The chicano movement: dead or alive?  (Page 8/11)

Youth, usually males, gravitated between two protest scenarios: schools and urban cities. In Los Angeles, California, a young teacher, Salvador Castro, encouraged and supported his Chicano students at Lincoln Heights High School to protest conditions and the lack of educational opportunity for them in 1968. A commercial film venture on the life of Sal Castro is underway at this writing. Semi-annually Sal Castro raises money with which to host 300-400 Los Angeles- barrio high school students at a weekend retreat at Camp Hess Kramer just north of Malibu beach in California. This retreat is basically a Chicano culture camp that exposes young students to the Chicano Movement and the contributions of other Latinos. I attended the May 2005 retreat along with actor Edward James Olmos, filmmaker Jesus Trevino, professors Rodolfo Acuna and Britt Rios-Ellis, and other notables. Under the organizational name of the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO), others and I organized and engaged in the very same types of school protests in Texas at the same time. Armando Navarro, Mexican American Youth Organization: Avant-Garde of the Chicano Movement in Texas, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995. The basic Chicano demands of the school authorities were bilingual education; hiring more Chicano teachers, counselors, and administrators; a more relevant and multicultural curriculum; dismissal of racist teachers and staff; and direct student elections of school favorites.

After various unsuccessful school protests in Texas, MAYO changed tactics and strategy. Parents were recruited to be more than supporters and a political party. La Raza Unida was organized in 1970 to contest elections, including seats on school boards. Several works are available on La Raza Unida Party beginning with an early monograph by Richard Santillan, La Raza Unida, Los Angeles: Tlaquilo Publications, 1973; Ignacio M. Garcia’s two related books, United We Win: The Rise and Fall of the Raza Unida Party, Tucson: Mexican American Studies and Research Center, 1989 and Chicanismo: The Forging of a Militant Ethos, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997; and Armando Navarro, La Raza Unida Party: A Chicano Challenge to the U.S. Two-Party Dictatorship, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000. This development implemented a resolution passed at the 1968 Chicano Youth Liberation Conference held in Denver, Colorado, by the Crusade for Justice, There is less material available on the Crusade for Justice and Gonzales than others but a recent work is Ernesto B. Vigil, The Crusade for Justice: Chicano Militancy and the Government’s War on Dissent, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999. led by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales. The resolution called for the formation of an independent political party for La Raza.

Gonzales became the voice and persona for urban Chicano youth across the country that searched, as he did, to understand our indigenous cultural heritage, learn Spanish, and formulate an ideology based on Chicano nationalism. Corky—a nickname from his boxing days—organized these youth liberation conferences for several years and also participated in the Poor People’s Campaign. He forged alliances with the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the Puerto Rican youth group, The Young Lords, based in Chicago and New York. And he published Yo Soy Joaquin , an epic poem about the history of Chicanos. Some of his writings are found in his book, Message to Aztlan, Houston: Arte Publico Press, 2003 and an summary of a thesis by Cristine Marin, A Spokesman of the Mexican American Movement: Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales and the Fight for Chicano Liberation, 1966-1972, San Francisco: R and E Associates, 1977