Don’t Mess with Meskins

Posted on May 19, 2013 by admin

In West Texas, during the struggles to desegregate the schools in the later part of the 1960s, I listened to attorney Mark Smith caution a small audience that, “You may not like Meskins, but the Constitution gives them the right to equal access to schools. Things have changed during the past three wars. Many Meskins have served in the armed forces, so they know how to use BARs [Browning Automatic Rifles] and other weaponry, and they don’t take kindly to be called and treated like Meskins.”

Since that time, changes have taken place in the Lone Star State. The Mexican Americans’ numbers have exploded, and they are found in large numbers in almost every electoral district in the state. Because of this they are visible, and few white Texans refer to them as Meskins anymore – at least not to their faces.

Therefore, it was a surprise that Texas followed Arizona’s lead, and ultra conservative Texas State Senator Dan Patrick proposed S.B. 1128, a bill designed to ban ethnic studies as a choice for core Texas and U.S. history courses required in Texas universities. 1128 is the xenophobes’ version of “you are in America now so speak American.” It amounts to turning back the clock and trying to put Meskins back in their place.

Patrick who admittedly is not the sharpest knife in the drawer says that Latino history is covered adequately in K-12 education, and should not be considered in general Texas and U.S. history –something that is not borne out by the facts.

According to its proponents, SB 1128 was motivated by a report of the National Association of Scholars, an ultra-right wing conservative group that bills itself as nonpartisan. The NAS argues that U.S. history courses at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University focus on race, gender and class to the exclusion of intellectual and military history. Codes for too many non-whites are appearing in history.

The bill was opposed by the University of Texas at Austin. While most sources admit that more attention has been paid to race, class and gender since the 1960s when Mexican Americans were called Meskins and African-Americans the “N” word, they argue that the change was for the better, and it made history more inclusive and reflects the true history of the United States.

When all was said and done, SB 1128 and its companion HB 1938 were stopped in their tracks. However, it is clear that the bills were motivated by Arizona HB 2281 that banned Mexican American Studies at K-12. Patrick and his gaggle of extremists hoped to emulate what they perceive as Arizona’s success.

Why was this bill successful in Arizona, and why and how was it stopped in Texas? Surely racism is no less virulent in the Lone Star State than in Arizona.

First off, it would be fair to point out that Texas has benefitted a great deal from the Arizona experience.  Los Librotraficantes, an organization of educators and writers, had its genesis in the Arizona struggle. Librotraficantes organized caravans to defend ethnic studies in Tucson, Arizona, and it was fortunate that the organization is based in Houston, and able to respond quickly to SB 1128.

The Houston group was very effective in mobilizing ready-made constituencies such as the Mexican American Studies Student Association (MASSO) at the University of Texas at San Antonio and feeding information to Mexican American politicos.

The anti-1128 and 1938 campaign also benefited from the fact that the Texas bills targeted universities where faculty governance plays a much bigger role than in K-12, which is run by political hacks that are interested more in their political careers and ideology than in education.

As UT History professor Emilio Zamora has noted, “People in history departments have expressed concern, because the bills attempt to weaken faculty governance, academic freedom and history teaching in departments.”

From what I have witnessed there was not a similar response in Arizona where universities were not included in the law and thus Chicana/o Studies were not immediately threatened by 2281.

Moreover, politics are different in Texas that has 34 Latino legislators out of a total of 180, 19 percent. Not great, Texas is 38 percent Latino; however, it was enough to create a firewall.

An added strength was that the Latino vote is significantly large in major cities such as San Antonio, Houston, Dallas and El Paso. Statewide this critical mass can make or break candidacies, and it is growing in strength. In contrast, representation in Arizona is more concentrated than Texas, and there are fewer Latino state and federal elected representatives.

Moreover, while conservative, Texas has a broad liberal streak; the Texas Observer is a leading and respected left of center magazine that regularly featured Molly Ivins, Jim Hightower, and Lou Dubose. This and other magazines and community newspapers can be counted on to sound the clarions.

Moreover, corporate America has been able to buy a larger share of Arizona. The Koch Brothers, ALEC and other corporate giants get more bang for their dollar in Arizona than they do in Texas.

Finally, there is the role of Tejano academicians. In many ways the Texas Foco of the National Association for Chicana/o Studies is more active and better organized than the national organization.  UT Professor Emilio Zamora, a respected historian and scholar, played an important role in combatting HB 1938 and SB 1128 and in mobilizing the opposition in academe.

As a group Latino educators were much more proactive in Texas than in Arizona.  Zamora tracked the bills and kept Chicana/o educators informed nationally through websites such as Historia. Nationally known educators like Dr. Angela Valenzuela used their networks to inform Latino and non-Latino constituencies.

Texas has a particular culture that favors it. It is different and has richer history than let’s say California that has the largest Latino population in the nation.

Most national Chicana/o organization saw the light of day in Texas. Racism bonded Tejanos, giving them a distinct identity. Symbols such as the Texas Rangers and the Ku Klux Klan are still vivid in the Tejanos’ memories. Tejano music and culture unify them much as salsa unified Puerto Ricas in New York.

In the early days of the movement Tejanos were known for always closing ranks, and although they would criticize each other in private – publically they would present a united front. Some of this togetherness has been diluted in academe with the hiring of outside Chicana/o scholars who sometimes lack this regional identity. Yet there is enough left to imbue Chicana/o scholars with a “don’t mess with Meskins” mentality.

From my perspective, arguably this identity is not as strong in other states that seem to lack a similar tradition.

Sometimes the Texas bravado can be irritating. Like the notion of some old timers that Aztlán is in Texas, and someone could only be a Chicano if born in the Rio Grande River Valley – preferably in the Brownsville area.

However, it took that a don’t mess with Meskins spirit to fight back the threat to Mexican American studies. Even so it must be remembered that the attack was directed at the sector where these studies are the strongest. You wonder if this attack would have been directed at K-12 Chicana/o Studies program such as in Tucson whether the response would have been the same.

This point is mute, however, because outside of Tucson there are no large functioning K-12 Mexican American Studies programs. In Texas as in the rest of the country Mexicans and Latinos have been written out of history, which is the topic of another essay.

So in reality, although we have come a long way, they are still messing with Meskins who are invisible in K-12.

[For those who have an extra $5 a month for scholarship.

The For Chicana/o Studies Foundation was started with money awarded to Rudy Acuña as a result of his successful lawsuit against the University of California at Santa Barbara. The Foundation has given over $60,000 to plaintiffs filing discrimination suits against other universities. However, in the last half dozen years it has shifted its focus, and it has awarded 7-10 scholarships for $750 apiece  annually to Chicanoa/o/Latino students at CSUN. The For Chicana/o Studies Foundation is a 501 C3 Foundation donations are tax exempt. Although many of its board members are associated with Chicana/o Studies, it is not part of the department. All monies generated go to scholarships.

SCHOLARSHIPS

All donations are for scholarships. We know that times are hard. Lump sum donations can be sent to For Chicana Chicano Studies Foundation, 11222 Canby Ave., Northridge, Ca. 91326 or through Paypal below. You can reach us at forchs@earthlink.net. You may also elect to send $5.00, $10.00 or $25.00 monthly. For your convenience and privacy you may donate via PayPal. The important thing is not the donation, but your staying involved.

Click: http://forchicanachicanostudies.wikispaces.com/   Click on to first three links on left side of web page.

– by Rodolfo F. Acuña

Posted in Chicana/o, Chicana/o Movement, Chicana/o Studies, Community, Cultural Studies, Education, History | Leave a comment

Since When Is Losing Winning? Playing-Follow-the-Leader

Posted on May 4, 2013 by admin
MEChA 1970

MEChA 1970

The other day I gave a presentation to teachers in Moorpark. Like always you can predict the question and answer period. More often than not you get friends in the audience who don’t ask questions but give speeches instead of questions.

Everyone wants to be a presenter, and activists feel more entitled than most to promote their point of view.

Moorpark was no exception, and an old time friend from the San Fernando Valley was chomping at the bit to promote his cause and his perspective. My friend is a cheerleader, so I settled back realizing that this is a very important function of the Left. We get so few spaces to reach out to people outside our orbit.

You also learn a lot from the speeches, such as what tendencies or lines different groups are pushing. In this case my friend asked or better still stated that the Latino critics of the immigration bill were jeopardizing the passage of an immigration reform bill. I was taken aback because this is the kind of rhetoric usually used by the Right to silence the Left.

I shot back that I was a critic of what was coming out of Washington on immigration reform.  I have not played the game of follow-the-leader since childhood – quickly rattling off what was wrong with the proposals: no quick and just pathway to citizenship, a jingoist and racist border security policy, and a neo-bracero program.

I emphasized that in this instance I did not trust President Obama, Senator Marco Rubio or for that matter the Latino leadership on the question of immigration reform. Further, I did not trust the knowledge of our so-called Latino leaders to bring about a fair and just immigration bill.

History shows that the wrongheaded logic of a half a loaf of bread is better than none results in none.

I realize that I am getting old (but not senile), but since when is losing winning?

Mujeres de CSUN - photo by Oscar Castillo

Mujeres de CSUN – photo by Oscar Castillo

Last Saturday we had a reunion of Chicana/o studies alumni at California State University Northridge where we screened “Unrest” – the story of the founding of the department. With only a little over a month to organize and zero funds, we were surprised when over 300 attended (not enough food).

In the documentary I was asked why it was so important that I had a PhD and a quick path to tenure. I replied because I had to be secure that I could tell administrators and white faculty to go to hell. The decision to play it fast and furious was very important to the success of the CSUN Chicana/o Studies department which offers five to ten times as many classes as the next most populated programs.

Of course, in order to do this it was essential to have united students that the administration feared. It was the only power that Chicanas/os had at the time that prevented the administration from eliminating us.

My feeling was that I did not take the leadership in a program to lose. A department had to have a full complement of courses and the teachers to teach them. Anyone who stood in our way had to be taken on.

I always felt that if we could not be the best then I should not take the job or sell out and go into a traditional department in a prestigious university where my pension would have been much higher than at a state college. Besides if money was the issue, I could have made much more money in sales than in education.

Looking back at the students that have gone through the department and the Education Opportunities Program, they have done so much more collectively than I could have done as an individual. I was never good looking enough to be a movie star.

This brings me back to the game of Follow-the-Leader.  The purpose of education is to produce leaders. To produce leaders who think and are not copycats. Issues such as the current immigration bill are too important for us to settle for a half loaf of bread; for us to compromise even before a vote is taken.

We should learn from history. Ask questions such as why other programs are not as large as the CSUN Chicana/o Studies department? We should ask if our leaders have led? Looking at my former students on April 27, 2013, I realized that it was because of them that we have had a measure of success. They were too raw, too idealistic to accept that losing was winning.

