The Brown Power Movement (adapted)

The Brown Power Movement
A Brief History

Origins of the Movement

n The modern Chicano political movement, most scholars agree, began during the mid 1960s -- a time coinciding with the Black power movement.

n In the 1960s, the Chicano movement was both a civil/human rights struggle and a movement for liberation. In this realm, universities became one of the focal points of protest in the movement

n Ada Sosa-Riddell, director of the Chicana/Latina Center, University of California at Davis, says that Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA) and Chicano studies represent two of the long-lasting legacies of the Chicano movement.

n "But you can't destroy Chicano studies, she says. "You would have to burn the literature."

Chicano/a Movements

n The struggles in the different parts of the country were many, with separate goals and visions and unique histories.

n Among them: improve the lives of farm workers, end Jim Crow style segregation and police repression, the land grant struggles, the land grant struggles, political representation and self-determination.

n The Chicano movements also included a re-establishment and exploration of cultural and artistic expression.

n Specifically, the struggle for gender equality, access to higher education, immigrant rights and a literary and artistic revolution which spoke to cultural rebirth and a rediscovery of mestizo/indigenous roots and self-definition.

Fragmentation of the Movement

n During this time of great social upheaval, political fervor and cultural rebirth, the Chicano movement was hardly unified. The reasons: lack of historical memory, regionalism and sectarianism, but also government efforts to destroy this nascent movement.

n Yet, once an attempt was made to define the movement and give it an ideology "We began to develop competing definitions as to what the movement was.”

The University

n What differentiates the Chicano movement from earlier Mexican civil rights struggles is its national character, its mass nature and its strong student base at colleges and universities.

n The university became both a political battleground and a focal point of protest regarding its elitist nature in keeping people of color and working class students outside of its doors.

Chicano Studies

n With the advent Chicano studies programs, for the first time, Chicano and Chicana scholars began to produce knowledge about their own community.

n It also allowed Chicanos to see U.S. imperialism. It connected Chicanos to their indigenous roots and Native American studies, he says

The Chicano Movement Continues

n Many scholars maintain that ever since the death of farm labor leader Cesar Chavez in 1993, there has been a resurgence in the Chicano movement, particularly at colleges and universities nationwide.

n This new activism is also being manifested in the current multiracial movement to defend affirmative action in which men and women and members of all races are struggling jointly to fight off the anti-affirmative movement.

Works Cited

n http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol3/chicano/chicano.html

n http://www.jsri.msu.edu/RandS/research/ops/oc07.html

n http://studentorgs.utexas.edu/mecha/archive/research.html