Chicano Moratorium | Q&A with Harry Gamboa Jr., Carolina Miranda, Chon Noriega

[Mark Quigley] Good afternoon and welcome to UCLA Film and Television Archive's Virtual Screening Room. My name is Mark Quigley, John H. Mitchell, television archivist for UCLA. Before we start, I would like to acknowledge our presence on the traditional ancestral and unseated territory, of the Gabrielino and Tonga peoples. We are humbled to do work in this community. Today it is our honor and privilege to present this program recognizing  the 50th anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium March, of August 29, 1970, in protest against the Vietnam War and the disproportionate Chicano casualties of that unjust war. The date also marks the anniversary of the death of pioneering Chicano journalist Reuben Salazar, who while covering the march, was killed by a Los Angeles sheriff's deputy. In honor of the community activism that preceded the march, the program will also recognize the Chiconic student walkouts aka blowouts of 1968, in pursuit of equal educational opportunities. To illuminate these historic events we are honored and grateful to have three very special guests joining us today. Carolina Miranda, culture writer for the Los Angeles Times. Artist, writer and educator, Harry Gamboa Jr. And our host and moderator for this program, Dr. Chon Noriega, Director of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research and, Research Center and author of the book, "Shot in America: Television, the State and the Rise of Chicano Cinema." Dr. Noriega will introduce our program and lead a live panel discussion with our distinguished guests, following the screening. Please be sure to turn the chat function on in Vimeo, to offer your questions for the panel. In the event of any technical difficulty during the program, please check our social media outlets for updates on how to continue to view the program. For a rundown of all the works for your screening today, please follow the link below the Vimeo screen. Before we continue I need to recognize the labor of the many people who have made today possible. Which includes staff from every area of the archive. Including Randy Yantek and our entire digital lab team. Our entire programming staff. Our marketing and communication team. And my partner in this program today, programmer, K. J.Relph. Thanks also to our guests. To our friends at KCT. Thanks to filmmaker, Tom McDraw. And to you, the audience, for joining us. Special thanks to the John H Mitchell Television Programming Endowment, for underwriting this program. As the United States faces a pivotal, long overdue, national reckoning  for social justice and equality for all. The Chicanoix communities' history of activism, struggle and sacrifice in pursuit of their inalienable civil rights, as you'll see in the moving images  offered today, offers profound inspiration. I will now turn the program over to Dr. Noriega. Thank you, Chon, for joining us here today and for your tireless work to ensure that this vital history is preserved. And told and retold and told. Thank you. [Dr. Chon Noriega] Well, thank you, Mark. And everyone at the UCLA film and television archive for making this program possible. In recognition of the 50th anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War. During which a police riot resulted in three deaths on August 29, 1970, including journalist, Ruben Salazar. I want to welcome you and let you  know that tonight we'll be screening two films. One, a drama and the other a documentary, that deal directly with police violence against Chicanos protesting for better education. And then against the Vietnam War where Chicano youth made up a disproportionately large share of the casualties. The first program is the debut episode of the series, "Cancion de la Raza," or "Song of the People," which aired on KCET on October 14, 1968. This public service telenovela  was funded by the Ford Foundation, as a way of dramatizing the daily challenges facing a fictional Mexican American family, in East Los Angeles. This episode concerns the Chicano  student walkouts of 1968, including incidents of police brutality depicted via actual footage of the LAPD. Starting on March 1st, 1968, Chicano and other students started a series of walkouts from seven high schools in East Los Angeles. They were protesting the unequal conditions they face in Los Angeles Unified School District. By March 6th, an estimated twenty thousand students had joined  these protests, making them one of the first and largest mobilizations of the Chicano community, in defense of their rights for equality and access, in the use of the larger U. S. society. The response to this demand for better education included physical violence among the, against the students during the walkouts, and then later the arrest of thirteen organizers who were charged with conspiracy. Yes. Conspiring to have their community receive a quality education. Those arrested included high school and college students. Journalists working at La Rosa newspaper. And the teacher, Sal Castro who had already started a Chicano youth leadership conference to train future civic leaders, including Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The episode you will see tonight may be the only one that still exists. This says something about the urgent need for preservation of the media history of the Chicano community. At the start of, "Cancion de la Raza," you'll hear producer, Eduardo Moreno speak about the goal of the series. In addition to his introduction, there is a segment of news footage showing police beating children. There's no commentary. The  segment stands alone. What you see really happened. And for the viewers in 1968, a new school year was starting and these images are a reminder of how the last school year ended. The episode itself does not deal with the particulars of the protest, or the larger social movement then erupting on a national level. Instead, it is focused on a family as they try to find a son, who has been beaten by the police. The telenovela format allows for an economic telling of this story through brief, yet charged encounters between different family members and among youth. The ending of the episode is abrupt. Painfully ironic. And a clear provocation for viewers to start talking about what they have just seen. The other film you'll see is, "The Chicano Moratorium, A Question of Freedom." One of two student films that documented the police riot. Providing