– by Rodolfo F. Acuña

Posted in Chicana/o, Chicana/o Movement, Chicana/o Studies, Community, Cultural Studies, Education, History, Resistance | Leave a comment

Perspectives on the History of Mexicans in the U.S. Life and experiences My view of where we are now and where we are headed To Ventura County Teachers

Posted on April 26, 2013 by admin

Mexican American or Chicana/o History by definition is the history of people of Mexican origin in the United States. It is about how Mexican origin people survived and formed an identity within the U.S. As such Mexican American history belongs both to the histories of Mexico and the United States. The different is that the Mexican identity responds to different forces. For all of the limitation in Mexico, Mexicans know they are Mexicans. In the United States it is constantly evolving and responding to a society that has itself not found its identity. Racism, for example, is much different here than in Mexico.

The conceptualization of Chicana/o Studies

Mexican American history is a disciplinary specialty; it is not per se Chicana/o Studies which is an area of study which is an integrated course of academic studies much the same as African American, Asian and Latin American studies. Mexican American history evolved about the same time as Chicana/o studies in the 1960s and is a core course in that area.  It is important to draw the difference between Chicana/o studies and the disciplinary specialty.

It must be remembered that what we accept as traditional disciplines are relatively new, and many of the social sciences evolved from specialties within the field of history; for example, social history became sociology and political history political science. The emergence of Chicana/o history is much more complex than the traditional fields of study.

Chicana/o history and the area of Chicana/o studies are products of the Civil Rights era of the 1960s. Unlike sociology, political science and economics, they did not come about because historians saw the need to expand their intellectual inquiry rather the conditions produced the change. It was by popular demand and a result of societal needs, and a response to the material conditions with American society.

In my perceptive, Chicanas/os have always had a history, the problem was that it was not recognized by the academy. What became Chicana/o history and Chicana/o studies was influenced by works of scholars and non-scholars such as Paul S. Taylor and George I. Sánchez. The epic work of Carey McWilliams, North From Mexico, was a milestone in this formation.

The pedagogical strategy for an integrated course of academic studies to address the needs of came Sánchez. Many educators followed his lead, and called for bilingual-bicultural courses to help motivate Mexican American children.

In the 1960s a perfect storm brought about Chicana/o history and many other disciplinary specialties.  It is not by coincidence that education was the most receptive to Chicana/o history classes. It was here where the contractions and needs were most obvious. In the Los Angeles Unified Schools, the percentage of Mexican origin students jumped from 10 percent in 1960 to 22 percent in 1970 (to 75 percent today). In the School of Education there were no specialists that could train student teachers to educate Mexican students.

The need was obvious.  The Mexican child was at the bottom of the vertical scale. In 1960 in the median of education for Mexican children in Texas was the third grade, in California the eighth grade, and they were last in median of school years completed in almost every southwestern state. The dropout rate was over 60 percent.

As urbanization and Mexican origin school aged children grew, Mexican American political and professional organizations pressured the schools of education to examine their teacher training programs. It was clear by the 1960s that there was a need to serve an expanding sector of American society. One of the solutions was Mexican American studies.  The need could nt be served by one service course that was not really a history class but a smorgasbord.

History was one of the most resistant disciplines in academe. Historians resisted and still resist classes in Mexican American history or the hiring of faculty of Mexican origin.  They were content in teaching the histories of Western Europe and the United States. To this day, many resist teaching World history; civilization began and ends in Western Europe.

In my case, I was influenced by my experiences as a K-12 teacher and by my activism.

The 1963 Los Angeles Times published a series of very influential articles by Ruben Salazar that summed the need for Mexican American history as a strategy to attack the horrendous dropout epidemic among Mexicans.  At the core of the articles was the cultural conflicts heightened by a flawed educational system.  One of the solutions was — using the language of the times – the initiation of teachers’ training program that met the needs of Mexican children. A program that made  Mexicans participants in history — combating the negative self-image many Mexican children of themselves.

Sal Castro whose funeral I attended this morning was one of the early proponents of giving children a historical presence. It was simple: how could Mexican American children feel part of the American family if they never saw themselves in the family photo albums. A student who did value him or herself was educationally handicapped.

In 1966, I taught one of the first courses on Mexican Americans at the downtown LA campus of Mt. St. Mary’s College. Books are teaching tools, and it was obvious that there were not many materials on Mexican Americans available.  I used McWilliams’ North from Mexico and Octavio Paz’s The Labyrinth of Solitude.  They were supplemented by articles that I ran off on stencils. Photo copies were extremely rare at the time. The next year Julian Nava led a NDEA Institute for social studies teachers at San Fernando Valley State, and I was a resource teacher.

By this time, there was talk about adding the History of Mexican American as a specialty in the field of history. However, this discussion was very limited, and it met resistance within history faculties. When I became a candidate for a tenured position at the SFVSC history department the chair opposed the appointment on the grounds that my parents were Mexican so I could not be objective in teaching Latin American history. He added that they already had one (a Mexican) in the department. But even so, things were opening up; I was offered positions in Latin American History at San Jose, Fresno, and Dominguez State Colleges.

However, the institution of classes on Mexican Americans did not come from professions such as me.  The truth be told, there were two few of us.  What pushed us over the top was the surge of Chicano high school student activity throughout the United States. The Chicano student movement fit in perfectly with the progressive white and black baby boomers. I have studied school walkouts in California, Arizona, Texas, Washington, Kansas, and Wisconsin, and there is a common thread among them: most demanded the abolition of the no Spanish rule, more Mexican teachers, and Mexican American history.  There were over 100 walkouts between March 1968 and 1970 throughout the southwest, Midwest and northwest. The small but expanding Chicana/o student populations on the college campuses grew more militant and participated in student strikes.

Within this context, led by black students—supported by Chicano and white radicals– strikes broke out at San Fernando Valley in November 1968 that forced the college to initiate Mexican American Studies department in January 1969. The student demands went beyond a call for a disciplinary specialty; students instinctively knew that area studies incorporated most of the disciplines within the college. They wanted the power to control these new programs.

In this context, I published three children’s books: The Story of the Mexican American, Cultures in Conflict, and A Mexican American Chronicle.  They were for Mexican American children, and based on my experiences as a public school teacher. They put the picture of Mexican origin children in the family photo album.

Chicana/o Studies has been a success at CSUN. Today we have over 60 full time and part time teachers. When we began in 1969 there were less than a 100 students, and less than a dozen faculty members throughout the college that identified as Mexican. Today the Chicana/o Studies department  offers 166 sections a semester in CHS and employs over 65 instructors.

What is Mexican American history, according to Rudy Acuña?

Like the history of the human race, Mexican American history is part of the diaspora of the human race. Like groups Mexican Americans formed roots in different environments where they adapted to changing conditions. The narrative includes how these migrants changed as they changed their location, and how religion, patriarchy, modes of production, and urbanization affected them.

In 2008 I published Corridors of Migration that studied the different corridors traveled by Mexican people into the United States that led them to the San Joaquin Valley, and ended with the San Joaquin Cotton Strike of 1933 that saw three strikers murdered, and at least nine infants starved to death. How and why were they there? This is one strain within billions of other corridors.

We must remember every ethnic and racial group – every person – every creature — has a history. Unfortunately, the dominant society often submerges the histories of what is different. Minorities are minorities because the dominant societies like our bodies reject them as foreign matter, actively seeking to destroy them. The minorities only become part of the main body when they are large enough to resist the rejection and are able to mutate.  If they don’t they are absorbed and their history is killed off. The degree of the absorption depends on many factors that include race, class, and physical compatibility.

What makes Mexican Americans different from other minorities or even other Latinos is the 2,000 mile border that separates the United States and Mexico. Like in the case of the wall between East and West Germany, or before that the Great Wall of China, walls are pretty ineffective. In the case of the United States, there are added factors: trade, natural resources and labor. Robots, for instance, are not yet a viable alternative to people – they cost money to obtain and maintain. In all probability they will be made in China. Lastly, but more important, Robots do not consume.

Mexican American History: Quo Vadis?

Where are we going? What is the future of Mexican American history? From my perspective, interest in Mexican American history will grow as time marches on. There are 55 million Latinos in the United States, 35 million who are of Mexican origin.

By 2050, Latinos are projected to be 29 percent of the United States. This is at a time that the white population is growing older. By 2030, all 79 million boomers will be at least 65 of age.  By 2050, the elderly portion of the population will be 72 out of 100 working age people compared to 59 in 2005.

Mexico has a population of 115 million people. It is the largest Spanish speaking nation in the world. Its art and literature are world renowned. In contrast Canada is a country of about 35 million – about the same number as people of Mexican origin people living in the United States.   There is a power of numbers as in the 2012 Presidential Elections where Obama received at least 71 percent of the Latino vote. Most experts attribute the victory to the heavy Latino vote. This heavy vote has pushed immigration reform into the national spotlight something that was not possible in 2007.

If Latinos were an autonomous nation, they would be the third largest country in Latin America; the second largest Spanish-speaking nation in the world. Latinos would be larger than Spain and Argentina. Mexican Americans alone would rank as the sixth largest Latin American nation, the fifth largest Spanish speaking nation in the world.  The stupidity is that while portions of the media and politicians it has received very little attention from academicians other than to try and get funding.

Higher education increasingly uses the numbers as a hook for attracting outside funding.  Today there are 223 Hispanic-Serving Institutions in higher education. To qualify as a member of HUAC, “colleges, universities, or systems/districts where total Hispanic enrollment constitutes a minimum of 25% of the total enrollment.”

No matter what the xenophobes want, they are not going to be able to eliminate the identity of the Mexican American in this country. An example is that between 1880 and 1920 four million Italians entered the U.S. An estimated 80 percent of Italian immigrants came from Southern Italy. They were darker and rural and less acceptable than the northern European and thus less easily absorbed. The National Origins Immigration Laws of the 1920s allowed social engineering, and the U.S. shut out Italians, and they were able whiten their descendants.  This will be more difficult with Mexican and Latin American immigrants.

Given the increased interest in Mexican American culture and cuisine, it is doubtful whether the Mexican origin and Latinos will be absorbed as quickly as the European. Mexicans have left large footprints. Their history is part of U.S. history, i.e., the United States invaded Mexico and seized half its territory, and today cities in a large portion of the U.S. have Spanish and Indian names. Get on a bus in California and it almost sounds as if you were in the state of los santos, i.e., San Diego, San Pedro, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, etc..

Time marches on!  A 1968 ERIC study showed that there were 100 Latino PhDs in the U.S. – about half of them were of Mexican origin. Today there are thousands.

In the area of research, Chicana/o studies have played a role in the dramatic transformation of the study of Mexican Americans in the United States and even Mexicans in Mexico. Before December 31, 1970, not a single dissertation had been written under the category of “Chicano”; as of 2011 870 dissertations had been recorded under this heading. Under “Mexican American” a search reveals 82 dissertations before 1971, and 2,824 after that date; the search for “Latinos” shows 6 before 1971 and 2,887 after. This is also the pattern in dissertations on Mexico; before 1971, 660 were found in the Proquest data bank; after 9,078. The number of books and journal articles on Chicano and Latinos has also zoomed.

As a result, I have no doubt that the disciplinary specialties that make up Chicana/o studies will grow in number. However, they may not be in Chicana/o studies departments.  They will be in traditional disciplines and they will be held captive by the bishops of the academy. The thrust will not be to motivate Chicana/o students but to tell they stories.

