Abandonment or Struggle? Sisyphus, Chicano Style

By RODOLFO ACUÑA

When asked what I have learned from writing about Arizona and what is going to happen in the future, I feel like the legendary king of Corinth immortalized by Albert Camus’ essay “The Myth of Sisyphus.” You remember the guy who was condemned for eternity to roll a rock up a hill.  Every time he felt that he was making progress, the giant rock rolled back to where he started.

The moral of the story, according to Camus, is the absurdity of thinking we can learn the meaning of life.  This absurdity compels us to turn to religion for answers — religious faith supposedly tells us the meaning of life without us having to find the answer for ourselves. It gives us faith that we can roll the rock up the hill even though it keeps rolling back.

For over forty-three years I have been pushing a rock called Chicana/o Studies, obsessed with the notion that we as a community can push the rock to the top of the hill. Chicana/o Studies would give a greater number of us access to knowledge that would free and enable us to solve the contradictions of American society.

Instead of reaching the top, the rock has become heavier and it has slipped back to where we started in 1969. Still we believe that we can reach the top of the hill despite the size of the rock. Truth be told, it would be easier to leave the rock behind and “make it in my own.”

But, some of us cannot leave the rock behind and getting to the top of the hill without the rock has no meaning.  How long can you live solely on memories of those you left behind?

Is the obsession of reaching the top collectively an absurdity? Will those of us who are pushing the rock suffer the fate of Sisyphus – reducing our efforts to the absurd? Isn’t having faith in Chicana/o Studies’ ability to push the rock to the top in fact having faith in the system?

It is difficult to accept that there is nothing more to life than the absurd. At some point, Sisyphus has to accept the absurdity of his faith. In this case not so much the absurdity of faith in Chicana/o Studies, education or the community but in the system’s ability to allow everyone to find the meaning of life because it is the absurdity that keeps faith in the system alive.

The failure to make progress in pushing the rock to the top has nothing to do with Chicana/o Studies, Mexican Americans or our failure to push the rock up the hill. It is possible to make it to the top alone but impossible to make it as a community.

Ironically, the rock ruts a path that makes it easier for a few to reach the top; unjustly those who have abandoned the rock benefit from the sacrifices of those pushing the rock.  For them, it matters little if they make it to the top of the hill without the rock and less that their desertion potentially permits the rock to crash down into the gully.

From my point of view, what gives life meaning is the struggle to make it up the hill collectively. This is how all progress has been made. As long as there has been humanity, people have struggled for the truth. The answer to the meaning in life is hope for a better and a just world. Without struggle life has no meaning.

You may ask what is so hard about pushing the rock to the top.  It would not be if everyone pushed the rock until the end. But it is easier said than done. Society or should I say those who control the system protect themselves by exerting social control through popular culture, mass media, ideological divisions, religion, and fear. Education becomes part of this “invisible hand” that makes absurdity seem rational.

This brings us to Sisyphus’ dilemma in Arizona. Many understand the absurdity of believing that the system will protect the rights of Mexican Americans within the state. But they also believe in the Constitution and in the myth of “equal protection.”

The system, however, is not constructed to protect the rights of the poor but the privilege of those who benefit from it. Today more than ever Supreme Court decisions such as “Citizens United” give the rich uncontrolled access to power – making the rock even heavier.

In Arizona, the rock is heavier because it is a state without laws and bought public officials. The absurdity of the struggle struck me as I learned more about the interests behind the anti-immigrant hysteria and why it is important to the Kochs, ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), the prison industry, the gun lobby and other special interests to erase the memory of Mexican Americans left behind.

The few who have fought back are paying the price. The teachers of the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies program have been fire, not because they were not doing a good job teaching students, but because they were too effective.

Making the rock even heavier — a million dollar civil suit has been filed by the Tea Party with the support of Arizona Attorney General Tom Horn for defamation against TUSD Mexican American Studies Sean Arce and José González.

Meanwhile, Arizona lawmakers are attempting to nullify the U.S. Constitution. This is so even though Arizona receives back $1.30 for every dollar it sends to Washington –contrast this to California that gets back 79 cents.

The rock gets even heavier when the weight of the Democratic Party is added. The so-called Party is too timid to fight back and the Blue Dog Democrats cringe in fear of the Tea Party, the Minutemen and their corporate “sponsors.”

For the past forty years, Arizona has defied a federal court order to desegregate the TUSD and it has avoided compliance.

Worse of all “the system” has bought off many of those who had pushed the rock in previous struggles.  Tired of struggling they abandoned the village.

In spite of the absurdity of his belief that he can push the rock to the top of the hill, Sisyphus is not absurd.  He realizes that if he lets go of the rock it could roll back and crush him or even worse tumble down and wipe out the village.

Sisyphus has no other choice but to struggle. Abandoning others pushing the rock up the hill would be abandoning his memories, abandoning his values. These are choices we all have to make.

