Rodolfo Gonzales

Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales speaking at a rally in Denver, Colorado, February 11, 1970

Rodolfo Gonzales (June 18, 1928 - April 12, 2005) was a Mexican American boxer, poet, and political activist. He convened the first-ever Chicano youth conference in March of 1969, which was attended by many future Chicano activists and artists. The conference also promulgated the Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, a manifesto demanding self-determination for Chicanos. As an early figure of the movement for the equal rights of Mexican Americans, he is often considered one of the founders of the Chicano Movement.

Political career

While managing the successful restaurant/bar Corky's Corner and a bail bond service in Denver, he could not overlook the plight of other Mexican Americans in the city. Their housing was substandard, their jobs lacked union protections, and education in their children's schools was segregated and unequal. He financed the publication of Denver's first barrio newspaper Viva beginning in the late 1950s. He joined the Democratic Party, becoming a district captain and leading the Colorado branch of "Viva Kennedy", John F. Kennedy's campaign among Latino voters. By way of "reward", Denver mayor Tom Currigan appointed him head of the Denver National Youth Corps, part of LBJ's War on Poverty. Shortly after his appointment, he fell out with the mayor when he realized that the Democratic Party wanted the Hispanic vote, but was less than willing to nominate Latinos for elected office. He took umbrage at this and began looking for alternatives to two-party electoral politics. In 1966 he criticized the Vietnam War: "Would it not be more noble," he asked, "to portray our great country as a humanitarian nation with the honest intentions of aiding and advising the weak rather than to be recognized as a military power and hostile enforcer of our political aims? If we who are privileged to live in the United States enjoy a prosperity built on the backs of poor nations," he continued, "are we not living the good life at the expense of the blood and bones of our fellow human beings?" Two years later, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would make a similar statement against the war. During those years, Gonzales also helped organize school walkouts and economic boycotts.

1968

In 1968 two important events occurred in the life of Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales. For one, he led the Southwestern contingent at the Poor People's March in Washington. This was part of the legacy left unfinished after the assassination of Dr. King. Secondly, he convened what became known as the Crusade for Justice, the first national Chicano youth conference. At a time when the first generation of Mexican-Americans had received their WWII-era GI Bill educations and the next generation of Chicanos were being drafted to fight in Vietnam, the conference became an important meeting place between historical injustice and inclusion in American society, placing the majority of Mexican-Americans, who at that point became known as Chicanos, in the camp of the anti-war activists who increasingly became associated with anti-colonial movements in the Third World. Even as Mexico's countercultural movements died at Tlatelolco, the Chicano experience reflected more of the awakening of May 68 or the Czech revolts than the general sorrow in Latin America. The youth who attended the Crusade for Justice became empowered to speak up about their unequal position in American society. They were encouraged to use all of the tools at their disposal—their American education, their artistic abilities, their organizing capabilities, et cetera, to create conditions whereby Mexican Americans would be recognized as having contributed significantly to the American experience and as willing to fight for their equal rights as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The recognition of the validity of Mexican culture was a large part of this process. Until this time, Mexicans were largely seen as the stereotypical slow, lazy Indian peasant.^{[citation needed]} The vision Gonzales broadcast to his young audience was drastically different.

