In Bettie’s analysis of Mexican-American and white girls, she finds that race, gender and class are extremely crucial in the outcomes and futures of these girls. The unmentioned and hidden effects of class, race, and gender provide the explanation for much of the inequality seen between the white middle-class girls and Mexican-American working-class girls. Much of this inequality is itself perpetuated within the school system, both by the faculty and students. Distinguishing features between the preps and las chicas are highlighted through symbolic boundaries. The most prominent symbolic boundaries between thee groups revolve around fashion, race, sexual activity, and academic involvement. The preps have a school-sanctioned fashion style. …show more content…
Their style and actions were deemed inappropriate because it did not adhere to the school standard of conduct. Thus, they were left on their own, without support or comprehension from the school staff. Because of this belief held by the school personnel, las chicas would be placed on a vocational tracking system. Once placed on this track, las chicas were essentially denied any chance of escaping their current socio-economic class. Las chicas and other hard-living girls were often told that college courses would be too difficult for them. Many of las chicas actually had high grades in their classes, but the grades didn’t matter because the courses they took wouldn’t qualify them for a four-year college. For many, the prospect of college dwindled, and with it, any hope for escaping their class in the future. They would head either to community college or straight to work in low-wage jobs. They were systematically excluded from any chance of improving their …show more content…
Race becomes important because it is often the unconscious method of discrimination in the educational structure in Waretown. The Mexican-American girls who become upwardly mobile are seen as the exception. White girls who became upwardly mobile didn’t face any dissonant reactions when they achieved mobility because it was normalized of the white race. Mexican-American girls, however, did face dissonance because it was not typically expected of them. They would often fight the administration much more than white girls in order to avoid being placed on the vocational track and have to work harder to stay out of it. The exceptionality of these girls proves how important and influential cultural capital is in shaping class futures. Only a small fraction of working-class and Mexican-American girls were upwardly mobile, largely due to the fact that they didn’t have the needed cultural capital. There had to be intervening factors, such as sports, private schools, or siblings, in order for these girls to gain the cultural capital needed to be mobile. Without this cultural capital, many of the working-class girls would have had the same future as their parents and remained working class. Cultural capital becomes key for shaping class
Color and brand worked as a tool of race/class distinction that not only showed class differences but it was also understood as different sexual identities among school members. Las chicas were seen more sexually active by their peers because of their appearance and behavior at school. Las chicas chose their outfits to show their bodies as much as they could but this was not parallel with that they were more sexually active than preps. Both the school personnel and preps misread las chicas’ styles because it was not about showing sexuality toward men but it was more about bonding and showing resistance against middle-class preps’ norms. However, las chicas more likely got pregnant during school and kept their babies than their white counterparts. But this was not because they were more sexually active but it was because they acquired different cultural capitals from their parents. Las chicas traditionally did not believed in abortion and did not get the knowledge about the usage of birth control pills from their parents. In contrast, middle-class preps were aware about birth control pills and their
Instead of loving and caring for her baby, and forgetting about Danny, she became worse than him. Rodriguez presents many aspects of the minority class that live in the United States, specifically the South Bronx. Even though the cases presented in Rodriguez’s short stories are difficult to mellow with, they are a reality that is constant in many lives. Everyday someone goes through life suffering, due to lack of responsibility, lack of knowledge, submission to another entity or just lack of wanting to have a better life. People that go through these situations are people who have not finished studying, so they have fewer opportunities in life.
As the United States developed and grew, upward mobility was central to the American dream. It was the unstated promise that no matter where you started, you had the chance to grow and proceed beyond your initial starting point. In the years following the Civil War, the promise began to fade. People of all races strived to gain the representation, acknowledgement and place in this society. To their great devastation, this hope quickly dwindled. Social rules were set out by the white folk, and nobody could rise above their social standing unless they were seen fit to be part of the white race. The social group to be impacted the most by this “social rule” was the African Americans. Black folk and those who were sympathetic to the idea of equal rights to blacks were targeted by the Ku Klux Klan. (Burton, 1998) The turning point in North Carolina politics was the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898. It was a very bold and outrageous statement from the white supremacists to the black folk. The Democratic white supremacists illegally seized power from the local government and destroyed the neighborhood by driving out the African Americans and turning it from a black-majority to a white-majority city. (Class Discussion 10/3/13) This event developed the idea that even though an African American could climb a ladder to becoming somebody in his or her city, he or she will never become completely autonomous in this nation. Charles W. Chesnutt discusses the issue of social mobility in his novel The Marrow of Tradition. Olivia Carteret, the wife of a white supremacist is also a half-sister to a Creole woman, Janet Miller. As the plot develops, we are able to see how the social standing of each woman impacts her everyday life, and how each woman is ...