an eyewitness perspective on the protest, the police actions, and the deadly aftermath. The other film is, "Requiem 29," which we are unable to screen since it requires preservation work. Interspersed between these films you'll see two brief excerpts of interviews with Ruben Salazar, earlier in 1970. He was an active reporter and  commentator on the Chicano civil rights movement. And one of the only Chicano voices in the mainstream media. These interview excerpts are from public affairs programs meant to address local needs through community-oriented television. The first is called, "The Siesta is Over." One of a number of thirty minute Chicano-focused programs then airing between the nightly news  and prime time. And it is hosted by Bob Nevado. The other is, "Tempo," a morning show, on what is now Cacao. And it is hosted by Regis Philbin, who holds the record for the most hours on U. S. television and who passed away last month. Remember, after the screening I will be joined by Carolina Miranda and Harry Gamboa Jr., for a discussion about the Chicano moratorium, and its importance to us today. We'll also be taking questions from the audience. But now, let's go to the screenings. [Noriega] Welcome back! And I'm joined here with Harry Gamboa Jr. and Carolina Miranda. And I think, [Noriega] should be able to see us all at the same time, right. [Noriega] Um. [Noriega] Those were some really interesting and powerful, ah, films. [Noriega] And I think the, ah, interview excerpts in particular give a flavor of a different kind of television fifty years ago, [Noriega] um, when the broadcasters were obligated to have community television. [Noriega] Um, [Noriega] and also, I think seeing Eduardo Moreno and, and, ah, [Noriega] Ruben Salazar. A different generation. They were not the Chicano movement generation, [Noriega] but they could somehow, uh, try to translate it to, uh, [Noriega] to the mainstream, whether in English or Spanish. And they both worked in both languages. [Noriega] Um, but you also get a sense of how their language is so different from today, I'd say. For Ruben Salazar to say we were here first and we're not going to melt. [Noriega] Ah, I don't think we've talked about the melting pot in this country for like twenty or thirty years. That, that went away. [Noriega] That's, that was no longer a goal. [Noriega] Um, once the population of the demographics changed. [Noriega] Um, ah, or there's never money. Now, that one hasn't changed. [Noriega] We still hear that in every institution when it comes to how do we, [Noriega] further integrate, [Noriega] Latinos, Blacks, Native Americans into, [Noriega] ah, our mainstream institutions in ways that are, um, [Noriega] that, that show true, [Noriega] access, uh, for population regardless of race or ethnicity. [Noriega] So, Harry, you were there at this event. [Noriega] And, and you had a little story about, "Cancion de la Raza," in terms of a, [Noriega] little update human interest story, uh, with the the two lead actors, uh. [Harry Gamboa, Jr.] I met, uh, Richard Yniguez many years ago and, uh, he was very, uh, charming. Kind of a young actor then. [Gamboa] Absolutely the kind of person that would have probably appeared in any movie of the week and of course that's how he got his start, ah, [Gamboa] from the, "Texas Tower" and, uh, but, uh, you know, he was also, um, [Gamboa] and, as a result of him being Chicano, was kind of put to limited use actually, ah, throughout his career. [Gamboa] But, in this particular episode, um, [Gamboa] the young woman that performed alongside him, um, [Gamboa] obviously a little bit of magic there. They fell in love and got, they were married and had a daughter too. [Gamboa] And so I was in touch with Richard yesterday and, [Gamboa] you know, I've always been kind of a fan of his kind of upbeat presence. [Gamboa] Uh, and he's still that way and I'm hoping to photograph them for my series piece. [Gamboa] So, let's, let's see. [Noriega] So, let's stay a little bit more, uh, 1970, here. It's two years later, after that episode. [Noriega] Um, say a little bit about  your participation in the Moratorium and then some of the, ah, consequences. So what, what, [Noriega] what came out of that. In both a productive sense, but also as something that remains on us all. [Gamboa] So, um, I was involved in the East L. A. walkouts of 1968. It was, um, [Gamboa] surrounded by a lot of brilliant, uh, activists, intellectuals, poets, ah, [Gamboa] people that have been around since, uh, the [?] defense committee. And, uh, was mentored by many of these people, um, [Gamboa] got a chance to meet some of the ah, [?] Francisca Flores, a handful of people that were really kind of inspirational. [Gamboa] Um, [Gamboa] and, ah, but I grew up in East L. A., in Boyle Heights and had witnessed many, [Gamboa] many forms of, um, abuse by police, but also by the institutions. And, I have attended public schools where, [Gamboa] um, very poor, [Gamboa] poor situations to go to school in. Which is why, uh, we all protested. [Gamboa] And then, uh, when, ah, the Vietnam War began, ah. [Gamboa] I was aware of the Vietnam War when I was in Junior High because they were trying to recruit us and prepare us to all join. [Gamboa] And the influence was to have as many Chicanos go to war. [Gamboa] And so, by the time the Moratorium appeared and I was eighteen years old at the time. [Gamboa] Many of my friends had already been in Vietnam and many had already, [Gamboa] died and, uh, and more would die. And, ah, so, [Gamboa] I was very intent on, ah, [Gamboa] making sure that, ah, other of my peers wouldn't, ah, [Gamboa] be going, and, ah. But it turns out, of course, at that point, [Gamboa] all of America was beginning to understand that their sons, husbands, brothers, uncles were dying. [Gamboa] Uh, as a result of an unjust war, and, ah. [Gamboa] I was not involved in the organizing of the Moratorium, [Gamboa] uh, but I, I was in my own backyard, basically. I grew up nearby the park, and, uh, [Gamboa] had marched all the way down. It was very peaceful. There were, [Gamboa] contingents of, um, [Gamboa] large groups of people that were from all walks of life. And, many of the, [Gamoa] veterans that had fought in World War One, World War Two, the Korean War. [Gamboa] Um, many African American groups. Ah, Asian Americans. Japanese Americans. Um, people who had been, [Gamboa] interred during World War Two. [Gamboa] Um, [Gamboa] many people, many students. And of course, the Moratorium. Everyone