The Making of a Chicano Militant: Lessons from Cristal (Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography)

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$23.36 - $34.90
UPC:
9780299159849
Binding:
Paperback
Publication Date:
1999-03-02
Release Date:
1999-03-02
Author:
Jose Angel Gutierrez
Language:
english
Edition:
1

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Product Overview

Texas, for years, was a one-party state controlled by white democrats. In 1962, a young eighteen-year-old heard the first rumblings of Chicano community organization in the barrios of Cristal. The rumor in the town was that five Mexican Americans were going to run for all five seats on the city council. But first, poor citizens had to find a way to pay the $1.75 poll tax. Money had to be raisedthrough bake sales of tamales, cake walks, and dances. So began the political activism of Jos Angel Gutirrez.
Gutirrez's autobiography, The Making of a Chicano Militant, is the first insider's view of the important political and social events within the Mexican American communities in South Texas during the 1960s and 1970s. A controversial and dynamic political figure during the height of the Chicano movement, Gutirrez offers an absorbing personal account of his life at the forefront of the Mexican-American civil rights movementfirst as a Chicano and then as a militant.
Gutirrez traces the racial, ethnic, economic, and social prejudices facing Chicanos with powerful scenes from his own life: his first summer job as a tortilla maker at the age of eleven, his racially motivated kidnapping as a teenager, and his coming of age in the face of discrimination as a radical organizer in college and graduate school. When Gutirrez finally returned to Cristal, he helped form the Mexican American Youth Organization and, subsequently the Raza Unida Party to confront issues of ethnic intolerance in his community. His story is soon to be a classic in the developing literature of Mexican American leaders.

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