Chicana/o History Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Memoir of Un Ser Humano reveals dimensions of raúl “Roy” “Tapón” Salinas’ life that few of his readers and even many of his closest family and friends knew little about. Divided into five sections that mark raúl’s many journeys,... more

Memoir of Un Ser Humano reveals dimensions of raúl “Roy” “Tapón” Salinas’ life that few of his readers and even many of his closest family and friends knew little about. Divided into five sections that mark raúl’s many journeys, transformations, and evolutions, the memoir, a scattered and fragmented collection of mostly unpublished writings is rife with Salinas’ musings, sketches, sweet and bittersweet recollections of his life as a boy become hipster-pachuco, social rebel, drug addict, father, prisoner, writer of prose and poetry become revolutionary. Raúl’s distinctive voice is presented in new ways as we read his many efforts to tell his life’s story, and we are gifted with new understanding of the many layers of this beautifully complex human being.

from Kerber, De Hart, Dayton, Wu,
WOMEN'S AMERICA: REFOCUSING THE PAST, 8th edition. 2015

In this essay, I argue that familial development was a key concern for Chicanas, and was intertwined with their broader aims to revolutionize their communities and the rest of society along with them. The variety of claims they... more

In this essay, I argue that familial development was a key concern for Chicanas, and was intertwined with their broader aims to revolutionize their communities and the rest of society along with them. The variety of claims they articulated, from reproductive rights, education, child care services, and sexual freedom bore a special relation to the development of la familia towards a more liberal, feminist, conception of it, while maintaining it as a central identity marker.
Because of this, the conception of la familia under Xicanisma was tailored specifically to their particular experiences as both Chicanas and women. Mothers were both victims and enactors of patriarchal and oppressive structures, while grandmothers offered rest from the strict gender roles enforced by mothers. Fathers were unwanted protectors of “their women” and, along with brothers, were benefactors of the patriarchy.
In a sense, Chicanas hoped to change their immediate surroundings, la familia, in order to be better equipped to fight for the Chicano cause, in a more integrated and egalitarian community which offered women the possibility of participating in their community’s struggle, while retaining their gender identity and individualism.
In this way, Xicanisma worked both at the level of the community and at the level of the individual, which is why I emphasize the importance of the (single) Chicana in the title. Each individual Chicana fought to be included in both the Chicano and the mainstream feminist narratives, which left out their particular experiences. In their journey towards gender equality, they hoped to reform the family structure, that would in turn impact their individual wellbeing as well as that of their community, so that one day there might be equality for all.

This article explores the 1960s welfare rights movement in Los Angeles as one example of social justice activism based on Black-Brown coalition building and solidarity across various social movements. Within the larger welfare rights... more

This article explores the 1960s welfare rights movement in Los Angeles as one example of social justice activism based on Black-Brown coalition building and solidarity across various social movements. Within the larger welfare rights movement, a fundamentally feminist cause, Esca-lante advocated for the specific cultural, linguistic, and legal needs of the Spanish-speaking community. Participating in Black-Brown solidarity for multiple social justice causes in Los Angeles and nationally, Alicia Esca-lante faced arrests and police violence, modeling and inspiring her children and others, then and now, to militant dignity work.

This article analyzes the structural composition of the chicana/o novel . . .y no se lo tragó la tierra, by Tomás Rivera, a book that has become a collec- tive point of reference for chicana/o culture and community. Its structure will be... more

This article analyzes the structural composition of the chicana/o novel . . .y no se lo tragó la tierra, by Tomás Rivera, a book that has become a collec- tive point of reference for chicana/o culture and community. Its structure will be explained, including the importance of personal and collective memory as elements that evolve every chapter as a fragmentary part of a whole. The classi- cal concept of “art of memory” joined to the rhetoric of discourse opens a new perspective to analyze this fragmentation and helps the reader to understand the connection of its elements. Finally, the idea of “theater of memory” may be applied to the novel’s chicana/o universe as a dramatic device for structuring the narrator’s personal memories, achieving a final literary composition similar to a memorable, collective altarpiece full of impressive images from this community’s daily struggle in the 1960s.

Larry Dulay Itliong was a farmworker and union organizer who was instrumental in the founding and development of the United Farm Workers (UFW) in California, and was also a significant figure in the struggle for labor and civil rights for... more

Larry Dulay Itliong was a farmworker and union organizer who was instrumental in the founding and development of the United Farm Workers (UFW) in California, and was also a significant figure in the struggle for labor and civil rights for Asian Americans, immigrants, and workers in the United States.

