LocoMon

Popularity: 6% [?]

OUTLINE
I. Background of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
II. Link to United States Expansionist Policy
II. Treaty Impact On Comanche Nation
III. Treaty Impact On The Apache Nation
IV. Comparison Between Comanche And Apache Experiences
V. Conclusion

INTRODUCTION:
The United States of America (USA) annexed Texas in 1845. In
that same year, the USA was quickly expanding its territorial
boundaries through lands illegally appropriated from Native American
nations in the Pacific Northwest. American ‘civilization’ embodied
the concepts of conquest and territorial expansion. These two major
ideologies began to merge in the nineteenth century as cultural
superiority and scientific biological racism, which justified
American goals of continental expansion.(1)
During the Spanish colonial era, from the sixteenth to the
eighteenth centuries, ‘Pueblo’ populations in the American Southwest
remained predominanty Indian and Mestizo. As more of these small
agricultural pueblos started to serve growing urban centers, the
American war with Mexico began. Interestingly enough, the war did
not immediately disrupt these growing towns. But during the post
war era the southwest and its indigenous population suffered
politically and economically. Three major factors are associated
with these problems: first, the presence of military forces in the
southwest during the 1846-1850′s; second, the exodus of labor to
northern California gold mines; and third, an introduction by
American settlers to a new system of arranged or contractual labor.(9)
Another contributing factor was that during the period of the war,
Mexican pueblos were occupied by American military personnel and
newly arriving white settlers which decided pueblo leadership.
Military servicemen after the war with Mexico were paid with prime
pieces of land in the area they were assigned to.(11)
It was the acquisition of the Oregon territory, together with
the Californian ‘gold rush,’ and other strikes that further pushed
white colonists ever westwards,(9) but, it was the wars with the
various Indian nations of the southern plains, the southwest and
Mexico, that set the stage for Indian-white relations in the U.S.,
during the nineteenth century.
The Jackson Administration made this plain on January, 1836,
when Texas, which was still a Mexican province, was invaded by the
United States Cavalry under the direction of General Edmund Gaines.
This was territory clearly defined as Mexico’s through treaty. The
Administration’s reply was that the main objective was to protect the
border against "Indians and Mexicans." This access gave the U.S. the
thrust it needed into the Texas frontier. It encouraged white
settlement into the far Southwest region, a region vital to the link
that existed between the military and legal right to control, over
yet another very important oceanic port-of-entry, the Pacific
Coastline. This was a process that was to spread white settlement
throughout the northern and western regions west of the Mississippi
River well into the 20th century.
In the same year as war broke out between America and Mexico in
1846, General Stephen Watts Kearny’s Army of the West marched along
the Santa Fe Trail. The campaign was an attempt to win dominance,
through a show of force, over powerful indigenous nations, such as
Cheyennes, Comanches, Apache. Two years later, the American war with
Mexico ended with the signing of the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty. With
this treaty came the seizure of Mexico’s former Northwest territories
(including California), a major loss for Mexico, and the beginning of
significant changes in the history of Indian-white relations in the
Greater Southwest. .
When the USA defeated Mexico in 1848, Congress debated annexing
all of Mexico, only to reject this idea, however, when some leaders
expressed the "danger" posed racially to white America by
miscegenation with Mexican Native Americans.(2) Furthermore, a group
of Whigs argued that "the acquisitiion of 150,000 hostile people,
unwilling to be united to us and unfit to be trusted with a
participation in our free forms of government" would pose an
additional threat to the nation. Thus was their reasoning in not
initially accepting the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at this time.
This treaty was signed in 1848.(3)
By the mid-nineteenth century, Native Americans as a whole were
perceived as a savage people, to be "civilized" and "Christianized"
by superior Americans. As Robert F. Berkhofer argues in the White
Man’s Indian, Americans would not defend the belief that Native
American people were driven to war in order to defend their lands
from the threatening invaders. Native American were then cast as a
"victorious, haughty and insidious enemy driven to war, whose terms fo
r peace were disgraceful to the American character."(5)
By casting Indian people during war time as savages impeding
the progress of white America, intellectuals presented Native
Americans as the ultimate "danger." But when making peace, Americans
believed that Indian people were "more the misrepresentation of bad
people, than any hardened malignity of the human heart" or
"blood-thirsty savages."6) Still, images such as these served well
those Americans who advocated the genocide, either literally or
culturally, of Indian people.
The objective was to gain access to Native American lands as
quickly as possible, and with the victorious outcome of wars such as
those between the U.S. and Mexico, to gain continental status.
Treaties or agreements were used as vehicles towards this end, a
diplomatic strategy practiced since the arrival of the Spanish, and
later the French and English. Treaties represented a method of
getting "voluntary consent" or "rights of occupancy" to aboriginal
lands, and over time functioned as the main precursor, especially
through the American judicial system, in the usurpation of this
territory.(7)
After 1848, the Rio Grande River, or as it is called in
Mexico, the Rio Bravo, was used as a natural geographical separator
of territorial gains and losses for the USA and Mexico,
respectively. As a result, indigenous nations’ territories were divid
ed along the Rio Grande in a manner that had never separated Native
American people before.
The cultural and political effect the signing of the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo, and similarly other treaties, had on Southwest
United States Native American Indian groups, especially as it relates
to the systematic decimation of the Comanche and Apache nations is
emormous.

