Chicano studies – CHST 404 – Chicana Feminisms

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!

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

So You Want to Take Introduction to Chicana/o Studies?

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.

From my work in my capstone project, I wanted to take a moment and reflect on the bigger picture and discuss why the birth of the Chicana/o Studies Department at Loyola Marymount Univesity is so important.

Consider being in history class and taking some time to learn about the Chicano movement so all you get is a couple of passages on the United Farm Workers Movement. Now this was part of the Chicano history but not the whole story. In other words, sometimes we not only want to learn HIStory but also our story. As stated in Mythohistorical Interventions where we not only hear the demand “that our side of the story be told,” as Lydia R. Aguirre, an activist of the time, retells but also asserts the need for more equal education and curricular equality.

Back in 1968, when high school students were walking out, this was one of the demands they had, curriculum reform. Departments like the one found at LMU or similar programs and departments across the nation can trace their roots back to students who wanted a say in their education. They wanted an equal education, which encompasses the telling of their side of the story but also an opportunity to tell the story. Thus driving many Chicano student activists to fight for the creation of Chicano studies programs and cultural centers in universities and colleges. Within this environment, now the Chicanos had an avenue to prosper in thus a dramatic increase in academic recognition in Chicano-produced work as seen over the years that followed. The creation of departments like LMU’s Chicana/o Studies department developed a professional organization in which a better dialogue across educational communities was born.

In a country that finds many great leaders in those who want change, it is sad to not recognize these sudents’ merits who worked towards the educational equality and curriculum reform . Their hard work and devotion to the programs that now exist across the nation starts to get devalued as the program they help set up get questioned and in some cases even banned. I hope I can now at least shine a light on why they are so important and need to be preserved.

Capstone Project Gone Blog

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.

For those of us that are not too familiar with how we major or minor in Chicana/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University, let me inform you that aside from taking a particular amount of required classes, we must also complete a capstone project which is an independent research project one is required to do as final piece for our undergraduate degree.

As a recently declared Chicana/o Studies minor, after figuring out what the focus for my capstone project was going to be, the birth of the Chicana/o Studies department, I was given the option to opt out of the traditional 25 page thesis I’m suppose to produce and instead embrace the social media my class was participating in. I decided to turn my capstone into a blog series because of it accessibility and the opportunity for intertextuality it carried with it.

In our current society, we are the children of technology, with the possibility of having the internet at our fingertips thus access to information is as simple as snapping our fingers. I found that blogging my findings brought a sense of urgency to my topic given the current uproar around the ethnic studies programs around the nation. I felt my project was reminding the LMU population of the value behind the department. And when this is put out to the public with the use of the internet, it provides some evidence for those departments that need support or answers to those who question the importance of ethnic studies programs. This opportunity to access my paper outside of the department walls was a huge motive to blog.

Also with blogging my capstone project it gave a new dimension to the project that a 25 page paper would never get. It allows for links to be placed within the text as well as tags to bring similar topics to it. This idea of intertextuality gives the reader the opportunity to fill in gaps as they read without doing extra work in looking at footnotes, bibliographies or the likes. Plus with the tags associated with the blogs it gives a diverse audience the opportunity to come across it and run into it when searching for similar things. This new dimension opens the accessibility of it and breaks barriers of understanding since questionable language can be defined by just clicking on it.

Blogging my capstone project allowed itself to be accessible to anyone with internet connection and gives it a new dimension as links and tags bring extra information and a greater audience to it. Hopefully more projects start turning towards this venue in the near future.

Picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_computer

From Chicano Studies Department to Mexican-American Studies Degree Program

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.

Back in 1968 the United Mexican American Students (UMAS) of Loyola-Marymount presented a proposal for the development and implementation of a Chicano Studies Department on nothing more than white paper and a typewriter. But after looking in the Chicana/o Studies Department’s archives in the University’s Archives found in the library’s Archives and Special Collections, I found a very interesting document. I found the Mexican-American Studies Degree Program description.

