Young Chicano Scholars example essay topic

The Chicano student movement of the 1960's was a quest for identity. It was an effort to recapture what had been lost through the socialization process imposed by US schools, institutions, and citizens. Chicanos became an oppressed minority group as a consequence of the expansion of the US in the nineteenth century. This expansion had a profound impact on their political and intellectual development. It would not be fair to say that there is an "ideal" Chicano Studies academic because each scholar, student, and person has their own definition relating to the Chicano Movement during this time. The formation of Chicano student groups showed society that they were going to fight for their right.

Although each group had had its own interpretation, their main goal was to help the Chicano community. While each group strived toward the same goal, background, knowledge, political views, and activism became a continuous dilemma within their own society. In time, other movements blossomed, specifically, the struggle for gender equality, access to higher education and immigrant rights, and a literary and artistic revolution that spoke to cultural rebirth and a rediscovery of indigenous roots and self-definition. (296) In 1969, El Plan de Santa Barbara was collectively authored by students, staff, and faculty that sketched out not only what Chicano studies hoped to achieve, but also for whom and by whom. The plan attempted to reconcile a specific notion of community, the barrio, and a specific ethnic identity-the Chicano-with the inherent diversity of the Mexican-American population (211). About 25 years later, the field of Chicano studies continues to face questions concerning purpose and participation.

One of the main problems concerning the Chicano Studies academic is the question of unity which links to a generational gap. Many of the older scholars, who started the movement, believed that unity between Chicanos is a prerequisite to action. Many of the younger scholars do not agree with this statement. They believe that they should be able to organize with African Americans, women, the poor, or whomever without first having to achieve "Chicano" unity. It is sometimes believed that many of the younger scholars are made to feel that unless they grew up in a "barrio" they are not really Chicanos.

Ignacio Garcia, a former Raza U nida Party activist, states, "Chicano Studies emerged out of a need to legitimize the Chicano experience and to provide the people in the barrio with a collective identity" (213). As a result, younger scholars are turning away from the path paved by the older scholars. Scholarship should be connected to community and activism, but part of the difference between the generations is how one perceives community. In the 1960's, activism meant being part of a community organization. Today, activism has a meaning of its own through raising children, or even attending a university.

Garcia "embraces the notion of a single, authentic Chicano community as both the source and beneficiary of Chicano studies activism" (212). Garcia also believes that since the 1970's, student activism has declined and the "greatest threat to the field... is largely a product of the 1990s" (212). Another argument between the younger and older scholars is that early scholarship primarily focused on the working-class. Studies and scholars from that time tend to dismiss those persons and experiences that did not fit into that model. A central concern for Garcia is that the field "continues to receive into its ranks a growing number of scholars who have no ideological connection with the original premises of Chicano Studies" (215). Lorena Oropeza, author of the article, "Making History: The Chicano Movement", is offended by what Garcia believes.

Although she did not participate in the movement events of the 1960's, because she was born around this time, she feels that as a young scholar she represents a break from tradition. Garcia critiques Oropeza's academic training, scholarly agenda, and family background, because she was raised in a middle-class family, rather than the working-class. Garcia explains, "middle-class persons by definition are not part of the community and therefore represent a threat to el Plan de Santa Barbara" (216). Lorena Oropeza challenges Garcia's assumption that Chicanos are working-class barrio dwellers, and that only they constitute "the community" (13). She freely recognizes that Chicano History is now being remade by scholars without a personal memory of the movement's beginnings, but believes that the older scholars should investigate how the younger scholars are radical in their own way. She finds it necessary to expand the definition of Chicano History beyond the barrio and to include economic classes not found in the inner city of the jobless poor.

Many of the young scholars believe that the study of class differences and class struggles among Chicanos enriches, rather than weakens Chicano History, and opens up the field to the examination of forms of adaptation other than victimization and resistance. (15) They identify themselves as Chicanos and are willing to expand Chicano History to include the study of persons or groups who are not identified as "political" Chicanos. The young scholars credit the first and second generations with doing their job, but argue that scholarship is activism. Even El Plan de Santa Barbara recognized that knowledge produces social change. Jose Cuello, author of the " Introduction: Chicana / o History as a Social Movement" credits the young scholars. He states, that young scholars, such as Oropeza, believe "activism and service to the community can be defined much more broadly than implied by the measures of physical contact with the barrio or even other Chicana / o communities" (17).

For example Cuello believes that entering and excelling in new fields of scholarship and competing in the academic marketplace is as important to furthering the cause of the community as going back to it personally. Once stereotypes that are held by non-Chicanos are broken, young Chicano scholars will be able to use their scholarship in similar ways the first generation of scholars used it. Although there are no "ideal" characteristics a Chicano studies academic should possess, there are common traits that one should have. The primary goal of the Chicano movement when it began was to benefit the people within this culture and aid in their self-respect and dignity.

The generational gap between scholars in this field of study allows for arguments and differences. Luis Arroyo, professor and chair of Chicano and Latino studies at California State University at Long Beach believes once an attempt was made to define the movement and give it an ideology, "we began to develop competing definitions as to what the movement was" (297). Scholars are paving the way for Chicano studies and the field is progressing, but there must be unity within this society for it to fully succeed. Once the older scholars and the newer scholars can see "eye to eye" and agree on a definition of the Chicano Movement then they will be able to finish what they started more than 40 years ago.