Back in September 2023, I had the pleasure of participating in a class on Mexican American iconography taught by my colleague Alba Fernandez-Keys in Special Collections . Dr. Jacqueline Barrios is teaching about the history of the murals at the El Pueblo Neighborhood Center to a group of undergraduates. She asked me to provide a quick overview of the history of the Mexican American Community in Tucson, and I came up with the following. I didn’t use footnotes or do a lot of reading or research for this. I gave the talk using only what I already knew about our history. The document was recently edited and included in a “zine” that Dr. Barrios and others produced. Here’s the original document.
A quick overview of the history of the Mexican American community in Tucson
By Bob Diaz
The Tucson region is one of the longest continuously inhabited regions of North America, and was home to indigenous (Hohokam, Tohono O’Odham, Apache) and Mexican people long before the arrival of the Anglo. The Spanish arrived in the late 1400s and within 30 years, defeated the Aztecs, who ruled the valley of Mexico at the time. Spanish adventurers explored this area in the 1500’s and by the late 1600’s had managed to build a series of missions in northern Sonora and southern Arizona, subjugating the native populations through religion and the use of force. The Spanish ruled in the borderlands region for over 100 years, but the area was never heavily populated, because the Apache and other tribes were not willing to be subjugated to Spanish rule, and they fought back. The desert heat and a lack of water also made the area a difficult place in which to live .
By 1820, Mexico defeated Spain in a 10-year war for liberation. However, establishing strong leadership and a strong army to protect itself was difficult to accomplish, and the United States, hungry for land, began to set its sights on conquering Mexico. Manifest Destiny, the idea that the United States was destined by God to rule North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific, provided justification for American aggression and expansion. The discovery of gold in California also fueled US interests. The US made up some trumped-up excuses to go to war with Mexico in 1846, and within just two years, claimed victory, along with all the land from the southernmost part of Texas all the way up to the state of Washington. Mexico reluctantly signed the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. The original treaty was watered down by the time it was finally signed, but the people who decided to remain were granted the right to retain their religion, their customs, and their language. Most lost their property, however, and there occurred rampant violence and discrimination, especially in California, where gold fever drew thousands of Anglos and a variety of other groups to the region in the mid-1800s.
The area south of the Gila River down to the current US Mexico border did not become part of the United States until 1854, when both countries signed the Gadsden Purchase. The US wanted the land to build a transcontinental railroad and word had gotten out that the area was also rich with mineral wealth. Tucson remained a very small town until the late 1880s, when arrival of the railroad brought with it many people from the east coast, including Jewish and Anglo capitalists, and various other European ethnic groups.
The town grew, and land was passed from Mexican/Indigenous to Anglo owners within a few short years. Anglos dominated commerce and politics as early as 1900s.
Many Mexican families lived in rural areas on ranches, but Tucson was also populated with a considerable number of Mexicanos. In fact, they constituted the majority until 1900 or so.
The time period between 1910 and 1920 was one of the most volatile of the 20th century. There was a great deal of labor strife in the US, a revolution in Russia and a world war in Europe. The Mexican Revolution that started in 1910 and lasted for a decade, displaced many Mexicans, and a lot of them ended up north of the border. They were also actively recruited by mine owners who promised steady work.
Mining became a big industry, and boomed in towns like Bisbee, Tombstone and Ajo, and there were mines surrounding Tucson to the north and south. Mexican laborers were recruited from Mexico. They came and went freely until the mid-20s, approximately.
As the make up of Tucson changed, it became segregated, with the Anglo population for the most part moving east and north, and the Mexican population moving south and west. Mexicans worked in the mines, laundries and railroads and in other labor intense occupations. Very few graduated from high school. This pattern continued through WWII. Mexican Americans were punished for speaking Spanish in school, and many of the children of couples who married during world war II had to abandon learning their parent’s native language.
Lots of young Mexican Americans were drafted during WWII, and afterwards some took advantage of the GI Bill and received college educations.
By the 50s, the only Mexican American leaders were in organized labor. There were but a few educators. None were involved locally in politics.
The Sixties brought changes. The civil rights movement, the farmworker movement, the women’s rights movement, the gay liberation movement, the American Indian movement, and the Chicano movement created some significant shifts in people’s understanding of the American power structure.
At the same time, some Mexican Americans became “professionals” with degrees. There were educators and politicians. Some fought for bilingual education and a few were even elected to public office.
As urban renewal was happening in the 60s, and the destruction of the barrio was taking place, some young Mexican Americans began to embrace the label, “Chicano”. Basically, a Chicano is a Mexican of American descent with a sense of cultural pride and a political awareness and understanding of history.