But, in the last analysis, like my students say, we are here and we are not going back!

Postscript

The failure to root Chicana/o studies will not be because they are not viable. Indeed, as a pedagogy it has been proven effective at CSUN and in Tucson, Arizona. It has also been the only proven strategy to integrate and advance the study of Mexican American in the multi-disciplines campus wide. However, I am a cynic and know that the self-interest of the disciplines will not allow competition. Among many of the old timers at CSUN I am still blamed for the decline in the enrollment in history (we are three times as large as the History department).

In the early 1970s Berkeley sociologist Robert Blauner wrote that the only power students and poor people had was the power to disrupt.  The question is how long will it take this time around?

RODOLFO F. ACUÑA, founding chair of the Chicana/o Studies department at then San Fernando Valley State (California State University at Northridge)  – the largest Chicana/o Studies Department in the United States with 27 tenured professors, has authored twenty-one books, three of which received the Gustavus Myers Award for the Outstanding Book on Race Relations in North America. Acuña has received the National Hispanic Institute Lifetime Achievement Award, Austin, Texas, 2008, A Life Time Achievement Award from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, 2010, the Distinguished Scholar Award from the National Association for Chicano Studies, the Emil Freed Award for Community Service, the Founder’s Award for Community Service from the Liberty Hill Foundation among others. Black Issues In Higher Education selected Acuña one of the “100 Most Influential Educators of the 20th Century.  Among his best-known books are Voices of the U.S. Latino Experience [Three Volumes] (Greenwood Press, 2008), Corridors of Migration: Odyssey of Mexican Laborers, 1600-1933 (University of Arizona 2007) Winner of a CHOICE [American Library Association] outstanding Academic Title Award. Occupied America: A History of Chicanos 7th edition (Longman, 2010); Sometimes There is No Other Side: The Myth of Equality (Notre Dame, 1998); Anything But Mexican: Chicanos in Contemporary Los Angeles. (Verso Press, 1996), US Latinos: An Inquiry (Greenwood Press, 2003), Community Under Siege (UCLA, 1984), The Sonoran Strongman (University of Arizona, 1974). His latest book is The Making of Chicana/o Studies: In the Trenches of Academe (Rutgers 2011). Acuña has also published three children’s books and more than 200 academic and public articles in addition to over 160 book reviews in academic journals.

Bring memorabilia and friends!

Posted in Chicana/o, Chicana/o Movement, Chicana/o Studies, Community, Cultural Studies, Education, History, Political Science, Racism, Resistance | Leave a comment

April 27, 2013

Posted on April 23, 2013 by admin

For the past six weeks I have been sending you reminders of our first photo Mecha/Alumni photo exhibit on April 27, 2013 from 5-10 PM to take place on the entire first floor of Jerome Richfield. This was the old Sierra North building http://www.csun.edu/maps/.  I realize that you often get so many fliers that you treat them as if they were spam. However, this was not my intention – I did not want to bug you. However, we tend to forget important happenings, which is easy in a society where we have I-Phones to remind us to get up.

Another danger in sending so many notices is that at some point the appeal takes on an aura of begging, which is out of character even for me, and Mexicans in general. I remember when I was a kid we would visit relatives and no matter how hungry we were, we would not ask for a glass of water. Perhaps this is why I related to the impoverished noble in the novel Lazarillo de Tormes who had hardly enough to eat and was so hungry that his stomach growled. Every morning he would leave the house with a gold toothpick in his mouth cleaning the imaginary crumbs between his teeth – too proud to ask for food.

The first time I visited Mexico City I was struck by the poverty. Children would stand in the street with a stick of gum, asking to exchange it for money in order to eat. In the past twenty years the City of Angeles has seen bad times. There are a lot of people out of work, and they have been forced to stand on the freeway entrances asking for money to eat. I don’t want to sound racist or cast a cloud on those asking for help, but in all that time I have never seen a Mexican or Latino asking for limosna.

I see plenty of them standing at the freeway entrances but they usually have a bag of peanuts in one hand and a bag of oranges in the other. They are ready to exchange them in return for money to eat. So this is how I feel about sending you all these emails. I am send them hoping that you will read the flier in exchange for my peanuts, and grace us with your presence at our first ever Chicana/o Studies open house. Students, faculty, community, friends and especially alumni are invited. I promise that I won’t be sucking on a gold tooth pick – that is if you read the flier and come back to visit.

No se haga de rogar.

Note:

The operation is being handled by Jorge Garcia. He controls events. He has put a lot of time into it. The event was initially his idea and hopefully it will bring us all together.

There will be tables for you to share your photos. Please bring them.

If you have a name of a deceased fellow student or professor, share it with us so we can memorialize it by placing her or his photo on our walls and remember her/him on El Dia de los Muertos.
There will be food, coffee and water. Thanks Jose Luis Vargas and Rosemary Muñiz.

This will be the last direct appeal for the event of April 27. However, on Friday I will send a rough draft of a speech that I will be giving to Ventura County teachers. Hopefully you’ll find it informative and not consider it spam.

Don’t forget to think of Sal Castro. The rosary is on Wednesday and the funeral at the downtown Cathedral at 930 AM.

– by Rodolfo F. Acuña

Posted in Chicana/o, Chicana/o Movement, Chicana/o Studies, Community, Cultural Studies, Education, History, Political Science, Racism | Leave a comment

Is Chicano Studies Relevant?

Posted on April 22, 2013 by admin

Is Chicano Studies as relevant as it was just 20 years ago? “Have you ever taken Chicano Studies?”

His face and voice projected a steady countenance as he looked directly at me from across the table. It seemed he could see through me and sense that I was in need of some direction.

“Yeah, I remember taking a Chicano Studies course a long time ago!” I answered indifferently.

“Well there are different kinds of Chicano studies” He replied. Frank was not what I expected by way of a guidance counselor. Hell, I was only there because I chickened out after two days of intermediate algebra. I arrogantly dismissed the college’s assessment of my math skills by enrolling in a course that I was not prepared for. The bravado I exhibited in the first class quickly diminished on the second and landed me in the East Los Angeles College (ELAC) counseling office reduced back to the timid underclassman that I was.

To my good fortune, fate appeared in the form of Frank Gutierrez, a grandfather like figure sporting a gray braid and life as I know it would never be the same.

This chance meeting with Mr. Gutierrez would profoundly alter my future educational experience. Turns out he was also an instructor of Chicano Studies who just happened to be recruiting for his course. Frank exhibited a genuine desire to see that Chicanos and Chicanas succeed in all their educational endeavors.

Frank Gutierrez’s Chicano Studies course inspired me to put my best self forward. Frank’s approach to the subject imbued a sense of purpose that is to awaken young naïve Chicanos/as to their historical reality. Frank effectively lectured to his students a trajectory of Chicano history from western European feudalism through colonization and U.S. imperialism and its subsequent effects on our indigenous heritage. His soft-spoken demeanor was very convincing as he connected the past to the present condition of Chicanas/os in the U.S. He always made clear that his job was to deprogram our minds and to undo our public education/brainwashing.

That one class instilled me with a greater sense of social responsibility toward my community. I excelled in my studies and became more politically aware both on and off campus. I went from a spectator to a participant. In other words, Chicano Studies motivated me to get involved. I was radicalized.

One of the first examples of me stepping outside of the box was when I drove from my apartment in Bell to U.C.L.A. to support a student fast in the early 1990s. The cause was to establish a Chicano Studies as a full-fledged department. I remember seeing the brief coverage on the local morning news and knowing that I had to be there. In the past, I would have sat idly by, let alone getting into my car and driving to Westwood.

I like the way Consuelo Rey, a Chicana professor of political science describes it, “It is like a foco in your head suddenly gets switched on!”.

Like I stated earlier, the altering of my education would fuse learning with activism in the ensuing years. One would compliment the other. The issues facing the Chicano community are broad in scope. I found myself engaged at some degree in issues regarding Affirmative Action, student fee increases, bilingual education, police brutality, immigration rights. I attended and helped organize conferences, educational forums and demonstrations. I worked and volunteered for organizations and programs such as MEChA, EOP, Upward Bound, Associated Students, Southwest Voter and Education Project and Americorps.

One of the most rewarding was working several summers as a program assistant for a migrant educational program at UC Riverside.

The focus of my activism had to do with Chicanos/as gaining access to higher education. I was also inspired and helped to promote events for the United Farm Workers and the Zapatista movement.

Like most Chicanos and Chicanas, I have had my share of personal setbacks and struggles. I am still struggling to break free from old ideas and attitudes. However, I have been steadfast in my defense and promotion of Chicano Studies in all of its manifestations.

Like Frank said there are different areas of Chicano and Chicana Studies. I have disagreed with other Chicanos and Chicanas, but the one thing that it has done for me is that I have grown to love and respect my cultura. I believe that there is a spiritual component that we experience as we embrace the Chicana/o philosophy.

What sets Chicano Studies apart from other fields of study is our personal connection to our history that we get to research and write from our own unique perspective. 

Ever since Frank planted those little seeds of knowledge into my head in that first Chicano Studies class, I have strived to do my small part to nurture that knowledge so that it may flourish and have a positive affect on others. That is why I continue to study the discipline.

“In fond Memory Of Frank Gutierrez”

– by David Casillas

Posted in Chicana/o, Chicana/o Movement, Chicana/o Studies, Community, Cultural Studies, Education, History | Leave a comment

Sal Castro – a Chicano Hero (1933-2013)

Posted on April 15, 2013 by admin
Sal Castro

Sal Castro

Posted in Chicana/o, Chicana/o Movement, Chicana/o Studies, Community, Education, History, Resistance | Leave a comment

The Immigration Paradigm: The Shell Game

Posted on April 13, 2013 by admin

When I was in high school I never thought I would appreciate the conjugation of verbs and the declension of nouns. It was boring; however, I must admit that it introduced me to a deductive system of formal argument consisting of premises and conclusions that allowed me to test whether the deductions were true or false.

Today, we take short cuts, upgrade our syllogisms to paradigms, and we try to sell our ideas as exemplars.  The premise is put forward and sold as the truth, arguing that a majority of the experts agree with our proposition. Like religion the pseudo paradigm is based on a higher authority.

In our minds our proclamation becomes a universally recognized statement of fact, and it sets our model for future arguments. The proposition thus supports our conclusions, and has the effect of helping us convince others of our premise.

The problem is that we do not test the argument.  We make assumptions, presenting theories, values, and practices that distort reality. In this instance, deductive reasoning bypasses the facts that normally join existing statements or that are determined through repeated observations.

Without this habit of reasoning, we drift into George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and the fictional language of Newspeak that allows Big Brother to influence our conclusion through doublespeak.  In the case of today’s society, we have many competing big brothers assisted by little brothers who want to justify their big brothers.

Take the question of immigration.  Even liberal pundits on MSNBC are spinning it as a victory.  Christopher Hayes reasoned recently that a year ago we had nothing and that now we have something. Thus there has been progress. He moves the bar to 2012 and ignores that in 2007 we had more, and concludes that something is better than nothing based on 2012.

