Writing 50 Years (más o menos) Amongst the Gringos

Writing 50 Years (más o menos) Amongst the Gringos

Copyright © 2021 by Roberto Rodríguez

Cover art by Will Loya

The photo-copied and digitized images of magazine covers, newspaper articles, photos and book covers used in this volume are from the personal collections of the author and publisher. All photos, magazine and book

covers that were in color, have been converted to black & white.

First Edition

ISBN: 978-0-9897782-7-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021915072

Published by Aztlan Libre Press in Yanawana/San Antonio, Texas

More info, on-line catalogue and ordering: aztlanlibrepress.com

Aztlan Libre Press books are distributed to the trade by

Small Press Distribution at spdbooks.org

____________________________________

Writing 50 Years

más o menos

Amongst the Gringos

____________________________________

Dr. Cintli

Aztlan Libre Press

Table of Contents

Dedication 9

Introduction by the Publishers 11

Foreword by Irene Vásquez, Ph.D. 15

Introduction – Writing 50 Years (más o menos) Amongst the Gringos:

Writing to Heal by Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodríguez 19

History of Red-Brown Journalism and Communications: Or the Art of

Story-Telling/Revista Estudios Ingleses, 2011 25

1970s

Intro to the 1970s by Dr. Cintli 35

Purpose and History of Chicano Studies Center/La Gente de Aztlán, 1973 36

Does It Relate to Chicanos and Community/La Gente de Aztlán, 1973 40

Scapegoat: Trabajador Mexicano/La Gente de Aztlán, 1975 43

La Gente De Aztlán Cover Photo 53

Anna Nieto Gomez/La Gente de Aztlán, 1976 54

Third Chicano Literary Prize Cover Photo 57

Mystery Forgotten: The Disappearance of the Ancient Maya People/UC Irvine Prize, 1977 58

Young Dr. Cintli at Temple to Quetzalcoatl Photo 67

Pachuco Yo, Ese Lowrider Magazine Article Photo 86

Pachuo Yo, Ese/Lowrider Magazine, 1979 86

Lowrider Magazine Article Photo 94

Roberto Rodríguez Awaiting Trial/Lowrider, 1979 94

East L.A. Sheriffs Close El Camino Real Lowrider Times Article Photo 99

East L.A. Sheriffs Close El Camino Real/Lowrider, 1979 99

1970s Discussion Questions 105

1980s

Intro to the 1980s by Dr. Cintli 107

The Unwritten History of Aztlan: Aztlan Y-Que!/Lowrider, 1981 108

The Unwritten History of Aztlan: The Destruction of Our Books/

Lowrider, 1981 110

El Canto del Quetzal/Unpublished, 1982 113

Who Declared War on the Word Chicano?/Corazón de Aztlán, 1982 115

Corazón de Aztlán Cover Photo 122

Mazehual: A Total War of Extermination/Corazón de Aztlán, 1982 123

Assault With a Deadly Weapon Book Cover Photo 131

Assault With a Deadly Weapon/Rainbow Press, 1984 132

Since When Is It Illegal To Have Brown Skin?/Los Angeles Herald

Examiner, 1985 140

Chicanos and the Central American Debate: Chicano Delegation to Visit Nicaragua/La Opinión, 1986 142

California Chicano News Media Association Award Photo 145

Cheech and the 99th Chango/The Eastside Sun, 1987 146

The Man Who Was King Newspaper Article Photo 149

The Man Who Was King/El Sol de San Diego, 1988 150

César Chávez: Águila de los Campesinos/La Opinión, 1988 152

La Opinión Newspaper Article Photo 155

El Ku Klux Klan Descubre a los Latinos/La Opinión, 1989 156

1980s Discussion Questions 158

1990s

Intro to the 1990s by Dr. Cintli 161

The War Began/Los Angeles Times, 1991 162

The Columbus Quincentennial Debate – Part II/Black Issues in

Higher Education, 1991 164

Dr. Henrietta Mann: Bringing Native American Spirituality to the Room/ Black Issues in Higher Education, 1991 174

You’re Not an Indian: Look at How You’re Dressed/National Catholic

Reporter, 1991 176

Give Aliens the Vote/USA Today Article Photo 178

Give Aliens the Vote/USA Today, 1992 179

Can It Happen Again: Scholars Discuss Forced Removal and Illegal

Incarceration of Citizens/Black Issues in Higher Education, 1992 181

Commemoration of an Underdog Victory Takes on New Significance/

USA Today, 1992 185

Tlatelolco and the Generation of ’68 Forged Chicano Movement:

