King of the Chicanos


Book Description

"All Wings Press titles are distributed to the trade by Independent Publishers Group."




The King of Adobe


Book Description

In 1967, Reies Lopez Tijerina led an armed takeover of a New Mexico courthouse in the name of land rights for disenfranchised Spanish-speaking locals. The small-scale raid surprisingly thrust Tijerina and his cause into the national spotlight, catalyzing an entire generation of activists. The actions of Tijerina and his group, the Alianza Federal de Mercedes (the Federal Alliance of Land Grants), demanded that Americans attend to an overlooked part of the country's history: the United States was an aggressive empire that had conquered and colonized the Southwest and subsequently wrenched land away from border people—Mexicans and Native Americans alike. To many young Mexican American activists at the time, Tijerina and the Alianza offered a compelling and militant alternative to the nonviolence of Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr. Tijerina's place at the table among the nation's leading civil rights activists was short-lived, but his analysis of land dispossession and his prophetic zeal for the rights of his people was essential to the creation of the Chicano movement. This fascinating full biography of Tijerina (1926–2015) offers a fresh and unvarnished look at one of the most controversial, criticized, and misunderstood activists of the civil rights era. Basing her work on painstaking archival research and new interviews with key participants in Tijerina's life and career, Lorena Oropeza traces the origins of Tijerina's revelatory historical analysis to the years he spent as a Pentecostal preacher and his hidden past as a self-proclaimed prophet of God. Confronting allegations of anti-Semitism and accusations of sexual abuse, as well as evidence of extreme religiosity and possible mental illness, Oropeza's narrative captures the life of a man--alternately mesmerizing and repellant--who changed our understanding of the American West and the place of Latinos in the fabric of American struggles for equality and self-determination.




Tracking King Tiger


Book Description

Reies López Tijerina, one of the Four Horsemen of the Chicano Movement, led the land grant struggle by Hispanos in the 1960s to recover the lands granted to their ancestors by Spain and Mexico and then guaranteed by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In his struggle, Tijerina became the target of local and state law enforcement officials in New Mexico and the FBI nationwide. José Angel Gutiérrez meticulously examines thousands of pages of FBI documents, interview transcripts, newspaper reports, and other written accounts on Tijerina and the Alianza Federal de Pueblos Libres, the organization of land grant claimants led by Tijerina in New Mexico. The primary source materials that document the U.S. government’s attempts to destroy Tijerina, his family, and his followers complement the secondary literature on Tijerina and his efforts as the premier leader of the land grant recovery movement. Threaded through the volume are glimpses into the special personal relationship between Tijerina and the author.




An African American and Latinx History of the United States


Book Description

An intersectional history of the shared struggle for African American and Latinx civil rights Spanning more than two hundred years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history, arguing that the “Global South” was crucial to the development of America as we know it. Scholar and activist Paul Ortiz challenges the notion of westward progress as exalted by widely taught formulations like “manifest destiny” and “Jacksonian democracy,” and shows how placing African American, Latinx, and Indigenous voices unapologetically front and center transforms US history into one of the working class organizing against imperialism. Drawing on rich narratives and primary source documents, Ortiz links racial segregation in the Southwest and the rise and violent fall of a powerful tradition of Mexican labor organizing in the twentieth century, to May 1, 2006, known as International Workers’ Day, when migrant laborers—Chicana/os, Afrocubanos, and immigrants from every continent on earth—united in resistance on the first “Day Without Immigrants.” As African American civil rights activists fought Jim Crow laws and Mexican labor organizers warred against the suffocating grip of capitalism, Black and Spanish-language newspapers, abolitionists, and Latin American revolutionaries coalesced around movements built between people from the United States and people from Central America and the Caribbean. In stark contrast to the resurgence of “America First” rhetoric, Black and Latinx intellectuals and organizers today have historically urged the United States to build bridges of solidarity with the nations of the Americas. Incisive and timely, this bottom-up history, told from the interconnected vantage points of Latinx and African Americans, reveals the radically different ways that people of the diaspora have addressed issues still plaguing the United States today, and it offers a way forward in the continued struggle for universal civil rights. 2018 Winner of the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award




FBI Surveillance of Mexicans and Chicanos, 1920-1980


Book Description

A multi-chapter book, first of its kind, that identifies, describes, and analyzes FBI documents revealing the hidden history of surveillance of Mexicans and Chicanos in the United States of America.




They Called Me "King Tiger"


Book Description

"What is clear from Lopez Tijerina's testimony is his sincerity, his years of research on the issues of land grants and civil rights, and his persistent spiritual and political leadership of the disenfranchised descendants of the original colonizers of New Mexico. All of the passion and commitment, as well as the flamboyant rhetoric of the 1960s, is preserved in this recollection of a life dedicated to a cause and transformed by continuous prosecution." "They Called Me "King Tiger": My Struggle for the Land and Our Rights is a historical document of the first order, clarifying the motives and actions of one of the Chicano Movement's now-forgotten martyrs - a man who sought justice for those who have been treated like foreigners on their own soil."--BOOK JACKET.




