Guest Commentary: We ain’t going back

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By Rodolfo F. Acuña / Guest contributor

Mexican American or Chicana/o History by definition is the history of people of Mexican origin in the United States. It is about how Mexican origin people survived and formed an identity within the U.S. As such Mexican American history belongs both to the histories of Mexico and the United States. The different is that the Mexican identity responds to different forces. For all of the limitation in Mexico, Mexicans know they are Mexicans. In the United States it is constantly evolving and responding to a society that has itself not found its identity. Racism, for example, is much different here than in Mexico.

The conceptualization of Chicana/o Studies

Mexican American history is a disciplinary specialty; it is not per se Chicana/o Studies which is an area of study which is an integrated course of academic studies much the same as African American, Asian and Latin American studies. Mexican American history evolved about the same time as Chicana/o studies in the 1960s and is a core course in that area. It is important to draw the difference between Chicana/o studies and the disciplinary specialty.

It must be remembered that what we accept as traditional disciplines are relatively new, and many of the social sciences evolved from specialties within the field of history; for example, social history became sociology and political history political science. The emergence of Chicana/o history is much more complex than the traditional fields of study.

Chicana/o history and the area of Chicana/o studies are products of the Civil Rights era of the 1960s. Unlike sociology, political science and economics, they did not come about because historians saw the need to expand their intellectual inquiry rather the conditions produced the change. It was by popular demand and a result of societal needs, and a response to the material conditions with American society.

In my perceptive, Chicanas/os have always had a history, the problem was that it was not recognized by the academy. What became Chicana/o history and Chicana/o studies was influenced by works of scholars and non-scholars such as Paul S. Taylor and George I. Sánchez. The epic work of Carey McWilliams, North From Mexico, was a milestone in this formation.

The pedagogical strategy for an integrated course of academic studies to address the needs of came Sánchez. Many educators followed his lead, and called for bilingual-bicultural courses to help motivate Mexican American children.

In the 1960s a perfect storm brought about Chicana/o history and many other disciplinary specialties.  It is not by coincidence that education was the most receptive to Chicana/o history classes. It was here where the contractions and needs were most obvious. In the Los Angeles Unified Schools, the percentage of Mexican origin students jumped from 10 percent in 1960 to 22 percent in 1970 (to 75 percent today). In the School of Education there were no specialists that could train student teachers to educate Mexican students.

The need was obvious. The Mexican child was at the bottom of the vertical scale. In 1960 in the median of education for Mexican children in Texas was the third grade, in California the eighth grade, and they were last in median of school years completed in almost every southwestern state. The dropout rate was over 60 percent.

As urbanization and Mexican origin school aged children grew, Mexican American political and professional organizations pressured the schools of education to examine their teacher training programs. It was clear by the 1960s that there was a need to serve an expanding sector of American society. One of the solutions was Mexican American studies.  The need could not be served by one service course that was not really a history class but a smorgasbord.

History was one of the most resistant disciplines in academe. Historians resisted and still resist classes in Mexican American history or the hiring of faculty of Mexican origin. They were content in teaching the histories of Western Europe and the United States. To this day, many resist teaching World history; civilization began and ends in Western Europe.

In my case, I was influenced by my experiences as a K-12 teacher and by my activism.

The 1963 Los Angeles Times published a series of very influential articles by Ruben Salazar that summed the need for Mexican American history as a strategy to attack the horrendous dropout epidemic among Mexicans.  At the core of the articles was the cultural conflicts heightened by a flawed educational system.  One of the solutions was — using the language of the times — the initiation of teachers’ training program that met the needs of Mexican children. A program that made  Mexicans participants in history — combating the negative self-image many Mexican children of themselves.

Sal Castro whose funeral I attended this morning was one of the early proponents of giving children a historical presence. It was simple: how could Mexican American children feel part of the American family if they never saw themselves in the family photo albums. A student who did value him or herself was educationally handicapped.

In 1966, I taught one of the first courses on Mexican Americans at the downtown LA campus of Mt. St. Mary’s College. Books are teaching tools, and it was obvious that there were not many materials on Mexican Americans available.  I used McWilliams’ North from Mexico and Octavio Paz’s The Labyrinth of Solitude.  They were supplemented by articles that I ran off on stencils. Photo copies were extremely rare at the time. The next year Julian Nava led a NDEA Institute for social studies teachers at San Fernando Valley State, and I was a resource teacher.