To be fair, I have heard the same argument from Latinos who view any agreement as a victory. I cannot understand their reasoning.  We are taking a bath on immigration, i.e., it looks as if a guest worker program will be part of the grand bargain, and it is likely that there will be a long, slippery and tenuous pathway to citizenship.

We are buying into the argument that the undocumented are cutting in the line, cheating their way into the country. At the present time, the dealmakers are tying the pathway to citizenship to border security, and who is to say that the border is not already secure or when it will be secure enough to satisfy the naysayers.

It is not fair; indeed it is racist. I do not remember a national uproar when Pat Buchannan proposed a law giving preferences to the Irish, or objections to the countless exceptions we made for Nazi rocket scientists and refugees from Central Europe, Cuba or Nicaragua. Under U.S. law, if you have enough money, you can buy yourself a first class ticket to the front of the line.

Experts question the premise that the border is not secure.  The U.S.-Mexican border is certainly more secure than the U.S. – Canadian border. Certainly security cannot be measured by the fences, drones and troops on the border. Lest we forget many of the so-called the 9/11 terrorists came by way of the Canadian border. In any event, the border is not at risk because of undocumented workers but because of U.S. policies have ruined the ability of small Mexican farmers to stay on their land. The border is insecure because of the U.S. War on Drugs, which is bankrupting both countries. It is insecure because people are poor, and hunger has no borders.

But let’s further test the premise that Latin Americans are getting special treatment. This is an argument made even by the Left who justified the 1965 Immigration Act because in part it was part of the Civil Rights legislation and a slice of its reforms. It is true that it ended the U.S.’s racist National Origins policy that based entrance on race; it allowed previously excluded Asians and Middle Easterners to enter the country. On the positive side the 1965 Act implemented a policy of family reunification through Family Preferences.

However, it is also a fact that Latin Americans were not a quota before the 1965 Immigration Act. The United States reneged on promises of Pan Americanism and shell games that followed such as the Good Neighbor Policy.

Liberals bargained this special relationship away. The reform amounted to kicking Latinos out of the line in order to be fair to Asians and other Third World people. The question is why was this deal was ever made? Why was it necessary to rob Peter to pay Paul?

On the other hand, conservatives in 1965 accepted the bargain because they believed that the Germans, the British and northern Europeans would continue to immigrate in large numbers. That they did not continue to flood our borders speaks loads to the positive results of the Marshall Plan – people do not come to the United States unless there is an economic incentive and conditions in their own countries are bad.

So, the reasoning of nativists that Latinos are cutting in the line holds no water. The argument that anything is better than nothing is also fallacious. I could offer countless examples of historical facts that disprove the syllogism, but reason makes no difference to the double speakers.

This is also true of the argument that we are somehow winning on gun control legislation because we are getting a gun law through the senate. No matter that assault weapons will be permissible and meaningful background checks have joined the fishes in the ocean. According to the cheerleaders, we got something.

I am not going to dwell on this but let’s not forget that the Ku Klux Klan, Ronald Reagan, and, for most of its history, the NRA all worked for gun controls. The only thing that was different was that they did not want the guns in the hands of blacks and minorities.

In 1967, according to these double speakers, the Black Panthers led by Bobby Seale “invaded” Sacramento, California with an army of thirty black men and women carrying .357 Magnums, 12-gauge shotguns, and .45-caliber pistols.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUQIYLQ2rbk . In June Reagan signed the Mulford Act prohibiting the carrying of firearms in any public place.

(Note that in Arizona white Tea Partyers and Minutemen parade around with guns at their side.) However, in the instance of the Black Panthers there was little talk about the Second Amendment. Conservatives demanded gun control laws and got them. The people with the guns were the wrong color.

The reactions of progressives underscore the consequences of doublespeak. Instead of being mad as hell at President Barack Obama and Senator Harry Reid, progressives are borrowing a page from President George W. Bush when he turned to his FEMA director, Michael Brown and said “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job”, while New Orleans sank in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The truth be told, when it comes to Immigration Reform and gun control we have lost the battles. We should not delude ourselves into thinking that we have won – we haven’t.

I have always been of the philosophy that you hit while things are hot. When we set up the Mexican American Studies Department in the spring of 1969, the administration told me that we only had to get twelve courses approved to be a department. We could do the rest latter. I did not and still do not trust them so I wrote up forty-seven proposals and got them approved while it was hot.

Today, I have mellowed, and I propose (tongue in cheek) that we charter the National Chicana/o Rifle Association (NCCRA) – wondering what the reaction will be from conservatives and liberals alike.

REMEMBER APRIL 27, 2013, 5-10 PM ON THE FIRST FLOOR OF JEROME RICHFIELD HALL, CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY NORTHRIDGE

– by Rodolfo F. Acuña

Posted in Chicana/o, Chicana/o Movement, Chicana/o Studies, Community, Cultural Studies, Education, History, Literary Theory, Racism, Resistance | Leave a comment

The Young Grow Old

Posted on April 13, 2013 by admin

Rank and file Democrats are desperate for a turnaround of their political fortunes, and an end of the Robber Baron era — so much so that they see the recent elections as their deliverance. For them, the last presidential election was a sign that the country is turning to the left, and that Democrats will be able to keep the presidency for eternity. They believe that obstructionism of Republicans will be drowned by the growing numbers of youth, minority, homosexual and Latino voters. Their hope is that the changes will put them on the road to a more communitarian and humane society.

Pundit after pundit predicts that the entrance of large numbers gay and Latino voters will end the culture wars that divide the country. There is only one problem — progressives forget that the “Young Grow Old.”

It is easy to get caught up in the euphoria of the moment. I remember demonstrations in the 1960s, and thinking that we had entered a new era. I did not fully appreciate the seductive power of capital in negating any communitarian or humane transformation. I also underestimated the ability of the ruling class to twist the words of sociologists, and blame the victim with phrases such as the “culture of poverty.”

Nor did I take into account the self-interest of many of the demonstrators who opposed the war; they remained interested for only as long as they were personally threatened. Poverty and injustice was only visible for as long as the young remained young. They became invisible once more as the baby boomers grew old, and took on mortgages. They then distanced themselves from poverty, which again became a non-priority.

Before we enter the World of Oz once more, we should remember that age will not make us wiser; it will not make us more humane. Our system of governing has been taken captive by billionaires who have always been old and count on the young growing old. They count on the individual and the community being disconnected. They have purposely disconnected the family unit from the community, and destroyed any sense of shared history. In this environment poverty and injustice become invisible.

We are blinded by temporary victories and the glitter of that huge flag pin dangling from our lapels.

Tax breaks for the rich are softened by senior citizens discounts. Daily we play the game of bargains. Every day my family receives more advertisements from Macy’s than it does from St. Jude’s.

The tactics differ; St. Jude tries to jar us with photos of pelones, bald children who have gone through chemotherapy. Macy’s plays more to our self-interest, and like society seduces us. It sends us coupons. Items that cost $99.99 are marked down to $79.99, and then as a preferred customer you get an additional 20% off, and if you have a Macy’s Bank of America card, you get an additional 20%. By the time you get through with the sale you have saved over 50%. That is a deal!

The cost of being taken (exploited) becomes invisible. Penney’s recently started a marketing strategy where it posted the true price. No coupons. However, it was such a disaster that the new CEO came under attack and was fired.  The truth be told, we have reached the point where young and old want to be taken.

As Latinos and gays get older and discrimination is hidden by the coupon game they will forget that at one time Latinos did not have green cards, and gays could not marry. None of us are immune to seduction. We just turn the other way. Latinos and blacks today tolerate reactionary voices among them, although it is obvious that these voices conflict with their interests.

As in the movie “Soylent Green,” (1973) we’ll take the green wafer which is advertised to contain “high-energy plankton.” Foods that we remember will fade from memory as we grow old.

Coming off my high horse, it does not have to be like this. Our minds can stay young, and we should remember that at one time most people could afford a home. I bought my first home at 21 – no down payment, total cost $8500. I could qualify for it on my janitor’s salary. Today that same house costs $500,000; $100,000 down. And I am sure I could not qualify for it on a teacher’s salary. You do not get coupons to buy a home unless they plan to take it away.

The Left is complicit in the aging of our memory. Their journals and their activities include little material to politically educate and integrate Latinos. The Nation rarely includes articles on Latinos west of Chicago. Tellingly, most turned the other way as Mexican American history, books and culture were banned in Arizona.

If Democrats want to keep Mexican Americans and youth young, they are going to have to invest in their political education. They must integrate Mexican American and Latino history into the fabric of the progressive history of the United States. The Left is going to have to respect Mexican Americans and support their causes and know who they are.

Recently there was an exchange between so-called socialists; a Mexican American member (a true activist) criticized the body for its white chauvinism. He criticized the members’ lack of knowledge of Latino history. A pedant answered the criticism with a long winded response naming many African-American members of the Communist Party.

What was revealing was that the respondent named only Latin Americans living south of the United States as communist. It was as if Mexican Americans or Latinos in this country did not exist.

If progressives really want a communitarian society they will support Mexican American and other Latino issues. They will integrate these causes into the progressive agenda, work to achieve them instead of just handing out coupons. A sign of respect for the masses is remembering their names even when they are not considered part of the vanguard.

I must admit it is nice to get a senior citizens discount even though there are others who cannot afford to watch the movie. You know, the people cannot afford Obamacare because of the cost of medical insurance. In order to have a humane and communitarian society, we have to go beyond, “Don’t touch my Medicare!” and stop hoarding it as if it were only for the old.

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT APRIL 27, FIRST FLOOR OF JEROME RICHFIELD, 5-10.

– by Rodolfo F. Acuña

Posted in Chicana/o, Chicana/o Movement, Chicana/o Studies, Community, Cultural Studies, Education, History, Political Science, Racism, Resistance | Leave a comment

Discovering Chicano/a Literature

Posted on March 31, 2013 by admin

For some reason I’ve had Chicano/a literature on my mind lately. I keep thinking back to my first experience coming across an author that had a “Mexican-sounding” name. This was back in my junior year of high school. Our English teacher, Mr. Weir, did this pretty cool thing during the spring semester, where instead of just having us read books by old dead white guys, he had us read books with authors from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. There was a list and with the names of the authors and titles of the books, and we got to pick and choose each week who we’d be reading. We had to be responsible for actually reading the books, because by the following week, Mr. Weir would have a one-on-one conference with each student to discuss the book. Really it was his clever way of testing us individually without having to write out an exam for each book. Of course there were students who didn’t keep up with the reading and would end up sounding like they were choking as they conversed with Mr. Weir who was asking pointed questions about the book(s); mainly about specific characters in specific scenes, or the general plot which you couldn’t possibly remember unless you took the time to actually read the book in its entirety.

