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State of the Literature: by Louise Año Nuevo Kerr University of Illinois, Chicago
Occasional Paper No. 12 December 1997
About the Author: Louise Año Nuevo Kerr has been an Associate Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago, since 1988; that assignment follows a four-year stint as Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at UIC. She earned a B.A. in Sociology and a Master's in History from UCLA, then completed her doctorate in History at UIC in 1976. An accomplished author, Kerr is on Fulbright Advisory Committee for American History and worked as a consultant on the KCET/Rockefeller Film Project about the History of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement. She recently chaired the Board of the Midwest Consortium for Latino Research. This paper was presented as part of the "Towards a New Chicana/o History" Conference held by the Julian Samora Research Institute at Michigan State University. Table of Contents
Brief History of the Last 20 Years
Before the 1960's little research had been done on the history of Mexicans in the United States - or on any other aspect of the Mexican experience. Few scholars had been trained; archives were scanty and those that existed had not been catalogued; no resources were available to support travel or other research costs; and faculty positions for professors interested in studying or teaching about Mexicans were rare. With the Chicano movement, however, came a commitment on the part of young Chicanos to the study of Mexican-Americans and the inclusion of them in curricula across the spectrum of higher education, including history. During the 1970's, the National Council of Chicanos in Higher Education secured funding from the Ford Foundation for dissertation support for Chicano graduate students. Their work stimulated archival efforts to salvage, inventory, and make usable long-languishing document collections like the Paul Taylor and the Manuel Gamio Papers at the Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley, collections at the newly-created Chicano Research Library at UCLA, and the Midwest collection spear-headed at the University of Notre Dame. The concurrence of available sources, more funding, and eager scholars produced an impressive array of historical research. New studies were completed on the early history of Mexican Californians, and New Mexicans, and 19th century Texans. They refined understandings we had gained from Carey McWilliams' North from Mexico published originally in 1949. The study of urban history of Mexicans in the United States was also a large beneficiary of this confluence of events. Several studies of Mexican immigration and settlement in early twentieth century Los Angeles, El Paso, San Antonio, and Chicago documented the similarities as well as the differences Mexicans encountered as they urbanized. These studies noted the ways that Mexican immigrants followed the path and patterns of earlier European and African Americans migration to cities. But they also chronicled the uniqueness of barrio formation in areas which had been originally Mexican. They told us a lot about local community institutions and organizations; intra-ethnic conflicts as well as accomplishments; work experiences and demographic change, especially during the 1920's. Other topics which received special attention produced monograph's on the history of farm and industrial labor in the Midwest; as well as the southwest; women cannery workers; bracero contract labor; the Chicano movement of the late sixties and early seventies; police-community relations; and repatriation during the Great Depression. Additional articles and books were published which told us much about steelworkers and domestic workers, families and migration, and Mexican consulates and American labor unions. This was a good beginning. After only a decade, at least a dozen colleges and universities had started Chicano Studies programs, hiring Chicano historians along with Chicano social scientists, literary critics, writers and artists. At least another dozen history departments had opened positions in Chicano and Chicana history by the mid-1980's. Most of these faculty members would gain tenure in their respective departments and programs and become well-established in their disciplines. A consortium of Chicano and Puerto Rican Studies was formed by some of these professors in the Inter-University Program which, funded once again by the Ford Foundation, supported an emerging Latino research agenda by providing some support to specific projects and a few specific scholars. UCLA, Stanford, the University of Texas, and City College of New York formed the nucleus of a collaboration that successfully encouraged inter-disciplinary and inter-university investigation. Brief History of the Last 20 Years | Where Are We Now | What Needs To Be Done | How Can We Best Facilitate the "Making" of New History | The Uses and Abuses of History | Conclusion
Nevertheless, despite expanded financial support, the number of Chicano historians had become more or less static by the 1980's. The pioneers aged and were only very slowly joined by younger colleagues. Not many graduate students were entering the field. What was happening in Chicano Studies mirrored, in many respects the state of higher education as a whole, especially the growing attacks on affirmative action and multi-cultural education that universities and colleges were receiving from Ronald Reagan and the political right. Still, in recent years we have learned a great deal about the Mexican-American political generation and, more generally, about Mexicans and after World War II. Now, despite a changing climate, there are signs that a new generation of graduate students is rising, with interests in community histories ranging from new studies of Los Angeles to original looks at