Occupied AmericaA History of Chicanos

Ninth Edition

Rodolfo F. AcuñaEmeritus California State University at Northridge

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Rental EditionISBN-10: 0-13-571956-9ISBN-13: 978-0-13-571956-5

Instructor’s Review CopyISBN-10: 0-13-521544-7ISBN-13: 978-0-13-521544-9

1 19

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iii

Brief Contents

1 A Cradle of Civilization: Not Just Pyramids, Explorers, and Heroes 1

2 El Imperio Español 21

3 The Invasion of Mexico: Legacy of Hate 44

4 Occupied Texas: The Colonizers and their Myths 68

5 New Mexico: The American Occupation 90

6 Sonora Invaded: The Occupation of Arizona 112

7 California Lost: Image and Reality 130

8 Immigration, Labor, and Generational Change: White Lies 154

9 The 1920s: Making America Great 182

10 Mexican American Communities in the Making: The Tin Man Has No Heart 206

11 World War II: The Betrayal of Promises 240

12 “Happy Days”: Mexican American Communities under Siege 267

13 Goodbye America: The Chicana/o in the 1960s 291

14 The 1970s: The Resurgence of White Nationalism 328

15 Blade Runner: Replicants are Illegal 353

16 The Millennium 380

17 The Decline of the American Empire 403

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v

Preface xi

1 A Cradle of Civilization: Not Just Pyramids, Explorers, and Heroes 1

Europeans Did Not Discover Writing 1

The Cradles of Civilizations 2The Corn People: An Overview 2The Olmeca 1500 bce–500 bce 3

The Maya 4Maya Hieroglyphic Writing 4Maya Society 5The Decline of Maya Civilization 5

Teotihuacán 6Urbanism and Trade 6The Tolteca 7

Other Corn Civilizations 7The Tarasco 8The Azteca 8Los Norteños 10

Conclusion: The World System in 1519 13

Notes 14

2 El Imperio Español 21

The Illusions 21Always Roman 22Africa Begins at the Pyrenees 22

The Spanish Conquest 23Faith versus Rationality 24The Spanish Invasion of the Mexica 24

Colonialism 24The Colonization of Indigenous Mesoamerica 25Smallpox and Other Plagues 25Race and Labor in Mesoamerica 25

Women in Colonial Mesoamerica 27The Changing Roles of Women 27The Assimilation of Native Women 28

Al Norte: God, Gold, Glory, Silver, and Slaves 29The Decimation Towards the Indigenous Population 29

The Changing Order 30The Bonanzas 30Forced Labor 31

The Northern Corridor 32The Decline of the Native Population 33

The Colonization of Texas 33El Paso del Norte 33The Tlaxcala and the Castas 34The Importance of San Antonio and Links to the Rio Bravo 34

The Occupation of Alta California: Paradise Lost 34Los Indigenas 35The Missions: Myth and Reality 35

Conclusion: On the Eve of the Mexican War of Independence 35

Notes 37

3 The Invasion of Mexico: Legacy of Hate 44

Who Started the War? 44

Mexican Independence from Spain 45

Background to the Invasion of Texas 45A Lie is a Lie! 46Follow the Money: The Land Companies and Trade 46The Re-annexation of Texas 47The Point of No Return 47

The Invasion of Texas 47The Pretext: Myths of the Alamo 48The Defense of the Mexican Homeland 48Texas Belonged to Native Americans 49The American Cabal was not Texan 50

The Invasion of Mexico 51The Manufactured War 51American Aggression 51

The Pretext for Conquest 52Playing Moses: God is on Our Side! 52History is Propaganda 52Blessed are the Peacemakers? 53The San Patricio Battalion 53War Crimes 54It Was Not Just a Man’s War 54The War Mexico Did Not Want 55

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 55The Controversy 55The Deception: A Lie is a Lie 56The Honorable Man 56

Conclusion: The Border Crossed Us 57

Notes 58

Contents

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vi Contents

The Resistance 100Barbed Wire, Irrigation, and the Railroad 100The Village People Defend their Land 101The American Dream 102

The End of the Frontier 102The Growth of Industrial Mining 102Changes in Society 103Federal Encroachment 103The Last Years of the Territory 103

Conclusion: Colonial Legacies 104

Notes 104

6 Sonora Invaded: The Occupation of Arizona 112

Forgotten People 112The American Occupation of Arizona 113

The Frontier 114The Gadsden Purchase 115War Hawks 115Filibustering Expeditions into Sonora 115

Mexicans in Early Arizona 116

The War of the Races 116

The Race Question 117Marrying Up! 117The Alliance of Elites 118The War on the Apache 118The So-called “Friendly Indian” 118The Land-Grant Grab 119

