Chicanos Essay -- Mexican American History Culture Race Essays

Chicanos With the advancements in technology today, the process of learning has become easier. Instead of just reading, one can look at video documentaries or web sites to acquire information they need or want. In my Latinos in the U.S. class, we have access to all types of information in our quest to learn about Mexican-American history. By reading Zaragosa Vargas= Problems in Mexican-American History, looking at the Chicano Park web site and viewing part one of the Chicano! video documentary, I have encountered a variety of representations of Mexican-American history. However they are not all of the same quality for the video and web site do not give as much information as the readings in Vargas= book or the class lectures and discussions do. Both the video and web site touch on a very small portion Mexican-American history, however, they only refer to the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo established in 1848 and that Mexicans are of Aztlan heritage. Chicano Park, is an area seventeen miles north of the United States-Mexico border in San Diego County. It was established in 1905 as Logan Heights and became known as Barrio Logan by the large Mexican population that exists in it. This population has a distinguished history that is told in the web site. One may think that this is the history of all Mexican-Americans, but it is not. The effect of certain events that occurred in Mexican-American history on this community and California, such as the Chicano Civil Rights Movement and the Chicano Moratorium march against the Vietnam war, is addressed. The major outcome of these events emphasized by the web site is the influence it had on art in the Mexican-American culture. However, the history and other effects on al... ...liable, which just coincides with the fact that so many people have access to the web and can post anything they want to, so who knows if it is really worth believing. The video, on the other hand, is a good educational tool because it shows actual footage. The only fault is that it does not tell the whole history which might make it a little difficult to understand. Lastly, the textbook is the best source because it contains actual documents from time periods throughout the whole Mexican-American history, from the beginning to the present which is what gives us a full understanding of the events that occur. Bibliography Chicano! (Part1) -- http://www.pbs.org/chicano/index.html Chicano Park-- http://chicanopark.org/ Figueroa, Luis. (Lecture Notes) Zaragosa Vargas. Major Problems in Mexican American History. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999)