Scholars, Activists Continue Work 25 Years After Student Massacre/

Black Issues in Higher Education, 1992 187

The Media, On Trial at Rodney King Trial, Article Photo 192

The Media, On Trial at Rodney King Trial, Also Guilty/National

Catholic Reporter, 1993 193

California’s Proposition 187 Place Colleges in a Bind: Students React

with Nationwide Protests/Black Issues in Higher Education, 1994 195

The Origins and History of the Chicano Movement/Michigan State

University, 1996 203

Justice: A Question of Race Book Cover Photo 216

Justice: A Question of Race/Bilingual Review Press, 1997 217

The X in La Raza Book Cover Photo 226

The X in La Raza/Anti-Book, 1997 227

Codex Tamuanchan Book Cover Photo 234

Codex Tamuanchan: On Becoming Human/Anti-Book, 1997 235

1990s Discussion Questions 243

2000-2009

Intro to 2000-2009 by Dr. Cintli 245

The Flight of the Three Eagles/Column of the Americas, 2003 246

A Hero Died the Other Day/LatinoLA, 2004 250

A Thumpin’ or a Whippin’?/Counterpunch, 2006 252

Freeing the Spirit of the Americas/The Progressive Populist, 2007 254

Honoring & Remembering Ruben Salazar/Column of the

Americas, 2008 257

Trails and Trials of Raúl Salinas, AKA: El Tapón/The Progressive

Populist, 2008 259

Ancient Word of Creator Couple/The Progressive Populist, 2008 261

Ceremonial Discourse/The Progressive Populist, 2008 263

War and Torture/Counterpunch, 2009 266

Perspectives: Wake Up GOP: Sonia Sotomayor is This Generation’s

Jackie Robinson/Diverse Education, 2009 269

Running Past PTSD (Or My Susto Profundo)/Counterpunch, 2009 272

2000-2009 Discussion Questions 275

2010-2020

Intro to 2010-2020 by Dr. Cintli 277

The Guidance of Maria Molina/The Progressive Populist, 2010 278

From Manifest Destiny to Manifest Insanity/Truthout, 2010 281

Arizona: Indian Removal or Modern-Day Reducciones?/Dissident

Voice, 2010 284

Amoxtli the X Codex Book Cover Photo 288

Amoxtli the X Codex: In Lak’ Ech, Panche Be & Hunab Ku & the

Forgotten 1524 Debate/Eagle Feather Research Institute, 2010 289

Arizona: This is What Apartheid Looks Like/Truthout, 2010 294

Author Photo 297

George Wallace in a Skirt/Counterpunch, 2010 297

Speaking/Running Against Hate, Censorship and Forbidden

Curriculums/Truthout, 2010 300

That Indian Man You See on the Hospital Bed/Poetry of Resistance

Anthology, 2010 305

Dr. Cintli’s Parents Newlywed Photo 312

An Open Letter to Birmingham/Counterpunch, 2011 314

Huehuetlahtolli Centeozintli/Unpublished, 2011 317

Arizona’s Banned Mexican American Books/The Guardian, 2012 323

Corriendo Educando or Teaching/Learning While Running/International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies, 2012 326

The Huehuetlahtolli of Frank T. Gutierrez/Unpublished, 2012 344

Ríos Montt and Arpaio: Where Impunity Reigns/Truthout, 2013 351

Dreams, Courage and Footprints/Truthout, 2013 355

Latino American: Arriving, or Greeting, the Ships?/PBS Blog, 2013 359

Operation Streamline: Expedited Indian Removal/Truthout, 2013 362

The Open Wound Called Salazar/PBS Man in the Middle

Blogspot, 2014 366

The Book of Trans-Genesis: Protecting the World’s Seeds/

Truthout, 2014 368

Our Sacred Maíz is Our Mother Book Cover Photo 372

Our Sacred Maíz is Our Mother: Quetzalcoatl, the Ants & the Gift of Maíz/

University of Arizona Press, 2014 373

Recognizing Genocide and Moving Toward Liberation: Not Counting

Mexicans and Indians, Part II/Truthout, 2015 380

The 2020 Census and the Re-Indigenization of Americas/

Truthout, 2016 387

Standing Rock Standoff Just Latest in Pipeline Crises/Diverse Issues in

Higher Education, 2016 397

A Lesson the USA Could Learn from Mexico/Diverse Issues in Higher

Education, 2017 399

Aztecas del Norte: We Cannot Be Illegal on Our Own Continent/Diverse

Issues in Higher Education, 2017 402

Who Counts as an American?/Diverse Issues in Higher Education, 2017 405

Diaz Epitomizes Education and Responsibility/Diverse Issues in Higher

Education, 2017 408

Dr. Cintli with MEChA Students Photo 410

Affirming a Macehual or Gente de Maíz Identity/Diverse Issues in Higher

Education, 2017 411

The X in LatinX/Diverse Issues in Higher Education, 2017 414

Enriqueta Vasquez: Eminent Historian for The Women of La Raza/

Truthout, 2017 417

Dr. Cintli and Pyramid of the Sun Photo 420

Are Mexicans Indigenous?/Truthout, 2017 421

Ixiim: A Maíz-Based Philosophy/Journal of Latinos and Education, 2017 424

Between Black and White: Red-Brown Color Consciousness/

Truthout, 2017 438

Brown Journeys Through México Profundo/Xica Nation, 2018 441

The Border: 500-Year Open Veins of the Americas/Xica Nation, 2018 448

Chicano Movement Anniversaries/La Voz de Esperanza, 2018 454

What He Believes; What We Believe/Ethnic Studies Review, 2018 460

Fighting Law Enforcement Brutality While Living With Trauma in a

World of Brutality/Genealogy, 2018 465

Yolqui Book Cover Photo 473

Yolqui: A Warrior Summoned from the Spirit World/University of

Arizona Press, 2019 474

11,000 Lies = Unfit to Occupy the White House/DrCintli Blog, 2019 481

Healing in the Years of Pestilence/The Progressive Populist, 2020 486

C-19 and Why Red, Black and Brown?/The Progressive Populist, 2020 488

Will We Be Able to Breathe in 2021?/The Progressive Populist, 2020 491

Police Abuse: Reform or Revolution?/The Progressive Populist, 2020 494

50th Anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium: A State-Of-War or a

Permanent State of Insurrection?/The Progressive Populist, 2020 497

2010-2020 Discussion Questions 501

Closing Prayer/Meditation by Tania Pacheco 506

Acknowledgments 509

About the Author 512

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This book is dedicated to Dr. Juan Gómez Quiñones, who went on to the Spirit World in November of 2020. Born in Parral, México, he grew up in L.A.’s Eastside. He was one of my first professors at UCLA who, over time, became my friend, confidante and colleague. Later, I consider him to have become a Xicano Tlamantinime, both a premier Indigenous intellectual and a wise and beloved elder by all those who knew him.