The Transformation of Arizona 119From Adobe to Copper 119Border Conflicts 120

The Pull Factors 120

The Industrialization of Arizona 120The Importance of Mining 120The Expansion of Capital 121The 1890s: Deskilling Mine Work 121The Impact of Industrialization on Mexicans 122Mutual-Aid Societies 122Middle-Class Mexicans 122Patriarchy 122The Emergence of Trade Unions 123

It’s the Water 123Conclusion: The Assault on the Saguara 124

Notes 124

7 California Lost: Image and Reality 130

Forgotten California 130

The Myth That Has Become Legend 130Mexican Period 131The Class and Racial Gap 132Women in the Transformation of California 133

“America . . . Born and Bred of Empire”: The Occupation of the Americas 65

4 Occupied Texas: The Colonizers and their Myths 68

Follow the Water 68Crossing the Northwest Texas Mexican Border 69

The Mexican Corridor 70Control of the Corridor 70Trade Wars and the Rise of Juan Cortina 71Enter “Cheno” Cortina 71The Civil War 72

The Transformation 73Hang ’em High! 73The Historian as an Agent of Social Control 74Controlling Mexicans 75Politics of Race and Gender 76

Resistance 76The People’s Revolt 77The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez 77

Boss Rule 78The Railroad and the Advent of Industrial Capitalism 79

The Chickens Come Home to Roost 79Reform Politics and Mexicans 80

The Growth of the Mexican Population 80The Growth of Racist Nativism 80Mexican Resistance 81

Conclusion: The Marginalization of the Other 82

Notes 82

5 New Mexico: The American Occupation 90

On the Frontier 90The Santa Fé Trail: The Trojan Horse 91Gringo Go Home 92

The American Invasion 92The Myth of the Bloodless Conquest 92Inventing Whiteness 93

The Transition 94The Illusion of Inclusion 94Gringos and Ricos 95How New Mexico was Looted 95Corruption, Fraud, Intimidation 96The Legend of the Lincoln County War 97

Socialization 98The American Catholic Church 98

The New Mexican Diaspora 99“El Agua Es Vida” 99The Marketplace 99New Mexico in Colorado 100

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A Changing Society 168Mexican Workers Under Siege 168The “Amazon” Protest: Story of Carmelita Torres 169The Hysteria: The Plan of San Diego 170

World War I: The Shift 170Shifts in Political Consciousness 170Mexican Responses to Industrial Transformation 171The Failure of American Brotherhood 171

The Westward Movement of King Cotton 172Conclusion: The Color Line 172

Notes 173

9 The 1920s: Making America Great 182

Greasers Go Home 183Keeping America WASP 183

Americanization: A Study of Extremes 185Protestant Churches and Americanization of the Mexican 186Catholic Churches React to Americanization 186Nationalism versus Americanization 186Mexicans and Mexican Americans 187

The Influence of World War I on Becoming Mexican American 187

The League of United Latin American Citizens 188

The Move to The Cities 189San Antonio’s West Side 189Los Angeles: “Where Only the Weeds Grow” 190Mexicans in the Midwest and Points East 191

Mexican Labor in The 1920s 193Importance of the Sugar Beet Industry 193Mexicans in the Northwest 194Mexican Workers in Texas 194Mexican Workers in the Midwest 195The Growth of California Agribusiness 195

The Formation of Mexican Unions 195Change in Mexican Identity: The Mexican Revolution 196

Conclusion: Making America White Again 197

Notes 198

10 Mexican American Communities in the Making: The Tin Man Has No Heart 206

The Great Depression: La Crisis 207La Crisis 208

Life During The Great Depression 209The Importance of San Antonio 211

Nativist Deportations of The 1930s 211Repatriation Texas-Style 212The Fate of the Deportee in Mexico 212

The Bear Flag 133John C. Fremont and the Bear Flag 133U.S. Invasion of California 134

Gold Transforms California 134The Gold Rush Creates a Template 134Complicity of the Californios 135Legalized Theft: The Foreign Miners’ Tax 135

Decline of the Californios 136The Locusts 136Taxation without Representation 136Marrying White 137Legalizing Racism 137Legitimization of Violence 137The Mexican Whore 138The American Delusion: The Lugos Trial 138

The Disillusionment 139El Clamor Público 139Class Divisions 140

Social Banditry 141I am Joaquin! 141The Social Bandit 142

Mexicans in a Changing Society 143Becoming a Minority 143Holy Mother the Church 144Labor 144