The Spanish invasion of Mexico, a military project that began in 1519 when Spanish Conquistadors set off to colonise the New World, has remained a subject of many questions and contradictions in Mexican culture for the last five hundred... more

The Spanish invasion of Mexico, a military project that began in 1519 when Spanish Conquistadors set off to colonise the New World, has remained a subject of many questions and contradictions in Mexican culture for the last five hundred years. The Conquest of America was the catalyst that caused a mighty cultural clash and a disruption of “archetypal patterns”. This clash has become the foundation for a mythological element of Mexican culture that holds far more gravitas today than the event itself: La Malinche. This mytho-historical matriarch has been the subject of representation and re-interpretation for many decades and still continues to exist as a noteworthy aspect of the cultural-political consciousness of Mexico and the greater Latin America today.

Undergraduate seminar course exploring readings on Latina/o Social Movements in the U.S. during the 20th century. Attention is given to the six primary Latin American migrant groups from: Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El... more

Undergraduate seminar course exploring readings on Latina/o Social Movements in the U.S. during the 20th century. Attention is given to the six primary Latin American migrant groups from: Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

This article chronicles the strategies and efforts Chicana/o and Latina/o student activists employed in the demand and creation of the César E. Chávez Center for Higher Education (CECCHE) at Cal Poly Pomona (CPP) between 1990 and 1995. We... more

This article chronicles the strategies and efforts Chicana/o and Latina/o student activists employed in the demand and creation of the César E. Chávez Center for Higher Education (CECCHE) at Cal Poly Pomona (CPP) between 1990 and 1995. We situate the center's establishment as the result of student activism. CPP served as a stage whereon students resisted negative campus racial climate by institutionalizing the CECCHE as a counterspace. Student activism at CPP reflected broader resistance efforts in California in the 1990s. The student leaders, like activists from California's social movements, resisted conservative rhetoric and systemic racism by mobilizing cross-racial coalitions and enacting public protest. Using critical race history, we analyze ten oral histories of students, faculty, and administrators involved in the establishment of CPP's first Chicana/o and Latina/o cultural center. We situate the formation of the CECCHE as an example of student of color commitment to antiracist activism in higher education.

This research explores the role of KBBF-FM, the first Chicano, community-based public radio station in the United States. It examines its development based on its own format changes and the current global context of media ownership.... more

This research explores the role of KBBF-FM, the first Chicano, community-based public radio station in the United States. It examines its development based on its own format changes and the current global context of media ownership. Research findings suggest that small, community-based media outlets are still viable alternatives to provide a voice for traditionally disenfranchised segments of the population, particularly the Latino population. In an era of media conglomerates, KBBF serves as a vehicle to promote social justice and adds to the diversity of voices that would not otherwise be heard through the mainstream media in local communities. The research uses primary and secondary bibliographical and field interviews sources for analysis.

In the following paper, we engage with the artwork of Chicana artist Alma López as an example of recent conceptualizations and practices of geographical testimonial re-membering in the borderlands. By comparing such works as both... more

In the following paper, we engage with the artwork of Chicana artist Alma López as an example of recent conceptualizations and practices of geographical testimonial re-membering in the borderlands. By comparing such works as both testimony and as counter to the media’s and state’s representations of femicide occurring at the border, this paper identifies ‘borderland testimony’ as current practice and theory of urgently needed processes of decolonization—that is, processes of ethical forms of witnessing through indigenous traditions and knowledge which ultimately serve to meta-ideologize the dominant dis-embodiments and dehumanization of true Chicana lived experience.

The early twentieth century brought transformative Mexican migrations to places from Texas to Alaska, Michigan to California, and the South was no exception. Examining the case of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the South from 1908 to... more