I Am Joaquín

With his epic poem Yo Soy Joaquín, known in English as I Am Joaquín, Gonzales shared his new cosmological vision of the "Chicano", who was neither Indian nor European, neither Mexican nor American, but a combination of all the conflicting identities. This new "raza", or "race" found its roots in the Pre-Columbian civilizations, which gave it rights to inhabit the ancestral land of Aztlán. It was strengthened by conceptions such as those of José Vasconcelos, Mexico's Secretary of Education under the Revolutionary Alvaro Obregón and the Indian-friendly Plutarco Elías Calles, who proclaimed that the hope of humanity lay in the mixed "Raza Cósmica" of Latin America. But perhaps more than anywhere else, Joaquín, the archtypical Chicano, found hope for his future in his own personal and spiritual awakening, a realization forced upon him by his status as an oppressed minority in the United States. Some scholars have credited Gonzales with authoring this historicized, politicized definition of what it is to be a "Chicano".^[1] The far-reaching effect of the poem is summed up by UC Riverside professor Juan Felipe Herrera: "Here, finally, was our collective song, and it arrived like thunder crashing down from the heavens. Every little barrio newspaper from Albuquerque to Berkeley published it. People slapped mimeographed copies up on walls and telephone poles." It was so influential that it was turned into a play by Luis Valdez's Teatro Campesino that toured nationally. It is seen a foundational work of the burgeoning Chicano Art Movement that accompanied, complimented, and enhanced the Chicano Movement, and, as the Plan Espiritual de Aztlán exhorted those talented members of the community to use their abilities to advance la Causa ("the Cause"), Yo Soy Joaquín provided a strong example.

Finding alternatives

Realizing that Chicanos could not rely on the "gringo establishment" to provide education, economic stability, or social acceptance, he began to look for alternatives. His solution to the educational question was to found a private school (1970) that would focus on building students' self-esteem through culturally-relevant curricula. The school was named after Tlatelolco, an area of Mexico City that was once an autonomous city-state under the Aztec empire. It was also home to a community of scholars. During the conquest, it was the site of the last stand of the Aztecs, and witnessed the massacre of thousands. In post-Revolutionary Mexico, Tlatelolco became home to the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, which celebrated Mexico's dual cultural heritage, rather than uplifting the European and simultaneously denigrating the indigenous, an important step toward the vindication of indigenous Mexico. During the 1968 Olympic Games, Tlatelolco became the staging ground for massive student protests, and saw yet another massacre, this time by Mexican forces. As such, the school's name evokes the history of duality, reconciliation, and hope for indigenous and Mestizo people. The school continues to fulfill its mission of providing alternative education, especially for Chicanos. Politically, Gonzales recognized the limitations of the two-party system. When he learned of the 1970 founding of the Raza Unida Party in Crystal City, Texas, he traveled there to challenge José Angel Gutiérrez for its leadership. Failing that bid, he returned to Colorado to focus on the Escuela's comprehensive program.

Violence in Denver

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The success of the alternative school and Gonzales' political achievements were overshadowed in 1973, when a man was arrested for jaywalking in front of the Crusade's headquarters. A protest against the persecution was organized, leading to confrontations between demonstrators and police. Soon, a gun battle erupted, and a bomb exploded in the upper floors of the Downing Terrace apartments, which were in the possession of the Crusade. One man was killed and seventeen were injured, among them 12 police officers. Gonzales accused the Denver police department of grenading the facilities, but a detective described the scene of the explosion as a "veritable arsenal". ^[2] Historians and scholars have yet to evaluate the impact of the bombing, but later prosecutions of Crusade participants served to diminish the influence of Gonzales and his organizations. After his disgrace, Gonzales retreated into the private life of his family and Denver's Chicano community. He was still active in the movement, although he maintained a much lower profile.

Later life and death

Gonzales was involved in an automobile accident in 1987 after suffering a heart arrhythmia. His health continued to diminish until he was hospitalized in 1995 with acute liver disease. In 2005, he was diagnosed with renal and coronary distress. Astounding his doctors, he refused treatment and checked out of the hospital, stating, "I'm indigenous. I'm going to die at home among my family." Gonzales passed away surrounded by friends and family in 2005. He was remembered as an invigorating spirit, or "the fist" of the Chicano Movement.^[3]

Bibliography

I am Joaquin : an epic poem, (1967).

Message to Aztlán: selected writings of Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales, (2001) Houston: Arte Público Press. ISBN 1-55885-331-6.

References

Marín, Christine. A spokesman of the Mexican American movement : Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales and the fight for Chicano liberation, 1966-1972, San Francisco: R. and E. Research Associates, 1977. ISBN 0-88247-423-5