rudy acuna <acunarudy427@gmail.com>
Footprints
The
Activist Scholar
My
Worse Mistake
In 1989, I was awarded the NACCS
(National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies) Scholar Award, which in
theory was supposed to go to a Chicano or Chicana with a lifetime of activism
and scholarship.[1]
Although it is supposed to be its most prestigious award, NACCS has never
gotten straight whether the recipient is an activist, a scholar activist, an
activist scholar or scholar first.[2] Like with
most associations the selection is politically correct choosing a female and a
male or rotating the choice – a practice that is not necessarily bad.
However, it does not resolve the question of which comes first, the activist or
the scholar. For example, if scholar is the noun, Dr. Ramón Ruiz trumps
us all. If activist is the noun, the shove goes to Elizabeth “Betita”
Martínez or Margarita Melville.
Personalities always come into play too. For example, I would ask why
José Angel Gutiérrez has never been considered. He certainly enjoys a
lifetime history of activism: during his tenure at the University of
Texas at Arlington has taken on the administration, established a Mexican
American Studies Center, built one of the finest oral history projects in the
nation and published a dozen books. Armando Navarro would also be a
contender. His community work is persistent; he has also published a half
dozen books. Well then what is an activist scholar or a scholar activist
and what should Chicana and Chicano scholars be striving toward?
The whole process reminds me of the spring of 1971 (I am dating myself) when I
spent several months visiting Cuenavaca, Mexico and on occasion visited CIDOC
(el Centro Intercultural de Documentación) where Ivan Illich held court.
At the time he was the guru of the left; his anarchist approach to education
attracted a huge following as did books such as Deschooling Society
(1971).[3] Naturally we
wanted to catch a glimpse of Illich and hoped to meet Paul Goodman and leaders
of the Liberation Theology movement such as Paulo Friere who frequented
CIDOC. The first time I visited I was struck by the setting. Illich
sauntered into the garden wearing a white guayabera, cotton pants and Jesus
sandals. The first thing that struck me was his enormous toes and the
size of his nose that would qualify me as chato (snub nose). A
hush came over the crowd as admirers called out, Ibán, what is knowledge?
Ibán, what is truth? Illich would reply that these were sacred
words that should not be profaned and should remain unmentionable as in the
case of the ancient Hebrews’ “Jehovah.”
Similarly the words activist scholar and scholar activist have become the
unmentionable. This is convenient because if you define a word then you
have to live up to its expectations. And frankly, I have known few people
who can embody the words. One of the few that fit the definition was
Ernesto Galarza who was so unique that that his activism has become a
problem. It absolves others from having to measure up to the ideal.
It is easier for scholars to point to Galarza and make him the rule rather than
the try to measure up to him.
I have never considered myself an activist scholar or vice versa. I
consider myself a Chicano studies professor who uses life experiences to
instruct his research and teaching. And this is simply because I don’t
want to be a pediche (a freeloader). I have always had a problem with
people writing about Chicano labor or, Chicano politics or any other aspect of
the Chicano movement and never participated, or, for that matter, been
active for a half dozen years to feed their ego and claim that they paid their
dues. There is only so much knowledge that we can glean from library
archives or secondary sources. How do you analyze or even understand
documents if you have never experienced similar events? For many years
Jack London was my favorite novelist until I learned that he was a xenophobe.
The result is that I have never had a firm research trajectory; basically my
research topics and sources match my life. In the 1960s I was involved in
head start, voter registration, civil rights, anti-war events and Chicana/o
studies. My first three books were for public school students[4] because I had
taught junior, senior high school students as well as junior college. Occupied
America was motivated by my involvement during the ‘60s, and
represents the disillusionment with the United States brought about by the
Vietnam War, and its suppression of the Civil Rights and the Chicano
Movements. (I had the illusion that change would come if we worked hard
enough). By training I am a historian; by vocation a teacher.
History is the study of documents; documents are what make history different
than the social sciences and the humanities. However, I always kept in
mind that little word epistemology; what we know is based on how we acquired
the knowledge.
Without knowing it, we leave our own footprints in life; over half my life has
been in the Chicana/o Movement and related to Chicana/o studies. Some of us are
very fortunate because the footprints we leave can easily be traced. In
my perception, footprints revive memory and memory is what prays us out of
purgatory. This is important to me because I do not believe in a
hereafter and I know that I will be part of this world as long as I am
remembered. Purgatory is the place where the forgotten are abandoned.
The rich and famous keep their memory alive through endowing buildings with
their name whereas the famous become the subject of books. However, in
the case of the poor, their lives, like the wind in the desert, are swept
away without any trace of their existence. Within a couple of generations
it is as if they never existed. In other words, the rich have always been
able to buy indulgences. They make endowments, get buildings named after
them, have their portraits painted. The rich live forever.
Because I was fortunate enough to be a Mexican and had a stable home, life gave
me the opportunity to chisel my footprints into stone. I have been able
to leave published items, which mark where I traveled and what I thought.
These footprints have meandered. When I was younger and idealistic I
believed that Chicana/o studies would shift public discourse through the
creation of Chicano Thought. I realized in 1969 that not too many people
paid attention to or cared about Mexicans in the United States and knew even
less about them. Consider that Mesoamerican religion is one of the few
major world religions that have not been preserved.[5] I believed
that a community of scholars would change this reality through their
scholarship, contributions to children’s literature and public items such as
opinion essays. I thought, just consider if every Chicana/o scholar would
write one children’s book every five years, this would help form the
consciousness of Chicana/o students. Until this day I have admired
children’s writers, e.g., I have always admired Nephtalí de León’s children
short stories[6] and Ernesto Galarza
books para niños and their impact.[7] I wrote three
children’s books circa 1970.[8]
The early 1980s were essential to defining Chicanos as a people. It was a time
when Chicano studies evolved new definitions and dilution of the word Chicano,
which has been blown away with the dust of time. Ideological battles
continued; however, these battles gave way to a redefinition of community
issues. By then César Chávez so much the icon of the Chicano Movement was
confused with the Mexican boxer Julio César Chávez. Some of the
redefinitions were ridiculous such as the one advanced by a well known Chicano
studies professor, a member of an Albanian Marxist sect, saying that Chicanos
were feudal and that bourgeoisie American culture was at a higher state of
development that Chicanos had to go through. Based on this sort of
mechanical analysis it was easy for her to conclude that the Sandinistas in
Nicaragua were wrong for taking Soviet arms. This simplification came
from theoretical Marxists who were not involved in mass groups. Those
such as the League of Revolutionary Struggle (LRS) and the Communist Labor
Party to name a few despite their obnoxious party building practices were
concerned with grassroots community issues such as immigration and labor.
They led the anti-Bakke Coalition (ABC) of the late 1970s.[9] Other groups
such as CASA joined the National Anti-Bakke Decision Coalition which also
staged demonstrations.[10]
The tone of my own research took a turn during the late ‘70s when I entered
began the study of the Eastside Sun. I was able to get a small
grant that allowed me to buy a 16 mm microfilm camera and pay two student
activists summer stipends.[11] The reason I
got the grant was that I was involved in community work and needed the money to
keep two students working during the vacation period. By accident I was
combining my activism with my research and my teaching.[12] What I did with
the Sun was to microfilm all the articles on Chicana/os chronologically.
Later my wife, Guadalupe Compeán, a doctoral student at UCLA, exposed me to
urban planning , which put the articles in the Sun in a new perspective.[13] I
accompanied her to meeting of the United Neighborhoods Organization (UNO) and
had the honor of using Fr. Luis Olivares advanced computer system at Our Lady
Queen of the Angeles. The inner city at night was a new archive.