rural Nebraska, to innovative peeks at Mexican life in Chicago during World War II. Others have shown an interest in a wide array of cultural topics including music, poetry, and literature, and the celebration of rites of passage from adolescence to adulthood. They too are slowly entering the academy. This has happened in part because in recent years some traditional archival depositories have shown a much greater interest in the recovery and preservation of documents relating to local as well as national events of people who are important to the history of Mexicans in the United States. Besides collecting statistical data sets and other government documents and public records, libraries and special collections have made more effort to obtain and preserve oral history collections derived from the work of previous scholars, and from projects sponsored by scholars and local historical societies and museums. Also, personal records from a variety of local Mexican community members have increasingly been assembled and collected. The internet has made historical sources much more widely known and accessible. These preservation efforts, along with those of Chicano and Latino Research centers around the country have begun to make future historical research easier and more rewarding. The state of support for Chicano and Latino research - fellowships, dissertation support, seminars - is in flux. In California, the historic home of Chicano Studies, faculty and research, support for affirmative action has been withdrawn. This threatens to slow the flow of students eligible for graduate study and the support for them. Faculty have been retired in record numbers, but often they have not been replaced, making the addition of Chicano faculty problematic - whether they are studying traditional subjects or Chicano history. It will be difficult for them to become eligible for hiring in the new competitive job markets. The Rockefeller Foundation which provided funds in the 1980's has ended some of that support. And the National Endowment for the Humanities which has had a spotty record with respect to support of projects in Chicano history has seen its own support decline in recent years and cannot be counted on in the future. At the same time there is evidence that many institutions - particularly private universities and colleges in the Midwest and east - are serious in their wish to add Chicano history to their curricula and, when possible, Chicanos and Chicanas to their faculty. Some of them still provide graduate student support for travel, archival searches, and dissertation completion. For many untenured faculty research stipends, protection from undue committee work, and timely sabbaticals spell the difference in their quest for tenure. This is a transitional period. Some historians are being well-supported in their works some graduate students will be able to complete their work on time and with great success. There are still some positions to be filled. But these are still exceptions to the rule. It is clear that the number of faculty mentors is limited. Few departments will try to fill more than one position in Chicano or Chicana history making future appointments uncertain. In fact, departments will try to fill the need for Chicano historians with untrained adjunct or part-time faculty. And while more research collections have been assembled recently, the range of their documents is still limited in a way that confines research to some of the more well-traveled paths. Brief History of the Last 20 Years | Where Are We Now | What Needs To Be Done | How Can We Best Facilitate the "Making" of New History | The Uses and Abuses of History | Conclusion
Planning for the future requires that thought be given not only to important areas of research yet to be done, but also to some of the means by which that research might be accomplished under the new circumstances in which we find ourselves. This assumes that the collection of important data and new sources of support for research on the history of Chicanos and more generally Latinos will continue. As for research still needed, many community studies have yet to be undertaken and will be important to any new synthesis of Chicano History. Even most community studies already completed about Los Angeles, El Paso, San Antonio, and Santa Barbara - need to take into account migration and settlement since 1960, since that is when the majority of Mexican immigrants arrived in the United States. In the last generation and a half, migration patterns have in many instances altered in response to fundamental and global economic shifts away from industry and toward service economies; away from either farms or central cities to suburbs and edge cities. Some recent studies have focused on Mexican migration from metropolis to outlying small town industrial centers away from the metropolis. More studies like this should tell us a great deal about the latest migration generation and how it compares to those who came earlier. Similarly, recent transnational research has been undertaken on new patterns of migration and settlement, as well as on cultural transfer between Mexican cities, towns and villages and their American urban, suburban, and rural counterparts. For example, investigations into the rapid dissemination and change in music forms and clothing can tell us a great deal about how change takes place over time. We know and have heard about the re-creation of the small towns in Michoacán or Guanajuato in suburban apartment complexes. What does this mean for the sojourners on their return to Mexico? What about the Oaxacan immigrants who have found their way to Orange County; many of them don't speak Spanish or English, but rather the language of the ancient Zapotec. How do their lives change and how do we change along with them? These studies, individually and collectively, will help us compare