THERE IS POWER IN NUMBERS
BY A.O.
You take a look
at your surroundings and you notice things, people even. Over time you start to
notice the differences in these surroundings and to whom do you owe this change
to? Who’s in charge of the shift in policy, the availability of homes, even the
prices of your food? Imagine what Los Angeles was like in the early 20th
century where Mexican migrants were a normality. Ask yourself… how can the
barriozation of Mexicans in Los Angeles be explained? According to El Pueblo
History on Mexicans in the city of Los Angeles, due to “the rapid growth of
agriculture, light industry and the transportation infrastructure” thousands of
Mexican families migrated to Los Angeles for work. This was observed in the
first lecture of this course when we discussed the Mexican revolution in the
1910-1920s. Much lower income Mexican immigrants were brought into the US to be
a part of the Bracero Program, which basically was a plan to have a steady
supply of inexpensive labor that would then be sent back to Mexico after the
work was complete. This plan backfired when Mexicans ended up staying in the
US.
The problem with
this was that Mexicans became a “problem” that now had to be dealt with.
Instead of accepting them as people that were different, they were treated as
pests and secluded into the small spaces of the barrios of Los Angeles.
Cognitive maps from the 1990’s show differences by race and socioeconomic
status. Mexicans were shown to occupy the least space and had the least opportunities
to embrace. This is startling when you consider the amount of space Mexicans
occupied in the early part of the 20th century. One of the most
important barrios known as The Plaza, from 1920-1940, was “de-Mexicanized” in
order to make Los Angeles the best US city. City elites used tactics like urban
renewal, eminent domain and tourism to make sure this was done. Little by
little, the Plaza was transformed from an area where segregation of Mexicans
took place, to becoming a tourist spot like Olvera Street.
I argue that
Mexicans have been oppressed by obstacles that were set up blatantly to get rid
of them. Although city elites made it almost impossible not to have to
segregate to barrios, Mexicans chose to stick together and find the strength
they possessed in numbers. Some saw it as good thing instead to have everyone
and everything they need within their community. An example of this was shown
in lecture about Boyle Heights in present time where Mexican residents urge the
community to support their businesses in order to keep their neighborhood the
way it is. This reflects the attitude Mexicans have had in the past where
segregation worked in their favor. I believe this is the key to transforming
barriozation into a positive all around because this will show how Mexicans can
work together to build their socioeconomic status.
References:
City of Los
Angeles Seal El Pueblo De Los Angeles Historical Monument City of Los Angeles
Flag. (n.d.). Retrieved February 07, 2017, from http://elpueblo.lacity.org/historyeducation/ElPuebloHistory/Mexicans/index.html
Sanchez, G. J.
(1993). Becoming Mexican American: ethnicity, culture, and identity in
Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945. New York: Oxford University Press.
Love the way you started the blog. You started with questions that everyone can relate to. I like how you described one of many causes of why there are Mexicans living in the U.S., especially in Los Angeles. I do agree with your statements, as we can see history does repeat. Mexicans, like any other Latin American ethnicity, are become a “problem” in today’s era.
ReplyDeleteMany Latin American barrios are trying to stay together because they’ve been living in those neighborhood since they could remember, just like you described with the Mexican community in Los Angeles. I do agree that in order for Latin American communities/barrios not to change, people there should gather and fight for what belongs to them, for example, like you have stated “residents” should “urge the community to support their businesses in order to keep their neighborhood the way it is.” Reason being, everyone has the right to have a place where they feel like they are back at HOME.
Your blog post was very informative. It's amazing how minorities use their segregation as a positive cue for uniting. I did not know that they would work together to build their socioeconomic status.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the set up of your blog post. I liked the idea of how in the beginning you spoke about the barrioization of Mexicans and how they were shown as a negative impact to Los Angeles. But then in the last paragraph, you wrote about how some of the Mexicans took the barrioization as a positive thing and came together as a community which I believe is very important. Without all of them uniting together, it wouldn't have been possible to look past all the hardships they faced.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very great blog. I really like how you hooked the reader with that beginning paragraph and transitioned you point over to the next paragraph. I liked how you began with the background on Barrioization and explained the causes of it and later of transitioned to the effect it had. And I think it was great how In the ending you added your own opinion to the article.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post. It was really smart to discuss both the positives and negatives of barrioization. Without the formation of barrios, there would e a possibility that cultural markers like Chicano Park would never be formed. It's nice to see that there was a sort of silver lining to all the displacement and separation the Mexican community had to endure in the early 1900's and to see that there community was able to grow from this struggle.
ReplyDelete