The Exclusion of the Other 144Colonias 144

Conclusion: Mexican Labor Builds California 145

Notes 146

8 Immigration, Labor, and Generational Change: White Lies 154

Time Marches On 154

Overview 157The Forging of America 157Ideas Cross Borders 158Justice Knows No Borders 159Mexican Women Precursors 159Industrial Bonanzas 160Workers Find Their Voice 160The Nurturing of Ideas 161“Mexicans Are Not Fit to Raise White Babies” 161The Mexican Diaspora 162Early Struggle to Control Working Conditions 162Separate is Not Equal 163

The Mexican Revolution 164Bullets Across the Border 164A Revolution on Horseback! 165The Revolution 165In Defense of the Community 166

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viii Contents

Controlling Mexicans 253Farm Labor Militancy 254Renting Mexicans 255

Conclusion: The Consequences of World War II 257

Notes 258

12 “Happy Days”: Mexican American Communities under Siege 267

Mexican Americans 268

The Cold War 269The Korean War: Historical Amnesia 269

The Empire Strikes 270Keeping America White 270Militarization of the Immigration and Naturalization Service 272The Diaspora: An American Odyssey 273Education a National Mexican American Priority 275

New Mexico: The Illusion of Being Political Players 276

Los Angeles Politics 276San Antonio 277El Paso 278

Civil Rights 278The “Salt of the Earth” 278Toward Equality 279California 280National Spanish-Speaking Council 280

The Struggle to Preserve the Barrios 281The FHA Mortgage Guarantee and the G.I. Bill 281Urban Renewal: The Day of the Bulldozer 281The Dodgers and Chávez Ravine 282Urban Removal in the Midwest 283

The Sputnik Moment 283Conclusion: A New Generation 283

Notes 284

13 Goodbye America: The Chicana/o in the 1960s 291

The Early 1960s 292In Denial: Proving Poverty 292Harvest of Shame: The Forgotten People 293

Delusions of the Awakening of the Sleeping Giant 294San Antonio and Texas Politics 294Los Angeles Politics 295Political Organizing in Chicago 295

The Building of a Civil Rights Coalition 296Viva Johnson 296Building the Great Society 296The Albuquerque, New Mexico, Walkout 296

Bilingual Education 297The Black–White Syndrome 297A Second Coming 298

Factories in The Fields 213Texas Farms 213Reserve Labor Pool 213Renting Mexicans 214

The Farmworkers’ Revolt 214The El Monte Strike 215The Tagus Ranch 215In Dubious Battle 215The San Joaquín Valley Cotton Strike 216The Imperial Valley, 1934 217CUCOM and Mexican Strikes 218The Congress of Industrial Organizations 218Rural Workers in the Lone Star State 219Colorado and the Manitos 219

The City 220Mexican Women Garment Workers in Los Angeles 220San Antonio Mexicana Workers 221La Pasionaria, the Pecan Shellers’ Strike, and San Antonio 221Unionization in Los Angeles 222Labor in the Midwest: Chicago 223

The Mexican American Miners’ Revolt 224

The Mexican-Origin Community 225The Angeleño Community 225The Mexican American Movement 226El Congreso de los Pueblos de Habla Español 226Fighting Segregation 227The Manitos 227The Windy City: Chicago 228

Conclusion: An Embattled Community 228

Notes 229

11 World War II: The Betrayal of Promises 240

Mexican Americans 241World War II and the Mexican 241Guy Gabaldón: Discrimination 242The Story of Company E: The All-Mexican Unit 242Racism at Home and Abroad 243Chicanas in the Military 243A Profile of Courage 243Scapegoats 244The Sleepy Lagoon Trial 245Mutiny in the Streets of Los Angeles 246Mexicanas Break Barriers 248Rosita the Riveter 248The Federal Employment Practices Commission 249Cold War Politics of Control 250The Communists Are Coming 251

Postwar Opportunities 251Toward a Civil Rights Agenda 252The American G.I. Forum 252

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The Media Sell Racist Nativism 339Getting Away with Terror 339In Defense of the Foreign Born 339Chicanas/os For Sale 340A Redefinition of the Political Middle 340Political Gains 340

Education: The Stairway to the American Dream 341The Lack of Educational Equity 341The “Pochoization” of the Political Vocabulary 342The Myth of a Color-Blind Society 342Legacy Admits 343

Why Progressive Organizations Fail 343

The Swagger Stick: The Unraveling of the Empire 343Conclusion: The Final Year 344

Notes 345

15 Blade Runner: Replicants are Illegal 353

The Replicants in 1980 354

The Decade of the Hispanic 355

Immigrants Keep the Economy Going 356The Central American Wave 356The Invasion of the Body Snatchers 357

The Backlash 358La Zorra Nunca Se Ve Su Cola (The Fox Tail Never Sees His Own Tail) 359

