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The Sexual Revolution
was changing all kinds of things not only relationships between
men and women but the role of the family and other kinds of social
organizations within society. There were also major federal initiatives
during the 1960's and a very flush capital time that included the
passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and any
other number of major national legislation that changed the way
we did things that attempted to "open up society".
It was also
very much of a segregated society while de jour segregation was
falling by the way side de facto segregation was still the norm.
Dick Gregory, a comedian, activist, black, at the time said "you
know my son watches TV all the time. I came home one time and he
was watching TV and he says," "Daddy you know what I am glad I am
Black." and he said "Why?" The son said, "because Black people don't
get sick." He had been watching all of these medical programs that
were the rage in the mid 1960's on television and he never saw a
Black person who got sick and so he was happy he would not be sick.
That's the kind of absence, the kind of social image that our mass
communication was providing. The role of the Mexican through the
mass media was the Frito Bandido. I said that the other day and
somebody said, "What's that?" It was a commercial for Frito's that
included a carichature of a bandido in small cartoonish way that
was used to promote frito's. White actors it was common for them
to play not only roles of white people but also roles of Indian
peoples, of Mexicans when there were Mexican roles, and in black
face they even played Africans, Black Africans in any number…If
any of you like to watch old movies go back to the fifties and sixties
and you will find that that is not an uncommon kind of thing.
This is the
social part of what we were dealing with then. So when we talk about
there being sixty or eighty Spanish surname in 1965, most of them
were foreign students. They were not even Chicanos. This institution
reflected the rest of society in that respect. But beyond that we
were also not a national presence as Chicanos or Latinos. We were
considered a regional minority. If anything we were in the five
southwestern states by that of the eleven that were taken from Mexico
in 184 and in that respect did not have the political value of attention
and access to those that were involved in national politics, including
that being reflected in local political and other organizations.
With all of
that, What about student organizing and activity on campus? Well,
let me give you a short profile and I make no pretension, if you
will, at this being totally accurate, because like Ron or like my
son said about ten years ago, "First the hair and then the memory
goes" and, as you can see, I probably had a lot of problems with
my memory. But this is part of what we need if we are really going
to be concerned about this beyond the small number of articles and
a couple of books that have been focused on this period politically.
If we are going to focus on student activism not only on this campus
but on other campuses then there really is a lot of primary work
that needs to be done and a lot of collection of documents that
will put this in accurate perspective.
But on this
campus I came in January in 1965 from Garfield High School. There
was activity with the grape boycott and later the lettuce boycott.
There was activity with regard to Civil Rights and there were Chicanos
the few that were here, some of them were politically involved in
these efforts. These were multinational activist organizations and
activities on this campus.
EOP was started
in fall of 1964 but it was primarily a program that served Black
student in South Central bringing them to UCLA. The four Chicanos
that were admitted in fall of 1964 did not continue that year or
not all of them continued that year except for one. One of them
decided to go to a community college to beef up his academic skills
before he came to a University, Another one dropped out and decided
not to go to college right then. And I forget what the third one
did. But the fourth one did continue and as a matter of fact he
still works here at UCLA, Carlos Haro.
I came in in
January of that first academic year as part of an effort to expand
the diversity of the EOP enrollment to include more Chicanos. That
proved to be a key decision point on that part of that program because
many of the early undergraduate students that came in during that
period came in through EOP, which at that time was primarily was
a financial assistance program and later grew to include support
services and other kinds of things. In 1966/67 activist high school
students were admitted through EOP and continued their activism
on campus particularly related back to their high school campuses
but also some were involved in electoral activities, particularly,
democratic political activities. Not all of the activities were
political, as I have mentioned some were involved in community organizations
as well.
In 67/68 UMAS
was organized it is important to keep in mind that there was a central
UMAS as well. This was taking place at a lot of campuses that people
were visiting campuses as meetings were called and finding out not
only about the kind of organizational statements that Becky read,
but, just the rhetoric and the feeling of the times as things were
mounting. While there was a major social activism going on there
were no real Chicano or Latino voices while we had the G.I. Forum
we had LULAC we had the Community Service Organization. We had other
organizations that involved Chicanos there was not a presence of
these organizations in this what was being called a movement. And
so movement organizations were distinguished from older some would
say Mexican American organizations but even that distinction was
less hard.
