Chicano History: An Overview of Chicano Historiography
The past shapes the present, and to understand the present, we must understand the past. Particularly given the rise in racism and anti-immigrant sentiment directed towards Latinos today, it is vital to understand the long struggle for equality in our nation. Touching base with past history is particularly important given the fluidity of fact and fiction in the modern Internet age. As noted by Chávez (2013), there has been a deep hunger among Chicano and Chicana historians to recover the lost past and work against the attempt to erase the impact Chicanos have had upon American history for hundreds of years. “In the 1990s the field sought to present a dynamic and multifaceted community that moved beyond the bounds of the Southwest and the mid-nineteenth century” (Chávez, 2013, p.512).
One of the founding events cumulating in the Chicana/o Civil Rights Movement was that of the Longoria Affair, when there was a refusal to appropriately honor the body of a Mexican-American soldier in Texas (“The Longoria Affair,” 2010). World War II created new, temporary equality in some pockets of American society, given the diversity of America’s armed forces, and the greater social mobility in the postwar age. This also caused new ferment and anger when America failed to honor its diverse veterans. The civil rights movement further mobilized Chicano activists. Even within the movement, however, there have been notable gendered and class-based tensions in terms of defining the interests of Latinos. The Lemon Grove Incident, an attempt long before Brown v. Board of Education, to segregate the education of Latino farmworkers, was a major educational civil rights milestone when the California Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional to engage in such racist and discriminatory practices. This highlights the fundamental importance of Latino Americans in securing equality not simply for their own group, but also for all members of historically discriminated-against groups.
References
Chávez, E. (2013). Chicano/a History: Its origins, purpose, and future. Pacific Historical Review, 82. 4, pp. 505-519. Retrieved from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/phr.2013.82.4.505
The Lemon Grove Incident. (2013). You Tube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrefEGgd_Gs&feature=youtu.be
The Longoria Affair. (2010). PBS. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItLEChtcTBQ&feature=youtu.be
