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Making History: by Lorena Oropeza University of California, Davis Occasional Paper No. 17 December 1997
About the Author: Lorena Oropeza Lorena Oropeza, a journalism graduate from the University of Arizona, earned both a Master's degree and Ph.D. in American History from Cornell University in upstate New York. She is an Assistant Professor with the Department of History at the University of California, Davis. Her dissertation focused on Chicano opposition to the Vietnam War, the origins of Chicano anti-war sentiment, and public outrage over the disproportionate casualty rates among minorities. Her interest in the Vietnam era continued in 1995 when she participated in the special international conference, "Vietnam Legacies: Twenty Years Later." The author wishes to thank Valerie Mendoza, Catherine J. Kudlick, Ines Hernandez-Avila, Julia Aguirre, and Lucy Barber for their comments on earlier drafts of this essay. Table Of Contents
I was very honored to receive an invitation from Dr. Refugio Rochín and the Julian Samora Research Institute to present my work at this conference. The title of my talk today is "Making History: the Chicano Movement." The title is a not too subtle play on words meant to underscore a pattern: most scholars who have written about the Chicano movement were Chicano movement participants themselves. Nearly 30 years ago, this generation captured national attention as activists. In the years since, a handful of these activists have recorded, constructed, that is, made this history as scholars.1 I therefore represent a break from tradition. Like Professor Maria Montoya whose birth year I share, I did not participate in movement events of the 1960's and 1970's. For example, one key interest of mine, and a major focus of my talk today, is the origins of the National Chicano Moratorium March Against the War In Vietnam on Aug. 29, 1970. On that day, between 20,000 and 30,000 Chicanos marched down East Los Angeles' Whittier Boulevard in one of the largest Mexican-American demonstrations the country has ever seen.2 During that late summer of 1970, I was preparing for my own triumphal march in Tucson, Ariz., but it was to walk four blocks - all by myself - to Rogers Elementary and the first grade. This morning I wanted to discuss the development of the Chicano Moratorium March, as well as address the significance of my work - and my working - within the broader field of Chicana/o Studies. Specifically, I wish to respond to Ignacio M. García's article, "Juncture in the Road: Chicano Studies Since 'El Plan de Santa Bárbara','' a recent essay by a Chicano movement scholar/participant which critiques young scholars entering the field, and mentions me by name.3 My discussion moves from historical inquiry to contemporary debate. Along the way, however, certain themes prevail: themes of unity, diversity, and political purpose. As "Juncture in the Road" makes clear, Chicano movement debates that arose a generation ago continue today. Engaged in a widespread and multifaceted struggle for social justice, many Chicano movement participants were inspired by the belief that cultural pride and ethnic unity were together the raw stuff of political mobilization and empowerment. In striving toward ethnic and political solidarity, however, movement participants constantly grappled with a series of difficult problems: cementing a movement marked by considerable regional and ideological differences, gaining recruits among non-movement Mexican-Americans; and recasting the ethnic minority's relationship with majority U.S. society. Inclined to dismiss the preceding generation's civil rights efforts as the "politics of accommodation," activists sought nothing less than, in the words of one key movement proclamation, "total liberation from oppression, exploitation and racism."4 Certainly members of the Chicano Moratorium Committee were eager to build a broad-based ethnic campaign not just against the war in Vietnam, but against a host of social injustices that Mexican-Americans faced on the home front. For their part, the drafters of el Plan de Santa Bárbara, the founding document of Chicano Studies, chose higher education as their arena of operation. As originally conceived, Chicano Studies was going to politicize Mexican-Americans - students and non-students alike - as well as dismantle the marginalization of the ethnic group through illuminating research. Unfortunately, the determined quest for social justice that was an integral part of the moratorium campaign and which helped inspire the formation of Chicano Studies was only partially rewarded. The decades since the Chicano movement have brought political and educational progress for some people of Mexican descent, and continual economic inequality for many more.5 Not surprisingly, within the field of Chicana/o Studies, one of the most concrete legacies of the movement, many of the same questions over which activists pondered a quarter-century ago - questions of unity, diversity, and political purpose - remain. Indeed, these questions may be more pressing than ever. The Making of the Moratorium and the History of the Movement | The Making of Chicano Studies and the Future of the Field | Endnotes The Making of the Moratorium and the History of the Movement Before examining the present-day state of Chicana and Chicano Studies, I wanted to share a portion of my historical research on Chicano anti-war activism. The two topics are not so far removed: like scholars within Chicana/o Studies today, members of the National Chicano Moratorium Committee Against the War In Vietnam confronted issues of unity, diversity, and purpose. They had to decide how to build their campaign, whom to include within it, and what was their overall aim. Indeed, one good way of appreciating the diversity within the Mexican-American population during this time period is to trace the emergence of Chicano anti-war activism. Mexican-Americans traditionally had taken tremendous pride in the ethnic group's military service record, yet the Chicano Moratorium Committee succeeded in putting together the largest anti-war demonstration by any minority group in the history of the United States. In part they did so by tapping into powerful ethnic group notions of legitimacy, soldiering, and citizenship. By way of getting started, I thought I might first briefly summarize the origin of my own interest in Chicano anti-war activism. In 1988, I went to Cornell University to study the history of U.S. foreign relations. I was particularly interested in U.S.-Central American relations. My first year in graduate school, however, I took a course taught by Professor Felix Masud-Piloto on the Political History of Hispanics in the United States. At that point, my aim became to research some topic that lay at the intersection between U.S. foreign policy and Chicano history. As the Chicano movement and the years of most intense fighting in Vietnam were roughly coeval, this particular juncture seemed the most promising. Still, when I picked this topic, I was unaware of the moratorium effort. I had never heard the name Ruben Salazar.6 Which is to say the history of Chicano protest against the Vietnam war was, for me, a blank slate. I therefore had a lot of questions. When did it arise? Why? Was it stronger in some places than others? How did Mexican-Americans who were not in the movement react to anti-war activism on the part of Chicanos?7 I quickly found that accounts of the anti-war movement during the Vietnam era did not have much to say about the Chicano Moratorium.8 Fortunately, during the course of my research, Carlos Muñoz, Jr. and Juan Gómez-Quiñones both published works that provided important overviews of the Chicano movement.9 Combined, their work not only answered some questions but raised others. How did Chicano anti-war activists interact with the national peace movement? What was the relationship between the moratorium effort and other Chicano issues? As a means of sharing my research, I will address just one question this morning: what prompted so many people to join the Chicano Moratorium anti-war demonstration in East Los Angeles on Aug. 29, 1970? Of course, one of the most commonly cited reasons for the Chicano anti-war effort, cited by activists then and scholars since, was evidence of disproportionate casualty rates.10 In early 1967, Rafael Guzmán, a political scientist who was working on a massive data collection project for the Ford Foundation, looked at casualty rolls from the five Southwestern states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Colorado. Examining the names of war dead from Jan. 1, 1961, to Feb. 28, 1967, in conjunction with data from the 1960 census, Guzmán concluded that, "American servicemen of Mexican descent have a higher death rate in Vietnam than all other GIs. According to Guzmán, while Spanish-surnamed men of military age made up only 13.8 % of the Southwest's total population, Spanish-surnamed soldiers during the time period accounted for 19.4% of the war dead.11 In 1969, Guzmán released a second study that had produced similar findings.12 Nevertheless, a nearly three-year gap exists between the initial circulation of Guzmán's statistics and the emergence of a Chicano anti-war crusade in Los Angeles. Thus, evidence of disproportionate casualty rates alone does not explain the creation of a Chicano moratorium. In fact, Guzmán's work in 1967 and 1968 was more likely to be mentioned by Mexican-Americans eager to work with the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson than by Chicanos protesting the war. During the early years of massive U.S. troop involvement in Vietnam, many older Mexican-Americans took it as a point of honor that members of their ethnic group were fighting and dying overseas and not in any greatly visible numbers - marching down the streets. One such person eager to highlight the sacrifices of young Mexican-American men was the state chairman of the California GI Forum, a branch of the American GI Forum, which was a leading Mexican-American veterans and civil rights organization. In 1967, state chairman Mario R. Vasquez obtained and decided to forward