The King of Adobe

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorena Oropeza
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Chicano Movement ◽  
Land Grants ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Land Dispossession ◽  
Martin Luther King

In 1967, Reies López Tijerina led an armed takeover of a New Mexico courthouse in the name of land rights for disenfranchised Spanish-speaking locals. The raid thrust Tijerina and his cause into the national spotlight, catalyzing an entire generation of activists. The actions of Tijerina and his group, the Alianza Federal de Mercedes (the Federal Alliance of Land Grants), demanded that Americans attend to an overlooked part of the country’s history: the United States was an aggressive empire that had conquered and colonized the Southwest and subsequently wrenched land away from people who lived there—Mexicans and Native Americans alike. To many young Mexican American activists at the time, Tijerina and the Alianza offered a compelling and militant alternative to the nonviolence of Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr. Tijerina's place at the table among the nation’s leading civil rights activists was short-lived, but his analysis of land dispossession and his prophetic zeal for the rights of his people was essential to the creation of the Chicano movement.  In this fresh and unvarnished biography, Lorena Oropeza traces the origins of Tijerina's revelatory historical analysis to the years he spent as a Pentecostal preacher and his hidden past as a self-proclaimed prophet of God. Confronting allegations of anti-Semitism and accusations of sexual abuse, the narrative captures the life of a man—alternately mesmerizing and repellant—who changed our understanding of the American West and the place of Latinos in the fabric of American struggles for equality and self-determination.

Clyde Warrior, 1939–1968

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiffany Hale
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
Older Men ◽  
The United States ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
Poor People's Campaign ◽  
Organizational Leader ◽  
Martin Luther King ◽  
Older Men And Women

To identify Clyde Warrior as an intellectual subverts prevailing notions of intellectualism. We often think of intellectuals as older men and women whose major contributions are revealed late in life, once the passions of youth have been tempered by experience. Warrior was not this. People frequently imagine intellectuals as existing in isolation, insulated from the demands of regular folk. Warrior was not this either. He was a Ponca, born on the reservation and raised with the influence of his grandparents and community. He was also a renowned singer and powwow fancy dancer, as well as a college student, an organizational leader, a husband, and father of two daughters. Warrior’s political consciousness grew out of the deep connections he maintained to his rural Ponca roots, but he took care to educate himself about the problems affecting Native Americans across the United States as well as colonized peoples globally. As an Oklahoman, he was attuned to race relations in the South and empathized with the struggles of Africans and African Americans. His approach to indigenous political struggles was shaped and informed, for example, by his early and active participation with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign.

Forging Aztecness: Twentieth-Century Mexican Musical Nationalism in Twenty-First Century Los Angeles

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 127-146
Author(s):  
KRISTINA F. NIELSEN
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Cultural Frameworks ◽  
Music Research ◽  
Siglo Xx

Abstract (Spanish/English)Forjando el Aztecanismo: Nacionalismo Musical Mexicano del Siglo XX en el siglo XXI en Los ÁngelesHoy en día, un creciente número de músicos mexico-americanos en los Estados Unidos tocan instrumentos indígenas mesoamericanos y réplicas arqueológicas, lo que se conoce como “Música Azteca.” En este artículo, doy a conocer cómo los músicos contemporáneos de Los Ángeles, California, recurren a los legados de la investigación musical nacionalista mexicana e integran modelos antropológicos y arqueológicos aplicados. Al combinar el trabajo de campo etnográfico con el análisis histórico, sugiero que los marcos musicales y culturales que alguna vez sirvieron para unir al México pos-revolucionario han adquirido una nuevo significado para contrarrestar la desaparición del legado indígena mexicano en los Estados Unidos.Today a growing number of Mexican-American musicians in the United States perform on Indigenous Mesoamerican instruments and archaeological replicas in what is widely referred to as “Aztec music.” In this article, I explore how contemporary musicians in Los Angeles, California, draw on legacies of Mexican nationalist music research and integrate applied anthropological and archeological models. Pairing ethnographic fieldwork with historical analysis, I suggest that musical and cultural frameworks that once served to unite post-revolutionary Mexico have gained new significance in countering Mexican Indigenous erasure in the United States.