GEOGRAPHY:
The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded to the United States
territories extending from the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains to
the shores of the Pacific, containing an area of well over one
million square acres. This vast region, exceedingly diversified in
topographical features, climate, and soil, was vaquely named Upper
California and New Mexico.
The Upper Rio Grande is an extensive district, hemmed in and
surrounded in all directions by barren mountains, whose summits
average ten to thirteen thousand feet above sea level. The
table-lands, forming the great Mexican plateau, are filled with a
ngular fragments of basalt, trap, and amygdaloid. The valleys are
rich in top soil, and many run in different angles into the Rio
Grande.
New Mexico is geographically divided into three areas; the
Northern, the Middle, and the South-eastern. In 1848 the richest
area was the valley Del Norte, composed of rich agricultural growth
environments, containing at that time a population of fift
y-thousand. The population of the whole state after the
American-Mexican War was estimated at one hundred thousand (The
Pueblo Indian could have increased this population to 160,000).
The territory was known to be rich in gold, silver, lead, and
copper, with plentiful deposits of coal, brimstone, gypsum and salt.
The agricultural valleys produced grain, pulse, pepper, onion, and
most important of all, grapes. Cattle, horses, and mules were
plentiful, and the introduction of sheep looked promising to the
area. New Mexico was thus a welcomed addition for American
enterprises and manufacturing.
From a commercial and political point of view, the southwest
culture region was an important and even necessary possession for the
USA. But first, the Native American Indian nations who rightfully
held title to it, had to be effectively suppressed. It is important
to note that during the negotiation of the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo, Native American nations from the region were not brought in
into the process of signing away their territories from Mexican to
American control.(12)
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: Art. XI And Indian Policy Of 1840.
The Mexican War did not greatly affect the Apaches nor the
Comanches, but the treaty which closed the war would have profound
consequences for both Indian Nations. Article XI of the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo states that the territory was occupied by Native
American people, but, through this treaty the area would be within
the future jurisdiction of the United States. Furthermore, the
document states that the territory was occupied by ‘savage’ tribes
who would now be under the control of the government of the United
States, and whose incursions within the territory of Mexico would be
prejudicial in the extreme. The USA and Mexico agreed that all such
incursions by Native Americans would be forcibly restrained by the
government of the United States, whenever it was necessary; and that
when Indians cannot be prevented, they would be punished by
government as if the same incursions "…were committed within its
own territory, against its own citizens." It was unlawful for
Indians to take captives or to acquire stolen horses, mules, cattle,
or property of any kind, stolen from within Mexican territories: nor
to provide Native Americans with fire-arms or ammunition, by sale or
otherwise.
And in the event of any person or persons from the USA being
capatured by Native Americans it would be the responsibility of the
Mexican government, if these captives were taken into the newly
divided Mexican territory, to rescue them and return them to the
USA. It was also the Mexican authorities responsibily to the
government of the United States to give notice of such captures,
giving American agents the right to pay for the expenses incurred in
the maintenance and transmission of the rescued captives. But if the
government of the United States, before receiving such notice from
Mexico, should obtain intelligence, through any channel, of the
existence of Mexican captives within its territory, it would proceed
to effect their release and delivery to the Mexican agent.
This treaty gave the government of the United States carte
blanche to vigilantly enforce such laws as the subject of this treaty
may require. The treaty finally stated that the "sacredness" of this
obligation shall never be lost sight of by both governments when
providing for the removal of Indians from any portion of the
territory, or for it being settled by the citizens of the United
States; but, on the contrary, special care would be taken to place
its Indian occupants under the necessity of seeking new homes, by
committing those invasions which the United States have solemnly
obliged themselves to restrain. (13)
The true intent in American policy towards Native Americans can
be examined through the writings of the the Commissioner of Indian
Affairs, T. Hartly Crawford, on November 25, 1839. Crawford argued
for manual labor schools, allotment of ‘Indian’ lands to individual
Native Americans, and the consolidation of Native Americans in the
West. At one point in his argument he states, " To teach a savage
man to read, while he continues a savage in all else, is to throw
seed on a rock…if you would win an Indian from the waywardness and
idleness and vice of his life, you must improve his morals, as well
as his mind, and not merely by precept, but by teaching him how to
farm, how to work in the mechanic arts, and how to labor profitably;
so that by enabling him to find his comfort in changed pursuits, he
will fall into those habits which are in keeping with the useful
application of such educations as may be given him." (14) In
essence, this called for the creation of a new value system to be
instilled on Native American people.
On November 30, 1848, (same year as treaty) Indian Commissioner
William Medill submitted his report on the structuring of ‘Indian’
colonies. The plan called for consolidating Native Americans. This
was an early and forceful message to concentrate Native Americans on
two colonies "one north, on the head waters of the Mississippi, and
the other south, on the western borders of Missouri and Arkansas, the
southern limit of which is the Red River." The policy was to
colonize indigenous Indian tribes beyond the reach of white
migration, thus confining each tribe within a small district of
country, so that as the game decreased and became scarce, the adults
would gradually be compelled to resort to agriculture and other kinds
of labor as a form of subsistence. Aid would be afforded and
facilities furnished them out of the means obtained by the sale of
their former possessions. It was a means of devising a system of
manual labor schools for the education of the young, the males were
relegated to the practice of agriculture and the various mechanical
arts, and women to the different branches of housewifery, including
spinning and weaving. These schools were modeled after those already
in operation in the Easteran United States. Charge was given to the
missionary societies of different Christian denominations in the
country which were gaining momentum in the American government for
the conversion of indigenous religious beliefs. The Indian children
were forced to learn the religious and moral code of these Christian
institutions. (15)

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE AREA:
Native American societies in the Southwest went through tremendous
transformations during the period of 1848-1886. Adjusting to Mexican
Colonialism, and after the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo, greater American immigration and settlement, many Native
Americans chose war as a final recourse.
Mexico in the first half of the Nineteenth century was a rural
country with over a third of its population composed of ‘Indios.’
The countryside was spotted with many small villages in which an
isolated and meager existence was carved socially and economically,
an existence that was derived separate from the larger city. Each
pueblo maintained its own unique system of government, little altered
from the early Spanish colonial period. Spanish was not the
dominant language spoken. White schools and Christian churches were
uncommon, and medicine was usually entrusted to the local curandera/o
or medical practitioner. Private gardens normally provided beans,
corn, squash and chiles, with fruits and vegetables varying is some
areas. Markets were the chief locations used for trading goods and
exchanging information.
The clash of two cultures, Euroamerican and the Native
American, in many ways caused the intermingling found in the
Southwest, especially as it relates to California, Texas, New Mexico,
Arizona, Colorado and Nevada. Mining, sheep-herding, cattle raising,
irrigation, farming, laws, railroads, town-cities were a growing
reality in the Native American Southwest culture region. The
westward push took three distinct forms during the 1840′s in New
Mexico, California and Texas; first, a strategic offensive against
Native Americans by separating them from their lands in order to make
way for American immigration, a process called "Indian Separation,"
readily practiced in the 1830′s, second, American passage and
settlement into "Indian Country" causing intense Native American
resistance against this movement, resulting in the formulation of new
treaties to remove Native Americans. This was a process called
"Indian Removal," third, treaties that were later broken and Native
Americans confined to reservations.
As a result of intensified Indian warfare, New Mexican and
Texan settlers were kept in a state of turmoil during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries. The southwest region in geographical
terms is a natural extension in which a "distinctive settlement
pattern emerged of this frontier, with smallholding,
village-orientated farmers and shepards working a pastoral-mercantile
economy and living in a symbiotic relationship with surrounding
Indians."(16) The vangard to colonization in the southwest were
Franciscan missionaries, eager to increase Spanish colonial rule of
power through church and state. Thus during the seventeenth and
eighteenth century Spanish policy was to promote a moving Native
American Indian frontier with Missions and Pueblos serving as the
main catalyst for change. The Apaches and Comanches took advantage
of the horse in raiding deep into settled territories, many of which
were Ladino-type pueblos. With the destruction of the buffalo as a
source of food, many of these nations resorted to attacking Mexican
border communities, which were in many instances were defenseless.
The Apaches became fierce raiders with the adoption of the horse.
Jicarilla Apache resistance ended in the 1850′s; but the western
Apaches were still fighting the United States well into the
1880′s. The Western Apaches also fought longer than their Navajo
cousins, principally because the Navajos learned agricultural and
stock raising techniques. Apacheria, or Apache territory, was
rugged and rough to live on and discouraged invaders. Additionally,
because of the newly separated nation states of Mexico and the
U.S.A., it became easier for the Apache to find refuge in Mexico’s
northern desert lands.
The Apache had remained unimpressed by the Spanish presence in
the Southwest. American jurisdiction of Apacheria, in the first
quarter of the eighteenth century, was first viewed by the Apache as
a possible tool which could be used to their advantage in their war
with the Mexicans. After the U.S.-Mexican war, the Apache learned
that the U.S. would not join them in their war against Mexico, and
instead were informed by the Americans that they must end raiding as
a form of existence. This would have a major impact on relations
between the U.S.A. and Apaches who could not understand why the
U.S.A. had seized the right to tell them what to do. With new
intruders such as prospectors and ranchers entering their country,
Apaches conducted a thirty-year offensive against white trespassers.
They fought alongside members of different bands within the western
Apache Nation.
Whites and Indians maintained distinct branches of historical
development and experience. Native Americans believed that the
practice of writing agreements to settle political and territorial
disputes was strange and unfamiliar to their way; yet it was the
‘white-mans’ way of telling the truth. By the 1850′s the usual
treaties were drawn up with the Apaches and the Comanches. The
government agents displayed pieces of paper, replete with the marks
of Native American leaders, willing to accept the enticement of
annuities, that purported to give the USA the right to enter their
territories. Despite these treaties the predicament for Native
Americans worsened, and with the defeat of Mexico in 1848, the
Southwest was open to American colonialism. The American quest for
gold further exacerbated the problem, with greater number of
emigrants passing through Indian territories in violation of treaty
agreements. Most violence between white Americans and Native
Americans occurred because treaty promises were not being adhered to
by whites. Instead these same documents extinguished Native American
ownership of the land.
Treaties shaped relations between Native American and European
Americans since the days of the first settlers. In spite of the
lapse of years and the increasing power of whites, American officials
treated Native Americans in the mid-eighteenth century much the same
as their colonial predecessors had two centuries earlier.(17) Land
possession and title were obtained north and south through two means:
Native American cession through ‘legal’ purchase, or, through
warfare. The English demanded and got title to lands from the tribes
they encountered on their expansion westward. Thus, through this
gradual process of cession, the colonists brought their actual
control of native resources and population, into line with the
exaggerated terrtitorial claims made by earlier English explorers for
the Crown. (18)
Treaties were first used by European Americans to forge
relationships with powerful Native American nations in an attempt to
ally with and to influence them. Agreements in principle did not
eliminate intra-tribal factional divisions and rivalries, nor did
they give "chiefs" the ability to control their warriors from
raiding. ‘Friendly’ ties with the Indians was actively pursued in an
attempt to open trade and insure safe passage through hostile lands.
The legal process of establishing contact with Native Americans
through treaty writing, established in the early sixteenth century by
Spanish lawyers, was to place the flag of absolute ownership over the
‘New World. ‘
The conquistador lacked claim to the land through this
process. Sufficient claim still lay on ‘aboriginal title’ to the
land. The attempt then, by the Americans, was to obtain "voluntary
consent" for being on the Indian’s land. The offering of annuities
and supplies to ‘Good Indians’ who placed their marks on treaties,
functioned well to split the Nation. Finally, the meaning and
interpretion of what was written in these treaties was left in the
hands of the American courts, further usurping the Indian’s right to
her own land.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA), the Chicano student organization at the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, did not participate in hosting elections for the Interim Multi-Cultural Center Advisory Board. The notion of a Multi-Cultural Center evolved as a direct result of the closing of the Afro-American Community Service Center (AACSC), the building that today may still house the Chemistry Tutorial program at UW-Madison, on 1120 W. Johnson Street; the closing of the Native American Center, a building on 1000 Block of Dayton St, and demands for a center by Chicano and Borricua students in the 1975-1976 semester year.