Finding this document comes at a shock for many reasons. One of which is simply at just looking at this document versus the proposal presented by UMAS. One of the big visual differences include the letterhead this document has. Not only does it have an official Loyola Marymount of Los Angeles letterhead but it also has a sort of seal for the program itself. This shows us that this document although not stated anywhere is not brought up by the students.Through its presentation, we know it means business because it is a formal document that a faculty or even staff member might of worked on.

Aside from the way it looks, the language used is sophisticated and formal. It does not present an attitude or voice like the UMAS proposal did, to the contrary it presents itself very politically and states its desire in a way that it remains neutral yet confident in what it wants. The only thing that is left unclear though is what gave rise to this and why did it take 5 years for it to appear, as this document is dated from February 14, 1973. Since for the moment those questions remained unanswered we can review it so as to share its contents and try to answer the questions.The document is comprised of 5 different areas. It starts of with the rationale behind the program, then continues into the proposed program of studies which is followed by the class list for humanities and social sciences and ends with the costs of the program.

The rationale begins by first stating the demographics and then gives points as to why the program is vital to an university education. The author behind the document brings the reader’s awareness around the issue that there exist irrelevant issues to the minorities of color, which includes the nation’s second largest minority, the Mexican-Americans. A minority whose unique situation “necessitates academic attention from interdisciplinary perspectives” which would encompass analysis of their historical, social, economical, psychological, cultural and political aspects. It continues on by stating that a degree in such a program not only would develop a student but also “fulfill one of the most important goals of Loyola University” as stated by Father Merrifield in his address on the goals of liberal education which says that there must exist an understanding of social -political realities and awareness of and sensitivity to the deep social problems in America. At the core of it stood the University’s goal to serve the community which included the presence of the largest population of Mexican descent outside of Mexico City and Guadalajara, including the presence of Mexican-American students whose presence is eluded from the 11% of Spanish surname population at Loyola. (Only to be compared to the approximate 21% currently found now at LMU.) These students need to be well prepared to pursue advanced degrees and strong foundations that a degree or double degree in Mexican-American Studies would provide them with.

The preparation would be coming from the proposed program of studies that included a focus on humanities and social sciences. The proposed program required the student to either take or test out of Spanish, a course in Race, Political Power in America, an Introduction to Mexican-American Studies and a course from one of the Research Methods list of classes. Then they would continue by pursuing one of two paths. One path required the students to take 4 courses from each section III and IV of the document course which are the list of Humanity and social science courses, respectively. Or if they preferred to develop a specialized skill in a particular area they could take any 4 courses in their area and any 4 courses in the other major section, e.i. 4 in history and 4 in social science. The student had some degree of liberty to what they wanted to take as section III and IV list of 33 classes to chose from.

The final section of the document is more at the administration level. As this section deals with the salary of the Director of the program and cost of the program as a whole.

This document seems to fit the needs of the population but still does not give us much to grasp on as to the change in the demand over the course of 5 years.

Sources:

Loyola University. Bellarmine College Record Group. Mexican-American Studies Degree Program, February 14, 1973. RG 12, Record Series D: Departments and programs, Box 14. Loyola Marymount University Archives, Department of Archives and Special Collections, William H. Hannon Library, LMU, Los Angeles.

Photo:

Special Collections Entrance, Los Angeles. Personal photograph by Carmen Castañeda. 2012.

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

Social Media In Our Class

Getting a Twitter account and a blog account on the WordPress associated blog was interesting simply because it was related to an academic course. I have never had a twitter before but I understood the format and how to use it since websites that use personal publishing interfaces are mostly similar.

