Chicano Movement Icon, José Angel Gutierrez: ‘Stop the ignorance mañana’

Courtesy of the Salinas Californian

Roberto M. Robledo

A U.S. Supreme Court justice slipping out the back door to avoid being served a warrant. The citizen’s arrest of national park rangers in New Mexico. The jailing of scores of farmworkers in California protesting poor wages and working conditions. Student walkouts across Texas to demand a change in the education system.

Those in attendance at Thursday’s Latino Network Luncheon at Sherwood Hall in Salinas got a crash course in Chicano history from one of the moguls of that civil rights movement.

José Angel Gutierrez, one of the four horsemen of the Chicano Movement in the 1960s and ’70s delivered the keynote address at the Network’s 26th Celebration of Culture and Language. At age 71, Gutierrez’s firebrand speaking skills are still keenly honed. Now a university professor, the aging leader of a social movement also showed that he hasn’t lost his lust for “la causa.”

File Photo by Jesús Manuel Mena Garza
Click photo to enlarge

Gutierrez founded the La Raza Unida Political Party in the 1970s. It lasted about 15 years. LRUP had success in registering Chicanos to vote and get elected in local communities but hit political roadblocks to organize at the state and national levels. The party formed a chapter in the Salinas Valley that was active through the early 1980s.

One of the local leaders was Salinas Valley native Juan Martinez, who was honored at the luncheon for his decades of work and social and cultural contributions on behalf of Chicanos and farm workers. Martinez received plaques and resolutions from state and local elected officials.

A capacity crowd at Sherwood Hall ate a catered lunch and enjoyed mariachi music before Gutierrez took the stage.

Gutierrez is known for not pulling any punches. He contends that contractually and geographically the southwestern U.S. still belongs to Mexico.

He advocated that those who want social and political change to seek it.

“When we get that corraje (anger/frustration) and we decide to do something about it — we have a movement,” he said.

He blamed Chicanos themselves and the public schools for failing to promote an understanding of Chicanos and acknowledgment of their contributions to American society.

“It’s our fault and that of public education that our story has not been told,” said Gutierrez, who as a young man picked crops in Hollister and Gilroy.

Gutierrez is the last horseman standing between Cesar Chavez, Reies Tijerina and Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales.

“You probably never heard about Reis Tijerina or Corky Gonzales, much less me. So it is to an extent our fault as it is the public school system.”

Chávez was leading the farmworkers in California, Tijerina fought to restore the land grants in New Mexico, Gonzales organized youth in Colorado and Gutierrez founded La Raza Unida Political Party in Texas.

Tijerina tried to use the US Constitution and American law in his attempted citizens arrest of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Warren Berger, for failing to enforce the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. He also tried to arrest a nuclear scientist for crimes against humanity for building nuclear bombs. And he confronted national park rangers who he claimed illegally blocked his entry into a national park that was actually Mexican land grant property.

However, these four leaders did not make changes by themselves, he said.

“There are a lot of people just like you in Salinas and Gonzales and King City, Watsonville that have contributed to make a social movement and make change.”

Among the dignitaries were state Sen. Bill Monning, D-Carmel; Salinas Mayor Joe Gunter, Alisal Union School District board President Noemi Armenta and a host of city and county officials.

Gunter said he enjoyed Gutierrez’s speech and message: “It was very good. He talks about the history and things that went on. Some of the young people don’t know this.

“I’ve known Juan Martinez for many years ... through the farmworker strikes when I was a patrol policeman. He always had that smile and always did it for the cause of his people. Sometimes people forget what these two gentlemen are talking about. Voices that aren’t heard. We hear that in every community from all races. People should listen. There’s a message. Get out and vote. Get out and get involved. It’s your community.”

Gutierrez spoke of a disconnect between the generations of Chicanos, including the latest arrivals of “our cousins from Michoacan.”

“We can’t blame younger generations for not knowing our story. That is our fault because we haven’t spent Saturdays teaching them at home,” he said.

“For some reason we seem to run away from out civil rights struggle, like it’s an era of verguenza (embarrassment).”

“Yet every other group you meet it doesn’t take them a nanosecond before they’re telling you about the holicaust, about Martin Luther King. You know more about Malcolm X than you do about César Chávez.”

Gutierrez said the U.S. Senate removed two articles from the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that prevented Mexicans from fighting for return of their land under that contract. That’s called theft, he said.

“We are not the illegal aliens, others are. We’re the hosts. Welcome to America,” said Gutierrez to applause.

On explaining the term “Chicano,” Gutierrez said it’s a gender neutral term to describe oneself, just as any other. “We chose it as a personal and group name. No further explanation necessary. You don’t have to apologize for who or what you are. What you do have to do is demand respect.”

“If you don’t like the word or the movement you’ve got a problem,” he said.

All Chicanos want is for America to live up to its promises.

“This is not about making anglos out of all of us. It’s about equal opportunity, equal access, the Fourteenth Amendment.”

“We need group ascendency. Our job is to equalize the playing field so all of us have an opportunity to finish the race. That’s chicanismo, carnalismo — caring for others, not just ourselves.”

“It’s a way of life, social activism, civic engagement, showing you care, that you are a doer. You make things happen, you don’t watch things happen,” he said.

Gutierrez organized 39 school walkouts. In Texas there were more than 300.

“We are a very diverse population across the nation. We all have a history and we all have contributed. That’s the kind of education we want. Our heritage, our history and our contributions noted. That’s respect,” he said.

“Let’s stop the ignorance manaña,” he said.

