A Brief Summary Of The Chicano Wave

Margaret Dorsey, author of the journal article, Borderland Music as Symbolic Forms of Nationalisms: The Best of the Texas Tornados, Partners, and ¡Viva Luckenbach!, has described the origin of borderland music, in this case, Tejano music as, “Borderland music is an expressive form affiliated with Anglo and Mexicano on both sides of the U.S. border” (Dorsey, 23). In other words, Dorsey asserts that Tejano music is much more complex than simply saying that it combines American and Mexican culture into one and makes it music. “I explore borderland music as a nexus for interpreting issues of Mexicano and Anglo identity formation” (23). Rather she is saying that it combines the ethnicities and the musical characteristics of each to make a statement about identities. Dorsey, happens to be a feminist, thus, viewing Tejano music through a feminist perspective and declaring that there is a complexity when combining national identity from different cultures into a music genre.

“In the late 1930’s young Mexican- American men and women rejected by both American and Mexican society designed a counterculture that expressed social tensions through attitude, fashion, dance and eclectic musical tastes. Known as pachucos and pachucas, they favored zoot suits and big band swing. In the late 1940’s A Mexican American guitarist from Arizona named Lalo Guerrero created American jump blues, or pachuco boogie, which used swing, boogie woogie and rumba rhythms with lyrics in Spanish and calo, the pachuco’s hipster street language” (Yglesias).

The book The Making of a Chicano Militant portrays a synopsis on how the background of the Chicano movement in the 1960’s influenced the U.S in many ways. The Chicano Movement in 1960’s helped brought an enormous changes in social, economic and political change, and told the story of the Cristal City incident which helped brought about social justice and equality for Chicanos and Hispanic ethnicity. Political parties were made like the Raza Unida to combat the problem of inequality in the Hispanic ethnicity in schools, politics and in society. Discrimination and inequality were apparent in the Chicano and Mexican race in 1960’s. The call for chicanismo was needed to prompt immediate affirmative action against this inequality.

During this time the Chicano power movement was in full effect. Salazar’s topics included the inferior quality of education given to Mexican-American students, police discrimination, and racial partiality. Salazar felt the media should take an objective view point however that was not the case resulting in one sided statements. He exposed Chicano leadership who exploited the cause for profit as well. Eventually he began to take more of an interest and involvement in Latino affairs.

The Chicano movement was lead by Mexican-Americans in the 1940’s who wanted equal rights in the workplace, politics, and education systems. Through many marches and other demonstrations such as school walkouts, the Chicano movement has survived all the way up into today's world. In the late 40’s and early 50’s, Mexican-Americans started the movement to get rid of the poll tax they had to pay in order to vote. Unfortunately they did not accomplish their primary task. However, it did bring about a rise in Mexican-American voters, which in turn allowed more latino politicians to be elected.

This especially showed through Chicano Art. It is very powerful,

In high school I was able to choose an elective that had great appeal to me- Chicano Studies. This was a new course at my high school, it was providential for me that the course became available because of the large impact it had on my life. In this course we studied, the history of Mexico and its influence on current culture, past civil rights leaders, and the topic that struck me the most, current events. Our teacher, Mr. Pisano, expressed his alacrity to teach the course to the administration at our high school, and with appeal he was able to teach one section of the course.

“According to the U.S. Census,” Muñoz writes, “by 1930 the Mexican population had reached 1,225,207, or around 1% of the population.” As a result the discrimination became more widespread and an overall greater problem in the U.S. Soon, this racism became propaganda and was evident throughout the media, “Patriots and Eugenicists argued that ‘Mexicans would create the most insidious and general mixture of white, Indian, and Negro blood strains ever produced in America’ and that most of them were ‘hordes of hungry dogs, and filthy children with faces plastered with flies [...] human filth’ who were ‘promiscuous [...] apathetic peons and lazy squaws [who] prowl by night [...] stealing anything they can get their hands on,” Muñoz writes. This exhibits the vulgar racism that evolved into the Chicano movement. The Chicano movement started with injustice in education.

Injustice and inequality often ignite the sparks of social and political movements. The Chicano (Mexican-American) and Puerto Rican movements of the 1900s provide such examples. Latinos are often considered a homogeneous and involved political subsection or as Beltrán describes a ‘sleeping giant.’ The metaphor describes a sleeping giant who contains much political control through its sheer size but does little with its power. Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans have historically proven this metaphor wrong and mobilized in great numbers to affect real change within their respective communities.

The traditional definition of Chicano social identity throughout the civil rights era is still valuable today but to a certain extent. The consciousness and commitment to activism are the two parts of the definition that still hold meaning. Cultural pride as stated as part of the definition, is limited only to those who are of Mexican decent, educated, those that are of middle class and the politically involved. It excludes those who are undocumented, are biracial, Central Americans, Chicana lesbians and Chinese immigrants. Therefore, the definition of Chicano social identity should be redefined, but not all completely.

This is because the movement itself began as a search for identity in a nation where Chicanos where once classified as White, but never received any of the rights associated with it and where later reclassified as Hispanic. It is also because what was once considered Mexican culture is no more as it has been taken, manipulated, and killed by the Anglos in their conquest. In “I am Joaquin” we see this concept throughout the work in a variety of forms that range from what Mexicans are to the concept of being Chicano. One major example of the search for Identity in the work is shown in the beginning with the paradox question where many young Chicanos are forced to choose between cultural life in poverty or stability at the price of their culture. Basically it states that they must choose between embracing their heritage at the cost of stability or to reject it and conform to the Anglo world and have a chance to be successful.

How does the memoir on Always Running is related to the Chicano Movement? The memoir Always Running reveal about the transformation nature of the Chicano Movement on young Latinos in the 1960s and 1970s by showing how the students started to act and how they felt when they were treated bad at school. Students started to get involve in to school activities to make a change. In the poem “ I am Joaquin” by this person Rodolfo, states that “ I am Joaquin. I must fight and win this struggle for my sons, and they must know from me who I am…”(5).

Ritchie Valens identified as a Mexican American, and he was one of the first notable Latino musicians to achieve mainstream recognition. Valens’ Hispanic heritage is evident in his songwriting. His songs often dealt with themes of love and relationships, as well as the struggles and experiences of being a young Mexican American. His most famous song, “La Bamba,” is a traditional Mexican folk song that he changed into a rock and roll hit. It showcased his ability to blend both of his cultures into his music (Morrison).

Midterm Essay: Mexican Folk Songs Mexican folk songs or corridos are more than songs. They are beautiful stories passed down from generation to generation in the form of music and singing. These stories share events in Mexican lives and these songs almost always retell events in a specific place and time, but the majority of these songs were found to be written in the 19th century. During the Mexican Revolution and the Mexican immigration, corridos became an effective means of communicating Mexican culture and the struggles that the Mexican people had to endure. This music can reflect the experiences had by thousands of migrants.

For this book review, I am going to be talking about David Montejano’s book entitled Quixote’s Soldiers, A local history of the Chicano Movement, 1966-1981. The author’s purpose is very well explained and it is not hard to understand. The author clearly tries to explain different ideologies, individuals and organizations located in one of the Southwest’s major cities, San Antonio, Texas, during the late 1960s and early 190s. All these varieties mentioned above made possible that a movement was created called Chicano Movement, a group that David Montejano provides a deeply understanding and description of the movement during the reading of the book. Since, the city was governed by a tough Anglosocial elite that was firmly convinced in the way