American folk singer Joan Baez is recognized for her nonviolent, antiestablishment against a nation's political and economic structure , and anti-war positions. She has used her singing and speaking talents to criticize violations of human rights in a number of countries. Her father, Albert V. Baez, was a physicist who came to the United States from Mexico at a very early age, and her mother was of western European descent. Joan inherited her father's dark complexion, and the occasional racial prejudice hatred of a race she suffered as a child probably led to her later involvement in the civil rights movement, a movement that called for equal rights for all races. Although as an adult she claimed not to share her parents' strict religious faith, it undoubtedly contributed to what some called her keen "social conscience.