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Introduction from the Publishers

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Aztlan Libre Press is excited to be publishing this collection by Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodríguez. Writing 50 Years (más o menos) Amongst the Gringos is a compilation of writings that includes journalistic columns and articles, essays, short stories, poems, cantos, huehuetlahtolli, academic work, and excerpts from his seven books that span almost 50 years of Dr. Cintli’s life, from 1973-2021. Not only does this collection document his personal life’s work and evolution as a writer, journalist, columnist, academic and public intellectual, it also chronicles those movements and issues that have been, and are, important to la Raza Mexicana and the Indigenous/Xicanx and Latinx people in the U.S.

For almost 50 years, Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodríguez has been one of the most important and popular Raza voices who has consistently written and published in magazines, major newspapers, intellectual and scholarly journals, as well as on-line publications and blogs. He’s the author of seven books including his latest, Our Sacred Maíz is Our Mother: Indigeneity and Belonging in the Americas (2014), and Yolqui: A Warrior Summoned from the Spirit World (2019), both with the University of Arizona Press.

We felt that publishing a book that includes many of Dr. Cintli’s best and most important writings would make for an interesting and thought-provoking multi-and-interdisciplinary Chicanx/Ethnic Studies reader for college/university and high school students (for courses in Mexican American/Chicanx History, Chicanx/Latinx Literature, Journalism/Communications, and Indigenous/Native American Studies). Due to his experience as a journalist and columnist, we felt that his writing style – which is personal and informational, at times conversational and uses simple, clear and insightful language, even in his scholarly work – was perfect for students and very accessible to the general reader.

For this curated collection, Dr. Cintli and his assistants reviewed the last five decades of his extensive writings (he says he may have more than two thousand pieces) and made an initial selection of approximately 150 works for publication consideration. From these, we selected 91 pieces (initially published in 36 different publications), which include excerpts from his seven books. A few of his works in this book were previously unpublished. Of these 91 selections, 45 were written and published between 1973 and 2009, and 46 between 2010 and 2020.

We have placed these writings in chronological order and broken down the chapters into five decades beginning with the 1970s through 2020. This book begins with a Foreword by Dr. Irene Vásquez, and an introduction to the entire collection, as well as personal introductions to each decade, by Dr. Cintli. We felt that organizing this book in chronological order and by decades was important because it would give the students and readers some historical context to Dr. Cintli’s work, and show his evolution as a writer, journalist, academic and thinker, that began as an undergraduate student at the University of California in Los Angeles in the early 1970s, through his years as a Mexican American Studies professor at the University of Arizona from 2008-2021 until his retirement.

At the end of each decade, there are a series of discussion questions designed by educators to help students and teachers engage the material and critically think about the subject matter and issues that Dr. Cintli was writing about during that decade, and how these relate to contemporary times and the student’s lives. There are also writing prompts and exercises that teachers and professors can use as student assignments.

Aztlan Libre Press and Dr. Cintli thank Dr. Jennie Luna, Dr. Lilliana Patricia Saldaña and Guadalupe Carrasco Cardona for the thoughtful discussion questions and prompts they contributed to this book. Jennie Luna has a Ph.D. in Native American Studies and is currently an Associate Professor in Chicana/o Studies at California State University, Channel Islands. She has been a danzante Mexica for 30 years, a community birth worker/doula for 15 years, and life-long Xicana activist. Dr. Lilliana Patricia Saldaña is originally from Yanawana and is an Associate Professor in Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas in San Antonio. Over the past eight years, she has collaborated on statewide organizing efforts to expand Mexican American Studies in Texas public schools; and is deeply committed to sustaining Indigenous plant-based foods through community talleres and pláticas. Guadalupe Carrasco Cardona is the Chair of the Association of Raza Educators in Los Angeles and a founding member of the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Coalition. She has a Masters degree in Curriculum and Instruction, Language and Literacy from Arizona State University, and has been a high school teacher for 21 years. She is a proud mother, wife and Chicana matriarch of her family.

Their input and insights were invaluable to this collection. It is our desire that the questions and exercises that these three educators developed for this book will be useful instructional and thinking tools for students and teachers/professors that will lead them to new questions and discussions, and hopefully inspire them to become social and environmental justice activists, scholars, journalists and conscientious contributing members of their own local communities.

Minimal editing for spelling, punctuation and clarity was used in this book. Every effort was made to maintain the character and language used when it was originally published. In regards to Spanish-language accents on some Indigenous words and names, such as Aztlan and Tenochtitlan, sometimes we use the accent mark, depending on context, and other times we do not, as these writing and accent rules were a colonial Hispanicization of the Indigenous languages. In Spanish-language names such as Rodríguez and Almazán – if the person uses an accent mark on their name, or if it was published with an accent mark, we kept the accent mark. At other times, we did not use accent marks on Spanish-language names (some Xicanxs, for example, do not use accent marks when they write Maria Gonzalez or Hector Barron). Finally, some of the scholarly articles included in this book had footnotes and a bibliography. We have eliminated these in this collection.

While the initial selection process by Dr. Cintli began about four years ago, our work as publishers began last year in March, 2020, just as the coronavirus/COVID-19 global pandemic was beginning to take its toll. It seems as if overnight we were thrust into a surreal quarantined Twilight Zone, an apocalyptic world of death and virtual reality, television news, movies, online-home-schooling and Zoom meetings.

