Chicanx Student Movement Essay

The Chicanx Student Movement was driven by college students. The Chicanx Student Movement advocated for many inequalities being done to their community, such as poor education, limited heath care, and racial profiling that would restrict self-determination. The Asian Student Movement also came together by college students who wished to bridge their community both from the inside and outside of the education system. This was very similar to the other civil rights movement–bringing awareness and advocating for unjust acts faced by their communities. The Asian students influenced their peers and other Asian students–regardless of the generation they have been in the U.S.– to demand courses where students could be knowledgeable of their Asian ancestry

These students identified themselves as Chicanx students, not just any kind of students, but as Chicanx students– “reflect[ing] self-respect and pride in one’s ethnic and cultural background; thus the Chicano acts, with confidence and with a range of alternatives in the political world.”1 This led Chicanx students to be proactive in bridging their community together by brining awareness and educating their community of the unjust acts. Similarity, the Asian Student Movement also demanded ethnic courses be taught in schools about their own community–bringing an enormous value to their tribute to the U.S. Thus, they referred themselves as the “Third World,” acknowledging that the dominant culture suppressed those from the black community, those from the Chicanx community, and those from the Asian community–“yellow power.” In “On Strike!” San Francisco College Strike 1968-69,” Karen Umemoto states, “As Third World students, as Third World, as so-called minorities, we are being exploited to the fullest in this racist people for a prolonged struggle for freedom from this yoke of oppression.” The Asian students were requesting the same rights as any other human