These young Chicanos typically clashed with their parent’s generation. They dressed like hippies, wore long hair, did drugs and were politically aware. Their heroes became people like Che Guevara and Emiliano Zapata. Cesar Chavez, and other contemporary leaders like Rudolfo Gonzalez, Reies Lopez Tijerina and Jose Angel Gutierrez. They immersed themselves in music, art, theater and literature. Works like “Yo Soy Joaquin” and films like “Yo Soy Chicano” began to tell the story of the Mexican people from a more radical, leftist perspective, and a sense of pride developed around their indigenous roots. People started using Aztec, Mayan and other indigenous symbols in their works. Groups like Teatro Campesino wrote plays with pro-labor messages. Aztlan, which was known as the original homeland of the Aztecs, became the symbolic place of origin that people pointed to as “our homeland”.
The local community protested the destruction of the barrio, and while most of it was destroyed, it was able to stop the state from building a freeway through what remained of the old barrio. People rallied around the El Tiradito shrine and were able to get it recognized as a historically significant site.
Across the nation, young Chicanos began protesting the Viet Nam war and became active in the farmworker movement, picketing liquor stores and boycotting grape. Young Chicano activists in Tucson began protesting a lack of public accommodations for people in the barrios. A group called the El Rio Coalition, for example, fought City Hall and demanded that a “people’s park” replace the El Rio Golf Course on the City’s westside. As a result, the City finally listened and built Joaquin Murrieta park and the El Rio Neighborhood Center, and developed community based programming for senior citizens, children and others. It also created meeting spaces for local groups to meet. A library was also included in the Center. This facility was the first in Tucson to serve the local Mexican American Community. Within a few years, neighborhood centers were built in the African American parts of town and on the City’s Southside. The El Pueblo Neighborhood Center was built in the mid-70s and served a very large Mexican American population, that previously did not have many facilities, other than the YMCA and the rodeo and fair grounds.
The El Pueblo Neighborhood Center filled a very important need for the City’s southside residents, and hosted fiestas, senior citizen clubs, daycare, English as a Second Language classes, health screenings, and was home to community organizations such as Teatro Libertad, which produced skits and plays and performed them there in the Center. A branch of the Tucson Public Library was also opened there. Congressman Raul Grijalva was named director of the Center when it opened. He went on to serve on the TUSD School Board and the Pima County Board of Supervisosors. He has served as a Congressman in Washington for approximately 20 years.
This blog post started out as a presentation for a University of Arizona course called Public Art History (PAH) 420, a humanities class taught by Professor Jacqueline Barrios. I met Dr. Barrios last Fall. She and her students visited Special Collections last semester, and I gave a quick, impromptu lecture about the history of Mexican Americans in the US. My colleague Alba Fernandez-Keys also worked with the class and introduced them to Pre-Columbian art and other relevant materials that could be found in our collections. Dr. Barrios invited us back again this semester to work with a new crop of students. Their work involves studying the murals that were created at Tucson’s El Pueblo Neighborhood Center in the 1970s and 1980s and understanding why and how those came to be. By the end of the semester the students will present project proposals to help improve the Center. The El Pueblo Center opened in 1975, and has had its share of ups and downs. Within the past year or so, Congressman Raul Grijalva decided to move his local office to El Pueblo, and efforts are underway to revitalize the space. Dr. Barrios and her students are working in partnership with the Sunnyside Foundation, Congressman Grijalva’s office, the El Pueblo Library and others, including Special Collections staff like myself.
My task this semester was to provide some context as to how the Center came to be, so I decided to give a presentation about the history of the Chicano community in Tucson in the mid-70s, with a particular focus on 1975, since that was the year that the El Pueblo Neighborhood Center opened. I grew up in Tucson and have vivid memories of the Center, as the theater group, Teatro Libertad, had its home base there for a long time. I also spent a lot of time as a youngster visiting relatives and going to various events held on the south side of town.
I also happen to be a local history buff. I admit up front, however, that I am not a trained historian, nor do I pretend to be. The history of our community, however, has only been touched upon in a few written works. Tom Sheridan’s “Los Tucsonenses” comes to mind as one such work, but it does not focus on the 70s, when the Chicano movement in Tucson was in full bloom. Here’s hoping that a comprehensive history of that rich period of time in our community’s life will get the in-depth treatment and analysis it deserves at some point down the line. Perhaps this blog post will be of some use to whoever accomplishes that task.
The text of my presentation is included below. I’ve been adding graphics and articles to it, so it has developed into a much more detailed story than what I presented to the students recently. As I’ve noted elsewhere on this website, my blog posts are intended for educational purposes only, which is why I argue that it’s okay to borrow and include material from other sources. I consider it fair use. However, if someone comes along and claims ownership of a photo, graphic, or news article, and asks me to take something down because I did not ask for permission up front to post it, I won’t be too happy about it, but I’ll comply because I am not the copyright owner of much of this material. Again, I claim fair use for educational purposes only. I can be reached at joserobertodiaz@cox.net
A map of Tucson from 1975.
