CHICAN@ SOCIOGENICS, CHICAN@ LOGICS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHICAN@ PHILOSOPHY: RUPTURING THE BLACK-WHITE BINARY AND WESTERN ANTI-LATIN@ LOGIC A Dissertation by ANDREW CHRISTOPHER SOTO Submitted to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Chair of Committee, Tommy Curry Committee Members, Gregory Pappas Amir Jaima Marlon James Head of Department, Theodore George May 2018 Major Subject: Philosophy Copyright 2018 Andrew Christopher Soto ABSTRACT The aim of this project is to create a conceptual blueprint for a Chican@ philosophy. I argue that the creation of a Chican@ philosophy is paramount to liberating Chican@s from the imperial and colonial grip of the Western world and their placement in a Black-white racial binary paradigm. Advancing the philosophical and legal insight of Critical Race Theorists and LatCrit scholars Richard Delgado and Juan Perea, I show that Chican@s are physically, psychologically and institutionally threatened and forced by gring@s to assimilate and adopt a racist Western system of reason and logic that frames U.S. institutions within a Black-white racial binary where Chican@s are either analogized to Black suffering and their historical predicaments with gring@s or placed in a netherworld. In the netherworld, Chican@s are legally, politically and socially constructed as gring@s to uphold the Black-white binary and used as pawns to meet the interests of racist gring@s. Placing Richard Delgado and Juan Perea’s work in conversation with pioneering Chican@ intellectuals Octavio I. Romano-V, Nicolas C. Vaca, Deluvina Hernandez, Alfredo Mirandé and Chicano movement leaders Rodolfo Gonzales, Reies Tijerina and José Ángel Gutiérrez, I show this amalgamation provides the essential pieces for a paradigm shift and the construction of a Chican@ philosophy. I argue that Chican@ philosophy is the development of a worldview and system of thought that is centered in the knowledge, rationality, logic and culture of the Chican@ people. Chican@ philosophy is guided by the axiom that Chican@s are creators of knowledge, history and their own logical principles and systems of rationality independent of Western reason and logic. ii Toward this end, I turn to the insight of Frantz Fanon, Sylvia Wynter and Tommy Curry to show that Chican@ philosophy is framed in a Chican@ sociogenics where the Chican@’s social world is used as a point of departure to examine and understand the lived experience of being Chican@ and a Chican@ logic that contours the world in such a way that Chican@s become creators of their epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy and vanguards of their own systems and institutions. iii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my abuelo, Andres Javier Soto-Melgoza. You are the spirit of Chican@ philosophy. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Professor Richard Delgado and Professor Jean Stefancic for your unwavering mentorship, friendship and support. Under your tutelage, I have grown as a Chicano philosopher, scholar and teacher. Without the both of you, this dissertation would not be possible. Dr. Tommy J. Curry for your mentorship, intellectual genius, paradigm shifting scholarship and unyielding love for people of color. Thank you for believing in me and always pushing me to be a stronger thinker, teacher and man of color. Dr. Gregory Pappas and Dr. Carlos Sanchez, thank you for your suggestions, invaluable critiques and tireless guidance. You both have been instrumental in my academic development throughout the years. Dr. Amir Jaima, thank you for joining the committee late in the game and for your invaluable remarks and suggestions. Dr. Marlon James, thank you for providing a space for me in your education classes to explore, develop and put into practice my cultural methodologies and ideas. Dalitso Ruwe and Adebayo Ogungbure, my intellectual brothers, you both have challenged me to be a stronger thinker and have contributed profoundly to strengthening the ideas in this dissertation. I am looking forward to continuing to build with the both of you. I would also like to thank members of the Society for Mexican American Philosophy for taking me under your wing and providing me a space to share and develop my scholarship. Also, I would like to thank members of Philosophy Born of Struggle and the Caribbean Philosophical Association for your support and guidance throughout the years. Thank you to my friends and family, especially the Carbajal, Cantu, Franco, Hemingway, Soto, and Martinez family for your continuous love and support. A special thank v you to my stepparents, Stella Martinez and Rick Bressler, for all your love, support and encouragement. Thank you to my parents, Maria Bressler and Andrew Xavier Soto, Jr., for never giving up on me and for all the sacrifices you both have made to help me reach this goal. I could not have achieved this without the both of you. Ashpreet K. Singh, whose friendship, love and emotional encouragement has enabled me to be a fearless thinker, writer, teacher and human being. You have been my rock, joy and sanity throughout this journey. Thank you for believing in me when I did not have the strength to believe in myself. Lastly, I would like to thank my grandparents, Mercedes Amelia Soto, Andres Javier Soto-Melgoza and Estela Falcon. Thank you for giving me the courage to write this dissertation. vi CONTRIBUTORS AND FUNDING SOURCES Contributors This work was supported by a dissertation committee consisting of Professor Tommy J. Curry and Professor Gregory Pappas and Professor Amir Jaima of the Department of Philosophy and Professor Marlon James of the Department of Education and Professor Carlos Sanchez of the Department of Philosophy at San Jose State University. All work for the dissertation was completed independently by the student. Funding Sources Graduate study was supported by a fellowship and assistantship from Texas A&M University. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ ii DEDICATION .................................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................. v CONTRIBUTORS AND FUNDING SOURCES .............................................................. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................. viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................... 1 The Black-white Binary as America’s Racial Historiography ................................... 8 The Problem of Perspectives: Social Science and the Epistemologies of color ...... 10 Bad Hombres: The Xenophobic Epistemology of the 21st Century ......................... 16 Black-white Paradigm: Placing Chican@s in the Netherworld ............................... 22 Chican@ Injustice: Applying Legal Reasoning to Chican@s in the Black-white Binary.........................................................................................26 It is Still the Gring@ ................................................................................................ 32 Unchaining Chican@s: Creation of Chican@ Philosophy ...................................... 34 CHAPTER II A HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF CHICAN@ SOCIOGENICS AND CHICAN@ PHILOSOPHY . 46 Chican@ Philosophy and its Rejection of Dualism ................................................. 46 Western Logic and the Creation of the Wetback ..................................................... 49 Anti-Chican@ Western Logic as Policy and Law ................................................... 55 Chican@ Power and the Culturalogic Chican@ Subject ......................................... 58 Critiques and Reservations....................................................................................... 63 CHAPTER III LATIN AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY AND THE CREATION OF THE MACHO .............................................................................................................. 73 Adler, the Inferiority Complex, and the Demonization of Mexican Masculinity .... 73 Octavio Paz and the Mexican’s Western Inferiority complex ................................. 83 Western Creation of the Machismo Chicano ........................................................... 86 Challenging the Myth of the Macho with Chican@ Logic and Culturalogics......... 90 viii Page CHAPTER IV DISMANTLING THE RACIST AND WHITE SUPREMACIST U.S. EDUCATION SYSTEM WITH CHICAN@ PHILOSOPHY AND A 21ST VISION OF EL PLAN DE SANTA BARBARA .............................................................. 96 Reclaiming Centuries of Chican@ Struggle Against Racist Gring@ Education .... 96 Weakening Chican@ Nationalism with Western Ideals ........................................ 107 Creating the Hyper-Masculine, Hypersexualized, Machismo in U.S. Education .. 115 Perils of Chican@ Students in U.S. Education ...................................................... 126 CHAPTER V CHICAN@ PHILOSOPHY AND CHICAN@ LOGIC: EDUCATING CHICAN@ STUDENTS IN THE 21ST CENTURY ........................................................ 134 Chican@ Logics ..................................................................................................... 134 Using Chican@ Logic to Expose Indeterminacy