to President Johnson the last letter written by a slain Marine from San José, California. The Marine's name was Patrick Vasquez Jr., although he was apparently no relation. In a spring 1967 letter, the soldier Vasquez reassured his "Pop" that he was risking his life for a good cause to save the "Free World" from the "Red Empire." Already twice-wounded, the doomed Vasquez wrote, "God will lead me to my destiny if I should die over here, I'll be proud to know that I died for my country and I hope that you'll be proud of me too, for I am a Marine."13 Forwarding Patrick Vasquez's words to the president, Mario Vasquez reminded Johnson that, "Mexican-Americans have died in many wars in our fight to preserve freedom. If the people who are now rioting in this country had the same thoughts as Patrick, I am sure we could go about making the United States the country that it should be."14 Implicitly, Vasquez was reminding Johnson that service on the battlefront merited Mexican-American recognition on the home front. Since at least as early as World War II, Mexican-Americans had sought to further their civil rights struggle by calling attention to their battlefield performance. The argument, put forth by other minority groups before and since, was that military service merited first-class citizenship. In other words, those who risked death on behalf of a country should be granted legitimacy within it. Supporting this set of ideas in the Mexican-American case was the particularly commendable service record established by members of the ethnic group during World War II. Not only did some statistics suggest that Mexican-Americans served and died in disproportionate numbers, but veterans came home with medals on their chest - including 11 Congressional Medals of Honor.15 If wartime service was a way to gain equality as citizens, Mexican-Americans were eager for others to know that, considering their fighting capacity as soldiers, they were more than deserving of fair treatment. The patriotic legacy of the Second World War and again Korea where Mexican-Americans, according to one popular author, fought valiantly, worked to curb Chicano anti-war activism in some areas of the Southwest.16 At the forefront in muting criticism against the war among Chicanos was the Mexican American Youth Organization, a Texas group that became the precursor of the state's Chicano political party, La Raza Unida. Wary of alienating potential sympathizers and voters, the organization initially deemed anti-war protest counter-productive. As MAYO-cofounder Mario Compean later defended the group's reluctance to address the issue, "if MAYO would have spoken out against the war in the barrios it would have been run out immediately."17 In the neighboring state of Arizona, refusing the draft in 1968 did indeed earn Chicano activist Salomón Baldenegro a chilly reception from older Mexican-Americans in his hometown of Tucson. Moreover, that same year, Baldenegro was ejected from the University of Arizona's Mexican American Students Association, a group he helped form, because he continued to speak out at campus anti-war rallies.18 Elsewhere - Denver and the San Francisco Bay Area stand out - opposition to the war among Chicanos was less a matter of debate. Yet nowhere during the early years of massive U.S. troop involvement in Vietnam was anti-war activism a top priority for most movement participants. Instead, the young Chicano movement tended to be more concerned with educational reform, the farm worker's struggle, and gaining political control of the barrios. Nevertheless by November 1969, Chicano anti-war activism had begun to flourish in even previously resistant quarters. At an anti-war rally in San Antonio that month, Mario Compean of the Mexican American Youth Organization had abandoned his cautionary stance. Compean told the student crowd that it was high time for "all Chicano brothers to manifest themselves in opposition to the Vietnam War and to give up all this patriotic" (The newspaper report contained ellipses rather than repeat Compean's apparently profane word choice.)19 In the more liberal environment of California, however, the war issue was not just on the Chicano agenda but had moved to the forefront of movement activism. In late 1969, an unique Chicano anti-war effort was born in Los Angeles with the coming together of a group that became the National Chicano Moratorium Against the War in Vietnam. The group's idea of holding Chicano anti-war demonstrations, quickly took hold in towns throughout the Southwest: by the spring of 1970 more than a dozen local Chicano moratoriums were on the planning board. So how can we explain this shift in attitude and priorities? One necessary piece of the puzzle was that activists were taking a cue from national events. Across the country, Vietnam protests had become impossible to ignore. In the fall of 1969, massive anti-war demonstrations took place in cities across the country. In San Antonio, Compean was speaking at one of several dozen to more than a hundred local events, coordinated through the Vietnam Moratorium Committee, a national group. The next month, enormous anti-war rallies took place in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. As many as a quarter-million peo ple may have participated on the west coast, half a million on the east.20 These demonstrations were an inspiration to Chicanos. According to David Sanchez, founder of the Brown Berets and one of the original members of the Chicano Moratorium committee, anti-war protest was "a trend, a national trend, and we just made it into a Chicano trend."21 In the same manner, Ramsés Noriega, a man who was a key behind-the-scenes director of the entire moratorium effort, explained that organizing around the war among Chicanos began because "the war was very hot and people were willing to talk about it and deal with it." 22 Chicanos saw the mainstream peace movement organize rallies, and reached the conclusion: we can do that. Yet Chicano Vietnam protest was not just a matter of mimicry. Along with inspiration, came motivation. Clearly, one stated goal of Chicano anti-war protest was to see an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Southeast Asia. The main emphasis, however, was to use Vietnam as a kind of springboard to reach out to those Mexican-Americans who were not part of the Chicano movement. To repeat the words of Noriega, if people were willing to talk about the war and deal with the war, maybe they would also start talking about and dealing with issues closer to home. Most emphatically, moratorium members wanted to mobilize the Mexican-American population, not just against the war, but against domestic problems confronting the ethnic group. The war proved a good candidate for this mobilizing mission for three reasons. First, the war was an excellent entry into a whole array of domestic issues. The Chicano Moratorium committee shrewdly used the war in Southeast Asia to highlight problems Mexican-Americans faced in the southwestern United States. Suddenly those statistics compiled by Guzmán were of prime importance. As moratorium members sought support for their cause among the membership of Mexican-American civic and political organizations, they routinely began their presentations with a simple statement: Mexican-Americans are dying in Vietnam in numbers disproportionate to their population in the United States. Then they would ask: "Why?" In the answers they put forth, they addressed a whole host of domestic inequalities afflicting the Mexican-American population. One fundamental problem, for example, was education. As anti-war Chicanos explained, elementary school students of Mexican descent were stripped of their cultural background; in high school, they were tracked in vocational classes. The result was that few Chicanos were on college campuses and thus few were eligible for college draft deferments. Moratorium volunteers also linked the casualty rate to the problem of poverty. They argued that a degrading welfare system plus a lack of job opportunity pushed young Mexican-American men toward military service. Even police brutality was labeled a "push" factor. As Rosalío Muñoz, chair of the Chicano Moratorium Committee, contended when he refused the draft in September 1969, "I accuse the law enforcement agencies of the United States of instilling greater fear and insecurity in Mexican youth than the Viet Cong ever could, which is genocide."23 Thus, all these problems, including the casualty rate itself, was rooted in a fundamental lack of Mexican-American political clout. As they recited these injustices, moratorium organizers were pleased to find a generally receptive audience. Here was the second reason the August moratorium march attracted widespread support: by 1970 a substantial amount of anti-war sentiment already existed among Mexican-Americans. Although in the earliest years of widespread U.S. military involvement, some key Mexican-American elites had endorsed the endeavor, the general Mexican-American population apparently was less firm in their support of the war. Just like the rest of the country, hawkish attitudes among Mexican-Americans may have dissolved in the face of mounting casualties.24 The last letter written by Patrick Vasquez to his father is telling in this regard. Apparently, father and son did not see eye-to-eye on the war. The junior Vasquez's letter was a reply to an earlier missive from his father, who had noted that many parents whose sons had died in Vietnam had turned against the war. Much of the reply reads as if the younger Patrick was trying to convince his father that U.S. military intervention in Vietnam was just and necessary. By 1970, Mexican-Americans may have been even more opposed to the war than the general U.S. population. Unfortunately, only one poll specifically targeted Mexican-American attitudes on the war. Taken in Santa Barbara a few weeks before the August moratorium in Los Angeles, the survey of 300 Spanish-surnamed area residents showed strong anti-war opinions among the survey group. Asking questions similar to those found within national Gallup polls, researchers found a substantial amount of anti-war sentiment. For