It’s estimated that between 1/3 and 1/2 of the population of Tucson in the 70s was Mexican American.
Chicano culture in the 70s in Tucson
Overview
Americans of Mexican descent are not all the same. We are a diverse cultural group, and exist in every socioeconomic bracket, although the vast majority of us are working class or lower middle class. Many of us have been here for generations and can trace our roots back to the building of the Tucson presidio in the 1770s. Others are newly arrived.
We do not agree on what to call ourselves. The word Chicano, however, was very popular in the 70s, particularly among young people. Many of us, especially our parents, never preferred to identify with the word Chicano or “chicano culture”. It had derogatory connotations carried over by previous generations. Assimilation and acculturation was the goal for many families.
There have always existed subcultures, especially among our youth. In the 70s, there were stoners, rockers, cholos, “chicanos”, jocks, and geeks.
Many Mexican American kids are as Americanized as other groups. Many do not speak Spanish, although it is often spoken among relatives and parents.
In Tucson, we lived mostly on the west and south sides of town. Segregation, while not mandated and illegal, still existed. Very few Mexican American families resided east of Alvernon or north of Broadway, even in the 70s.
About Me
My junior year at Salpointe, 75-76.
I grew up on 22nd, just north of the railroad tracks, which was the dividing line, pretty much, between the southside and the rest of the city. I’m half indigenous and half Spanish. My paternal grandfather was from Asturias, Spain and immigrated to North America in the early 1900s. He was a miner and farmer by trade. My maternal grandfather was from Tarachi, Sonora, Mexico and moved to Arizona in the early 1920s to work in the copper mines. My paternal grandmother was from Pinos, Zacatecas, Mexico and my maternal grandmother and her mother were both from Arivaca, Arizona. My father was born in Jerome, Arizona and my mother was born in Superior, Arizona. I was born in Tucson.
For the most part, I spent most of my free time in my youth in my own neighborhood. We went to the local swimming pool at St. Ambrose, to Randolph Park, where we played little league baseball, and the alley in back of my house, where I played with my friends, or 21st street where we played flag football. We went to Hi Corbett Field to watch the Tucson Toros and the Cleveland Indians play baseball.
I attended Robison Elementary School. It had a mix of Anglo, Jewish and Mexican students. I then attended Mansfeld Jr. High on 6th Street, across from the University of Arizona. The school was much more diverse. From there, I attended Salpointe, a Catholic high school, with mostly Anglo students. There was a small population of Mexican American students, and they came from all over the city. Salpointe charged tuition and it was expensive. My parents barely managed to make the payments.
Due to economic necessity, neither of my parents graduated from high school. My dad left school before the 6th grade to work on the family farm, and my mother left after the 8th grade so she could work full time to help support her family, as her father died when she was only 12 and she was the oldest child. As a result, both of them knew from experience how important it was to get an education. My dad was especially encouraging and was always telling me to go as far as I could in school. Because I did well academically, I assumed that I would go on to college. However, one day a high school counselor at Salpointe confronted me and told me, “what makes you think you’re going to college? You shouldn’t get your hopes up. Your people are not college material”. Wow. I could not believe my ears, but that was what things were like in the mid-70s, even at a so called progressive high school like Salpointe. I’m a pretty stubborn guy, and this only made me more determined to do my best in school and to pursue a college education.
I believe that institutional racism, embodied by people like my high school counselor at Salpointe, was rampant in Tucson in the mid-70s. Very few Chicano students continued on to college, not because we weren’t capable of doing well academically, but because of ignorance and bigotry among adults with authority, power and influence who kept us from advancing and who deliberately held us back.
Robison Elementary, Mansfeld Jr. High and Salpointe High School.
The South Side
Most folks now think of the south side as beginning at 22nd street, but in my opinion, the “south side”, especially back in the 70s, began in South Tucson. One could also say that it starts at the railroad tracks but no matter how one defines it, I’ve always felt at home there. When I was a child, my parents would shop at Southgate on S. 6th Ave, near the freeway. My mother would usually go to Saccani’s to buy us new school clothes every year and she would shop at McLelland’s for household goods. I would love to wander the aisles where the toys were located. There was also a Lucky’s (formerly Goodman’s) grocery store and a hamburger stand called Mr. Quick there. Every year, carnivals were held in a big lot in back of the shopping center. I went to a lot of them as a kid. We would also go to the movies at the Rodeo Drive-in, where Rudy Garcia Park is now located, or the Apache Drive-in out on the Benson Highway. The rodeo grounds also served as the site of the Pima County Fair back then, and we (me, my family, my friends) would go to that at times. On pay day, which was every other Friday, my parents would go grocery shopping at the El Grande on Irvington and Park, and on Sunday afternoons, they would take us to San Xavier or we would visit my grandmother, who lived in South Tucson.