Anyhow, I’m getting off track. On this list, I caught a few names that sounded Mexican. I thought to myself, “What the fuck? En la madre! It couldn’t be! Mexicans don’t publish shit! Mexicans work their asses off in a caneria or picking strawberries, in jobs like my parents work. But they’re not writers!” Yes I thought like this, because I had spent my life growing up with anglo teachers, along with reading books by white authors, at least until high school. Needless to say, I was blown the fuck away by all the authors with “Mexican-sounding” names. By all, I mean four. Being that I hadn’t come across any Mexican-American authors previously, at the time four was a lot for me. Their names stood out: Rudolfo Anaya and a book titled Bless Me, Ultima, Sandra Cisneros and The House on Mango Street, Jose Antonio Villarreal Pocho, and Gary Soto’s Living Up the Street. It awed me, and I remember having a “wow”-look on my face.

Needless to say I began my track through the books with Bless Mi, Ultima. Upon finishing it I found myself further awed or “wow-ed,” because I could relate to the characters based partially on the experiences, but more so due to some of the cultural aspects, such as the use of Catholicism and curanderismo, along with the friction created by sons who don’t want what their fathers want for them, and cultural expectations. But even the most minute things had captured my attention like all the “Mexican-sounding” names and the code switching between English and Spanish. I know trivial things for anyone else, but for me at the time having understood that there were white authors and even black authors, and having only read their work, and having only understood history based on their relations, I couldn’t believe I was reading something written by someone like me.

My experience upon reading the other novels was similar. What The House on Mango Street was interesting as a matter of fact, because something that had caught my attention was a the focus on the female protagonist and other female characters in the book, something that the other novels had not done. So the issues of Mexican-American women was very much a major theme that stood out even before Mr. Weir pointed out such issues. Mr. Weir did take the time to address some of the gender issues occurring in the novel, which in a sense was one of my first exposures to feminism, since he tried to get me to think about women as an underprivileged group.

Living Up the Street similarly had grabbed me up to a certain point, but of all the books it didn’t really leave me too happy with my experience reading it. I enjoyed it, because again, this was someone like me writing about their experiences, and some of the craziness we can get into as children. In fact one of the scenes I remember the most involves children placing cats and bottles in sacks so the one group of children can use said sacks as weapons against a rival group of children. I’m shaking my head at the scene, and us as children.

However, Pocho did stay with me for quite some time after having read it. I think I mainly related to that novel because of the conflict of the main character, Richard, stuck between being Mexican according to the standards of his father and mother. And there is of course the very apparent conflict of the Mexican and American cultures clashing, along with their impact on the gender roles. Aside from the issues and themes I could relate to, this was the first time that I had ever read my hometown mentioned in a work of fiction. I saw “Watsonville,” written there, and I was thinking to myself, again “What the fuck?!” I was very much about pride in my hometown and where I came from, I still am, but to see your hometown actually mentioned, even just in passing in a work of fiction written by an author with a “Mexican-sounding” name, I was just, “wow-ed,” again.

Mr. Weir didn’t really push us to think too critically about the novels, so I spent my time just thinking about how great it was to read these novels about people with similar class and cultural backgrounds to my own. A common theme amongst all four of them was of course that it was about growing up Mexican-American in the United States. And I just kept thinking how great it was that I could relate, that was the most important thing for me, brown folk like myself writing about their experience and I felt like I couldn’t relate on a different level than if it were a Anglo or African-American author writing about similar class and cultural struggles. Class struggles are easy to relate to, but the cultural and social aspect is missing, and it was a void that was filled for me thanks to these Mexican-American authors. Not long after, I would come to refer to them as Chicano/a authors, and their work as Chicano/a literature.

For a very long time I believed that those were the only Chicano/a authors around, and that those books I read were their only works, well besides Victor Villaseñor’s Rain of Gold and Luis Rodriguez’s Always Running, which I read on my personal time, after borrowing them from friends. As an undergrad when I took a Chicano/a and Latino/a literature course, 3 of those novels I just mentioned were covered, considered to be part of the canon; The House On Mango Street, Bless Me Ultima, and Pocho. Plays by Luis Valdez and El Teatro Campesino were also taught, and we had an Latino/a literature anthology, but aside from these works I was probably too lazy to hunt down anything else by the other authors we read. I was content knowing that there were more Chicano/a or Latino/a authors aside from the five I had been exposed to in high school.

A few years later, my thesis would be based on Chicano/a literature. It was also while writing my thesis that I discovered that not all of the authors accepted the label Chicano/a. For example Jose Antonio Villarreal didn’t care for the label, nor did he care for the rabble rousing of Chicanos/as. I have the exact quote in my thesis, which I’ll have to go back and look up, but needless to say it was disappointing that an author whose novel I admired didn’t care for the politics of Chicanos/as.

It’s funny, because as I think back to my time as an undergrad. I had a friend call me and ask for any good Chicano/a books. Off the top of my head were the five books I had read in high school and maybe an anthology from the Chicano/a lit class I had taken. He said he’d read all of those. I was disappointed with myself for not knowing other works by those authors, or a variety of Chicano/a authors. My friend however was able to hunt down other books, some of which he in turn mentioned to me. Then of course not long after I was exposed to many more authors and their works, finding out there were whole sections dedicated to Chicano/a authors and their works, such as UC Santa Barbara’s Colección Tloque Nahuaque. Exhibiting not just the work of creative writers, but scholars as well. Recently there’s been Chicano/a bloggers mentioned to me, who write and post their poetry and other works, and the discovery of them similarly has me “wow-ed” along with the work by indie authors, who have taken the reins themselves to get their work out there. A great source for a diverse selection of Chicano content is Aztlán Reads. Which has exposed me to something else, and that is, that the Chicano/a experience varies.

I’m not sure when or how Mr. Weir had gotten the idea to allow his students to read a from a selection that included authors from a variety of ethnicities, it could have been mandated by the school for all I know, but technically it’s thanks to him that I discovered authors who not only had experiences like my own, but they were also from the same cultural and ethnic background as my own. In his class I also read Richard Wright’s Black Boy and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, but it was Villarreal, Cisneros, Soto and Anaya that placed a smile on my face, and made me look forward to reading, because I felt I could understand them on a different level.

I didn’t intend for this to be about Arizona and the Chicano/a literature book ban, but it kept coming to mind throughout, as I wrote this post. That feeling of being excited, awed or “wow-ed” by the discovery of Chicano/a authors, writers like yourself from similar backgrounds-this feeling is just one the things they’ve taken away from future generations of young Chicanos/as who have yet to come across authors like themselves.

XX

c/s

– by Xicano X

Posted in Chicana/o, Chicana/o Literature, Chicana/o Studies, Community, Education | Leave a comment

Immigration: The Death of the Chicana/o Left

Posted on March 30, 2013 by admin

Prior to 1986 a clear Left voice could be heard on immigration reform. Among its priorities was that there would be no guest worker program, there would be no employer sanctions, there would be a more humane border enforcement policy, and there would be a clear path to citizenship with an absence of penalties and fees. For the most part we lost, and the only real victory was that proposals for a guest worker program died.

The truth be told, immigration reform has never been a high priority among American progressives; as a consequence, no clear vision of what immigration reform was developed outside the Mexican American community. This lack of understanding and consensus has led to the probability of compromise — that invariably leads to a negation of meaningful and just reform.

The question has become so muddled that not even the so-called Latino leadership knows what it wants. Having been invited and having sat at the Democratic Party table as guests of honor, they don’t want to rock the boat –or like my mother used to say quieren quedar bien con todo mundo.

As it is shaping up liberals seem committed to a path to citizenship for the undocumented, but they also seem willing to ignore the abuses of ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), and are going along with the increased enforcement of immigration laws — a grotesque and massive immigration apparatus that spent $18 billion on immigration enforcement last year.

It is obvious that large chunks of the Latino leadership is willing to forget the extensive and rich literature on the bracero program, and are disposed to place their trust in President Barack Obama. The hard Left – what is left of it — opposes a guest worker program that excludes a clear pathway to citizenship for the bracero.  They don’t want to go back to the days where American farmers rented Mexicans at will, and repeat a program that was full of corruption and abuses.

As a matter of fact, historically the U.S. has refused to deal with guest workers as “free labor” with the rights enjoyed by other workers.  Consequently, the U.S. has engaged in a cut your nose to spite your face policy that has weakened American agriculture, with the nation importing food from China and other countries because it cannot get its crops picked.

As conservative columnist Richard M. Estrada testified in in 1995: “One must …insist that the absence of slavery does not imply the presence of freedom. As commonly understood, the term free labor also implies that an individual can sell his or her labor on the open market to whomever will contract for it. It is in this regard that guest worker programs are, by definition, unfree labor arrangements or, at the very least, not totally free labor arrangements…To be specific, the agricultural guest worker is explicitly obligated not to sell his or her labor anywhere else but to the agricultural employer who sponsors entry. Employers tend to prize guest workers for their abilities, true. But they also value them because they have no options and are, therefore, more malleable. (Employers tend to prefer the term ‘disciplined.’)”

It is difficult to talk to Democrats about “free labor;” they prefer to concentrate on the globalization, which is important. However, globalization has always been with us, and not presuming to argue with the great theorist Immanuel Wallerstein, global capitalism is part of world history, beginning before the time of Christ. Numerous transformations caused the uprooting of entire societies.

We must keep in mind that population growth in China and India caused the migration of ideas into the Middle East, Egypt, and Greece. The growth of the Chinese population and its markets moved the exploitation of the Americas, and the movement of “unfree labor.”

Another transformation took place during the Industrial Revolution, and as Oscar Handlin makes clear in his classic The Uprootedglobal changes in production and population growth led to the uprooting of entire societies – dispersing people not only to the United States but globally.

However, at this point, I am more concerned about what is happening today in the Latino community, and how can we cope with it? In my view, ideas are important, and the role of a Left voice is vital in counteracting the contradictions of capitalism that lead to unbridled exploitation and the loss of liberty.

At one time, the Soviet Union served as a brake on the imperial obsessions of U.S. foreign policy. Left ideas in this country have made this society more democratic by initiating major reforms. This contribution is obvious when you consider that the American right wing has not introduced a single reform. The Right’s myopic worldview seems unique to the U.S.; witness that even ultra-conservative German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck initiated universal health care in the 19th century.

In recent times, Mexico was developing a Left voice, but it was muffled by the absorption of the left parties into el Partido de la Revolución Democrática, PRD, in the late 1980s. The oalition of left parties then became a social-democratic political party, and electoral politics softened its voice.

History suggests that a similar process has occurred within the Mexican American community. As we have become more invested in electoral politics, our electoral gains have softened the voice of the Left within the community on issues ranging from identity to police brutality. Our elected officials seem more willing to make arrangements, and at the national level our organizations often move to the right to accommodate the interests of other middle class Latinos.  Witness that there was no outcry when Marco Rubio pretended to speak for “Latinos” on immigration.

Because of the size of the Latino community, 70 percent of which is Mexican American, it is inevitable that we have been drawn into the game of politics. Without a doubt, the 2012 Presidential Election is a watershed in Chicana/o History. It is a recognition of our numbers not our skill at playing the political game. In my view, in order to survive the game, we must play it collectively and have clear principles.

Not wanting to sound cynical, it will become more difficult for the Left to be heard because of the transformations brought about by the 2012 election.  It is significant that a cadre of wealthy Latino business owners, entertainers, lawyers and financiers formed a PAC and collected roughly $30 million for Obama’s re-election.