I avoided twitter because I felt that it was an extra internet tool that I did not need because of my facebook, blogspot, deviantart, (soon to come) linkedin, etc… that I’ve already had. But I have wondered about it simply because of the way professionals use it. I like the fact that it promotes quick, casual interaction without knowing someone’s hometown or seeing last night’s party pictures. I know lots of professionals from the animation industry and from film in general who take great advantage of Twitter. For example, for the making of the live action film, The Last Airbender (2010) (and it was terrible, I know), I followed the producer’s feed and his updates on the progress of the film which was a great way to follow the progression of such a project. Thus I was not really bothered by the idea of signing up although I had never sought to do it on my own. I know I’ll definitely keep mine and will likely continue posting with the CHST404 hashtag (if Dr. Perez doesn’t mind!) to interact with future Chicano Studies enthusiasts and bring up related articles, images, etc.
Blogging on the Cited at the Crossroads site was nothing new since I have my own blog (Stef-a-Sketch). As soon as I knew that we would be given the chance to do blogs for the semester, I knew this is what I would want to do. I am a fan of researching, especially when I get to research topics that interest me, so this was the perfect combination of self teaching with the purpose of teaching others. I know when the time comes I’d like to do something similar on my own, e.g. a blog where I post researched info on multiple subjects, including Chicano Studies!
The only drawbacks I saw were my own, in which I deprived myself of enough time to dive in a little more into each subject I posted about. I also would have liked to tie it in to specific readings since most of the ones we read were very inspirational.
The chance to put our class on the internet really excited me. Although I’ve never been good physically in front of an audience, I love going all out behind the scenes. So again, this was an excellent way to do it. And I believe displaying a high level college class to the world wide web was very appropriate, especially since it is a class about culture, and people. The narrow focus on women I think is something that is also necessary. Like we have seen before, people want to know about this stuff, but sometimes the access of it is lacking. Bringing it down to the personal level of a blog instead of a professional website allows those looking into this subject to enter it more comfortably, and leave with legitimate resources as given by our links. All in all, I’d have to say the use of social media made this class and the experience in general, a very pleasant one that I hope to have in future classes.

Graciela Limon: An Inspiration to Younger Authors in Hispanic Literature

Just last month, Loyola Marymount University had the opportunity to host a very important figure and pride to the LMU Chicano/a Studies Department, Graciela Limon. Today her work is a very strong voice in contemporary American Hispanic Literature. A Mexican-America native to East Los Angeles, Graciela Limon earned her master’s degree and Ph.D. in Spanish American Literature.
As a child, Graciela Limon’s favorite pastime was reading. She really liked reading the newspaper because that is what was easily accessible to her. As she grew older and began reading novels, Limon dreamed of becoming a novelist someday. After earning her graduate degree, she tried submitting a collection of essays for publication to a few different editors, she was always told that her writing was “more creative than scholarly” and became discouraged (Arte Publico Press Author of the Month: Graciela Limon). “After some time in depression, the word ‘creative’ began to take shape in my thoughts. It sparked the memory of a long-ago dream,” says Graciela Limon. Hence, she decided to take this creativity and become an author of fiction novels based on her experience and emotions that she had encountered in life.
Her first published work titled, In Search of Bernabe (1993), became a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review. This novel is based on her collection of stories and historical information she learned through volunteer work in Los Angeles with a Salvadoran immigrant community of refugees and a trip she made herself to El Salvador in the late 70’s. The stories and history of El Salvador and other Central American countries whose populations travel up north in search of the “American dream” also had a great influence in one of her later novels, the River Flows North published in 2009 (Arte Publico). Scholar Ellen McCracken says: “Limón’s novels represent one of the most important contributions to the renaissance of Chicana fiction in the United States in the late 1980s and [the] 1990s. Her work is situated in a transborder experience of the Americas in which the women and men of Central America, Mexico, and Los Angeles come together in political and gender struggles, re-examine their historical past, and narratively employ their future” (Authors and Literary Works).
Among her other novels are The Memories of Ana Calderon (1994), and Song of the Hummingbird (1996), which really focus on the woman’s traditional role in society both in a tradition-bound rural Mexico and in the United States as well. These novels touch on the oppression that women face and how they choose to overcome this through their strength and their “resolve” as Limon likes to call it. “Her novels explore Mexican cultural heritage, focusing on the world of Mexicans and Mexican Americans, and are peopled with characters grappling with issues of cultural and personal identity and sexual autonomy” (Authors and Literary Works). During her visit to LMU Graciela Limon mentioned the importance of writing in her life because to her this is a form of expression through which she can reveal her personal experiences. She can exhibit her life encounters in a very creative way and through fictional characters that others have found they can relate to. She shared the story of a young lady that once contacted her telling Dr. Limon that The Memories of Ana Calderon was the story of her life and that in this novel she found encouragement and inspiration to be a stronger woman.
Graciela Limon is a very inspiring woman, her life story and the novels that she writes are really a combination of the reality with fictional characters faced by the Hispanic and Latin American cultures. Graciela Limon was a faculty at Loyola Marymount University, where she taught U.S. Hispanic Literature and chaired the Department of Chicano Studies and is currently teaching at the University of California Santa Barbara. Her work continues to inspire many other young authors and represent an essential part of Chicana fiction literature.

