Transcripts For CSPAN3 Chicano History Conference Opening Re

CSPAN3 Chicano History Conference Opening Remarks April 17, 2016

In the last two ears, i have published two books on the movement. From the 21sted century. This volume is partially based on the first conference in 2012. Some of the contributions of the book are some of the revised thers from the cut from conference and others are those i solicited from other scholars. The volume is part of the new direction for the American History series and the book is dedicated to sell castro. Kind enough to write the forward based on his keynote by dressed the initial conference. Bookl not discuss this much other than to know it includes 11 entries organized around three thematic sections. Community struggles, the student movement, and geographical diversity. Rosie here at this conference contributed to the volume that showcased some of the new and Exciting Research she found in the movement. Let me move on to discuss my other book on the movement, you can see this got of a cover on the screen. It is a movement of three major during the late 1960s and 1970s. One of them is with us this morning. Lets give him a hand. [applause] tomorrow, we will participate in a special panel on reflections in the movement. Gloria cannot be with us at the conference. She is courageously battling health problems. She is here in spirit and we wish her the very best with our thoughts and prayers. This book is selling for 20 over here. [laughter] as i mention in my each reduction, this book has a long history but i am relieved and pleased it has been published to the university of California Press in 2015. I started the project in the early 1990s by first. Nterviewing ryall raul my previous work dealt with historical as i began to design a historical approach in my study of history. I had first written about what i call the immigrant generation that encompasses the first wave of mexican immigrants into the United States in the early 20th century through my book on the African American community in my hometown and i was also curious about the history of the children of the immigrants and the political refugees in 1910. To understand the second generation, i wrote several books on leadership and community struggles, of what i call the Mexican American generation between 1940 and the movement. This included my collective biography this included biographies, testimonials, oral histories. This generation spanning the great depression, world war ii and the cold war organized the first major Civil Rights Movement among Mexican Americans in the United States and established a legacy of civil rights and social justice. I wanted to push the envelope further and move to studying the Chicano Movement. This was my historical generation and im a product as well of the movement. We became chicanos because of the movement. One thing about becoming chicano, in my case, a lot of my schoolmates, their first names had been transformed because the teachers had transformed them. Francisco became frankie and maria became mary. The teachers, the good sisters could not change my mario name. I always felt this advantage because my School Friends had new first names. We rediscovered our baptismal names. I was just mario. I was already ahead of the game. [laughter] prof. Garcia as many of you know about my Movement First started with castro. It was beautiful to be chicano that day. His kids walked out of the schools in the largest High School Strike in American History. I wish he was here with us today. I know he will live in our memories for the rest of our lives. In my new book the chicano generation ago this book is unique in that it includes three stories, giving it a radio contexts that reflect the movement the chicano generation, this book is unique in that includes three stories, giving it a variety of contexts that reflect the movement. This text is intended for you, the reader, to observe or in this case, read, reflect on it and then hopefully take up the struggle. Im very fortunate to have selected these three individuals as the protagonists of the book. How did i select them . Raul is a natural. He is the renaissance man of the movement in los angeles. He was involved in many stages and manifestations of the movement. He was a College Student who helped organize the walkouts. Through his leadership in the la raza magazine, he publicized the Antiwar Movement. It was raul along with demonstrators who found themselves across the Silver Dollar cafe and to those who stored photos that led to the at that time, the most prominent latino journalist in the United States. He further spearheaded the organizing of the party in los angeles and was involved in many other Movement Activities that i cannot possibly include them all. Heres images of raul in the book itself. Here is raul at the time of the walkouts. One of the organizers helping to organize the students. La raza come on Christmas Eve of 1969, had a demonstration at the recently constructed saint bezos church to force their demands on cardinal mcintyre. Police moved in, including undercover sheriffs acting as ushers at the time. 21 were arrested. Raul was one of them. Richard cruz as well. Some went to trial, some were sentenced to three months. Raul was not sentenced at all. Some asked, how did you not serve time . He said, i guess im a better catholic than you guys are. [laughter] prof. Garcia this is raul with those historic pictures he took of the Silver Dollar cafe on august 29, 1970. The police unleashed an incredible, brutal attack on the demonstrators. Three people were killed that day. Raul just happened to be across the street. This saw the tear gas and burning buildings and cars on fire and support and witnessed the two county sheriff squad cars position themselves and they moved into the bar and he started taking pictures. He took these historic pictures of the sheriffsattack, one showing the deputy, Thomas Wilson just before he shoots into the Silver Dollar. He hits the journalist in the head, immediately killing him. Raul does not believe that. He has conspiracy theories. It was an attack on the moratorium itself. Rauls conspiracy theory, leading to many conspiracy theories. The journalist is still writing a column for the l. A. Times. He was showing a lot of police abuse in east l. A. Some believe he was targeted, they were looking for him that day and thats why he was killed. Rauls theory that he was not killed by the teargas projectile. He was killed from the inside, someone killed him from the inside. What is your evidence . He said, look, when president kennedy was killed, look what happened to his head. It was blown off. If a teargas projectile hit him that size, there would be no head. But, there was a head. You see film of the mortuary later on, you see a head. Raul thinks he was killed from the inside. I dont know that he will ever prove that, but that is his conspiracy theory. This is raul testifying at the inquest. At one point, the judge is showing one of his pictures and he said, what is that image on that side . Raul says that is a picture of che guevara and all the chicanos start clapping and so forth. The judge knew that was che guevara and he was adjusting that raul sympathized with the communists in 1972, when the party held its first and only national convention, raul went there to attend in the key competition between gutierrez who was there with his group and you had the guru of the Chicano Movement, gonzales with his group. They both wanted to be elected as the National Chairperson of a national party. They needed someone to chair the convention that was not beholden to either group. People said, how about raul . He reluctantly agreed to it. He talks in the book about his role at the national party. This is a picture of raul in the