UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Composing a Chican@ Rhetorical Tradition: Pleito Rhetorics and the Decolonial Uses of Technologies for Self-Determination Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/52c322dm Author Serna, Elias Publication Date 2017 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Composing a Chican@ Rhetorical Tradition: Pleito Rhetorics and the Decolonial Uses of Technologies for Self-Determination A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English by Elias Serna June 2017 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Vorris L. Nunley, Chairperson Dr. Keith Harris Dr. Dylan E. Rodriguez Dr. James Tobias Copyright by Elias Serna 2017 The Dissertation of Elias Serna is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my chair Dr. Vorris Nunley for the mentorship, inspiration and guidance navigating the seas of rhetoric and getting through this project. I would also like to thank Dr. Tiffany Ann Lopez for her work getting me started on the path to doctoral studies. An excellent group of professors instructed and inspired me along the way including Dylan Rodriguez, James Tobias, Keith Harris, Jennifer Doyle, Susan Zieger, Devra Weber, Juan Felipe Herrera and many others. The English department advisors were loving and indispensable, especially Tina Feldman, Linda Nellany and Perla Fabelo. Rhetoric, English and Ethnic Studies scholars from off campus including Damian Baca, Jaime Armin Mejia, Rudy Acuña, Juan Gomez- Quiñonez, Irene Vasquez, Martha Gonzales, Anna Sandoval, George Lipsitz, Cristina Devereaux Ramirez, Laura Perez, Reynaldo Macias, Aja Martinez, Iriz Ruiz, Cruz Medina and many others inspired me through their scholarship, friendship and consejo. My community of friends and fellow graduate students – mostly in English and Ethnic Studies departments - made learning exciting and fecund, and will remain un- named, but they know who they are. To my crime partner Joelle Guzman and road dogs Johnavalos and Oscar de la Torre: tlazos! Dr. Tomas Carrasco was a key counselor, strategist and champion of the cause. Spirit tlazocamati to the Blue Buffalo lodge. Without my family, I would be nowhere. My children Alise and Che are my guiding stars and my greatest source of happiness. My mother Victoria Serna and siblings Rafael, Carolina and Victoria raised me and taught me to love, persevere, excel, fight to the end, and “no seas dejado.” Tania Fischer has always stood in my corner with material, iv emotional and spiritual support and a special debt of gratitude will always be hers. I hereby recognize my Chicano roots growing up in Santa Monica attending Saint Annes’ School with siblings and all my buds. I thank the Chicano Movement for getting me to college. My friends and the student movements we participated in, especially at Berkeley, UCLA, Tucson, Los Angeles, and currently the UCR Ballet Folklorico and MEChA, continue to give me inspiration and vision. Findings in this dissertation are a product of Tucson’s Raza Studies struggles and the Ethnic Studies Now movement, and appeared previously in print and appear here with permission of the publishers. Early writings appeared in ARE’s journal Regeneración, The Urban Review and Brooklyn and Boyle. My article “The Eagle Meets the Seagull: the Critical, Kairotic & Public Rhetoric of Raza Studies Now in Los Angeles” appeared first in Reflections: Public Rhetoric, Civic Writing and Service Learning (Vol. 13, no. 1, Fall 2013. Pp 80-93) edited by the wonderful Cristina Kirklighter. “’You Can Ban Chicano Books, But They Still Pop Up!’: Activism, Public Discourse, and Decolonial Curriculums in Los Angeles” was published first in “White” Washing American Education: The New Culture Wars in Ethnic Studies, (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2016. Pp 133-156) edited by Denise Sandoval, Anthony Ratcliff, Tracy Lachica Buenavista and James R. Marin. I thank CCCC’s for the Scholar of the Dream Award, and the Tomás Rivera Library, the Antiquarian Bookseller’s Association and the Library of Congress for awarding me first place in the 2013 National Book Collecting Contest. It was a high archival honor and provided my family a most memorable excursion. v Dedication Para las semillas... Alise, Che, Vienna, Mia, Lucas ... For the elders Victoria, Joe ... Y toda la familia ... In memory of Isaias Serna, Dolly Fischer & Mama Rosa ... For the special warriors of Tucson, Los Angeles, Kechengna, the Bay Area, Ayotzinapa, Chiapas and everywhere people fight for dignity, happiness and justice ... With Cachum, the 7 Generations, and the 7 Directions... All my relations ... vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Composing