By this time, there was talk about adding the History of Mexican American as a specialty in the field of history. However, this discussion was very limited, and it met resistance within history faculties. When I became a candidate for a tenured position at the SFVSC history department the chair opposed the appointment on the grounds that my parents were Mexican so I could not be objective in teaching Latin American history. He added that they already had one (a Mexican) in the department. But even so, things were opening up; I was offered positions in Latin American History at San Jose, Fresno, and Dominguez State Colleges.

However, the institution of classes on Mexican Americans did not come from professions such as me.  The truth be told, there were two few of us.  What pushed us over the top was the surge of Chicano high school student activity throughout the United States.  The Chicano student movement fit in perfectly with the progressive white and black baby boomers. I have studied school walkouts in California, Arizona, Texas, Washington, Kansas, and Wisconsin, and there is a common thread among them: most demanded the abolition of the no Spanish rule, more Mexican teachers, and Mexican American history.  There were over 100 walkouts between March 1968 and 1970 throughout the southwest, Midwest and northwest. The small but expanding Chicana/o student populations on the college campuses grew more militant and participated in student strikes.

Within this context, led by black students — supported by Chicano and white radicals — strikes broke out at San Fernando Valley in November 1968 that forced the college to initiate Mexican American Studies department in January 1969. The student demands went beyond a call for a disciplinary specialty; students instinctively knew that area studies incorporated most of the disciplines within the college. They wanted the power to control these new programs.

In this context, I published three children’s books: The Story of the Mexican American, Cultures in Conflict, and A Mexican American Chronicle.  They were for Mexican American children, and based on my experiences as a public school teacher. They put the picture of Mexican origin children in the family photo album.

Chicana/o Studies has been a success at CSUN. Today we have over 60 full time and part time teachers. When we began in 1969 there were less than a 100 students, and less than a dozen faculty members throughout the college that identified as Mexican.  Today the Chicana/o Studies department  offers 166 sections a semester in CHS and employs over 65 instructors.

What is Mexican American history, according to Rudy Acuña?

Like the history of the human race, Mexican American history is part of the diaspora of the human race. Like groups Mexican Americans formed roots in different environments where they adapted to changing conditions. The narrative includes how these migrants changed as they changed their location, and how religion, patriarchy, modes of production, and urbanization affected them.

In 2008 I published Corridors of Migration that studied the different corridors traveled by Mexican people into the United States that led them to the San Joaquin Valley, and ended with the San Joaquin Cotton Strike of 1933 that saw three strikers murdered, and at least nine infants starved to death. How and why were they there? This is one strain within billions of other corridors.

We must remember every ethnic and racial group — every person – every creature — has a history. Unfortunately, the dominant society often submerges the histories of what is different. Minorities are minorities because the dominant societies like our bodies reject them as foreign matter, actively seeking to destroy them. The minorities only become part of the main body when they are large enough to resist the rejection and are able to mutate.  If they don’t they are absorbed and their history is killed off. The degree of the absorption depends on many factors that include race, class, and physical compatibility.

What makes Mexican Americans different from other minorities or even other Latinos is the 2,000 mile border that separates the United States and Mexico. Like in the case of the wall between East and West Germany, or before that the Great Wall of China, walls are pretty ineffective. In the case of the United States, there are added factors: trade, natural resources and labor. Robots, for instance, are not yet a viable alternative to people – they cost money to obtain and maintain. In all probability they will be made in China. Lastly, but more important, Robots do not consume.

Mexican American History: Quo Vadis?

Where are we going? What is the future of Mexican American history? From my perspective, interest in Mexican American history will grow as time marches on. There are 55 million Latinos in the United States, 35 million who are of Mexican origin.

By 2050, Latinos are projected to be 29 percent of the United States. This is at a time that the white population is growing older. By 2030, all 79 million boomers will be at least 65 of age.  By 2050, the elderly portion of the population will be 72 out of 100 working age people compared to 59 in 2005.

Mexico has a population of 115 million people. It is the largest Spanish speaking nation in the world. Its art and literature are world renowned. In contrast Canada is a country of about 35 million – about the same number as people of Mexican origin people living in the United States.   There is a power of numbers as in the 2012 Presidential Elections where Obama received at least 71 percent of the Latino vote. Most experts attribute the victory to the heavy Latino vote. This heavy vote has pushed immigration reform into the national spotlight something that was not possible in 2007.

If Latinos were an autonomous nation, they would be the third largest country in Latin America; the second largest Spanish-speaking nation in the world. Latinos would be larger than Spain and Argentina. Mexican Americans alone would rank as the sixth largest Latin American nation, the fifth largest Spanish speaking nation in the world.  The stupidity is that while portions of the media and politicians it has received very little attention from academicians other than to try and get funding.

