User:JennaTrauff/Chicano Movement

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The Chicano Movement, also referred to as El Movimiento, was a social and political movement in the United States inspired by prior acts of resistance among people of Mexican descent, especially of Pachucos in the 1940s and 1950s, and the Black Power movement, that worked to embrace a Chicano/a identity and worldview that combated structural racism, encouraged cultural revitalization, and achieved community empowerment by rejecting assimilation. Before this, Chicano/a had been a term of derision, adopted by some Pachucos as an expression of defiance to Anglo-American society. With the rise of Chicanismo, Chicano/a became a reclaimed term in the 1960s and 1970s, used to express political autonomy, ethnic and cultural solidarity, and pride in being of Indigenous descent, diverging from the assimilationist Mexican-American identity. Chicanos also expressed solidarity and defined their culture through the development of Chicano art during El Movimiento, and stood firm in preserving their religion.

Chicano art[edit]

Main articles: Chicano art movement, Chicano literature, Chicano § Music, Teatro Campesino, and Mexican murals "Please, Don't Bury Me Alive!" Art of the Movement was the burgeoning of Chicano art fueled by heightened political activism and energized cultural pride. Chicano visual art, music, literature, dance, theater and other forms of expression have flourished. During the 20th century, an emergence of Chicano expression developed into a full-scale Chicano Art Movement. Chicanos developed a wealth of cultural expression through such media as painting, drawing, sculpture and printmaking. Similarly, novels, poetry, short stories, essays and plays have flowed from the pens of contemporary Chicano writers.

Operating within the Chicano art movement is the concept “rasquachismo,” which comes from the Spanish term “rasquache.” This term is used to describe something that is of lower quality or status and is often correlated with groups in a society that fit this description and have to become resourceful to get by. Chicano artists being resourceful can be seen when artists cut up tin cans and flatten them out into rectangles to use as canvases. In addition to its influence in the visual arts, the concept “rasquachismo” informs Chicano performing arts. El Teatro Campesino’s La Carpa de los Rasquachis is a play written by Luis Valdez in 1972, which tells the story of a farmworker that has migrated to the United States from Mexico; this play teaches the audience to look for ways to be resourceful.

Chicano Art developed around the 1960s during the Chicano Liberation Movement. In its beginning stages, Chicano art was distinguished by the expression through public art forms. Many artists saw the need for self-representation because the media was trying to suppress their voices. Chicano artists during this time used visual arts, such as posters and murals in the streets, as a form of communication to spread the word of political events affecting Chicano culture; UFW strikes, student walkouts, and anti-war rallies were a few of the main topics depicted in such art. Artists like Andrew Zermeño reused certain symbols recognizable from Mexican culture, such as skeletons and the Virgen de Guadalupe, in their own art to create a sense of solidarity between other oppressed groups in the United States and globally. In 1972, the group ASCO, founded by Gronk, Willie Herrón, and Patssi Valdez, created conceptual art forms to engage in Chicano social protests; the group utilized the streets of California to display their bodies as murals to draw attention from different audiences.

Chicano artists created a bi-cultural style that included US and Mexican influences. The Mexican style can be found by their use of bright colors and expressionism. The art has a very powerful regionalist factor that influences its work. Examples of Chicano muralism can be found in California at the historic Estrada Courts Housing Projects in Boyle Heights. Another example is La Marcha Por La Humanidad, which is housed at the University of Houston.

Chicano performing arts also began developing in the 1960s with the creation of bilingual Chicano theater, playwriting, comedy, and dance. Recreating Mexican performances and staying in line with the “rasquachismo” concept, Chicanos performed skits about inequalities faced by people within their culture on the back of trucks. The group ASCO also participated in the performing art form by having “guerrilla” performances in the streets. This art form spread to the spoken word in 1992 when a collection of Chicana spoken word was recorded on compact disc. Chicano comedians have also been publicly known since the 1980s, and in 1995, the first televised Chicano comedy series was produced by Culture Clash.

About 20 years after the Chicano Movement, Chicano artists were affected by political priorities and societal values, and they were also becoming more accepted by society. They were becoming more interested making pieces for the museums and such, which caused Chicano art to become more commercialized, and less concerned with political protest.

Chicano art has continued to expand and adapt since the Chicano Movement. Today the Millennial Chicano generation has begun to redefine the Chicano art space with modernized forms of self-expression, although some artists still try to preserve the traditional Chicano art forms. As the community of Chicano artists expands and diversifies, Chicano art can no longer fit under just one aesthetic. The younger generation takes advantage of technology to create art and draws inspiration from other cultural art forms, such as Japanese anime and hip hop. Chicano art is now defined by the experimentation of self-expression, rather than producing art for social protests.