The Apache Drive-In was on the Benson Highway. Southgate was at S. 6th Ave near the freeway, the Rodeo Drive-in was on Irvington and the Nogales Highway, and the Pima County Fairgrounds were just north of it, on the northeast corner of Irvington and S. 6th, the current site of the rodeo grounds.
Southgate opened in the late 50s and was for many years the only major shopping center on the south side.
Mission San Xavier. My parents have been taking me here since I was a baby.
My cousins, the Olguins, attended Elvira Elementary, Sunnyside Jr. High, and Sunnyside High School in the sixties and seventies. Our family used to visit my aunt Mary and Uncle Fernando and their kids regularly, especially on Easter and Thanksgiving, and my older brother and I spent time with our cousins in the summer a lot. It was our version of summer camp. LOL. It felt like they lived in another town because while there were people living throughout the south side, it was not as densely populated as it is now. I recall my parents driving along S. Park or S. 6th and passing by big swaths of undeveloped land, filled with nothing but creosote bushes between Ajo and Valencia on the drive to my Aunt and Uncle’s house.
In 1981, TCE contamination on Tucson’s south side became headline news. I remember visiting my cousins who lived on Elvira Rd and 6th Ave, and noticing how cloudy and bad tasting their drinking water was. Their bathroom tile was also falling out because of the contamination from TCE. Many people became ill with various forms of cancer. One of my cousins, my age, died of cancer of the jaw and mouth.
The broader community
High schools that served the Mexican American community and the south side included Tucson High, Pueblo, Cholla, Sunnyside and later, Desert View. The majority of students were Mexican American or Native American.
Gathering places: Dances and concerts were held at the El Casino Ballroom in South Tucson or the Del Rio Ballroom, on Speedway near the freeway.
The El Casino Ballroom
Fiestas held during El Cinco de Mayo and el 16 de Septiembre were held downtown at Armory Park, at Santa Rita Park, then Kennedy Park.
Celebrating El 16 de Septiembre/Mexican Independence Day at Armory Park.
A mariachi group performs at one of the communities’ outdoor fiestas.
The Community Center was popular for concerts by big name artists like Santana, the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt and the Rolling Stones. Boxing matches were also held here
My friend Richard and I went to see Santana on August 17, 1975. He opened for Eric Clapton, but we left right after Santana finished. Eric who? Santana returned the following year as a headline act. Feliciano opened for him.
An interior shot of the Community Center. Those steps were often a challenge to navigate, especially after a couple of beers…
Paco Flores was a Tucson boxing legend, and many of his matches were held at the Tucson Community Center. Flores was born in Cananea, Sonora Mexico but moved to Tucson when he was 8 yrs old. As a welterweight fighter, Flores was 19-5 with 11 knockouts. By the end of his career, Flores had won three golden gloves, one as a featherweight, welterweight, and middleweight.
I went once with my uncle Donato and brother Charles to one of these matches, and I slept all the way through it.
Every year, the League of Mexican American women sponsored an event called “La Fiesta de Xochimilco” that included a dance where a number of young women were presented to the community as “Florecitas”. It was our version of the “cotillian ball” where debutantes made the entry into “society”.
From the August 28, 1975 issue of the Tucson Daily Citizen
Churches were also places where our community gathered for events like baptisms, funerals, weddings, and first holy communions. The majority of the population has always been Catholic, but there have also existed various protestant denominations with predominantly Mexican American congregations scattered throughout the south side.
Catholic churches with predominantly Mexican American congregations include: Holy Family, St. Margaret’s, St. John’s, Santa Monica, the Cathedral and Santa Cruz Church.
A family prepares to have their baby baptized.
As noted, Tucson’s youth were represented by various subcultures. The south side, however, had an abundance of young people who were into cars and “cruising.” Places like Kennedy Park and Randolph Park were crammed on the weekends with long lines of cars filled with teenagers driving very slowly through the parks. Drinking beer and smoking pot was common among the youth of the community. However, gangs weren’t around that much. The film, Boulevard Nights, premiered in 1979, but it depicted life in East LA in the 70s. Tucson was much calmer than L.A. at the time. The community was smaller, but growing.
A vintage low rider. Tucson had had its share of low rider clubs over the years. Many are still active at present.
Low Rider magazine began being published in 1977 in San Jose, California. It quickly developed into a glossy publication and became quite popular.
Radio: KXEW and KEVT radio were very popular among the older generation. KIKX, KTKT and KWFM were big among our youth. In the early 70’s, KIKX took dedications from listeners. It was a very popular thing to do among young teenagers like me. Later, KHYT hit the airwaves, and young djs like Raul Aguirre and Neto Portillo, Jr. brought us Chicano music, Latin jazz and salsa.