These closings were legitimized by Regent Edward E Hayle Resolution 352, April 5, l973, which supports only integrated programs of any nature being allowed or supported on any UW-System campus. It stated that “the worth of any program on any campus in the UW-System, including the propriety of ethnic centers, is whether or not such programs are priority ordered and directly supportive of the educational and academic mission of the university.”

These centers were anything but separate and segregate, they had strong social links to minority communities. The establishment of these centers were but one of the thirteen demands set forth by students of color in 1969, which demanded equal access to higher education. The result of the closing of these centers has led to the dwindling number of minorities and services we see today.

Take-over of these Centers began in l974 by a coalition of Red, Black, Brown, Yellow and White students. Paul Ginsberg, the UW power broker, afraid of another 1960′s war-at-home, set further the idea into motion conjuring up the multi-ethnic/multi-cultural scheme. The idea was and is a scam, put forth by the Dean of Students which violates students rights to organize as we see fit. We are guaranteed this right through shared governance (Chapter 36; Title VI:Educational Institutions-UW Systems); we cannot allow the University of Wisconsin Administration’s Dean of Students Office and Chancellor’s Offices to lead students of color by the hand. We demand self-determination. We must be allowed to structure and organize ourselves as student organizations.

The Multi-Cultural Council (MCC), Advanced Academic Program (AAP), Financial Aids and Admissions, the Minority Coalition (Holley Report), the “Interim” Multi-Cultural Center, Madison Plan… all fit into the same simple paradigm of people of color meeting only when the university administration consents to it.

State funding for minority/disadvantaged student programs stands at approximately 7.5 million dollars. Their failure to recruit and retain minority students on this campus is the most obvious and indicative type of racism evident to us at MEChA. We are tired of meeting with them and wasting our valuable time when they know that all these monies do is feed and further the pockets of bureaucracy.

We need Centers of Cultural Activity, yes, but not sanctioned, ordered, and ruled by the UW Administration, faculty and staff.  Chicano students are dissatisfied with this process. The University Administration’s compulsion to set the path for Chicano Studies through a Program rather than a Department is a perfect example of this.  It denies the Wisconsin Chicano student resolution of February 20, l982, when 450 Chicanos came together and voted that we did not want a “program” that can be cut at anytime, but a Department which is always there to protect its interest, La Raza’s interest.

We will not idly sit by and let high-priced help speak for us, and erode hard-earned gains put forth by our gente.  There are many People who do not share our goals and aspirations, but education, academia as the package that is sold in the US of A for us learn from, has to speak the truth, if we are to learn from it.

We see the University as something that should function for us.  Just like it functions certain assigned tasks and outputs for White’s in this Country, it must function for us too!

MEChA again reiterates its withdrawl from committees such as the Minority Coalition, the Multi-Cultural Council, and now, the Multi-Cultural Center Board, whose aim is to bring us together under the sanction and watchful eye of the UW-Administration.

MEChA instead extends an invitation and challenge to minority organizations (other than the one’s the UW Administration creates), to meet and investigate the fate of people of color on this campus without the scrutiny of the UW administration over us.

We see the need to investigate overt forms of Racism, but actions speak louder than words, and it is HERE that the UW-System has to be put on notice, that
failing to provide equal access to higher education to minorities and the poor will not be tolerated.

Higher Education cannot become a non-reality or dream–again–especially for people of color and the poor.  We will  no longer fight for crumbs against each other and instead formulate a real political strategy, and that must be our main objective.

A life-long member of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan.

Daniel Carrillo Gaytan

Popularity: 4% [?]