Mexican American Labor 360The Return of the Sleeping Giant: 360Why Mexican Americans Fail to Organize 361The New Breed 362Tear Off the Label 363Sabotaging Labor 364

Saint Ronald: The Seduction of the Political Game 365Chicago 366Back to the Milagro Beanfield War 367Can You Smell the Refried Beans? 367

The Glass Ceiling 368Immigrant Women Workers 369

Regional Differences 369

Gold Fever: The Erasure of History 371Conclusion: The End Industrial Labor and Upward Mobility 372

Notes 373

16 The Millennium 380

The Chickens Come Home to Roost 381The Erasure of Memory 381

Toward the Millennium 381

The North American Free Trade Agreement 383“Don’t Mourn, Organize!” 384

Haciendo Patria (Creating the Homeland) 384Making the Caravans Inevitable: Exporting Gangs 385

Racism is based on color: Police Brutality 386

The Disillusion 298Impact of the War on Poverty 298

Magnetization of the Border 299The Immigration Act of 1965 299Mexican American Reaction to Nativism 300The Road to Delano 300La Casita Farms Corporation Strike of 1966 and the Aftershocks 301

The Road to Brown Power 302The Making of a Movement 304The Formation of Core Groups 304The East LA Walkout 305Chicana/o Student Militancy Spreads 305Brown Berets and White Angst 306Tlatelolco, Mexico 307“Wild Tribes of . . . the Inner Mountains of Mexico” 307Gringos and Tejanos 308No Place for Mexicans 309The Crusade for Justice 310El Grito del Norte 310Rubén Salazar: The Schools Failed Us 311Other Movement Voices 311

The Chicano Youth Movement Gains Steam 312Where Is God? 312Gender and homophobia 313Violence at Home 313Chicanas/os under Siege 314

The Provocateurs 315Conclusion: The Chicana/o Legacy 316

Notes 317

14 The 1970s: The Resurgence of White Nationalism 328

The Baby Boomers Retire 328

Distorting Racism 330Government Legitimizes Racism 330

A Politics of Cynicism: Nixon’s Hispanic Strategy 331Dismantling the War on Poverty 331La Raza Unida Party 331The Last Days of La Raza Unida 332

Inequality from Within: Never Letting Go 333Chicana Voices 333The Learning Curve 334The Birth of Chicana/o Studies 335Sterilization: Saving Taxpayers’ Money 336

The Road to Delano 336The Farah Strike: The Breaking of Labor 337

Sin Fronteras 337Nativism Is White 337Centro de Acción Social Autónoma–Hermandad General de Trabajadores 337Criminalization of Mexicans 338

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The Big Apple 413

The Building of a Collective Historical Memory: Solidarity 414

Democrats Never Learn: Presidential Elections 2008 415The Crash of 2008 415The Dreamers 416The Killing Fields: Words have consequences 417Communitarianism: Helping the family! 417Border Towns 417The Consequences of a Lack of a Firewall 418Squeezed out of the American Dream 418The Death of the Salesman 419A Changing Community 419

Education Under Attack: Fight Back 420

Keeping the Masses in Tow 421Conclusion: Politics Begin At Home: The Rise of the Millennials 422

Notes 423

Epilogue: Peeling the Onion 433

Deny, Deny, Deny! 433The Disintegration of Civil Society 434Kill Zapata! 435The Aftermath of NAFTA 436Make America Great Again 437

Illusions and Delusions 438

Trump and the Last Days of the Empire 439The Blue Wave 439

Notes 440

Index 443

Chicana/o Studies is a Pedagogy 386

The Mexican Bandito and the Mexican Whore 387Who Am I? The Fight for Identity 388Fight for the Truth 388The Renaissance in Chicana/Chicano Thought and Arts 389

Follow the Money 390

From the Heart of Texas: The Migrant Stream 392

War on Drugs 394

The Mexican Billionaires 395Mexicans Become a National Minority 396

Conclusion: The Problem of Becoming the Nation’s Largest Minority 396

Notes 396

17 The Decline of the American Empire 403

The Empire is Broken 403Into the Twenty-first Century: No More Babies 404The Death of Democracy 404The Bankrupting of the Empire 404Census 2000 405Political Roundup: 2000 407The Death Penalty: A Symptom of Inequality or Racism 408

California Electoral Politics 410The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You 410The Sleeping Giant 411Mapping Mexican Americans 411The 2007 Immigration Bill 412The Presidential Election of 2004 413

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xi

The first edition of Occupied America (1972) opened:

Mexicans—Chicanos—in the United States today are an oppressed people. They are citizens, but their citizenship is second-class at best. They are exploited and manipulated by those with more power. And, sadly, many believe that the only way to get along in Anglo-America is to become “Americanized” themselves. Awareness of their history—of their contributions and struggles, of the fact that they were not the “treacherous enemy” that Anglo-American histories have said they were—can restore pride and a sense of heritage to a people who have been oppressed for so long. In short, awareness can help them to liberate themselves.1