This resulted in the publication of A Community Under Siege (1984). I
had put the microfilmed articles in the Sun on 5x8 cards and annotated them. I
then took the Belvedere Citizen which was already microfilmed and put them on
cards. With these articles I formed a timeline of activities not normally
recorded. These were two community newspapers that had articles and events not
listed in Los Angeles mainline newspapers. I would regularly discuss the
articles with my classes and the conclusions were published in the second and
third editions of Occupied America and in Community Under Siege.[14]
Also during this period I was involved with the Campaign to Keep GM Van Nuys
Open" to stop General Motors from shutting down the region’s last auto
plant. It assembled union activists and community folk in a
labor/community coalition threatening if the plant closed to boycott of GM
products in L.A. if the plant was shut down. I had the good fortune of working
with Eric Mann and Pete Beltrán, probably one of the greatest labor organizers
of my time.[15] I also
worked with Mann in establishing the Labor/Community Strategy Center.
Mann, an organizational genius, later spun off the Bus Rider’s Union.[16] For me, this
was much more gratifying that going to school or a library – and I certainly
learned more. This experience was complemented by work with the
Solidarity Movement with Central American during the ‘80s.[17]
In 1984, I took the money awarded me in the CAPA v. the PDID (the Los Angeles
Police)[18] and funded a march
protesting the Olympics which were held in LA. against U.S. intervention in
Central America. Again, it encouraged me attending meetings and
interacting with Central Americans. During this period I performed civil
disobedience taking over Congressman Howard Berman’s office and getting
arrested at the federal building. [19] Two years
later I appeared on the cover of the LA Weekly, thanks to its founder
Jay Levin – a nice guy.[20] This
notoriety was based more on luck than achievement. The article introduced
me as a scholar-activist, which was a compliment:
Rudy Acuna, scholar-activist of Aztlan, sat among the stacks of books, dusty
journals and yellowing student papers in his office at Cal State Northridge,
dressed in his usual blue jeans and a casual cotton shirt. The lead stories in
the morning paper were about Latinos. One announced that Ronald Reagan’s
Justice Department had filed suit against the L.A. City Council for
deliberately fragmenting Latino voting strength. The other story focused on the
City Council debate over a resolution declaring Los Angeles a “City of
Sanctuary.” The front-page affirmation that Latinos were news barely drew a
contemptuous glance from the salt-and-pepper-haired professor….
L.A. Times
reporter Frank del Olmo, a former Acuna student, wrote that Acuna is as known
for “political activism as for his academic research into the history of the
southwestern United States and the Mexican-Americans who helped build the
region.” Del Olmo added that “despite his academic credentials, Acuna is also a
gadfly who freely criticizes the shortcomings of the system that nurtures him.
Only his reputation as a teacher and the fact that he has tenure protect him.”
It’s true. Over the last year he’s fought CSU Chancellor Dr. W. Ann Reynolds
all over the map. He’s bitterly denounced her new admission requirements as
“racist and elitist” because they will effectively lock out the next generation
of Latino students. Reynolds’ reaction to Acuna was formulated by Dr. Ralph
Bigelow, the chancellor’s chief staff officer for admissions and records, who
doesn’t think all the commotion has added up to much: “We didn’t need his
observations to be aware of the educational problems among Hispanics,” Bigelow
sniffed coldly. “That’s a social problem that many people are aware of.”
Acuna probably knew that his efforts to stop the new rules were a long shot.
Nevertheless, he stood his ground and waited outside the CSU headquarters in
Long Beach with 75 Chicano and black student demonstrators on a damp, cold day
in November when Reynolds and his trustees made their fateful decision. As rain
clouds scudded overhead, the trustees tightened admission standards. The
proposal Acuna tried so hard to stop were state university policy by the next
day.
.
United Auto Workers organizer Eric Mann has worked with Acuna on labor-related
issues, including the fight to keep the Van Nuys General Motors plant open.
Acuna is an important spokesman, says Mann, because of “his moral outrage at a
time when outrage is out of fashion. He’s a top-rate scholar with impeccable
credentials and he’s willing to work to build a coalition.” Mann recalls that
at a meeting with the president of GM, Acuna mentioned what he called a
“historical affection between the Chicano and the Chevrolet” – a bond he vowed
to break if GM closed down a plant where more than 50 percent of the workers
are Latino.
Last spring he was honored by the progressive Liberty Hill Foundation because,
as Mary Jo von Mach, the foundation’s executive director, put it, “We’ve known
about Rudy for a long time.” Speaking to an audience including
economist-philanthropist Stanley Sheinbaum and Ed Asner, Acuna quietly asked
that they take the time to get to know his community. Although Mexicans founded
this city, he said, even progressives rarely give them any thought until it’s
time to hire a good housekeeper or they require the urban backdrops of the
Eastside for a TV series.[21]
There were few professors who had
as long a shelf life that I had – hence my selection for cover of the LA
Weekly. This interview was a springboard to writing op-ed columns for
the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner which I at first struggled with.
Op-ed writing is a different animal, and I was used to using a lot of space to
express myself. Despite a rocky start, I was hired as a contract
columnist with the Herald-Examiner that meant appearing at least once a
month. It also fed my ego since I was read by a much larger
audience. The English language articles were also translated for La
Opinión, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the United States.
Unfortunately for Los Angeles and me the Herald-Examiner went out of
business in 1989. The unfortunate part was that it left the City with
only one major newspaper; for all its faults the Herald-Examiner was a
muckraking newspaper, albeit conservative but would break an occasional story
about police abuse. The Times was often in bed with City Hall.
The experience also forced me to keep abreast of Chicano politics and to
interview the major players. I read countless newspapers, cutting and pasting
articles. This was before we had access to Proquest newspapers and
LexisNexis. The research would lay the foundation for Anything But
Mexican (Verso 1996). My columns were colored by the controversy over
the building of the prison in East Los Angeles. In retrospect I was too
hard on Councilman Richard Alatorre and Assemblyman Richard Polanco. Here
my idealism (or self-ego) got in the way; I was thinking more like a pundit
than a historian. For all of the flaws of these two politicians, I now
realize that they did more to increase Latino representation than all the other
politicos combined since that time. They can be criticized for making
deals, but at the core they remained close to their Garfield High School
roots. They never bargained away the gains or core values of the
community and sought a Chicano presence in key institutions such as city
government, the sheriff’s department and the schools. The break with
Alatorre was difficult because I sincerely liked him and, for the exception of
Marco Firebaugh, he helped Chicano studies most by intervening on our behalf at
key moments.[22]
Complicating matters was the Herald-Examiner was hitting at Alatorre and
his family. They were especially critical of one of his sisters.
Further I was on another side of the fight from Alatorre on several
issues. I aligned myself with the anti-prison forces and Olvera Street
merchants in the fight to preserve Olvera Street. Presuming that I was
anti-Altatorre, the chief editor of the Herald-Examiner asked me whether I
wanted to do an exposé on Alatorre; the Herald would give me their files
on him. I asked whether he was going to give me the files of the other
fourteen city council members. The matter was dropped and I tried to keep
my criticisms on issues, although Richard at times made it difficult – like the
time he showed up at a council meeting dressed entirely in white -- even down
to white shoes and a white hat, reminiscent of a character out of the
godfather.
Many of the issues that I dealt with revolved around culture. Olvera
Street,[23] the Cinco de Mayo
and the beer companies. During the visit of the Spanish king who the
gringos attempted to palm off on us.[24] I wrote:
The fate of
Olvera Street, Los Angeles’ oldest, is up for grabs. Earthquake laws,
historically preservation, the pimping of Mexican culture and a political power
struggle over who will control El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Park, all are
playing a role.
During the 1880s, Olvera Street was part of a larger Mexican barrio –
encompassing today’s Chinatown – called Sonora Town. Although they competed
with newcomers to Los Angeles to live there, Mexicans made up a majority of its
residents at the turn of the century.
But by the mid-1920s, Sonora Town, now reduced to Olvera Street, was in its
last urban cycle. Its residential character was gone, its buildings occupied by
commercial enterprises. When light industry moved in, almost everyone expected
Olvera to be bulldozed. Enter Mrs. Christine Sterling, who wanted to save the
Avila house, as well as other buildings, and preserve a bit of “Old Mexico.”