Chicano/a history on the New World is older than European occupation of it, in fact, as recently as the last decade Chicanos have increasingly seen their roots in Aztec or other meso-american pre-hispanic cultures. The acceptance of the term Chicano/a by the group as a whole, gained popularity in the 1960?s and 70?s, but lost momentum in the next twenty years as the government incorporated the term ?Hispanic? over this self-identifying term. The purpose of this paper is to examine and analyze the acceptance of the term Chicana/o today.
Chicanos exist, in large part, because of some shared historical experiences, which they are increasingly examining in their political, social and economic aspirations. In particular, they share a long historical development with their large numbers and geographic distribution, thereby maintaining a highly diverse and cultural people. Chicanos have a number of shared characteristics, but a common factor largely shared in their cultural identity, is the fact that they have come, more or less recently, from what is now Mexico. One source of the heterogeneity of the group is the fact that they came at different times, under different circumstances, and moved into different areas and ways of life in the United States of America.
As a people, Chicanos are the result of two people, Raza and Anglo-Americans, coming together in the southwestern United States, and the mid-west as well. The formation of Chicanos as an ethnic group involves the establishment of Chicanos in the southwest, beginning with the period of Spanish exploration and colonization, to the period of adjusting to Anglo domination in the last half of the nineteenth century.
The roots of many Chicanos can be traced to the period of immigration, particularly the first three decades of the twentieth century. A period that led to labor and community organization, it can be characterized by the years immediately following the Second World War up to the early 1960?s. The 1960?s entail a period that seeds the Chicano movimiento, which at that moment was just starting to emerge.
El movimiento grew with the rise of ethnic assertion and insurgence, it signifies the point of acceptance of the term Chicano/a. The movimiento in many respects, paralleled the massive Civil Rights movements which strengthened the acceptance of ethnic identity and cultural lifestyles, which had remained long oppressed in the United States of America. Pride for distinct cultures became a reality, it was produced and managed by members of society as a result of interacting with each other, thereby became established and continual in American society, Chicanos for one, refused to settle for the melting pot syndrome.
Defining the term Chicano/a is difficult, its origin begins with the Chicano finding his lands gone, his religion seriously challenged, and himself a citizen of a country whose language , laws, and social customs he did not understand, in short, he became a victim of cultural genocide. ( 2, 8 )
Before 1930, the United States Census Bureau had difficulty defining the population of Spanish speakers, they used a category of foreign birth, or an individual who had either one of his parents born in Mexico, which made up the group which today we call Chicano. As a result of this, the census failed to identify people of Mexican descent who were in the southwest before the arrival of Anglos. ( 3, 18 ) People who had become legal U.S. citizens as a result of the signing of the Treaty Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848, a treaty that stole Mexico?s former northwest territories.
The 1940 census counted people as ?Spanish-speaking?, this applied to those for whom Spanish was the native language and had grown up speaking Spanish at home. This was not a successful process. By the 1940s, a generation arose which may be identified as Chicano/a, of which many may have reported English as a first language. A Spanish surname became the criterion for the census of the 1950?s and 1960?s, excluding those who may have married an Anglo and who consider themselves Chicano but were not counted because they did not have a Spanish surname. This also goes for those who had married Chicanos, of non-Chicano origin, being counted part of the Chicano population. It also would have included immigrants who came from Spanish-speaking countries other than Mexico. ( 3, 19 )
The 1970?s brought a more specific census, collecting information on Spanish surname, foreign parentage or birth, and whether the first language spoken was Spanish or not. A category was opened in which people could report whether they spoke the Spanish mother tongue and/or were Spanish surnamed in the states that make up the southwest, it would supposedly define Spanish Heritage. Those who reported their origin as Mexican, Puerto Rican, Central or South American, or ?Other Spanish?, were defined as part of the Spanish Origin category. Finally in 1972 and 1973 the category ?Mexican? was replaced with the category ??Mexicano or Chicano?, as this is part of the period of the Chicano/a movimiento. ( 3, 20 ) This census depended on self-identification as well, as not all Chicanos may have fit into or accepted the definition of Chicano/a at the time, but basically, the term was primarily limited to Chicanos for many years. It is at this juncture that many have argued over the usage and origin of the word Chicano. Some argue that its origin is ancient, deriving from the Nahuatl word for ?Mexican? or ?Azteca?, while a less evaluated interpretation, is that it is a distorted or Americanized version of ?’Mexicano’?. Many view the word Chicano, like a pocho, which is a tainted or contaminated ‘Mexicano’, linguistically and geographically removed from the Mother country, Mexico. While others feel it has a paradoxical meaning like ?nigger? or ?queer?, pejorative when used by outsiders and positive when used by insiders. ( 2, 10 ) But more significantly, it is a term that has been adopted by Chicanos themselves. It can long be argued whether a label depends on what is practiced or what is meant, but the most important criterion in terms of selecting a label, is whether the concepts as mentioned above, are acceptable by the signified in language. ( An example of this is to think of a tree, is the tree that you?re thinking about the same tree I?m thinking about? )
Dealing with Mexican descent, some prefer to label themselves as Mexican-American, while for others Mexican or Mejicano is suffice. The more marketable terms of today are Hispano, Latino, and Latin-American. Some even prefer the term Hispanic, a conservatively blanketing term of the mid-1980?s to mid-1990?s, with origins to the old umbrella term, Spanish-American. The calling of the word Chicano is a relatively new and recent experience.
Though in context, ?Mexican-American? for many Chicanos connotes middle-class respectability which is palatable to Anglos, it generally lumps such persons with other hyphenated American groups, ie., Irish-American, German-American Italian-American,?, into reinforcing the melting-pot concept. The terms ?Hispanic? and ?Latino? are euphemistic and fail to differentiate Chicanos from other Spanish-speaking people. ( 2, 11 ) Chicanos feel that the use of ?Hispanic? or ?Spanish? ties one to European and Caucasian roots,it confuses the Chicano, whose lineage is predominantly Indigenous. In other words, these terms provide a way for Mexicans living in the United States to assimilate, to become ?non-colonized? and non-Chicano.
The term Chicano is historically and politically leaden, while the two terms, Mexican-American and Hispanic, undo the long history of Chicanos, in my view. The quick use of these two labels, deny an important aspect of one?s heritage. It is natural for Anglos to come up with these labels, many reject the idea that Chicanos are a colonized people because formally they have the same rights as other citizens, and the notion that there are enough success stories of Chicanos circulating to provide a myth of equality, though culturally, the values and language of Chicanos have no formal or legitimate standing within American society. (2,10)

Chicanos today are not formally colonized. They constitute an internal colony within the territorial boundaries of the United States. The internal colony is a de facto one, with formal and legal equality but informally excludes from the legal political system. ?Internal colonialism means that Chicanos as a cultural / racial group exist in an exploited condition.? ( 2, 9 )

The American-born Chicano finds himself in a particularly ambivalent situation in that the Mexican-born National never lets him forget that he is not ?really? Mexican, and the Anglo never lets him forget that he is not really from here. A neither-here-nor-there syndrome emerges, but it is this hostility of and towards the image of Chicanos by Anglos and Mexicans which reinforces cohesion within the Chicano group. These images provide a rationale for continued social separation, and at the same time, it provides social ties and change into Chicano culture at a minimum.
Language is also a cohesive factor among Chicanos with respects to their isolation from Anglos. When my parents were growing up in Texas, they were forbidden to speak Spanish in school, including recess periods, in order that they ?learn English more rapidly?. Anglos designated ?Mexicans? as ?Spanish-speaking?, further developing a concept of self in Chicanos, positive or negative. This in turn, leads to the concepts of race, ethnicity and community being closely related. ( 1, 84 ) Strong pressure is applied to an individual if it appears that this individual who is a member of the community ( i.e. race, ethnicity ) is attempting to disassociate himself from it. We see this in the idea of ?La Raza?, the ?racial? and ?cultural? aspects which are inextricably intertwined. La Raza may be used as a neutral term, a positive term expressing pride in one?s national background, or used pejoratively to imply those aspects of the Mexican stereotype which are evaluated negatively: lazy, and therefore, poor, people with a mañana complex, who can never keep appointments on time. ( 1, 84 ) Many times it is used as a shorthand term for ?la gente de la Raza?, the people of the race. In English, La Raza would refer to ?our people?, not ?the race?. It loses the effort of conscious identification which this distinctive ethnic group enjoys in both a ?racial? and ?cultural? unity.
These labels arise from a kaleidoscope of diversity shared by La Raza. Chicanos are the second largest minority group in the nation, living in all parts of the United States and varying historical and cultural roots. ( 3, 21 ) It is in a sense marginal for Chicanos to live in an Anglo-dominated society, despite its diversity, Chicanos of Mexican descent, living in the United States, culturally neither Mexican nor American, yet influenced by both societies, form a colonized minority. ( 2, 14 )
The term Chicano is used to designate a person of Mexican descent who has been born in the United States, in order to distinguish from a citizen of Mexico, to whom … mejicano would be applied. (1,8) This statement is generally accepted as a rough definition of Chicano/a although with a diverse culture and people, the definition varies for many, further distinctions can be made, social reality being reflected. The person of Mexican descent is a participant in an ethnic culture, much of American culture being mediated to him. For example, a person living in Texas will call himself tejano, he considers himself a Chicano living in Texas. Years ago, Mexican Nationals were also referred to as mejicanos. They came to the United States legally through the Bracero Program to assist in harvesting seasonal crops. They were referred to as braceros, they in a sense are also the roots of many Chicanos in the United States today. Both of these groups tejanos and braceros, were said to be distinguishable by their clothes, hair styles, other behaviors, including walk, style of dancing, speech and attitudes…
( 1, 8 ) These characterizations of La Raza are still seen today. Texts state Mexicans who came to the United States were most typically peones and mestizos; with little formal education, possessing few special skills, and predominantly Catholic. ( 1, 25 )