The book immediately got caught up in controversy from those who claimed that I had made a mistake and should have called it Occupied Mexico since the land once belonged to Mexico. I responded that I was referring to the invasion of the continents that are America. Next some Chicanos objected to the internal colonial model insisting that, accord-ing to the Marxist paradigm, Chicanos were not internally colonized. I was surprised to find Chicano graduate students at the forefront of the criticism. Many of these detractors were at the time enamored with the theories of Immanuel Wallerstein’s World Systems Analysis that emphasized globalization and colonialism.2 I realized that the misun-derstanding was epistemological. Most were Americanist that is they were sociologists and social scientists whose area of study was the United States. In Latin America, the internal colonial model had kicked around since the 1950s. Pablo Gonzalez Casanova and Andre Gunder Frank refer to Internal Colonialism as did other Third World intellectuals.3

It was not that I did not want engage in the debate, but anyone who knows me knows that teaching is my first love. I had been a public school teacher for seven years and a junior college teacher for three years. I had recently com-mitted myself to starting the Chicano Studies Department at San Fernando Valley State and my teaching and activism prepared me to work on curriculum development. Real-izing that the detractors were mostly Americanist, I chose to withdraw from the intellectual fray and concentrate on Chicana/o Studies that at the moment was more important and productive.4

With this edition I chose to return to the past and reintroduce the theme of colonialism from the vantage point of the colonized. In doing this I choose not to dwell on the-ory, rather to peel the onion a metaphor for the colonized person and his or her colonial mentality and search for the truth and unravel the myths, lies, and peel the onion that has formed us over 500 years of colonialism. This seems apropos

with the demise of Europe’s system of direct colonialism and the surge of who I choose to call the colonized. In doing so I touch on systematic inequality of Mexican Americans/Latinos in the policies and practices of American institutions and the lies history tells, and deal with subordination, not least of which includes cultural production and finance.

In engaging this theme I must pay tribute Franz Fanon. Fanon was a West Indian who received his doctorate in psychiatry in Paris. He went to Algeria and found that he could not practice because he did not understand the Algerian culture, he had to learn about the different layers of the onion to become a psychiatrist and a revolutionary.

In this cognitive dissonance theory, Fanon stresses atti-tude change and behaviors. In his book Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon wrote:

Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.5

Franz Fanon makes it clear that colonization is possi-ble only with the complicity of members of the colonized. Fanon gives us a glimpse into the complexity of race.6

I return to the classroom and my life experiences for answers. My friend René Martínez, a former teacher in the Tucson Mexican American program, quotes an African prov-erb to his students: “Until the lions have their historians [storytellers], tales of the hunted will always glorify the hunter,” adding that in the Mexican American program,7 “We talk about how we come from the lion’s perspective, from the story that’s never told [and] which continues to be left out.” An example is the story of the First Peoples of the Americas and the history of people other than those of Western European heritage. Hopefully this book will question the hunter and form a counternarrative that is closer to the truth

Occupied America is about the history of the Chicana/o or Mexican in the United States. Biases are difficult to root out—as in the case of propaganda films of World War II, the distor-tions are woven into the nation’s historical memory and are kept alive by schools and the media. For instance, Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential biographer Jon Meacham is often a guest contributor on MSNBC; his presidential biography of Andrew Jackson, American Lion, won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for biography or autobiography. From the Lion’s perspec-tive, Meacham’s book celebrates Jackson and lacks a healthy skepticism that is essential in the search for the truth.8

Preface

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xii Preface

What Is New in This Edition?The simple proposition of the book is that a lie is a lie. This is the ninth edition and most probably my last edition of Occupied America. At 86 I have a strong sense of my own mortality. So this book is about language, the truth, and an effort to be more precise than in previous editions. A lie is a lie. The urgency brought about by the election of Donald Trump to the presidency and his attack on the truth and the popularization of propaganda news “alternative facts” have made it more difficult to find the truth. As will be dis-cussed, a distortion of history is more American than apple pie, although the distortion of the truth is common among nations. The change was obvious since the end of World War II when the United States became a global power and its imperial pretensions expanded. Notions of grandeur and a distortion of the truth propped up claims of moral authority. The Eisenhower Doctrine (1950s) accelerated interventions throughout the globe and put the Monroe Doctrine on steroids.

