Chicanos in Academe

Chicanos in Academe
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Chicanos in Academe
This paper provides an analysis of the arguments made by Adalberto Aguirre. Jr. in A Chicano Farmworker in Academe, and Tatcho Mindiola, Jr. in Getting Tenure at the U. Moreover, my claim about the relationship between the arguments of the two authors is made, and the claim is supported using grounds from the articles. The main discussion is to put across claims that add up to the main thesis of the paper which I state as: The practice of perpetuating and fueling the myth that minorities are not completely qualified for academic positions, of employing underrepresented minorities for only particular specialized ethnic departments, and of limiting the numbers of minorities in mainstream departments are clear manifestations of racism (Aguirre 21).
Arguments made by Aguirre. Jr. in A Chicano Farmworker in Academe
In the article, the author makes three main arguments. Aguirre argues that the purposeful segregation of some people from total participation in academe is really an unpleasant thought. According to Aguirre (18), the working-class background, race, ethnicity, and gender are vital in shaping the presence of an individual in academe. The author argues that these status attributes actually change people into strangers in academe – the working class, minorities and women. The social expectations such as the ones which structure the ordering and sorting of these status attributes in daily life constrain people possessing them from taking part in certain sectors in academe. As such, it is not easy for people from the minority communities to negotiate their own presence (Aguirre 18).
The author argues that the minority faculty person is at the moment even more of a stranger in academe and his/her presence is segregated and marginal in academe. At the University of California at Riverside, Chicano Studies Program was disestablished and this surprised Chicano students, staff, and faculty alike (Aguirre 19). The segregation of faculty members by other faculty members because of their status traits basically reduces their contextual presence in academe. In academe, it is common, for instance, to find the minority and women faculty members interacting more frequently with each other than interacting with white male faculty members. As a result, the author points out that Caucasian male faculty commonly refer to minority and women faculty as clannish (Aguirre 21). For ethnic and racial minority faculty, their segregation from networks controlled by white male faculty is an extension of their subordinate role in society (Aguirre 21). The author states that the exclusion of people perceived to be strangers – minority and women faculty – in academe from networks which are controlled by Caucasian male faculty essentially serves to limit both the continuity as well as progress of these people in academe. Secondly, the author argues that minorities and women in academe need to work harder so as to maintain continuity in their academic presence. Third, he argues that the role model concept is of major importance in maintaining minorities and women in academe as segregated and peripheral participants (Aguirre 25).
Arguments mad...