Additional Sources:

Authors and Literary Works
http://www.learner.org/workshops/hslit/session5/aw/author2.html

You can also find a phone interview on the following website where she mentions her experiences around El Salvador and some of her novels:
Classical 91.7-Arte Público Press Author of the Month: Graciela Limón
Graciela-Limon.html

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/

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

The Birth of the Chicana/o Studies Department

This year is a special year for Loyola Marymount University (LMU). It is the year marking the first 100 years for LMU, so along with it there has been a lot to to celebrate centennial year. We are rediscovering our history and everything that makes us the school we stand to be today.

However as I sit in class and listen to how if it was not for student groups, like Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlan (MEChA) the demand for Chicana/o Studies would not have emerged, thus the department would not have been created. As an institution founded on social justice, LMU is very lucky to not only offer a BA in Chicana/o Studies but most importantly to actually have a Chicana/o Studies department, because through this exposure and awareness to the Chicana/o and Latina/o culture it exposes students like myself to a history that some over look while some try to erase. History that is part of the 100 years of LMU but I have not heard a strong presence among all the centennial celebrations.

With that being said, I started to wonder how did the Chicana/o Studies department evolve here at LMU and thus began my journey. As a recently declared Chicana/o Studies minor, I took it upon myself to find this out. So I have decided to not only focus my capstone project around this topic but also compose a series of blog post to share my discoveries.

I will be conducting research by collecting data from the university’s archives. This means looking at old and even historic documents following the development of the Chicana/o Studies department as well as the student involvement in this effort. I will also be looking at old school newspapers and maybe even coverage of our local newspapers like the Los Angeles times. Depending on what I might find here, I might have to conduct interviews and thus becoming like Maylei Blackwell, an oral historian in a sense.

From all that I hope to find out how the University handled the development of the department. I also want to find out, what was the atmosphere on campus among the student body prior to the development of the department as well as the after its creation. It would be very interesting to find out who were the first professors in these courses as well as who were the first graduates from the department. It would be cool to find out what their experiences were like and what kind of hardship they faced. After learning about the departments foundation, it would be great to find out how it has survived and possibly any sort of changes planned for the future.

I can not wait to see what I find out.

Picture credit: “human 100 planking” http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150357651391085&set=a.473141356084.282436.215120346084&type=3&theater

This is part of a longer blog series, which you can find links to the the next blog posts below.

Setting the Stage, Students Propose 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! (4)

Reading Assignment: Your reply (under Comments) is due before class on Wednesday, February 1. 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! (91-125)

How were images of Chicanas deployed? Do you agree with Blackwell’s description of how images of Chicanas circulated within the Chicano Movement?

What were / are the Chicana critiques of nationalism according to Blackwell? What is your impression of nationalism?

How does Blackwell delineate the origins and usage of the term “machismo”? What would you add to her definitions? What is the Chicana critique of it?

Who were the original Hija de Cuauhtémoc? Why did the Chicanas at CSULB come to identify with them? How does their identification echo the connections between the Mexican Revolution and the Chicano Movement?

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”?