Border People: The Chicano Movement

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The only types of borders we were taught at school in geography lessons were geographical borders and boundaries when we were young. Growing up and seeing the society closely shows that being in one geographical boundary, but we can still be divided by other physically invisible borders. Borders may not only be in physical forms; they may take the shape of economic, cultural, legislative or social borders. Socially speaking, the Hispanics have been marginalized because of the so called difference. They have been marginalized for being ‘poor Hispanics’ according to their economic status. These borders have always existed. The poor illegal immigrants who have penetrated in America in search of better future have been forced to work under low…show more content…
This movement was originated as a part of the student movements and walkouts and went on to become an important movement which raised the Mexicans consciousness against racism and made them more politically and socially aware. This movement was actually a reaction against stereotyping of Mexicans and racist behaviors towards them. Chicano movement was not only a political awareness movement but was also accompanied with an equally aware arts and literature movement. This was done through the production of literary and visual art works that validated and propagated the Mexican American ethnicity and their culture practices. Sombrero hats were a part of this great cultural and ethnic awareness. Add cation in this green paragraph from “ Border People by Oscar J. Martines” about Chicano…show more content…
Not all Mexican kids wear sombrero hats to school or drink tequila all the time or wear ponchos. They wear regular everyday clothes like all Americans. But whenever the question of representation arises, we see that they are constantly stereotyped in media in a negative way. They are either depicted as being drunk or being extremely poor with hats on their heads as a characteristic symbol. They are not just used to depict a rich culture, but rather employed as a tool to isolate this group socially. If we see recent incidents, after all this campaign to promote racism, example portraying inequality like the two may be seen which occurred on national television recently, as some morning personalities parodied Cinco de Mayo. Recently an MSNBC show episode was criticized which portrayed Louis Burgdorf dancing and swinging from a tequila bottle. The act was done wearing a Mexican hat. The Hispanic Jounalists resisted the move strongly and labelled it as being discriminatory towards a selected and targeted group of people (Inforwar n.p.). In another show called Good Morning America, Laura Spencer called a date “Cinco de Drinko” while at the same time portrayed drinking a margarita (Gurule
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