Chicanos are powerless, lacking control over critical social institutions which have a direct impact on them. Barrio businesses are generally owned by outsiders, and the schools, political system, and other institutions are also controlled and administered outsiders. ( 2,9 )

The Mexican is a man ?subjugated to nature? helpless in a
universe which willfully and unpredictably follows rules of its
own. He is, further, a member of a society where men are not
equal, and where perfectibility, or development of any kind, is
not stressed. He simply is, and such significance as he enjoys
comes simply from being. ( 1, 32 )

In the United States, Americans tend to identify human beings with their work and success. The belief that all men are created equal can be found in the middle class exclusively.
Though the dominant society has sought to obliterate the Chicano culture and heritage, contemporary Chicanos recognize that their roots are in Mexico, not in the United States. ( 2, 14 ) An unstated goal of the movimiento was to restore pride and respect for the word Chicano, a movement for Chicanísmo and Carnalísmo ( sisterhood and brotherhood ). It parallels to why Black-Americans selected the word ?black?, to serve as a rallying point for its movement, and as a source of pride and dignity. ( 2, 11)
Generally, people whom I have asked formally whether they accepted the term ?Chicano/a? or not to identify themselves used the term, especially university students. Students felt the term is politically orientated. It is a word that signifies the political history of Mexican-Americans. One student felt the word pertained only to the ?political side? rather than the cultural aspect overall. It is stated that third and fourth-generation Chicanos tend to become more Americanized, although many, especially the college educated, are rediscovering their Mexican-Indigenous roots. ( 3, 10 )
I feel the term is gaining national popularity once again, though each definition is different generation to generation, more specifically for each individual who identifies with it. The uniqueness of the history behind the term makes it acceptable for those who use it with pride in this decade that has an undetermined name. Diverse characteristics and styles stress individualism, each year with a different mode can relate to the history of Chicanos, which is why I feel the term Chicano/a has become popular for this decade. The label of the 90?s decade has been discussed like the term Chicano/a, each generation of people will select a label they feel describes them best.

Bibliography

(1) Enriquez, Evangelina and Mirandé. La Chicana; The Mexican- American Woman. Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1979.

(2) Macklin, Barbara June. Structural Stability and Culture Change in a Mexican-American Community. New York, New York: Arno Press, 1976.

(3) Reich, Alice H. The Cultural Construction of Ethnicity; Chicanos in the University. New York, New York: AMS Press Inc., 1989.

(4) Rosaldo, Renato. Chicano: The evolution of a people. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Winston Press, 1973.

Popularity: 4% [?]

WW 2 ended the depression and ushered in an economic boom that lasted into the 1960′s peaking between 1940 to 1947.
According to some historians like Rudy Acuna, WW 2 also clarified many
contradictions in american society.  While xicanos earned an outstanding
war record, they were deprived of equal opportunities at home.  For
example, although opportunities for americans in general improved such as
in the employment sector as a result of the war economy , very few
mexicanos were able to improve their employment status even in the defense
industry . Those that were fortunate enough to  secure employment  in
defense industries were usually relegated to entry level positions and few
rose to supervisory positions . The result was that few mexicanos were able
to appreciate the gains in socio-economic status that the majority of
americans realized as a result of this post-economic boom.
And even less so than the bourgeois class.  According to R Acuna, the
war made a few capitalists overnight billionaires, subsidized in part by the
federal government to the tune of $100 billion dollars.  Almost 50% of
these defense contracts went to six corporations.  These industries also
reaped huge profits exploiting workers by freezing wages during the war,
with federal government complicity.  In addition to these exclusive and
limited opportunities, mexicanos also encountered deeply entrenched racist
hostility, in part due to the nationalist ideology created and propagated
by the federal government.  This nationalist ideology  became increasingly
xenophobic and nativist and extended from anti-German and anti-Japanese
to anti-minority and specifically anti-Mexican . In concrete terms, the
ideology affected Japanese American citizens most directly as evidenced by
the forced relocation and internment of over 120,000 Japanese Americans.
Many lost jobs, homes and property as a result.  Mejicanos also suffered
the ignominy of this racism.  Throughout the Southwest, various
organizations and individuals reported  increasing acts of violence.  In
smalls towns and large cities, they were victims of police brutality,
border harassment, and vigilante violence.
One of the most obvious expressions of the racism for mexicanos were
the Zoot Suit riots or more accurately the sailor riots in the Chicano East
LA barrio and probably the most concrete example of the political and
psychological persecution suffered by chicanos.  Carey McWilliams who has
written extensively on the mexicano experience equated the riots to a mass
lynching.
The riots involved sailors who systematically dragged young chicanos
out of public places in In East LA  and beat and stripped them.  These acts
of violence against chicanos, although not exclusively as Filipinos and
blacks suffered attacks as well were encouraged by the press, police and
members of the "responsible" LA community.  When members of the chicano
community attempted to defend themselves they were arrested.  The press ran
articles that perpetuated an atmosphere that encouraged  violence against
Zoot Suiters .  It took Mexican government intervention pressuring the
State Department to order Navy and Marine officials to end the riots since
LA oficials were unwilling.