During this time we witnessed the ghastly police murder of George Floyd on our TV’s, phones and laptops, and joined in Black Lives Matter protests against police violence and the killing of Black, Brown and Indigenous people. We saw our sacred Mother Earth and waters poisoned by corporate extractive industries and the black snake. Cities, police stations and cars burned, and just last week, the Gulf of Mexico was on fire. We protested the caging of innocent Indigenous and migrant children and the separation from their parents and relatives. We protested the police and military murders of Breonna Taylor and Jessica Guillén. We saw Trump defeated by Biden/Harris, the first woman and Asian/African American vice-president in the history of this country. We heard the big lie of election fraud and of the presidency being stolen. We saw the violent storming of the capitol by mainly racist white supremacistTrump-supporters who attempted to impede democracy. We saw him being impeached twice. And then there was a vaccine.

As we write this on July 20, 2021, we see this book as a metaphor marking the end of the Trumpian era – a devastating last year-and-a-half of a pandemic that has killed over 600,000 people, so far, in the U.S., and over 4 million people worldwide – and the beginning of healing.

It’s not over with yet. There are still too many people getting sick and dying from COVID. There is still white supremacy, racial profiling and police violence. There is still a racist educational system based on wealth where people of color are excluded (or worse, negatively stereotyped and dehumanized) in textbooks and curriculum. There are still kids in cages and a broken immigration and asylum system. There is still war, and poverty, income and health care disparities and inequality, and sexism and homophobia and domestic violence and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Two-Spirit people. There is still gerrymandering and voter suppression and anti-Critical Race Theory laws being passed in state legislatures across the country right now and ... there’s still a long way to go. There’s still a lot of racial reckoning and healing that needs to be done, but we will get there. Liberación está en la lucha, and in working every day for a better and more just world for our Mother Earth, for our familias, for all of humanity, and for all our relations.

It is in this spirit of healing, justicia and liberación, of in tlilli in tlapalli/the path of the red and black ink, and of leaving footprints behind for our children and all future generations, that we offer up this book.

To all our relations/Tewahayo nah’o k’tu. Tlazokamati, Ipalnemoani, H’o Kammtuyahamm.

Juan Tejeda & Anisa Onofre

Foreword:

A Pilgrimage to Hope and Struggle

by Irene Vásquez, Ph.D.

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Reading this collection of writings by Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodríguez is like taking a literary road trip from the soft, multicolored hues of a desert morning sky, to the hustle and bustle of a crowded urban juncture, to a detour into a perilous and darkly-shadowed terrain of grit and steel. Hold on, though, what happens at the end of this journey is a meditative drumbeat for hope. The writings and excerpts from a range of publications across several decades are clear, engaging and written for any age or audience interested in well-informed, insightful and critical viewpoints about history, culture, and politics. The academic resonances and implications are evident and will enhance learning and dialogue in any classroom setting in the areas of Chicana and Chicano/x Studies, Ethnic Studies, community-centered Journalism, and yes, U.S. History.

Interpreting the historical trajectory of Chicanx communities in the U.S. is one of the most important and simultaneously under-explored accounts in U.S. history and educational textbooks. Currently the Mexican descent population comprises almost 17% of the national population, or about 52 million people. In many textbooks adopted by schooling institutions across the U.S., the history and contemporary exploration of diverse Mexican descent peoples has been reduced to brief explanations of the influence of César Chávez and the UFW on farmworker and labor organizing in the late 1960s and 1970s. Chicana and Chicano history texts have been written and some have been adopted into Chicano history courses where they exist in high school and college settings. Since the introduction of Chicana and Chicano Studies, or Mexican American Studies, some 50-plus years ago, the field demonstrates growth and diversity. However, the K-12 curriculum still largely remains centered on Anglo-American communities and experiences.

Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodríguez marks his own initiation as a journalist and writer during the early period of the Chicana and Chicano Movement and the emergence of Chicana/o Studies. Both developments occurred during a time of defiance and protest in the face of white supremacy. His writings read like prophetic renderings of a future sifted through the sands of the past. This collection, as published, offers a chronological framework of explanatory essays, articles, columns, poetry, and selected excerpts from book publications. Rodríguez’s work complements recent theorizing on settler colonialism, white supremacy, nativism, racism, illegality, state violence and de-Indianization. Some of the writings center his eye-witnessing of police (state) violence and surveillance through personal narratives grounded in judicious research, statistical databases, sociological interpretations, activist manifestos, and civic-informed opinions. Some of his observations and warnings apply to other communities of color as well, which underscore the significance of the collection and support the writer’s assertion that living in pluralistic societies necessitates solidarity and allyship because ultimately, liberation is liberation for all.

As a journalist, Dr. Cintli vividly and authentically centers day-to-day neighborhood realities such as cruising urban streets, donning zoot suits, dodging and surviving police surveillance and abuse, and grass-roots organizing for community change in different U.S. locales, including major metropoles. What emerges from a reading of the entire set of essays and texts is that Chicanas and Chicanos, and their forebears, have been locked into internal and external struggles with colonial powers and hegemonic states that seek to eliminate any form of defiance or resistance against dominant and abusive practices.