“The Magna Carta to Liberate Our Cities”

2021 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-398
Author(s):  
Casey D. Nichols
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Chicano Movement ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Model Cities ◽  
Lyndon Johnson ◽  
Local Residents ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

Starting in 1964, the U.S. federal government under President Lyndon Johnson passed an ambitious reform program that included social security, urban renewal, anti-poverty initiatives, and civil rights legislation. In cities like Los Angeles, these reforms fueled urban revitalization efforts in communities affected by economic decline. These reforms closed the gap between local residents and government officials in California and even subsequently brought the city’s African American and Mexican American population into greater political proximity. Looking closely at the impact of the Chicano Movement on the Model Cities Program, a federal initiative designed specifically for urban development and renewal, this article brings the role of U.S. government policy in shaping social justice priorities in Los Angeles, and the U.S. Southwest more broadly, into sharper view.

Good Neighbor in the American Historical Imagination: Mexican American Intellectual Thought in the Fight for Civil Rights, 1930s–1940s

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Mendoza
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Mexican Americans ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Historical Imagination ◽  
American Intellectual ◽  
Good Neighbor

Abstract This article argues that historical narrative has held a significant role in Mexican American identity formation and civil rights activism by examining the way Mexican Americans in the 1930s and 1940s used history to claim full citizenship status in Texas. In particular, it centers on how George I. Sánchez (1906–1972), a scholar of Latin American education, revised historical narrative by weaving history and foreign policy together through a pragmatic lens. To educators and federal officials, Sánchez used this revisionist history to advocate for Mexican Americans, insisting that the Good Neighbor policy presented the United States with the chance to translate into reality the democratic ideals long professed in the American historical imagination. The example of Sánchez also prompts us to reexamine the historiography in our present day: How do we define the tradition and trajectory of Mexican American intellectual thought in U.S. history? This article posits that when Sánchez and other Mexican Americans thought about their community’s collective identity and civil rights issues through history, they were contributing to a longer conversation driven by questions about identity formation and equality that first emerged at the end of the U.S. War with Mexico in 1848. These questions remain salient in the present, indicating the need for a historiographic examination that will change how we imagine the tradition of intellectual thought in the United States.

Introduction

Troublemakers ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Kathryn Schumaker
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
Chicano Movement ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The introductionexplains how and why student protest became common in the United States in the late 1960s and places these protests in the context of shifts in the history of education and in broader social movements, including the civil rights movement, the Chicano Movement, and black power activism. The introduction also situates students’ rights within the context of children’s rights more broadly, explaining the legal principles that justified age discrimination and excluded children and students from the basic protections of American constitutional law. The introduction identifies the two decades between the 1960s and 1980s as a constitutional moment that revolutionized the relationship of students to the state. It also connects students’ rights litigation to the issue of school desegregation and the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 3-10
Author(s):  
Elaine Allen Lechtreck
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Gospel ◽  
Southern States ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Martin Luther King

The introduction includes Bible verses cited by ministers to defend segregation and verses to oppose segregation. There are slices of the history of the United States, the Civil Rights Movement, and African American history. The southern states, where white ministers confronted segregation, are identified. The term “minister” is explained as well as the variety of labels given these ministers ranging from “Liberal,” Progressive,” “Neo-Orthodox,” “Evangelical Liberal,” “open conservative,” ‘Last Hurrah of the Social Gospel Movement” to “Trouble Maker,” “Traitor, “ “Atheist,” “Communist,” “N_____ Lover.” Rachel Henderlite, the only woman minister mentioned in the book, is identified. Synopses of the book’s seven chapters are included. Comments by historians David Chappell, Charles Reagan Wilson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ernest Campbell, and Thomas Pettigrew are cited.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Azaransky
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The World ◽  
Martin Luther King ◽  
Independence Movements

The introduction describes a group of black Christian intellectuals and activists who looked abroad, even in other religious traditions, for ideas and practices that could fuel a racial justice movement in the United States. They envisioned an American racial justice movement akin to independence movements that were gaining ground around the world. The American civil rights movement would be, as Martin Luther King Jr., later described it, “part of this worldwide struggle.”

