Chicano!

What Eyes on the Prize did for the black civil rights movement, Chicano!, an ambitious 4-hour chronicle which aired on PBS this past April, does for the nation's Mexican-American community. Literally translating as "poorest of the poor," Chicano! opens with the reminder that much of what we now call the Southwest was--a scant 150 years ago--Mexico. Although the causes for the Mexican War (1846-1848) are glossed over here (it was not a simple imperialist move by the U.S.), the reality was that many landowners found themselves living in a foreign country virtually overnight. Beginning in the 1960s, Mexican-Americans--inspired by social progress in other areas--took up the fight to achieve equal rights as U.S. citizens and were, largely, treated with indifference or outright violence by the establishment. Episode 1, Quest for a Homeland, traces the seeds of the movement in the radical politics of Reyes Tijerina and the more moderate but equally insistent approach of "Corky" Gonzales. Fighting for respect and status in "a country that didn't want us except for labor," the nascent Mexican-American civil rights movement eventually forced President Johnson into legislative action. Later, as the Vietnam War escalated and Mexican-Americans were being drafted in disproportionate numbers, the movement focused attention on opposing the war. The effort culminated in a moratorium march in Los Angeles on August 29, 1969, which ended in violence as the police descended on a peaceful demonstration: 200 were arrested, 60 wounded, and 3 killed. Watching the footage of baton-wielding policemen and defenseless Mexican-American people is both sickening and awfully familiar looking. The other three episodes examine the problems of the farm workers, the clash in the schools, and the latest developments in Mexican-American political activism (the titles are: The Struggle in the Fields, Taking Back the Schools, and Fighting for Political Power). An enlightening and long overdue history of the Mexican-American struggle in America over the past few decades, Chicano! is highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)