s System of Resistance” (From this bridge we call home 397-402).

Xicana Codex Tweets

Trader Joe’s Signs the Fair Food Agreement with CIW, but Abuses Against Field Workers Continues

The Center for Service and Action at LMU offers opportunities for students to volunteer throughout the year; one of these opportunities is the range of Alternative Breaks for the winter, spring and summer. I participated in the Alternative Break to Florida this past winter that focused on becoming more aware about the Immokalee field workers working and living conditions as well as their involvement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) non-profit organization. The group was composed of 14 participants, including staff and students. We learned a little bit more about the work that the CIW has accomplished, and the resources available to the children of the field workers.

Immokalee and the southwest of Florida is significant to the agricultural production fabricated by approximately 4,000 members of the CIW who travel throughout the East coast during the harvest season. These are hard working immigrants that mostly come from Mexico, Central America and Haiti. The CIW fights against the injustices they face in the tomato and citrus fields where they suffer from extremely low wages; and are deprived of sanitary living conditions as well as their human rights. Just like textile workers were paid by the piece, tomato field workers are paid by the bucket — for every 32 lbs. of tomatoes they pick they are paid $0.50. In our orientation meeting with some of the leaders of the CIW we were asked to pick up a 32 lbs. bucket to get an idea of how much that weighs. I can only imagine what it must feel like to work out in the freezing winter / hot summer fields. The majority of the field workers are men, although there is a small percentage of women who are also field workers.

The CIW began by organizing weekly meetings in a room provided by a local church in 1993. The group became more aware of their deprivations as human beings and six of the members went on a hunger strike that lasted one month in 1998. The CIW stated that by 1998, they “had won industry-wide raises of 13-25% (translating into several million dollars annually for the community in increased wages) and a new-found political and social respect from the outside world” (in About the CIW pamphlet). Through the support of students and organizers, in 2000 they marched from Ft. Myers to Orlando, a 234 mile march.

In 2001 the CIW held a national boycott for Taco Bell in which university students joined “Boot the Bell” from their campuses and demand the giant to take responsibility in promoting the enforcement of human rights in the fields where its produce is grown and picked. It took Taco Bell five years to finally agree upon the four demands to act socially responsible and improve field worker’s wages by paying $0.01 more per every pound of tomatoes it purchases from the growers. In April 2007 McDonald’s agreed to work closely with the CIW and investigate cases of abuse in the fields. In 2008 Burger King and Subway joined the promise to ensuring the workers would earn $0.01 per every pound of tomato they pick.

Much of the reason why our group wanted to know more about this issue is because Trader Joe’s, a major tomato consumer, had been reluctant to signed off the Fair Food Agreement. We have a Trader Joe’s within a distance of LMU and many of the student body goes there to purchase their groceries. Coming back from the trip as a group we wanted to protest outside of the Trader Joe’s and urge them to sign off the Fair Food program. But in February of this year Trader Joe’s demonstrated its support and its promise to a sustainable tomato industry for field worker’s and their human rights.

In 2008 the CIW assisted with the investigation of an indenture servitude slavery case where Cesar and Geovanni Navarrete were sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for depriving 28 field workers of their rights and holding them hostage. Above are some pictures showing the place were the trailer use to be. The employers placed the workers under high surveillance and instigated fear so that they would never dare to leave the campsite. In one instance the employers took the workers to the nearby grocery store and two of the workers took courage and managed to escape the store and run to ask for help. The CIW helped with the investigation of this case and as a result the two employers were sentenced to federal prison. Through the CIW’s activism in investigating seven cases of modern day slavery, the CIW has helped to liberate 1,000 workers.

Last week on March 25, 2012 a man walked into the CIW’s office explaining what had just happened to him at his job. He was working at the vegetable packing house, packing eggplants, when the supervisor came up to him and began criticizing his work. The worker felt this was unjust so he talked back; the furious supervisor punched him in the face breaking his nose.

Why am I writing about this under a Chicana Feminisms blog space? Because this demonstrates yet another form of marginalization towards the Latino community. Women make up a small percentage of immigrant field workers in Immokalee, but they certainly are present. They get up early every morning, take care of household arrangements and get ready for the day’s field work. The deprivation of human rights and the modern day slavery cases that victimize field workers who come to this country to better their conditions continues to be a reality. We can become more aware of these injustices and promote change for social justice. Exposing myself to these kinds of experiences makes me more aware of the problems we need to change in our society. The poor, the immigrant, the minority, continue to be marginalized under the system of domination. This is a call to everyone who stands for social justice to seek justice by becoming educated and acting against the constant forms of oppression.

Visiting the town and specifically meeting the soccer coach, Manny Touron, from Redlands Christian Migrant Academy made me happy to know that there is people out there who believe in their students and who dedicate time to guide them to succeed. Manny coaches boys in soccer through an after school soccer academy. One of the things that deeply touch me was when a boy from the team shared with us that the thing that saddened him the most was the fact that he sees his friends more than he sees his parents. This young boy, as well as the rest of the boys have dreams to fulfill, visions to live, and amongst those dreams are providing a stable future to their families through education. Manny dedicates his time to these children; he doesn’t get paid much, but he absolutely loves what he does.

For a virtual tour of Immokalee please click this link: http://ciw-online.org/virtualtour.html

Additional Sources: