Mueller Charter Leadership Academy

Stuggle and its Implications

Valeria De La Torre Martinez
Humanities- K7
Mr. Medina
March 7 2014


Struggle can be defined as a make forceful or violent efforts to get free of restraint
or constriction. Some may discuss that struggle is acceptable. It can be good because
once you pass through struggle it helps you understand what other pass through and it
could give you a lesson others believe that struggle is bad. Many research has been
conducted and gather on this topic. This essay will discuss that although what some
conclude, struggle, specially poverty and racism, is multi dimensional and has
implications that can affect us.
Struggles are multidimensional. We identify this in Breaking Through. For
example, one of the struggles Panchitos experiences is being undocumented. The effects
of Panchitos struggle are fear and being deported. Some examples from the text that
provide evidence of this situation are I lived in constant fear for fourteen long years,
from the time I was four till the time I was fourteen(Jimenez pg. 1). Another example is
As I got older my fear of being deported grew. Lastly a piece of evidence is As fast
as I saw that green uniform, I panicked. These examples show how Panchito is struggles
bring him fear.
Along the lines of struggle being multidimensional, we can also examine its
implications [See Figure 2]. Once again using Breaking Through Panchito struggles with
poverty. Poverty affects Panchito's education, health, treatment, and living conditions.
There are examples from the book that show the Implications of poverty. One example is
that they had to live in a motel room which was too small for them(Jimenez pg.10). This
shows how poverty affects their living conditions.
In addition to Breaking Through the implications of poverty are also found in
various internet sources. Povety affects living conditions according to
www.cliffnotes.com Middle and working class Hispanic families have not left their
barrio, or urban Spanish speaking neighborhood, in large numbers. Another example
comes from the website www.nativeamericanrights.wordpress.com which argues
Despite these promises, hundreds of people on the pine ridge reservation are homeless
and thousands live in a crowded or substandard housing. The American Indian Relief
Council estimates that 44% of Sioux household lack complete kitchens and 55% do not
have telephone (itvs.org). A second example from that same website is The housing
shortage on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is so severe that only 16 people are living in
four bedroom house is considered lucky. Next door there are 23 people in a three
bedroom house(rapid city journal). This means that not many people in Pine Ridge are
lucky to have good living conditions. As you can see there are many examples that show
how poverty affects living conditions.
Poverty also affects education. In the website www.dosomething.org states that
Children living in poverty have a higher number of absenteeism or leave school all
together because they are more likely to have to work or care for family members.
Another example comes from the website www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PMC it says that The
incidence, depth, duration and timing of poverty all influence a childs educational
attainment, along with community characteristics and social networks. Lastly another
example also comes from the website www.dosomething.org states it states that
Children from low-income families often start school already behind their peers who
come from more a affluent familes.
Health is also affected by poverty. An example comes from
www.childreninpoverty.org which states that Many infants born into poverty have a
low birth weight, which is associated with many preventable mental and physical
disabilities. Another example comes from www.healthpovertyactions.org which states
Poverty increases the chance of poor health. Poor health in turn traps communities in
poverty. Infectious and neglected tropical diaseases kill and weaken millions of the
poorest and most vulnerable people each year. Another example comes from
www.howpovertyaffectshealth.org Poverty affects health problems. It can cause mental
and stress issues. Lastly an example comes from www.worldhealthorganization.com it
states that Poverty creates ill-health because it forces people to live in enviroments that
make them sick, without decent shelter, clean water or adequate sanitation. This
examples show how poverty affects health.

Poverty also affects treatment in many different ways. According to
www.wikipedia.com Unemployment rates for African Americans are typically double
those Caucasian Africans. African American men working fulltime earn 72 percent of the
average earnings of comparable Caucasian men and 85 percent of the earnings of
Caucasian women. (Rodgers, 2008). Another example comes from
www.answerbag.com which states that Its easy to pour scorn on someone in a bad
situation, and claim they only have themselves to blame if youve never been there
yourself- most of us do it to some group in society at some point in our lives. Lastly an
example is from www.commondereams.org said that In at least 30 states legislature
across Americans, predominately wealthy politicians are quite impressed themselves for
considering bills that would limit the meager amount of state help given to needy families
struggling to make ends meets. This shows how treatment is affected by poverty.

To conclude this topic has shown that struggle has many different implications that can
affect us. Some may argue that poverty is good for you. Its good for you because when
your in poverty and pass through all the hard times, afterwards it teaches you a life
lesson. This may be true but I believe that it is really not that good because it affects on
your education, living conditions, health and treatment.

Poverty is not the only struggle that has negetive implications;racism is just as
damaging. Racism is the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or
abilities specific to that race, esp. so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another
race or races.

Some examples from the book Breaking Through are like when panchito went to
Peggy;s house and there parents were acting weird because he was a Mexican. Another
example is from the chapter Broken Heart when Roberto went to his girlfriends house
and everything was going alright until her parents new he was Mexican and didnt let her
that him. Lastly an example of how racism happens in the book Breaking Through is
when Panchito brought taquitos to school and everyone started calling him names. That
made Panchito believe that it wasent good for him to bring taquitos so he stopped
bringing them for lunch. As you can see racism comes out in the book Breaking Through.

Despite racism being in the book Breaking Through we also see racism with
Jackie Robinson in the movie 42. At first they didnt let Jackie Robinson go to the
bathroom at the gas station because he was black. Another example is when they were
gonna get on the plane only because she went into the bathroom for white people they
gave away there tickets to a white family and told him they was no space to them. This
shows how racism applys to treatement. Not only racism affects treatment in the movie
42 but it also affects bullying. Since Jackie Robinson was black and they didnt want him
to play baseball with the white people they used explicit language on him and try to make
him loose In the game. This shows how people think in a racist way towards Jackie
Robinson being in the team.
Jackie Robinson isent the only one that experiences racism but also a classmate has
experienced it. There was once this black Mexican girl that was new to the school. Since
most of the people were white they started calling her names that were really offensive.
They were only a little of Mexicans but they were lighter skin then her so they would
bully her along with the others and didnt let her hang out with them. There was this boy
who was more racist than the other but then at the end he started realizing that there all
equal and instead of bullying her and calling her names he stood up for her and made the
others realize the same as he did.
In contrast to all I have shared Kelly Mcgoniga, provides an Opposing perspective.
In her TED Talk she states that struggle is your friend. Kelly believes that people dont
die because of stress but of thinking that stress is bad. When stress gets to you it means
that your body is getting prepared for what you are going to do. She also believes that
you create rezealience when you connect with people by stress. Lastly she believes that
how you think about stress matters. If you believe stress is good it can be healthy.

To conclude, this essay has argue how struggle is multidimensional and has many
implications specially on poverty and racism. We see how poverty implicates in
education, living conditions, health, tratment. We also see that racism also implicates in
treatment, bullying, and segregation. We see how racism is still around because it has
happened to many of us. Kelly Mcgoniga tells us that stress is good. We can change this
and stop racism and poverty to make this world a better place.