The sum contributed is not significant, but the emergence of the Latino PAC is. Its bundlers sit or will sit on the boards of national Latino organizations.  As a group they will represent Latino interests and collectively their political clout and leverage will increase – neutralizing left of center views. Necessarily their schooling and class interests will diverge from positions of the Left on questions such as immigration.

I am not questioning the good faith of the members of the Latino PAC members; however, how they acquired their knowledge and life experiences often form their views and how strongly they feel about them. Attending an Ivy League is an accomplishment but it also acculturates you, and may even make you more willing to compromise on issues such as immigration. You rationalize that a half a loaf is better than none.

Consider that for a time our voices could be heard through massive demonstrations such as those in 1994 and 2006. If history teaches us anything, we should study why after 1994 they diminished in size largely due to the 1996 Presidential Election and again after 2006 due to the 2008 Election.

SAVE APRIL 27, 2013 FOR A TAKE BACK YOUR HISTORY NIGHT

HELP, SEND ME YOUR EMAILS AND SPREAD THE WORD

– by Rodolfo Acuña

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¡MEChA Esta Presente! Press Conference at CSULA on April 25th

Posted on March 30, 2013 by admin

¡MEChA Esta Presente!

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Noche de Conciencia y Resistencia on April 25th at CSULA

Posted on March 25, 2013 by admin
Noche de Conciencia y Resistencia

Noche de Conciencia y Resistencia

Posted in Chicana/o, Chicana/o Literature, Chicana/o Movement, Chicana/o Studies, Community, Community, Cultural Studies, History, Palabra, Poetry, Racism, Resistance, Women's Studies | Leave a comment

What is Chicano to a Non-Chicano?

Posted on March 21, 2013 by admin

Chicano is an act of defiance-Tino Villanueva

I spent a lot of time thinking about this quote after I read it on Aztlán Reads. I wondered what it meant exactly. But most importantly I wondered what my relation was to this quote. You see, I grew up in South Tejas in an area known as the Rio Grande Valley. Notable Chican@ scholars Gloria Anzaldúa and Americo Paredes hail from this area.

While growing up in South Tejas the term Chicanismo wasn’t uttered and if it was it was in a derogatory manner. I never met or even learned about Chicanismo until my second year in college (2008 about age 20). Chican@ was not an identity or philosophy anyone wanted to subscribe to. I know it may seem hard to believe for some but I’m not saying there weren’t Chican@s in South Tejas. I must consider the fact that South Tejas has a long history of political/social movements. Instead I’m saying I never met a person who identified as Chican@ while I was growing up.

So naturally after being exposed to whitewashed versions of history and never talking with anyone about Chicanismo; I never subscribed to the idea that I was a Chicano. Instead I wrestled with trying to find an identity between Mexican, American, Mexican-American, Tejano, or Hispanic. I eventually figured it would be best if I was just Mexican-American. It was much simpler to fill out forms as follows citizenship: U.S citizen; Ethnicity: Mexican-American.

It wasn’t until after learning about the Chicano Movement and Chicanismo that I began to see Chicanismo in a different light. I no longer saw it as an identity that cholos or people in gangs subscribed to. I saw the real political/social implications that the term carried. I began to see why Chicano was an identity of empowerment, social action, and social justice.

But despite all of that I could not begin calling myself a Chicano. At first I felt that I would be seen as a fake. That if I called myself Chicano other Chicanos would know that I wasn’t genuine. But I brushed that aside after the university I was attending got word that due to major budget cuts some programs were going on the chopping block. You see in Tejas we have the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), they create policy on Texas Higher Education. To no one’s surprise the THECB declared that Mexican American Studies (MAS) at the University of Texas Pan American was a “low performing” program. THECB policy states that universities have to cut “low performing” programs.

After this announcement a group of students began to take action on what we deemed an attack on MAS. For the first time in my life I became political in order fight something I believed in and to correct a social injustice. How can a university with 90% of the student population claiming Mexican or Mexican American ancestry even consider cutting MAS? We organized a walk-out and a teach-in on Cesar Chavez day to protest and demand MAS. We also asked the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to reconsider its position.

I wasn’t the same person after the walkout. From that day on I felt no shame in learning or talking about my culture. It became clear to me that Chicano was that teacher who taught me my history, my language, and gave me a voice. Chicano was my family who supported me and believed in me. Chicano were the strangers who stood up with us on that day to say that Mexican American history is American history. I realized that in order to effect change you had to fight for it and then live it. I didn’t become political or radical I became CHICANO! I was a Chicano, I am a Chicano. It all made sense to me when I read Tino Villanueva’s quote “Chicano is an act of defiance”.

If this was a perfect world I would gladly say that MAS is safe at the University of Texas Pan American but that is not the case. The program was basically given an extension so it could raise its numbers. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board basically loosened the noose but did not remove it from the program’s neck. Despite this an extremely dedicated group of faculty, staff, and students at the University of Texas Pan American work tirelessly to ensure the prosperity of MAS. I can say that we are now recognized but we fight everyday to ensure that we are not forgotten.

I would like to end by saying a couple of words to those who are afraid or confused about saying they are Chicano. There are those who will teach and feed you ignorance. But realize that it’s better to starve on truth than to feast on ignorance.

– by Eduardo Robles

Posted in Chicana/o, Chicana/o Movement, Chicana/o Studies, Community, Community, Education, Political Science, Resistance | 6 Comments

Arizona: The Ruling

Posted on March 13, 2013 by admin

U.S. Circuit Judge A. Wallace Tashima has made his decision to uphold disparate treatment of Mexican Americans, and the constitutionality of HB 2281. The purpose of this law was to destroy Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies Program.  In doing so, Tashima returned us to the times of Joseph McCarty.

The Arizona law broadly banned courses that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, foster racial resentment, were designed for students of a particular ethnic group or that advocated ethnic solidarity.

The penalty if Tucson did not comply was that the district would lose 10 percent of its annual funding — some $14 million over a fiscal year.

Tashima ruled that the plaintiffs “failed to show the law was too vague, broad or discriminatory, or that it violated students’ first amendment rights.” On the positive side, he held that courses made-to-serve students of a particular ethnic group were not unconstitutional, which seems to imply that it is alright to ban ethnic studies programs.

The ruling raised more questions than it answered. The judge’s legal reasoning and wording was not consistent with his previous decisions, and it left me with the feeling that it had been written by law clerks and that the decision was not properly vetted by Tashima who has been more precise in previous rulings. A survivor of the Japanese internment camps, he had been expected to be sensitive to the rampant racism in Arizona.

Tashima noted that Attorney General Tom Horne’s anti-Mexican American Studies ardor bordered on discriminatory conduct, saying that Horne’s “single-minded focus on terminating the MAS (Mexican-American Studies) program” raised concerns.

Then Tashima engaged in mental gymnastics: “Although some aspects of the record may be viewed to spark suspicion that the Latino population has been improperly targeted, on the whole, the evidence indicates that Defendants targeted the MAS program, not Latino students, teachers or community members who participated in the program.” This conclusion is mind boggling.

This wrongheaded logic would condone the bombing of a village as long as the villagers were not targeted.

The truth be told, HB 2281 targeted Mexican students in particular restricting their right to learn about the history and culture of their parents. It deprived Anglo-Americans and others of the right to learn a broader history that includes Mexican Americans and other minorities.

The state also sanctioned the banning of books because Attorney General Horne and Superintendent John Huppenthal did not approve of them. It is clear from the record that the reason for banning the books was political and had nothing to do with fact. It is also clear that reputable education evaluators found the books were not unpatriotic, did not promote racial divisions or that they were written for a particular ethnic group. The fact that they are about Mexican Americans or other minorities does not prove that they fall within the objections of the defendants.

In sum, the court held “a student’s First Amendment rights are infringed when books that have been determined by the school district to have legitimate educational value are removed from a mandatory reading list because of threats of damages, lawsuits, or other forms of retaliation.” And may I add the whim of public elected officials.

Many of the books in Tucson were banned because they were written by Native and Mexican American authors. They have not been proven to distort history.

Tashima’s state authority was not that of a professional educator, not that of a legal scholar, but an administrative Law Judge who listens to liquor license and insurance claims. The ALJ was someone that the superintendent of instruction for all intents and purposes dragged off the street, and to make things worse was appointed by the state.

Tashima repeats that it would have been illegal if HB 2281 or the banning of the books would have been motivated by a discriminatory purpose. He admits that Tom Horne made repeated attempts to ban MAS in TUSD; that Huppenthal promised to “Stop La Raza.” Despite this Tashima ignores discriminatory purpose. He accepts the argument that people are rounded up and put into internment camps for their own protection.

Disparate treatment in job discrimination is when an individual of a protected group is singled out and treated “less favorably than others similarly situated on the basis of an impermissible criterion under Title VII.” When proven that the employer’s actions were motivated by discriminatory intent it is a violation. Women cannot be treated differently than men and so on.

The preponderance of evidence shows that Horne has singled out Mexican Americans for the enforcement of 2281. Despite this Tashima has ruled that he believes what the ALJ found and that is okay to enforce the 2281 against Mexican Americans and not whites, African-Americans, Asian Americans or Native Americans.

The ruling concerns most civil rights minded people. It says that the First Amendment does not protect student or teacher rights to receive information restricting access and that political officials can forbid the classroom use of a book based solely on “ideological content.” The ruling legalizes censorship. None of the books banned have been reviewed by experts in the field or publicly vetted.

The Tashima ruling is frightening because there is no restraint on the power of the states, which was what the 14thAmendment was all about. Taken to its logical conclusion it nullifies Brown v. the Board of Education.

Tashima improperly grants the State absolute discretion in devising its curriculum. This is frightening in a state like Arizona where the Koch brothers, ALEC and other special interests have seized control of government and are benefiting from the privatization of education, the prisons and public institutions. Arizona is a state where elected officials are attempting to nullify the U.S. Constitution.

What bothers me is that Tashima’s law clerks were not even clever in their reasoning. They cite the Plaintiffs’ use of the verb “promote” as impermissibly broadening the statute. Tashima’s clerks cite as their authority Webster’s Third New Int’l Dictionary 1815 (2002). I would have expected this from a freshman but not a legal scholar.

The bottom line is that it all comes down to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s remark that “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

This statement pertains to Tashima. I would have hoped that a judge with his life experiences would have examined the context in which Horne, Huppenthal and the gaggle white politicos made the decisions to ban Mexican American studies and ban the books. The political motivations of the Arizona Attorney General and the state superintendent of schools are obvious – just read their public statements.

Reasonable people can also raise other questions. Does American education, for example, promote racial solidarity among whites? A reading of the history of American Education shows that public education was and is designed for white students. The content, the books and its standards are to promote Americanization. Neither Mexican American Studies nor any other  other ethnic studies program has those objectives.  They are taught within the context of the American experience.

I will not speak to Tashima’s claim that the facial vagueness of the plaintiffs’ challenge must fail for many of the same reasons.  Again, I go back to Sotomayor’s statement that “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” I would have expected someone with Tashima’s life experiences to have understood what is happening in Arizona. However, I cannot speak for his clerks.