I was once told that I could make it by changing my last name. I was light enough that I could pass. My first thought was, what about my sister? My cousin? They had the nopal plastered on their faces. Besides I loved who I was and that meant pushing the rock up the mountain.

RODOLFO ACUÑA, a professor emeritus at California State University Northridge, has published 20 books and over 200 public and scholarly articles. He is the founding chair of the first Chicano Studies Dept which today offers 166 sections per semester in Chicano Studies. His history book Occupied America has been banned in Arizona. In solidarity with Mexican Americans in Tucson, he has organized fundraisers and support groups to ground zero and written over two dozen articles exposing efforts there to nullify the U.S. Constitution. 

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Inaugural Imperial Valley Festival and Artist Showcase

Ernesto Yerena is shown with some of the political art he has created during the Inaugural Imperial Valley Festival and Artist Showcase at the Imperial Valley Mall in 2011. Click photo to enlarge.

Article courtesy of the Imperial Valley PressWritten by JULIO MORALESPhoto by JOSELITO VILLERO

When Calexico resident and lifelong artist Sergio Gaytan said he thinks of muralists, the three Mexican greats of the early 20th century spring to mind — Diego Rivera, Alfaro Siqueiros and Jose Clemente Orozco.

Like theirs, his own art often incorporates representations of iconic cultural images, social issues and historical events for effect, Gaytan said.

Yet he feels there isn’t much of a clamor to see such imagery in public spaces anymore, he said.

“Muralism is not as strong or as powerful as it used to be,” Gaytan said.

While Gaytan’s artwork has yet to be affixed to a large-scale public project, neither has he had the opportunity to make a living as an artist, instead working for about 20 years with Imperial Valley College’s counseling office before his recent retirement.

These days Gaytan continues to draw and paint and doesn’t shy away from using imagery that may offend, he said.

In that respect Gaytan cleaves close to the ethos of the Mexican muralists as well as their Chicano counterparts, who used art to examine their identity and history as well as speak out about social issues — often in a controversial way.

A combination of street art and community activism, the Chicano murals of a generation ago were seen as a way to rally and unite the community, decorating space and using it to educate the public, said Eva Margarita Nieto, professor of Chicano Studies at California State University, Northridge.

“That period was intense,” Nieto said, adding that the energy that existed in the ‘60s and ‘70s is not as commonly found in contemporary artists and muralists.

Locally, the vestiges of the muralist movement are still visible in some Valley locales, but locals also speak of an equal number that have fallen to time and indifference.

“You used to see a lot of (murals) around the Valley,” said Calexico Arts Commission chairwoman Hildy Carrillo.

The local drive to produce art in public spaces was akin to a “movement,” Carrillo said, noting that a sense of hope also accompanied the popular medium of those bygone days.

In the past, Carrillo said that artwork that celebrated “our roots,” commented on the Vietnam War, or honored field workers, were the norm.

As of late, she said that she hasn’t “seen any mural around here that catches my attention or says anything.”

The Arts Commission is in the process of cataloguing the murals within the city, she said, adding that the commission is also open to funding public works. Yet such an effort may also require the help of Calexico City Council and grant writing.

While the Valley is not lacking for artists, gallery space, instructors and performance artists, Carrillo said the scene still needs lots of support.

“We don’t really have public art,” she said, noting that Mexicali has a thriving public art scene.

But local efforts are afoot. A grant-seeking proposal that would unite various arts agencies throughout the Valley is also aiming to have a small mural adorn the J. Lowe Gallery at Imperial Valley College, said Carol Hegarty, IVC humanities department chairwoman.

And, officials are considering having another Cesar Chavez mural adorn the new Campesinos Unidos building in Brawley, executive director Jose M. Lopez said.

But devoting oneself to creating public art, many said, hardly pays the bills.

As someone who was highly attuned to political issues, the civil rights movement and Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers movement, the late Domingo Ulloa produced numerous works that captured the spirit of those turbulent times, his daughter Martha Ulloa-Sanchez said.

Yet her father made a career as a house painter, she said, and is widely referred to as an “undiscovered master” in art circles.

The late Ulloa spent many decades in the Valley, where he often painted pictures depicting the struggles of farmworkers. Several years prior to his passing, the Assembly honored him in 1993 as the “Father of Chicano Art.”

“He voiced opinions through his artwork,” Ulloa-Sanchez said.

And as many contemporary Chicano artists have found, praise is hard to come by in an environment where their work is constantly being compared to those pioneering artists that exhibited an activist streak. Yet tastes and opinions keep evolving regardless of what the so-called experts may have to say, Nieto said.

T-shirt art seems to have picked up the torch and become something of a preferred and easily accessible medium, Nieto said. It is not uncommon to find Latinos producing and wearing T-shirts that often contain a deeper message and evoke important social commentary.

“T-shirts are a class-breaking type of clothing,” she said. “It’s just another kind of public space.”

Staff Writer, Copy Editor Julio Morales can be reached at 760-335-4665 or at jmorales@ivpressonline.com.

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