The early twentieth century brought transformative Mexican migrations to places from Texas to Alaska, Michigan to California, and the South was no exception. Examining the case of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the South from 1908 to 1939, this essay shows how international migration, in this case between the United States and Mexico, has shaped the racial ideologies of nations and societies at both ends of migration streams. It traces the arrival of Mexican immigrants to two Southern locations, New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta, and discusses their initial experiences of race and class there. It then focuses on the middle- and upper-class community surrounding Mexico’s New Orleans consulate, as well as the self-appointed leadership among poor Mexican sharecroppers in Gunnison, Mississippi, to illuminate the distinctly Mexican strategies which Mexicans of all social classes pursued in their quest to attain and retain white status in the U.S. South. In the early twentieth century U.S. South, there were no Mexican Americans who could call upon U.S. citizenship or claims to be “Caucasian” under the law, nor organizers drawing Mexicans into class-based politics. There, Mexicans’ sole cultural and political claims took the form of Mexico-directed activism, through which the racial ideologies of both immigrants and Mexican government bureaucrats had a discernible impact upon the color line’s shape and foundations. Conversely, it was in the South that Mexican government representatives most directly confronted the black-white eugenic binary of U.S. white supremacy, and did so without the support of U.S.-based institutions or groups. This article argues that during the decade following the Mexican revolution, Mexican immigrants and bureaucrats in the South emphasized Mexico’s pre-revolutionary tradition of cultural whitening, avoiding the official post-revolutionary celebration of race-mixing, or mestizaje. In so doing, they successfully elided questions of eugenic race in their negotiation of the color line. They eventually secured Mexicans’ acceptance as white, a trajectory more closely mirroring national trends for European, rather than Mexican immigrants in the same period.

Este artículo estudia uno de los recursos intertextuales que presenta la novela El circo que se perdió en el desierto de Sonora (2002), de Miguel Méndez: los refranes. La localización y análisis de los refranes en esta obra enmarcada en... more

Este artículo estudia uno de los recursos intertextuales que presenta la novela El circo
que se perdió en el desierto de Sonora (2002), de Miguel Méndez: los refranes. La
localización y análisis de los refranes en esta obra enmarcada en la literatura chicana
permitirá saber si su fuente es el habla mexicana. Tomando como base el modelo
analítico propuesto por Josefina Guzmán y Pedro Reygadas, las teorías de Julia Sevilla
Muñoz y Jesús Cantera Ortiz de Urbina, como también el Refranero multilingüe
(Centro Virtual Cervantes, Instituto Cervantes), observamos que la historia del
engarzado de los refranes en los textos literarios es consecuencia de una extendida
tradición literaria. Finalmente, aplicaremos la propuesta del paremiólogo mexicano
Herón Pérez Martínez acerca de las referencias y señales de identidad que ofrece el
refranero mexicano. De tal modo, podremos ubicar comportamientos sociales, así como
sondear la pertenencia a algún estamento social de los personajes de la novela.

Analyzing the Chicana/o student movement at the University of Washington (UW) from 1968 to 1975, this essay argues that affirmative action deserves greater recognition as a catalyst of the Chicana/o movement and that this theme can be... more

Analyzing the Chicana/o student movement at the University of Washington (UW) from 1968 to 1975, this essay argues that affirmative action deserves greater recognition as a catalyst of the Chicana/o movement and that this theme can be productively explored in settings beyond the US Southwest. Beginning with an account of the origins of a student-driven affirmative action program at UW, I trace its effects in the recruitment of farmworker youth from eastern Washington to enroll at the university, their politicization as supporters of the United Farm Workers grape boycott, and their rapid emergence as leaders of the Movimiento in Washington State. In claiming their right to the campus, Chicana/o students sought affirmative action not merely in student and faculty recruitment, but in the transformation of the university to promote social justice in their communities. Through their activism, which linked campus issues to farmworker struggles and to the wider Movimiento, students developed a newly politicized understanding of their Chicana/o identity, which in turn served as the basis for continued organizing and social justice demands.

We begin this course by examining the distinct migration histories of various Latina/o/x subgroups, why they migrate and how they are received. We will then focus on how Latinas/os/x and their descendants are incorporating into the United... more

We begin this course by examining the distinct migration histories of various Latina/o/x subgroups, why they migrate and how they are received. We will then focus on how Latinas/os/x and their descendants are incorporating into the United States’ core social structures. Throughout the course, we will consider the various ways that relations of class, race/ethnicity, gender, citizenship, and legal status intersect and affect Latinas/os/x’ access to opportunity and equality. Students are encouraged to create new knowledge through class discussions, web participation, and critical thinking and analysis.

Performing comparative work is especially important when it comes to the issue of race relations in the United States, a topic that has been of great interest to historical archaeologists since the discipline’s founding. This is because... more

Performing comparative work is especially
important when it comes to the issue of race
relations in the United States, a topic that
has been of great interest to historical archaeologists
since the discipline’s founding. This is because the
basic tenets of racist ideology stemmed from the same
source: Western capitalism. In performing comparative
work, I argue that our scholarship can work against
racist thought that dehistoricizes its social origins by
making it seem natural and innate to humankind. This
chapter illustrates the utility in such an approach by
comparing and contrasting the experiences of two
racialized groups living in the early 20th century
Western United States: Mexican Americans and
Japanese Americans.