For Rodríguez, assimilation also figures as a dead-end street in the five decades of writing, highlighting the continuing push-out rates of students of color; the prison push-in rates of Black and Brown folks; the sexism and misogyny that limit the freedom of Chicana and Latina women; the continuing depredations of state violence on Chicana/o and Latina/o communities; the failings of U.S. judicial systems; the ongoing systematic segregation of working class communities of color in resource-deprived communities; the dismal working conditions of farm and factory labor; and the ominous footprint of educational institutions seeking the erasure of Chicanx-centered identities, perspectives and programs. Rodríguez succinctly covers the predatory nature of Anglo-Saxonism, Manifest Destiny and American Exceptionalism, that entail the continual suppression of radical and progressive voices, particularly those working in media outlets. There has been, and is, a no- tolerance posture for people who resist their exploitation and oppression, or otherwise seek to defend themselves.

In this book, Chicanas and Chicanos can trace their lineage of hemispherically and globally-informed political perspectives, beginning in the 1960s, and evolving in the 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s, that counter the currency of essentialisms waged at self-identifying Chicanas and Chicanos and their studies programs. Rodríguez demonstrates that Chicanas and Chicanos have long advocated and supported organizing efforts led by their Central American cousins, including Guatemalans, Nicaraguans, and Salvadorians. Importantly, he draws connections between the opportunistic and racist U.S. foreign policy and domestic policy ravages of capitalism that seeks to de-humanize communities of color. State violence is the arm and the endpoint of racism, sexism, classism and xenophobia. This subject is not often covered in schooling or media outlets, and when it is, it usually favors the dominant classes.

This book provides a serious set of contemplations that pulls together various fragments and threads of our community’s survival and dignity. Yes, I embrace the notion of an our because I do not believe there is one person or family of Mexican or Latin American descent that will not connect to the issues investigated, uncovered, and documented in this strategically curated set of critiques, manifestos, stanzas, testimonios, and essays. The writings, in summation, are a call to be ready, to be on watch, to stand witness, to write and preserve our accounts, and to prepare our youth for another generation of defiance in the face of racism, oppression and exploitation. Situating himself as a vessel for community knowledge and storytelling, Dr. Cintli writes: But what I have seen, others have also seen, and the thoughts I have, belong to many others. I am one voice in a sea of voices waiting to be heard.

If one has done their research, like Rodríguez, they will know that Chicanas and Chicanos generally did not seek to essentialize, appropriate, or idealize their Indigenous ancestries for financial or other gains. Drawing on historical and anthropological scholarship, ethnographic observations, and interview and community-based ruminations, Rodríguez speaks to the foundational ancestral knowledge systems and cultural contexts of Mexican and Central American peoples. This is a topic that increasingly will surface as Latinx, Mexican and Chicana/o/x youth have often turned to the original exploitation of the Indigenous peoples as influencing their political perspectives on colonialism. Through his research and writing, in concert with community elders, Dr. Cintli lays an intellectual basis that insists on the notion that the historical resistance movements by peoples of Mexican and Latin American descent, have been influenced through memories and practices left to them by their Indigenous ancestors. People of Color, including African Americans and Asian Americans, have historically drawn on iconic and cultural representations of their ancestral homeland to de-center White hegemony and settler colonialism. Chicanas and Chicanos have ancestry that is indigenous to this continent. They too seek a sense of peoplehood, a relationship to their ancestors, a connection to their homeland, and equitable access to land for communal subsistence. This vision rests on a recognition of their human rights as part of an egalitarian society.

Dr. Cintli’s essays on Chicana and Chicano Studies proclaim the field as an academic site for liberation, and when the field is not seeking liberation, then we must change it. Chicanx Studies is more than a conglomeration of individuals and programs, but instead, an intellectual basis for the close study of our past and present in order to enact change for future generations. This is the epistemological framework and challenge for Chicanx Studies educators. The journey has already shown us that no matter how deep and far colonial and imperial forces have attempted to fracture our aspirations for autonomy, dignity, peace and love, we still have our dreams of hope. This hope is grounded in generations of love and struggle imparted through the memories of our ancestors. We are as much our memory, as we are our future. We have persevered ourselves through our collective hope for a better future.

Introduction – Writing 50 years

(más o menos) Amongst the Gringos:

Writing to Heal

by Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodríguez

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I have been writing my whole life and yet in all those years, I had never heard of, much less been referred to as, a word healer. Yet, that is how my colega and friend, Tania Pacheco, referred to me when she first delivered a closing prayer/meditation when my Yolqui book on violence was released in 2019.

A word healer? If that describes me and my work, then it is an honor.

Both my parents, Juanita García and Ricardo Rodríguez, were born in Tenochtitlan-Mexico City, but independently arrived in Aguascalientes sometime during their childhood. There they met and were married in 1948. I was born in 1954, and by the time we moved to Tijuana when I was four years old, I had three older siblings and two younger brothers. In 1960, my father brought us to the United States where we settled into a little alley shack on Whittier Blvd. in East Los Angeles, California. My youngest brother was born in East L.A. a few years later.

Born in Mexico and having come to the U.S. when I was five years old, I know that life was hell for Mexicans in this country at that time, especially those with no knowledge of the English language and those that were chocolate brown like me. I imagine if I had any healing to do with my writing, it was from that decade in which Gringo society especially abhorred Raza and when Mexican Americans also did not accept Mexicans as part of La Chicanada. In this hate climate, I was always referred to as a mojado, or a wetback. When I went from junior high school to high school, that’s actually when it got worse because by then my English was proficient and I had lost my accent and was able to inconspicuously listen in on conversations in which people regularly and callously expressed their vicious sentiments against Mexican peoples.

