Running head: Reflection Essay

Reflection essay

Hunter Beach

ETHS 2430

12/06/2017

Salt Lake Community College

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Write a Reflection on the course learning objectives

I have always felt that the version of American history I was taught seemed like

everything interesting was always happening on the east coast. I had always
Running head: Reflection Essay

assumed that the history books focused on the major events, but now I am aware

of a certain overlooking the issues of the Latino community.

For example, there is Brown v. Board of Education, A major court case for civil rights in

America, except it references an earlier case that I had never heard of before this

class Mendez v. Westminster. The reason this case is so important is it

established precedent for Brown v. Mendez v Westminster, this is a huge and

important part of our history, and it set the stage for desegregating schools

nationwide.

There is also another historic event that I wasnt aware of before this class. I am

referring to the Chicano movement as a whole. I have always thought of the civil

rights movement being primarily an eastern and southern united states affair.

Lots of protesting all over the country but with the major events happening in the

east. I had never heard of Cesar Chavez or the Chicano movement. The fact that

I had never heard about this before makes me feel like there was a major gap in

my knowledge of American history.

One of the most valuable lessons I learned in this class was how society might not

appear to discriminate against minorities at a glance, if you look beyond the

obvious it becomes apparent that such discrimination is rampant. One particular

type of discrimination stands out to me because it relates to the field I want to go

into, and that is school funding. Because schools receive the lion share of their

funds from the communities, they serve schools in low-income neighborhoods

receive less funding due to lower property values in those neighborhoods.

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One area where I feel this community is consistently negatively impacted by current

practices is in edcatuion. This community has been historically underserved

when it comes to education and this is reflected in data that is readily avaible to

anyone who wants to look. If you want to see some of this data please read my

final paper for this class as it covers it fairly indepth. This issue is something I

was aware of but not informed on. One particular example that I didnt cover in

my paper was how we fund our schools, schools in the united states are largely

funded by local property taxes. This creates a self-feeding cycle of areas with low

property values (typically areas with an over-representation of minorities) having

less funds for their schools. Which in turn gives them less resources for their

students, and again in turn negatively impacts the economic prospects of the

community.

Overall this course has opened my eyes to a type of discrimination that I hadnt

considered before, not one of malice and bigotry but one of willful ignorance to

the hardships of our fellowman.

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