This chapter mainly focused on the amount of segregation and discrimation regarding Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, African Americans and Puerto Ricans. Mexican Americans and the Asian Americans were treated the worst of these groups, they had their cultures removed. The Mexicans were members of a higher class when the Americas made it to their territory. The Americans forced both the high class and the low class of Mexicans into one social class and took over their land. The Mexicans who once owned all of this land were now working on it for extremely low wages. The American treatment of the Mexicans is extremely harsh and should be seen as one of the lower points in American history. I can only imagine the way that these events are percieved in Mexican history classes. The treatment of the Mexicans represents many of the same sentiments which are seen with the Chinese Americans after the 1850s. The Chinese Americans were the first set of immigrants to have laws passed against them which specifically prevented them from coming to the United States for work. Many of these immigrant groups were not allowed rights to naturalization and were forced to recieve education in segregated schools. It wasn’t until the 1950s with Brown vs Board of Ed that problems with segregation were only beginning to get solved. It is extremely difficult to celebrate America being a nation of many cultures when most of the American history is one of stripping people of their culture and imposing this Anglo-Saxon dominiant culture upon them. America should celebrate all the different cultures instead of just trying to focus in on one, the story of America begins way before Columbus arrived which most people are not aware of. The American story is one of conquest and bloodshed with events like the Trail of Tears which led to a lot of Native American deaths. The idea of the common school has failed terribly, the success of the system came in everything being equal for all the students and I believe a good start would be embracing all the cultures involved in the making of this nation.
I do not believe that even today the sentiments towards immigrants have changed. After the events of 9/11 there has been this increased sense of patriotism. Of course naturally every country would see themselves as being the best but Americans tend to put themselves ahead by putting others down. In the past year the DREAM Act was filibustered in Congress. The DREAM Act would have guaranteed illegal aliens who graduate high school American citizenship. Don’t you think if the sentiments had changed that a bill like this could easily pass through Congress?