example, while Americans as a whole still rejected immediate withdrawal from Vietnam in favor of Vietnamization, that is, the measured substitution of Vietnamese troops for U.S. combat units, nearly two-thirds of the Santa Barbara group favored an immediate U.S. withdrawal over Vietnamization. Also interesting, given the career ladder provided by the military, a majority of those polled said that they would discourage any sons they had from entering the army.25 By linking the war issue to domestic problems, moratorium members were able to tap into widespread Mexican-American discontent over the war's continuation. The final reason the committee was able to construct a winning appeal was that members put the patriotic legacy of World War II to good use. Rather than permitting the legacy of World War II to be a stumbling block, committee members appropriated these ideas, but with a twist. They mentioned familiar themes of Mexican-American bravery at times of war and Mexican-American validation through military service, but they put these ideas toward anti-war ends. In a newspaper interview, Rosalío Muñoz, chairman of the moratorium committee, summarized the traditional formula and then explained the Chicano moratorium's departure from it. In his words, "Chicanos came back from World War II and they put on their uniforms and medals, and they'd say, 'We served; you can't call me a wetback, you can't tell me where to go." But the result, Muñoz said, was that "we developed this cultural and psychological thing. You prove yourself by going through the service." The Chicano's machismo was channeling Mexican-Americans toward military life. Rather than accept this situation, Muñoz argued, the moratorium committee, as he put it "had to go directly the other way against it."26 Specifically, Muñoz was suggesting that moratorium members cast anti-war protest as an honorable, courageous cause, particularly by presenting resistance to the draft as an act of bravery. Under these circumstances, Muñoz contended that the moratorium committee's "first priority was educating the community" to abandon the traditional high value Mexican-Americans had placed upon military service. By criticizing the Vietnam War, the moratorium committee rejected the military as an avenue of social advancement and personal glory for Mexican-American men. But nothing in the moratorium's message went directly against the concept and acclamation - of Mexicanos/as "muy machos," as very manly. The difference was that now machismo was imbued with a specific political and social consciousness, one that was pro-Chicano and anti-war. As one young scholar, who spoke highly of the moratorium effort, contended, "To resist, is in the strongest sense of the word a TEST of manhood, personal courage and honor, machismo."27 Nor was praising the machismo of draft resisters a phenomenon restricted to men. While the handful of students who headed the moratorium effort were mainly men, women who wrote articles in support of the anti-war effort offered similar arguments as men who spoke to audiences from up on stage. In fact, Corinne Sánchez, a writer for El Alacrán, the Chicano student newspaper at California State Long Beach, placed a special burden upon Chicanas to recognize that machismo began at home. Because of their "cultural upbringing," Chicanas valued manly acts of courage and so, indirectly, put pressure upon Mexican-American men to go to war, she contended. Sánchez did not ask that Chicanas forsake their cultural values, just redirect them on behalf of the movement. She implored Chicanas to "become educated on the total Vietnam war" and to recognize that "manliness is a beautiful cultural concept that should be utilized for the betterment of our people, and not for the destruction of other people."28 By mentioning casualty rates and by referring to the ideas of World War II, moratorium members anchored their appeal to the same grave injustice that Mexican-Americans had noted since World War II: they were dying overseas for the United States while still subject to discrimination at home. The main thrust of the moratorium demonstration remained clear enough to one Mexican-American woman who explained that she had marched on Aug. 29 because she wanted her son, a soldier in Vietnam, to come home. But Cora Barba continued to use her son's military service to validate her own reach for equality. As she understood the purpose of the demonstration: "If my boy has a right to be out there and has to be suffering I demand my rights and I want justice done."29 Barba's comments indicated that the moratorium campaign had achieved, in part, what it set out to do. Organizers had convinced many Mexican-Americans, even those not involved in the Chicano movement, that the "batalla," the battle, for Chicanos was not in Vietnam, but as one newspaper advocated, "in the struggle for social justice in the U.S."30 That accomplishment was incomplete, however. A violent clash instigated by law enforcement ultimately cost three people including journalist Ruben Salazar - their lives that day. Successive moratorium marches were never able to capture the numerical strength nor the widespread optimism of the August demonstration. Harassed by police authorities and suffering a reputation damaged by repeated clashes between law enforcement and Chicanos, the moratorium effort continued to lose support and direction. Historical accounts of the moratorium effort have emphasized the tragedy and violence that took place on Aug. 29, 1970, and the subsequent unraveling of the moratorium committee.31 Such an emphasis, however, obscures the moratorium committee's central accomplishment: the massive display of ethnic solidarity that was the march itself. Eager to take advantage of the attention commanded by the war in Vietnam, activists in Los Angeles used the war issue to build support for the Chicano cause; they reached out to a broad sector of the Mexican-American population by carefully crafting an appeal that emphasized domestic inequities and praised Mexican-American soldiering ability; they promoted political mobilization. For a short while, they achieved tremendous unity in the face of quite remarkable diversity. The moratorium committee, however, never developed a political program beyond marching, beyond mobilization. In that respect, the moratorium effort fit a broader movement pattern: coming together in marches and conferences as proud and militant Chicanos was always easier than agreeing upon what path Chicano militancy should take. Just as Chicano anti-war activism offers insight into the broader Chicano movement, the study of this activism offers some suggestions about movement history. Before turning to a discussion of the present-day state of Chicana/o Studies, I would like to briefly mention the historiographical implications of the history I've shared. In terms of scholarship on the movement, I think my research makes three recommendations: to examine movement history in conjunction with the history of the broader Mexican-American population, to place movement history within the greater context of U.S. history; and to develop a more detailed knowledge of movement history through additional research. First, the work argues for exploration of the movement in tandem with non-movement Mexican-American politics. For example, I was interested to find that one of the earliest Vietnam demonstrations organized by Mexican-Americans was a march in support of LBJ's policies.32 As Professor Gómez-Quiñones suggested, movement activists were a minority within a minority.33 In that case, what was their relationship to the greater Mexican-American population? Activists often labeled Mexican-Americans who did not agree with them as vendidos, or sell-outs, yet Mexican-American opposition to movement politics undoubtedly had more than just one source. Clarifying the relationship between activists and the broader Mexican-American population is critical if we are to understand not just what inspired young people to join the Chicano movement, but also what motivated many Mexican-Americans to stay away. Second, as my work is at the crossroads of anti-war and Chicano protest, the very concept of the project advocates studying the Chicano movement within the broader context of U.S. history. Yesterday, we heard some reasons from Professor Ramon Ruiz about why Chicano history should be placed within the field of Mexican history. For the Chicano movement, the context of the 1960's and early 1970's within the United States is just as important. For instance, although I did not expand on this point today, one of the reasons movement activists in Los Angeles decided to stage their own protest march was that they felt mistreated by West Coast peace activists at a massive San Francisco demonstration in November 1969.34 While scholars readily acknowledge that the emergence of the Chicano movement coincided with a swirl of protest activity across the country, they have not pressed the point. As a result, the apparent influence of black power ideas upon the movement philosophy of Chicanismo has been mentioned only in passing. Instances of collaboration between the Chicano and American Indian movements likewise await investigation. Granted, the number of works on the Chicano movement is still relatively small. Yet only by looking at the Chicano movement as part of the social movements of the 1960's and 1970's does the uniqueness of Mexican-American activism of the era become apparent. For example, scholars have cited the moratorium effort and its "international orientation" as evidence that the elements within the Chicano movement were moving toward a more explicitly ideological framework, presumably Marxism.35 Certainly the national peace movement included a substantial radical wing. But within the moratorium committee, the guiding inspiration was cultural nationalism, which was hardly new and, according to at least one disappointed Chicano activist, hardly an ideology.36 Fearful of impugning the distinctive quality of the movement, of diminishing its contribution, many scholars have failed to explore areas of overlap - and divergence between Chicano and non-Chicano activists. In this