What did Horne mean when he vowed that he would eliminate Mexican American Studies? When he made the statement that Mexican American Studies was trying to retake the Southwest? What did Tashima make of the fact that Arizona has avoided a federal court order to desegregate since the 1970s?  What did he think about Huppenthal’s dismissal of the $112,000 Cambium study which refuted all of his claims about Mexican American studies? Does this not speak to motivation?

Look at the public record and consider the assassination of 9 year old Brisenia Flores in 2009. Does this not speak to discrimination?

As I have said on numerous occasions this culture war is being directed against Mexican Americans and the state and federal courts don’t care. I entered this case, not because I was fighting for individuals, but because of the 2281. Tashima has opened the door to a singling out of brown people throughout this nation. The ruling is a threat that rises above our petty differences and jealousies.

– by Rodolfo F. Acuña

Posted in Chicana/o, Chicana/o Movement, Chicana/o Studies, Community, Cultural Studies, Education, History, Racism, Resistance | Leave a comment

What’s In A Name? What You Make of It!

Posted on March 10, 2013 by admin
Building Chicana/o Studies

Building Chicana/o Studies

A war on the memories of Mexican Americans and other minorities is occurring raging throughout the country, and I am interested in knowing why the right wing is so obsessed with erasing our historical memory? In places such as Arizona and Texas these zealots have used the power of government to censor books and replace the truth with fairy tales.

A major problem with these assaults is that most people fail to recognize the threat. The erasure is so slow that it goes almost unnoticed. It is similar to aging. The “maturing” process is hidden by cosmetic procedures such as hair coloring. The loss of historical memory goes is also obfuscated by immediate problems such as deportations or a presidential election.

Take the erasure of the term Chicano; it has taken place before our eyes. It is disheartening when you consider how much we have invested in the term, and how much part of our memories it is. It would seem to me that we should at least ask, why?

We cannot solely blame the government or the beer companies. Activists share the blame for the erasure of the term Chicano. We have failed to explain the legacies of the Chicana/o movement often not going beyond the East LA Walkouts or the Chicano Moratorium.

My good friend Jorge Mariscal, a professor of Chicano arts and humanities at UC San Diego, is quoted as saying that the decline in the relevance of the term Chicano and interest in studying the Mexican American community in an academic context is “maybe that term [Chicano]is not what’s appropriate for unifying a mobilization of young people in 2013.”

I disagree. Perhaps a more self-critical response would be that Chicana/o Studies has failed in its duty to memory.  It has failed to document the achievements of the Chicana/o generation in concrete material terms.  As a consequence, the present generation of students, faculty members and community have not benefited from an institutional memory.

I consider proposals to change the name of Chicana/o Studies or simply tack on Latino to be inchoate. The presumption is that by dyeing Chicana/o Studies that it will be more attractive and interest more students.

In my opinion, the only reasons that it would make sense to change the name would be 1) if we could broaden our course offerings to include Latin America, and 2) the change would indeed attract more students.

If my memory informs me correctly, we tried several times to initiate an interdisciplinary Latin American Studies major, and we were shot down by the Spanish Department. What makes us think that at this juncture Spanish along with history, political science, art, music etc. will roll over and allow Chicana/o studies to offer these classes in competition with their own offerings?

As for the proposition that it would attract more Latino students: this is a specious argument when you consider the demographics. The overwhelming Latino population in the southwest is of Mexican origin. The change would perhaps make sense in Chicago and points east but not in LA, San Antonio or even Tucson.

When we changed the name of the area of study from Mexican American to Chicano I voted against the proposal. For me the problem was that we were not accepted as Mexicans, and at the time the saying was Mexicans in the West and Puerto Ricans in the East. What has changed since then is the growth and spread of the Mexican-origin population.

But, once I was outvoted I embraced the term Chicano and committed myself to it for life. You cannot continuously change your identity without developing cultural schizophrenia. Pretty soon you have to ask, who am I?

I remember when Save-on drugs changed its name to Osco. Many in the Mexican American community began calling the chain Asco, which translates to revolting, nauseating or sickening – literally that you want to throw up.

The truth be told, the term Chicano is actually much more inclusive than Mexican American or even Latino. Therefore, instead of cosmetic solutions, the answer is education.

At Cal State Northridge, we tried to bridge this dichotomy by calling the alumni group La Raza Alumni — it hasn’t worked. A lot of the older alumni ask, what happened to Chicano?

Looking at it objectively, the Chicana/o brand is a good one. It left a legacy that has improved over the years. Today Chicana/o students are more open to international issues and way less sexist and homophobic.

The fact is that every Mexican American and Latino student who enters higher education owes the Chicana/o Generation – it opened the doors to the middle-class heaven that many enjoy.  It has also produced an impressive body of scholarship.

We are supposed to be custodians of the truth, and it is our duty to keep the memory alive. However, I concede that this is a difficult task in a country where history is rooted in colonialism and in a language and iconography that want us to forget.

On April 27th from 5 to 10 PM on the first floor of Jerome Richfield Hall a group of alumni, students and Chicana/o Studies professors are partially addressing our duty to memory and launching a campaign to take back our history.  A disconnect has developed between Chicana/o Studies and the alumni and the community.  Like the rest of society, we have forgotten how we got here and where we are going.

For many of us memory is a gift, and it is our duty to preserve it, and pass it on to future generations. In places like Arizona, we are witnessing the forces of reaction attempting to control or wipe out our memory, distorting the epistemological underpinnings of our history.  The motive behind this erasure is to constrain us, limit us, and control us. The loss of our historical memory clouds our political vision, direction and resolve.

We want to take back our history and by doing so remember how far we have come, and how far we must go.

At California State University Northridge, we have been fortunate to have had exceptional students that have contributed to building a network of professionals that continue to contribute to the Mexican American and Latino community.  Most of us owe our jobs and a treasure trove of life experiences to these memories that are unfortunately being lost or wiped out.

The program for the evening of April 27 is simple: we will be screening alumni Miguel Duran’s hour long documentary “Unrest” on the founding of the department. Mechistas Jose Reyes Garcia, Everto Ruiz, Oscar Castillo and Marta Ramirez will exhibit photos ca. 1969-1974. They will be available to answer questions.

Marta Ramirez will deliver the platica on the forming of a Chicana/o identity on campus. There were only about fifty Mexican American students at SFVSC in the fall of 1968. Marta is a renowned artist who studied with the great David Alfaro Siqueiros. She will discuss her Mecha years, the occupation of the free speech area and her journey in Teatro Aztlan and the renowned Mexican teatro, los Mascarones.

We would appreciate your support in collecting photos of deceased alumni, faculty and staff. We want to memorialize them.

This is a beginning, and we then want to take the exhibit to San Fernando, Oxnard and possibly Santa Paula in the 2013-14 calendar year. Hopefully, other alumni will make themselves available for spring 2014 when we will have another exhibit – nurturing our memories and friendships.

– by Rodolfo F. Acuña

Posted in Chicana/o, Chicana/o Movement, Chicana/o Studies, Community, Cultural Studies, Education, History, Resistance | Leave a comment

Harvest of Loneliness presented by MEChA de CSULA on April 15

Posted on March 9, 2013 by admin
Harvest of Loneliness

Harvest of Loneliness

Posted in Chicana/o, Chicana/o Studies, Community, Community, Documentary, Education, Film, History, Immigration, Racism, Resistance, Sin Fronteras | Leave a comment

¡Ban This! Tucson Festival of Books Panel Discussion

Posted on March 9, 2013 by admin

Posted in Chicana/o, Chicana/o Literature, Chicana/o Movement, Chicana/o Studies, Community, Cultural Studies, Education, History, Palabra, Resistance | Leave a comment

Arizona Being Political: It is Immigration Reform, Stupid!

Posted on March 3, 2013 by admin
National Leadership Summit for Immigration Reform

National Leadership Summit for Immigration Reform

For the past forty years, the most pressing issue for Mexican Americans and other Latinos has been immigration reform. It has dominated our conversations, our agendas, and for the more politically conscious among us, it goes to the core of who we are.

Seemingly the Democrats have come to the realization that our resolve to protect the foreign-born will not go away, and that immigration reform is an issue that three-quarters of Latinos will not compromise on. I say seemingly because Democrats are still hedging on many aspects of immigration reform, and some believe that we are gullible enough to accept a compromise.

President Barack Obama moved assertively although belatedly to normalize the status of the Dreamers, which was a no-brainer. At a time when we actively recruit educated college graduates from Eastern Europe, and drain Latin American countries of their professionals, it seems logical to look for those resources at home. In the case of the Dreamers, they are Americans, they attended American schools, they earned good grades and they made it despite the inequalities of the American system.

A lot is at stake: the challenge is for us to be true to history and to come up with an equitable law that will last. We must remember that up until the Immigration Act of 1965 Latin America was not part of the American quota system. Those who wanted to come here could do so.

Throughout the nineteenth and most of the twentieth century the United States sold Latin American nations and leaders the notion of Pan Americanism — that the Americas enjoyed a common history, and that we shared a colonial past.

The idea of Pan Americanism was expanded with the extension of U.S. commercial ambitions. In 1889, the United States initiated a Pan American Congress convened in Washington DC. Secretary of State James Blaine negotiated arbitration treaties with Latin American nations, and entered into trade agreements that were supposed to be reciprocal but in actuality strengthened U.S. political and economic hegemony in the hemisphere.

Pan Americanism was never reciprocal and initial good feelings deteriorated rapidly with rising jingoism in the United States. The United States became known as the “Colossus of the North” as American military and dollar interventions became common.

The liberalization of commercial intercourse was a one way street, benefiting Euro-American business.  It reinforced inequality between the nations north and south of U.S. border.

Fictions such as Pan Americanism and the free market widened inequality. Today, however,  U.S. policies have come home to roost, and some 55 million Latin Americans live in the United States. Despite the past, there are high hopes among many Latinos that a form of Pan Americanism is possible within the United States; that they will be treated like sisters and brothers.

The reality is that it takes the good faith of people on both sides of the border to forge a political alliance or union, which to date the American people have not been willing to do.

History informs us that there is plenty of room for pessimism regarding the current talks for immigration reform, especially when you consider the Republican response to immigration, specifically the trotting out of two clowns, Marco Rubio and Tex Cruz, and then expect us to be satisfied.

The truth be told, I am not all that sold that President Barack Obama will do the right thing. It took him a long time to embrace the Dreamers. And even now he is deporting more of the Dreamers parents and cousins than George W. Bush did.

I have gotten into heated discussions with friends who say that it is really not Obama but Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano. They even advance conspiracy theories linking Janet Napolitano to Arizona Governor Janet Brewer. However, the buck stops at President Obama’s door step.

If we want a permanent solution to the Immigration Question, the ideas are going to have to come out of the Mexican American and Latino community. It is time that we not only reap the benefits of the 55 million U.S. Latinos but also give voice to their interests.

This is going to be difficult because modern day rhetoric of Pan Americanism is imbued with the cult of personality that affects los de abajo throughout the Americas.

