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Chicano conference programs and speeches, April 1973-May 1974
1974-04-13 Opening Remarks Page 12
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Esuquial Gonzales was leading a strike in Newton in 1930 and they fired him for it. He had no recourse so he went out and picked vetabel in Northwest Iowa for many years until he was able to get back into Des Moines to get another factory job after he had been blacklisted. The blacklisting continues all the way thru today. What I am saying is that every institution in the state of Iowa as in every Midwestern state has functioned in exploiting, oppressing the Chicano immigrants who have come up here. They have not like every other immigrant, become landowning like everyother immigrant gotten an education, like every other immigrant entered their professions, like every other immigrant who got on a farm, like every other European immigrant who got this and that. It has not happened because it was not meant to happen from the anglo perspective. The Chicano immigrant and the corridos we see that he wrote we find this constant desire to remain a Chicano, to remain Mexican not to assimilate. I think as one of my students here at the University told me, nuestros grandparents really fueran heroes because they did not give in. The real Chicano movement begins with these Mexican immigrants these poor illiterate peons who came up here. They did not give. And what McWilliams said that in once generation we are all going to be gone we are all going to be absorbed, it did not happen. Es puro pedo pero cierto. So we have to understand the sitution. Think in terms of this colonial interpretation of the Midwest because we have been colonized except we have been forced to come up here as cheap labor, we have been recruited and although many of the Mexican migrants that came up here in their own personal way thought they were coming up here because things were bad in Mexico they never understood that I think as we can understand. The reason things were bad in Mexico to a great extent was a result of American industrial planning. An American industrial imperialism and American 20th century colonialism. This interpretation will help us understand better and give us a more realistic perspective on the history of the Chicano in the Midwest. I would like to leave by reading a corrido which was written in the twenties by a Mexican immigrant called El Renegado. I think that it can give us some inspiration in trying to understand our course and our objective in the Midwest. Andas por hay luciendo gran automobil, me llamas desgraciado y muerte de hambre y es que ya no te acuardas cuando en me rancho, andavas casi en cuero y sin guaraches. Asi pasa a muchos que aqui conosco. Cuando aprienden un poco de Americano y se visten catrines y van a baile. El que niega un
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Esuquial Gonzales was leading a strike in Newton in 1930 and they fired him for it. He had no recourse so he went out and picked vetabel in Northwest Iowa for many years until he was able to get back into Des Moines to get another factory job after he had been blacklisted. The blacklisting continues all the way thru today. What I am saying is that every institution in the state of Iowa as in every Midwestern state has functioned in exploiting, oppressing the Chicano immigrants who have come up here. They have not like every other immigrant, become landowning like everyother immigrant gotten an education, like every other immigrant entered their professions, like every other immigrant who got on a farm, like every other European immigrant who got this and that. It has not happened because it was not meant to happen from the anglo perspective. The Chicano immigrant and the corridos we see that he wrote we find this constant desire to remain a Chicano, to remain Mexican not to assimilate. I think as one of my students here at the University told me, nuestros grandparents really fueran heroes because they did not give in. The real Chicano movement begins with these Mexican immigrants these poor illiterate peons who came up here. They did not give. And what McWilliams said that in once generation we are all going to be gone we are all going to be absorbed, it did not happen. Es puro pedo pero cierto. So we have to understand the sitution. Think in terms of this colonial interpretation of the Midwest because we have been colonized except we have been forced to come up here as cheap labor, we have been recruited and although many of the Mexican migrants that came up here in their own personal way thought they were coming up here because things were bad in Mexico they never understood that I think as we can understand. The reason things were bad in Mexico to a great extent was a result of American industrial planning. An American industrial imperialism and American 20th century colonialism. This interpretation will help us understand better and give us a more realistic perspective on the history of the Chicano in the Midwest. I would like to leave by reading a corrido which was written in the twenties by a Mexican immigrant called El Renegado. I think that it can give us some inspiration in trying to understand our course and our objective in the Midwest. Andas por hay luciendo gran automobil, me llamas desgraciado y muerte de hambre y es que ya no te acuardas cuando en me rancho, andavas casi en cuero y sin guaraches. Asi pasa a muchos que aqui conosco. Cuando aprienden un poco de Americano y se visten catrines y van a baile. El que niega un
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