Take a Stand and Deliver a message
In the education system, students of color seem like they aren’t getting the same opportunity’s to succeed in school, compared to the white students. Ramon Menendez’ film Stand and Deliver reveals several issues on the subject of institutional racism as well as other matters which create a major struggle for minority students. Menendez depicts several characters in his film that illustrates some obstacles or situations students of color deal with on a regular basis. For example, Angel, a hard core gangster, is drawn between his success in school and his commitment to his gang. His friend Lupe dealt with situations at home which prevented her from studying and homework. Their other classmate Ana, deals …show more content…

In turn, Ana could pose a potential example to other Latino/as. According to Kivel, “Few students have role models of their own ethnicity (204).”
Escalante dealt with a lot barriers at his job. One of the obstacles he had to overcome was the lack of support not only from his faculty, but his co-workers, and his neighbors. He probably felt like he was the only one who cared about these Latino/as students. Mr. Escalante lived in a middle class neighborhood. The majorities of his neighbors were white, and seemed to be skeptical when they found out he was teaching high school students in east L.A. area. There was no support from them. A lot of other teachers in that school had given up on those students. Even the administrators displayed a lack of confidence for these minority students. They pretty much put colored students on the back burner, by putting them all in one class; Hence Kivel statement on “segregated schools” (203) in this day and age. One idea Kivel suggest to diminish institutional racism is to have more colored teachers as superiors. Having colored people in top ranking positions will teach minorities that white people are not the only people in charge. Another obstacle Escalante surpassed was dealing with inadequate resources. “Differences in public school funding by race are another example of institutional racism. (173)” Examples of this in the film are lack of seating in Escalante’s class room, as