Chicanismo: An Affirmation of Race and Class by Ignacio Garcia

Last week's class discussion was one of the more exciting lectures and class responses I've recently witnessed.

I wish I would have had the following information from Ignacio Garcia's explanation on Chicanismo. Read "Chicanismo: The forging of a militant ethos among Mexican Americans (Tuscon, University of Arizona Press, 1997).

The Chicano movement gained its strength from the working-class sector of the community. Chicanos hang focus on racial origins and class position as a cohesion to that struggle (Garcia, 1997). This is so visible in environment at the campus of the University of Texas at El Paso. It is important to remember that UTEP is a commuter university and the students would not be ranked as coming from a high socio- economic income level. Most work, most go to school part-time, most have tight-knit families and are tied in to the strong Mexican patriarchal culture. I often reflect on what my brother Hector said about the Chicano movement in the 60s when he was a journalism student at UTEP. He said he was too busy studying, working and trying to raise a family to be involved in the Chicano movement. Meanwhile, my husband, a retired El Paso police lieutenant, was busing arresting protesters during the same time. My husband is white, my brother looks white, but is Mexican-American. And me - well, I have darker skin.

Chicanos are for the most part mestizos. How Chicanismo evolved and how it is interpreted by scholars and the Chicano's themselves is controversial. It is about race and class. Poet Ricardo Sanchez says, "Ser Chicano es vivir como humano (to be a Chicano is to live like a human).

How Mexican-Americans view themselves in America is tied to their present economic and social status. I would almost venture to say it is similar to a lesser or greater degree to the Irish-Americans, German-Americans and Vietnamese-Americans.