And of course there were the
contradictions of the Catholic Church that stuck in your throat as it denied
that there was an AIDS epidemic.[25] Up to this
point, like many people of my generation, I tried to ignore reality of
homosexuality. Some rationalized that homosexuality was caused by
decadent capitalism. But the inhumanity and unfairness of the disease
drew you in and so did the idiocy of the Catholic Church and other religious
institutions which I wrote about.
Archbishop
Roger Mahony’s decision to withdraw the Archdiocese of Los Angeles from
participation in the Latino AIDS education program has sparked a controversy in
the community. Since the church’s moral authority and influence among Latinos
is indisputable, any AIDS project that lacks its support might be handicapped.
Some of Mahony’s critics thus see the archbishop’s rigid opposition to the use
of condoms, which is why he pulled the church’s support, as dangerously
dogmatic and unsympathetic to the needs of the Latino community. But such
charges need to be viewed in the light of the history of the archdiocese.
Cardinal Timothy Manning and James Francis McIntyre were widely perceived in
the Latino community as champions of the rich and powerful. Both supported the
late Monsignor Benjamin G. Hawkes, the archdiocese’s arch-conservative
comptroller. To many, Hawkes’ fondness for expansive suits, gold jewelry and
his memberships in the Jonathan Club and the Los Angeles Country Club
symbolized the distance between Catholic hierarchy and worshiper. “The rich
have souls, too” was one of his favorite observations.[26]
I traveled to Chicago, speaking at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle
and discovered the Durango connection.[27] My wife is
from Durango, Mexico, and I became very curious as to why so many people went
from Durango to Chicago. Most were hard working people from economically
depressed areas such as the region around Santiago Papasquiaro, which during colonial
times was a rich mining district. During the Mexican Revolution, Villa
and many of his troops came from Northern Durango. As the area became
more depressed many of the descendants of these revolutionists survived by
turning to the American drug trade and Los Hijos de Pancho controlled
Chicago’s Drug trade before many suffered the fate of Al Capone. I wrote
about Jesús García, one of the finest Chicano politicos I had ever met.
Twice a week he held open house as constituents met him in his office and ask
him for political relief. Jesse came out of the pro-immigrant movement
for which he has worked his entire life as a community organizer:
[Jesus]
Garcia represents the best in the Mexican community. Raised in Chicago, a
student activist at the University of Illinois Chicago Circle, Garcia joined
the Chicago chapter of CASA (Centro de Accion Autonoma) – a pro-immigrant
rights group – in the mid-‘70s. The organization was founded in Los Angeles by
Bert Corona in 1968.
At the time, Rudy Lozano coordinated CASA’s Chicago activities. When the
chapter dissolved in the early 1980s, its core activities entered electoral
politics, joining Washington’s coalition in 1983. After Washington’s mayoral
victory, a Latino gang youth gunned downed Lozano. His death quickly created
controversy. The Chicago police department defended itself against charges of a
cover-up by implying that Lozano’s slaying was drug-related. After four years
of community pressure, the state attorney general has reopened the case.
In the wake of Lozano’s death, Garcia emerged as a leading community spokesman.
In 1984, he was elected ward committeeman in charge of political organizations
and was a leader in Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition. He was overwhelmingly
elected to a second council term this year.[28]
.
My pieces were a mixture of politics, culture, education and social
commentary. As mentioned, they appeared simultaneously in the Herald-Examiner
and La Opinión giving me a potential audience of close to a half million
readers. The East LA prison -- as it was called – was actually on the
western fringe of Boyle Heights – continued to attract attention. I was
introduced to the Mothers of East Los Angeles who stopped the building of the
prison. By this time, factions developed – the Resurrection Parish and
the St. Isabel Mother’s. This movement also contributed to the rise of
Assembly woman Gloria Molina who became a Los Angeles City Councilwoman and
then a member of the powerful Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. I
became a participant observer in the struggle to stop the prison which was
being pushed by the Republican governor and the California Correctional Peace
Officer's Association (CCPOA) which today is the most powerful lobbying groups
in the state of California.
The
proposed sitting of a state prison in downtown Los Angeles is a classic example
of “arrogance of power” trying to bully a disorganized and largely poor
community. On the face of it, East L.A. doesn’t need another prison. The five
that are already there have a combined inmate population approaching that of
the area’s total public school enrollment. The general attitude seems to have
been that it is OK to send the monster to East L.A. since the surrounding
Latino community is deteriorating anyway. Such a mindset is not surprising:
Over the years, everything from prisons to toxic-waste dumps have been located
in the area. [29]
By 1986, the explosion of the Mexican American population in Los Angeles was
evident; however, the community was still begging to be counted with few
Mexican Americans in public office.
Last fall,
when State Assemblyman Richard Alatorre was elected to the Los Angeles City
Council, his swearing in ceremonies took on the dimensions of a coronation,
with leading politicians of all races attending.
What made this event so momentous was not the office itself, since a city
council post does not carry with it the power or prestige of the mayor or a
county supervisor. It was not even important that it took Alatorre, a senior
and powerful member of the California Assembly, more than $300,000 to get
elected to the governing body of a city of 3 million (1980 Census), with close
to 1 million Latinos.
What was important was the attitude of the press and Angelinos themselves. Few
questioned the irony of the fanfare, refusing to acknowledge the structural
imperfections of the system that denied Mexican-Americans representation for 20
years. Instead, they celebrated the event as the awakening of the Latin
population and/or proof that the system worked.
It is necessary, however, to put Alatorre’s election into a historical context.
Carey McWilliams wrote in 1949 in his classic, “North From Mexico”:
“When asked how many notches he had on his gun, King Fisher, the famous Texas
gunman, once replied: ‘Thirty-seven – not counting Mexicans.’” This casual
phrase, with its drawling understatement, epitomizes a large chapter in
Anglo-Hispano relations in the Southwest.[30]
During this period xenophobia increased and I wrote:
In the
‘80s, the revival of patriotism in some quarters has taken the form of “We are
all Americans and we are all the same.” Critics of government policy are
sometimes called unpatriotic. Social scientists reinforce the mindset by
creating euphemisms for “racism” like the “isolation of minorities.” Such an
abstract concept reinforces the belief that American society is no longer
tainted by traces of racism.
Actually, during the past 15 years, as the arrival of undocumented workers from
Mexico has accelerated, racism towards Latinos has increased. This growing
antipathy toward Latinos is in the large part the result of statistics released
by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The agency’s formula for
estimating the numbers of “illegal aliens” who elude capture crossing into the
United States – for every one who is caught, three to four make it – has
contributed to the impression that we are losing control of our borders. Last
year, for example, the INS reported that 1.7 million undocumented workers were
arrested. Multiplying that figure by a factor of 3 or 4, per INS’ “got away”
ratio, does indeed suggest a deluge. But clearly there is no way to verify
these estimates. The figures, nonetheless, are dutifully reported in the media
without any critical evaluation. Given this misleading scenario of Mexicans
streaming across our borders, racism toward all brown-skinned people can, and
does, flourish.[31]
Pimping of the culture and the
exclusion of Chicano history from the museums continued to be a preoccupation
as efforts to begin a Latino museum were subverted by the politicos. Moreover,
Mexican holidays like the Cinco de Mayo were co-opted by the beer companies and
even the topless joints. In 1987 the League of United Latin American Citizens,
the GI Forum and other Latino organizations entered into a pact with the Coors
Brewing Company to lift a boycott of Coors in turn for a deal to give these
companies donation based on how much the Latino community consumed.
The
situation reached a new low two years ago when leading Mexican-American
national organizations – the National Council of La Raza, the American G.I.
Forum and later the League of United Latin American Citizens – signed an
agreement with the Coors Brewing Company. In return for calling off a national
boycott, Coors promised to give more than $350 million to Latino organizations
and to the community. Coors suddenly had become a good corporate citizen.
But there was no guarantee that Latinos would ever see a cent of the pledged
money. That Latinos would consume large quantities of Coors was a certainty.
Critics of the agreement devised a new motto for the Chicano movement: “Drink a
Coors for La Raza!”
