Tag: MEChA

So Let’s Put Some of the Pieces Together

This is part of a longer blog series, which you can find links to the previous as well as the next blog posts at the bottom of this blog. 

I think its time I put some things into perspective and piece some of the history and blogs together.

I have complied a time line with the perspectives of the blogs but also some big events of the Chicano History.

 

1947: Mendez v. Westminster Supreme Court: This case is critical to the birth of the Chicana/o  Studies program because it is the case that desegregated  schools for Mexican and Mexican American students in Orange County California School.

1968:Chicano Blowouts: Stepping stone towards establishing a formal conversation around the development and implementation of the programs as students walked out in response to the lack of an inclusive curriculum and discrimination they felt in their classrooms.

Plan de Santa Barbara: Noted as the manifesto for implementing Chicano Studies educational programs.

United Mexican-American Students (UMAS) of Loyola-Marymount Proposes a Chicano Studies Department: In a pretty hefty document the students of UMAS began to demand a Chicano Studies Department at LMU.

1970:Chicano Moratorium: An anti-Vietnam war protest that united the Chicanos under one cause, yet it went terribly wrong.

1973: Loyola Marymount University(LMU) officially merge and changes its name to what we know it as currently.

Mexican-American Studies Program proposed at LMU: Five years after UMAS proposes an immediate implementation of a Chicano Studies Program, a proposal for a Mexican-American Studies program emerges.

1974: Chicana/o Studies Department is finally borned at LMU.

Mid 1970’s:Chicana feminist get recognized in El Movimiento thus allowing the discourse of our Chicana Feminism class to occur.

2010: Governor of Arizona signs HB2281 and Tucson Unified School District disbanded Mexican American Studies.

2012: LMU’s Centennial Celebration!

The start of my Chicana/o Studies blog series.

So although this is the end of the series, it is time to recognize this would not have been possible without the help and support of Dr. Annemarie Perez, Dr. Karen Mary Davalos, Raymundo Andrade, Mahnaz Ghaznavi, and Christine Megowan and all those who laid the foundation of the department that gave birth to my interest to its history. Gracias!

Read more:

The Birth of the Chicana/o Studies Department, Setting the Stage, Students Propose a New Program, From Chicano Studies Department to Mexican- American Studies Degree Program, Capstone Project Gone Blog

Setting the Stage

This is part of a longer blog series, which you can find links to the previous as well as the next blog posts at the bottom of this blog. 

Forty four years ago students were walking out from schools in a reaction to the racism they faced in school and as a way to demand educational equity.

At the same time, being in the middle of all the excitement of the Chicana/o Movement, at Loyola-Marymount University, before the formal merger of Loyola University and Marymount College to today’s LMU, we find the United Mexican-American Students (UMAS) of Loyola- Marymount , precursors to today’s Moviemiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Atzlan (MEChA) de LMU, coming together working towards the development and establishment of a Chicano Studies Department at Loyola-Marymount.

Looking through the university’s archives, I came across the original Proposal for a Chicano Studies Department presented by the UMAS of Loyola-Marymount. In this document, there is a letter addressed to the Loyola Faculty, a suggested structure and recommendations for the department, as well as the students’ rationale behind the kind of department they wanted.

In the letter to the faculty, the UMAS community addressd the lack of progress made towards the creation of the program which has brought them to suggest and propose the program based on research they have made. In the letter, we find the students expressing that “the need [for the program] is recognized by some, ignored by others, opposed by others and disguised by the rest.” So from this we can already get an idea of what kind of reaction they were getting from faculty and the Loyola-Marymount Community as a whole. Some were supporting the students and what they wanted while others were against or neutral to their wants and the situation created on campus. With that in mind, I wonder who were their allies and how did they go about in showing their support.

As for the structure and recommendation to the program the students knew what they wanted and had some expectations they hope were going to be respected in the implementation of the program. They wanted a structure that would understand the Chicano mentality with courses in “history, sociology and literature readings for a general understanding of the Chicano’s heritage and background.” They were also fighting to be respected as students through the integrity of the work they can produce as well as the subject itself.