For example, during the past couple of weeks I have been plugging the Immigration Conference at the University of California Riverside on March 16, 2013. I have received enthusiastic responses but also more than a few that concern me. The gist of the criticism is that the decriers don’t like its organizer Armando Navarro — which is their right but Armando is not the issue – the issue is immigration reform. I have had harsh disagreements with Armando, but I would never question his good faith or that of others such as Herman Baca who I have known for over forty years and who have worked tirelessly for immigration reform.

I am going because I want to see and hear what other people think. As a scholar I need to know. That is why I traveled throughout the U.S., Mexico and El Salvador. It is my duty to know – and you cannot get that information exclusively from books or oral histories.

I am also concerned that Obama’s immigration proposal seems more driven by his corporate buddies than with wanting a solution, and I believe that we who have benefitted from the numbers of Latinos in this country should express our support for them.

For example, I have questions about Obama’s take on the legalization of the undocumented. I never considered them illegal and this point must be the guiding principle. The paying of a fine is an admission of guilt, which is stupid.

We cannot assume that that the outcome will be fair when rhetoric such as a back-of-the-line goes unchallenged. The only line that I started from at the front of the line as a Chicano was when I was inducted into the army.

While we are at it we have to get rid of the notion of an English proficiency requirement. Bilingualism was a notion that was espoused – although never adhered to, by the Pan Americanist. People are not stupid they know that English is necessary. Indeed, most people in this world also know that multiple languages are necessary. Only in the U.S. is English-only considered a requirement for good citizenship.

The Dream Act is going to have to be crafted and the military enticements eliminated and replaced by incentives for the Dreamers to go beyond the bachelors. They must be treated as a valuable asset.

There is talk that the new immigrants should be required to pay back taxes or fines without Social Security benefits. This is unjust because they have already paid into the system. This one disturbs me. I know immigrants from Eastern Europe and the Middle East who have immigrated to this country and draw benefits without having worked a day here. I do not begrudge them since it is the right thing to do. But it is also the right thing to correct the exploitation that the undocumented workers have suffered—not perpetuate it.

Obama is also going to have to listen as closely to labor as he does to Wall Street and give these newly documented immigrants full labor rights. Along this vein, Obama should form a circle of working class immigrant women – labor and community activists – he cannot solely rely on academicians and elected officials to know what is good for immigrant families.

Now and in the future ICE has to be controlled. The immigration raids and the deportations must  to stop now.  Our Berlin Wall has to come down and the militarization of the border ended. If we want to end the drug trade, let’s control our domestic market. If we want to control the flow of guns into Mexico, control the source of these guns.

Lastly, get rid of the idea of a guest worker program. It is a sop to big business and a way to further exploit and control labor. There ain’t anything Pan American about it.

I for one will be going to the National Summit for Immigration Reform on March 16th because it is not about me, it is not about personality, it is about trying to make a difference and pay homage to the numbers of Latinos and other immigrants in this country. It is a human rights issue.

– by Rodolfo F. Acuña

Posted in Border Studies, Chicana/o, Chicana/o Movement, Chicana/o Studies, Community, Cultural Studies, History, Immigration, La Frontera, Political Science, Resistance, Sin Fronteras | Leave a comment

The Case of Marco Rubio

Posted on February 20, 2013 by admin

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)  strongly criticized the first draft of President Obama’s immigration reform plan saying “It’s a mistake for the White House to draft immigration legislation without seeking input from Republican members of Congress… ,” predicting that “if actually proposed, the President’s bill would be dead on arrival in Congress.” The Rubio statement calls the bill “half-baked and seriously flawed.” It alleges that Obama’s bill is not tough enough on border security and that it penalizes “those who chose to do things the right way and come here legally” over “those who broke our immigration laws.”

Rubio’s statement undermines the social construct of a Hispanic group that bonds the disparate Latino groups. Many of the activist members of this group dismissed Rubio as a “gusano” – a worm or a maggot – a term popularly used to refer to reactionary Cuban exiles that came here during the 1960s.

Prior to his epiphany Rubio had no interest in Mexican or Latino immigrants; his sudden awakening and concern about immigration was kindled because of the strength of the Latino vote, and Mr. Rubio’s presidential aspirations. Based on his surname Rubio claims the right to take ownership of the issue, even though his base is the Tea Party and the far right of the Republican Party.

Up to this point, Rubio has not had to worry about other Latin American groups. His base is in Florida among Cuban-Americans. Cubans can legally migrate to the U.S. through various programs – options that are not open to other Latin Americans.

They get special treatment and are not subject to the restrictions and caps that Mexico and other countries are. “Cubans who have been physically present in the United States for at least one year may adjust to permanent resident status at the discretion of the Attorney General—an opportunity that no other group or nationality has.”

Many Cuban refugees are eligible for Supplemental Security Income (SSI). They have received up to $637 a month — married couples $956. They are also eligible for other subsidies.

As refugees the Cuban Entrants and families with children under 18 may be eligible for cash assistance through a state’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. More important they get health benefits. Cuban American organizations get special assistance from the federal and state governments.

Rubio’s duplicity has enraged Mexican Americans and other Latinos. He legitimizes the most reactionary of nativist rhetoric stating it would benefit those who broke the law, penalize the people who stood in line and got here legally and calls for tougher border control.

What Rubio shows is that Latinos in the United States are not a community. It raises other important questions such as why were Cubans allowed to cut into the line? Were they were being given preferential treatment? They received benefits that Mexicans and others have not received such free medical care, stipends or pension funds.  Would life for many of undocumented immigrants have been any different if they had not been forced to go underground? If they had not been hounded, insulted and stereotyped?

The senator from Florida also calls for greater border security. Would he be so quick to ask for the same treatment for members of his own family? I don’t think so!

This is in stark contrast to the Mexican community that has done it the old fashion way, they worked for it.

It is understandable that the Mexican-American community is offended and enraged by Rubio’s statements. However, I do believe that our reaction should not include hyperbole such as calling him a gusano, although he may very well be one.

The term, however, is dated and unfair to many Cuban-Americans who have criticized and criticize the politics of the Miami Mafia. Many of the younger Cubans are breaking with the politics of reaction. The Christian Science Monitor reported: “President Obama won a record number of Cuban American votes in this election, 47 percent to Romney’s 50 percent. This is a full ten points above the previous high water mark (reached by Obama in 2008) by a Democratic politician. No longer can Cuban Americans be characterized a ‘reliable Republican’ constituency.’” The Pew Hispanic Center adds that Cuban Americans favored Obama 49-47 percent. This is a fundamental shift.

The truth be told, Rubio’s own constituency is shrinking. Cuban-Americans are not a homogenous group, and their words and actions should define them – not the sins of their grandfathers. They know that, and unlike their grandfathers they have experienced and recognize racism. In this they resemble Mexican refugees who came into the country after the start of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, many of whose great grandchildren are Chicanos. We must remember that not everybody’s’ grandfather rode with Pancho Villa.

At the same time, the Mexican-origin population should not be shy about defining protecting their own interests. Conservatively, over two-thirds of the Latino population is Mexican-origin; 75-80 percent are Middle Americans. In contrast 3.5 percent of the Latino construct is of Cuban-origin. This gap will grow with Mexican women having a median age of 24 versus 40 percent for Cuban women. It makes sense that the political, social and economic interests of the whole be addressed which is what Rubio forgets.

The picture of the immigration bill is blurred and it could become a nightmare. Something is not better than nothing. Families must be united, and the borders and human rights should not end or start at the Rio Grande. When we talk about the securing of the border we have to talk about protecting citizens on both side of the border from abuse. ICE must be controlled and repent – better still abolished.

Rubio is a bagman, and he should not be given the importance of calling him names. The worm has a useful function in our ecology. Rubio does not.

The focus should be taken away from Spanish-surname Republicans like Rubio and Ted Cruz (R-Tex). We have to remember that Cruz is a Cuban-American with a southern drawl. Like Rubio he is Tea Party poster boy. Cruz opposes the DREAM Act, advocates building a border wall and calls the deferred deportation policy for childhood arrivals illegal and unconstitutional.

Still, he was elected in Texas which has historically housed a large Mexican-origin population.  Many people were surprised that he only received 35 percent of the Latino vote. I was stunned that got that many. The overwhelming portion of the Latino vote is Mexican-origin. Considering his record, how could anyone have voted for him? The fact is that he had a Spanish-surname was a factor –after all we are all Hispanic, aren’t we?

Lest cynicism get the best of us, not all non-Mexicans are bad candidates and should be considered their merits. In hind sight the Mexican label was much stronger 30 years ago when we elected a slew of Mexican-American incumbents. What our success in electing Latino candidates proved is that Mexican Americans could mess it up as much as white people.

In my estimation, Dr. Richard Carmona was as an attractive candidate as is possible in Arizona. He ran for the U.S. Senate in 2012. He probably should have won but the election in all probability was stolen. However, the failure of some Mexican Americans to back him probably also played a role. Carmona is of Puerto Rican background – has a history of community service.

Senators such as Rubio and Cruz are giving the Latino label a bad name thus it is more difficult to separate the good, the bad and the ugly. The interests of our community are too important to leave it to them and their ilk.

– by Rodolfo F. Acuña 

Posted in Chicana/o, Chicana/o Movement, Chicana/o Studies, Community, Cultural Studies, Education, History, Immigration, Political Science, Resistance | Leave a comment

In Celebration of 1 Billion Rising Against Sexual Violence

Posted on February 14, 2013 by admin

To quote Fredrick Douglas: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.”

I am proud to join mis hermanas/os at the steps of the Capitol on Thursday. It saddens me to know that violence against women in Texas has become an epidemic. It is difficult to write stylistically when it deals with violence against women. It is usually written in statistics, and the statistical path to the heart is more figurative than literal. To give you an idea – 5.2 million Latinas in Texas are personally affected by domestic violence. Two out of every 5 Latinas (39%) experience severe abuse and 1 out of every 5 Latinas (18%) report being forced to have sex against their will.

When the issue is discussed within our community, missing from these discussions are the male voices to speak out against violence. Especially missing is the call to re-defining the cultural term machismo. It is a gap that needs to be filled; otherwise, it only diverts attention to women’s behavior rather than men’s accountability for the violence.  As a Latino, I am disgusted with the misogynistic ideas that are embedded in our culture.

We can no longer sit on the sidelines when it comes to violence against women. Action speaks louder than words; to do nothing tangible other than make statements is nothing more than a farce. More importantly, as Tejanos, how can we advocate for equality if we turn a blind eye to the oppression occurring within our own community? If we don’t change our own consciousness, we cannot change our own actions or demand change from others. We should feel ashamed when we see fathers, brothers and uncles treat women with contempt, and when it comes to rape, it only lessens us as men.

The time is now to say BASTA!

That is an abridged version from a post I did for SlutWalk

http://xicanopwr.com/2011/06/despite-name-the-cause-must-endure/

– by Amaury E. Nora

Posted in Chicana/o, Chicana/o Studies, Community, Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, History, Racism, Resistance, Women's Studies | Leave a comment