From the Arizona Daily Star, August 18, 1975
A note about downtown—
Up until the mid-60s, downtown was home to a large Mexican American population. The tearing down of the old barrio occurred in 1968, and all the families that lived there were dispersed to other parts of town. It was a mess. Urban renewal did not have the effect that was intended, to draw more white, affluent people to downtown. Instead, many storefronts were boarded up. Businesses had moved out to the newer parts of town. The Fox Theater was offering 3 movies for $2, and it was falling apart. There were dive bars galore and prostitutes walked the streets in broad daylight. JC Penney, Woolworth’s and Jacome’s were still open, however, but not for long.
The Fox Theater by the end of the 70s.
The Community Center attracted people, but was dead most of the time. La Placita Village bombed and never attracted many visitors. Some say that all the steps made it difficult for older people to comfortably navigate the complex, which was a complicated mess to begin with. Others say that an old “bruja” from Barrio Viejo put a spell on the place to make it fail. Who knows? It did indeed fail over time The entire complex was eventually torn down and the space is now home to a giant condominium complex.
La Placita VIllage
Politics and consciousness raising
Social movements were abundant in the early 70s. The women’s movement, the gay liberation movement, the black power movement, and the American Indian Movement all took center stage, as did the Chicano movement and the farm worker movement. Consciousness raising was happening everywhere.
Within the Mexican American community, from, LA to Denver to Tucson to the Texas-Mexico border, we witnessed major acts of protest, including the Chicano Moratorium, high school walkouts in East LA and Tucson, strikes, boycotts and many other acts of civil disobedience that occurred throughout the Southwest. Youth were forming organizations like the Brown Berets and organizing against bad schools, bad policing, bad housing, and a lack of social services.
El Plan de Santa Barbara was written. It outlined educational goals incorporating Chicano studies into high school and college curricula. Bilingual education advocates were fighting to have bilingual ed implemented in the schools.
Political organizations like the “La Raza Unida Party” led by Jose’ Angel Gutierrez, were working to raise the consciousness of their communities and to have Chicano representation on school boards, city councils and state legislatures.
In some parts of the country, people were fighting to have their land grants honored. Reies Lopez Tijerina led the battle in northern New Mexico. He was targeted by the FBI and vilified in the press as mentally unstable.
Rodolfo Corky Gonzales was another leader who authored the poetry book Yo Soy Joaquin. He was from the Denver area and organized the “Crusade for Justice”. The FBI also targeted him and his work. Their cointelpro program targeted activists in the Native American, Black and Chicano communities.
Cesar Chavez, Jose’ Angel Gutierrez, Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, and Dolores Huerta were all well-known and well-respected leaders in the Chicano Movement.
Reies Lopez Tijerina
Phoenix New Times, March, 1975
Locals boycotting Market Spot on E. Speedway
In Tucson, Raul Grijalva fought for representation while a student in college (see article below) and became the first Chicano to serve on The Tucson School District #1 School Board in January 1975. Later that year, he was named director of the El Pueblo Neighborhood Center. The following article provides details about Raul’s activism up to early 1975.
Another local leader, Maclovio Barraza, decided to step down from his leadership position with the National Council on La Raza, which he helped organize in the mid-60s. He continued his work as a union organizer until his untimely death in the early 1980s.
The local movement also included women. The Manzo Area Council, for example, worked in the barrio to help provide social services to families with a variety of needs. Margo Cowan managed the organization for many years. She and Isabel Garcia, another Manzo Area Council associate, later became lawyers and have fought for years for immigrant and Chicano rights. Lupe Castillo and Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith were Chicano/a Studies professors at Pima College and they also worked for Manzo. A new documentary is in the works that highlights the work of these amazing Chicanas. You can find out more at the following website: Las Mujeres de Manzo.
Margo Cowan and Lupe Castillo have been fighting the good fight for many, many years.
Here’s an example of the kind of work done by women in the community.
This is one of many Chicano publications available in the mid-70s. The UFW also published one called “El Malcriado”, which received broad circulation.
The following two articles appeared together in the June 15, 1975 edition of the Arizona Daily Star. They speak to the results of the community fighting for recognition and demanding services that other areas of town were provided.
As was noted, the FBI was hard at work infiltrating the various movements with the intention of destroying them. The war in Vietnam continued into the mid-70s and ended shortly after Richard Nixon resigned as President of the United States in ’74.
By the end of the 70’s however, there was a shift toward conservative beliefs, and a rise in evangelical Christianity and values. Attacks on minority communities became more prevalent. Affirmative action was challenged, and when Ronald Reagan became president, there was an increased crackdown on activism (union busting) and an increase in surveillance. The US supported dictators in Central America, causing many refugees to flee their homes and head up north to the US.
