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Eric Castro

English 28

Professor Batty

26 Mayo 2018

Do Not Mess with Me: The Story of How Cecilia Muñoz Got into the Civil

Rights Movement

In her article “Getting Angry Can Be a Good Thing”, Cecilia Muñoz explains

how her friend’s opinion about what would happen with her family if the U.S. go

to war somewhere in Latin America outraged her. At the same time, this event

made her realize that she and her family were seen as foreigners that do not

belong to the American society. Moreover, Muñoz’s friend thought that her

family belong in an internment camp in case of a hypothetical war. Muñoz

indignation was the force that motivates her to take part of the civil rights

movement advocating for immigrant rights through her life. In her activities she

achieved many good outcomes for immigrant people, but also she witnessed how

many immigrant people suffered because of their lack of proper immigrant status.

She for example saw that many people stayed out of the benefits of new

immigrant laws that she helped to pass. Even though Muñoz experience with her

friend made her realize that she and her family, Bolivian immigrants, were in fact
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rejected by the American society, a true that hurt her, this experience affected

her in a positive way because her anger was transformed into positive social

effects that helped immigrants and herself.

The reveling experience of Cecilia Muñoz when she realized that a close

friend, somebody who knew her family and was very aware of their good

sentiments regarding the U.S. expressed all his xenophobic sentiments, she was

able to transform all that anger into concrete actions in favor of immigrants

rights. She, in fact, dedicated her life working in the civil rights movement and

was able to be part of many achievements. For example, she helped pass a bill in

Congress to help American immigrants reunite with their foreign families. Also,

her actions were well noticed by the American society and the immigrant

community when the newspaper reported her actions and accomplishments.

Many would argue that Muñoz is not a positive person because she lives in

a constant state of indignation. However, she uses this indignation to get strength

to continue advocating in the political arena. It is because she has to suffer many

setbacks too. Something that exemplifies this is when she still remembers the

people who lose in the fight of immigrant rights, even with extreme
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consequences like the farmworker who committed suicide after we losing a

political fight.

In my own experience I had to turn many negative emotions into actions in

order to follow my path instead of being paralyzed in a negative event. Long time

ago my father lost his sight in an accident right after he lost his job, an extreme

circumstance for my family and me. Consequently, my older brother and I had to

work after attending our classes at high school in order to support our parents

and two younger siblings. My brother and I were teenagers and our feelings were

a mixture of sorry and anger. Even though there were not so many work

opportunities, neither adequate, for very youth people at that time, we decided

to work in any kind of job instead of being sorry forever. Certainly, we found

strength in what happened to our father, we learned to work hard, to value our

family and feel proud of our decision of taking action in favor of our family instead

of regret our enormous challenge.

In sum, in life there could be many bad experiences, and we could be

offended by the discrimination that some people want to exercise on us. Even

worse, an entire society may repudiate us because we are different. However, in

the same way Cecilia Muñoz transformed her anger into positive actions that
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brought positive social effects that helped immigrants. Everybody should

overcome negative emotions into positive actions and get the fuel from the

inevitable anger we could feel.