Even more insidious than the Coors pact is the mindset of the middle-class
organizations that signed on the dotted line. The leaders of La Raza, for
example, no longer live next door to the poor who pick up the tab. By agreeing
to take Coors’ word at face value, they unconsciously undermined the very
values and institutions they pledged to preserve.
Alcoholism is a major problem in the Latino community. Pathetically outdated
studies show that it is a greater health hazard there than in either the black
or white communities. It destroys families, despoils the culture. The arrest
rate for drunkenness is disproportionately high among Mexican-Americans. It is
a myth that Mexicans are not drunks but just good drinkers.[32]
The alcoholism in the Mexican
American community became a reoccurring theme. Along with the pimping of
culture, another reoccurring theme was police brutality:
The reluctance to check police abuse not only means that innocent victims
continue to suffer. The people as a whole also are victimized, because
prosecuting those who abuse governmental power is that much more difficult. No
matter how much we want to ignore it, police brutality is as potent an issue
today as it was in 1970, when Los Angeles officers, in a case of mistaken
identity, shot and killed Gillermo and Beltran Sanchez in their apartment and
when newsman Ruben Salazar was accidentally, though recklessly, killed while
covering a Chicano protest of the Vietnam War…
The unwillingness to prosecute places an unfair burden on the survivors who are
forced to live with the guilt and stigma associated with the “reasonable doubt”
that their beloved committed a crime. In order to get a measure of justice,
families must hire a lawyer and go to civil court to clear their reputations…
Take the case of Jildardo Plasencia, 33. In 1980, the Plasencias hosted a
family New Year’s Eve party in their Willowbrook home. The women and girls were
in the house, the men and boys in a converted rumpus room in the garage. At
about 9 p.m., Jildardo fired two guns and a shotgun into the air to celebrate
the approaching New Year.
At roll call that evening, sheriff’s deputies had been told of this tradition.
If they heard gunshots while on patrol, the deputies were instructed to go in,
after calling for back up, with lights flashing. The sheriff’s department
wanted to avoid an incident. But deputies David Anderson and Sandra Jones took
it upon themselves to investigate the source of the gunfire, together in the
dark.
According to the deputies, they encountered two men. The first immediately put
up his hands; the other, Jildardo, allegedly stood in the garage doorway and
pointed a gun at Jones, who shot and killed him. In the next three or four
seconds, the deputies fired nine times, seven times through the partially
opened garage door. Inside, three men, two teenagers and three boys crouched in
terror. When the shooting stopped, Jildardo lay dead with an unloaded revolved
in his hand; Juan Santoyo, 18, was wounded in the leg; and 3 year old Jildardo
Jr. was struck once in the buttock, and another bullet ruptured his intestines…[33]
It was a community under siege.
An interview appeared in the LA Weekly in 1988 on my work with Eric Mann
and the LA Community/Strategy Center which had spun off the Keep the Van Nuys
General Motors Plant open.
“We’re
probably the last two angry men in L.A.,” says Eric Mann of himself and fellow
activist Rudy Acuna. Acuna, for his part, demurs only slightly: “We just get
frustrated when we think other people don’t care,” he says. “And we know if we
don’t do something about it, no one else will.”
What’s Mann pissed off about? General Motors’ treatment of its workers. Big
business and big money running the country. The infuriating injustices he
witnesses every day. Ask Acuna what gets him, and he’ll rattle off a
long list of offenses: the shameful treatment of Chicanos and labor unions; the
profit motive system of the United States; Bush and Dukakis and Bentsen and
Quayle and stupidity and ignorance threading their way through the social and
political fabric of the country.
But while other people’s anger these days is often impotent or self-serving or
both, Mann and Acuna have channeled theirs into creating an organization to
fight against at least some of what riles them. The Labor/Community Strategy
Center, scheduled to open next January, will seek to organize communities to
support labor unions and put pressure on corporations to keep them from moving
heavy-industry plants out of California. More important, the center aims at
creating a lasting bond between industry workers and surrounding communities.[34]
It is not false modesty when I say
that I got too much credit in this interview, more than I deserved. For a
scholar, this was an invaluable experience meeting and working with a cross
current of trade union leaders. Mann still runs the Strategy Center and
the Bus Riders’ Union. Also at the time Justice for Janitors was picking
up steam, energized by undocumented immigrant workers who just wanted a better
life. The leadership came from Latinas – many of whom were Salvadoran.
I learned a lot from Mann, Mark Masoka and Peter Olney as well as stories that
I covered. Throughout this experience police brutality was a continuous
theme as well as capital punishment.
Unknown to me my career as a columnist was coming to an end. I had made a
lot of enemies which was a plus with the Herald-Examiner. The
people there just wanted to beat the Los Angeles Times. By the end
of the year the Los Angeles Herald Examiner went out of business –
hopefully through no fault of mine. The closing down of the Herald-Examiner
was a blow to Chicanos and other minorities because it removed the only
competition to the Los Angeles Times, breaking stories that the Times
often ignored. When the Herald-Examiner closed then-Police Chief
Daryl F. Gates commented “one less pain in the posterior.”
I continued to write about the solidarity with Central America movement in the
Los Angeles Times. I was especially appreciative of the work of Father
Luis Olivares at La Placita Church which he converted to a sanctuary for
undocumented Central American political refugees and other homeless
people. Cardinal Roger Mahoney threatened to shutdown the operation and
once transferred Luis from his beloved parish.
When Roger
M. Mahony became archbishop of Los Angeles, there were high hopes that the
archdiocese would turn its attention to Los Angeles’ burgeoning Latino
population. The scheduled reassignment of a popular Latino priest, Father Luis
Olivares, threatens to return us to the days of Cardinals James Francis
McIntyre and Timothy Manning.
It was 20 years ago this Christmas Eve, at St. Basil’s on Wilshire Boulevard,
that Chicano activists protested what they considered Cardinal McIntyre’s
neglect of their growing community. A confrontation ensued and a dozen
demonstrators were arrested.
At the time, significant changes were occurring in the Roman Catholic Church.
Unhappy about their church’s lack of social commitment, encouraged by the
reforms of Pope John XXIII and the spread of liberation theology in Latin
America, and inspired by the heroics of black Protestant ministers in the civil
rights movement, Latino priest and nuns pressed for an expansion of their
ministry to poor Latinos. Many of these priests and nuns worked in the Los
Angeles archdiocese, then one of the most reactionary in the country….
In 1981,
Olivares became pastor of Our Lady Queen of the Angels, the city’s oldest
Catholic Church. Once a symbol of Spanish colonial domination, La Placita, as
it is known, became a refuge for poor Mexicans who were unwelcome in
English-speaking parishes like St. Vibiana and St. Vincent.
Olivares arrived at the church when waves of Mexican and Central American
pilgrims, in a modern-day Christmas tale, were seeking sanctuary in this 20th
century Belen. Mindful of La Placita’s historical significance and of
the importance of giving people hope, Olivares opened the church’s doors to the
refugees. His message was clear: How can you show love for a God that you
cannot see if you show no love for your fellow man?
During his eight years at La Placita, Olivares has become the symbol of the
Christ who kicked the Pharisees out of the temple rather than the Jesus who ate
at their table. An adamant critic of U.S. involvement in El Salvador, he
declared his church a sanctuary in 1985. He forged strong links with labor and
community organizations, reinforcing their commitment to peace with justice. He
has been threatened by Salvadoran death quads based in Los Angeles.