In effect, my psyche was shaped in those days, before the Chicano Movement, cognizant of how Raza were treated as less than human by society – some worse than others – and how Raza conceived of themselves and identified before, during and after the height of the movement. My actual writing began in 1972 at La Gente, a Chicano student movement newspaper at UCLA. The backdrop was Aztlan – the purported homeland of both the Aztecs and Raza in the United States – the land was also associated with the territory the United States stole from Mexico after the 1846-1848 Mexican-American War. The belief in Aztlan was the idea that we were not foreigners, but rather, indigenous to these lands.

In those days, the primary topics we all wrote about included the educational crisis in barrio schools, the farmworker’s movement, the prison-industrial complex, political prisoners, the Vietnam War, police abuse, immigration issues, barrio warfare, Raza Studies and Third World Liberation Movements. Many of us considered our struggle as part of that same liberation struggle worldwide, and especially linked to the revolutionary and Indigenous liberation struggles of the Americas.

Aside from that political rebellion that was taking place in the streets, a cultural explosion was also taking place which manifested itself in the Chicano Cultural Renaissance and the Floricanto arts movement (Flower and Song, or In Xochitl In Cuicatl in Nahuatl). I became a part of that when I began writing fiction from 1976 through 1983, winning several writing contests along the way. Some of those writings are included in this collection.

As a writer, I was born into all that movement and turmoil, especially the killing of L.A. Times writer, Ruben Salazar, in 1970 in East L.A. It is that killing that radically altered my consciousness; I believed then that if they could kill him, they could kill anyone. It is what motivated me to go to college and become a writer in the first place. It is also why I came to see myself as a writer with a responsibility. In one sense, that’s probably a large reason why I write in both English and Spanish (I wrote for the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinión in Los Angeles for many years).

In 1979, while writing for Lowrider Magazine, I was almost killed by sheriff’s deputies a few blocks down the street from where Salazar was killed, and a few blocks down from where I grew up on Whittier Blvd. in East L.A. With that incident – in which I had photographed a vicious police assault on a youngster – came a fractured skull, death threats, and eight criminal charges filed against me, all for purportedly attempting to kill four East L.A. sheriff’s deputies. All of that resulted in two successful police brutality criminal and civil trials, many dozens of illegal stops and detentions, harassment, false arrests and more death threats. Unfortunately, because police abuse had always been a reality in Raza communities, that is the one issue that I have never been able to put behind me. Until the brutality and the killings stop – that’s when our Red-Black-Brown communities won’t have to heal from that anymore, a violence I trace to 1492 and one which I have consistently been writing about since the 1970s.

Incidentally, a generation later, as a professor at the University of Arizona, I again became subjected to more death threats, these mostly as a result of being involved with defending Raza/Indigenous/Ethnic Studies, with the last ones being in the spring of 2020.

The other topic that has always dominated my writing is the issue of Indigeneity in the Raza communities of this nation. When I arrived in East L.A. in 1960, a great many Mexicans generally saw themselves as Spanish or Americans, though the mass media and societal institutions referred to them/us as [dirty] Mexicans. Ironically, Mexican Americans at that time were shamed into not speaking their racialized Spanish language in this country. It was the Chicano civil, political, and human rights movement that indeed changed that. Even to this day, society’s extreme racism still causes many people from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean, to internalize the hate and be embarrassed of their Indigenous, African, or mixed roots.

I have written about this virtually my entire life and it is a difficult topic to write about because, just as I believe in self-determination, I also believe in self-identification. The antithesis of self-identification is an imposed identity. Such identities are especially harmful when they come from the government or corporate sectors who see us as markets, as opposed to peoples. Incidentally, for many decades, the US Census Bureau imposed a White identity upon Raza. Despite denials, they, and most government institutions and the mass media, still do. This is what feeds into the Black-White paradigm and narrative of this nation, which is actually a White narrative that often both invisibilizes and silences Raza on virtually all matters.

On issues of identity, I have always leaned in the direction of asserting the maíz roots of peoples from Mexico/Central America, the one identity that has always been subject to extermination and denigration, and that is, an identity as Indigenous, or original, peoples of this continent. Because of a myriad of differences, it has always been difficult to come up with a consensus identity that peoples from all the Americas can agree to. As such, through the years, I myself identify with a mazehual or gente de maíz identity – which does not adhere to nation-state borders – while respecting whatever identity other people choose for themselves.

Regarding the corollary issue of self-determination, in the 1960s-1970s, for many in the movement, that was the mantra, though after 50 years, it seems as though it has not gone beyond a mantra. For me, I can flat out say that the building of a Nación Xicana – of maíz-based peoples – is what self-determination would look like and what I advocate in my writings. Especially with the election of the Orange Madman (though not re-election), all the nation’s government institutions turned on this community and seemingly no one came to their/our defense. As far as I am concerned, that broke the social contract that had never even been adhered to since it was made in 1848, the year the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed and in which half of Mexico’s land – at the barrel of a gun – was stolen by the United States. The social contract written into the treaty was that if the former citizens of what had been Mexico became U.S. citizens, they would be treated as full U.S. citizens. This included guaranteeing their land and human rights, which, in effect, were never actually fully honored. Due to those violations of this living treaty, I believe self-determination can be concretized, not just put on a poster or meme. That’s where my writings have taken me. Either we are treated as full human beings with corresponding full human rights, or we have earned the right to be free as an Indigenous Nación Xicana, in coordination with other Indigenous/Black resistance and liberation movements.

Throughout the years, I have had the honor and privilege to have written for Black and Indigenous publications, both for magazines/newspapers, and also as a professor where I have been able to publish my most important work in primarily Indigenous publications. I remember when I first wrote for Black Issues in Higher Education in 1990, I was able to interview the nation’s top Black, Asian, Native and Raza intellectuals in the country. I would not trade this experience for anything.