early 1970s. Raul later gets his phd in education from harvard. This brings us to the second protagonist of the book, gloria. I had not met gloria until i began my research. What a powerful story. As the only female minister of the brown berets in east los angeles, gloria has a unique story. She was part of the first contingent of women to join the berets. Because of her leadership and personal strength, she rose to a leadership position, providing leadership to the women in the group. Despite their sexism and potential sexual assault, gloria, along with the other women, became the backbone of the berets. They published the beret newspaper. The greatest contribution that gloria along with other women made was the beret free clinic. This was the most significant contribution that the berets made to the community and to the movement. It was glorious leadership as a director of the Health Clinic that made this possible. Gloria was also involved in organizing the chicano Antiwar Movement and providing an outlet for others by putting together a group called the least known of my three activists, she deserves a commonplace in the history of the movement in los angeles. This is a picture of the brown beret wedding. One of the members of the brown berets got married at the church of the epiphany in lincoln heights. Theres gloria on the left. This is one of those photos that she told me you ever go into those little booths in bus stations and put in a quarter to get your picture taken . This is from one of those. Gloria is honest about the fact that she is a big woman. She was close to 300 pounds. She was bullied. High school and beyond, she said i rose above that. She used her tallness and bigness to her advantage. She said when i did that, people did not take her on. She also learned that the guys would intimidate the women in the meetings. She said i always stood up to speak, never from my chair because i wanted to use my physicality to assert myself and my power and so forth. I encourage the other women to do that as well. The others were also fairly large women. They had commandeered a tank to use in the march. As they are in the market, allow people in the parade started clapping saying viva las gordas. This is after the assassination of robert kennedy. The berets had a march. You can see gloria toward the back. I have fewer pictures of gloria because it was more difficult to find pictures of gloria. She did not have very much. Her story is a fascinating one and a very powerful one. This is a picture of the free clinic on whittier boulevard. Gloria was able to get volunteer doctors and nurses and students to help out and so forth. The women ran it and she was the director. The guys tried to get all the credit. They would try to take credit but the women did it. They provided all kinds of physical exams, references to medication, they did birth counseling or directed people to planned parenthood and so forth. It was the women through the free clinic that made that connection with the community. The guys tried to take the credit. Worse than that, they would come in at the end of the day and would use the space to party and do everything and leave a mess and the women were expected to go back the next day to clean it up. Gloria complained to david sanchez. It has to be sanitary and so forth. David sanchez, for whatever reason, did not pull his weight. It continued. So, gloria said, im out of here. The first group left because of these kinds of conflicts and that is when gloria organizes the chicano Antiwar Movement with munoz. She later on organizes another free clinic in east l. A. And worked there for a period of time. Her mother was a native of california. Gloria begins to rediscover that side of her and she begins to get involved in the native american movement. That is a picture of gloria with munoz. There was no way i could do a book on the movement in l. A. Without including rosalio munoz. This is a photo of him at ucla, the first chicano to be elected. He had the courage to take on Selective Service by refusing to be inducted into the military. Using the historic day of september 16, mexican independence day, he proclaimed that he would not allow himself to be inducted by a military and government that profits on genocide, as he put it, on chicano men by disproportionately drafting them to send to vietnam. He organized an antidraft organization to assist other chicanos to challenge their draft status. This led to him becoming the key organizer of the chicano moratorium community that organized the largest and missed ration in the Chicano Movement and the largest protest against the war in vietnam by any Minority Group in the country. They did that will live in infamy, august 29, 1970 when 20,000 or more chicanos marched against the war in east l. A. This is munoz showing his signs and peace beads. This is later at the l. A. Press club, organizing the Antiwar Movement. This is rosalio at one of the earlier demonstrations. This is the socalled march in the rain in february of 1970. When of the demonstrations that led up to the big one on august 29 of that year. As the director or head of the chicano moratorium committee, he gave his speech to the people assembled there. There were parents, grandparents, children. He met with the county sheriff and told them this was a peaceful demonstration and so forth. He concluded his speech and the Sheriff Deputies began to move in to destroy the demonstration. All of that is in the book. This is at a News Conference after the august 29 to protest the police action. Rosalio is to the far right. This is less than the year after the demonstration in l. A. This is a much later trip. What i came away with in writing this book is a deep appreciation and respect for the personal integrity and commitment of these three activists. They faced many ups and downs and victories and defeats, but political and personal but continued to struggle in one form or another. They were not ideologues but practical activists who wanted to improve their community. They epitomize the best of the chicano generation. Some have tried to disparage the movement. It was too sectarian, to nationalist, too sexist. One of the reasons i wanted to do a study of the movement was precisely to put a human face to a social movement. Movements that are also real people. It was a major historical struggle in chicano history where men and women made history in helping empower not only the chicano generation it made other latinos into political actors for the first time. It opened up new opportunities, as i mentioned earlier. All of us of chicanolatino background owe a debt to the Chicano Movement. Such historical figures like raul and rosalio and gloria. Thank you very much. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] you are watching American History tv. Follow us on twitter for information on her schedule and to keep up with the latest history news. Lets monday, on the Community Indicators the Research Record for the Consumer Federation of america debate the fccs proposal allowing consumers to either own settop axis instead of renting them from cable providers, a move to open up competition in the settop box market. They are joined by the Telecommunications Reporter for bloomberg. We need competition in the set top box market. Competition we want , competition, competition. This is one place where it hasnt work and we see consumers vigorous competition. Whats the first is is there a vigorous market for the settop box . In terms of what is delivered, no because the set top box is a component of the network. Its the most efficient way to design television service. No market has developed. Watch the communicators on cspan2. My name is Heidi Campbell and im the chief

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