regard, Armando Navarro's 1995 work on MAYO, which breaks down the causes of the movement into "endogenous" and "exogenous" categories, may mark an important turning point.37 Third, although my research examines what might be called the Chicano anti-war movement, I think my work strongly lobbies for continued in-depth study of the Chicano movement overall. I use the war issue as a way to understand the development of the Chicano movement over time. You could repeat this exercise using the issue of feminism and the woman's struggle, for example, and perhaps at the end you might begin to learn more about the story of the Chicana movement.38 Likewise, the role of class within the movement needs to be explored. Muñoz asserted that the movement was a fundamentally working-class project.39 Gómez-Quiñones lamented that it wasn't working class enough.40 But neither investigated the relationship between class status and movement participation with any specificity. Another unknown factor is what happened to most participants after the heyday of the movement. Easiest to trace are those in academia, but they are few in number. Fortunately, numerous sources exist to help scholars compile a more comprehensive history of the Chicano movement. Although scholars have used newspaper accounts and oral history interviews, neither avenue of information has been fully explored. While more than 50 alternative Chicano newspapers were printed during the time of the movement, only a fraction of these publications - Los Angeles media figure prominently - have appeared in works on the movement.41 Similarly, the recollections of Chicanas have received less attention from historians than the musings of their male counterparts. However, other sources are available. Despite an abysmally slow response time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been known to surrender files, albeit frequently censored, requested under the Freedom of Information Act.42 Overlooked almost entirely are the papers of elected officials ranging from the President of the United States to local city council members. In addition, personal archives of activists await scholarly scrutiny, as probably no more than a dozen have been deposited at university libraries.43 Exploring these still relatively untapped sources may provide a more nuanced picture of the movement. Until now, scholarship on the movement has been marked, understandably, by an air of disappointment. In Youth, Identity and Power by Carlos Muñoz, Jr., for example, el Plan de Santa Bárbara, the master plan of Chicano Studies, is presented as one of the foremost accomplishments of a movement dominated by young people. Reserving a survey of the development of Chicano Studies for another chapter, however, Muñoz had little else to say about youth activism at its peak: the following section was labeled "The Decline of the Student Movement."44 For his part, Juan Gómez-Quiñones included a section in his book, Chicano Politics, called "The Movement's Insufficiencies," but did not include one labeled "The Movement's Accomplishments." Furthermore Gómez-Quiñones expressed regret that the 1969 Plan de Aztlán, the movement's foremost political pronouncement, was so loosely written as to allow "its language concerning issues to degenerate into reformism."45 Indeed, although the alternative was never made explicit, mere "reformism" appeared to be his indictment of the Chicano movement overall. Somewhat more optimistically, Ignacio M. García titled his work on La Raza Unida Party, United We Win. While a statement of aspiration and a call to action, the title inevitably was also an ironic commentary on what the party failed to accomplish.46 The Chicano movement never did achieve "total liberation from oppression, exploitation and racism." Nor did the movement secure enduring unity - cultural or political - for all Mexican-Americans. Within the movement itself, activists disagreed on how to advance Chicano liberation and also disagreed as to what exactly constituted Chicano liberation. Given the enormity of the task, however, the vision and willingness to struggle were remarkable. The widespread, complex, passionate explosion of cultural expression and political hope that was the Chicano movement deserves further study. Additional research may further a more detailed and textured understanding of the movement, and perhaps a greater appreciation of the Chicano movement's accomplishments in union with its limitations. Undoubtedly, however, the continued making of movement history, just like the movement itself, will have to address the substantial diversity found among Mexican-Americans in general and among Chicano activists in particular. The Making of the Moratorium and the History of the Movement | The Making of Chicano Studies and the Future of the Field | Endnotes The Making of Chicano Studies and the Future of the Field When I was first placed on a panel entitled "Positions," charged with exploring various positions on Chicana/o and Ethnic Studies, I thought I had no right to speak, and, to be brutally self-revealing, perhaps had little worthwhile to contribute. This is my first year at the University of California, Davis, and my position is within the history department. Still, I am exceedingly proud to serve on the Chicana/o Studies Program Committee at Davis and I did spend a year at the University of California, Santa Barbara as a Chicana Dissertation Fellow. Since being invited to this conference, I also find myself in the middle of a debate about the future direction of the field. As I now turn to a discussion about Chicana and Chicano Studies, the themes I have discussed so far remain important. Just as the Chicano movement struggled to forge unity amidst diversity for a greater political purpose, so Chicano Studies was conceived in the hope of accomplishing the same task, specifically through institutions of higher education. El Plan de Santa Bárbara, collectively authored in 1969 by students, staff and faculty, was the original statement of purpose and aspiration for the nascent field. A ground-breaking reconception of what higher education might mean for Mexican-Americans, the plan sketched out not only what Chicano Studies hoped to achieve, but for whom and by whom. Along the way, the plan attempted to reconcile a specific notion of community, the barrio, and a specific ethnic identity, the Chicano, with the inherent diversity of the Mexican-American population. More than a quarter-century later, as social injustices remain, even as the number of Mexican-Americans with doctorates has increased, the field of Chicana and Chicano Studies continues to confront questions of purpose and, equally important, of participation. A generation after the plan was written, these questions remain. Who belongs in the field and to what avail? I propose that the future vitality of Chicana and Chicano Studies depends upon an inclusive vision of the field, and of who may rightfully claim membership within it. The dangers posed by the opposite approach are revealed in Ignacio M. García's "Juncture in the Road: Chicano Studies Since 'El Plan de Santa Bárbara'.'' A former Raza Unida Party activist in Texas who is now an assistant professor of history at Brigham Young University, García wishes to recapture what he believes the field has lost with the passage of time, namely "the spirit of el Plan de Santa Bárbara."47 Surveying the history of the field since its inception, García closely echoes the plan in his understanding of the emergence of Chicano Studies and its purpose. However, as a historian he neglects to address a central dilemma that arose in 1969 and remains in 1996: juggling that triad of unity, political purpose, and, especially, diversity. Instead, even more so than the authors of el Plan de Santa Bárbara, García embraces the notion of a single, authentic Chicano community as both the source and beneficiary of Chicano Studies activism. The ironic result is that the article, while raising some interesting questions about the future direction of the field, ultimately prescribes political and academic stagnation. The impetus of "Juncture in the Road" is clear. Chicano Studies programs today, García laments, are in a deplorable condition, "stepchildren of the academy, with few resources, a limited staff, and often, a marginal reputation."48 Eager to spur a revitalization of the field, García enumerates the challenges confronting Chicano Studies. He mentions the decline in student activism since the late 1970's and the conservative backlash that began in the 1980's.49 Yet by far the greatest threat to the field, according to García, is largely a product of the 1990's. Nearly 30 years after el Plan de Santa Bárbara was crafted, he writes, people working within Chicano Studies lack dedication to or worse knowledge of - the field's founding document. Wishing to curb such apparent waywardness, García offers a solution: to reinvigorate Chicano Studies by moving it closer to "what the authors of el Plan de Santa Bárbara had in mind."50 Although García was not among these authors, to fully appreciate his concerns, an overview of what the plan means to him is helpful. As García notes, el Plan de Santa Bárbara endorsed a myriad of assignments to make the university a more hospitable and pertinent place for Chicanos. These included advancing the recruitment and retainment of students and faculty alike; politicizing Mexican-Americans on campus and off to the goals of the movement; and conducting research on the plight of the ethnic group. García explains that from the start, "Chicano Studies had a responsibility beyond instructing students about their history and culture and helping them to meet their degree requirements."51 At peril today, he argues, is this greater, essential mission: "to reach out toward the community to assist in resolving the problems that la raza faces daily."52 According to García, unlike the present-day situation, the initial years of Chicano Studies, were a time when el Plan de Santa Bárbara was in full force. When young, García recalls, "the field was slanted toward activism" and Chicano Studies programs were important vehicles of student politicization. Therefore