In this article, the authors reflect on the methodological tools they used to recover hidden perspectives within two desegregation cases, Karla Galarza v. The Board of Education of Washington D.C., 1947 and Debbie and Doreen Soria, et al.... more

In this article, the authors reflect on the methodological tools they used to recover hidden perspectives within two desegregation cases, Karla Galarza v. The Board of Education of Washington D.C., 1947 and Debbie and Doreen Soria, et al. v. Oxnard School Board of Trustees, 1974. Placing these two narratives in conversation and excavating the stories behind their creation, they add depth and dimension to our understanding of the long struggle for educational equality. They renew calls for educational researchers to consider the utility of a critical historical lens to more fully account for the complexities of race across time and place.

As a managing editor La Chismosa, I helped to produced this publication through the contributions of the women of Chola Pinup. La Chismosa is a magazine meant to highlight the work of the women of OG Chola Pinup now Chola Vida. In it you... more

As a managing editor La Chismosa, I helped to produced this publication through the contributions of the women of Chola Pinup. La Chismosa is a magazine meant to highlight the work of the women of OG Chola Pinup now Chola Vida. In it you learn about chola political praxis and are introduced to the cholas of CP. They are working class women, mothers, academics, teachers, artist, photographers, chefs, entrepreneurs, Phd's, sCHOLArs, activist, and so much more.

This essay responds to the existing historical literature on the Chamizal Land Dispute (1864-1964) that leaves unattended the political significance of the meandering Río Grande that caused this conflict, as well as the residents... more

This essay responds to the existing historical literature on the Chamizal Land Dispute (1864-1964) that leaves unattended the political significance of the meandering Río Grande that caused this conflict, as well as the residents displaced by the 1964 Chamizal Treaty. Instead, borderlands historiography typically replicates official US and Mexican state narratives that insist the treaty wholly resolved this dispute by eliminating the river's unruliness. This essay, however, demonstrates that this land dispute is not so clear cut and that it is still unfolding. Drawing on oral histories with El Paso residents displaced from el Chamizal and a human geography theoretical framework grounded in the river's unruliness, I argue for engaging this history as "an unruly geography of scars." This framework is then applied to analyze: (1) the myriad ways the unruly Río Grade undermines and haunts white possessive logics along the El Paso-Cd. Juárez borderlands, (2) the uncanny land/body distrubances of dislocation on particular Chamizal residents, and (3) the strategies of refusal devised amongst the residents to challenge the Chamizal Treaty. By thinking with the Río Grande, this essay ultimately demonstrates how the river's unruliness offers pedagogies to refuse and unsettle white settler colonial processes and structures, and, in turn, how el Chamizal is an unfinished, contested terrain of struggle imbued with alternatives and challenges to the status quo.

This essay seeks to re/uncover the positionality of Tejanas and black Texan women, Chicanas and African American women, at large, in the history of the United States. Although, in a fashion that is neither as poetic nor sweeping as the... more

This essay seeks to re/uncover the positionality of Tejanas and black Texan women, Chicanas and African American women, at large, in the history of the United States. Although, in a fashion that is neither as poetic nor sweeping as the work of Acosta and Mullen, I examine how we envision sexuality and race together, with the study of (post) colonial moments in the U.S. My overarching interest in the participation of African American and ethnic Mexican women in sex work along with the social movements against prostitution and white slavery in Texas of the progressive era has lead me to consider how we theorize, historicize, and write about these matters. In this exploration, then, I will not simply review the appropriate literature or create a short interpretative narrative. Rather, I would like to provide a discussion that interweaves the theory, historiography, and history necessary for complicating our understanding of sexuality, race, and reform in the United States. Put another way, how do we talk, write, and read for women of color in prostitution, reform, and empire?

Utilizing performative writing and personal narrative, this poetic essay dives into the personal and collective trauma of the massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. As part of a special issue on Pulse, the co-authors (re)perform the... more

Utilizing performative writing and personal narrative, this poetic essay dives into the personal and collective trauma of the massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. As part of a special issue on Pulse, the co-authors (re)perform the dialogue and queer of color worldmaking that emerged from their frantic text messages to each other in the aftermath of this horrific moment in the Latinx and/or LGBTQ community. We argue that spiritual activism in the form of soul healing and radical interconnectedness is one path of many to consider for those who continue to question if their bodies matter in this political moment in culture and society.

Article discusses the role of Chicana community radio producers in the 1970s