Art and Ideology of the Chicana Movement

History of Chicanos

The history of the Chicano and Chicana movements in the U.S. is a history of self-assertion and self-esteem. The Chicano population gradually became alive to the fact that they had value in a society that always seemed to devalue them and come to their support only when it served the government’s best interests (as happened during WWII). By the 1960s and 1970s, Chicanos had had enough of this system. They were ready to break out and push back. This paper describes how that movement came about and what methods it used to achieve objectives.

The Chicana/o Movement as a Result of Activism

The Chicano Movement began when Mexican-American men began to assert themselves in the struggle for equal rights in the realm of economics, society and politics (Garcia, 1997). The Chicana Movement was largely in response to the feminist movement, which seemed to center wholly on white women to the exclusion of Chicana women. In both movements, the core aspect was activism. Chicanos wanted equal opportunity in terms of education: they wanted bilingual teachers so that their children would not be left behind in the classroom. Chicanas wanted gender rights and wanted to be accepted as working class women (Ramirez, n.d.).

The Lemon Grove Incident (2013) was a major factor in fomenting the movement. It was an issue from 1930 to 1931 that focused on the education rights of Mexican-Americans and their families. Essentially, it was an attempt by a local school board to segregate Mexican-American children in California by building a school house for children who were of Mexican descent. The case brought the issue of desegregation to the courts long before the more famous Brown v. Board of Education in the 1950s. The actions of the school board actually violated the laws of the state of California—not because of any stance by the state on equality of races—but because Mexicans were considered to be white, i.e., non-Negro, and therefore not susceptible to segregation laws. Underneath this loophole, which gave a victory to the Mexican-Americans, was the fact that racism nonetheless existed and was supported by the law. California in the internecine years was full of racial tension, and the Lemon Grove Incident was merely one example of the legal and organizational precedents set in the lead-up to WWII that pushed Mexican-Americans to get active in politics and make demands in the name of social justice.

One of the big precedents in terms of organization for the Chicano movement was the League of United Latin American Citizens, which was established in 1929 to fight discrimination against Mexican-Americans. This discrimination had occurred in the form of vigilante justice in California and Texas, as white vigilantes had took it upon themselves to exact “justice” from Hispanics in those states at the end of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries (Carrigan & Webb, 2003). Mexican-Americans did not feel safe or respected as a result. The League of United Latin American Citizens was meant to help these individuals band together against abuses like vigilantism. This same League would later play a part in facilitating the Chicano movement during the Longoria Affair during the war

The Movement during WWII

The Longoria Affair was particularly of importance in terms of giving a fundamental cause to the activism. When the body of a Mexican-American soldier was not given the proper honors for serving his country, there was uproar among the Chicano community in Texas (The Longoria Affair, 2010). In the Longoria Affair, the League of United Latin American Citizens was aided by the American G.I. Forum, founded by Dr. Hector Garcia, a WWII veteran. Felix Longoria, a soldier in the war, had been denied a funeral service in his own hometown of Three Rivers, Texas. That injustice fueled the Chicano movement, united the League and the American G.I. Forum, and grew both organizations.

Other Mexican-American experiences fomented the movement as well. The Zoot Suit Riots occurred in Los Angeles in 1943, and this was a case wherein the American soldiers/sailors committed acts of violence against both blacks and Mexican-Americans fond of wearing the Zoot Suit. These riots were evidence of racial intolerance and showed that injustices were boiling below the surface.

In New Mexico, there was a push by Chicanos to have their ancestral lands restored to them. This was due to the fact that many Mexican-Americans felt that their Mexican land had been taken from them unjustly by the American government. People like Tijerina sought to lead the way in the land grant movement. Each state, however, had its own issues. In Texas, it was the need to show that Mexican-Americans were the same as other white Americans and deserved the same honors and privileges. In California, it was a need to not be marginalized and pushed aside the way the Mexican youths often were in Los Angeles, where corruption in the LAPD promoted a kind of retribution against Mexican-Americans.

Chicana women also were motivated during this time. As most of the Chicano movement was focused on issues in the lives of Mexican-American men, Chicana women felt there was a need for attention to be given to the gender issues they faced. During the war effort Chicana women gained important spaces at home by changing their image. Before they were viewed as passive, submissive and uninterested in the world outside the home; but thanks to leaders like Paula Crisostomo, MitaCuaron, and Tanya Luna Mount, they mounted a movement of their own that catered to their specific interests (Bernal, 1998). In the coming years, they would focus on art, gender studies, and women’s rights groups as ways to draw more attention to women’s needs.