representations of Mexicans across time as well as across space. For example, while migration theorists have told us a great deal about their universal characteristics, there is still much to be learned about immigration and emigration at a specific place and moment in time. Can it help us measure, in a concrete way, characteristics which distinguished the first migration generation of the twentieth century with the most recent immigrants? What can it tell us about the nature of leadership in the new environment as compared with the 1920's? about community development as well as sustenance in the 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's? And while we have some knowledge of rural migrant farmers, and farm workers and cannery workers, there has not yet been much work done on those who have settled out in places as different as Watsonville, Calif.; Schuyler, Neb.; Tacoma, Wash.; or even Boston, Mass. While much of this research will focus on economic factors, such as labor markets, entrepreneurialism, and income distribution, more work should be done on the political life in Mexican settlements and communities since the Chicano Movement. There are now elected officials at the local and school board level and at the state and federal levels. How has this been accomplished? What has been the national and local significance of organizations such as the United Neighborhood Organizations, the Southwest and Midwest/Northeast Voter Registration Projects, and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund? What are the major features of successful organization? Why have other efforts resulted in failure? How have Mexicans succeeded politically in towns and cities which do not have a Mexican majority: towns like Denver, Colo.; Hutchinson, Kan.; and Stone Park, Ill., which all have had elected Mexican-American mayors. What can all of these stories tell us about being "American" as well as about being Mexican or Mexican-American? Work on the development of important local and national institutions has only recently begun. What do we know about the evolution of faith among Mexican Catholics or even Mexican converts to Protestantism? Has it made a difference in the way their communities develop or in their definitions of themselves? What about the schools? In the late 1960's young Chicanos throughout the country participated in a movement to change their schools, so that they could have better opportunities. There were the famous "blowouts" in Los Angeles, but there were also activities in Denver and South Texas, as well as in Chicago, where a decrepit old school in Mexican Pilsen was replaced with the new Benito Juarez High School - but only with the active pressure of the community. Nonetheless, schools in those places, particularly urban places seem to have taken a backward step in the last thirty years with even more students dropping out of high school and proportionately fewer reaching college. How can they be historians if they don't finish college? At the same time there has been a mushrooming of organizations in support of Latino and Mexican professionals; the Hispanic Bar Association, the Society for Hispanics in the Engineering Profession, and the National Association of Latino Elected Officials. Each has attempted to meld the need for individual professional advancement with recognition of our dependence on the group as a whole. How have these organization formed, sustained themselves, and advanced? Have they changed much over time? How does a coalition of "Hispanics" or "Latinos" fare in comparison to organizations formed by ethnicity? There are, of course, more focussed topics yet to be covered. How has the quinceanera changed over time? In some places a debutante cotillion has replaced it with some changes in its religious as well as social significance. Has the military changed in importance over time in the role it plays in the advancement of young people? If so, how? If not, why not? I recently met a young naval officer who had advanced through his career because of his bi-lingual facility, first as a translator, then to language school for training in Chinese and Russian, and finally to work as a cryptographer in national security at least one instance in which bi-lingualism has been perceived as a distinct asset. While institutional histories are important and still very much needed, there are dozens if not hundreds of biographies - individual and sometimes group portraits - which would be not only inherently important and interesting, but of further value in helping us to understand events and the way they have evolved. The stories of some of the more prominent members of the community have already been taken on: Congressman Edward Roybal of Los Angeles; Bert Corona, the great organizer and labor leader; Emma Tenayuca and Luisa Moreno, labor leaders in their own right; Cesar Chavez and Jose Angel Gutierrez. But there are individuals in every community who have provided important leadership. And there are great stories to be told like that of Hero Street in Silvis, Illinois, where a large group of young Mexican-American men went off to World War II, never to return. And as my students have discovered, some of the best stories are those told by parents and grandparents, seemingly ordinary people who have had extraordinary experiences and who have survived travail in the face of tremendous obstacles, usually unheralded and without fanfare, but with great importance to our collective history. What has been the story of childhood among Mexicans and Mexican-Americans? How has it changed over time? And what about old age and senior citizens? Finally, there is an over-riding theme that needs to be pursued whenever and however possible-the stories of women and the individual and collective contributions they have made to our history and the differences they have made over time. This requires that the women's perspective be included in every study of migration and settlement or organizational history. It also demands that the unique qualities of women's lives be investigated as important in their own rite: marriage, work, family, education, etc. Brief History of the Last 20 Years | Where Are We Now | What Needs To Be Done | How Can We Best Facilitate the "Making" of New History | The Uses and Abuses of History | Conclusion How Can We Best Facilitate the "Making" of New History