Another example of the xenophobic , racist atmosphere that pervaded
during ww 2 was the Sleepy Lagoon Trial, where twenty-two members of a
chicano "gang" were charged with conspiracy to commit a murder. The trial
was described by some historians as a mockery of justice in the way the
youth were treated , the nature of the trial proceedings and particularly
the testimony of one Sheriff Lt. Duran, who testified that chicanos were a
genetically inferior, savage and violent people because of Xicano’s indio
heritage.  Essentially, we were culturally inferior hence explaining our
existence in barrios. Duran’s attitude characterized most people’s
attitudes at the time revealing the cultural determinist theory prevalent
at the time.
In response to the conviction of the chicano youth, a Sleepy Lagoon
defense committee was formed but was quickly subjected to police brutality
and federal harassment and labelled communist.  Other examples of police
and government authorities strengthening social control of Mexicanos groups
were the FBI infiltration of such mainstream and politically middle of the
road organizations like the League for Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and
the GI Forum , patriotic groups that potentially posed no danger to the
power structure but characteristic of the racist and  anti-communist
hysteria that gripped the country at the time and was to become. even more
acute after WW2.
In the midst of these deplorable conditions, chicanos contributions to
the war effort at the war front and domestically was significant, as many
chicanos were inducted and served in the war, as many as 500,00 by some
estimates.  They fought in many battles , earning many honors and earned
the distinction of being the most decorated ethnic group in the war.  They
also suffered a high percentage of casulties, as high as 25% of the losses
in some  of the major battles and 20% of the East LA chicano community.
These figures represent a percentage much higher than the general chicano
population of the country at the time, estimated to be at 10 % in 1940.
To some degree, the experience of war, world travel and equal
treatment in the armed services and the education afforded returning
veterans created many of the future leaders of groups like the GI Forum and
LULAC.  The GI Forum  was in fact created by returning GI’s to address
inequities in the economic, social and political
arenas.                          Some of the more prominent intellectual
leaders of the period were George I Sanchez , Carlos Castaneda and Ernesto
Galarza themselves veterans of the war.  They authored books on the
mejicano experience and sat on federal committes that dealt with issues and
concerns of the Mexican American community, the first Mexican Americans to
do so.
Another example of Mexican American contribution to the war effort was
the work done by La Associacion Hispano American De Madres y Esposa.  The
function of the organization was similiar to other patriotic groups raising
war bonds and stamps (as much as $1 million in one year purchased by the
Mexican American community), collecting clothing for the Red Cross and
publishing a newspaper featuring stories of Mexican American soldiers which
served to boost their morale. There many other mexijicano groups doing
similiar work attesting to the patriotism and support of the war effort by
the mexican American community as a whole.
The large participation of mejicanos in WW2 removed them from the
fields and railroads where the majority of them labored resulting in an
acute labor shortage in the agricultural industry and also provided an
impetus to the urbanization of the mejicano .  This opened up some
employment opportunities for Mexican American women in the war industries
like textiles, aircraft, shipbuilding and food processing plants according
to Ricardo Romo.
In response to the the labor shortage In the agricultural sector
created by the war, the US government entered into an agreement with Mexico
to supply the much needed labor.  Public Law-45 (PL-45) was enacted by
Congress that allowed for the importation of Mexivan nationals and was
commonly referred to as the Bracero Program.  The agreement included
provisions that theoretically guaranteed Mexican workers various
protections and rights, like establishing fair wages,  protection from
discrimination,  regulation of housing and transportation and also had
provisions that provided protection of domestic workers from displacement.
In reality,  according to two historians who documented the Braceros
experience, Ernesto Galarza and  E. Gamboa. the braceros were paid less
than the prevailing wage, suffered rampant discrimination and racism, poor
living conditions such as poor quality of food, lack of adequate health
care and dangerous work conditions.  In sum, although their civil rights
were protected by contract, once in the US growers exploited them with no
legal or administrative relief offered by the federal government.  Many
braceros formed labor unions and organizations as they sought to increase
their wages and improve their treatment on and off the job many times at
the risk of violent retribution or deportation.
The Federal government through various mechanisms judicially,
legislatively and through federal agencies like the Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) in collusion with the growers also used the
Bracero Program to glut the labor market as  a means to depress wages and
used to break strikes as well.
Although the Bracero program was ostensibly created to address the WW2
labor shortage in agricultural industry, it was eventually extended to
1964  with the numbers of imported braceros increasing from 50,000 in 1943
to as many as 450,000 by the mid 1950′s.  The program provided agribusiness
and the US government with cheap exploitable labor and was used a tool by
growers to keep organized labor at bay and in a weakened state.
According to Christine Sierra, who has written on Xicano political
development, the importation of Mexican labor has historically served two
strategically important functions: to depress wages and to break strikes.
It also serves agribusinesss interests by driving the small farmer and
tenant farmer from agricultural land thus increasing racial divisions,
creates divisions among workers in labor struggles w/ capital and it has
also contributed to internal splits within the mexican community.  Witness
thre political struggles between Cesar Chavez of the UFW and other Xicano
labor and immigrant support groups over the issue of organizing
undocumented workers in the 70′s , ultimately resulting as fetters on
chicano political development at the time.
It finally took Chicano groups ,the AFL-CIO and a Democratic
Administration in the 60′s to end one of capitalism’s cheap labor supply.
In fact, just as recently as 1982 a revival of the Bracero program in the
guise of  the Simpson-Mazzoli bill included temporary worker provisions
which provided  employers with mexican and foreign labor that essentially
would create a labor force that lacked the basic worker protections
afforded domestic workers and as recent history has shown these laborers
have suffered the same racism , discrimination and hardships that earlier
braceros suffered.  Same racist, anti- Mexican and anti-labor policy,
different name.
In the final analysis, despite the tremendous social and economic
transformations wrought by WW2, the socioeconomic status of mexican
americans, the discrimination and racism they suffered, overt and
institutional,  remained constant for the most part.   These contradictions
are graphically pointed out by R. Acuna–that while the US was involved in
WW2 to free the world from fascism and restore democracy in other parts of
the world, here at home people of color and specifically  Xicanos suffered
from political, economic, social and cultural oppression and repression .

Popularity: 4% [?]

In Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, we see a Laguna Pueblo man, Tayo, face the challenges of everyday existence on a reservation, surrounded by the ever conflicting and encroaching world of mass communication, technology and war.

Tayo is part Indian and part Euro-american, he has green eyes
from whoever his father was.  His mother has supposedly dishonored
the tribe by choosing the Euro-american World over the Indian World.
When Tayo is a young boy, his mother leaves the reservation with some
men, and leaves him in the care of ‘Auntie’ (sister to his mother),
Robert (husband of ‘Auntie’), Josiah (brother to his mother) and his
‘new’ brother Rocky (son of ‘Auntie’ and Robert).  Tayo is extremely
resentful of this and is faced with a future of coldness and
separation from his Auntie who values Rocky above all for his desire
to expand and join to the outside world.  The ideal for Rocky is to
get out of the misery lifestyle of the reservation as quickly as
possible, while the ideal for Tayo is to grow up and help Josiah with
the rancho.

It is interesting to note that as Tayo and Rocky grow up we see
two contrasting views from two men, one, wanting to come-in to the
circle of the people on reservation and gain acceptance, the other,
wanting and waiting for the moment to come-out.  Eventually Rocky
convinces Tayo to enlist in the Marines as brothers.  It is here that
we see a dramatic shift in their lives, they are men now, off in
uniform meeting new men and women, they are not counting coup, but
mangling the enemy with machine guns, mortar, and jungle warfare.
The  enemy is Japanese, a very formidable foe.

Within the story we see Tayo remenbering his past.  He
remembers the death of Rocky, remembering that when he was carrying
Rocky’s wounded body on the stretcher he fell in the mist of the
raining jungle, he falls from exhaustion and his captors put the
blanket covering Rocky’s body over Rocky’s head, and with the butt of
the rifle break the head like the busting of a gourd.  He remembers
lining up Japanese soldiers to be shot and then magically sees one
who is his Uncle Josiah.  He remembers swatting away and killing many
flies in the jungle, a mistake, for it is the green bottle-nose fly
that will go on a journey, as his Uncle Josiah had told him, and ask
Grandmother Spider to return the rains and the animals for food.   He
finally remembers and finds himself cursing and chanting away the
rain, something his people are not to do, for it is rain in the
southwest that has special mystical and significant meaning.
Everything that lives has thorns or horns. or is poisonous.  The area
still enjoys a large number of pumas, bobcats, coyotes, guahalotes,
javalinas, deer , and the ever present varities of snakes, and in
some places the mountain lions.

Guilt and shame for his transgressions have left Tayo ill on
the reservation, his past has caught up with him.  Pueblo society is
strongly and intricately webbed with a fine weaving of religion,
culture and an endless pageant of ceremonials.  These ceremonies
permeate into all aspects of their society.  Any activity a human
being does is strongly centered around religious systems of song,
dance, poetry, and cosmic mythology.  There is no escaping it.  It is
woven into the whole fabric of the universe.  And with this Tayo is
stuck, in trouble, ill for the evil magic is loose in him.  The magic
practiced in these rites are sun and rain for the people.  The
journey transpires into a curing ceremony, but the old ceremony, as
practiced by the Medicine Man Ku’oosh is not enough.  Something more
powerful has to come forth for the cure.  A ceremony has to be
altered, changed and manifested for this new strong evil within to be
removed, the ceremony cannot remain constant, or the same, for it
stagnates and becomes ineffective against witchery, for witchery
learns the new turns the ceremony makes each time.  Many on the
reservation who have gone on this new world order of war are sick
also, and ‘el viejito’ Ku’oosh is baffled by the sickness and its
immunity to the old ceremonial cures.

