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Chapter 7. The Chicano Movement and Cultural Citizenship
- University of Texas Press
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▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ chapter 7 the chicano movement and cultural citizenship At the end of World War II, Mario Suárez returned from serving in the U.S. Navy to find that the barrios of Tucson where he had been born and raised had barely changed. In a short story he wrote in 1947, Suárez compared the El Hoyo barrio to capirotada, a traditional Mexican dish made with a base of “old, new, stale, and hard bread.” One could add any number of ingredients , including “raisins, olives, onions, tomatoes, peanuts, cheese, and general leftovers,” and then season it with “salt, sugar, pepper, and sometimes chili or tomato sauce.” The dish would be topped off with tequila or sherry and baked so that the ingredients melted together. Each family made the meal in its own way, varying the recipe from day to day. “While in general appearance it does not differ much from one home to another, it tastes different everywhere. Nevertheless it is still capirotada. And so it is with El Hoyo’s Chicanos.” Explaining the metaphor, he said, “While many seem to the undiscerning eye to be alike, it is only because collectively they are referred to as Chicanos. But like capirotada, fixed in a thousand ways and served on a thousand tables, which can only be evaluated by individual taste, the Chicanos must be so distinguished.”1 Suárez, the son of immigrants from the Mexican border states of Sonora and Chihuahua, is recognized as the first writer to use Chicano in a published work to refer to ethnic Mexicans. Mexican Americans themselves had generally used the term in a derogatory manner to refer to the poorest class of ethnic Mexican workers. Suaréz used it in a new way to challenge stereotypes and celebrate the diversity of the ethnic Mexican community. He implicitly criticized the romantic image of so-called Spanish Americans promoted both by Arizona boosters and by certain Mexican Ameri- the chicano movement and cultural citizenship 181 cans themselves, writing that “it is doubtful that the Chicanos live in El Hoyo because of its scenic beauty.” Finally, he suggested that loyalty to the United States did not require that Chicanos abandon their reverence for Mexico. “On Mexican Independence Day,” he explained, “more than one flag is sworn allegiance to.”2 His stories about Chicanos were a tribute to the border culture of southcentral Arizona. In the decades that followed, ethnic Mexicans began to build upon this cultural identity as a source of pride and strength. For many, U.S. citizenship no longer required the rejection of one’s cultural or ancestral connections, whether or not they referred to themselves as Chicanos . Activists in the 1960s and ’70s generally moved away from the integrationist politics of the 1940s and ’50s, having come to resent the notion that full political participation required the adoption of Anglo standards of national belonging. Instead, they promoted cultural pride and used more confrontational tactics to achieve their goals. The Chicano and farmworker movements in Arizona, which were closely related, were not simply imported from other states, as some scholars have suggested or implied.3 Arizona’s Chicano movement was distinct from those in other communities such as Los Angeles, south Texas, and Denver in its relative absence of separatist sentiment and its deep connections to the state’s history of labor activism in the mining towns.4 One of the few scholars of Arizona’s Chicano movement has characterized its goals as “militant integrationism” rather than nationalism.5 Arizona activists, however, did not attempt to integrate simply through militant means nor, conversely, to form a separate community or nation. Instead they tried to change the very culture and meaning of American citizenship by celebrating their distinct language and cultural heritage while simultaneously demanding full membership in the body politic. Borrowing from William V. Flores and Renato Rosaldo’s idea that cultural citizenship may be defined as a “process that involves claiming membership in, and remaking, America,” this chapter examines how Chicano activists in Arizona went beyond a struggle for legal inclusion to engage in a cultural and political struggle for dignity, identity, “belonging, entitlement , and influence.” Arizona presents an interesting case study because of its large indigenous population. The Chicano emphasis on indigenous rather than Spanish roots had the potential to provide an impetus for Chicano-Indian cooperation. Arizona thus tested whether the Chicano movement’s ideology of indigenismo could provide a foundation for true interethnic coalition building (discussed here and in Chapter...