The University- Bastion of White Supremacy : Rodolfo Acuña

Rodolfo F. Acuña

Chicana/o and ethnic studies department at California State Universities at Los Angeles is under siege. Led by the administrations and faculty bodies at these institutions, the goal is to cut access of the ethnic studies programs to general education. GE is important because it is the monopoly board that allocates the Boardwalks and other academe properties to programs. It tells students what knowledge the university believes is necessary and rewards students for taking favored courses.

At Cal State LA, there are not many freebies for Chicana/o studies on the board other than to Go to Jail. The academe like the greater society has a hierarchy composed of a pope (the president), a provost (cardinal), deans (bishops) and priests (faculty). They control the university, and like society they are white. Very few people of color are admitted to these elite circles.

Editor note: At CSU-Sacramento the President is Hispanic and the Dean of the College of Education is African American.  At the same time see the demise of Bilingual Ed Dept. ( which was the base for Chicano Studies in Education)

https://sites.google.com/site/chicanodigital/home/the-creation-and-demise-of-bilingual-education-at-csu-sacramento-2

At Cal State Northridge, Latino enrollment approaches 40 percent. Yet there is only one high ranking Latino administrator. Seventy-five to 80 percent of the academic departments on campus do not have a single professor of Mexican American extraction, although over 50 percent of the university’s service area is Latino.

Chicano Studies y Los Pochos

Los Pochos y Los Vendidos

 “Viví en el monstruo y le conozco las entrañas”

By

Rodolfo F. Acuña  Dec. 2013.

When I sat down to conceptualize Chicana/o Studies, I was forced to distinguish it from Mexican Studies. If I had not done so, I would have never gotten it through the committees. I also had to differentiate CHS from race studies as well as Latin American Studies. I was fortunate that I had taught U.S. history and government, and specialized in U.S. History for my Masters. My PhD was in Latin American studies so that was icing on the cake.

Academe was caught flatfooted in responding to the challenge of ethnic studies, and it has never really got a handle on them. Many perceive them as race studies, so the inclination is to lump Chicana/o Studies into their flawed model.

I believed that if Chicana/o Studies was to grow; it had to find its own identity. Very early the main thrust of our program was pedagogical. We were there to teach more than a subject; it involved teaching students identity and skills. The truth be told, years of marginalization had damaged Chicanas/os.

The War on Chicana/o Studies - Acuña

Los Muertos de Hambre :The War on Chicana/o Studies  Unmasking the Illusion of Inclusion 
By  Rodolfo F. Acuña

Muertos de hambre is a derogatory phrase often used by Mexicans to refer to people who are predators, i.e., human vultures, vendidos. They are so starved for attention or recognition that they pounce on scraps of garbage discarded by their colonial masters.

The history of Chicana/o Studies is replete with examples of myths such as that they are failing because of a lack of enrollment. The truth is that they fail because they are denied a place on the Monopoly Board (General Education, electives and the like) that runs the university and rewards departments.

The CSUN Chicana/o Studies Department has a unique problem, it has been too successful. It offers 175 plus sections per semester, and campus wide departments are salivating at the prospect of picking off pieces of the program. The sad thing is that without the Mexican student population the university would be half its size.

Ed. note. For parallel descriptions of hiring at CSU-Sacramento see;

https://sites.google.com/site/chicanodigital/home/faculty-retention-at-csus--2011

https://sites.google.com/site/chicanodigital/home/the-creation-and-demise-of-bilingual-education-at-csu-sacramento-2

Making Change in Education for Chicano Students

Over 80 graduates of the Mexican American Education Project  and community members came together on Oct. 11/12, 2013 at CSU Sacramento to begin the recording of the history of the Mexican American Education Project ( 1968-1973) in Sacramento. The event was recorded and a video transcript should be available by 2014. 

The fundamental purpose of the Mexican American Education Project was to prepare activists as change agents- usually working in schools. Follow up research will document the success and the problems of the effort.

Photos from the event are up on the Chicano Digital History Project .

These  are of participants in the event: Recuerdos del Moviemiento Chicano 1965-1980.

A preliminary  report  and photos are  at https://sites.google.com/site/chicanodigital/home/mexican-american-education-project/mexican-american-education-project-evaluation

Chicana/o Studies

 Mass Education

By  Rodolfo F. Acuña

Ed. note; all that is said below also applies directly to the elimination of Bilingual/Multicultural Education at Sac State in Spring 2012. 