One thing that is not included in this book are the joint writings I did with Patrisia Gonzales between 1994 and 2006 as nationally syndicated columnists for Chronicle Features and Universal Press Syndicate. Known as Column of the Americas, Patrisia and I co-wrote a weekly column during those twelve years. At the time, as a writer, that represented the height of my/our writing careers. To be nationally syndicated was magical, venturing into places we never would have thought of. It was also a time of high censorship. As an Indigenous/Raza writing team, we broke barriers and wrote on topics most Americans had never heard of: Raza as Indigenous peoples, not as aliens or foreigners. That writing we did during that era will one day be the subject of another volume.

During that same period in the 1990s, I did write what I termed anti-books – writings that were in response to my own earlier writings, namely, the essay Who Declared War on the Word Chicano?, which resulted in The X in La Raza and Codex Tamuanchan: On Becoming Human. Both were primarily on the topic of identity, re-indigenization and re-humanization. These are issues and topics that continue to be relevant to this day.

I am not sure that I had planned to still be writing after all these years, especially after beginning work on my Masters/Ph.D. in the early 2000s. For me, I could not stop writing. I didn’t, and I haven’t. Luckily, for a time, I was able to negotiate my column writing and academic writing and was permitted by my college to write for Truthout’s public intellectual page. Of course, since becoming a professor, I have written much scholarly work which has included topics such as running epistemology, elder-youth epistemology, the concept of creation-resistance, the history of Red-Brown journalism and communications, cultural nutrition, plus color and color consciousness (forthcoming book: Smiling Brown: People the Color of the Earth). I actually pride myself in that such writing is very readable, as I was trained to write for the public, not just for colleagues. I often get asked to speak to K-12 students and find that they can comprehend the aforementioned college-level work and writings that I do, including my book on Sacred Maíz and the Yolqui book on violence.

I should add that I have always thought of my writing – which I consider In Tlilli In Tlapalli, the Red and Black Ink – as ceremony; writing with responsibility and writing as ceremony. In that vein, I have also written Huehuetlahtolli (ancient guidances), a few of which are found here, and which I hope to do more in the future. Throughout the years, I have been a journalist, a columnist and an academic writer, but more than anything, I feel most comfortable describing myself as both a recorder of history, and a storyteller. I wish I could say I am done writing, but I don’t know that that will ever come to pass.

I want to conclude by adding that during the Raza/Indigenous/Ethnic Studies battles several years ago in Arizona, I began running. It was at that point that I learned the concept of leaving footprints behind. In a sense, that’s what this book represents: memory and the leaving of footprints, over the span of some 50 years. The memory, the stories and words I leave behind here, are part of the ceremony I have tried to live.

Thank you,

Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodríguez

History of Red-Brown Journalism and Communications: Or the Art of

Story-Telling

Revista Estudios Ingleses, Universidad de las Lagunas

Islas Canarias/2011

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All the writings in this volume are in chronological order by decades (1970s-2020), except the following piece on The History of Red-Brown Journalism & Communications, because this article locates my writing within this context. Yes, I see myself a product of Raza journalism, yet, I actually trace my writing to the tradition of In Tlilli in Tlapalli – the Red and the Black Ink. It is writing and communication that goes back thousands of years to this very continent. Also, my writing is what I term: creation-resistance – that is part of creation, and at the same time, part of the resistance that can be dated back to when Indigenous peoples first flung arrows at Columbus and his crew, forcing them to land elsewhere. This writing is grounded in maíz knowledge and in those first arrows.

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Over the past few years, I’ve been teaching a class at the University of Arizona that I created, titled: The History of Red-Brown Journalism and Communications. When many people hear the title, many assume that it is a class related to Latino Journalism. They believe this because it coincided with the Voices of Justice Project – a project that celebrated 200 years of Latino Journalism in 2008.

As a journalist and columnist of 39 years, my view of Red-Brown Journalism is a bit more expansive. If l were teaching strictly about the pre-Columbian era, perhaps a more appropriate title to the class would be: In Tlilli In Tlapalli, The Red and the Black Ink. In the Nahuatl (Aztec) language, this refers to the writing of the Aztec-Mexica. But my view of writing is even more expansive than that.

Part of my view derives from the historiography I employ. My point of reference for Mexicans and Chicanas/Chicanos is maíz culture, which is metaphorically 7,000 years old – when scientists estimate that corn was created in Southern Mexico.

It is estimated that writing developed perhaps initially among the Olmecs some 3,000 years ago (Florescano, Historia). While this makes up my worldview regarding writing or the written word in the Americas, my classes do in fact tend to concentrate on what is referred to as Chicano Journalism – a journalism associated with the 1960s-1970s. In referring to the Chicano Movement, some scholars have given it the set dates of 1965-1975, though most historians do not assign specific start and end dates to this movement.

This is not a case of either/or. Within that context, for me, ancient methods of communication fall within the Red-Brown Journalism paradigm. For thousands of years in the Americas, many systems of communication developed, from knot­-tied strings to amoxtlis or codices and from petroglyphs to Wampum belts. These systems communicated astronomical data, migration information and information related to planting seasons, the location of water, historical information, etc. The United States is a rich repository of petroglyphs and intaglios, many of which re­port constant migrations. Whereas others might not view this as journalism, my journalism background tells me it is, because similar to modern journalism, ancient methods of communications also communicated useful and timely information.