Now more than ever, the study of our history is important to our further development as a community. But now more than ever, public and private support for historical research is diminishing, or unstable. How can we insure that the progress that we have made continues and increases? This conference provides in one answer - to raise consciousness about the importance of history and its role in community development. But more concretely, this conference and other current efforts represent the need for collaboration, cooperation, and mutual support. The number of academic consortia supporting Mexican-American research have been increasing and should be given our blessing. Not only because funding, when it is available, will more likely go to collaborations than to individuals, but because we and our research will benefit from exchanges and inter-changes with others sharing our interest in historical investigation and analysis. Collaborative consortia, like the Midwest Consortium for Latino Research, could provide support for fellowships, seminars, travel, and publication subvention that can supplement not supplant institutional, foundation, and governmental endorsement. But more than this financial and collegial support collaboration on the research itself offers the promise of a wider net. While it is not traditional for historians to work in teams, the science and social science models have shown that research in groups can sometimes be even more productive. For example, to study Mexicans in the rural economy, it might be important as well as useful to simultaneously study rural development (or lack thereof) in Michigan, Illinois, Nebraska, California, and Arizona. Such an approach would enable the team to study not just the economy, but corollary cultural developments; community developments; gender differences; impact on various sectors of the community; and inter-ethnic interactions. Similar group projects might be envisioned in the areas of migration research and transnational research. One additional advantage of this approach is that it also promises inter-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches to these issues. Brief History of the Last 20 Years | Where Are We Now | What Needs To Be Done | How Can We Best Facilitate the "Making" of New History | The Uses and Abuses of History | Conclusion The Uses and Abuses of History
None of these approaches prohibits traditional approaches to the study of Mexican-American history. But they raise some of the same questions that were raised almost 30 years ago as Chicano Studies came to be such an important part of the Chicano political movement. The students involved then called for research in the various disciplines. Recognizing that at the time the traditionalists in those disciplines did not think of this research as "legitimate," the students felt that a new discipline needed to be introduced to ensure that the subjects would be included in curricula across the university. And so Chicano Studies was born. But Chicano Studies, as envisioned by its founders, was not simply study or research for its own sake - although that clearly could be done by those who wished it. The original premise of Chicano Studies, including Chicano History, was that knowledge was key to the advancement of the community: both self-knowledge and universal knowledge. The knowledge they envisioned was consciously applicable, even when not applied. The lack of knowledge at the time required that priority be given to perceived needs in the Chicano community as a whole. That definition of research led to the belief that research, especially research done on and with the help of the community, had to be rooted in the needs of communities. Today our knowledge is still incomplete, though not as sparse as it was a generation ago. But questions about knowledge and how we derive it and to what use it will be put are still relevant. While our instincts about the nature and uses of knowledge might not be the same as they were a generation ago, the demands of this moment are not that different from what they were a generation ago. This requires that we arrive at some conscious understanding of the meaning and importance of our work, however we go about it. Brief History of the Last 20 Years | Where Are We Now | What Needs To Be Done | How Can We Best Facilitate the "Making" of New History | The Uses and Abuses of History | Conclusion
So-called "pure" or "basic" research is seen as a hallmark of a free society which respects knowledge for its own sake and with the understanding that it is for the ages. We have no quarrel with that. Research on our community, however, must also meet the demands of the moment. There are not yet many of us doing this research, so our obligations are different and greater than those of historians of the middle ages or of the German Renaissance. Our discussion here was made possible by idealist young scholars who created a new discipline and paved the way for us to be accepted by departments across the country. However we define our task, we must remember the role that history plays in Latina/o life, and acknowledge its centrality to the tasks we have at hand. Brief History of the Last 20 Years | Where Are We Now | What Needs To Be Done | How Can We Best Facilitate the "Making" of New History | The Uses and Abuses of History | Conclusion |
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