These events and those that followed put us on the road to the election of Trump and the world of doublespeak. Gore v. Bush (2000) accelerated the decline of democracy and brought on Middle Eastern Wars and the great recession in 2008. They heightened the irrational and unrelenting racist nativism and came after 40 years of the decline of the Ameri-can Empire. Many Americans did not understand or resented this loss in moral authority as well as were incapable of deal-ing with an of control inferiority complex.

By the twenty-first century many Americans came to realize that the United States got whipped by the tiny nation of Vietnam as it had by North Korea. The wars bankrupted America and the nation’s infrastructure was sadly neglected. Public sector jobs declined, real wages fell and no longer could fathers sustain the family as women were forced to work to survive. Economist and Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton (1993 to 1997) Robert Reich singled out for women working outside the home it was not a matter of choice, it covered up the wage gap.15 Finally, by the twenty-first century, it was no longer possible for lower-middle-class Americans to afford to buy a home. The educational crisis of the early 1990s shut out higher education as the stairway to the middle class—it cost too much. On a positive note, the decade produced the Dream Act movement that was built on the pro–foreign-born of the Chicana/o generation. By their fathers’ standards Americans were losers; this realization hit white males particularly hard. The natural outcome was scapegoating non-whites.

In the 1980s I met a young lady who had just gotten out of a mental sanatorium. A racist but loving white family had adopted her. When she grew up, they told her that she was adopted and was Mexican. She said she could cope with being Mexican, but could not cope with not being white. Today empires throughout the world are coping with the reality of not being great, not being benevolent and indeed,

Meacham, like most successful American historians, is popular; he smiles and adheres to the American paradigm and the canons of the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians.

In That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession, University of Chicago historian Peter Novick argues that “there is no such thing as ‘truth in history’.” Historical objectivity, according to Novick is “inco-herent” and “dubious” and that “most historians generally write about their colleagues the way Arthur Schlesinger Jr., writes about the Kennedys.” According to Novick, histori-ans ignore the flaws such as “racism and ultra-patriotism” of their protagonists. Novick continues that professional, politi-cal, psychological, and cultural pressures control historians. These pressures determine their epistemological interpreta-tion and their philosophical and professional biases.9

The social sciences exercise far-reaching powers over research. For many years based on the discovery of several pre-Clovis sites near Clovis, New Mexico in the 1920s and 1930s, archaeologists insisted that the Clovis people were the first humans to inhabit the hemisphere and laid the foundation for Indigenous arrivals about 13,500 years ago. The official story became that Ice Age hunters from Siberia crossed into North America. “Armed with stone weapons, called Clovis points, these hunters spread rapidly across the continent and feasted on animals” unknown before to humans.10 The theory was almost immediately challenged; however, the Clovis hypothesis or myth persisted up until recently. Anyone challenging the model was professionally ostracized.11 The Clovis-first paradigm was the dominant hypothesis from the early twentieth century until recently, when other antiquities forced archeologists to take another look. The preponderance of evidence is that humans arrived thousands of years before the accepted arrival date from Asia. The new school holds that other sites predated Clovis and it cast doubt on the accepted paradigm.12

For years archaeologists dismissed Native American social scientists accounts of the Indigenous Peoples. The great Native American historian Jack Forbes took a broad-side at European perspective in his book titled The American Discovery of Europe.13

Forbes wrote:

Most PEOPLE have probably never heard of the idea that ancient Americans might have traveled to other parts of the globe, so strong is the fixation with the “newness” of America. “Mainstream” archaeology in the twentieth century exhibited hostility toward any ideas that suggest a remote antiquity for humans in the Americas, or to the idea that Americans might have “spilled over” into Siberia and other parts of Eurasia.14

Forbes did not raise the question to get tangled in con-troversy, but to show the probabilities of the footsteps point-ing the other way and how the Eurocentric bias in history limits possibilities of 100 million people being discovered.

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Preface xiii

The failure to communicate has produced what Stuart Chase called “The Tyranny of Words.” Mexican Americans and other Latinos use the tag Hispanic. However, this term is in error. It refers to people from Spain, of a Spanish nationality. They were the people who invaded Mexico and began imposing what Stuart Chase calls a caste system The Tyranny of Words. The truth is that people from Spain are Hispanics, and people from Mexico are Mexicans.

