Constructing Identities in Mexican-American Political Organizations: Choosing Issues, Taking Sides

7. Conclusion

7. Conclusion Public opinion polls reveal that Mexican Americans have a strong interest in the problems facing their people, believe discrimination continues to be a significant problem, and maintain that Mexican Americans have an obligation to help one another (De la Garza et al. ; Welch and Sigelman ). Polls, however, tell us little about the ways that those beliefs will be articulated in the political sphere (Mindiola and Gutierrez ). Mexican Americans are so diverse socially, economically, and ideologically that broad appeals to group loyalty are unlikely to mobilize a large constituency for an extended period. Organizations that diminish intragroup differences are likely to produce ineffective and unstable organizations with marginally committed members (Friedman and McAdam ).The best example of this failed strategy is the League of United Latin American Citizens, a group incapacitated by vaguely stated goals and an amorphous Latino identity. A combination of institutionalization and stiff competition from ethnic and nonethnic organizations has undermined LULAC’s appeal and undercut its membership base (Márquez ). In contrast, the organizations in this book bristle with energy and purpose. They also have long histories of articulating innovative visions of life and society in the United States. SNEEJ activists cut their political teeth in the radicalism of the Chicano Movement in the s, and the IAF first expanded into the Southwest during the s with the formation of the Community Service Organization in Los Angeles. The Texas Association of Mexican American Chambers of Commerce was formed in the mid-s but can trace its lineage to the s. Finally, MANA: A National Latina Organization is the oldest continually active network of MexicanAmerican women and the only Mexican-American organization to maintain a continuous presence in the nation’s capital since . Conclusion 113 Each of these organizations is committed to serving the MexicanAmerican population, but with its own definition of group ties and obligations. Race, Class, and Culture and Political Identities In the course of my research for this project, I found that discussions of identity and politics in academic and popular circles tended to conflate racial identities with a loosely formulated liberal or radical agenda. It is true that many Mexican-American activists believe racial justice can only be achieved by a large, activist government or by changes in the structure of society and the economy. There are also those who believe that it is possible to achieve racial justice by other means. For example, while conducting research on TAMACC, I interviewed one of its former activists who dismissed its politics as a smoke screen for an underhanded, self-serving political agenda. He believed that people who had achieved success in the business world were in a good position to manipulate the system and use their power to aid the poor. Their failure to adopt a more radical agenda left him deeply embittered, and he charged that ‘‘TAMACC people would have loved to have been born Anglo, but they weren’t. It’s their fate. If they could, they would have left it long ago.’’ For this former TAMACC activist, one’s racial status carries a set of political attitudes and obligations that are unambiguous , compelling, and at odds with those of TAMACC. In the mid-s the Chicano Movement era poet Neftali de Leon used the same primordial sentiments to come to a completely different conclusion. For De Leon, TAMACC’s racial and business activism was part of a larger growth of Chicano cultural nationalism . He believed that this new class of ethnic entrepreneurs would be guided by a sharing, humanistic ethic. In  he published a poem in the TAMACC convention program celebrating the creation of a Chicano chamber of commerce. In this poem filled with primordial references to brotherhood, a common Aztec heritage, and cultural pride, De Leon gave voice to his belief that this group of free-market capitalists was emerging as a force for radical social change: Y canto con amor y calma I sing with love and calm —no puede estar muy lejos —it cannot be very far compañeros compañeros el gran renacimiento the great rebirth 114 Mexican-American Political Organizations del pueblo nahuatl from the Nahuatl people el pueblo de la Raza— the people of la Raza— que en otros tiempos that in other times construyera estelas built trails poetas y martillos poets and hammers fábricas y centros que companies and centers that enseñaban que el...