For example, in the central and southern parts of Mexico, the escrituras-pinturas, or painted-books, were known as pop in Maya, or amoxtli in Nahuatl. They were written/painted by peoples from Teotihuacan, Maya, Toltec, Nahuatl and Mixtec peoples. We now know that similar to the Maya, the Nahuatl and Mixtec forms of writing were actually phonetic and not simply pictographs. We know this through the works of Joaquín Galarza, who spent 40 years deciphering these writing systems.

Another form of writing was the quipu or khipu. Long thought to be an amazing method of mathematical accounting by ancient peoples of the Andes, it is now known that they were also actual [non-Western] books or repositories of memory and historical events. The peoples of pre-Aztec Mexico also used a similar device called the Nepohualtzinzin. They are used nowadays by some as calculators.

Similarly, Wampum belts are traditional places where history is stored by Six Nations peoples. A note regarding the pre-Columbian era is that with the arrival of Europeans to the Americas, most Indigenous systems of communication were destroyed, diminished or badly misinterpreted, generally up until the present era, when Native peoples began to write for themselves in Western publications. The reason for this was twofold: 1) the belief that they were demonic, and 2) that Indigenous peoples were not smart enough to be capable of creating a phonetic system of communication.

It is important to remember that the arrival of Europeans was in and of itself a news event; the reporting and reaction to the European invasion, including their arrival into what is today the United States, were recorded. When Cortés arrived on Mexican shores, they were met by Moctezuma’s emissaries. Tlacuilos, or writers/painters, were permitted to record on amoxtli papers the arrival of the Span­iards. Moctezuma had the news of their arrival within hours. Also, the Lienzo de Tlaxcala records the arrival of Europeans into New Mexico ... along with the arrival of Tlaxcaltecas, as they accompanied the Spaniards on this and other colonizing endeavors.

During the Spanish colonial era, Europeans began to rank communication systems as advanced, primitive, and even, demonic. Bishop Landa in 1562 held an Auto de Fé in Mani, Yucatán. This event was a three-day book-burning predicated on the idea that the books and related objects were things of the devil. Of course, things Western always equaled advanced in the colonial era and these biases continue even to this day. This is one major reason why it has taken up until the modern era to decipher these writings.

Because of time and space, this is not the proper forum to go into details of how knowledge by Indigenous peoples of these communications systems actually survived. Suffice to say that the cultivation of maíz as a technology had a large part to do with this, plus, the oral tradition, pre-Columbian calendrical systems, ceremony, poetry, song and danza were other places where the same knowledge was transmitted and stored. All of these supplemented the written traditions that have been a part of the Americas since time immemorial.

For Latinos in the United States, the early era of Western-style journalism begins in the early 1800s through the 1900s. The first known Spanish-language newspaper in what is today the United States was El Misisipi, published in 1808 in New Orleans. As such, the year 2008 marked the bicentennial celebration of 200 years of Latino Journalism. After El Misisipi, hundreds more publications followed. Many writers from the 1800s and 1900s functioned not simply as journalists, but also as human rights champions and also as community intellectuals (because no tradition of college existed). Many of these first newspapers assisted independence movements against Spain.

Later Mexican Journalism in the United States was more typified by El Clamor Público of Los Angeles, circa early 1860s. El Clamor, published and edited by Fran­cisco Ramírez, fought for the rights of Mexicans, including land rights.

At the turn of the 20th century, Regeneración carried on the tradition of fighting for the rights of Mexicans, though it was also part of a movement that advocated revolution in Mexico before the 1910 Revolution. The publication reemerged more than 50 years later in the 1960s, led by Francisca Flores.

La Opinión newspaper in Los Angeles, which has been publishing since the 1920s, is an example of a newspaper that has spanned several eras. La Opinión, founded in 1926 in Los Angeles, was moderate, but did fight for the rights of Mexicans. It is the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the country. It was founded by the Lozano family and it continues in the hands of Monica Lozano. It began publishing during an era when the Mexican communities of the United States were hard hit by repatriation campaigns. This was followed by desegregation and anti-discrimination battles, through the Chicano Movement militant era, and it continues to publish today in what might be dubbed the anti­-immigrant era.

The era that I was a part of was the Chicano Journalism era (though I continue to write), an era characterized by a brand of militant and unapologetic form of journalism from the 1960s and 1970s. In effect, this form of media didn’t simply document this movement; it was part and parcel to the Chicano Movement. This ushered in an era that resulted in the explosion of Raza oriented newspapers and magazines throughout the United States. Most were English-dominant or bi­lingual. The primary characteristic of this media at the time was their militancy and their preaching of Brown Power! The importance of Brown Power cannot be over­stated. Prior to the Chicano Movement era, people of Mexican descent generally played up their Spanish roots at the expense of their Indigenous roots. In legal cases, in cases of desegregation, lawyers argued that Mexicans should be treated fairly­ because they were White – as opposed to simply being treated as fully human.

This is what differentiated the Chicano Movement era from previous eras.

Activists from this era were both unapologetic about their Indigenous roots, and in fact publicly celebrated their mixed roots. This primary process, or political volcanic eruption of the 1960s, was reflected in their publications – including their titles. This idea of a primary process was first applied to the Mexican Independence Movement of the 1800s, but also to the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920. Accompanying this idea of a primary process was also the concept of principio, or a return to the root. In the case of the Mexican Independence Movement, the Mexican Revolution and the Chicano Movement, this root was the Aztec-Mexica as typified by the resistance by Cuauhtemoc to the Spanish invasion. This explains the predominance of Aztec-Mexican imagery