was marching. It was entire families. [Gamboa] So, when everyone was very peaceful. And when they arrived at the park, [Gamboa] uh, the police attacked. [Gamboa] Ah, it was L. A. County Sheriffs. [Gamboa] L. A. P. D. Private patrol. [Gamboa] Members of the military and, of course, undercover agents. [Gamboa] All approached using weapons, and actually, [Gamboa] throughout that day firing live ammunition, [Gamboa] and utilizing tear gas, which we know, [Gamboa] uh, is, ah, was designed as a result of, ah, um, [Gamboa] poison gas from World War One. [Gamboa] And it's illegal to be used in warfare. [Gamboa] But it is allowed to use for domestic control. [Gamboa] So, yes I was tear gassed. And, uh, there I met, [Gamboa] in the midst of being tear gassed, I bumped into, [Gamboa] Francisca Flores, who handed me a magazine, and, [Gamboa] and anointed me editor, while we were, ah, teary-eyed, running off, trying to look for, find some refuge. [Gamboa] Um, this led to me, uh, seeking out artists to work on the, [Gamboa] publication. I invited, Willie Herron, initially. [Gamboa] Followed by, uh, Gronk, later on, for another issue. And then Patsy Valdez, ah, to work on it, and, ah, [Gamboa] and we worked on several, ah, issues. And while we would work on the magazine, we realized, around that same time, [Gamboa] ah, not so soon after I purchased a camera. [Gamboa] And realized that, ah, we had something in common.  And we could perform, and we could respond, [Gamboa] to repression, um, with creative activities. [Noriega] Well, Francisca Flores was, ah, probably in her mid, late sixties, or, [Noriega] at the time, or? [Gamboa] Uh, yeah, I'm sure she was younger than I am today. So, you know, you know, she was a young girl, back then. [Noriega laughs] Ah. [Noriega] But, she handled this, uh, magazine and, and wanted  to view it and that became the basis for, um, [Gamboa] Yeah, but you know, what it was, that I, many of the people who wrote in that particular issue, ah, [Gamboa] I had met them previously. I knew them. They were also some of the people that were, [Gamboa] part of this Mexican American generation that preceded mine. [Gamboa] And this idea of, um, [Gamboa] trying to, [Gamboa] ah, melt, as it were. And, of course, my generation, if you melted, it meant you, ah, watched too, you listened to too much Jimi Hendrix. [Gamboa] And so, even the term melting meant something else. [Gamboa] Ah, you know, it was the psychedelia era, also. And, ah, and, and I grew up in Los Angeles, which also meant that, ah, [Gamboa] everyone in Los Angeles during that area was being exposed to nuclear radiation from the Nevada test sites. [Gamboa] Ah, there was, ah, [Gamboa] ah, explosions going off regularly in Nevada, [Gamboa] that were, was polluting the air in Los Angeles. [Noriega] So, I have a, a question for Carolina, and then I'd like to turn to some other questions and I'll just give you a, [Noriega] a heads up, that they're going to be more involved with some of the political and activist kind of framework. [Noriega] But to round out this discussion, ah, Carolina, [Noriega] you've just done a, a pretty substantial article in the, "L. A. Times," yesterday, [Noriega] ah, looking at the Chicano Moratorium from the point of view of the, the arts. [Noriega] I wonder if you can say a little bit about, um, [Noriega] what you learned in putting an ear to the ground, [Noriega] um, with the folks that were part of, [Noriega] the Moratorium. And who were artists in the relationship of art to politics at that time. [Carolina Miranda] Well, I think, you know, that was such a fascinating story. I could have written three times as much as I did for the paper. I spoke to so many people. [Miranda] Well, a couple of really interesting things struck, struck me and the first is that, [Miranda] the Moratorium really shaped art. Especially in the Seventies. There was an immediate impact, which I'll talk about in a second. [Miranda] But, it has also been so vital, [Miranda] to keeping the story of the Moratorium alive. That over the decades, as sort of, memory has faded. [Miranda] Ah, as the Moratorium, [Miranda] failed to receive attention from mainstream institutions. As even you know, the, "L. A. Times," failed to really push hard for the inquest, [Miranda] on Ruben Salazar's death. That it's, it's been artists, [Miranda] playwrights, musicians, [Miranda] ah, conceptual artists, that have helped keep its memory alive. So, it's been this kind of series of echoes, that have happened over time, and I think, [Miranda] those echoes certainly have their roots, ah, in the farm worker movement in the 1960's. You have, [Miranda] ah, a lot of artists, ah, using Mexican revolutionary image and images tied to the labor movement. [Miranda] Um, at the big meeting of Chicano youth in, ah, Denver, which I believe was in 1969, the year before the, the Moratorium, or early 1970s. [Miranda] There was this idea that art should be part of, of the Chicano movement, you know, just like, [Miranda] ah, the black power movement had visuals as a very strong aspect of its political representation. So too, [Miranda] with the Chicano, with the Chicano movement and that many of those symbols would be rooted in Mexican art.  And indigenous art. [Miranda] Um, in traditions that were not necessarily rooted in Western European, [Miranda] traditions. A little bit of a reduction of this. [Miranda] And what we saw in the immediate wake of, [Miranda] the Moratorium was the way it impacted artists individually. And it's kind of all together. I think, you know, the mural movement of the 1970s. [Miranda] Muralism certainly existed before the Moratorium, but I think this, kind of, [Miranda] turbo charged it. You had artists like, Judy Baca, [Miranda] who were really inspired by what she witnessed at the Moratorium that day. To just go out, and produce work that created, [Miranda] a public visual representation of the Chicano experience all over Los Angeles. [Miranda] You know, that it's like, okay we're going, we may be denied the official channels but we're just going to tell our history on the walls of the city. [Miranda] And certainly, you know, in  Harry's case, as he told me in the interview, and I just thought this was so fascinating, because it was a story that I was unfamiliar with, that [Miranda] being at the Moratorium inspired him to pick up a camera, and that camera has been, [Miranda] so vital to his artistic practice but also, [Miranda] [?] artistic practice and, and so much of