My own political awakening and education…
It was in high school in the mid-70s that I became aware of my cultural roots and history. During the second semester of my freshman year, I took a class called Cultural Awareness, which opened my eyes to the history of the Mexican American people in the southwest. It was taught by a man named Ron Cruz. I also took classes from his wife Jane, who taught Chicano literature. I learned nothing like this before. Prior to this I was influenced mostly by what was on television and the radio. A lot of Mexican American kids my age were in the same boat.
My two wonderful Chicano studies teachers, Jane and Ron Cruz. We have remained close friends for the past 50 years.
The class changed my life. I became interested in politics, and started participating in the farm worker support movement, where we picketed local businesses for selling grapes and Gallo wine. I got involved in trying to get “scab” lettuce out of the high school cafeteria, and I even got the chance to meet Cesar Chavez in Tucson and later received a thank you letter from him that I still have. It’s one of my prized possessions.
I attended this film and met Cesar Chavez here. It was the thrill of a lifetime.
The Tucson Citizen May 26, 1975
I clearly remember going with my friends Richard, Ron and Jane to various liquor stores in town, one on Tanque Verde and another on Stone, to picket and protest their sales of Gallo wines around this time. One of the owners put loudspeakers out on the sidewalk and played the Stars and Stripes Forever while we slowly and quietly marched in a circle around the store.
I was lucky to have teachers who taught me about my own community’ s history. Elsewhere in Tucson, there were no Chicano Studies courses taught in the public schools. Instead, school segregation and the issue of how to end that became a very volatile topic, with lawsuits brought forward against Tucson public school district #1 by members of both the African American and Mexican American communities. Here are two articles that detail what happened in 1975. To this day, the issues have yet be fully resolved.
At the University of Arizona, Mexican American students began fighting for Chicano Studies in the late sixties, and by the mid-70s there were a handful of courses available on the topic, but not many. During my first semester of college in 1977 at the University of Arizona, I decided to one such course. It was offered by the department of Sociology and it was titled “The Chicano In American Society”. This class helped me to deepen my knowledge of the history of my community. The instructor’s name was Dr. Rumel Juarez. I thought he was a great teacher. Unfortunately, he didn’t stay at the U of A, but went on to have a very successful career in the Texas higher education system. Here’s a photo of Dr. Juarez.
Here are samples of Dr. Juarez’s syllabus for the course. I also still have all my notes and readings.
This is the syllabus for Dr. Juarez’s class.
These are some of the readings for the class.
Across campus, a new program intended to train students in becoming bilingual librarians was just getting started in the Graduate Library School. Dr. Arnulfo Trejo, a University of Arizona faculty member spearheaded the effort, which was named the Graduate Library Institute for Spanish Speaking Americans (GLISSA). This federally funded program would continue for nearly a decade, and by the time the program ended, scores of bilingual librarians had received their library degrees. Here’s a news story from the June 12, 1975 issue of the Arizona Daily Star that describes the program’s beginnings.
The College of Education, in the meantime, was preparing more bilingual teachers.
Chicano cultural production
Literature:
There was an abundance of literature about Chicanos published in the 70s, This included both non-fiction and fiction. Some of the major works that appeared in the 70s include Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima, Rodolfo Acuna’s Occupied America, The Chicano Manifesto by Armando Rendon, Y No Se Le Trago’ La Tierra by Tomas Rivera, the novel “Chicano” by Richard Vasquez, Oscar Zeta Acosta’s Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, and 500 Years of Chicano History, edited by Elizabeth Martinez.
The University of Arizona Spanish Dept. was home to the writer. Miguel Mendez M., whose work, Peregrinos de Aztlan, published in 1974, is considered a classic work of Chicano literature.
Theater:
El Teatro Campesino began life in the mid-60s in the fields of the San Joaquin valley during the farm worker strikes, under the direction of Luis Valdez. Within a few years El Teatro de la Esperanza, from Santa Barbara, was also producing plays, as was Teatro Libertad in Tucson. The form of theater they employed was political street theater, which was modeled after the work done by the San Francisco Mime Troupe.
Teatro Campesino
Teatro Libertad looked to writers like Bertoldt Brecht for inspiration. One of their plays, La Jefita, for example, was modeled after Brecht’s work, “The Mother”.
Teatro LIbertad performing the play, “Los Peregrinos” in 1975.
Art:
Mural artists in East L.A. influenced artists in the rest of the Southwest. In Tucson, several artists created murals at the El Rio Neighborhood Center and also at the El Pueblo Neighborhood Center as well as in other parts of the city. They incorporated in their works a lot of Pre-columbian and contemporary political motifs.
