122 Chican@ Poetry: From the Chican@ Movement to Today By: Maricela Rocha Abstract the Chicano movement, their Mexican American struggle, and the injustices they uring the Chican@ Movement in faced. Chican@s in the United States the 1960s, poetry written by and can go years without receiving a sense of Dfor Mexican Americans became known Chican@ poetry or history in school or life as Chican@ poetry. This kind of poetry because of its controversy. Once they are played a huge influence in the Chican@ exposed to Chicano poetry, it changes their movement when the poem, “I am Joaquín”, perspective on their Mexican American by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales gave a identity. This essay will do what schools do different meaning to the term “Chican@”. not, and that is explain how Chican@/a After this poem, Mexican Americans poetry has evolved from the poem “I gained a new identity and their own form am Joaquin” that made the Chican@ of poetry. Chican@ poetry is important movement popular, to the introduction of because it empowered and influenced newer Chican@/a poets borrowing from Chican@s to take action when they were earlier Chican@ poets. Also, I will explain oppressed. Today, Chican@s and Mexicans how poetry has been a big factor in the face some of the similar problems they did fight for Chican@s’/Mexicans’ rights. more than 50 years ago. Chican@s are still discriminated against, forced to assimilate, and are oppressed. Chicanos now have poetry where they can write and describe 123 hen the Chican@ Movement began Caramelo, Loose Woman, and Have You seen in the 1960s, it had a weak start Marie?. becauseW it did not have much advertising These writers and poets started using nor support. Not that many Chican@s poetry to communicate a deeper meaning were aware of the movement, but when of what it means to be a Chican@ and to in 1967 Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales1 bring an awareness to society about the wrote and published “I am Joaquín,” the racial discrimination they experienced, movement gained a lot of attention. After their urgency for change, and their history. being active in the Chican@ movement, Chican@ poetry has been interpreted Gonzales writes “I am Joaquín,” which and compared to more recent Chican@ results in an epic poem that is like no poetry by writing Specialist at University other poem ever written before. It outlined of Kansas Medical Center: Andrés 2000 years of Mexican-American history. Rodriguez and Professor of Spanish and Chican@ poetry had been written before Portuguese School of Humanities at UC the movement, but it had never had such Irvine: Bruce Novoa (1944-2010), some of an impact on individuals as it did with the their analysis has been included in efforts work of Gonzales and Chican@2 poets to to show how today’s Chican@ poetry has follow: Alberto Baltazar Urista Heredia evolved since the 1960s. or better known as Alurista: a Chican@ Writing specialists such as Andrés poet and activist; Luis J. Rodriguez: Rodriguez and Bruce Novoa agree that major figure in contemporary Chican@ Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales’ “I am Joaquín” literature, a poet, novelist, journalist, critic, is one of the poems most known from the and columnist; Gloria Anzaldúa: scholar, Chican@ movement because, not only did Chicana feminist, poet, writer, and cultural it give Chican@s a good detailed account theorist; and Sandra Cisneros: author of their history, the form in which it was of books like House on Mango Street, written and its content created a deep meaning to not only Chican@s, but also to other Mestizos and Mexicans from 1 A boxer and voter registrar during John Mexico that no other poet or poem could F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign that match. Andrés Rodriguez in the journal joined the Chican@ Movement in hopes “The Work of Michael Sierra, Juan Felipe to be a leader for his people after multiple fails of running for state representative and Herrera and Luis J. Rodriguez” of the mayor in Denver and Colorado. Bilingual Review/ La Revista Bilingüe 2 “Chican@ signals a politicized identity states the following about “I am Joaquín”: embraced by a man or a woman of Mexi- “it spoke to the needs and feelings of can descent who lives in the United States the time”, “exalted the collective struggle and who wants to forge a connection to a against oppression”, and “attempted to collective identity politics” (Sandra Soto, synthesize or reconcile two opposing Reading Chican@ Like A Queer: The notions of a Chican@ identity” (1996). De-Mastery of Desire) The reason why Gonzales’ poem “spoke 124 to the needs and feelings of the time” was Mexican hero and military leader in the because it came out after El Movimiento Mexican Revolution. He is an