Students were grouped by IQ, those who had an above average or higher were helped to go to college and those who had a low IQ’s were not given the support or the push needed to get them into college. Educators allowed low education standards and refused to see students as equals. The advisors set students sights low for the future by encouraging how service jobs were a practical choice for us Mexicans. Cleaning houses were the normal thing to do for Mexican-American females. Students were tired of the inadequate staff and the staff's lack of concern for their students. The students sent out a survey among the other students to see if they were satisfied with what they were getting from their education. The result was that the schools and instructors were not meeting the needs of the students’ more so of the Chicano students.
In Schools’ Discipline for Girls Differ by Race and Hue Tanzina Vega describes the situation with race discrimination in modern American schools. The author gives the history of a 12-years-old African-American school girl Mikia Hutchings, who was accused of a trespassing misdemeanor and a felony.
In the story Jubilee by Kirstin Valdez Quade A young very bright Latin American woman, Andrea, struggles with feeling like she’s been accepted in today’s society despite all of her achievements. These feelings tend to peak and turn negative whenever she’s around the family of her father’s lifelong employer, the Lowells, and in particularly their daughter Parker. Although the Lowells, as a whole seem to love Andrea and her family, she finds that their success and good fortune directly correlates to her family’s second rate citizenship. This story reveals that obsession with being accepted as an equal can be an ever increasing stressor that can severely damage a child’s identity, social skills and ultimately lead to misplaced resentment and
In order to broaden your understanding of [gender, race, class, incarceration, injustice, or any other social issue] , you should read Richard Rodriguez’s “The Achievement of Desire.” This piece of writing is a perfect example of working hard to achieve one 's goals even after crossing into a new country. Twenty years ago Richard first came to this country barely able to speak English, Richard had an ambition to be successful in life at an early age. The first time I read his article i thought i can relate to it at a personal level. I came to this country at the age of 9 years old. I remember when i first walked into my first middle school with my mom. She was registering me and my sister to the local middle school where some of my cousins were already attending. Since the “No Child Felt behind Act” was active, even kids like me with no papers were permitted to enjoy the same education like everyone else.
The author used archetype by the Mexicans calling: Maria, Marta, Yolanda, and Consuelo a ‘gringas’ multiple times, to emphasize the way they treat them behind their back. The four women are Mexican- American also known as Chicanas. And yet they consider them to be ‘gringas’ a Spanish word for a female English-speaker, anyone who is from the United States. For example, in the beginning, the Mexican men wanted to get the females attention, but over time they were discussing about them. One of them said, “they’re all gringas, no matter what color they are” (71). Meaning, that although they are Mexican-American, the Mexicans will only see the American part of their heritage. Even the bus boy thought the doctors to be ‘gringas’ too based on their Spanish speaking skills. He thinks that their Spanish is, “forced, self-conscious, too perfect, like from the books” (72). This implies that he believes that their Spanish is not natural like they only learned it for their job. As in Blood Lines Myth Indigenism and Chicana/o literature, Sheila Marie Contreras wrote an analyze piece on “Free Woman”. It agrees the fact that the racial identity on the, “Chicanas’ gringa statue is assigned based on their behavior” (159). The Mexicans from the short story will see the doctors as
People who come from low class families are always looked down. People believe that since we come from lower class income families that we can't change our status because we will fall into the trap of society which is telling us to either sell our bodies,sell drugs or join a gang to make ends meet.We know the importance of education and how valuable it is so we are going to college to and are going to have high paying jobs to change our economic status.In a novel called “Bodega Dreams” by Erensto Quinonez its taken from a perceptive of a Latino man called Chino trying to challenge society so he can change his status both economic wise and social wise.There was a time when Chino was taking a class that talked about changing the cultural identity
The intersection of dominant ideologies of race, class, and gender are important in shaping my social location and experiences. By exercising my sociological imagination (Mills, 1959), I will argue how my social location as an Asian American woman with a working class background has worked separately and together to influence how I behave, how others treat and view me, and how I understand the world. The sociological imagination has allowed me to understand my own “biography”, or life experiences by understanding the “history”, or larger social structures in which I grew up in (Mills, 1959). First, I will describe my family’s demographic characteristics in relation to California and the United States to put my analysis into context. I will then talk about how my perceptions of life opportunities have been shaped by the Asian-American model minority myth. Then, I will argue how my working class location has impacted my interactions in institutional settings and my middle/upper class peers. Third, I will discuss how gender inequalities in the workplace and the ideological intersection of my race and gender as an Asian-American woman have shaped my experiences with men. I will use Takaki’s (1999) concepts of model minority myth and American identity, Race; The Power of an Illusion (2003), Espiritu’s (2001) ideological racism, People Like Us: Social Class in America (1999) and Langston’s (2001) definition of class to support my argument.