New urban societies did not want to tolerate Mexican-American women among their own; these tended to be upscale and white—and even though, legally speaking, Mexican-Americans were supposed to be “white,” the fact was that they were always treated as a second-rate class of people. The experience of the Mexican-American population was exacerbated by programs like the Bracero Program, which exploited Mexican labor during WWII and even beyond, by allowing these poorer people to be employed by farmers at discount prices so as to support the war effort. Yet even after the war, the program continued on for years, often with wages not budging an inch. These same people continued to be employed, hardly being given anything for their labor so that the farmers could make big profits. As Mmize and Swords (2011) note, “Anglo growers used race as a line of division within class blocs to ensure themselves a steady and cheap supply of Mexican immigrant labor” (p. 30). Many migrant workers were affected by this program, taken advantage of by the situation in which the nation found itself, and used as a source of cheap labor. This experience would be one of many during the war that would go on to have a lasting effect on the Chicano movement, particularly because many of the children of these Braceros would come of age in the 1960s, when the program finally ended, and see for the first time how their families had been exploited all that time.

Chicana feminists also ran afoul of some of the Chicano men who viewed their movement as anti-male and anti-family. Chicano men tended to be traditional in terms of family values, and they did not like the liberal influence that the feminist movement was having on Chicana women. This led to some backlash between Chicano men and Chicana women that created some tension between the movements over the coming years. Still, Chicana women had a part to play in the WWII era.

As Escobedo shows, the Rosie the Riveter example of the American woman entering the factory and taking up the man’s work was not an accurate reflection of the reality. Rosie was depicted as white and capable; the fact was that many of the most capable and qualified factory women were Mexican-American—yet they were passed over for white candidates because of the trust issues that employers had when it came to hiring Mexicans (Escobedo, 2013). Mexican-American women embraced the opportunity to do something for their nation during the war because they saw it as a chance to finally be accepted in society. They felt it was a chance to overcome their outsider status (Escobedo, 2013). They did this in numerous ways, and one of them was by using print media to get rid of negative stereotypes associated with their people. However, it was a struggle. Ignacio Lopez helped to come to the aid for Mexican laborers and to advance the Chicano movement by working with the OWI to promote the Americans All ideology, and Mexican artist Leon Helguera created artwork that used both English and Spanish to promote the ideology (Escobedo, 2013).

There was some need on the part of the U.S. government to help the Latino community, especially as it was important to maintain the support of this community during the war. So the Americans All ideology was promoted by the government to show that the community was diverse and that everyone should be accepted (Escobedo, 2013). Hollywood also depicted Mexicans as heroic in films like Bataan and Guadalcanal Diary. This helped to create a new sense of confidence and esteem in the Mexican-American population during the war (Escobedo, 2013).

Repudiating the Failed Promises of Assimilation

The new sense of identity adopted by the Chicano men and Chicana women allowed them to reclaim a rich indigenous past from near annihilation. The way this new generation of the Chicano and Chicana movement in the post-war era achieved this was by way of exercising their voices in more and more different methods. For instance, there were the school blowouts of the 1960s. In these events, organized walkouts among student bodies across the nation were conducted, and it raised awareness for issues like decreased funding for Chicano courses. Chicanos felt that they were being ignored in the curriculum and they were not willing to sit still for an education that refused to acknowledge their existence and their contribution to the story of the nation. Students also protested against the Vietnam War and discrimination (Chavez, 2002). The Chicano Moratorium was one way in which the causes of the movement were put forward. Anti-war activists in the Chicano movement protested the Vietnam War and the discrimination that Chicanos were facing in schools. Coalitions were established in the wake of the many walkouts that students conducted around the nation. Immigration reform was another objective that the Chicano movement sought to address. However, it was much harder in this arena to achieve satisfaction than it was in the grassroots level social interaction, where schools and school boards were more easily accessible to the Chicano efforts.

If schools were going to keep discriminating against Mexican-American culture and heritage, it meant that the promise of assimilation made by desegregation in the wake of Brown v. Education and the Civil Rights Movement had been broken. The Chicano movement was going to push back. The Raza Unida Party in California was a push by Chicana women for financial independence. Just as white women, being led by Betty Friedan, were pushing for independence, the Chicana women believed they had the right to secure such for themselves as well. The Chicana women of the post-war era wanted financial strength, educational rights, equal employment opportunities, and economic firmness (Partido La Raza Unida, n.d.).

By rejecting the assimilationist strategy that called for all Americans to melt together into a big melting part, the Chicano movement promoted an identity that was distinctly their own. It was meant to give value to the distinct heritage that was that of the Mexican-American. Instead of identifying as “American” and losing that other part of their culture that made them different, the Chicano movement along with the Chicana movement asserted more heavily the Mexican aspect of their culture and experience, in art, in politics, and in the economic sphere.