no matter how embryonic the courses were, he fondly remembers, "in Chicano Studies everyone became a philosopher, a political scientist, and a reformer, and those roles were often taken beyond the classroom."53 Professors in the field faithfully attended to the plan's mandate to conduct "action-oriented analysis" and research.54 Starting in 1970, scholars promoted the theory that Mexican-Americans constituted an internal colony within the United States. García describes this initial "Chicano paradigm" as revolutionary: in one swift blow, he writes, the internal colonial theory "relieved the burden that self-victimization brought to many Mexican Americans."55 Extolling what Chicano Studies accomplished in the early 1970's, García hopes that the field once again will become infused with a pioneering sense of purpose and militancy. Perhaps that is why his vision for the future of the field so liberally borrows from the past. Specifically, García uncritically appropriates specific notions of community and, more implicitly, identity, that flourished during the time of the movement. Particularly revealing is his description of the origins of the field. As García explains, "Chicano Studies emerged out of a need to legitimize the Chicano experience and to provide the people in the barrio with a collective identity." Lacking access to the university and, consequently, lacking historical knowledge about themselves, he continues, "Chicanos suffered not only exploitation and poverty, but also an identity crisis that divided the community."56 To summarize García's sentences, the barrio and the community suffered identity problems. A familiar movement assumption repeatedly found within el Plan de Santa Bárbara still carries weight with him: to García, notions of barrio and community are practically interchangeable. These notions, however, tend to exclude a specific subset of the Mexican-American population. As García explains, one segment of the ethnic group had, by the birth of Chicano Studies, all but forfeited their claim to barrio or community membership. "Those who sought economic stability, upward mobility and acceptance," he declares, "often found themselves moving toward assimilation and away from the community."57 Without repeating the movement's familiar distinction between the militant "Chicano" versus the assimilationist "Mexican -American," García nevertheless reprises an assertion found within el Plan de Santa Bárbara. As the plan put it, assimilation, as evidenced by a "turning away from the barrio and la colonia," was the "ultimate cost" some ethnic group members had paid to achieve social mobility.58 Upon close inspection, however, García appears to have exceeded "what the authors of el Plan de Santa Bárbara had in mind." Advocating greater fidelity to the plan, García fails to note that the Santa Barbara document incorporated a certain leeway in its definitions. The supposedly sharp divide between two archetypal ethnic identities is one example. On the one hand, the plan did contrast the assimilationist, middle-class, and politically ineffective Mexican-American to the politically committed, culturally proud, and barrio-based Chicano.59 On the other hand, the plan expressed the fervent hope that all Mexican-Americans were "potential Chicanos."60 Similarly, the opening lines of the plan's manifesto clearly equated "our people, the community," with "el barrio, la colonia."61 Again the plan held out the possibility that the concept of community could be, perhaps should be, "all-inclusive."62 This occasional relaxing of definitions and categories at the height of the movement is revealing. Even as the authors of el Plan de Santa Bárbara embraced a specific ethnic identity emerging from a particular community as the building blocks of the movement, they acknowledged the inherent diversity of the ethnic group. In 1969, they also harbored the hope that their crusade might someday appeal to virtually all Mexican-Americans. In contrast, García refuses to address fundamental issues of achieving unity amidst diversity. The result is that he can only maintain his idea of community by tossing people out. Convinced that the original crusading spirit of Chicano Studies has been lost, García questions the legitimacy of those he believes are responsible for detrimental deviations. In essence, he denies them community membership. Furthermore, because García upholds his narrow definition of community as both the wellspring and guarantor of activism, he denies their work any social or political relevance. Indeed, García accuses many of these suspect scholars of willfully divorcing themselves from a "passion for progressive scholarship."63 Consequently, García's perception of who belongs in the field and what their work may entail is a narrow one. Such a circumscribed vision, however, ultimately undermines whatever potential Chicana and Chicano Studies has to effect meaningful political and social change. Simply put, no field that is defined as narrowly as this essay defines Chicano Studies can ever prosper. Professor Maria Montoya expressed doubts as to whether a unitary Chicano history exists. Today I wish to suggest that there is no singular Chicano community like the one Ignacio García champions. Of course, during the Chicano movement scholars and activists liked to argue otherwise. A united community that shared a common historical experience (of resistance against Anglo-American oppression most prominently) was both sought as the goal and extolled as the existent foundation of the Chicano struggle. Hence the frequent appearance of the word community within el Plan de Santa Bárbara and other movement documents. Thus, in terms of history, Juan Gómez-Quiñones and Luis Leobardo Arroyo in 1974 challenged their colleagues to determine "a baseline coherent statement on the Chicano experience."64 That assignment was movement-inspired. As Alex M. Saragoza noted in an extensive 1990 historiographical essay: "Given the political context in which Chicano scholarship originated, the search for common historical threads [and authentic community, I would add] paralleled the search for a means to organize Chicanos into a viable and coherent political force."65 Yet scholars soon discovered that the history of people of Mexican and Spanish descent in what now constitutes the United States was extraordinarily complicated. Indeed, Chicano history cut its teeth recognizing post-1848 class and race divisions, not just between Anglo-Americans and Mexicans, but among ethnic Mexicans.66 Historians have since taken this project backward and forward in time.67 Nevertheless, according to "Juncture in the Road," Mexican-American society appears to have collapsed at some indeterminate date. Suddenly there is just one community and it is based in the barrio. Indeed, García contends that legitimacy for the field of Chicano studies rests solely within, "a Chicano working-class environment."68 A central concern for García, as he notes in his opening paragraph, is that the field "continues to receive into its ranks a growing number of scholars who have no ideological connection with the original premises of Chicano Studies."69 As the essay elaborates, a cadre of young scholars who "were not weaned politically or intellectually in a Chicano working-class environment," is entering the field. The author then explains that these scholars are removed from their community because they spent five to ten years at universities faraway from home. Intellectual distance, in turn, is presumed to follow from class and physical distance. The unfortunate result is that these scholars are destined to teach "Chicano Studies without the 'context of change,'" that is, without involvement in social and political issues. The article then cites me as exemplifying this particular problem because I appear to fit all the parameters.70 García critiques my academic training, my scholarly agenda and, most of all, my family background. His reasoning is transparent. While working-class people are part of the community, middle-class people "have been removed from the community."71 Within García's schema, middle-class persons by definition are not part of the community. Scholars like myself therefore, represent a threat to el Plan de Santa Bárbara. So do many other people. Although I am the only person mentioned by name in the article, the list of people García finds objectionable is quite extensive. Within the classroom, non-Chicano students are unwelcome by García: their very presence, he contends, dampens activism.72 So does the presence of those Mexican-American students who in recent years - years of economic contraction the essay failed to note - are preoccupied with "finding a job and getting a 'useful' degree."73 Likewise, a wide swath of the professoriate comes under criticism. Positions within Chicano Studies have been filled by "academic bureaucrats."74 "Neo-Marxists" and advocates of "pan-Latinoism" stand ready to diminish the uniqueness of the Chicano experience.75 The essay also finds fault with those professors who seek tenure at the expense of activism, and chided others for conversely failing to pursue their intellectual development as scholars.76 As for that select group of already-tenured professors with a long history of activism, the author is certain that too many are now motivated strictly by a desire to pursue their own "promotion odyssey."77 Tellingly, García singles out Chicana Studies as constituting "possibly the major challenge" to Chicano Studies.78 Although the essay first credits Chicana scholars for expanding the definition of community "to be inclusive of women and children," García regrets that recently "a small but influential number of Chicana scholars have taken on an adversarial role in their relations to Chicano Studies." Unrelenting in their criticism of the existent literature, "these gender nationalists find the 'lurking' macho in every work." Moreover, members of this problem group not only attack men but also criticize those Chicanas "who do not follow their brand of feminism."79 The essay then contends that lesbians comprise a particularly confrontational subset of Chicana feminists. Indeed, the only "brand" of feminism identified in the essay is lesbian-feminism.80 The essay's exact charge is familiar. "Radical Chicana and lesbian scholars" were "moving away from the community."81 More precisely, the author is certain that "their gender politics unlike the politics of the Chicano Movement, are not based on what the predominantly working-class community thinks." Although initially congratulating Chicana scholars for expanding the definition of community, García now accuses certain and always unnamed Chicanas of "redefining the concept of community." As he asserts, "the academy has become the only world for these scholars."82 Still, the essay offers a solution. Sounding much like college officials who thirty years ago rejected Chicano Studies as too radical and divisive, García advises proponents of Chicana Studies to abandon their confrontational ways in favor of "accommodation and integration."83 Ultimately, the author's ranking of current challenges to Chicano Studies - lesbians and feminists, and then young scholars like myself, who may additionally fit into the essay's other problem categories, was in direct proportion to their supposed distance from "the community." Now I wish to note the obvious. The Mexican-American population was overwhelmingly working-class in 1969 and is today. Gays and lesbians do make up a small minority of the population overall and always have. Yet I reject the notion that only those academics who match the common denominators outlined by the essay benefit the field of Chicana and Chicano Studies. Similarly, I reject the essay's assumption - an assumption for which I was offered as proof - that only those academics who match a certain profile are able or willing to benefit the Mexican-American population outside the university. As I've attempted to show, el Plan de Santa Bárbara, like many other movement writings, certainly highlighted the barrio as not only home to great inequalities but also the wellspring of a political consciousness ready to battle such inequalities. These ideas found expression again in "Juncture in the Road." Since 1969, however, others interested in the field of Chicano and Chicana Studies have been less afraid to reexamine el Plan de Santa Bárbara. Almost as soon as the document was finished, as Carlos Muñoz Jr. delineated, movement participants began to critique the plan and many of its assumptions. According to Muñoz, Marxists labeled cultural nationalism a "reactionary ideology" while advocates of Chicano capitalism countered that entering the mainstream was not so bad as long as Chicanos obtained mainstream wealth and power.84 Such debates were only the beginning. When Chicana feminists began to doubt whether traditional Mexican culture was liberating to them, they also inevitably began to question cultural nationalist documents like el Plan de Santa Bárbara. As one professor recently noted, although writing the plan was a joint effort of women and men, faculty and students, the final product strongly exhibited a "masculinist student perspective."85 Similarly, gay and lesbian professors have had to move beyond the plan because in 1969, the very idea of a gay and lesbian civil rights movement much less queer studies had not crossed the minds of very many movement participants, whatever their sexual orientation. More recently, scholars influenced by cultural studies theories have argued that identity is not fixed at all. Therefore the movement's insistence upon a single Chicano (or even Chicana) identity across time and space ignored the significant diversity that always marked this population.86 Combined, these critiques, struggles, and debates constitute a persistent "context of change" for which the essay demonstrated little tolerance. Instead, the author routinely equated what he called challenges to the plan with evidence of political diffidence, and hence, ineffectiveness. The ironic result was to sanction political stagnation. A narrow definition of the field of Chicano Studies and who may rightfully claim membership within it inevitably promoted academic stagnation as well. "Juncture in the Road" defined so many people as distant from, or a threat to, the community, that I think it is fair to ask: who is left? Given the limited scope of legitimacy outlined in the article, is any one qualified to enter the field other than that person whose background closely resembles the author's? While seeming to stretch a point, my questions fall precisely within a widespread academic debate, one charged with political implications. In almost all the academic disciplines that were parented a generation ago by social movements, including Women's Studies, Ethnic Studies, and African-American Studies, similar questions arise about who belongs in the field and for what purpose. The title of a recent collection of essays within the field of cultural studies attempted to address the crux of the matter: Who Can Speak? Authority and Critical Identity.87 Struggling with these questions is important because most ethnic and women's studies programs found in universities today originated in the belief that it was time for the oppressed to speak for themselves. As el Plan de Santa Bárbara noted in 1969, "It is a fact the Chicano has not often written his own history, his own anthropology, his own sociology, his own literature."88 Indeed, one way to understand the sweeping statements about history and culture that were an essential part of movement discourse was to remember that during the movement, many Chicanos were just beginning to learn about their own experience within the United States. Nevertheless, the near conflation of identity and authority integral to the conception of many ethnic and women's studies programs also poses a significant problem. As activists found out, a common identity, Spanish-surnamed for example, did not necessarily guarantee a common political perspective. The determined effort to reserve authenticity to Chicanos was the movement's attempt to address this problem. Thus the Santa Barbara document repeatedly warned Chicano students about those sharp-talking Mexican-American administrators who were allied with the university and not the movement.89 To restate the dilemma, group identities inevitably encompass diversity. Even within an oppressed group, as Linda Martín-Alcoff noted in her contribution to Who Can Speak?, there are more and less privileged people. Therefore, except for those who find themselves on the lowest rung of the social, political, and economic ladder, further questions arise. As Professor Martín-Alcoff asked herself:
Martín-Alcoff ultimately answered the last question about moving over and getting out of the way with a "no." She then went on to offer a four-point program designed to allow academics to speak for (as well as with) others without contributing to the silence of the less privileged.91 What interests me more, however, is whether the assumptions built into "Juncture in the Road" allow the same answer. In the final analysis, the essay, like much that was written at the time of the movement, was unclear as to whether middle-class Mexican-Americans were fundamentally unable or simply unwilling to speak for their working-class counterparts. Painfully clear was the essay's assertion that I personally was unwilling. As García summarized a telephone conversation between us three years ago:
The author did not afford me the consideration of quoting my words directly but quickly pinpointed my fundamental problem: "She also expressed the fact that she had no real sense of community because she, like many other students in her circumstances, did not come from a traditional working-class environment."93 On the basis of this conversation, I became not only the representative of that disappointing "different kind of scholar" entering the field, but more broadly, as the only individual mentioned in the article, the poster child of a "collective identity crisis" afflicting the field.94 The irony is sharp. Few scholars of my generation would have had the opportunity to become professors except for the sacrifice and struggles of people who came before us. Scholars who came out of the movement not only made our paths easier, they forged the path. However suspect, I and young scholars like me are the fruit of the movement's labor. Evidently, from García's perspective, our "Aztlán passports" are not in order. While a somewhat facetious phrase (coined by Professor Rafael Pérez-Torres), the term captures the intensity of identity politics within Chicana and Chicano Studies. Unable to claim instant legitimacy as movement participants, I think some younger scholars feel especially anxious about acceptance. As a graduate student, I know I used to worry about this exact point: did I meet the Chicano Studies grade as it was established a quarter-century ago? My vice was not an identity crisis but a hyper-awareness of who I was. In 1993, I also sensed what I have already stated here today: a single Chicano community does not exist. Nor is one likely to develop through an emphasis on exclusion. Unfortunately, the author took my doubts about myself and equated them with a lack of concern about others. Speaking strictly for myself, I wish to emphasize that portion of el Plan de Santa Bárbara that rings most true for me: "The role of knowledge in producing powerful social change, indeed revolution, cannot be underestimated."95 Despite instances of anti-intellectualism that erupted yesterday (and are detectable in "Juncture in the Road"96), despite the sharp divide between scholarship and activism that the article contends I advocate, I am here to insist that scholarship is activism. Walter LaFeber tells me that. Cornel West tells me that. The life of Julian Samora tells me that. Certainly Rudy Acuña's Occupied America sent the entire historical profession that same message 24 years ago.97 The marriage of scholarship and activism, however, mandates a critical examination of movement history as well as a critical evaluation of future directions within Chicana and Chicano Studies. In terms of movement history, nostalgia cannot substitute for analysis. For example, as mentioned, García portrays the emergence of the