It thus shouldn’t be difficult to understand why the transfer of Olivares to
Fort Worth, Tex., if allowed to go forward without an appeal, would be
interpreted by Latinos as a weakening of the church’s commitment to the cause
of social justice. For many of us, it would also mean a loss of faith. When a
child, I often prayed “Please help me God!”, and I knew He would. As I grew
older, doubt crept into my prayers. “Please God, help me if you can!” evolved
into “Please God, if you’re there!” Olivares made me and many others at least
listen again, for there was never any doubt that Olivares was there and would
help if he could. …[35]
The struggle over Olvera Street
heated up: I was at La Golindrina Restaurant for what seemed to be
nightly meetings. Vivian Bonzo owned the restaurant – one of the oldest
in Los Angeles. Vivian was our leader. Aside from defending the
cultural integrity of Olvera Street, we discussed the push to establish a
Chicano studies department at the University of California at Los
Angeles. Among those in attendance were Juan Gómez Quiñones and UCLA
MEChA students Marcos Aguilar, Minnie Fergusson and Bonnie Díaz. Marcos
and Minnie would become leaders of the 1993 UCLA student hunger strike that
made the César Chávez Center a reality. From La Golindrina we
planned demonstrations to save Olvera Streets.
News that a small group of preservationists seeks to transform Olvera Street
from a Mexican marketplace into a multi-ethnic museum should outrage Latinos.
After all, the plaza area has been inhabited by Mexicans since 1781, when a
dozen or so peasants, mostly from the Mexican states of Sinaloa and Sonora,
founded the Pueblo of Los Angeles. Spending time on Olvera Street is thus a
trip through tradition.
From 1900-1930, bulldozers virtually cleared the civic center of all else that
was Mexican, mostly family homes. Then, Christine Sterling and members of the
city's social and economic elite moved, in the late '20s, to save and preserve
Olvera as a symbol of Los Angeles' Mexican heritage. The street was little more
than an alley. Like the Avila adobe, which had been condemned, its days were
numbered.
At first, Olvera was part of California's "Fantasy Heritage"-a
tourist trap. But over the years, its people reintegrated it with the plaza and
Our Lady Queen of the Angels, the city's oldest church. Mexicans and other
Latinos began returning to Los Angeles' Bethlehem. Today, Olvera Street is
where many of us go to celebrate our holidays or to enjoy the oldest remnant of
the Mexican heritage in the center of the city.
Certainly,
a tradition worth preserving. Right?
Jeanne Poole, curator of El Pueblo Historic Park, has embraced Olvera Street's
dilapidated buildings-mostly stucco and red brick-rather than its traditions
and people. It's no secret that she believes the Mexican presence on Olvera
Street so overwhelming that the contributions of the Chinese, the Italians and
other neighborhood ethnic groups to the city's development have been eclipsed.
To dilute the Mexican presence, she has advocated that restoration of Olvera
Street spotlight the architecture of its buildings. Toward this end, she has
enlisted the support of architectural historians.
For 12 years, Poole and her gaggle of Anglo historians have been plotting to
impose their Mexican-less vision of Olvera Street. Their opportunity for
success came when administration of El Pueblo Park passed from state to the
city Recreation and Parks Commission. Eager to renovate, the commissioners put
together a proposal. Since they and the Recreation and Parks Dept. lack the
expertise to make historical recommendations, Peter Snell, an architectural
historian, was paid to make some. Snell is a close friend of Poole and has
acted as a consultant for El Pueblo Park…[36]
Another hot topic was the US wars in Central America. There was a sense
of outrage when the four Jesuits and their two workers were assassinated by
Salvadoran death squads. I performed civil disobedience on three separate
occasions at the federal building and Congressman Howard Berman’s Office.
I joined hundreds of others in performing civil disobedience and I wrote about
this issue. On one of the occasions, Marta López Garza and Gloria Romero
talked me into getting arrested but at the last moment remembered that they had
another commitment. They missed out. Martin Sheen, Chris
Kristofferson, Jackson Browne and almost every antiwar participant in town was
there as was Luz Calvo. Some Chicanos questioned why I was devoting so
much time to Central Americans. I responded that sin fronteras (without
borders) was not limited to the US/Mexican Border. We were one with the
working people of Latin America. It was important to show solidarity with
the growing number of Central American refugees. Undoubtedly one of the
highlights of this experience was doing civil disobedience with the Catholic
Workers – they were out of this world. When we pled before the magistrate they
went in and pled guilty and goaded the court to give them jail time.
My own theory is that every decade forms its own personality. It may seem
as if nothing is happening – time is painfully slow – however, the combined
events tell a story. The eighties were formative years for the Mexican
people and other Latinos in this country. For example, time blurs
memories. As a participant observer it is easier and more economical to
perceive the nuances. Seeing people up close gives you a greater
appreciation of the politics of the eighties. It was during the eighties
that our numbers spiraled and as this growth mushroomed the term Latino blurred
the word Chicano. At the beginning of the 21st century,
Harvard professor Orlando Patterson would criticize the practice of determining
race by the numbers. Patterson, a black educator, questioned the census’
assertion that the white population was declining. Patterson argued that
Latinos were white and thus not entitled to be counted as a separate racial
group. He concluded:
We should
stop obsessing on race in interpreting the census results. But if we must
compulsively racialize the data, let’s at least keep the facts straight and the
interpretations honest. [37]
Many Latinos were infuriated with
Patterson. However, Patterson’s arguments have some merit. Poverty
is not a football game and the Number 1 mentality of a football game only
benefits the middle-class. It is lesson not learned by many non-participants.
During 1990, I wrote op-ed columns for the Los Angeles Times which would
appear in La Opinión. Since I was no longer under an exclusive, my
columns appeared once a month. The Times was not a good situation
as the editors questioned my facts. For example, the copy editors
questioned whether the 1951 Christmas day beating of Chicano youth by fifty Los
Angeles police officers had ever occurred. (This fact would have never
have been challenged by the Herald that was skeptical of the
Police). It got so heated that Frank del Olmo had to intervene on several
occasions. I was incensed and asked whether they would be questioning me
if I was a white historian. It wasn’t fabricated just because the editors
were stupid. The excuse of the Times was that the editorial chief
editor was bipolar.
In 1991 at my wife’s and el Congreso’s, the Chicano student organization at
UCSB, urging I applied for a position in Chicano studies at the University of
California at Santa Barbara; my wife who had had ovarian cancer was paranoid of
earthquakes. She liked the area; for me, it was tough because I had
always lived in Los Angeles except for the two years I was in the army. I
am the kind of person who goes in search of carbon monoxide when I am away from
LA for too long I go into withdrawl. While awaiting a decision, I decided
to go to El Salvador. The year before, I had appeared as an expert
witness for an attorney friend, Elliot Grossman, who was representing a
Salvadoran who was fighting deportation. I testified -- had a mountain of
documents showing that he would be in danger if he was returned to his
country. After all of the testimony, the commissioner turned to me and
asked, “Have you ever been in El Salvador?” I answered no. He then
disqualified me. I vowed then to go to El Salvador.
I took the opportunity to visit El Salvador the next year. The Texas
Observer graciously gave me a journalist credential. This was
necessary because I was scheduled to go with the Southwest Voter Registration
Project as an observer of the Salvadoran elections. When I learned that
it was going under the auspices of the federal government I pulled out and paid
my own way. This should not be interpreted as a criticism of the SVREP
rather my own biases and apprehensions that had developed since the late
sixties against any form of cooperation with the U.S. government. It is
one reason why I never put in for a Fulbright. Little did I know that
going as an independent journalist made me a target; the Salvadoran government
hated journalists as much as it did activists.
This was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I traveled with the
SVREP contingent that included my sister in law and Professor Gloria
Romero. (I reimbursed the SRVEP for meals and lodgings). I could
have never gotten the feel for what the people experienced without seeing
it.
A library could not have told me what was in store. The suffering: I saw
children with swollen bellies, cataracts from malnutrition; the tension, the
constant tension. I saw bombed out villages such as Perquin and the
refugee village of Segundo Montes run by Salvadoran women. At one point,
I was detained by a captain in the Salvadoran army who wanted to keep me
overnight. I was traveling with José Villarreal of Southwest Voter
Registration; he refused to leave me and threatened to call the Organization of
American States (OAS) unless I was released. José endangered his own
life. After three hours of bickering the Captain let us go. The
experience was one of the highlights of my life. I published several
articles and synthesized the experiences in later editions of Occupied
America. I could now testify that I had been in El Salvador.