Chicano Manual on How to Handle Gringos


Book Description

Under this somewhat threatening title, the renowned civil rights leader Jos? Angel Guti?rrez provides a guidebook to minority empowerment through the use of analysis, practical experience and anecdote. His primary goal is the conversion of Latino demographic power into educational, economic and political power. In an incisive introduction, Guti?rrez analyzes the types of power and evaluates Chicano and Latino access to power at various levels in U.S. society. In very plain, down-to-earth language and examples, Guti?rrez takes pains to make his broad knowledge and experience available to everyone, but especially to those who want to be activists for themselves and their communities. For him the empowerment of a minority or working-class person can transfer into greater empowerment of the whole community. This manual penned by the founder of the only successful Hispanic political party, La Raza Unida, brings together an impressive breadth of models to either follow or avoid. Quite often, Guti?rrezÍs voice is not only the seasoned voice of reason, but also that of humor, wry wit and satire. If nothing else, The Chicano Manual on How to Handle Gringos is a wonderful survey of the Chicano and Latino community on the move in all spheres of life in the United States on the very eve of its demographic and cultural ascendancy.




Albert A. Peña Jr.


Book Description

The political and social impact that Albert A. Peña Jr. had on the lives of Mexican Americans, and later Chicanos, is by all counts immeasurable. However, in part because Chicano biography has traditionally been a neglected research area among academics generally and Chicano Studies scholars specifically, his life’s work has not featured prominently in any biographical work to date, making this volume the first of its kind. It provides a richly detailed documentation of Peña’s life and career, from blue collar worker to judge and essay writer, spanning nearly ninety years. Readers will find that at the heart of his story is a focus on grassroots organizing and politics, sharing leadership, and a commitment to social justice.




Confessions of a Radical Chicano Doo-Wop Singer


Book Description

Prologue -- La Veinte: a Santa Monica barrio -- Rubén Ladrón de Guevara Sr., 1914-2006 -- 1742 22nd Street, Barrio La Veinte, Santa Monica -- Palm Springs / Cathedral City / Las Vegas -- Binnie -- La Gatita -- Las Vegas : breakup of the family -- Sue Dean -- Beverly -- Shindig! with Tina Turner and Bo Diddley, 1965 -- The Sunset Strip riots -- The southern belle -- LACC / The New Revelations Gospel Choir -- Miss Santa Barbara -- Frank Zappa / Ruben And The Jets / Rock 'n' Roll Angels / 1972-1974 -- Miss Pamela & the G.T.O.'s (Girls Together Outrageously) -- Miss Claremont -- Miss Chino -- The mutiny -- The movie star and Miss Blue Eyes -- We open for Zappa at Winterland, San Francisco, April, 1973 -- Con Safos the album -- Mexico / Hollywood / The Whisky / Eastside Revue / Zyanya Records -- La gypsy -- The Star Spangled Banner / America the Beautiful -- The Whisky / Con Safos the band, 1980 -- Miss Aztlán -- Gotcha -- Zyanya Records -- Cristina / Día de Los Muertos / Chicano Heaven -- Born in East L.A.--the movie -- HBO/Cinemax special -- Performance art : Mexico and France -- La quemada -- La rebel -- Jammin' with Johnny -- Arts 4 City Youth -- UCLA -- Journey to New Aztlán -- Miss San Francisco : the enchantress -- Miss Mongolia -- Metropolitan State Hospital -- Trinity Elementary School -- Teaching at UCLA -- Miss Tokyo -- Mexamérica the CD -- The Eastside Revue : a musical homage to Boyle Heights, 1922-2002 -- Boyle Heights, LA Times -- Collaborations with Josh Kun -- The Iraq war -- Collaborations with Nobuko Miyamoto / Great Leap / NCRR / MPAC -- Manzanar pilgrimage -- Yellow Pearl remix -- Minutemen protest in Baldwin Park -- Rock 'n' rights : rockin' for the mentally disabled -- Resistance & respect : Los Angeles muralism & graff art -- Miss Bogotá -- Word up! a performance and theater summit at the Ford, 2006 -- Meeting my Okanagan brothers from Westbank First Nation, B.C. Canada -- Epiphany at Joshua Tree -- Miss Altar in the sky -- Rubén Guevara & the Eastside Luvers -- The Tao of Funkahuatl -- The Tao of Funkahuatl the CD -- Mex/LA -- Opening for Los Lobos at the House of Dues -- Fifty years in show biz / The Madeleine Brand Show, NPR, 2011 -- Miss Beijing -- Miss Monterey Park -- End of ten year sex drought -- My 70th birthday party -- Platonic homegirls -- Joseph Trotter -- A Boyle Heights cultural treasure -- The new face of Boyle Heights -- ¡Angelin@s presente! -- Sara Guevara -- Confessions of a radical Chicano Doo Wop singer : the solo, multi-media theater piece -- The fall -- Reflections on L.A




Youth, Identity, Power


Book Description

Youth, Identity, Power is a study of the origins and development of Chicano radicalism in America. Written by a leader of the Chicano Student Movement of the 1960s who also played a role in the creation of the wider Chicano Power Movement, this is the first fill-length work to appear on the subject. It fills an important gap in the history of political protest in the United States. The author places the Chicano movement in the wider context of the political development of Mexicans and their descendants in the US, tracing the emergence of Chicano student activists in the 1930s and their initial challenge to the dominant racial and class ideologies of the time. Munoz then documents the rise and fall of the Chicano Power Movement, situating the student protests of the sixties within the changing political scene of the time, and assessing the movement's contribution to the cultural development of the Chicano population as a whole. He concludes with an account of Chicano politics in the 1980s. Youth, Identity, Power was named an Outstanding Book on Human Rights in the United States by the Gustavus Myers Center in 1990.