the, [Miranda] of the work that has emerged since then. So, it ended up even, even as the Chicano movement, [Miranda] quieted down in the years after the Moratorium. I feel like the Moratorium, [Miranda] just kind of spurred. It was a catalyst, as curator Rita Gonzalez said, of so much culture that emerged immediately in that era. [Noriega] And I think it's important to note also among the arts, you have now, a new generation of filmmakers. [Noriega] And there were at least two crews out there of students, [Noriega] documenting this, [Noriega] in contrast to two other crews that were out there. [Noriega] The news media. [Noriega] And the L. A. Sheriff's Department. [Noriega] which had its own, [Noriega] camera crew. [Miranda] Mm, hmm. [Noriega] And that says something, if the police force not only has guns, they have cameras. [Noriega] They know the importance of how you construct, [Noriega] a story, a narrative about what's happening. [Noriega] It's not just controlling the event. It's also then having, [Noriega] the imagery that serves that. [Noriega] I want to get to some other questions and we'll follow them in order and see how many we can do. [Noriega] But they actually flow in a very nice sequence and I'll do them in pairs. [Noriega] And just give me some kind of brief thoughts about this. [Noriega] The first one comes from Emmanuel, who wants us to just do a little temperature check, and say if we compared, [Noriega] 1968, 1970, [Noriega] to now, [Noriega] ah, what was the temperature, [Noriega] back then and what is our temperature now. And related to that, [Noriega] Rosie is wanting to know  what the term Chicano or Chicana means to you. [Noriega] So, maybe these two seem like they can have something to do together, but, ah, [Noriega] if you want to just make a brief, ah, [Noriega] or what the temperature was then and where we are now. [Gamboa] Um, um. [Gamboa] I think one of the things about back then was it was, um, [Gamboa] kind of hard to describe but, [Gamboa] it used to be, ah, [Gamboa] completely, [Gamboa] possible to be walking down the street and to be attacked by a police officer, [Gamboa] and to be left on the ground bleeding and then they would continue up. [Gamboa] And, ah, this was a average daily routine. [Gamboa] And a constant suppression, [Gamboa] ah, that could take place. And then also, that you could be hanging around with your friends, [Gamboa] and military personnel would come and just grab you off the street as it happened with many of my friends. [Gamboa] And next thing you heard a few weeks later they were killed in Vietnam. [Gamboa] So, it was very, very possible to be killed instantly, [Gamboa] ah, while you're trying to pursue your everyday activities. [Gamboa] ah, and to confront  racism, [Gamboa] ah, openly, ah, ah, and to be kind of coerced, [Gamboa] or threatened or forced into abject poverty and to be denied education. [Gamboa] Also, at that period of time, if you look at any universities. [Gamboa] Very few, ah, Chicanos were in school and then the term, [Gamboa] Chicano, um. [Gamboa] I still utilize the term Chicano. I feel that this particular moment it's probably most important to be referred to as Chicano. [Gamboa] Um, I think if we had everyone understanding that we are Chicanos. [Gamboa] We would not allow any of our children to be put in cages. [Gamboa] We would just simply resist that. Would not allow that. [Gamboa] And find that to be absolutely disgusting and make sure that ah, anyone involved in such a thing might get, ah, [Gamboa] ah, roundly prosecuted  eventually and removed for it. [Gamboa] So, ah, the term Chicano, [Gamboa] ah, very highly political, but actually a term of self-identification of Mexican Americans. [Gamboa] Who recognize that they were Americans. [Gamboa] And contributed to America. [Gamboa] Ah, but under their own self-definition. [Noriega] Carolina. [Miranda] I think, you know, to add to what Harry said, I think, [Miranda] Chicano for me, and I'm not Chicano, I'm South American. So, I'm coming to this, um, from the outside. Was always this, [Miranda] um, [Miranda] not only the demand to be recognized as American. [Miranda] Um, but also I think that certain embracing of indigeneity is part of that, of that. I mean, that was something that Salazar, [Miranda] talked about. That was something  that certainly was discussed in the multitude of, uh, Chicano conferences, news conferences in the late 1960s and 1970s. [Miranda] It was part of the artistic platform of, [Miranda] the Chicano movement the you know this embrace, [Miranda] of indigeneity and this, [Miranda] I think, ah, ah, rejection of West, of Western European identifiers, as what is going to, [Miranda] identify you. [Miranda] Um, and I also think, you know, it was a term that historically has been negative. It was this embrace of that, and saying this is what we are, and we're going to find, [Miranda] power in that. [Miranda] That was, that was what to me, especially growing up in the Seventies and the weight, [Miranda] ah, of other stuff in the Seventies and Eighties that's what, that's what that term meant to me as a Latina, kind of looking at it, um, from the outside. [Noriega] There's a much bigger discussion to have there, in terms of the ongoing role of naming. But I want to go on to some other questions from Kathy and Ernesto. [Noriega] I don't know if there were any repercussions, ah, to the L. A. police strikes and, and I think, if that means, [Noriega] were they held accountable. [Noriega] Uh, there was an inquest,  uh, into the death of Reuben Salazar. It aired on all the TV stations, uh, over the course of several days. [Noriega] And in the end, of course, [Noriega] there were no repercussions. [Noriega] Um, it was about ten years ago and, I helped play a role in this, there was a releasing of, [Noriega] the inquest report which had actually not been made available over the next forty years or forty five years. [Noriega] Um, yeah, [Miranda interrupts] That was something that, if I could just, [Noriega] Yeah. [Miranda] name Robert Lopez, also a journalist at the, "L. A. Times," had, [Miranda] he had a terrific story about following the Salazar case over the years and how it had been, [Miranda] buried legally. But, also I think, the, "Times's," own role, in not pushing harder for that information to come out. [Noriega] [?] journalist, ah. [Miranda] Uh, huh. [Noriega] Um, and this just was swept under the rug, ah. [Noriega] This goes back to the temperature question.  