essential (Chican@ Movement) had begun. The part to the Chican@’s identity and movement was young and small-scale, history because he, along with Zapatistas so not much attention was put upon it (members from the revolutionary guerilla from the media, government, or people movement), fought for agrarian reform but when “I am Joaquín” was published- in Mexico and for the lost Mexican land -speaking of the struggles that Chican@s of California, Texas, and other states face in trying to achieve equal rights and to wealthy Europeans at their time of economic justice, it changed the course of settling in America. the movement. Minorities united because Throughout the poem, Gonzales the poem as well as the Chican@ movement continues identifying himself as important was a call for all the Spanish races being Mexican figures such as: Benito Juárez, oppressed and humiliated by the white Pancho Villa, Guadalupe Hidalgo, Félix community. Gonzales cries out in “I am Díaz, Victoriano Huerta, and so many Joaquín”, “La raza! / Mejicano! / Español! more adding to the uniqueness of “I / Latino! / Chican@! / Or whatever I call am Joaquín”. By Gonzales speaking on myself, / I look the same/ I feel the same/ behalf of many different individuals both I cry/ And/ Sing the same” (1967). When relevant and irrelevant to the Chican@, Gonzales expresses these sentiments, he he is attempting to find the identity is suggesting that these identities are very that fits him best and that is him. With similar, so why are they divided instead Gonzales’ poem, the reader gets a sense of being united. They are all human, all that Gonzales was confused on where he minorities exploited, and so Gonzales uses stood in the world or what he should call Joaquin as a symbol of all these individuals himself just like other Chican@s struggle and it’s not just one person in the “I” of “I to find the right identity. Chican@ as a am Joaquín” anymore but a collection of all term of empowerment did not exist before the races Gonzales mentions. “I am Joaquín”, but rather the term was not Gonzales then “attempted to synthesize popular because it was used as an insult or reconcile two opposing notions of a for lower status and culture immigrants. Chican@ identity” by writing the poem However, Gonzales uses it as a positive through two different identities that of the way of identifying oneself and the term oppressed and the oppressor (Rodriguez, starts to be used for El Movimiento. 1996). An example of this fusion can be Gloria Anzaldúa discusses this in her seen when Gonzales takes the identity of book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Emiliano Zapata: “I am Emiliano Zapata. Mestiza, “Chican@s did not know we were / This land, this earth is ours. / The villages, people until 1965 when Cesar Chavez and the mountains, the streams / belong to the farmworkers united and I Am Joaquín Zapatistas” (1967). Gonzales embodies was published and la Raza Unida party was Emiliano Zapata because Zapata was a formed in Texas” (1987).“I am Joaquin” 125 brought forth Chican@ literature, film, Movement and the Feminist Movement history into existence. There was no but it was not necessarily part of either previous Chican@ literature, films, or art, one. Chicanas used poetry as well to have so “I am Joaquín” had a really important a voice in the male dominant society part in being the first form of history and to forward their movement among record for the Chican@ population and other women. Sandra Cisneros voices her most notably, “I am Joaquín” along with opinion about being Chicana in “Loose other poems can be accounted for being Woman” when she declares “They say I’m the mechanism that united the people for a macha, hell on wheels, viva-la-vulva, fire the Chican@ revolution. and brimstone, man-hating, devastating, Chican@ poetry during El Movimiento boogey-woman lesbian” (1994). Women served as a tool to unify the people and were considered so many things; a macha bring the awareness of things that not which is not heard that much, is the everyone knew. Andrés Rodriguez expands female equivalent of a male macho, so by on the subject, “To those who ask why saying “macha” the speaker is referring to talk about this poetry as “Chican@” and a woman as being very proud almost in not simply as another manifestation of an aggressive way. “Hell on wheels” stands other “American” poetry concerned with for the “man hating” feminists calling for languages and culture rather than politics. change that men attribute as crazy for The answer is that Chican@ identity is the wanting equal rights, work positions, and subject with all the details of that Chican@ freedom. “Viva la vulva” implies a women’s identity being what any poet or artist has right to have and enjoy sex just like a man to work with” (1996).