Tayo is thus sent away to the Gallup, Arizona, to see another
Medicine Man, Betonie, a Navajo living on the outskirts of the Gallup
Ceremonial on touristic highway 66.  He sees many drunks inhabiting
this  area; Indian people lost in a system that has forgotten them to
strong drink and fast life, Tayo questions why such a medicine man
lives here, and Betonie tells him that it is here where he is most
needed by his people.

It is Betonie that lets Tayo  uncover the enemy for the first
time, he discovers that it is witchery, Ck’o'yo, and the evil magic
it has concocted with its words. The people have befallen into
witchery and stagnate because old rituals remain the same.  Tayo
becomes Sun Man’s analog to retrieve the rain clouds from the evil
gambler.  So with no rain, the devastation of the Laguna people sits
on Tayo’s shoulders who commits himself to the ritual quest with
Betonie and his Bear assistant.

Sitting in the center of the white corn sand painting Tayo
begins his voyage in the West, painting the hoops burried as mountain
ranges around him.  Finishing blue, yellow and white bear paw prints
around Tayo, Betonie gives Tayo a basket with prayer sticks to hold.
The whirling darkeness goes to the North, East, South, West, and then
the Middle.  The bear appears and Tayo is cut in the top of his
forehead, and guided and prayed into each of the bear footprints and
five hoops.  He dreams of speckled cattle scattering and disappearing
into the southwest mesa, Pa’to’ch.  But even though witchery begins
to leave him the ceremony is not complete.  Witchery is still pulling
them southward.

The ceremony continues and the conception of witchery is still
there.  As he is walking East on the way home, Harley and Leroy pick
him up as they are coming from the West with, Helen Jean an Ute
woman.  He starts drinking again and it seems he is getting back to
the same old thing.  But he meets the Hunter and Ts’eh on Mt. Taylor
from the Eastern direction from Gallup, and now he receives his
hunting and true warrior knowledge.  He takes back the cattle which
have been stolen from some white ranchers.  It is here that
old-grandfather mountain lion appears to him and gives him the
warrior strength he needs to survive.   He sprinkles yellow pollen
for it to return good news for Tayo’s people.

During his return he meets the Hunter, what he believes is
Ts’eh husband, and helps to connect him to the land and Our
Grandmother, through the usage and ritual use of plants, herbs and
their respective planting.

In the South, high in the hills over the Canoncito, he realizes
that his supposed friends are not his friends, and runs into the old
uranium project mine.  It is here that the major witchery of all was
created, the bomb of bombs.

To Tayo’s surprise he sees Emo, Pinkie and Leroy coming there
and burning tumbleweeds in the dark.  He hears loud noises from the
trunk and realizes that they have Harley in the trunk, punishing him
for letting Tayo escape.  With a screwdriver in his hand he is about
to jump out and kill Emo, when a final revelation appears to him, and
he realizes that is what witchery wants him to do.

He sees the scenario in the paper, “A Bunch Of Drunks Kill A
Drunk,” and he wakes up from committing this dishonor.

Sun Man has restored the rain clouds, he is the protector of
his children, the ‘Shiwana.’  He is home at last, loved by Ku’oosh
and Thought Woman.  Emo, evil, returns West to plan his next return.

Tayo has moved through every powerful direction of the Laguna
sacred landscape.  Through the Ghostway ceremony on the Navajo
reservation, he loosens witchery, which now spins back to the west.

Sun man protected the Shiwana Rain Clouds from the Gambler who
would snatch them from the mountain tops.  With this realignment,
Grandmother Spider’s cycle continues, and all is well for the moment.

The circle having been completed Sun Man is back with his people and
the story will be told.