It seems as though we are still in a drought. [Noriega] Ah, fifty years later. [Noriega] Ah, Nicole is asking Harry, if you would share some practical aspects of organizing, that you learned, ah, from the blowouts. [Noriega] How they might be useful today. [Noriega] Um, [Noriega] and to put this in some context, uh, fifty years ago, fifty two years ago, [Noriega] uh, no cell phones. [Gamboa] No [?]. [Noriega] No internet. [Gamboa] Yeah, no, no GPS. You had to rely on your wits and, ah, [Gamboa] ability to, [Gamboa] figure your way around. But I think one of the things that, ah, [Gamboa] was important, ah, in, [Gamboa] organizing the, ah, Chicano walkouts, was sort of the, [Gamboa] gathering of, um, [Gamboa] intellectuals from the community. [Gamboa] people who had history in organizing in the past, ah, [Gamboa] and working with young students and, ah, augmenting their education, ah, [Gamboa] ah, introducing the various factors that might, ah, work with that. I was, um, [Gamboa] primarily always interested in how to insert, ah, [Gamboa] some of the ideas into either mainstream media or alternative media. [Gamboa] Or just simply to create my own media. [Gamboa] And to contribute to the dialogue. So, I was always at a very early age of, [Gamboa] um, making, ah, doing, [Gamboa] printed material. Or actually, hand printing. Ah, using paint or spray cans, ah, to make sure that the messages were distributed. [Gamboa] Ah, and actually, the introduction of, um, [Gamboa] of words and language and augmenting the lexicon, uh, by contributing Chicano terminology and ideas. [Gamboa] Basically, ah, part of it really was to make it look cool. [Gamboa] And so this was all during the era of, you know, how can you out cool people who are already cool. [Gamboa] and, ah, and if you, you are either cool when you have everything and you're really probably even more cool when you don't have a thing. [Gamboa] So, that's where we came from. [Noriega] I can see that you made up that, ah, [Noriega] criteria. [Gamboa laughs] [Noriega] It's very good. I'll use that. [Noriega] I just want to note here that Richard Yniguez is in the house and he sends a message. [Noriega in Spanish] Se siente honrado de estar aquí con nosotros y, ah, agradeciendo a Harry y su esposa, Barbara Carrasco. También artista. [Noriega] He's honored to be here with us and, ah, sending thanks to Harry and his wife, Barbara Carrasco. Also an artist. [Noriega] I want, I want to jump to a question now, from Frank Rojas that I think, Carolina can, [Noriega] ah, help. Harry's kind of touched on aspects of it from the, ah, content provider end, of creating news. [Noriega] But, ah, what do you think is the role of journalists of color, in regards to the coverage of the Chicano Moratorium, and then, [Noriega] more recent events like, [Noriega] ah, this summer. Like Black Lives Matter and, and the protests there. [Noriega] And I, I wonder if, you know, that may segue, as well, into the role you play, very active role you play within the, "L. A. Times," [Noriega] as well, in terms of internal organization. [Miranda] Um, well that's a big question. And probably a subject for a day-long symposium on its own. So, I will, I'll give you the Twitter version. [Miranda] Yeah, I think, you know, what has been interesting. Sort of going back to that idea of, like, what was different in 1968 and 1970 and what is different now. [Miranda] Um, you know, Latinos still remain, [Miranda] vastly underrepresented at an organization like the, "L. A. Times." we represent thirteen percent of the newsroom in a county that is fifty percent plus Latino. [Miranda] Um, so we are still underrepresented. But you know in Ruben's age, [Miranda] he was one of four, [Miranda] journalists, ah, Latino Mexican American journalists. I think they were all Mexican American, if I'm not mistaken.  Don't hold me to it. [Miranda] Um, and he was one of four. And, and operating within this newsroom that was, [Miranda] exceptionally white, exceptionally male and, [Miranda] unapologetically here at, you know, reaching that west side. What we call the crescent reader. You know the west side. And then the suburbs of like black persona, [Miranda] ah, Glendale and things like that.  Burbank. Like really thinking about that leadership is the "L. A. Times," leadership that's, that's how those journalists in that era thought. [Miranda]  Um, and so Ruben was operating within that framework. And I can imagine the challenges he faced in placing some of the stories he did in the paper. Of having, [Miranda] to convince an editor, like this is a really important thing to cover. We should cover it. [Miranda] And having an editor going, oh that's too this, or our readers won't be into that. It's not mainstream enough. [Miranda]  Like I can only imagine what some of the internal dialogues were about. Some of the work, [Miranda] that he did. [Miranda] Um, what is interesting about this moment is that while we remain underrepresented in the newsroom there is enough of a critical mass, [Miranda] now, to be able to say, and I think the Salazar package that the kind of Moratorium package of the, "L. A. Times," did come as a result of a bunch of reporters getting together and saying, [Miranda]  "This is something we need to do. We need to do it big." Like, this cannot be like, [Miranda] a one-off anniversary story with a couple of sidebars, and then you know, over and out like this is a, [Miranda] "Times," journalist that was killed. It, it, ah, in a year of uprising, [Miranda] in a year of direct attacks on the press. I mean, one of the things that, [Miranda] ah, has happened in the wake of George, of George Floyd, is, is, [Miranda] seeing the press directly attacked for doing their jobs. We had two reporters who were, [Miranda] assaulted basically, by police, [Miranda] in Minneapolis, covering that. And so it is our responsibility to really get the story out in a big way. And I think management was, [Miranda] very supportive of that and so having that critical mass and an organization and also, [Miranda] Latino editors, the, the two, [Miranda] the three principal editors that worked on this package, are all Mexican American. [Miranda] And that was a dynamic, [Miranda] that fifty years ago, did not, [Miranda] exist. And, and, and I think that is something you see, [Miranda] in the nature of the work and some of the assumptions we make about our readers literacy and who the reader is, [Miranda] and what they care about. [Noriega] But you have to push, right? [Miranda] Well, I have to. It didn't take that much pushing on this. I think it probably took more pushing from a coordination standpoint, because trying to do any kind of good thing in the middle of a pandemic, [Miranda laughing] is kind of bananas, when you can't get in a room. [Miranda] Ah, but it was something that I think really, [Miranda] you know, the paper had it on its radar. But it was something that a group of reporters said, "Okay, we need to do this and we need to do it big." [Miranda] Um, and, and, and there was managerial buy-in.  