Carmen Padilla

WRIT 2

Fall 2015

Chicano is a vulgar word, or at least it used to be. To be considered Chicano in the late 50s
and early 60s meant that you didnt belong anywhere (not Mexico and certainly not the United
States). This soon changed when The Chicano Movement arose. The Movement adopted the term
Chicano, an American of Mexican descent, creating a positive spin on the once negative term.
Soon many people were identifying as Chicanos. Among them were university students, which led
to the introduction of university courses and later departments. The Chicano Movement was not
very inclusive of Chicanas and so educational programs such as the one here at UCSB take special
care when addressing Chicano/a Studies. It is always addressed as Chicano/a. The slash and a
makes sure that women are equally represented within the community which is very important. It
is important to include women and other minorities within the Chicano/a Studies community
because the main goal of Chicano/a Studies is to create a better life for minority populations. In
order to construct a more activist outlook on life in respect to social injustices, Chicano/a Studies
strives to understand what causes social and racial inequality using logical and emotional appeal.
Chicano Studies 1A is an introductory course that forms a discourse community. According
to Swales, discourse communities are groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication
to achieve these goals."(Swales, 2011) The purpose of CH ST 1A is stated by Professor
Armbruster, Chicano/a Studies is about facing and transforming reality. He deems that in order
to become an activist, one must first learn about ones history. He places a very strong emphasis
on action. (Armbruster, 2015) Like Armbruster, the UCSB Chicano/a Studies department
homepage focuses on engaging students in the history, politics, and culture of Chicano/as in
order to better link theory with practice, and the academy with the community. The department
focuses on taking the skills learned in the classroom and using these to become activists within the
community. (UCSB CH ST, 2015) The purpose of Chicano/a Studies is for students to better

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understand the struggles of the Chicano/a community in order to become involved in activist
circles.
In order to reach this goal, logical appeal is used to reach students. An example of logical
appeal used in CH ST 1A is historical accuracy. It is the true presentation of facts such as statistics,
dates, and happenings. An example of historical accuracy is presented in Stolls article
Comprehensive Immigration Reform and US Labor Markets where he uses statistics such as
60% of construction workers in Texas are Latino in order to inform the audience. This is
effective because his argument is taking a controversial stance that without proper historical
accuracy can confuse or misinform the reader. Students looking forward to taking CH ST 1A can
expect to have arguments authored by more experienced members supported by multiple facts,
statistics and historical dates, such as Stoll. The authors within the community are appropriately
communicating the data compiled by trustworthy sources (US Census) in order to enhance their
arguments (Stoll, 2015). Historical accuracy is a strategy employed to eliminate false perceptions.
These repel the authors credibility and essentially deteriorate the writers argument. Another
strategy used to counter false perception is historical illumination.
Historical illumination is the emphasis on history that pertains to minorities. Minority
history is important to know in order to understand history as a whole. An example of historical
illumination is Howard Zinns Columbus, Indians, and Human Progress which presents the
Anglo conquistadores entering new territories and the indigenous population decimation caused
by the Anglo invaders (Zinn, 1997). It is important to illuminate minority history of different
because only through illumination will the understanding necessary to motivate action appear. The
goal of Chicano/a Studies is to fuel activism through understanding and appeal to emotion.

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Chicano/a studies depends heavily on appeal to emotion. Chicano/a professors aim to incite
change outside of the classroom and so they use emotional appeal to create a connection between
students in order to provoke action. The use of personal accounts heightens the connection between
audience and author by sparking outrage and sadness. This develops the activist outlook that is the
goal and essence of Chicano/a studies. Personal accounts appeal to emotion, or the natural
processes of the mind and many times emotional appeal can supersede other types of persuasion.
An example from my Chicano/ Studies class that effectively showcases personal accounts
appealing to emotion begins with the professor calling for comments about a narrative assigned
for reading. The Circuit portrays the life of a young boy who is a migrant farm worker and the
struggles he faces. (Jimenez, 1997) A female student towards the back of the lecture hall comments
on the book relating the struggles of the protagonist to her own. She shares how she has worked
the Central Californian farms with her parents her whole life, and she continues to do so in the
summers because of rising tuition. She mumbles through her tears and the hall is quiet as she
finishes up her personal account. The class claps for her and her struggles. This shows how the
Chicano/a Studies community can become emotionally moved through personal accounts. This
fuels the goal of the community which is to take action against social injustices such as those faced
by the Chicano protagonist of The Circuit and the young woman from the back of Chicano/a
Studies class.
The goal of the class is to create an activist outlook within new students. Students are
introduced to Alice McGrath by Professor Armbruster because of her life work as a social activist.
Alice McGrath is a Jewish female activist who worked on the controversial Los Angeles Sleepy
Lagoon Defense Committee where she helped 13 young Mexicans from wrongful incarceration.
In doing so she formed a group of different minority races all fighting common injustices. Alice

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McGrath is a veteran of the Chicano/a Studies community. Her activist outlook and involvement
in many campaigns against social injustices present in the US, such as the Zoot Suit Riots and
Nicaraguan missions, is what all novices of the community should aspire to.
The Chicano/a Studies community attempts to hand each student a toolkit with valuable
conventions in an effort to eradicate social injustices, among these is historical accuracy, historical
illumination, and emotional appeal through personal accounts. These aid the community in its
progression from learners/novices to activists/experts. The call to action against social injustices
affecting the Chicano/a community is instilled in all the forms of communication in this
community, from academic articles to personal accounts.

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Works Cited
Sandoval, Ralph Armbruster. Fall Quarter 2015 Chicana/o Studies 1A: Introduction to Chicana/o
Studies (History). Chicano/a Studies Department UCSB.
"Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies - UC Santa Barbara." Department of Chicana and
Chicano Studies - UC Santa Barbara. Web. 16 Oct. 2015.
Gonzalez, Juan. Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America (Revised

Edition). New

York: Penguin. 2011. Print.

Jimnez, Francisco. The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child. Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press. 1997. Print.
Stoll, David. Comprehensive Immigration and U.S. Labor Markets: Dilemma for Progressive
Labor. New Labor Forum. Sage Publications Inc. 24.1 (2015): 76-85. Print.
Swales, John. Writing about Writing. Boston. Bedford St. Martins. 2011. Print.
Zinn, Howard. A people's history of the United States. New York. New York Press. 1997. Print.