Rocky was  wrong:
Indian ways are certainly the best for his people for Sunrise begins.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Revolutionary movements cannot develop equal forms of development,  distinct and equal to that countries” masses, without first destroying  counterrevolutionary forces which follow their road for independence. It  must continue to pursue the road to independence based on the complete  victory of the revolution. The Mexican revolution is a case in point, it  did not do that.  The struggle was at first a struggle to solve the problems of  agrarian reform, breaking-up the large estate latifundios, haciendas,  encomiendas, and rancherias, run by Caciques, Criollos and Caudillos. Its  original aim was also to stop the violent suppression of the campesino and  the Indio and prevent further deterioration and appropriation of people”s  lands. The revolution was a process to eliminate political and economic  corruption which in many times went hand-in-hand ie. graft, election fraud,  United States intervention, …. . But the revolution failed in achieving  its full end, it did not go far enough, it left intact ultrareactionary  conservative forces more interested in gain and themselves, than the pain  and misery of its people.  Did Artemio Cruz, or better yet, Cruz Artemio, betray the  revolution? That is the subject and focus of this paper, it is based on  History 557 lecture notes and books, an in-class debate held Nov. 19, 1991,  my own personal experiences, knowledge and readings on the matter, and the  ongoing saga of papers, news and periodicals that elucidate Mexico”s  current condition further. My own feelings and emotions on the revolution  have been shaped as a Chicano in America, raised on the tradition of  Mexican Corridos and Rancheras, called by many, Musica Nortena, for it  represents Mexico”s rich northern popular folk music that eulogize the heroic actions of that period. It is difficult, especially in a  post-structural sense, to come 100 years later and say that, “The Revolution  meant something,” but it did, most especially to the many who died in it. The social-political antecedents, factors that clearly point to  social unrest and upheaval, demonstrate that on October 5th, 1910, with the  Plan de San Luis, proclaimed by Francisco Madero in San Antonio, Texas,  after having been released from jail in San Luis, Potosi, that the complete  overthrow of Porfirio Diaz and his regime, was imminent. It is the  middle-class entrepreneurial segment that took a risk and joined  Anti-reelectionist Clubs. It is these same businesses in this period of  industrialization and commerce that gives an important boost and augments  revolutionary fervor. It is the Flores Magon radicalism that sets the  stage for Madero Liberalism. It appealed to the people, and one thing was for  sure, and that was the Porfiriato had became the object of Mexico”s woes at the time.  The authoritarian regime with its Rurales and Federal Armies were no match  for the inevitable, change.  And in the middle of this debate starts the side that Artemio Cruz,  a fictitious character in Carlos Fuentes” book The Death Of Artemio Cruz,  “Did Betray The Revolution” because the soical foundations for a revolution  were present and was usurped by men like Carranza, Obregon, and people like Artemio Cruz. That people rising through the ranks of “…armies like  Carranza”s…” took control and eventually landed in power in the “… new  constitutionalists revolutionary regime…”. They further state, that it  was the sacrifices of people like Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa that  embodies the true revolutionary spirit, and that the era of reforms was  for the redistribution of wealth equally along class lines and amongst the  less fortunate. Debaters say that it was the obstruction of reforms put into effect during the 1915-1920, for redistribution, was altered by established  members of the bourgeoisie, a social group opposed to the proletariat in  the class struggle in a pre-capitalist mode of production, whatever that  may mean.  The problematic here is that nothing is properly being placed in  historical perspective to the 1915-1918 revolutionary era.  There is a decline in the popular revolution during this time. The Plan de Ayala was put forth in November of 1911. By the 1914  the popular armies and agendas had already played key roles in transforming  the Mexican government to change its course. Madero had already been in  power and there had been no change, his ideal was for slow gradual reforms, betraying the popular armies that put him there. When Huerta  assasinates Madero it is again the popular armies that intervene and say no to Huerta, but this happened in the 1st half of the decade not the latter half that is never mentioned in debate. During the second half of the decade,  1916-20, the Constitutionlists Conventions of 1916-17 was a see-saw, a back and forth type of thing between Carranza an ardent anti-progressive element  to the revolution, for he turned against social reforms and the will of the  people which ultimately brings Obregon to power.  Government agreements were forged by Obregon to get labor to help fight Villa. They created the red brigades which broke Villa in the end, but support for labor given the promises of Carranza and Obregon were later recanted by Carranza, Artemio Cruz’s boss. The association of Artemio Cruz  to Carranza, a major counter-revolutionary, is never made by the “Did Betray  the Revolutionary” side of this debate. It also never made the connection that the Queretaro  Constitutionalist Convention of 1917, was a bourgeois intent, and only  people who accepted the Plan de Guadalupe were allowed to participate. The  reason for this is that Carranza does not want a repeat of the October,  1914, Aguascalientes convention, where Zapata and Villa solidified their  objectives, one of which was making Carranza the new pariah of the  revolution. It was never stressed that only people, like Artemio Cruz,  young middle-class and politically ambitious, were allowed to be  representatives, officers from the Constitutionalist Army. Over half  delegates had university educations and professional titles, and 30 percent  were military men like Artemio Cruz who supported Carranza or Obregon.  This was the new era of social elitism evaded by the, “Did Betray The  Revolution” side of the debate.  Further arugument centered around how Artemio Cruz had a choice in betraying the goals of the revolution by not adhering to social issues like agrarian reform and education, and maintaining questionalble corrupt labor  alliances like the “Fat Man” who headed CROM. By this, they stated, he had  been responsible for all the choices he made, from using his name as a  Prestanombre for United States mineral companies to excavate under his  name, a violation of economic nationalism which is a general recognition of  the nations right to all mineral deposits afforded in the Mexican  ”Revolutionary” consitution.  The idea presented by the “did betray the revolution” group is that  Artemio Cruz betrayed the revolution by chosing personal gain over  revolutionay ideals. When in the Teens and 20”s, radical legislation was  put forward towards marital rights, local democracy, public universal and secular education, agrarian reform, expropriation of the large estate, suffrage, redistribution of lands, nationalization of mineral rights, and the rights guaranteed to workers, and Artemio Cruz, thoughout the book, shows that he does not support these efforts.  I note, the 1910-20′s was the violent period of the Mexican  Revolution, but it was not the end, it follows a period of socio-poitical  and economic reconcilitation and reconstruction. Not pointed out also in this discusion is that the older and richer Artemio Cruz is used as a  protege, a successful and ”heroic” example of the revoution. Something  completely ironic. Artemio becomes the byproduct of the new success story  in the revolution, and he builds his wealth on the hacienda itself  (again!). It is important to stress here that if Artemio is going to play  that, especially since we know his history, then he does become the new  counter-revolutionary figure instead.  Arguments put forth by the ”did betray” side did not substantiate  their position fully, stressing things like the novel being a dual  description in a process of decay, that is, that the man as a model to the  revolution decays in bed, reminiscing his life, and as his life rots so does the revolution. Similarly, to the man who wrote the novel, who  accepted a post as ambassador to London.  Does Artemio Cruz know what he is doing, is their a degree of  consciousness in choosing to be part of the process that reverses the goals  of the revolution. A closer examination of the text reveals that Fuentes”  current avant garde mentality, a view that the Malinche is a wound that  welcomes the conquest and breeds the “hijo de la chingada” is a very  ridiculour picture picture of the revolution by Fuentes. La madre Mexicana  es el amor y esta lleno de respecto, I have yet to see otherwise. Artemio”s life with his uncle Lunero is a very beutiful lifestyle on  the beach, interrupted only by the agents of a fixed past and vivid future  that Fuentes presents.. This is the only part of the story that disagrees  with my interpretation of it completely, that in being a green-eyed Cruz, a  bastard son, he had a choice to uphold the revolution rather than  selling-out. Artemio had no choice because he is at the whim of the  writers imagination, Fuentes can take him anywhere, and he did.  The book is full of choices that Artemio makes in his life. He  chooses to deceive Don Gamaliel and his dauther about Gonzalo, he abandons  the wounded soldier alone to die, he has his paper print lies about the  Mexican revolution being “orderly” versus the Cuban revolution being  violent and bloody (talk about revisionist history), he plays games with  his last will and rights document by hiding it from his wife and daughter,  he sells himself to his son as some great leader of the revolution, he  violently steals from the Indian peasants. Did Artemio Cruz betray the  revolution by choosing to represent himself as the embodiment of that  revolution?  The second team, the “Did not betray the revolution,” argues through  a three point plan. One, that the revolution was not betrayed by Artemio  Cruz for the fact that the revolution was split into factions. Second.  the character of Artemio Cruz as a motivator. Third, the argument that  Fuentes” novel is a fictional critique of Mexican revolution as a whole,  and not an indictment of Artemio Cruz as a person.  The first team argued that Artemio Cruz was not fighting for peasant  causes but for a different set of ideologies, stressing that factionalism  fractionalized the revolution and thus no betrayal of the revolution when  you side unconsciously and inevitalbly. A person is responsible for their  actions no matter what side you take, there is always a reason for a  difference in argument or opinion, Villa and Zapata did not side with  Obregon and Carranza for two major reasons. One, that agrarian reform shoul d be a priority in the list of objectives, two, political autonomy, so laws  like Ley Lerdo and Terrenos Baldios would stop taking peoples lands away  from them.  The character of Artemio, as a concept of himself as an individual,  his will to survive, and his ambition, supposedly points to some obvious  conclusion that he did not betray the revolution because he did not believe  in it, is a very valid and just argument, but these traits are inherent in  everyone, Zapata, Villa, Obregon, Carranza, everyone with a desire to live  and beleve in something. The revolution is a desire for change and  everyone has their set agenda to either help it or abuse it, Artemio Cruz  chose the latter. In Page 177-178 when he is arguing for Col. Zagal to  shoot the man not the soldier, it is his will to survive, trying every  method possible to live, including coercing with the enemy. Thinking of  the person as an individual not as an actor in the revolution shows Artemio  being scared of death and cheating it in every way possible. His love for  Regina is part of that lofty and the beutiful desire and ideal to survive,  yet she dies, and he survies, leaving a legacy of spite that incites him to  the anger in shooting his through the enemy camp, he should have  demonstrated this valiance before this fatalistic experience, maybe then,  fictitiously, she might have lived. His rejection of death as an ideal  for freedom, for me, is an expression in which he shares more the feeling  of pain for the revoltion than its promise.  Was Artemio Cruz guided by revolutionay ideals? Now we see the true  issue of this debate arising. Artemio Cruz was guided by the spoils of  change as many benfited from it, as Ramon Ruiz has stated. Artemio Cruz is  only a particulate of the many who chose to diffuse the actual agenda of  the peasant poor who joined ranks with Zapata and Villa.   CONCLUSION: We see then, that the Artemio Cruz of this book, is one of many, that is,  those who reversed the process of revolution for personal gain. By now,  coming close to the end of the semester, I have come to realize that the  status of Mexican Revolution was and is a truly dynamic one full of  players. What Artemio Cruz represents to me is an imaginary  counterrevolutionary player that may very well exist in the ruling Partido  Revolucionario Institucional (P.R.I.) in Mexico, today. It is thus my opinion and my conclusion; and I changed my mind after  writing this paper; that Artemio Cruz DID betray the revolution, and the  Did Not Betray side won (this decision remains the same as my vote).  For how can you betray something that you do not beleve in, was the  point that hit home, yet still be in it and sell yourself off as its  supposed hero, that, to me, is a conscious betrayal.

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