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Manifest Destiny: Chicano Civil Rights Movement

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Manifest Destiny: Chicano Civil Rights Movement
Joshua A. Rivas

HIST-32-CO1

Justin Hampton

December 7, 2015

“Manifest Destiny”

Imagine a young boy living in Mexico in 1846. People are fighting all around him. He is scared because these strange people who speak a foreign language are trying to take his home. His father and two older brothers have gone to fight these newcomers. All he is able to do is wonder why these men have come to take what is not theirs. The reason these strange people are invading his country is because they feel that it is their entitlement. They call this “privilege” of theirs Manifest Destiny. However, this term is a disgrace to the American name. It is nothing but an excuse for the United States to do whatever it pleases without consequence. Throughout history, …show more content…
That was the circumstance during the Chicano Civil Rights movement. Chicanos had been mistreated ever since the start of the Bracero program. Land owners had not acted humanely towards their workers. There were countless exploitations of these workers such as: no portable toilets, insufficient shade, their pay for the work they did was deplorable, etc. However, despite these wrongdoings, law enforcement did nothing to stop these criminalities. Manifest Destiny stepped in once again and made the farm owners “better” than those “no good” Mexicans. Even though many of the workers were U.S. citizens, because they were also Chicano, they were somehow not worthy of having the same basic human rights that are endowed to every man woman and child. In addition to not their terrible working conditions, they did not have a labor union who represented them. Two organizations attempted to represent them, but the farm owners would not recognize them. Workers were afraid to strike against their employers because they knew that if there were any problems the boss could easily get more people who were willing to work under those circumstances. These workers had no chance to make a living for themselves. Manifest Destiny was giving the farm owners initiative to treat these people like yesterday’s garbage, and it was also making the authorities turn a blind eye to these wrong doings. In due course, Manifest Destiny was taken care of when a young Chicano named Cesar Chavez was finally able to unionize the farm workers. Thanks to him, the National Farm Worker Association was founded in 1962, but they would not be able to complete their task of gaining decent working conditions for the workers until 1970 (“The Rise of the UFW.”). Manifest Destiny makes peoples lives miserable. Nothing in this world can give someone the prerogative to take away someone’s fundamental human rights. The way these
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