Hispanic/Latino Heritage

Rebels who survived the vicious fighting that killed about one of seven Mexicans in the first decade of the Mexican Revolution increasingly turned their attention to creating a more equitable society for their countrymen. They initiated major campaigns for land redistribution, worker rights, public health, and elementary education. They wanted to achieve a uniform national culture. During the 1920s, these leaders formulated revolutionary programs utilizing for the first time the mass media. In general, they intended to create a Mestizo society and culture, by which they meant to include ethnic groups and their traditions in a hybrid nationality. This blend of both people and culture required bringing together the indigenous, Spanish-origin, and Afro-Mexican peoples into what the Minister of Public Education José Vasconcelos called the Cosmic Race. The programs drew on anthropological formulations to incorporate Indians and at the same time to document their disappearing cultures through the creation of Mexican folktypes. Vasconcelos looked to provide all Mexicans an education that included the standard western traditions of literature, music, and dance, but ironically the ultimate expression of the revolutionary programs’ success became ubiquitous calendar girls. . .

Lisa Elizondo, a University of Alabama junior and McNair Scholar who spent her summer collecting oral histories of Chicano-rights activists, presents the findings from oral histories gathered during her McNair Scholars Summer Research Internship in June and July 2010 under the guidance of Dr. Michael Innis-Jimenez, assistant professor of American studies. With McNair and American studies departmental support, Elizondo traveled throughout Washington and to Oakland, Calif., to interview activists who participated in Washington in the Chicano civil rights movement of the 1960s and ’70s. These individuals advocated for community inclusiveness and increased educational opportunities for Mexican-Americans, gathered support for the farm workers’ movement and improved access to healthcare for Mexican-Americans. Although similar activism in California is well-known, Elizondo’s study is one of few to document the movement in Washington.