movement as a response to "an identity crisis that divided the community," which echoes the explanation offered by movement participants at the time. Yet García neglects that broader U.S. context. As a historian, I have to at least consider the possibility that, as Professor Gilbert Gonzalez noted, Mexican-American youth were affected by the political currents of the era precisely because an entire cohort - in the barrios and outside of them was more Americanized than ever before.98 Likewise, the essay's understanding of the barrio as a bulwark against assimilation (and thus a source of genuine activism) is still only an assumption until it is supported by historical evidence. In response to another work, Alex Saragoza posed two important questions: "Are the less affluent immune from the 'majority society'? Or, put another way, does barrio residence lead necessarily to political awareness and a rejection of 'majority society'?" In seeking to answer any of the above questions, I would urge scholars to consider another: what does the outcome of the Chicano movement suggest? Such historical debates have a direct effect upon the broader field of Chicana and Chicano Studies. Perhaps the most far-reaching issue is what to teach and to whom in the aftermath of what Saragoza labeled "Them-versus-Us History." As Saragoza explained, while Chicano/a history mostly emphasized Anglo-Mexican conflict in the wake of the movement, that historical framework has been largely rejected as overly simplistic. But what does the abandonment of this original framework portend? As the "us" is recognized as increasingly diverse, can Chicano and Chicana Studies programs, as advocated by the article, strictly "teach a militant identity and a history of struggle"? The complexity of "us" also places in doubt the likelihood of finding an overarching paradigm for the field. Given the complexities involved, is such a unifying theory even desirable? Finally, the "them" in that them-versus-us formula merits reexamination as well. Chicano Studies was originally carved as an on-campus space for Chicano students to flourish and become politicized. In that case, what is the role of non-Chicano students (who are not just Anglos in 1996) within the field? "Juncture in the Road" regrets their presence. I welcome all students who wish to expand their consciousness (and along the way expand mine). In raising these questions, I do not pretend to have all the answers. Yet if one day my answers are different from those offered by the author of "Juncture in the Road," I do have a final caveat. In no way would our differences be proof that only one of us cares about collective mobility. In conclusion, I am happy to say that after meeting Chicano and Chicana Studies scholars at two University of California campuses in the past two years, I am convinced that Ignacio García's vision represents a minority position. Throughout this conference, we have heard several pleas to expand the fields of Chicano and Chicana studies and history: to include the Midwest, to include more women, to consider the Mexican perspective, to employ the tools of anthropology. The vitality of Chicano and Chicana Studies as an alternative voice within the academy and as an alternative voice that extends beyond the academy depends upon precisely this type of diversity. Those scholars who made history as activists and who have since constructed that history as scholars and who wish to maintain the construction of Chicano Studies only in their own image, therefore, pose a danger to the field's future direction. Indeed, from their perspective, there is no possibility of moving "toward a new Chicana/o history" because there is no future. There is only the past. I chose to move forward, to expand and build on the work of others before me. Given the frightening gap between rich and poor in this country, given the backlash against immigrants and against affirmative action that rages in California and elsewhere, and given that the population of Mexican descent in this country still faces enormous inequalities in terms of educational attainment and income levels, I think there is work enough for us all. The Making of the Moratorium and the History of the Movement | The Making of Chicano Studies and the Future of the Field | Endnotes 1. Historical studies of the movement by movement participants include Ignacio M. García, United We Win, The Rise and Fall of the Raza Unida Party (Tucson: Mexican American Studies and Research Center, University of Arizona, 1989); Juan Gómez-Quiñones, Chicano Politics, Reality and Promise, 1940-1990 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990) and Mexican Students por la Raza: the Chicano Student Movement in Southern California (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Editorial La Causa, 1977); Carlos Muñoz, Jr., Youth Identity and Power (London: Verso, 1989); and Armando Navarro, Mexican American Youth Organization: Avante-Garde of the Chicano Movement in Texas (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995). See also Marguerite V. Marin, Social Protest in an Urban Barrio: A Study of the Chicano Movement (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1991). As the list suggests, the movement chroniclers also have been mostly men. 2. The Los Angeles Times repeatedly reported the lower figure which apparently was based on police reports. Higher estimates appeared in Chicano movement newspapers, including Regeneración (Los Angeles) December 1970, and El Gallo (Denver), date incorrectly listed as June 1970, Vol. 1, No. 8, p. 1. Most Chicano movement newspapers cited in this essay can be found on microfilm in the Chicano Studies Library, University of California, Berkeley. 3. Ignacio M. García, "Juncture in the Road: Chicano Studies since 'El Plan de Santa Bárbara,'" in David R. Maciel and Isidro R. Ortiz, eds., Chicanas/Chicanos at the Crossroads: Social, Economic and Political Change (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1996) 181-203. García's article was sent to panel participants in advance of the conference in order to stimulate discussion. 4. The "politics of accommodation" found in Armando Navarro, "The Evolution of Chicano Politics," Aztlán (1974) Vol. 5, Nos. 1 & 2, p. 57. Goals of liberation found in the 1969 Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, a copy of which can be found in F. Chris García, ed., Chicano Political Readings (New York: MSS Information Corporation, 1973) 170-173. 5. See essays within Chicanas/Chicanos at the Crossroads especially Refugio I. Rochín and Adela de la Torre, "Chicanas/Chicanos in the Economy: Issues and Challenges since 1970," 52-80; and Guadalupe San Miguel, "Actors not Victims: Chicanas/os and the Struggle for Educational Equality," 159-180. See also the collection of essays in Roberto M. De Anda, Chicanas and Chicanos in a Contemporary Society (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1996) and Rebecca Morales and Frank Bonilla, eds., Latinos in a Changing U.S. Economy: Comparative Perspectives on Growing Inequality (Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1993). 6. Ruben Salazar was a columnist with the Los Angeles Times as well as the news director for a local Spanish-language television station, KMEX, who died in the violent aftermath of the moratorium march when he was struck in the head by a deputy sheriff's tear-gas projectile. As a journalist, he provided a forum for Chicano activists and served to interpret the movement for the wider public. To Chicanos, Salazar's death was an unprovoked and highly suspicious attack. For more information about the circumstances of Salazar's death, see the special issue of Los Angeles' La Raza (September 1970) Vol. 1, No. 3; Edward J. Escobar, "The Dialectics of Repression: The Los Angeles Police Department and the Chicano Movement, 1968-1971," Journal of American History 79 (March 1993): 1483-1514; José Angel de la Vera, "1970 Chicano Moratorium and the Death of Ruben Salazar," in Manuel Servín, ed., An Awakened Minority: Mexican-Americans (Beverly Hills: Glencoe Press, 1974), 266-283; and Mario T. García's introduction to Ruben Salazar, Border Correspondent: Selected Writings, 1955-1970 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) 1-6. 7. As I hope this question and the rest of this essay make clear, I tend to reserve the words "Chicano," "Chicana," and their respective plurals to describe participants in the movement and use "Mexican-American" as a more general ethnic group label. I try to avoid the inherent sexism of a Romance language by using such gender neutral terms as "movement participants" and "activists," with frequency. When I do use the plural "Chicanos," I usually refer to men and women. I also the word "Chicano" as a general adjective, as in "Chicano moratorium." 8. Overviews of the Vietnam anti-war movement which mention neither "Mexican-Americans" nor "Chicanos" include Charles DeBenedetti, with Charles Chatfield, assisting author, An American Ordeal, The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1990); Adam M. Garfinkle, Telltale Hearts: The Origins and Impact of the Vietnam Anti-War Movement (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996); and the massive The War Within (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994) by sociologist Tom Wells. The 1978 Out Now! by Fred Halstead contains a few pages on the moratorium. Yet Halstead, who was a top Socialist Workers' Party spokesman, seems most intent on crediting the SWP for inspiring the Chicano moratorium. The efforts of Chicanos are thus slighted even within their own anti-war effort. Fred Halstead, Out Now! (New York: Monad Press, 1978) 506-507. 9. Muñoz, Gómez-Quiñones, Chicano Politics. 10. Historical studies that mention evidence of disproportionate casualty rates as prompting the development of the moratorium effort include Rodolfo Acuña, Occupied America, 3rd. ed. (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1988) 346; Juan Gómez-Quiñones, Chicano Politics, 124; Richard Griswold del Castillo and Richard A. Garcia, César Chávez: A Triumph of the Spirit (Norman: Oklahoma UP, 1995) 118; Marin, 202; and Navarro, 41-42. Contemporary mention of casualty rates can be found in La Verdad (San Diego) April 19, 1968, p. 1, and El Alacrán (Long Beach) June 15, 1970, p. 3. 