The United Mexican-American Students of the Loyola-Marymount wanted a Chicano Studies Program  “completely autonomous or structurally attached to an Ethnic Studies Program.” As far as the rationale they used to defend their position, the students presented both sides of the issue on whether the Chicano Studies department should be a stand alone department apart from Ethnic Studies or part of it. So in order to respect the integrity of the subject, since it was “too extensive to be squeezed into Ethnic Studies,” to avoid competition with other groups for attention, and to provided better funding to sustain itself on, were the reasons the students presented to avoid it being part of Ethnic studies. While the only reason to integrate the department into Ethnic Studies was that unity would be its outcome as it would be a “power base for continuation of program; Chicanos and Blacks are capable of sharing the program,” which goes to show the diversity present at the time, but more importantly they go on to say that the unity would leave the programs vulnerable to unhealthy competition further weakening the programs.

And so the students had expressed what they were expecting to see.

Sources:

Loyola University. Student Affairs Record Group. UMAS Proposal, 1968. RG 7, Record Series E:  Student Organizations, Box 5. Loyola Marymount University Archives, Department of Archives and Special Collections, William H. Hannon Library, LMU, Los Angeles.

Photo:

top left: http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2010/03/02/english-only-policies-threaten-civil-rghts/

bottom right: http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb838nb5c1/

Read more:

The Birth of the Chicana/o Studies Department, Students Propose a New Program, From Chicano Studies Department to Mexican-American Studies Degree Program, Capstone Project Gone Blog, So You Want to Take Introduction to Chicana/o Studies?, So Let’s Put Some of the Pieces Together

Reading Maylei Blackwell, ¡Chicana Power! (3)

Reading Assignment: Your reply (under Comments) is due before class on Monday, January 30. Remember, you don’t need to answer all or even any of the questions, but your response should demonstrate you’ve done and thought about the readings. Be sure to check and make sure your response posts.

Maylei Blackwell, ¡Chicana Power! (43-90)

How would you describe the women who made up the Chicana activists in Las Hijas de Cuauhtémoc?  What were their backgrounds and experiences prior to come to Cal State Long Beach?  What sense do you have of them as people?

What were the problems Chicanas going to college in the late 1960s and early 1970s experienced? Which were the same and which were different from those experienced by Chicanos? How did Chicanas cope with these problems?

How did involvement with the Chicano Movement influence the Chicana students?  How did they change it and how were they changed by it?

What were the issues surrounding Anna NietoGomez’s election to the leadership in her campus MEChA? How was her leadership opposed?

What was/is “political familialism”? Relate Blackwell’s description of it to our earlier readings.

From where does Blackwell trace the origins of Chicana feminism? Who were these early role models?

What were some of the issues involving sex and sexuality revealed in the oral histories? What details were the most striking? How does it related to “chingón politics”?

 

#CHST404 Chicana/o Tweets 2/23/12

Today we’re starting our discussion of Maylei Blackwell’s book, ¡Chicana Power!: Contested Histories of Feminism in the Chicano Movement.  Here are some class tweets based on readings of the introduction:

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Reading: Alma Garcia’s Chicana Feminist Thought (1)

Please address the discussion questions for the following readings by replying to this post.  You do not have to answer all the questions, but be sure to demonstrate your familiarity with the reading.

El Plan de Aztlán

Alma Garcia, Chicana Feminist Thought (see Readings Page)

  • ”Introduction” (1-16)
  • ”The Woman of La Raza” by Enriqueta Longeaux Vasquez (29-31)
  • “Our Feminist Heritage” by Marta Cortera (41-44)

What do you think of when you think of the 1960s and 1970s? How do these readings fit in with or change your impressions?

Enriqueta Vasquez’s “The Woman of La Raza” was written in response to the same conference, the First National Chicano Liberation Youth Conference in March of 1969, where “El Plan de Aztlán” was written and adopted.  What connections can you see between the two documents?  What sort of conflict, if any, do you read into them? How did women of color respond to the civil rights movement (both Black Nationalism and the Chicano Movement)?  Why was it important that Marta Cortera “found” feminism with Mexican roots?

Alma Garcia discusses a series of Chicano movements in New Mexico (for land rights), California (for farmworkers, education and against the war in Vietnam) and Texas (political rights), among others.  How do you think the differences between these movements and their participants impacted each region’s Chicano movement?

Garcia also writes about Chicano Nationalism (Chicanismo) and the depiction of the “Ideal Chicana.”  What are the problems associated with such an idealized image?  Does it relate to the notion of a feminism based on “multiple oppressions”?

How did Chicanas organize themselves? What were the mechanisms and how was writing important to their organizations?