The irony of President Bush forgiving 70% of Poland's $2.9-billion loan and the
promise of $470 million more for next year is not lost on Latinos. At a time
when all sorts of social services and education programs are being cut to the
bone, Bush plays Santa Claus in the name of freedom overseas.
This generosity is typical of American policy, maintaining the white-on-white
tradition of aid to nations led by Europeans. Noticeably missing from the
history of U.S.-Latin American relations is any serious policy attacking the
problems in this hemisphere.
It is only in the times of crisis that we shed tears-crocodile tears-for the
well-being of Latin Americans. We cared about the rights of Cubans and
Nicaraguans, not because they were Cubans or Nicaraguans, but because we feared
that they would become communists. Now we are supporting the worst kind of
military governments throughout Central America-a policy that is making
democracy an impossible dream. This promises to fulfill the prophesy of the
Latin American proverb, Crea cuervos y te sacaran los ojos-"Raise crows
and they'll take out your eyes."
Take what is happening in El Salvador. In the past decade, our government has
sent the Salvadoran military $4.2 billion to institutionalize war and, as a
consequence, destroy any semblance of a free market. Through its control of the
political process, the military has taken charge of public pension funds, which
are a major source of investment capital. The military complex has monopolized
the commercial and financial infrastructure of the country to the point that
leftist parties are championing a free market. The army, through its control of
the Arena party, has built a political machine that makes sure the war goes on
and U.S. funds flow into the country
The United States had the opportunity to break Arena's grip during the March 10
elections. It was simple: Washington only had to insist on free and open
elections, pressuring El Salvador to adhere to the standard of fairness that
the Sandinistas were held to in Nicaragua's last elections. This would have
guaranteed meaningful multiparty representation in the National Assembly, which
could have pressured President Alfredo Cristiani and the Arena leadership to
bargain in good faith at the peace negotiations. Instead, Americans-even the
news media-were conspicuous by their absence.
True, we paid $2.7 million to five organizations to serve as monitors. The
Organization of American States got $2 million and Freedom House, the Center
for Democracy, the National Republican Institute and the Southwest Voter
Registration Project divvied up the rest. The participation of Freedom House
and the Republican Institute was a joke; these self-proclaimed defenders of
democracy have a history of Cold War rhetoric. ….[38]
When I retuned from El Salvador I found myself embroiled in another
crisis. The university faculty senate Committee on Academic Personnel
rejected the recommendation of the Chicano studies department that I be hired
as a full professor. The situation was confused since several members of
the department withdrew their original recommendation and sided with the
administration. Frankly, if these people had had the guts and honesty to
tell me to my face I would have pulled out. I was not enamored with the
thought of living with people who rode bicycle down small paths. The
issue was not that I was turned down but what they said about Chicano studies
and me. The inflammatory language of the senate committee gave me no
choice but to sue the University of California system for employment
discrimination. I successfully beat the shit out of the UC.
It was an arduous battle – one that almost did me in. The UC spent $5
million trying to assassinate my character.[39] The only
fear I had was that I would win and I would have to stand behind my
hyperbole. I had promised that if I won and given the job that I was
going to ride a Zapata-like white horse onto the campus and plant a Mexican
flag in the central quad. The problem was that I did not know how to ride
a horse; in fact the only time I had every ridden a horse was at Griffith Park
when I was a kid. It kept trying to bite me and would travel in a tight
circle. I finally got off it and walked back to the stable. I could
have let Benny Torres double for me. However, he was too rotund and a lot
younger.[40]
During the five year struggle the UC dug up what little dirt it could find on
me. They moved two gigantic copying machines into my garage and
photocopied every thing that I had produced during my lifetime. It left
my seven-year old daughter, Angela crying. Fortunately my community ties
saved the day and labor, community and student groups came to my defense.
We held a rally in Santa Barbara which drew, according to Rogelio Trujillo,
some 10,000 people. Fifteen lawyers helped out; they were led by attorney
Moises Vásquez who had taken the case from Beth Minsky. Beth and her
father Leonard were also key to our success. Although I won I did not get
the job. Francisco Lomeli testified that he was afraid for his
life. Raymond Huerta who was a hanger on; he had never passed the
California bar supported the administration and his career. During an
intermission during the trial he tried to intrude into a conversation I had
with a supporter.[41] When I
called him a vendido, sellout, he complained to the UC attorneys and the
judge that I was physically threatening him. The administration filed an
affidavit that alleged I would start a revolution.[42] The UC had
to pay my attorneys close to a million dollars; it remunerated me with $300,000
which my wife and I took and founded the For Chicana/o Studies Foundation which
has helped about a dozen other professors with similar suits. This year
we handed out $13,000 in scholarships.
The Santa Barbara suit killed my days with the Times. We learned
in discovery that one of the Times’ Vice-Presidents was head of the
alumni association at the University of California at Santa Barbara and was in
communication with the UCSB administration over the particulars of the case.[43] The
experience drove home to me the power of the institutions. I enjoyed a
high level of popularity in the press before the suit. However, it meant
nothing when the Times decided to cut me off. The articles became
fewer as the case heated up. At trial federal judge Audrey Collins, a
graduate of UCLA law school and the head counsel for the UC, were personal
friends. Indeed, he had written her a letter of support for her
appointment and the UCSB vice-chancellor had been one of her professors.
Throughout the trial she favored the UC attorneys and her clerks were in
communication with them. When the verdict was announced I thought that
she was going to pass out.
Although I continued to write for La Opinión, after this point I was
blacklisted by the Los Angeles Times. As mentioned there was
fallout from my suit against the University of California system. The
case itself was very rewarding because there was a genuine outpouring from the
community, students and labor; however, there is also the perennial chismes
of Chicano professors and the UC attempted to assassinate my professional
character. (Two Chicanas who testified against me crossed the picket line
at a local Japanese hotel that was being struck by Latinas to join the UC
attorneys and administrators for happy hour.) I put in twenty hour days
in the lawsuit often driving from Northridge to Santa Barbara, returning and
driving to Moises Vásquez’s Whittier Office. Worked until 4 in the
morning returned to Northridge and taught my classes. By the end, I was
even writing responses to motions in limine which Moises Vasquez would
clean up. We could not have made it through the courts without the support
of the community. We raised over $50,000 and my credit cards were maxed
out. We were also fortunate in that we drew a jury with a majority of
Latinos. I don’t know who the jurors were but my wife always prays for
them. I just thank them.
During the 1990s I completed two books, Anything But Mexican (Verso
1996) and Sometimes There is No Other Side (Notre Dame 1998). The
material for Anything But Mexican was gathered during my writing my
columns; the documents of A Community Under Siege (UCLA 1984).[44] The
documents for Sometimes There is No Other Side were collected during the
trial and are in the CSUN urban archives and were accumulated during the suit
against the UC. I had been heavily criticized by the white professors at
UC Santa Barbara for not having a publishing trajectory which is true and not
true. My research and publication has always part of my teaching and my
participation in the life of the community.
It was not until the year 2000 that I began to write op-ed articles once more
with any consistency. The articles were more macro level dealing with
national issues. The internet made it easier because I did not have to
rely on the Times or any other newspapers. For example, I am
currently writing about ten blogs a week which I believe are part of my
intellectual obligation. This book synthesizes my experience with
Chicana/o studies that is so much a part of my scholarly development. It
is part of what we call praxis. It is also what makes Chicana/o
studies.
An important mission of Chicana/o studies is to educate the Mexican and Latino
public about their history and their rights. Indeed, the legacy of the
Mexican American and Chicana/o communities has made a difference to the lives
of every Latino in the United States who owe the Mexican American and Chicano
movement a debt. However, there is a disconnect between academe and the
community at almost every level. Outside the reading of occasional novels
most Mexican origin and Latinos do not read works produced by Chicana/o
scholars. This is especially true when considering the immigrant
population that knows little about the history of Mexican origin peoples in the
United States. The point of reference of the Latino immigrant is their
home country. This affects the context in which they see their lives in
the United States.
