Internal Struggles

When I was reading in Barrio Dreams problems of elitism within El Barrio, it reminded me of the internal problems faced by the Mexican American Civil Rights Movements of the 1960's- by Gentrification. The problems that lay in groups like the Mexican American Political Association [MAPA] and the Community Service Organisation CSO, encouraged Caesar Chavez to form the United Farm Workers (UFW). I found the similarity between attitudes towards middle-class Mexican groups in the sixties similar to those felt in New York's Mexican groups, like UNIMEX and AMAT since “most Mexican activists in El Barrio described themselves as local alternatives to the Mexican Consulate...they saw themselves as correctives to its elitist orientation,”(p.176) showing the problems of a missing element of grass roots representation in the boards of community organisations.

These Mexicans did not migrate out of economic need, are employed and have an education. Lower class Mexicans believe that while these groups intentions are good at heart, they are “emphasising choice and consumption [rather] than East Harlem's neediest”(p.223) and that they “control this type of development for themselves and for El Barrio.” (p.223) Within the work that the middle-class achieve, there exists an importance of achieving business for their own entrepreneurial existences, and that sometimes less well off people's need are placed second.

The “hierarchy of Latindad, to distance oneself from the lowest ranked racial/ethnic groups, is to estrange oneself from Puerto Ricans and increasingly Dominicans.” Seemed to me to be another recognition of separation between groups similar to that of the Civil Rights struggle of the sixties. Since some activist groups refused to work together with others, because they felt that their struggles were so different. Here, in this article, there is a tone that between groups, they see other Latino groups as “lazy, uneducated, loud and especially “uncultured” as compared to Mexicans”(p.171) Problems of the “good” and “bad” stereotypical immigrant citizen then come into use that have negative consequences on the community as a whole.