Edition: September 2021
By: Chuy Ramirez
Ricardo Romo shares with the us the news that the once segregated elementary school house at Marfa, Texas has been converted to a museum. If you have kept up with us, you probably noticed Dr. Tino Villanueva’s poem, Scene from the Movie GIANT (June 2021 ed.). The 1954 movie Giant, with Rock Hudson and Elizbeth Taylor, was shot near Marfa, Texas. Villanueva’s poem and our review of the poem may provide a further understanding of the significance of the Marfa museum project.
It is indeed timely for us to include a review of Dr. Tatcho Mindiola’s new book, Race Talk in a Mexican Cantina. Read the review and then order the book. You will enjoy it. But, we also share with you an interview of Tatcho in which he shares the early struggles of developing a chicano studies program at the University of Houston. In our February 2021 edition, we have an excellent interview with Dr. Blandina Cardenas, as well as her 2004 essay, Breaking Through in Migrant Education. If time permits, consider checking into Dr. Cardenas’s interview and essay after reading Tatcho Mindiola’s interview.
On request, M.A. Ramirez prepared a book review of the Spanish novelist, Perez-Reverte’s very, very short novella, Ojos Azueles. Perez-Reverte is a Spanish author and the novel is based entirely on a Spanish soldier’s last breath during the Noche Triste in 1520 at Tenochtitlan. Perez-Reverte symbolizes the Noche Triste as the genesis for our biological mestizaje.
Before Aurelio Montemayor joined Intercultural Development Research Associates (IDRA) in San Antonio, Texas, he was one of many chicano activists of the 1960s and 70s. His story is a fascinating one, quite unique, told in a couple of interviews. Montemayor’s story includes membership in the Mexican American Youth Organization and serving as co-founder of Colejio Jacinto Trevino in 1970-71.
Publishers and editors, Anisa Onofre and Juan Tejeda, San Antonio, have great news to report. Aztlan Libre Press is launching Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez book, Writing 50 Years (mas or menos) Amongst the Gringos on October 1, 2021 in San Antonio. But there’s more. The launch coincides with the Grand Opening of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center’s Latino Bookstore & Gift Shop in San Antonio, Texas on October 1, 2021. And to boot, Dr. Carmen Tafolla and Dr. Tomás Ybarra Frausto will share the stage at the opening.
By: Chuy Ramirez
Hearing on Mexican-American problems in Chapel Auditorium at Our Lady of the Lake College. From left, Jose Vasquez, 1968 graduate of Lanier High School; Edgar Lozano, senior at Lanier; Martin Cantu, 1968 graduate of Edgewood High School; Homer Garcia, senior at Lanier; and Irene Ramirez, senior at Lanier on Dec. 9, 1968.
San Antonio Express-News Photograph Collection / UTSA Special Collections
In mid-December, 1968, while the future of the 172 boycotting high school students at Edcouch Elsa, Texas remained in limbo, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission was holding hearings in San Antonio. Ostensibly, the objective of the hearings was to report to Congress regarding the condition of Mexican Americans in the Southwest.
Three of the witnesses invited to address matters involving Mexican American public education in Texas were Aurelio Montemayor (Del Rio), Edgar Lozano (San Antonio) and Lupe Chavez (Edcouch Elsa).
Montemayor had been a high school English teacher at Del Rio ISD during 1965-1967 and at the time of his testimony was a Project Director for the Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA). Termination of the VISTA program would lead to the Del Rio March in the Spring of 1969. Governor Preston Smith would remove the program from Val Valde County upon the request of local politicos. As a junior, Lozano had been one of the student leaders of the Lanier High School Mexican American students grievances the prior Spring. Chavez was the father of several students who had participated in the Edcouch Elsa walkout. Mr. Chavez’ testimony was in Spanish.
By: Chuy Ramirez
With the decennial redistricting process underway for the purpose of drawing new congressional and state legislative district lines, we share a timely interview of two of the leading voting rights litigators in the country. Jose Garza and Rolando Rios, of San Antonio, Texas give us some hope that litigation options still remain to challenge restrictive election laws and partisan redistricting.
By: Ricardo Romo, Ph.D
In perhaps a first for Texas education history, Mexican American residents of Marfa, Texas have initiated an important community project: restoring their “Mexican” school built in 1909. Their intentions are that the creation of the Blackwell School Museum will shed light on an earlier historical period when equal educational opportunities were denied to Mexican American school children…
By: Chuy Ramirez
Armando Rendon is a former California journalist, chicano activist, novelist, essayist and of late, co-founder of a digital publisher, www.somosenescrito.com. Rendon spent the first 10 years of his life growing up in San Antonio’s westside, which serves as a setting for one of his novels. During the early to mid-1960s, Rendon would have a life-changing experience upon meeting Cesar Chavez. Chavez was then organizing farmworkers in California. From that time forward he began identifying as a chicano and developed an affinity with the workers whom Chavez was organizing.
By: Gary Joe Mounce
El Dia de los Muertos y las Calaveras with Jose Guadalupe Posada.
“Posada nos dice que todos somos muertos bajo la carne”–Posada tells us that we are all dead beneath the flesh (Ruiz, Alonso, El México de José Guadalupe Posada, 2019). The art of José Guadalupe Posada ((1852-1913) reminds us—in stark black and white–of our mortality. His life—spanning the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz though the Mexican Revolution–reveals to us the glories and the tragedies of Mexico. His death silenced his pen and engraving tools, but he has been resurrected.
According to Diego Rivera, the “corriente mas positiva”–most positive current–of art is “arte popular,” or art for and by the people, the masses. And “lo mas grande”–greatest–of these artists (“tan grande como Goya y Callot”–as great as Goya or Callot) was José Guadalupe Posada.
Artwork: “Thy name is vanity” – Juan J. Hernandez, Dallas, Texas – juanjhernandez.com
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Aurelio Montemayor
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