Two anecdotes come to mind. First, is the use of the term Chicano which
was rejected by the immigrant community has a history. Mexican and other
Latino immigrants look at themselves as Mexicans or Latina American and not
part of the pocho generation. They want to preserve their culture and
remain connected with the past and many do not understand the history of this
country and the sacrifices that were made by the Mexican American and Chicano
generations to win their entitlements and mute the racism that is still
virulent in this country. At a time when the Mexican government and
Mexicans in Mexico dismissed the immigrant to this country it was Chicano
organizations that formed associations for the protection of the foreign
born. Many are still active in this movement.
Spanish language media has mushroomed as the immigrant population has
multiplied. The reporters and the commentators in the Spanish language
media are for the most part Mexican and Latino nationals who like their
readerships and viewers have a cursory understanding of civil rights
issues. For the most part, they understand discrimination against
immigrants and bilingual education but they are out to lunch when it comes to
affirmative action or the protection of civil liberties. They don’t understand
the concept of race. In 2005 Spanish language reporters were surprised by
the reaction of many U.S. Latino activists to the minting in Mexico a stamp
commemorating Memín Pinguín, a stereotypical Mexican black. African
Americans and politically conscious Latinos were offended. My article in La
Opinión touched off a vehement debate with most Mexicans denying a racist
intent.[45] They were
viewing Memín Pinguín through a Mexican context rather than the history of
racism that they and their descendants are part of and will be living in for
generations to come.
I do not want to sound negative because every community needs political
education. Ergo American workers vote against their own class interests
by voting Republican. In a conversation with the late Willie Velásquez,
the founder of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, I pointed
out that he was doing a fantastic registering Latinos to vote, but “what
happens if they turn out as non-probative as most Americans?” He
responded that he had no control over the outcome and that hopefully we were
educating a core of middle-class educators who would raise these types of
questions with new voters. Unfortunately, there are only a handful of
Chicano and Latino scholars who are doing this. This is unfortunate since
the Spanish-language media on March. 25, 2006 mobilized over a half million
immigrants in Los Angeles and millions across the nation. La Opinión,
for which I sporadically write, has a circulation of over 115,000
readers. Spanish language television news has more viewers than the major
news channels. But the reporters of these events unfortunately have a
limited historical memory.
If Chicano educators do not take on the task of educating the masses of people
the consequences could be dire. It angers me every time a liberal friend
complains about Latinos being conservative. I point out that not all
Latinos are the same. For instance, Cuban Americans have a median age of
40 versus Mexicans who register around 35. The have a median income
higher than white males. Most Cubans are middle class whereas the bulk of
the Mexican and Central American populations are working class.
Regardless, political education is the consequence of popular education and
reflects the state of the media and the political attitudes of most
Americans. In all we are poor communities without media access. And
even the liberal media has abandoned us. The last time I checked The
Nation, In These Times and Mother Jones did not have a single Latino
editorial writer. If the Chicanas/os turn out to be reactionary it is the
fault of the liberal community of which Chicana/o scholars are part of.
My footprints form my approach to research. It is not being an activist
to just speak out. In the 1980s I was part of a review panel that was
sent to the University of California at Davis. Immediately I was at odds
with the panel whose members included Nathan Huggins of the African American
Center at Harvard and Ron Takaki. These two scholars were important
because careers are built on people being collegial. However, I could not
remain silent when I found that the committee was going along with the
administration’s recommendations to disband the Asian Studies program and allow
the Native American studies department to “die.” UC Davis would then
reconstitute the program. I was so angry that I told Huggins that I did
not think that the Mexican community could afford intellectuals -- he correctly
responded that we could not afford not to have them. This is a question
that history will have to resolve – after we resolve the myths that Chicana/o
studies scholars are activist scholars because they are brown or had at one
brief moment in their lives carried a picket sign. If we cannot define
what we are for, it is very difficult to define who we are.
Rodolfo F. Acuña Collection,
1857-2006
| Special Collections &
Archives
http://findingaids.csun.edu/archon/?p=collections/controlcard&id=300
[1] Marita Hernandez, “Chicano Studies Makes Comeback on Campuses,”
[Nuestro Tiempo Edition] Los Angeles Times, Oct 12, 1989. p. 1
[2] My remarks should not
be interpreted as critical of NACCS rather than a critique of an organization
that has been kept alive by the sacrifice of two Chicanas; we have all fed off
the association for years. Julia Curry and Kathryn J. Blackmer Reyes have sacrificed
and kept the association going against all odds.
[3]Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society (Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd,
2000); Illich, Tools for Conviviality (Marion Boyars Publishers, 2000).
[4] Cultures in
Conflict: Case Studies of the Mexican American (Los Angeles: Charter Books,
1970); A Mexican American Chronicle (New York: American Book Co,
1970); The Story of the Mexican American (New York: American Book
Co., 1969).
[5] George Gheverghese
Joseph, The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics
(New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000), even this fine book that
critiques the Eurocentricism in modern mathematics downgrades Mayan mathematics
because it did not contribute to Greek mathematics.
[6] My personal favorite
is "No, Mr. Boa," in unpublished manuscript, "Aztlán Fairy
Tales;" (Fábulas de Aztlán).
[7] Ernesto Galarza, Zoo-Risa: [Fun At The Zoo]: Rimas Y Fotografías.
San Jose, Ca: Editorial
Almaden, 1971.
[8] The only two of my
children’s book that I recommend are A Mexican American Chronicle and Cultures
in Conflict.
[9] James R Bendat “Los Angeles: Moderation Is
'Blending In,” Los Angeles Times, Oct 25, 1977; pg. C7. Doyle
Mcmanus,” “KKK Screening of Movie Leads to Riot; 15 Hurt; Attack On Klansmen,” Los
Angeles Times , Jul 31, 1978. p. 1.
[10] “Bakke faces protesters on campus,” The Globe and Mail. Toronto, Ont.: Sep 25, 1978. pg.
P.11.
[11] One of my first footprints in the 1980s was a
letter-to-the editor. Rodolfo Acuna, “Guest Worker Program in U.S.”Los
Angeles Times Apr 17, 1980, pg. F6. Louis Sahagun. “Latino Professor
Sees Self as 'Battering Ram' for Minorities; Cal State's Acuna Uses Tough
Confrontation Tactics of '60s Against Campus Administration PROFESSOR: Latino
Sees Himself as the 'Battering Ram' for Minorities “ Los Angeles Times,
Dec 13, 1981. p. V_A11
[12] What I was developing
was a poor man’s version of the French Annales School of Thought spearheaded by
French historians during the 1930s. It was a method of recording history.
[13] Guadalupe Compean.
“The Los Angeles Corporate Center : its probable impact on on [sic] north east
Los Angeles : a client project. M.A. Project, School of Urban Planning,
University of Californa Los Angeles, 1983).
[14] Occupied America.
A History of Chicanos 2nd Edition (New York: Harper & Row, 1980); Occupied
America. A History of Chicanos, 3d Edition (New York: Harper and Row,
1988); Community Under Siege: A Chronicle of Chicanos East of the Los
Angeles River, 1945-1975 (Los Angeles: UCLA, 1984).
[15] Acuña, “The man
behind the battle at GM Van Nuys,” Herald Examiner, June 2, 1989
[16] Eric Mann, Comrade George an Investigation into
the Life, Political Thought, and Assassination of George Jackson (New York:
Harper & Row, 1974). Mann, Taking on General Motors: A Case Study of the
Campaign to Keep Gm Van Nuys Open.(Berkeley: Univ of California Inst 1987).
[17] Marita Hernandez. “Generation in Search of Its
Legacy; CHICANO: Leaders of a Dead Movement Look for Its Legacy CHICANO: '60s
Meaning Sought CHICANO: Raza CHICANO: Legacy of the Upheavals of the Militant
'60s.” Los Angeles Times Aug 14, 1983. p. 1. The perception of Chicano studies
and the word Chicano shifted during the early 1980s.