a Chican@ Rhetorical Tradition: Pleito Rhetorics and the Decolonial Uses of Technologies for Self-Determination by Elias Serna Doctor of Philosophy, English University of California, Riverside, June 2017 Dr. Vorris L. Nunley, Chairperson This dissertation uses archival research, Chicana/o Studies scholarship and a rhetorical framework to map a genealogy of Mexican American writing/rhetoric from the post-Mexican-American war era into the present, paying special attention to how rhetors define community, their interaction with technology, sociotechnical conditions, and the epistemic dimensions of this rhetorical activity, particularly the production of Chicana/o Studies departments in the late 1960’s. Steven Mailloux’s work on rhetorical histories and academic tradition broadly inform how I look at how Chican@s/Mexicans addressed audiences and defined community, such as social bandit Tiburcio Vasquez’ utilization of the photograph in the 1870’s, the journalism of exiled Mexican revolutionaries’ in Los Angeles during the 1910’s, and the use of plans and poetry by students during the Chicano movement. James Crosswhite’s work helps me understand the “deeper rhetoric” vii of these moments – a rhetoric concerned with shaping principals, ideologies and community direction – and contributes a rhetorical dimension to Chican@ historiography. Through the rhetoric of the image, the newspaper, poetry, manifestoes and eventually the internet, the Chican@ rhetorical tradition has always involved a repurposing of technology for a community’s own collective agenda and desires, as sociotechnical conditions always shape how Chican@s use communication technologies to persuade and inform. Building on ethnic rhetoric scholarship of Damian Baca and Vorris Nunley, I elaborate on the multi-lingual, poetic style of parrhesia (dangerous speech) employed by Chicanos, which I call pleito rhetoric. The post-Mexican-American war rebellions and the militant bi-lingual polemic of the Mexican Liberal Party (PLM) help me trace a militant rhetorical tradition that resurfaces in students’ calls for Chicana/o Studies in the 1960’s. Pleito rhetoric operated alongside an actual militancy, and took place within the kairos (“the opportune moment”) of civil rights movements nationally and third world liberation movements globally. In this period, Chican@ Studies argued itself into existence by rhetorically developing a dialectical critique of U.S. history, colonization and institutionalized racism (particularly in schools), and initiated a unique epistemic historiography of the Chican@ experience. My last chapters delineate epistemic tenets of the discipline while examining current challenges and dangers such as the criminalization of Ethnic Studies in Arizona. viii Table of Contents Introduction …………………………………………………………………….. 1 Chapter 1: Pleito Rhetoric: Decolonial Fighting Words ………………………. 52 Chapter 2: Tiburcio Vasquez and the Mexican-American Dialectic: Technologies of Affect, Messages with Effects ……………………………….. 86 Chapter 3: The PLM and Regeneración Newspaper in Los Angeles: Radical Plans, Polemics and Traditions of Parrhesia ……………………….... 139 Chapter 4: Nascent Epistemologies: Student Activism, Conferences, Plans & the Rhetorical Construction of Chican@ Studies …………………… 183 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………. 232 Works Cited …………………………………………………………………... 261 ix List of Figures Figures 1.1 - 1.3 Tiburcio Vasquez ………………...………………………..……….. 39 Figures 2.1 - 2.3 Partido Liberal Mexicano ………………………...…..…….………. 43 Figures 3.1 – 3.3 Chicano Student Movement ……………….....….…….…………... 45 Figures 4.1 – 4.3 Tucson protests ………………………….…....…………....………. 48 Figures 5.1 – 5.4 Tiburcio Vasquez portraits and memorabilia ...…........……...…….. 94 Figures 6.1 – 6.3 Tiburcio Vasquez landmarks ……………………….…..………… 130 Figures 7.1 – 7.4 Tiburcio Vasquez Elementary School …………….......………….. 131 Figures 8.1 – 8.3 Vasquez Adobe ……………………………………………………. 133 Figures 9.1 -9.3 PLM men and women ………………………..……………………. 156 Figure 10 PLM Junta in prison ………..…………………………………………….. 176 Figures 11.1 – 11.4 Ollin glyphs …………………...………………………………... 227 Figures 12.1 - 12.3 Xican@ Pop-Up Book Movement ………………………..……. 247 Figure 12.4 PLM fold-out songbook ………………………………………………… 247 Figures 13.1 – 13.2 Third World Strike images ……………………………………... 253 x Introduction The mapping of a Chican@ rhetorical tradition is the chief concern of this dissertation. Taking inventory of a genealogy of Mexican American rhetorical acts and community-oriented arguments requires special attention to race, space, history and technology. My study departs from the effects of geo-political transformations of space after the expansionist