Search

This study examined whether the ideology of machismo, and the relegation of women to a subordinate, inferior status, is essentially a class-based phenomenon, found primarily among poor and uneducated, working-class immigrant Mexican men, or an endemic cultural trait and value. After comparing the responses on the Mirandé Sex Role Inventory (MSRI), a measure of traditional gender roles, of a sample of Day Laborer, immigrant men who work in the secondary labor market in menial, low wage jobs with those of more educated, largely non-immigrant, men who are part of the primary labor market and have higher wage stable jobs, we concluded that Latino masculinity is varied and complex, and that there is not one but a wide range and variety of Latino masculinities. Although the Day Laborers consistently scored higher on the Traditionalism items on the MSRI than the Chicano sample, and endorsed traditional beliefs that restrict women's behavior and/or activities and reinforce the double sexual standard, the results of separate factor analyses conducted with 2 or 3 components, revealed considerable overlap and consistency in the two samples on the various components of the MSRI, particularly the Traditionalism Factor, suggesting that there is a Traditionalism dimension that is found across two extremely diverse samples. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of social movements little scholarly attention has been given to the Chicano Civil Rights Movement (CCRM). This project attempts to describe why the Chicano Civil Rights Movement was unsuccessful with respect to national outcomes, compared to the Black Insurgency and the Black Civil Rights Movement given similar conditions. This project uses secondary data sources, historical documents, and legal briefs to reconstruct the meanings and motives to analyze the movement and its outcomes. It is my contention that there was a lack of unity and solidarity among Chicano social movement organizations in creating a national collective to fight for Chicano civil rights. This is due to Mexicans tying their identity to Whiteness to escape racial hegemony experienced by people of color in the United States. Cultural nationalistic ideologies served to mobilize the activist base of many Chicano Social Movement Organizations. Unfortunately, the narrow ideals associated with ethnic mobilization alienated social justice organizers and groups which lead to the eventual decline of the movement. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An active area in the study of group mobilizational processes can be linked to new social movement theory. Analysts employing this framework have highlighted the affective connections that motivate individuals to act, while examining the importance of ideology, culture, and symbolic constructions, to group solidarity. Noting that solidaristic behavior can be facilitated by the various cultural elements, this paper examines the importance of cultural appeals within social movements. Cultural appeals through art, history, and myth are explored as tools for creating group solidarity and encouraging collective action. In particular, this study focuses attention to the introduction of symbolic figures and concepts into the broader Mexican-American civil rights movement. Primary and secondary sources of data are both utilized to examine the manner in which Chicano activists employed culture as a resource. Through examining the Mexican-American civil rights movement one becomes aware of the creative efforts used by groups to appeal and mobilize potential constituents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following study examines and compares Alfredo Mirandé's (1997) findings of the varying and often times more egalitarian Latino gender role beliefs of a group of middle class Latino men to a sample Latino Day Laborers. A critical component in this study is the application of Mirandé's own Latino culturally sensitive scale, the Mirandé Sex Role Inventory (MSRI). Our expectations where that due to the fact that our sample where more recent migrants with greater cultural and traditional ties to Latino culture, the Day Laborers would score higher on traditional gender role beliefs associated with machismo. Our findings supported our expectations but also introduced possible inclinations towards egalitarian gender role beliefs. Thus our research suggests that although various traditional notions of gender role beliefs may exist among Latino men, they nonetheless cannot be considered a homogenous group for the complexities, in this instance the experience of migration, that exist within Latino men's construction of gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comparative analysis of artwork produced in the context of social movements waged by Mexicans and Chicanos (U.S. inhabitants of Mexican origin) during the two decades between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s. Despite the fact that activists in these movements shared many elements of Mexican culture and history, were part of the same generation of radical social movements born in the 1960s, and experienced some significant interchange among movement participants from each side of the U.S.-Mexico border, an examination of movement art reveals significant differences in key elements of the movements? collective identity and expression of political citizenship. Analysis of the artwork also highlights different aesthetic choices made by movement artists, particularly with regard to the deployment of formal elements associated with the ?Mexican School? of art made famous by artists associated with the Mexican Revolution of the early 20th century. Variations in the representational strategies developed by movement artists reflect the distinct relationship of movement constituents in Mexico and the U.S. to each nation?s prevailing regimes of accumulation and modes of regulation. The following analysis is based on an examination of 374 pieces of art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature can connect people to one another in powerful ways, allowing them to see overlap which can be turned into a realization of commonality and solidarity in the outside world. The imaginative experience of traveling through reading can involve reconstruction of the self that reworks previous conceptions of the world and of the self. Since reading (at least temporarily, if not permanently) provides the reader new lenses with which to view herself and the world, this study investigates the links between the external cultural world and the internal personal world. This project asks: How do people differentially construct meanings from texts in ways that are significant to them? When reading supposedly ?ethnic??that is, non-mainstream Anglo-American or British?literature, how do readers from the same ethnic group as the author connect and respond? I conducted participant observation and interviews in the ?Chicano Narrative? senior seminar offered by the English Department of the University of California at Berkeley, finding that ethnicity is indeed a valuable port of entry into the texts. More than ethnicity alone, but the life experiences of the readers helped shape the interpretations they crafted from the texts. Latinos reading Chicano literature found a sense of strength in community (with the authors, the texts, and the other Latino students) that validated their personal and group experience. This community and validation elevated Latino students? evaluation of their socio-cultural backgrounds and provided them with confidence in their sense of self and their place in American society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This discussion will focus on my book in progress. My topic concerns a classic problem in the sociolog of Mexican Americans, Hispano, or "Spanish" identity in New Mexico. Rather than viewing it as a form of false consciousness, I am developing the argument that it actually represented an instance of ethnic natinalism. The political context for developing a sense of Hispano nation was the movement for statehood in New Mexico. I argue that statehood held out the possibility of a form of ethnic self-governance within the constraints of American nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]