11. La Raza Yearbook (Los Angeles) 1968, no volume number, No. 13, p. 33. 12. Guzmán's supplemental report was printed in La Raza newspaper (Los Angeles) 1969, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 12-16. A copy of Guzmán's complete findings can also be found in Box 2, Folder 38, Social Protest Collection, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. 13. Letter from Pat Vasquez Jr. to his father, April 30, 1967, Box 53, Folder 49, in the Dr. Hector P. Garcia Collection, Special Collections Library, Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi. The word "Marine" was underlined by Vasquez apparently for emphasis. 14. Letter, Mario R. Vasquez to Lyndon B. Johnson, July 26, 1967, Box 53, Folder 49, Garcia Collection. 15. Hispanics in America's Defense (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Defense, 1990) 11. 16. Raul Morin, Among the Valiant (Alhambra, Calif.: Borden Publishing Co. 1963). 17. Navarro, 183. 18. Author's oral history interview with Salomón Baldenegro, Jan. 24, 1993, in the author's possession. 19. Newspaper clipping from San Antonio Evening News, Oct. 16, 1969, Box 2, Folder labeled, "Vietnam Moratorium, San Antonio," in the Joe Bernal Papers, Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas, Austin. 20. Melvin Small, Covering Dissent, The Media and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1994) 123. 21. Author's oral history interview with David Sanchez, April 20, 1993, in the author's possession. 22. Author's oral history interview with Ramsés Noriega, Nov. 1, 1993, in the author's possession. 23. Muñoz's speech refusing the draft was published in several Chicano newspapers, including Los Angeles' La Raza, Dec. 10, 1969, 6. 24. William M. Hammond, United States Army in Vietnam. Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962-1968 (Washington, D.C.: 1988) 387. 25. Charles Ornelas and Michael Gonzalez, "The Chicano and the War: An Opinion Survey in Santa Barbara," Aztlán 5 (Spring and Fall 1974) 25, 31. 26. The Militant, Sept. 4, 1970, 6. (The interview took place before Aug. 29 but was not printed until September because the paper was closed for three weeks during a vacation period for staff.) 27. Ron Vera, "Observations on the Chicano Relationship to Military Service in Los Angeles County" Aztlán 1 (Fall 1970) 35. 28. El Alacrán (Long Beach) June 15, 1970, 4. 29. Los Angeles Times, 25 September 1970, Sec. 1, p. 3. 30. La Voz del Pueblo (San Diego) August 1970, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 1. 31. Gómez-Quiñones, Chicano Politics, 124-126; José Angel de la Vera, 266-283. 32. In July 1966, the American G.I. Forum organized a "Support our Troops" march in Austin, Texas. Newspaper clippings from the San Antonio Express News, July 2, 1966 and Corpus Christi Caller, July 3, 1966, Box 8, Scrapbook 8.3, Garcia Collection. 33. Gómez-Quiñones, Chicano Politics, 141. 34. Lorena Oropeza, "'¡La Batalla Está Aquí!': Chicanos Oppose the War in Vietnam," Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1996, pp. 24-31. 35. Muñoz, 121; Gómez Quiñones, Chicano Politics, 124. 36. Navarro, "The Evolution of Chicano Politics," Aztlán (1974) Vol. 5, Nos. 1 & 2, p. 72. 37. Navarro, Mexican American Youth Organization, 8. In addition, in Chicano Politics, Gómez-Quiñones devotes several pages to the relationship between the Chicano movement and the Left, 146-153. 38. Initial forays include Sonia A. López, "The Role of Chicanas in the Student Movement," in Rosaura Sánchez, ed., Essays on La Mujer (Los Angeles: Chicano Studies Center Publication, University of California, 1977) 16-24, and Adaljiza Sosa Riddell, "Chicanas and El Movimiento," Aztlán (1974) Vol. 5, Nos. 1 & 2, pp. 155-165. Yolanda Broyles-González in El Teatro Campesino: Theater in the Chicano Movement (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994) makes a determined effort to incorporate the recollections of women. 39. Muñoz, 12. 40. Gómez-Quiñones, Chicano Politics, 141-142, 146, and indirectly, 214. 41. Count based on holdings at the Chicano Studies Library at the University of California, Berkeley. Escobar, who studies police violence and repression in Los Angeles, makes good use of Los Angeles papers. 42. Several movement researchers, including myself, have obtained FBI files, but apparently only one published source draws heavily upon them. See Jose Angel Gutiérrez, "Chicanos and Mexicans Under Surveillance," Renato Rosaldo Lecture Series Monograph 2 (Spring 1986) pp. 29-58. 43. The University of California, Berkeley and UCLA, as well as the University of Texas, Austin, stand out in this regard. 44. Muñoz, 78, 84. 45. Gómez-Quiñones, Chicano Politics, 141-146, 124. 46. García, United We Win. More recently, Armando Navarro channeled disappointed hopes into straightforward advocacy. Praising the Mexican American Youth Organization in Texas for its "bold and tenacious" style, Navarro concluded his book on MAYO with a plea to repeat the effort: "El Futuro es nuestro, si nos organisamos (The Future Is Ours, If We Organize Ourselves.)" Navarro, Mexican American Youth Organization, 246. 47. García, "Juncture in the Road," 199. 48. Ibid., 182. 49. Ibid., 185. 50. Ibid., 187. 51. Ibid., 183. 52. Ibid., 182. 53. Ibid., 194. 54. El Plan de Santa Bárbara (Santa Barbara, Calif.: La Causa Publications, 1969) 78. 55. "Juncture in the Road," 184-185. 56. Ibid., 194. 57. Ibid. 58. El Plan de Santa Bárbara, 9. 59. Ibid., 9, 40, 49, 50, and 61. 60. Ibid., 51. 61. Ibid., 9. 62. El Plan de Santa Bárbara, 14. 63. "Juncture in the Road," 199, 192. 64. Juan Gómez-Quiñones and Luis Leobardo Arroyo, "On the State of Chicano History: Observations on Its Development, Interpretations, and Theory," in Renato Rosaldo, Robert A. Calvert, and Gustav L. Seligmann Jr., eds., Chicano: The Evolution of a People (Malabar, Fla.: Kreiger Publishing Co., 1982) 410. Article originally printed in Western Historical Quarterly 7 (April 1976) 155-185. 65. Alex M. Saragoza, "Recent Chicano Historiography: An Interpretive Essay," Aztlán (1990) Vol. 19, No. 1, 39. 66. As exemplified by Albert Camarillo, Chicanos in a Changing Society (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979). For a look at Camarillo's work within the context of Mexican-American and Western History, see David G. Gutiérrez, "Significant to Whom? Mexican-Americans and the History of the American West," Western Historical Quarterly 24 (November 1993): 519-540. 67. More recent works that examine class, race and other ethnic group divisions among Spanish- and Mexican-origin people in what is now the U.S. Southwest, include David Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican-Americans and the Politics of Ethnicity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); Ramón Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500-1846 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991); Lisbeth Haas, Conquests and Historical Identities, 1769-1936 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); Martha Menchaca, The Mexican Outsiders: a Community History of Marginalization and Discrimination in California (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995); and George J. Sánchez, Becoming Mexican-American, Ethnicity, Culture and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). 68. "Juncture in the Road," 192. 69. Ibid., 181. 70. Ibid., 192 and footnote 30. 71. Ibid., 192. 72. Ibid. 73. Ibid., 186. 74. Ibid., 189. 75. Ibid. 76. Ibid., 193. 77. Ibid., 188. 78. Ibid., 189. 79. Ibid., 190. 80. Ibid., 189. 81. Ibid., 191. 82. Ibid., 190. 83. Ibid., 191. 84. Muñoz, 90-91. 85. As quoted in Arturo Javier Rosas, "Chicana/o Studies Ideology and Chicana/o Discipline: Evaluation for the Future," paper presented at the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies, March 1996, Chicago, Ill. 86. Rosa Linda Fregoso and Angie Chabram, "Chicana/o Cultural Representations: Reframing Alternative Critical Discourses," Cultural Studies 4 (October 1990): 203-212. Among historians, Stuart Hall's concept of cultural identity as a product and response to history has been noted. Sánchez and Haas both quote him directly in their own work. See Stuart Hall, "Cultural Identity and Diaspora," in Jonathan Rutherford, ed., Identity: Community, Culture, Difference (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1990) 222-237. 87. Judith Roof and Robyn Wiegman, eds., Who Can Speak? Authority and Critical Identity (Urban and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995). 88. El Plan de Santa Bárbara, 59. 89. Ibid., 58-59. 90. Linda Martín-Alcoff, "The Problem of Speaking for Others," in Who Can Speak?, 100. 91. Ibid., 110-114. 92. "Juncture in the Road," 202-203. 93. Ibid., 203. 94. Ibid., 192-203. 95. El Plan de Santa Bárbara, 78. 96. About some Chicano Studies scholars, García writes, "Their interest in Chicano Studies is like that of a historian fascinated by maritime activities during the Civil War. It is a topic of interest, not a lifelong passion for progressive scholarship." He accuses other scholars of practicing "intellectual voyeurism." Although García laments any division between scholarship and activism as contrary to el Plan de Santa Bárbara, he does distinguish between the two with scholarship consistently viewed as the lesser enterprise. "Juncture in the Road," 192, 199, 181, and 193. 97. Rodolfo Acuña, Occupied America: The Chicano's Struggle toward Liberation, 1st ed. (San Francisco: Canfield Press, 1972). 98. Gilbert Gonzalez, Book Review of Carlos Muñoz, Jr., Youth, Identity and Power: The Chicano Movement, in the Journal of American History 77 (March 1971)1425-1426. Noting that American politics was ethnic group politics, Gonzalez also raised the possibility that cultural nationalism may not have been "evidence of a rejection of assimilation" as much as "evidence of the assimilation of Chicanos into the United States." The Making of the Moratorium and the History of the Movement | The Making of Chicano Studies and the Future of the Field | Endnotes |
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