No. 125
The Italian influence is likely, whatever Valdez’ immediate source: the Mexican carpas themselves are said to have originated from the theater pieces of a sixteenth-century Spanish writer inspired by encounters with Italian commedia dell’arte troupes on tour in Spain.
No. 126
It has thus generally been by way of the emphasis on oral literary creativity that these Chicano writers, whose English-language works are sometimes uninspired, developed the powerful and arresting language that characterized their Spanish-language works.
No. 127
The declaration, which was echoed in the text of the Fourteenth Amendment, was designed primarily to counter the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford that Black people in the United States could be denied citizenship.
No. 128
The broad language of the amendment strongly suggests that its framers were proposing to write into the Constitution not a laundry list of specific civil rights but a principle of equal citizenship that forbids organized society from treating any individual as a member of an inferior class.
No. 129
This doctrine has broadened the application of the Fourteenth Amendment to other, nonracial forms of discrimination, for while some justices have refused to find any legislative classification other than race to be constitutionally disfavored, most have been receptive to arguments that at least some nonracial discriminations, sexual discrimination in particular, are “suspect” and deserve this heightened scrutiny by the courts.