La Pilita Mural by Martin Moreno.
Martin Moreno had several art showings at the El Pueblo Neighborhood Center in the early 80s.
The following appeared in the Arizona Daily Star on September 13, 1975.
Music:
Popular music was very diverse and everyone, it seems listened to the radio, or had their own record collections. Mexican Americans, since the 50s, have gravitated toward oldies, R & B and soul music. Beginning in the mid-60s, groups emerged that incorporated both Latin rhythms, elements of R&B, soul, and later funk. They included Santana, Rufus, War, Tierra, Los Lobos. Funkadelic, Rick James, The Commodores, Malo, and El Chicano, to name a few. Some of the songs sung by these groups were in Spanish as well.
Musica Tejana was sung in Spanish and quite popular at the time. Little Joe y La Familia and Ruben Ramos and the Texas Revolution were all the rage. Other groups that sang in Spanish included Ritmo Siete and Ray Camacho and the Teardrops. In the mid-seventies disco became a predominant genre.
The song Soy Chicano” appeared in the film, “Chulas Fronteras” in 1976. The film featured the music of the people of Texas and included segments on musicians like Lydia Mendoza and Flaco Jimenez, two beloved Tejano musicians.
Freddie Fender, Linda Ronstadt were also quite popular and both sang a lot of country, although Linda Ronstadt was mostly known for her rock music. Oldies was very, very popular among the lowrider/cholo subculture. Salsa, while especially big on the east coast, was not all that popular in this region.
Daniel Valdez’s album Mestizo, and Joan Baez’s album Gracias a la Vida were political in nature. Later, the farmworker album, Si Se Puede was produced and it featured Los Lobos, a group from East LA that started out by playing traditional Mexican son jarocho, boleros and other Mexican tunes.
Locally, the members of Los Changuitos Feos, a youth mariachi group founded in the Sixties, entertained audiences throughout the world. Some of the original members went on to form Mariachi Cobre.
Tucson Citizen, December 9, 1977.
Film, television and performance art:
Cheech and Chong and Richard Pryor were our favorite comedians, and on tv, we watched Chico and the Man, Sanford and Son and The Jeffersons. By the mid-70s there was Spanish language tv and telenovelas were big. Before that we had Mexican Theater that aired on Sunday mornings.
Our family would watch this program every Sunday. My mother loved it when Lola Beltran and other Mexican ranchera singers would appear on the show.
There were not many feature films including Chicanos that were produced in the mid-70s. It wasn’t until the end of the decade that Zootsuit and Boulevard Nights were released. Both films proved to be quite popular.
Zoot Suit first premiered as a play at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in 1978, then became a Broadway production in 1979. The film, which starred Edward James Olmos, Daniel Valdez and Tyne Daly, was released in 1981.
Fashion:
Young people in our community wore mostly bell bottoms and t-shirts at the beginning of the decade. Both the girls and the boys had straight long hair, or long, bushy hair. By the mid-70s, leisure suits, khakis and white t-shirts (the pinto look), and polyester were very popular. Hats were popular too, as were wings on girls hair. The cholo subculture included young women with big hair, black lipstick, and pencil thin eyebrows. They usually wore jeans and body suits, and the guys wore their hair slicked back. Khakis, t-shirts or pendleton shirts buttoned all the way up and black shoes were the norm for the guys. Not everyone wore these types of clothes, however. There was a lot of diversity in the way kids dressed.
These photos appeared on the covers of an albums series called “East Side Story”. The songs were all “oldies but goodies,” recorded mostly in the late 50s and early 60s.
A big group of friends, most likely from Southern California.
This is my dear friend Richard Elias’s senior photo, taken in 1975 when we were at Salpointe. He’s wearing a polyester leisure suit, a puka shell necklace and has on Rayban glasses, which got dark when exposed to the sun. His hair is long here and parted down the middle. In later years, he would wear it much shorter.
Popular cars of the era included the 1975 Ford Torino, Chevy trucks from the 50s, the 1975 Chrysler Cordoba and the 1975 Monte Carlo.
For more information, check out this this Arizona Public Media produced video on Tucson in the civil rights era.
I traveled to Washington DC in early March, 2024 to attend the American Library Association’s “Voices for Libraries” day of advocacy, where library leaders from all over the country gathered to meet with their Congressional representatives (or their aides) to convince them of the need for library funding for fiscal year 2025. This was the second year the American Library Association’s Washington office invited me to attend, and like last year’s adventure, it was a great experience. My colleague Erin MacFarlane and I attended training on the first day, and on the second day, we met with representatives from the offices of Senator Kelly, Senator Sinema, Congressman Grijalva, Congressman Gallego and Congressman Ciscomani. We were very warmly welcomed. The aides listened intently, asked great questions and took lots of notes so they could report back to their bosses about our meetings. All agreed that libraries are important and that the funding we asked for should be supported.