[18] Michael Seiler, “LAPD
Accused of Spying at University; Black, Chicano Groups at Northridge Were
Targets, Suit Charges,” Los Angeles Times Jun 11, 1982. p. D5. I learned a
great deal during this case which not only put me in contact with black, which,
feminist activists throughout Los Angeles but allowed me to read thousands of
police surveillance documents compiled in the 1970s and early 80s.
[19] Despite the decline of activism, MEChA took a
leadership role in anti-war protests as a thousand students at CSUN protested
the invasion of Grenada by the U.S. James Quinn. “Protest at CSUN Viewed as
Sign of Activism's Rebirth; VALLEY NEWS PROTEST: Activism on Rise at CSUN?” Los
Angeles Times, Oct 25, 1984. p. V_A8. The letter had touched off a flurry of
protests at the Chancellor’s office which both MEChA and the LRS took part in.
Reynolds assigned special security guards to follow me around.
[20] Max Benavidez, “The Raza’s Edge” L.A. Weekly –
January 10-16, 1986
[21] Max Benavidez, “The Raza’s Edge” L.A. Weekly,
January 10-16, 1986. FRANK del OLMO. RODOLFO ACUNA, “Cal State
Admission Plan Makes Naive Assumption,” Los Angeles Times, Jan 12, 1985,
pg. B2 pg. 5. “Bad Teachers: Putting the University on the Spot, Too;
[Home Edition],” Los Angeles Times, Feb 14, 1985. Response from
the CSU Academic Senate, “Admission Standards; [Home Edition],” Los Angeles
Times, Feb 7, 1985, pg. 4
[22] What I admired most
of Richard Alatorre is that he was not vindictive. He locked horns with
Juan Gutiérrez, leader of the Mothers of East Los Angeles Saint Isabel.
However, he never got personal and they spoke after the dust had settled.
Later Juana locked horns with politicos who came out of a more progressive
strain. Their attacks on Juan were personal and vindictive and not true.
[23] Rodolfo F. Acuña, “Olvera
Street faces wholesale changes,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, August 7,
1987.
[24] Rodolfo F. Acuña,
“Our ‘fantasy heritage’ gets royal touch From – Los Angeles Herald Examiner.
October 9, 1987
[26] Rodolfo F. Acuña,
“Keep Mahony’s AIDS decision in perspective,” The Herald Examiner, December
19, 1986.
[27] Rodolfo F. Acuña, “A Chicago politician worth
duplicating here” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, November 6, 1987.
[28] “A Chicago politician
worth duplicating here” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, November 6, 1987
[29] Rodolfo F. Acuña, “Another prison no reward for Latino
unity,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner September 11, 1986
[30] Rodolfo F. Acuña, Hispanics stand up and finally get
counted,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, April 27, 1986.
[31] Acuña, “None dare call it racism” Los Angeles
Herald Examiner, November 26, 1986.
[32] “Put Cinco de Mayo on the wagon”The Los Angeles Herald
Examiner, May 15, 1987. “No way to celebrate Cinco de Mayo” Los Angeles Herald
Examiner, May 5, 1989.
[33] Acuña, “Police
brutality still alive and threatening,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, March 20,
1987.
[34] Lisa A. Turner, “The Uses of Anger” “Eric Mann and
Rudy Acuna want to bring Big Business to heel.” L.A. Weekly, December 9-15,
1988.
[35]Acuña, “A
Uniquely Needy Flock Mustn't Lose Its Pardre, “Los Angeles Times,”
December 25, 1989.
[36] Rodolfo Acuna, “History Is People, Not Bricks Olvera
Street: Mexicans were here long before the gringo. A multi-ethnic museum would
trample that heritage,”. Los Angeles Times Apr 2, 1990. pg. 5
[37] Orlando Patterson,”Race by the Numbers,” New York
Times, May 8, 2001; pg. A27.
[38] Rodolfo F. Acuna.”COLUMN LEFT Latin Generals Count on
the Wages of War Poland gets economic aid; Central America gets more suffering
backed by the dollar,” [Home Edition] Los Angeles Times, Apr 1, 1991. pg.
5
[39] Numerous white
professors have thanked me for suing the University of California system.
They said that it did not end discrimination but opened the UC up to
negotiation. It also lifted the veil of infallibility of the UC.
From what I know we were one of the first successful cases. We cooperated
during this period with WAGE - Women Are Getting Even that was doing a fantastic
job; Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez was close to WAGE. One night I received a call
from a husband of a woman bringing a suit against the University of California
San Diego. He wanted to commit suicide and WAGE gave him my number. The UC had
spread the unfounded rumor that he was sexually abusing his children.
[40] Rodolfo F. Acuña, Sometimes There Is No Other Side: Chicanos and the
Myth of Equality. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998.
[41] My compadre, the late
Arnulfo Casillas told me to beware of Ray Huerta, that he had sold soul to the
administration One of the demands of the 1975 Computer Takeover was to fire
Huerta. In the Archives of Arturo Cassilas, Oxnard, Ca.,“400 at Arrest
Scene: New Protest at UC Santa Barbara,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 6, 1975.
Students for Collective Action, “ What are the Issues?” Si Se Puede, Vol.
1, No. 6, May 30, 1975.
[42] Mayerene Barker. “500 Protest Rejection of Candidate
for Post at UCSB Chicano studies: Latinos say the university discriminated
against the CSUN professor in deciding not to hire him. [Valley Edition], Los
Angeles Times Oct 18, 1991. p. 3; Sam Enriquez, “Member of CSUN Faculty Charges
Bias in Suit Against UC Education: Rodolfo Acuna says he was denied a job at
the Santa Barbara campus because of his activism, race and age.; [Valley
Edition]. Los Angeles Times Sep 26, 1992. p. 3; George Ramos, “In This Fight,
Rudy Acuna Has All Angles Covered; [Home Edition], Los Angeles Times Mar 22,
1993. p. 3; George Ramos. “Campus Conflict: Students Given Lessons in Strategy;
[Home Edition],” Los Angeles Times Apr 25, 1994. p. 3. Rick Orlov,
“Chicano Study Professor Wins Bias Lawsuit; [Valley Edition].” Daily News. Oct
31, 1995. p. N.1. George Ramos. “Scholar's Court Fight Taps Into Strong
Emotions; [Home Edition]Los Angeles Times Oct 23, 1995. p. 3
Lucille Renwick, Anthony Olivo. “CSUN Teacher Wins Age-Bias Suit vs. UCSB;
[Valley Edition],” Los Angeles Times Oct 31, 1995. p. 1. Lucille Renwick,
Anthony Olivo. “Professor Wins UC Santa Barbara Age-Bias Suit; Courts: Chicano
studies pioneer hails jury decision. UC attorney says jurors were moved by
emotion, not facts.; [Home Edition],” Los Angeles Times Oct 31, 1995. p.
3 Jon D. Markman. “Jubilant Acuna Sees Courtroom Victory as Blow for
Human Rights; Education: Activist professor thanks supporters, friends and
colleagues after winning age-bias suit against UC Santa Barbara.; [Valley
Edition],” Los Angeles Times: Nov 1, 1995. p. 1. Leslie Berger. “Professor's
Case Underlines Chicano Studies' Struggle for Recognition; Education:
Successful age bias suit by Rodolfo Acuna against UC leaves scholars, activists
debating future of such programs.; [Home Edition], Los Angeles Times Dec
3, 1995. p. 3 Hilary E. Macgregor. “Chicano Studies Set Firm Roots in
Northridge; [Home Edition]Los Angeles Times. May 18, 1999. p. 2. The records of
the suit are in the Rodolfo F. Acuña Collection at the CSUN Library.
[43] The brutal Christmas
night beating of Chicano youth at the Lincoln jail in Los Angeles
[44] Most of these
documents can be found in the CSUN special collections library in the Rodolfo
F. Acuña Collection.
[45] Rodolfo F. Acuña, “SOCIEDAD: Memín Pinguín es un mal
chiste racista,” La Opinión, 10 de julio de 2005
No comments:
Post a Comment