In 67/68 aside
from organizing students the Blowouts took place which was the high
school walkouts. This galvanized much of the student activity on
this campus and given that there were already students that were
involved with high school activities in the previous campuses that
they were in this just broadened to a much larger number of people
and was one of the galvanizing activities of Chicano student organizing
here on campus. That also involved us in things like EICC but also
in the Congresso in EAST L.A. (SKIP in tape).
The 68/69 academic
year I think saw a retreat to campus based activity. And there was
one particular event that I think helped galvanize the retreat to
the campus and that was a fraternity party that was kind of like
the Viva Zapata party but had a long list on a scroll that said
no greasers, no spics, no whores, etc.etc. We took it upon ourselves
as a student organization to challenge a fraternity's right or privigledge
to be so publicly demeaning to quite a large number of people and
we basically took it to the fraternity council, to the student groups
and to the administration. It involved building occupations, confrontations
with the Chancellor, and any number of other things. But it became
a galvanizing activity because it was a reflection of the social
discrimination of the status of Mexicans that we were attempting
to reject and to change. And with that I think the focus of activities
changed as well too much of what went on on the campus.
The 69/70 and
68/69 years then included participation of a much larger number
of Chicanas and Chicanos in not only some of the programs that have
been mentioned, but also others that were already ongoing and supported
by the student government and others that we created ourselves.
Let me say that there were a number of coalitions that were built
and that the interactions between the different ethnic student groups
was important. It wasn't always smooth but keep in mind that at
one UMAS meeting, Maulana Ron Karenga was invited to give a talk.
AT that point we began to see also Chicano students that were a
part of MEChA that were not from the LA area. One was Carlos Vasquez
from New Mexico that answered one question that Ron happened to
make to the group "How many of you are willing to pick up a rifle
and fight for your community?" There was only one hand that went
up and that was Carlos Vasquez or Carl Vasquez then. And part of
the reason was and we learned or some of us learned that there had
been armed insurrection in Northern New Mexico around the land grants
and Reyes Tjerina and a number of others in that part of the southwest
were actively and in armed rebellion against the government for
what was seen as historical rights to the land and a way of living
in Northern New Mexico for Chicanos and Latinos. So in that sense
it was a tremendous learning experience not only in the sense of
building programs but in the sense of who we were and how diverse
we were and where we were around the country. A friend of ours one
who will speak later Teresa McKenna joined the Black Students Union
before she joined UMAS and part of that is that one of her best
friends joined the Black Student Union and so she went along and
that was her participation to student activism before she went into
doing things with Chicano Students. And it was not that it was an
either or but what a part of what I am saying here is the connections
both personal, political, and social across these organizations
sometimes overlooked.
Campbell hall
presented a major first physical setting for us to interact and
in that way probably gave us some strength but also ghettoized us
on the campus but we took that ghettoization as a base and foundation
to build from. We also distinguished between alliances and coalitions.
Alliances as I remember correctly are long term relationships while
coalitions were tactical and were temporary. But they were based
on mutual interest and shared power and those kind of distinctions
were much more sophisticated political relationships that students
groups were involved in and later on helped us basically to survive
and as someone mentioned to watch each others back. Particularly
when the atmosphere wasn't quite as open to participate in some
of these activities we needed to watch each other backs. MEChA elections
were infiltrated with all kinds of law enforcement officers from
different agencies. Once the Pinto Movement got active in the late
60's and early 70's there were different shades of commitment if
you will to the political goals of the Chicano movement and the
diversity of what was being attempted and by whom. One also had
to watch the leftist organizations and their infiltrations or attempts
to control student groups. So these are things that in some ways
criss cross us today but represent the context with in which Chicano
student organizing took place in that period of time.
1960s
Panel Testimonios
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