Chicano

Since the 1960’s Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, I think that some things have changed. Although some things still remain the same. As far as schooling and education go, I think that kids even nowadays don’t really get pushed into looking forward to attending college. They don’t hear about college until they get into their high school years. The only reason that I ended up attending college was because my parents raised me to be independent and be more successful than they were. My parents were the ones that really pushed me into wanting to go to college. I don’t really think that schools really put the idea of college into a student’s thinking until the last couple years of high school. I had to do my own research, wasn’t really thinking of what school I wanted to attend, and did not really care about my GPA. Until I started attending community college, I then realized how important my high school grades were but no one really pushed me in that direction. The only reason that I really wanted to keep my grades at a passing grade was because I was on the soccer team and if I wasn’t passing my classes I was not able to play. I never really felt pushed out of school but never really felt like if I left it would be a big loss. Other things that still remain the same are the following issues: high drop out rates, crumbling schools, and lack of Mexican American teachers.

This film really concentrated on the how Mexican-American’s residing in East LA was fighting for equal education. It really demonstrates the power that many people taking action for a single purpose can make. It displays the walk outs that took place in the 1960’s. It is very emotional because I was not made aware of what had taken place during this movement. In school we never discussed this aspect of the civil rights movement. I feel really embarrassed that I did not know what had happened. It caught me by surprise that events like these would not be taught in class. I think that this just goes to show that people still have some reservations against minorities. This will always be present as long as one group of people is afraid of losing power. The producers of this video made a great effort at making the film as truthful as possible. They did this by interviewing actual participants and showing actual photos of the events taken place. It takes you through a journey of how these events have effected the actual participants, it kind of helps you relate because they are actually there and ALIVE. I cannot comprehend living back then and having to deal to that extent, the inequality that they fought for so hard. I thought it was kind of cool