Cotton must be picked within a very narrow harvest time. If it is not harvested when the time is right much of the production will be lost. It was the intent of the workers to time the strike so that it would have the greatest impact on owners in hopes that it would force them to raise wages for workers. However, many of the owners did not see the migrant workers as American citizens and treated them much as slaves were treated in the old South. They used tear-gas, saw-off shotguns, and arrested workers that participated in the strike (Guerin-Gonzales, p. 121).
Schools were closed and children were used to make up for the lost workforce. They also recruited cotton pickers from Texas to fill the labor gap (Guerin-Gonzales, p. 128). These substitutions reduced the impact of the strike and many migrants lost their positions as a result. The strike did not have the impact that they had hoped for.
The strike was a result of economic conditions that affected the rest of the country, not just migrant workers in the Southwestern cotton industry. All across the nation, labor strikes attempted to take power from wealth factory owners and raise living conditions for workers. The failure of the 1933 cotton strike fueled feelings among many Americans that Mexican migrant workers took jobs away from Americans that were more deserving....
Chicano/Mexican Culture History In the United States: Conflict and Assimilation in the Contemporary American Society American society is described by many historians and social scientists to be a "melting pot" of cultures, and pseudo-societies of people with different races and nationalities. This is because throughout the years that America had been established as a stable political and economic society, a sudden influx of migration occurred, resulting to the arrival of numerous
Ethnic Studies Pachucos are Mexican-American youth, who are generally ages of thirteen to twenty-two who belonged to juvenile gangs between 1930s to the 1950s.they, developed their own subculture during this period and were located in the southwestern United States. They were generally referred to as zoot- suites by mainstream media due to the distinctive clothes that they wore. It is speculated that the origin of Pachuquismo as it being connected to
Chicano Identity in Literature Culture In "My Name" by Sandra Cisneros, the principle character's name is Esperanza. Esperanza's problem, at first, seems only to be displeasure with her name. She is certainly displeased with her name. She is disappointed with the meaning of her name in her native tongue, Spanish. She is frustrated and perplexed with the persistent difficulty that Americans have pronouncing her Chicana name. Esperanza wishes she could be lucky,
American Ethnic Literature There are so many different voices within the context of the United States. This country is one which is built on cultural differences. Yet, for generations the only voices expressed in literature or from the white majority. Contemporary American ethnic literature is important in that it reflects the multifaceted nature of life in the United States. It is not pressured by the white majority anymore, but is rather
Down These Mean Streets believe that every child is born a poet, and every poet is a child. Poetry to me was always a very sacred form of expression. (qtd. In Fisher 2003) Introduction / Background History Born Juan Pedro Tomas, of Puerto Rican and Cuban parents in New York City's Spanish Harlem in 1928, Piri Thomas began his struggle for survival, identity, and recognition at an early age. The vicious street
We speak a patois, a forked tongue, a variation of two languages. Chicano Spanish sprang out of the Chicanos' need to identify ourselves as a distinct people. We needed a language with which we could communicate with ourselves, a secret language. For some of us, language is a homeland closer than the Southwest -- for many Chicanos today live in the Midwest and the East." The border language becomes a language
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now