Panel Chair: So, Pocha, would you like to replace me as presiding officer of this panel, which will now be a permanent panel at [regional MLA] starting next year?
Me: Yes!
Panel Chair: Great!
Me: Where is it next year, anyway?
Panel Chair: Hawaii.
Great conference, my paper went well, but my hotel is loud. I can hear the conversation, word by word, in the room next to mine. SHUT UP!
It dawned on me that I haven’t updated y’all about this. I’m staying put. Let’s just say there is now incentive to stay put, and this is a good thing. I heart Crunchyville U.
Let’s spice things up, shall we? Here’s what we’ve been looking at in my gen ed lecture course. You know what that means: PowerPoint slides. Lots of them! (Hope you can see the .jpegs)
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In some ways, it all starts in 1848, which is when the United States completed its annexation of Northern Mexico. Yes, Cali used to be Mexico. I know. Crazy!
***
Buying Northern Mexico posed a little problem. “The Mexican Problem,” to be precise. What to do with all those darkies? Hey! Let’s disseminate vicious racial stereotypes so that people don’t mind if we dispossess them of their native land. Take this dime novel (look down). Now that’s a scary Mexican!
***
Manifest Destiny worked for a while. But by 1910 the proletariado mexicano from the other side of the border decided now would be a good time to fight government corruption. I wonder if that’s Pancho Villa on the right. ¡Viva la revolucion!
***
This little revolution destroyed the Mexican economy (which was pretty messed up to start with). So, sure enough, more Mexicans crossed the border. Hundreds of thousands of them! Time to rally the Texas Rangers and implement full-scale frontier justice. Must keep the newly arrived in their place. Nobody will care. After all, they’re just a bunch of dirty, savage Mescins. Didn’t you read those dime novels?
***
Actually, that’s not true. Américo Paredes cared. A lot. So he decided to get himself a Ph.D. and write a dissertation on the messed up history of the American southwest. It pissed a lot of historians off. But they were just jealous because he not only got to revise history, he managed to publish his dissertation immediately and landed a sweet tenure-track job at UT Austin. Here’s a cover of his famous dissertation-turned-historical document:
***
You see kids, people like Paredes started a new revolution. The Chicano Movement, which began in the 1940s but peaked in the late 1960s. While MLK Jr. was fighting his good fight, people like César Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales were fighting theirs. Brown Power, baby. Brown. Power.
***
El movimiento inspired an explosion of award-winning Chicano novels. We’re talking international awards, people. Take this novel by Tómas Rivera. It touched the hearts of European and Latin American activists and intellectuals. There were many more novelists, even some amazing poets and painters, and they all make up the Chicano Renaissance. The art during this time is innovative, politically poignant, and beautiful, but most Americans don’t know about it. I wonder why that is.
***
Well, that’s it for now. Stay tuned for the next lecture, when we discuss why some Chicana writers found el movimiento to be a little too heavy on the machismo, if you know what I mean.
I actually bought these today, after dropping Bumpy off at school. Although I don’t teach on Tuesdays, I still go into work to prep or read for research projects. But this morning I decided to buck the trend and went downtown to find myself a spankin’ new pair of black knee high boots. Aren’t they wonderful? I chose these because they’re both incredibly comfortable (and warm), but they’re not entirely boring. I can’t do heels (envy my colleagues who can), so I wanted a flat sole.
Next up: a few knee-length skirts and lots of bright and colorful tights. Because aging hipsters have a right to have fun, too, you know.
Dear Students:
Why oh why does the idea of racism freak you out? Why are you so reluctant to recognize that “race,” although not a biological reality, fundamentally influences the distribution of wealth, health care, and quality education in the U.S.? Race might not be in our DNA, but it’s embedded in our social discourse and cultural imaginary (Iraq War and Transformers, I’m looking at you.) Perhaps you just don’t read the social text as closely as you do your iPhones and Twilight novels.
What is at the bottom of your generation’s anxiousness over racism? Why do you so uniformly shy away from “the R word” ? What about racism frightens you so. damn. much?
I really want to know.
PS: No offense to Twilight fans.