Labor Movements and Chicana/o Literature

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcial González
Keyword(s):  
Working Conditions ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Farm Workers ◽  
Chicano Movement ◽  
Labor Movements ◽  
United Farm Workers ◽  
The People ◽  
The 1960S

Chicano/a literature may not excel in representing labor movements, but the literature itself has been influenced by, and is often a response to, various labor struggles. Of the labor movements that have had an impact on Chicano/a literature, the farmworkers movement has been the most significant. Even though Mexican American farmworkers throughout the 20th century played a significant role in building an agricultural empire in the United States, they have not been properly credited with this accomplishment, nor have they prospered equitably from the economic gains of agribusiness. Historically, Chicano/a farmworkers have been physically visible in the workplace but not socially recognized—needed for their labor, but not always wanted as participatory citizens. The farmworkers movement led by Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers Union (UFW) during the 1960s and early 1970s contributed to the emergence of the Chicano movement during those same years. The movement in turn served as a catalyst for the emergence of Chicano/a literature. The farmworker has been a central figure in Chicano/a literature since its inception, but representations of farmworkers in the literature have changed over time—from Tomás Rivera’s groundbreaking novel . . . y no se lo tragó la tierra in 1971 to Salvador Plascencia’s fantasy novel The People of Paper in 2005. One of the reasons for these changes has been the rise of neoliberalism, a politico-economic system that has debilitated, and in some cases destroyed, labor unions. Neoliberalism has also contributed to the deterioration of living and working conditions for the working class, especially for those at the bottom of the economic chain, such as farmworkers. Thus, contemporary Chicano/a farmworker literature tends to oscillate between nostalgia for a time when the farmworkers movement was powerful and cautious optimism that a strong movement can once again be built.

Latino/a and African American Relations

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian D. Behnken
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Black People ◽  
The United States ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
Black And White

African Americans and Latino/as have had a long history of social interactions that have been strongly affected by the broader sense of race in the United States. Race in the United States has typically been constructed as a binary of black and white. Latino/as do not fit neatly into this binary. Some Latino/as have argued for a white racial identity, which has at times frustrated their relationships with black people. For African Americans and Latino/as, segregation often presented barriers to good working relationships. The two groups were often segregated from each other, making them mutually invisible. This invisibility did not make for good relations. Latino/as and blacks found new avenues for improving their relationships during the civil rights era, from the 1940s to the 1970s. A number of civil rights protests generated coalitions that brought the two communities together in concerted campaigns. This was especially the case for militant groups such as the Black Panther Party, the Mexican American Brown Berets, and the Puerto Rican Young Lords, as well as in the Poor People’s Campaign. Interactions among African Americans and Mexican American, Puerto Rican, and Cuban/Cuban American illustrate the deep and often convoluted sense of race consciousness in American history, especially during the time of the civil rights movement.

Raza Sí, Migra No

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jimmy Patiño
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Mexican Americans ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
The United States ◽  
Border Region ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Chicano Movement ◽  
New Mexican ◽  
Legal Violence ◽  
Print Shop

As immigration from Mexico to the United States grew through the 1970s and 1980s, the Border Patrol, police, and other state agents exerted increasing violence against ethnic Mexicans in San Diego’s volatile border region. In response, many San Diego activists rallied around the leadership of the small-scale print shop owner Herman Baca in the Chicano movement to empower Mexican Americans through Chicano self-determination. The combination of increasing repression and Chicano activism gradually produced a new conception of ethnic and racial community that included both established Mexican Americans and new Mexican immigrants. Here, Jimmy Patiño narrates the rise of this Chicano/Mexicano consciousness and the dawning awareness that Mexican Americans and Mexicans would have to work together to fight border enforcement policies that subjected Latinos of all statuses to legal violence. By placing the Chicano and Latino civil rights struggle on explicitly transnational terrain, Patiño fundamentally reorients the understanding of the Chicano movement. Ultimately, Patiño tells the story of how Chicano/Mexicano politics articulated an “abolitionist” position on immigration--going beyond the agreed upon assumptions shared by liberals and conservatives alike that deportations are inherent to any solutions to the still burgeoning immigration debate.

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