A lot more thought has to be paid to the question, “why Chicana/o Studies?”  CHS are not the whim; they are not a fad. They are part of the historical reasons for the struggle of the Mexican American community to obtain equal protection.  If we forget these reasons, CHS will be minimized -- reduced to whims and fads, obfuscating why institutions of higher learning continue to exclude Latinos.

The failure to ask “why” perpetuates the myth that higher education is dedicated to a search for the Truth and open equally to all Americans. The truth be told, Chicana/o Studies is only tolerated because it is politically expedient. CHS are tolerated in many institutions because they placate Mexican American students.   

It follows a pattern: the administration concedes students one Chicana/o studies class in history – and call it Chicana/o Studies. If the academy feels generous, it gives the students an office, which they share with a faculty member. Often instructors are not specialists in Chicana/o Studies, and they are often not Mexican American – any name that ends in a vowel suffices.

Campuses have not taken CHS seriously; the academe is intellectually lazy, and has not questioned why the disparate departments have failed to integrate this important fund of knowledge.

The role if the middle class Hispanic

By Rodolfo F. Acuña

                                 

For the last couple of weeks, I have been revisiting pieces that I’d written in the past. They express concerns that formed my own consciousness and they are the bulk of the over 200 articles that will compose my new book: “My Journey Out of Purgatory.”

I had intended to rewrite the following selection, “The Making of the Political Pocho,” but never got around to it.

The term pocho is well known among Chicanos or Mexican Americans. It has been used for generations by Mexicans to describe Mexicans living in the United States.

Pocho can be a pejorative term that varies according to who is using it. It differs from a Mexican who has forgotten his culture, to one that speaks Spanish less fluently than a native Mexican.

Pocho literally means a fruit that has become rotten or discolored or has never ripened. I use the term in the latter sense.

Nationality has very little meaning for me. It is a construct and loyalty greatly depends on the ability of the state to bring about justice, which is iffy both here and in Mexico. Many of those using the term represent classes that brought about an uneven political and social landscape that forced the uprooting of millions of Mexicans.

Our grasp of a language depends on our vocabulary, which is learned; it is acquired through exposure to written culture. Vocabulary is enriched through reading and intellectual discourse.

The gist of the piece is that Chicanas/os and Latinos remain political pochos because once they are out of college most do not remain politically active. Their principle concern is how to make a living and support a family.

They are influenced by the vocabulary around them. They use words such as Hispanic that are gauche among current activists. Graduates of 70s are more moderate on social issues.    

The piece itself was not only directed at the new Chicana/o middle-class but at the politicos who they spawned. It is a vicious circle: the masses of poor, the middle-class and the Latino politicos.

The piece criticizes Chicano politicians for not taking stands on the horrific police brutality taking place at the Ramparts Division. The atrocities involved were mostly against Salvadorans. I essentially accused the politicos of paying more attention to Mexican American voters, forgetting that it was the large numbers of Latinos, which included immigrants and non-voters that constructed their districts.

Intellectual Incest

By  Rodolfo F. Acuña

It has always been difficult to convince Anglo-Americans that they should know more about Latinos.  It did not seem to matter to Anglos that their ignorance spawned stereotypes that damaged Mexican American children.    

This brings me back to Tucson, which as you all know has been on my mind. Right now the issues are being played out in the courts where the state courts punctuated by intellectual light weights are beholding to politicians beholding to the same special interests as those influencing the Supreme Court.

Red flags went up when United States District Judge, David C. Bury, held “This Court finds that discontinuance of the MASD courses during the remainder of the USP’s life expectancy will not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution by intentionally segregating or discriminating against student’s based on race or ethnic group.” The issue with many of us was the enforcement of the law, which Arizona has avoided with impunity since Brown v. The Board of Education.

Bury acted on the recommendation of Special Master Willis Hawley who on paper has a good record in supporting progressive education. But most of his experience is with African Americans in Maryland and he has had little exposure to Latinos and even less with Arizona politics.  The decision alarmed many of us since we have seen the decimation of Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies program and the retaliation against teachers through retaliatory, disparate, and discriminatory practices.