But there was this sense of like we have to do this. [Noriega] I mean, my own personal experience going back over the last thirty years in terms of journalism. Whether it's the, "L. A. Times," or other newspapers, [Noriega] is the journalists themselves, are often very engaged or connected with, [Noriega] the stories and some of the things that would be most important to see in print get edited out. [Noriega] And so there's this conflict then between the section editor, [Noriega] and the people that are actually on the ground and seeing what's happening in the story they're, they're trying to tell. [Noriega] I'm gonna, ah, [Noriega] merge together a few questions that have come up, ah, from Rebecca and from, and jumping on Roberta, [Noriega] ah, and it's more generally just a question about the relationship between, ah, something like, Black Lives Matter, [Noriega] and the struggles and protests that are happening from, [Noriega] the Latino side. [Noriega] Um, and the possibilities of, ah, [Noriega] collaboration. [Noriega] Ah, but also the differences. [Noriega] And any thoughts about that Harry? You seem to be on the verge here. [Gamboa] So, um, [Gamboa] the "Los Angeles Times," has responded rather positively but if you look at it nationally, [Gamboa] you look at all the national outlets as though, ah, Chicanos do not exist, [Gamboa] ah, any concerns of Chicanos is usually, [Gamboa] ah, filtered probably with a different representative from a different ethnic group to, [Gamboa] then describe what it is we're thinking or feeling, if it's discussed at all. [Gamboa] And so, and normally, um, the people who will get more air time  are those that are oppressing Chicanos, [Gamboa] and Latinos in the first place. [Gamboa] So, if you turn on the news programs on Sunday morning, [Gamboa] it's going to be everyone who's committing the crimes against, ah, people. And then the other ones that will give their apologies. [Gamboa] And we will never have an opportunity to explain what it is we're going through. [Gamboa] And obviously we have many, many, [Gamboa] ah, people who are fully capable of, ah, [Gamboa] presenting the case describing and, ah, [Gamboa] and, ah, and, speaking on behalf of our people but, ah, and so on one level nationally that does not occur. [Gamboa] So, um, ah. [Gamboa] So that's a little bit different than maybe other ethnic groups that might get more coverage. [Noriega] So, Carolina, [Miranda] Can I just add to that? [Noriega] Yeah, I was going to say that in your article itself, you bring up the you use this word epinescent to describe the Latino presence, ah, which is fair.  But, it's not really there. [Miranda] Mm, hmm. [Noriega] It's to say a little more. [Miranda] Well, I think, I mean, in terms of Black Lives Matter and, [Miranda] you know, Latinos as, as two distinct areas of sort of civil rights activism. I mean, I think it is important to note that it's like there are shared concerns of police brutality and equity, [Miranda] um, poverty gentrification, economic disenfranchisement, ah, that goes along with it.  There are also some very different concerns and there are issues, [Miranda] certainly of racism, anti-black racism within the Latino community, that I think, [Miranda]  absolutely need to be acknowledged and contended with.  Like we need to deal with, [Miranda] our own racism, [Miranda] ah, when it comes to that. I do think that, you know, we are a very binary society and a society that likes to see things in black and white. And, [Miranda] and, ah, you know, the civil rights movement, the black civil rights movement, while, [Miranda] so key and so vital and such an important, [Miranda] inspiration point for so many other civil rights movements. I mean, [Miranda] Chicano artists talk about being inspired by, by the black civil rights movements, feminists. I mean, there's so much that was born out of that. [Miranda] Often the, the coverage gets reduced to two colors. And it was really interesting, because it's part of the reporting. It didn't end up in the story, but I think, I'm gonna, [Miranda] include it in a follow-up. I interviewed, um, the artist, Juan Capistran. He's an L. A. artist, originally from Mexico. [Miranda] He grew up in South L. A. In a part of South L. A., that was then, now South L. A. is probably Latino, but back then, [Miranda] was almost, you know, exclusively black. [Miranda] And he learned a lot about civil rights history in school. [Miranda] Um, did not learn about the Chicano Moratorium. [Miranda] And did not learn about some of the key to chronic civil rights happenings because it was just not something, [Miranda] that was taught in school. And so, while being in an environment in which these topics were really important. [Miranda] There was an aspect of it that was not discussed. And I think, [Miranda] and, and, I think that goes along with indigenous rights and indigenous civil rights as something that, [Miranda] is also frequently invisible. Not, [Miranda] brought up, you know, not, does not, does not register on the national, [Miranda] ah, agenda. And, ah, um, [Miranda] it, it limits, it limits our, our view of ourselves as a society. [Noriega] Mm, hmm. [Gamboa] If you don't mind, [Miranda] It flattens. [Gamboa] If you don't mind, ah, because we are talking about the 50th Anniversary of the Moratorium. [Gamboa] If we were to pay attention to the way the Vietnam War has been  presented. It's as though, [Gamboa] ah, Mexican Americans were not part of the war. And you leave it up to someone like, Ken Burns. He'll just simply exclude you. [Gamboa] Absolutely and, ah, and of course, you go back also to World War Two and World War One, [Gamboa] and it's also the same vanishing act that takes place. And, ah, and yet, ah, the amount of heroism and, and all, and loyalty, [Gamboa] ah, that was expressed by all of these people. And, of course, those who have lost their lives, and, ah, [Gamboa] and, ah, defended the constitution, um, and