The novel “Women Without class” by Julie Bettie, is a society in which the cultural you come from and the identity that was chosen for you defines who you are. How does cultural and identity illustrate who we are or will become? Julie Bettie demonstrates how class is based on color, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. The author describes this by researching her work on high school girls at a Central Valley high school. In Bettie’s novel she reveals different cliques that are associated within the group which are Las Chicas, Skaters, Hicks, Preps, and lastly Cholas and Cholos. The author also explains how race and ethnicity correspondence on how academically well these students do. I will be arguing how Julie Bettie connects her theories of inequality and culture capital to Pierre Bourdieu, Kimberle Crenshaw, Karl Marx and Engels but also how her research explains inequality among students based on cultural capital and identity.
... individual occurs because [of] that individual’s membership in a particular group” revealing that a Puerto Rican’s identity as a Puerto Rican, as an immigrant, as a minority part of the lower class, racializes them, creating drawbacks that are arduous and can be impossible to overcome, as in the case of her cousin Nelson, who being just as smart as Sotomayor, is burdened with an addiction that restricts him from succeeding (Schuette 45; Sottomayor 106). In 1972, Princeton, a prestigious school, was dominantly populated by upper class white males, causing the culture and heritage of many Puerto Ricans and other minority students to clash with dominantly white, upper class culture of the prestigious university. Therefore, race, considered in a historical frame of reference, reveals that Puerto Ricans cannot help but unearth the multiple privileges and opportunities
It would have been helpful if more information was provided, other than the repeated theme of there being lack of support offered to youth by counselors and teachers. This documentary could have been boosted through quantitative research showing that Latino schools (and those who resource them) are inherently at fault for Latino youth being failed by the education system. Research like the kind done by Anyon would be perfect to pair with the anecdotal evidence provided in The Graduates. Anyon’s study shows that low-class students are taught in a completely different way than working and upper-class students, and a memorization-focused, innovation-lacking curriculum works to reinforce existing power structures (Anyon, p. 90). Infusing this type of research into the film would have provided supplementary evidence for the actual difference that exists in minority
The novel identifies the three main social classes which are the upper class (Da Ros), the middle class (Arroyo Blanco residents) and lower class (Mexican immigrants), and this further explains the characteristics of the people in each class. The lower classes is associated with the poor, people who have little control over resources, power and prestige, compared to the middle class who are better off than the former. The novel focuses on two main class which are the middle and the lower class and the effect of socioeconomic status on people.
There are many structural equivalence models of how school context combined with class, race, gender, language, and ability status play a role in education access and opportunity. The way students perform in school can be identified by his/her engagement and attachment. Students can also be categorized by the type of student they may become the ideological feature of their racial and ethnic identities (Cater: 2005: 27). Being a female, first generation, Mexican-American, I have experienced many advantages and disadvantages in the educational system. As a result, human, cultural, and social capital has been imported in education, which is essential in student’s educational career.