This was the second time I had the opportunity to participate in advocating for American libraries. Last year’s event was called the ALA Congressional Fly-In. Erin and I both represented Arizona last year as well, and we were able to meet briefly with Congressman Grijalva. This year we had no such luck. We met with five different congressional aides, but they were very nice to us. Erin MacFarlane and I outside the US Capitol. She works for the Maricopa County Library system in the Phoenix area, and is a wonderful person.VIsiting the different congressional office buildings was very exciting. We even had lunch in one of them and saw Senator Kelly at one point walking into his office. It surprised me to learn that he’s not very tall at all! Senator Kelly and Senator SinemaCongressman Ciscomani, Congressman Gallego, and Congressman GrijalvaOur task was to convince our hosts that federal library funding was badly needed in Arizona. We received training in storytelling the day before our visits and were provided with a bunch of talking points that we could use as we described the various services federal funding helped to provide. Erin and I enjoyed ourselves as we talked our way through each session. I tried to get each assistant to write 232 billion instead of 232 million in their notes. It was fun. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. That same night, President Biden delivered the State of the Union address. It was thrilling to know that I was in a hotel room just about a mile or two away from where the President gave his speech.
I took an extra couple of days to go sightseeing and to buy souvenirs, but my plans were dampened a bit by a day full of cold, rainy weather on one of those days. Oh well. I did manage to visit a museum and to wander around some. Here are some photos I took of the places I stayed at and the buildings I saw. I had a great time.
ALA footed the bill for my stay at the Riggs Hotel, shown here. I later moved to the Hilton Motto Hotel in Chinatown. I went to a few souvenir shops and found a bunch of stuff to bring back, including a Biden for President t-shirt and a decal. Unfortunately, there was a lot more Trump memorabilia available than Biden memorabilia. I think that’s because the Trump garbage doesn’t sell.
The only museum I was able to visit on this particular trip was the National Building Museum. I’m glad I went, even though they didn’t have very many exhibits. The National Building Museum was built in the 1880s and was the former home of the US Pension Bureau. It served a variety of purposes until 1985, when it started a new life as a museum. The terra cotta frieze by sculptor Caspar Buberi in the bottom photo on the left depicts Union veterans from the Civil War, who received benefits from the US government processed by workers housed in this building
The ceramic San Xavier figurine on the right is identical to the one I have at home. It’s really a little coin bank with a slot in the back. I’ve had mine since the 80’s and was quite surprised to see one exactly like it on display in this exhibit of building miniatures from every state.
Here are some of the buildings I saw during the day. The cherry blossoms were just starting to bloom.
Included here are the Supreme Court, Cherry Blossom trees, The US Capitol and the Martin Luther King Library building.I ventured out for a walk one evening along Constitution Avenue. It was a beautiful night. The buildings in the bottom row are the National Archives and the old Post Office, which is now a hotel. The statue is of Benjamin Franklin.
I just had to include the following about the National Archives building. The article is from the March/April 2024 edition of the magazine, Archival Outlook, published by the Society of American Archivists.
The photo on the top left is of the entrance to Chinatown. I stayed at the Hilton Motto Hotel my last couple of days in Washington. The room I stayed in was very small, but the only thing it lacked was a coffee maker. Oh well. The nightly rate wasn’t bad and it was just for a couple of days.
There were other things I got to see and do, like have delicious Chinese food in Chinatown. I also bought myself a new waterproof jacket at Macy’s and took the Metro up to the Dupont Circle area to Second Story Books, where I splurged and bought a few books. I walked around the downtown area a lot too.
I really missed my friends Ron and Jane this time around, however. They moved to New York’s Hudson River Valley last year, so I’ll just have to go there to visit at some point. I also missed seeing my friend Elizabeth Robinson. We’ve been friends since the late 80s and met while working at the University of Michigan. I love her and Ron and Jane dearly. They are wonderful, amazing, beautiful people, and I am very lucky to know them.
Ron and Jane. I’ve known them since I was in high school.
My friend Elizabeth. She’s head of rare book cataloging at the Library Congress and has worked there for many, many years.
Oh well. Maybe next time. Overall, I had a great visit. DC is always a blast!
Lately, I have been doing research on my various visits to Philadelphia over the years. I’ve been there several times–in 1995, 1999, 2003, 2008 and 2014. (To see my blog post about my 2014 trip, click here.) I’ve always had an enjoyable experience. It’s a great city, with a lot of historic landmarks and interesting things to do. I have in my travel files the following booklet that I purchased somewhere along the way. It was published in 1908, and is in the public domain. I don’t know if many of the buildings still exist. Downtown is now filled with tall skyscrapers, none of which are shown here.
