Content
Chicano Movement page 3-5
Reies López Tijerina page 6-7
Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales page 8-9
Pictures page 10
Chicano Movement
The 1960s was a turbulent decade in American history, fraught with
conflicts over issues from Civil Rights to the war in Vietnam. The Chicano
Movement encompassed a broad cross section of issues—from restoration of
land grants, to farm workers' rights, to enhanced education, to voting and political
rights, as well as emerging awareness of collective history. Socially, the Chicano
Movement addressed what it perceived to be negative ethnic stereotypes of
Mexicans in mass media and the American consciousness.
The Chicano Movement also addressed discrimination in public and
private institutions. Early in the twentieth century, Mexican Americans formed
organizations to protect themselves from discrimination. One of those
organizations, the League of United Latin American Citizens, was formed in 1929
and remains active today.
The Chicano Movement had been fomenting since the end of the U.SMexican War in 1848, when the current U.S-Mexican border took form. Since
that time, countless Chicanos and Chicanas have confronted discrimination,
racism and exploitation. The Chicano Movement that culminated in the early
1970s took inspiration from heroes and heroines from their indigenous, Mexican
and American past.
The movement gained momentum after World War II when groups such
as the American G.I. Forum (AGIF), which was formed by returning Mexican
American veterans, joined in the efforts by other civil rights organizations. The
AGIF first received national exposure when it took on the cause of Felix
Longoria, a Mexican American serviceman who was denied funeral services in
his hometown of Three Rivers, Texas after being killed during WWII.
Mexican American civil rights activists also achieved several major legal
victories including the 1947 Mendez v. Westminster Supreme Court ruling which
declared that segregating children of "Mexican and Latin descent" was
unconstitutional and the 1954 Hernandez v. Texas ruling which declared that
Mexican Americans and other racial groups in the United States were entitled to
equal protection under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
There were several leaders throughout the Chicano Movement. In New
Mexico there was Reies López Tijerina who worked on the land grant movement.
He fought to regain control of ancestral lands. He became involved in civil rights
causes within six years and also became a cosponsor of the Poor People's
March on Washington in 1967. In Texas, war veteran Dr. Hector P. Garcia
founded the American GI Forum and was later appointed to the United States
Commission on Civil Rights. In Denver, Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzáles helped define
the meaning of being a Chicano through his poem Yo Soy Joaquin (I am
Joaquin). In California, César Chávez and the farm workers turned to the
struggle of urban youth, and created political awareness and participated in La
Raza Unida Party.
The most prominent civil rights organization in the Mexican-American
community is the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund
(MALDEF), founded in 1968. Although modeled after the NAACP Legal Defense
and Educational Fund, MALDEF has also taken on many of the functions of other
organizations, including political advocacy and training of local leaders.
Some women who worked for the Chicano movement felt that members
were being too concerned with social issues that affected the Chicano
community, instead of addressing problems that affected Chicana women
specifically. This led Chicana women to form the Comisión Femenil Mexicana
Nacional. In 1975, it became involved in the case Madrigal vs. Quilligan,
obtaining a moratorium on the compulsory sterilization of women and adoption of
bilingual consent forms. These steps were necessary because many Hispanic
women who did not understand English well were being sterilized in the United
States at the time, without proper consent
Chicano student groups such as United Mexican American Students
(UMAS), Mexican American Youth Association (MAYA) in California, and the
Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) in Texas, developed in
universities and colleges in the mid 1960’s. At the historic meeting at the
University of California, Santa Barbara in April 1969, the diverse student
organizations came together under the new name Movimiento Estudiantil
Chicano de Aztlán (MECHA). Student groups such as these were initially
concerned with education issues, but their activities evolved to participation in
political campaigns and to various forms of protest against broader issues such
as police brutality and the U.S. war in Southeast Asia. The Chicano Movement
was an everlasting struggle and a movement that exposed the bravery of many
Mexican Americans to stand up to the government.