to not be recognized, um, [Gamboa] nationally and because it is a binary situation, ah, we don't fit it nicely. [Gamboa] And, of course, and I've been to New York, and it's kind of hard to point which way California is from there, anyway. [Gamboa] But, ah, it's very, it's a, it's, it's kind of, ah, ah, an absolute, ah, [Gamboa] ah, I feel is a disgrace. [Gamboa] but of course I, I also see it as a shame that, ah, [Gamboa] ah, it's not more inclusive in terms of the story, [Gamboa] to provide a full national picture of what has taken place and what is continuing to take place. The contributions that Latinos make, [Gamboa] to the United States. Both those that are considered to be, [Gamboa] undocumented and, of course, all of us who are documented. And we have all contributed greatly to making, [Gamboa] ah, this country something, ah, that's a little bit more than it's been defined by the current administration. [Noriega] So, is there anything else that, ah, can give insight into this.  We have a number of people asking you know why, why aren't there, [Noriega] ah, you know, authentic or accurate Chicano narratives in Hollywood. [Noriega] Ah, you know, kind of going across the board. We've seen this issue in terms of, ah, Latino writers access to publishing. [Noriega] Carolina, you bring up, you know, that we typically take a black and white, [Noriega] view of race. [Noriega] Um, and the, the immediate follow-up to that is that there can be  no mixture. [Noriega] You're either one or the other. [Noriega] And you, you know, and if someone appears to be a mixture,  you, you typically push them in one direction. [Miranda] Mm, hmm. [Noriega] Um, and then you have a group and you see, you know, Reuben Salazar and others talking about mestizaje. [Noriega] Which, [Noriega] it can be a bit of an idealization, that's serving a colonial framework, [clears throat] or it can be, [Noriega] what actually happens, with all humans. [Noriega] There are no pure, [Noriega] races. Everybody is a product of a great deal of inter, intermixture. Ah, you know, [Noriega] in terms of that, but it seems in the U. S. there's a very particular, [Noriega] framework. We want a certain kind of melodramatic narrative. [Noriega] We want things to be black and white, morally. And we want it to be black and white, racially. [Noriega] We want it in English. [Noriega] So, I'm wondering to what extent, ah, the Latino population, in general, confounds that, , [Noriega] ah, and you brought up the anti-black racism in the Latino community. [Noriega] The, the very next thing that has to be acknowledged is twenty four percent of the Latino community identifies as black. [Miranda] Mm, hmm. [Noriega] Um, so this is not, this is, this is the complexity of this, that, [Noriega] ah, it goes beyond the twitter level. [Noriega] kind of story framing that needs to come out of the meaning, [Miranda] I think that part of it, [Miranda] you know, in my view, sort of looking at the long arc of history has been this, [Miranda] continual erasure of the Mexican experience from the American narrative. Like when people talk about the Southwest, [Miranda] it's through the lens of Manifest Destiny. Westward expansion. The railroads.  It's like, [Miranda] this place didn't exist until you know, Huntington, Henry Huntington built his railroad. And of course that's, [Miranda] total BS. This existed for centuries before any of those guys showed up. [Miranda] But, but the way that the, the narratives are told it's almost as, [Miranda] as, as, you know, it's that very colonial trope there was nothing here until he, [Miranda] ah, showed up. I mean, and, and down to some of the cultural things. Like I write a lot about architecture. We talk a lot about Spanish Revival architecture in Los Angeles. [Miranda] Spanish Revival was a way, [Miranda] of alluding to Mexican architecture without calling it Mexican. Because to be Mexican in early Twentieth Century United States was to be, [Miranda] associated with negative things of, you know, like, [Miranda] dirt and filth and crime. And all of the terrible tropes that, [Noriega] At the same time, they built these houses. [Noriega] And then they put these little clay figures of sleeping Mexicans on the floor. [Miranda] Yes. [Miranda] But then it's Spanish  revival so it's not Mexican. It's like we're taking it from Europe. It's Western European. It's this, [Noriega] Well, they steal the architecture. [Miranda] Yeah. [Noriega] The idea of the home and they put a sleeping Mexican pottery in the front. [Miranda laughs] Yes. [Noriega] Ah. [Miranda] It's sort of like those statues where, you know, the victor wears the skin of the, [Laughter] [Miranda] It's, ah, it's, it's really remarkable how culturally, literally, the Mexican, [Miranda] the Mexican, Mexican history, Mexican landscape, Mexican experience and before that the Tonga experience and the other native peoples of, of this, ah, [Miranda] area just, it doesn't exist. It's right now. [Noriega] so this is a related to a question from Brandon, in terms of, how do we square all of that with, [Noriega] some of what's been happening, ah, in the wake of the protests this summer. [Noriega] And have been brewing long before but in terms of the tearing down of monuments, [Noriega] not just the monuments  of U. S. European-based culture, but the colonial, [Noriega] monuments coming out of Spain and Mexico. [Gamboa] Well, um, [Noriega] Harry. [Gamboa] I'd say if you go to Los Angeles, ah, you will not find monuments honoring such as, ah, [Gamboa] Ruben Salazar or any  of the Chicanos that, ah, [Gamboa] protested and you do not have a monument and, um, [Gamboa] honoring the zoot suiters of Pachuco's. But, you do have, ah, major monuments, [Gamboa] of the killers who killed Mexicans in Los Angeles at the Mexican American war. [Gamboa] And you will find, ah, [Gamboa] various military installations that celebrate, ah, [Gamboa] ah, people that came from different parts of, ah, [Gamboa] of Northern America to specifically kill the Mexicans, [Gamboa] ah, to ensure, [Gamboa] ah, Manifest Destiny. [Gamboa] ah, and, ah, and, of course, ah, [Gamboa] after that point, you will find that there was a endless erasure, [Gamboa] of the psyche, the presence, the art, [Gamboa] the influence of the Mexican, um, [Gamboa] the introduction actually even with the W. P. A. [Gamboa] Of introducing this  architecture that's very strange. Of Syrian, [Gamboa] ah, Romanesque. Make all the bridges, make all the buildings look