The term Latino refers to anyone whose language derives from Latin—it includes Spaniards, Portuguese, French, Latin Americans, Romanians, and Italians. The name dates to the 1860s when Napoleon III of France coined the term “Latin America.” Napoleon wanted to make his puppet Maximilian Emperor of Mexico. Napoleon pushed the notion of a cultural affinity between France and Latin America. In using the ethnic identifica-tion of Hispanic and Latino they may have good inten-tions, but they weaken the individual national identity of each Spanish-speaking group. A people without an identity are a people without a history. Mexicans, Guate-malans, Salvadorans, and others have histories.19 Latinas/os are of different nationalities like Asian Americans. They are not one nationality and the lack of specificity leads to a distortion of history. For example, Argentin-ians were not at the Alamo but some people would sub-stitute Hispanics for Mexicans rewriting history. The word Latino comes from “Latin America.” It referred to a cul-tural kinship with France. Supporters of the term Latino argue that times have changed and national identities as we once knew them are outdated and that the term Latino is more inclusive. Others prefer Hispanic that has similar etymological problems. Hispanic refers to Spanish people. It refers to their language and culture. Hispanic is popular among professional and national organizations. In my day, to say you were Spanish was like denying that you were Mexican. It has gotten to the point that I have heard some people say that they were eating Hispanic Food. My reaction is what is wrong with the “M-word”? This challenge is getting more involved as Mexican American youth refuse to be European and are searching for an Indigenous identity.

There are 33 different nationalities in Latin America where the Spanish, Italians, and Portuguese do not use Latino—it would offend the social order. They differentiate Spaniards from Mexicans. However, in the United States we lump everyone together as if we all belonged to a single nationality. This makes it difficult to ferret out Mexican data from the Census and other reports. I try to adjust and use the terms Mexican American, Mexican/Latino, and U.S. Mexican. I feel it is important to know and respect the identity of Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Puerto Ricans, and others. It helps unravel the lie. Making them generic Latinos/Hispanics will hurt them. A lie is a lie.

being exploiters. My generation of Americans grew up with the illusion that everyone loved Americans.16 It was a lie.

The first of the Trump Years drove home the importance of being blunt and not hiding behind language. Distorted news and national biases must be challenged. A lie is a lie. Although I am no longer religious I acknowledge the importance of my early education. I recognize the importance of epistemology (the theory of knowledge) that places an emphasis on meth-ods, validity, and scope of the question and investigates what distinguishes belief from opinion. The study of Latin and the figuring out syllogisms taught me the art of negation.

A note of caution: The book will abstain from using the term Indian or Indio unless quoting a source or within the context of an event. In the United States and Mexico, the word Indio/Indian has been used pejoratively. It is a product of Spanish conquest and colonialism and was constructed as a lie. Indio/Indian often means that the person is dumb or slow. In the United States, it accompanies names such as “Indian giver” or “Redskin.” The First People and their descendants will be referred to as Indigenous Peoples, which is what they are.

In discussing identity, it must be remembered that America is not the name of a single nation. But for better or for worse, it is the name of two continents. More than a 100,000 people lived here and they had no say in what it was called. It was named after Amerigo Vespucci—an Italian Florentine explorer, financier, navigator, and cartographer who in 1502 drew a map of Brazil and the West Indies that showed that the colonizers were not in Asia. Columbus mistakenly called the people Indians because he thought he had reached India, so it was with the reasoning that Vespucci “discovered America.” (In honor of Amerigo the name of two continents became America.)17

I use various terms to refer to Mexican Americans. I continue to use the term Chicana/o because that is what I call myself, but I try to limit it to a particular generation and time in history. The U.S. Census uses the terms Latinas/os or Hispanics as do most studies. As a historian I am of the opinion that this leads to a fake identity. It includes every-one from Latin America, Spain, Italy, and France.

Occupied America chooses to spell Mexican American without a hyphen. If written with a hyphen, the word Mexican becomes an adjective. The experiences of Mexican Americans within the United States make the word Mexican American a noun. A hyphen should not qualify their identity. The nationality of Mexican Americans hangs around their necks and should remind them that they are a colonized people. Mexico is part of their American national identity. Mexico is not an insignificant part of our future. As we keep repeating, it is the 10th largest nation in the world. In the United States, the Mexican American population larger than Canada and most American states. Mexico is among the top 10 global leaders in engineering and computer science graduates.18

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xiv Preface

1 Rodolfo F, Acuña, Occupied America: The Chicano's Struggle Toward Liberation (San Francisco: Canfield Press, 1972).

2 Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York: Academic Press, 1974).

3 Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, Sociedad plural, Colonialismo Interno y desarrollo (UNESCO,1963). Paulo Henrique Martins, “Internal Colonialism, Postcolonial Criticism and Social Theory,” Journal du MAUSS, http://www.journaldumauss.net/?Internal-Colonialism-Postcolonial-Criticism-and-Social-Theory.

4 Rodolfo F. Acuña, The Making of Chicana/o Studies: In the Trenches of Academe (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2011).

5 “Franz Fanon: “The Psychopathology of Colonization,” Internationalist 360°, https://libya360.wordpress.com/2017/01/16/franz-fanon-the-psychopathology-of-colonization/.