Reies López Tijerina
Mexican residents of northern New Mexico, Reies López Tijerina emerged as
one of the most influential leaders of the Chicano/a Movement. A source of early
inspiration for Chicano and Chicana activists across the Southwest, he exhibited
sharp public-speaking skills and an uncompromising militancy that emphasized
direct action. He reframed the political struggle of Chicanos and Chicanas from one
of domestic civil rights and U.S. citizenship to one shaped by colonization, violations
of international law, and the loss of land. Whereas César Chávez, founder and
president of the United Farm Workers (UFW), often evoked the image of Martin
Luther King Jr. because of their mutual advocacy of nonviolence, Tijerina frequently
drew symbolic comparisons to Malcolm X.
Tijerina was born on September 10, 1926, into a large family of cotton
sharecroppers outside Fall City, Texas. During the Great Depression, as the price
of cotton plummeted and its production in Texas was severely scaled back, the
Tijerina family was drowning in debt and unable to make ends meet. Like
thousands of other Mexican sharecroppers of the era, they joined the massive
migrant labor stream that circulated from Michigan during the summer to San
Antonio, Texas, during the winter months. These harsh years of laboring in the
fields and facing both racial discrimination and economic exploitation instilled in
Tijerina a profound sense of outrage at injustice.
Tijerina never graduated from high school. During breaks in the fields, he
studiously read and reread the Bible, captivated by concepts (such as justice and
love) that spoke directly and powerfully to his family's daily struggle as migrant
laborers. At the age of eighteen he enrolled in the Assembly of God Bible Institute
to become a Pentecostal minister. After he was ordained, he traveled across the
country—literally from New York to California—as an itinerant minister. He slept
under bridges, traveled by boxcar, relied on the generosity of strangers, and lived a
sparse life without any material possessions. While traveling as an evangelist for
nearly a decade, Tijerina fine-tuned his skills of persuasion and public speaking to
an art form. Importantly he also developed a close relationship with many small,
rural Mexican communities across the Southwest, learning about their specific,
historical grievances. In this way Tijerina discovered the century-old struggle to
preserve communal land in New Mexico. He moved to northern New Mexico in
1960 and completely immersed himself in the fight for land.
Tijerina lent his skills and energy to an existing land-rights movement that
stretched back to the nineteenth century. To carry the struggle forward, Tijerina
founded a new organization, La Alianza Federal de Mercedes (the Federal Alliance
of Land Grants), on October 8, 1963. Having investigated the legal status of New
Mexican land grants in Mexico City archives, Tijerina argued that the United States
was in direct violation of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
In the spring of 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. invited Tijerina to participate in
the Poor People's Campaign. Despite King's tragic assassination, Tijerina continued
to assist in the mobilization of a large, multiracial “poor people's” contingent from
the Southwest. Throughout the late 1960s Tijerina developed alliances with other
communities of color, particularly Native Americans. At La Alianza's national
convention, for instance, Tijerina invited elders of the Hopi Nation and
representatives from the black freedom struggle (Black Panthers, the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee [SNCC], and Ron Karenga's U.S. organization)
to attend and sign a Treaty of Peace, Harmony, and Mutual Assistance.
In 1969, at the height of his influence, Tijerina was incarcerated for his
participation in the Echo Amphitheater occupation. He remained in a federal prison
until 1971 and never regained his prominence within el movimiento. Tijerina's
condition of parole specifically stated that he could no longer be an active member
of La Alianza. Yet he had also developed a new philosophy while in prison. He no
longer sought to confront the establishment over land grants; instead, he looked to
develop “brotherly love” among all people—including the police. By this time the
larger movement had transcended his individual leadership and his exclusive focus
on land grants. The New Mexico movement, for instance, had become more diverse
and radical; La Alianza now existed alongside the Brown Berets, La Raza Unida
Party, and the Chicano Communications Center. Tijerina retained a symbolic
importance but no longer functioned as a leader with any significant organizational
following. Eventually he moved to Mexico and published his autobiography. The
struggle for land in New Mexico existed long before Tijerina, and it continues.
Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales
Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales was born in Denver on June 18, 1928 to
Federico and Indalesia Gonzales. He was the youngest of five brothers and
three sisters, Nattie, Beatrice, Tomas, Esperanza, Federico, Severino, and
Arturo. Corky's mother died when he was two years old and his father never
re-married, but managed somehow to keep the Gonzales family together.
The senior Gonzales ruled his household with a firm hand, tempered with
love.
The children grew up in the tough eastside barrio of Denver during
the devastating Depression. Corky's father had emigrated from Mexico to
Colorado early in life and often spoke to Corky about the Mexican Revolution,
Mexico’s history, and the pride of the Mexican people. Thus leaving little
doubt in Corky's mind about his own identity - and possibly his destiny.
Rodolfo earned his high school Diploma at the age of 16. The
accomplishment is magnified by the fact that from an early age, Rodolfo
worked in the beet fields and at various other jobs that left little time for
study. Corky attended many schools including schools in New Mexico as well
as schools in Denver, Gilpin, Whittier, Lake, Baker, West, and finally Manual
High School from which he graduated in 1944.
During his final year in high school and the subsequent summer, Corky
worked hard to save money for a college education. With a keen interest in
engineering, Corky entered the University of Denver, but after the first
quarter realized that the financial cost was insurmountable. Rodolfo then
pursued a career in Boxing. An outstanding amateur national champion
Rodolfo became one of the best featherweight (125 lb) fighters in the
world. Even though Ring Magazine ranked Corky number three in the world,
he never got a justly deserved title shot.
In the mid-1960's, Rodolfo Gonzales founded an urban civil rights and
cultural movement called the Crusade for Justice. Soon he became one of
the central leaders in the Chicano movement and a strong proponent of
Chicano nationalism. In the late sixties and early seventies, Corky Gonzales
organized and supported high school walkouts, demonstrations against police
brutality, and legal cases. He also organized mass demonstrations against the
Vietnam War.
In 1968 Gonzales led a Chicano contingent in the Poor People's March
on Washington, D.C. While there, he issued his "Plan of the Barrio" which
called for better housing, education, barrio-owned businesses, and
restitution of pueblo lands. He also proposed forming a Congress of Aztlan
to achieve these goals.
One of the most important roles played by Gonzales was as an
organizer of the Annual Chicano Youth Liberation Conference, an ambitious
effort to create greater unity among Chicano youth. These Conferences
brought together large numbers of Chicano youth from throughout the
United States and provided them with opportunities to express their views
on self-determination. The first conference in March 1969 produced a
document, “EL PLAN ESPIRITUAL DE AZTLAN (THE SPIRITUAL PLAN OF
AZTLAN)”, which developed the concept of ethnic nationalism and selfdetermination in the struggle for Chicano liberation. The second Chicano
Youth Conference in 1970 represented a further refinement in Corky
Gonzales's efforts toward Chicano self-determination, the formation of the
Colorado Raza Unida Party.
During this time Corky and his wife, Geraldine Romero Gonzales,
raised a family of six daughters and two sons, Nita, mother of two children;
Charlotte, mother of three; Gina, mother of three; Gail, mother of four;
Rudy, father of one; Joaquin, father of three; Cindy, mother of two; and
Valerie, mother of two. All their children remain in Denver and continue to
carry on Corky's fight with his guidance. Corky is proud of his family,
especially the twenty-four grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
In many ways, Corky Gonzales has greatly influenced the Chicano
movement. His key to liberation for the Chicano community is to develop a
strong power base with heavy reliance on nationalism among Chicanos. His
contributions as a community organizer, youth leader, political activist, and
civil rights advocate have helped to create a new spirit of Chicano unity.
Credits
http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/Chicanomovement_par
t1.htm
http://www.chicano-art-life.com/movement.html
http://latinopia.com/latino-history/rodolfocorkygonzalez/
http://rodolfo-gonzales.co.tv/
http://immigration-online.org/295-reies-lpez-tijerinaking-tiger-1926-social-activist.html
http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol3/chicano/chicano.html