THE CHICANO MOVEMENT IN HISTORYby Octavio I. Romano-V., Ph.D.

http://latino.sscnet.ucla.edu/research/chihist.html

c Copyright 1995 TQS Publications

Studies of human behavior are mirrors of the culture that produce them. The difference between traditional U.S. psychoanalysis (the subconscious), and its traditional counterpart in Russia (conscious behaviorism) is a case in point.

Anthropology, too, is similarly influenced. In the United States, culture change has been subsumed under the term "acculturation," a uni-linear evolutionary conceptualization with the anticipated result that all cultural differences will disappear.

U.S. "acculturation" has its deepest roots in the comparatively homogenous, expansionist, empire-oriented upper-class imperial echelons of Anglo-British-Germanic culture. As such, it is an extension of a conqueror culture.

On the other hand, in Mexican anthropology the principal concept of culture change is "transculturation." This concept holds that culture change is a bi-cultural, multi-linear and synthesizing process in which the ultimate end is the incorporation of cultural differences while the original forms pursue their own multi-cultural diversity.

"Transculturation," is the product of an unanticipated, continually changing and synthesizing middle and lower-class which metamorphosed into a mestizo culture. It represents the conquered and its varied mestizo manifestations.

The Study of History

The study of history, too, is similarly influenced in the U.S. as it is in Mexico. The differences parallel the contrasting concepts of culture change. As such, they present the Chicana / Chicano population of the United States with an intellectual and cultural challenge of considerable proportions. Simply put, Chicana and Chicano writers, whether academic or not, ultimately are faced with the need to choose either the conqueror's linear and evolutionary paradigm, or the cyclical mestizo-multi-cultural-diversity view of their social history and their present cultural universe.

The U.S. Idea of History

In the United States, children of Mexican descent (mestizos) have been exposed primarily to history as formulated by its Anglo-British-Germanic intellectual antecedents. Thus they are taught:

(1) That history is primarily governed by linear and sequential time;
(2) That this process is evolutionary;
(3) That each evolutionary stage is an "improvement;"
(4) These "improvements" have come to be collectively known as "progress." By definition, therefore, all "linear and sequential changes," whatever their nature, are "progress." By the same token, all that does not reflect the same linear phenomena is viewed as contrary to the notion of "progress." Hence, differences are most often seen as antagonistic, threatening, and even dangerous (i.e.: Native Americans, Chicanos, other minorities);
(5) These differences are to be neutralized by whatever means necessary ("education") ("accul-turation") (reservations)
(6) Only in this manner can the Anglo-British-Germanic tradition be perpetuated;
(7) Casualties and "failures" in this evolutionary process are the product of something inherent in them, and not in the social system in which they exist;
(8) Given linear and sequential culture change ("progress"), it follows that the past (any previous stage) has no viable relevance for the present, much less for the future;
(9) Finally, those who propagate the Anglo-British-Germanic concept of evolution invariably promise that cultural "salvation" awaits those who believe in it.
For the young Chicanos and Chicanas in the U.S., all of this means that their parents, by definition, should be considered "non-progressive" anachronisms who are antithetical to the "American Way of Life." In this light, the educational system should mass produce Anglo-British-Germanic intellectual, emotional and cultural clones from its raw materials, the Mexican American mestizo children. The first step in this process should be the alienation of the children from their parents. The second is the relegation of the parents and their past to a meaningless socio-cultural limbo.

Probably nothing better exemplifies the Anglo-British-Germanic intellectual process than a recent article by UCLA's Professor David Hayes-Bautista of the University of California at Los Angeles and his co-author, Gregory Rodriguez. In a brief article about the Chicano Movement (LA Times, 9/17/95), UCLA professor Hayes-Bautista and his co-author manage to blindly accept every tenet of Anglo-British-Germanic social theory and then superimpose it, lock, stock and barrel, upon Chicano history. Specifically, the authors use a linear-evolutionary framework in which "progress" is the hallmark of each subsequent temporal state. In this manner, by definition, all that has transpired prior to the 1990s is dead, obsolete, and irrelevant. The Chicano Movement is included in this seriously questionable generalization. UCLA's Professor David Hayes-Bautista and his co-author go on to tell us the Chicanos of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s did not ever really experience any racial discrimination at all. They only "felt" that they were subjected to it. If not discrimination, then what problems and obstacles do the authors say the Chicanos faced? Their parents, of course. The parents of the Chicanos are said to have failed their children miserably. This concept is rigid lock-step Euro-Germanic evolutionary dogma which states that all that precedes the present (the youth in this case) is irrelevant, even useless (the parents in this case).

The UCLA author continues with the theme that there is something very pathological about all Chicanos. He strongly suggests that the pathology is due to the Chicano's internal makeup. Thus, Chicanismo was due to "die" because it was internally "predetermined" for eventual "obsolescence," not externally suppressed in any way whatsoever. (Casualties result from something inside the Chicanos. The system is pristine, innocent, and fine.) The article then moves to its true conservative, extreme right-wing stance which holds that whatever is strange and different is threatening, even dangerous. The Chicanos are thus depicted by this UCLA professor as full of "proletarian" talk, "reckless bravado," and "constricting" demands. At this point, it is difficult to tell whether or not one is reading the writings of a professor at UCLA, or of California governor Pete Wilson's strident, xenophobic and irrrational mutterings about "illegal" aliens who are "dangerous" beyond belief.

The Chicano generation is finally described as having "aged and mellowed." True to UCLA's David Hayes-Bautista's dogma, now they, too, just as the Mexican American parents of the 1950s, are considered obsolete and useless. According to the basic tenets of Euro-evolution, salvation awaits those who believe in it. Thus, for all who follow UCLA professor David Hayes-Bautista's call to join him and shun Chicanismo like the plague, comes a clarion call of salvation promised, in the authors' own words, "...we are now more concerned with renewing ... society than in preserving a minority movement."

In their zeal to curry favor with the conservative elements of academe and California politics, Hayes-Bautista and Rodriguez have completely ignored El Plan de Santa Barbara. In doing so, they have missed the most important aspect of Chicanismo. Blinded, as they were, by the lure of the Anglo-British-Germanic perspective, and eager as they are to become obedient Euroclones, they failed to see that "El Plan" became the cornerstone of the Chicano Movement. As such, it is as alive today as it was in the 1960s. It is only the 95% Anglo media coverage that has changed.

The authors also failed to see that the Chicano Movement (Chicanismo) was not, and never was, a narrowly defined group of people. Nor was it a platform to be cast away as soon as individuals saw it as no longer useful for their individual careers. Similarly, Chicanismo never engaged in the contemporary "American" game of parent blaming.

Instead, Chicanismo always was, and is, an idea. We all know, of course, that you cannot kill an idea. Today, in widespread educational circles, the idea lives. We see the elements of El Plan de Santa Barbara bearing ripening fruit, such as bilingual education, multicultural perspectives, and the recognition that Chicano history is very relevant for today's well-rounded education and for the self-esteem of Chicano and Chicana students. Because Chicanismo, therefore, is not dead, it will be a focal point for my next article on the subject, titled "The Mestizo Cyclical Theory of History." ____________________________________________

NOTE: This article is part of a larger work titled: Understanding Chicano / Chicana Literature. It will appear in the near future in TQS NEWS, a newsletter of TQS Publications. It will also appear on the TQS Publications Web site temporary address: http://www.bookfair.com/Publishers/089229temp/ After October 31, 1995: http://www.tqsinc.com/books/tqs/

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