6 Rodolfo F. Acuña, “The Illusive Race Question & Class: A Bacteria That Constantly Mutates,” Julian Samora Center, Occasional Paper No. 59, November 2005, https://jsri.msu.edu/upload/occasional-papers/ oc59.pdf.

7 “African Proverb of the Month,” African Proverbs, Sayings and Stories, April, 2006, http://www .afriprov.org/african-proverb-of-the-month/32-2006proverbs/224-april-2006-proverb-quntil-the- lion-has-his-or-her-own-storyteller-the-hunter-will-

Lastly, to my mother who went blind at the age of five. She never went to school and taught herself to read using a gigantic magnifying glass. When I was child, boys never did the dishes or housework. However, because of my mother’s health, I washed dishes and scrubbed floors. It was an important lesson in life. My parents were immi-grants who added layers to my onion and while many of the layers were positive, many of the layers had to be peeled away.

It would be remiss if I did not thank Sergio Hernández for his beautiful rendition of the Saguaro Cactus found in the Arizona and Sonoran Deserts. The giant saguaro is the symbol of resistance to Spanish and American Colonialism. Some stand 40-60 ft high. For thousands of years, people have the saguaro lived in harmony with the First People such as the Hohokam resisted Spanish and American Occu-pations; i.e., conquistadores, homesteaders and ranchers. Thank you Sergio.

AcknowledgmentsI dedicate this book to my wife Guadalupe Compeán. It is because of her that I have lived this long, not only physi-cally but intellectually. I have always had a tendency to escape into a shell; Lupe forces me to engage. I owe her an intellectual debt. Also to my daughter Angela who is always correcting my 1950s language expressions, my sons Walter and Frank, and my grandsons and granddaughters. Thanks to my family, colleagues, students, community, and those who struggle for justice and care. As you get older you think a lot about the past. I remember my father and his stories. He was a reserved man, but one story stands out. When he first came to the United States in the early 1920s he did not know a word of English and for six months the only thing he ate was ham and eggs. My father was a tailor and I remember him telling me that it was easier to make a suit from scratch than make alterations. I remembered my father’s advice working through the nine editions.

Notesalways-have-the-best-part-of-the-storyq-ewe-mina-benin-ghana-and-togo-.html.

8 Jon Meacham, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House (New York: Random House, 2009).

9 Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 149. Rodolfo F. Acuña, Sometimes There is no other Side (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998).

10 “Young Americans,” Nature, 485, 6, May 2, 2012, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v485/n7396/full/485006b.html?foxtrotcallback=true.

11 Heather Pringle, “What Happens When an Archae-ologist Challenges Mainstream Scientific Thinking?” Hakai Magazine, March 8, 2017, http://www .smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/jacques- cinq-mars-bluefish-caves-scientific-progress- 180962410/.

12 Alexander Ewen, “Humans Populated Americas 130,000 Years Ago? Mastodon Findings Spark Controversy,” Indian Country Today, April 27, 2017, https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/history/events/humans-populated-americas-130000-years-ago-mastodon-findings-controversy/. Stefan Lovgren, “Who Were The First Americans?” National Geographic News, September 3, 2003, http://news .nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0903_ 030903_bajaskull.html.

13 Jack D. Forbes, The American Discovery of Europe (University of Illinois Press, 2011).

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Preface xv

14 Forbes, Ibid., p. 80. 15 Robert Reich, “Inequality for All,” Moyers &

Company, Nov. 20, 2013, https://www.youtub .com/watch?v=O_LkMWP2Q2A.

16 Traveling through Europe in the post–World War II era, many Americans were shocked to know that Euro-peans did not love them. After all they had liberated them, they thought, from the Germans. Instead of try-ing to find the truth as to why, they would say that it was because Europeans were jealous.

17 Jessie Szalay, “Amerigo Vespucci: Facts, Biography & Naming of America,” LiveScience, September 20, 2017, https://www.livescience.com/42510-ameri-go- vespucci.html.

18 Jared Wade, “Mexico Is a World Leader in Engineering and Computer Science Grads,” MexicoIt, June 3, 2016. http://www.mexico-it.net/mexico-become-world-leader-engineering-computer-science-graduates/.

19 “Carta a Napoleón III sobre la influencia francesa en América,” El Clamor Público, Los Ángeles, sábado 19 de marzo de 1859, http://www.filosofia.org/hem/185/1859c19.htm. Why did Napoleon III coin the term “Latin America?” English Language & Usage, https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/16003/why-did-napoleon-iii-coin-the-term-latin-america. Jessie Szalay, “Amerigo Vespucci: Facts, Biography & Naming of America,” LiveScience, September 20, 2017, https://www.livescience.com/42510-ameri-go-vespucci.html.

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