like, ah, [Gamboa] it started off somewhere in the Sahara as opposed to the Mojave. And, ah, [Gamboa] and then, ah, and even to knock that down, ah, recently with the sixth street bridge. [Gamboa] And to replace it with something more like fantasyland. [Gamboa] Ah, that's going to take you from one gentrified area to the next gentrified area. [Gamboa] Ah, and making it very difficult to cross over. [Gamboa] Ah, and that whole notion that you're going to be able to pass, will be denied you, [Gamboa] economically, culturally,  linguistically and media wise. [Gamboa] And so, you know, and this this carries forth, ah, and being an artist, ah, [Gamboa] ah, Carolina I think you understand also that, ah, [Gamboa] Ah, not only is it media, but it's also in the world of the, ah, American art canon. [Gamboa] Ah, and to include Chicano art in any level. Ah, to be, ah, hung alongside artists internationally. [Gamboa] Ah, and, of course, all of this, ah, Chon, you brought it up earlier, is really to exclude, [Gamboa] Mexicans and Mexican Americans, [Gamboa] from receiving financial rewards in this process. [Gamboa] And that is you starve them out. And so, you will find that you have great talents, [Gamboa] great minds and yet they will not be supported economically, [Gamboa] to pursue their talents and so you will find many people that do not persevere. [Gamboa] And in a way it doesn't make any logical sense to continue to be an artist, [Gamboa] ah, in this capitalist society. [Gamboa] let alone if you happen to be Chicano, in particular. [Gamboa] And, so it requires a, [Gamboa] a great amount of, um. [Gamboa] Not sure what it takes. It takes just a lot of focus and energy. [Noriega] Well, and, you know, I think what's been really critical over the last fifty years is having artists like Judy Baca or Barbara Carrasco, [Noriega] who take on the task not of, um, [Noriega] you know, the, the pointing out the wrong. [Noriega] Ah, the making of a demand, but to just retell the big history. In a way that includes everyone, in ways that are appropriate to that history. [Noriega] And the upshot is, in particular, in the case of Barbara, her work gets censored. It's too much. [Noriega] Ah, that kind of reframing where you don't have the narrative Carolina was talking about, [Noriega] at the center. And then you bring everything else in as a supplement. [Noriega] But, say no, we will start with the indigenous and we will move forward through a history that actually involves a lot of violence. [Noriega] But, it also involves a lot of different groups and peoples and we can name them and we can tell their, their stories. [Noriega] So, I think that's certainly  part of the work that you've done. Um. [Noriega] We've had just a really, [Noriega] phenomenal amount of questions and I feel really bad that we're not able to get to all of them. In some way or other, we've touched on many of them. [Noriega] Um, but I just want to note that, and to thank, ah, everyone out there listening for sending them in. They are duly noted and I wish we did have time, [Noriega] ah, to go into all of them. It opens up in many directions, ah, above and beyond the immediate focus here on the Moratorium. [Noriega] But I do hope that this is a, a starting point, ah, in terms of the issues raised by this media, ah, going back fifty years. [Noriega] Ah, the consideration of where it fits today. [Noriega] We still have many of the same issues in terms of the quality of education, [Noriega] for the majority population of the L. A. Unified School District. Ah, it's close to seventy five percent, [Noriega] ah, are Latina. [Noriega] Ah, the rate of access they have to college, beyond that. [Noriega] The level of support they get, [Noriega] ah, in college. [Noriega] Ah, and the role of, of the arts, not just as something separate from life. But as an active part of how we understand the world. And how we politically, [Noriega] ah, engage with that. So, I want to thank you both. Ah, if you have any last words, a temperature or color. [Noriega] Um, you know, please say that now and, ah, we will, ah, we will wrap up the program. [Gamboa] Yeah, um, I think it's important for everyone to understand that they [Gambo] can create and make things and move forward and, ah, [Gamboa] and, ah, support the, [Gamboa] support young people and, ah, in achieving their goals. [Noriega] Carolina. [Miranda] And, I, I think you know to echo what you said about the role of culture in this you know I, [Miranda] first learned about the Chicano Moratorium, certainly not in school, but from a photographer friend, [Miranda] who was [?]. And not even from L. A. He was from Arizona and he was living here. [Miranda] And I learned about it through him and then it was through him that I heard about, [Miranda] ah, the L. A. Theater Center's play August 29th which I happened to see, [Miranda] in 1990, when I was home for a summer from college. [Miranda] and those kind of, even though that was a fictionalized, [Miranda] reimagination of what the Moratorium meant. [Miranda] The impact that those conversations and that work of theater had on my world view and on the histories not told, [Miranda] I still feel like they are still playing themselves out in my work. So, I feel like never underestimate, [Miranda] what you can learn from a work of art. Sometimes it's more than you'll learn in the history textbooks. [Noriega] Well, and I think it's important to point out the artists learned it themselves. [Noriega] They were not taught that history in school. [Noriega] Ah, they taught themselves that history in order to be able to present it, [Noriega] in one form and that work still needs to be done, ah, that history once told, ah, doesn't, [Noriega] stay the same. It, it changes with each generation. And the different questions that are brought to bear, [Noriega] on it. And the new events that have to be added in and be made sense of so, [Noriega] I want to thank you both for this discussion. And thank the Film Archive for having this, [Noriega] ah, program. And I want to thank the audience in particular, ah, [Noriega] given the format here, we're not able to see, ah, all of you which would be really quite, [Noriega] wonderful but, very deeply appreciate the engagement through, ah, the chats and the questions. And I'm glad to have been able, [Noriega] to, ah, engage in a dialogue with you that way. [Noriega] So, with that, ah, I guess we bring this program to a close. [Gamboa] Thank you, thank you. [Miranda] Thank you, so much.