Higher education increasingly uses the numbers as a hook for attracting outside funding.  Today there are 223 Hispanic-Serving Institutions in higher education. To qualify as a member of HUAC, “colleges, universities, or systems/districts where total Hispanic enrollment constitutes a minimum of 25% of the total enrollment.”

No matter what the xenophobes want, they are not going to be able to eliminate the identity of the Mexican American in this country. An example is that between 1880 and 1920 four million Italians entered the U.S. An estimated 80 percent of Italian immigrants came from Southern Italy. They were darker and rural and less acceptable than the northern European and thus less easily absorbed. The National Origins Immigration Laws of the 1920s allowed social engineering, and the U.S. shut out Italians, and they were able whiten their descendants.  This will be more difficult with Mexican and Latin American immigrants.

Given the increased interest in Mexican American culture and cuisine, it is doubtful whether the Mexican origin and Latinos will be absorbed as quickly as the European. Mexicans have left large footprints. Their history is part of U.S. history, i.e., the United States invaded Mexico and seized half its territory, and today cities in a large portion of the U.S. have Spanish and Indian names. Get on a bus in California and it almost sounds as if you were in the state of los santos, i.e., San Diego, San Pedro, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, etc..

Time marches on!  A 1968 ERIC study showed that there were 100 Latino PhDs in the U.S. – about half of them were of Mexican origin. Today there are thousands.

In the area of research, Chicana/o studies have played a role in the dramatic transformation of the study of Mexican Americans in the United States and even Mexicans in Mexico. Before December 31, 1970, not a single dissertation had been written under the category of “Chicano”; as of 2011 870 dissertations had been recorded under this heading. Under “Mexican American” a search reveals 82 dissertations before 1971, and 2,824 after that date; the search for “Latinos” shows 6 before 1971 and 2,887 after. This is also the pattern in dissertations on Mexico; before 1971, 660 were found in the Proquest data bank; after 9,078. The number of books and journal articles on Chicano and Latinos has also zoomed.

As a result, I have no doubt that the disciplinary specialties that make up Chicana/o studies will grow in number. However, they may not be in Chicana/o studies departments.  They will be in traditional disciplines and they will be held captive by the bishops of the academy. The thrust will not be to motivate Chicana/o students but to tell they stories.

But, in the last analysis, like my students say, we are here and we are not going back!

Postscript

The failure to root Chicana/o studies will not be because they are not viable. Indeed, as a pedagogy it has been proven effective at CSUN and in Tucson, Arizona. It has also been the only proven strategy to integrate and advance the study of Mexican American in the multi-disciplines campus wide. However, I am a cynic and know that the self-interest of the disciplines will not allow competition. Among many of the old timers at CSUN I am still blamed for the decline in the enrollment in history (we are three times as large as the History department).

In the early 1970s Berkeley sociologist Robert Blauner wrote that the only power students and poor people had was the power to disrupt.  The question is how long will it take this time around?

RODOLFO F. ACUÑA, founding chair of the Chicana/o Studies department at then San Fernando Valley State (California State University at Northridge) — the largest Chicana/o Studies Department in the United States with 27 tenured professors, has authored twenty-one books, three of which received the Gustavus Myers Award for the Outstanding Book on Race Relations in North America. Acuña has received the National Hispanic Institute Lifetime Achievement Award, Austin, Texas, 2008, A Life Time Achievement Award from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, 2010, the Distinguished Scholar Award from the National Association for Chicano Studies, the Emil Freed Award for Community Service, the Founder’s Award for Community Service from the Liberty Hill Foundation among others. Black Issues In Higher Education selected Acuña one of the “100 Most Influential Educators of the 20th Century.  Among his best-known books are Voices of the U.S. Latino Experience [Three Volumes] (Greenwood Press, 2008), Corridors of Migration: Odyssey of Mexican Laborers, 1600-1933 (University of Arizona 2007) Winner of a CHOICE [American Library Association] outstanding Academic Title Award. Occupied America: A History of Chicanos 7th edition (Longman, 2010); Sometimes There is No Other Side: The Myth of Equality (Notre Dame, 1998); Anything But Mexican: Chicanos in Contemporary Los Angeles. (Verso Press, 1996), US Latinos: An Inquiry (Greenwood Press, 2003), Community Under Siege (UCLA, 1984), The Sonoran Strongman (University of Arizona, 1974). His latest book is The Making of Chicana/o Studies: In the Trenches of Academe (Rutgers 2011). Acuña has also published three children’s books and more than 200 academic and public articles in addition to over 160 book reviews in academic journals.

— Rodolfo F. Acuña is an historian, professor emeritus teaching at CSU Northridge. He is the author of “Occupied America: A History of Chicanos.”

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