Follow Roberto M. Robledo on Twitter @robledo_salnews #salinas. On Facebook, visit: Roberto Robledo community journalist. On Instagram: rrobledo69

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‘Crystal City 1969’ raises awareness about discrimination against Chicanos

Written by Vidwan Raghava The University of Texas at Arlington Shorthorn staff

In 1969, Chicano students in Crystal City, Texas broke out in protest over their school historically denying them an equal chance to participate in school activities.

Today marks the 41st anniversary of Chicano civil rights protests in Crystal City, which began when a Chicano student was barred from becoming the homecoming queen.

Playwright Raul Trevino and producer and director David Lozano co-wrote Crystal City 1969, to illustrate the events of the 1969 walkouts.

The importance of the play lies in addressing issues that have been have downplayed by society, Lozano said. He said many people that lived through this era were seeing it dramatized for the first time.

“You will never find anything about Crystal City in any history books,” Lozano said.

Lozano was pained to find out that Mexican American students weren’t allowed to be homecoming queen or participate fully in sports.

Amongst other things, the school had a policy whereby only one Chicano girl could be a cheerleader, said associate history professor Roberto Trevino.

“In 1969, one student protested this but she was denied permission to be a cheerleader and that triggered a student boycott,” Trevino said.

The student, who was denied, was expelled which led to students protesting the policy.

Twenty-three at the time, Political science professor Jose Gutierrez arranged for a lawyer and got the student reinstated, which raised other students hopes that their protest for equal rights would bear fruit.

Supporting the protest was the Mexican American Youth Organization headed by Gutierrez.

The organization consisted of young adults, who were mostly college graduates and working professionals.

“I graduated from Crystal City,” he said. “I have first-hand experience of the discrimination faced by Chicanos,” Gutierrez said.

On Dec. 9, 1969 the students began their walkouts, which was marked with hundreds of students walking out of class, eventually leading to a shut down of the school.

In January the school board members capitulated and agreed on a compromise, but with clauses allowing them to renege, Gutierrez said.

On Jan. 10, following the compromise, Gutierrez and members of his youth organization started the Raza Unida party.

Raza Unida party members were elected to the Crystal City school board and this ensured the loopholes in the compromise were never used, Gutierrez said.

“There are these wounds, these wounds from being slapped for speaking Spanish, being kicked for being Mexican, being put in shop class in a remedial school just for being Hispanic,” Lozano said

The story is about any person who has felt discriminated against and not solely Hispanics, said actor Priscilla Rice who plays the role of Severita Lara in the play.

“I do this out of a love and respect for the activists and the sacrifices they made,” Rice said.

Gutierrez says he went to see the play last year and felt it did justice to the movement.

“It is historically accurate, but dramatizes certain events, which is fine because its primary purpose is to entertain, “ Gutierrez said.

Irving Arts Center
Dupree Theater 3333 N. MacArthur Blvd., Irving, TX 75062
8 p.m. Today all tickets are $25
8 p.m. Dec. 10 – 11 Students and seniors $10 and general admission $15

Latino Cultural Center, Dallas
2600 Live Oak St. Dallas, TX 75204
8 p.m. Dec. 16 General admission $10
8 p.m. Dec. 17 - 18 Students and Seniors $10 General admission $15

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Baldo co-creator big hit at Lyceum Series (Victoria, Tejas)

[Photo by Maya Cantu. Click to enlarge.]

He may be a great writer and cartoonist but judging by the reactions Thursday at the Victoria College Lyceum Series, Hector Cantu may have missed his calling as a stand-up comedian. The co-creator of the nationally syndicated comic "Baldo" had the audience in stitches as he shared his stories of growing up, how Baldo came to be and how he deals with hate mail.

One of the biggest influences in Cantu's life happened after his family moved to Crystal City, at the height of the Chicano Power Movement when he was 10, he said. Being surrounded by all these characters and powerful people, Cantu's childhood heroes included Cesar Chavez and Spiderman, the latter of whom had "a more colorful costume."

"It was also at this time that I was reading comics like crazy and Mad Magazine, which I never put down. I remember my dad would tell me 'Come on, we're going to the Chicano Power Rally,' and I'd say 'Again, dad?' So I'd bring the magazine with me and read it while I was there," Cantu said as he mimed reading while half-heartedly pumping his fist and chanting. "And then there was the time Cesar Chavez was in Crystal City and didn't have a place to sleep. My dad offered him my bed and the part I remember is being pissed some man kicked me out of my bed. Sure, it was Cesar Chavez but I didn't care. I still had to sleep on the couch."

Cantu added that one of the things his childhood heroes, which also included Spy vs. Spy creator Antonio Prohias, taught him was to set your own destiny and that you have to decide what you want to do and not let anyone else decide.

Eventually Cantu followed his own heart and become a journalist.

"Although I was writing non-fiction, I always kept my eye on the comics. The guys on the comics page always seemed to have a lot more fun," he said.

It was after moving to California in the late 90s and meeting Carlos Castellanos that the two came up with Baldo, the first nationally syndicated comic strip featuring a Latino-American family. Cantu added that some of the things that make Baldo different from other comic strips is that he gleans storylines from current news stories, e-mails from readers, and his own life experiences, as well as making use of playful language.

"I play with language a lot. For example, in one comic I used the word 'impalated,' which is a trancelike state induced by the sight of a '64 Chevy Impala," he said.

Of course, Cantu isn't afraid to take on more serious topics. When high schools across the country were having walkouts to protest immigration laws, Cantu did a comic in which the same thing happened at Baldo's high school.

"I got tons of e-mail on that one, most of it telling me to go back to Mexico," he added.

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