Convo Between Artist and Author

The following is a random collection of notes that originated in a recent conversation.  Don’t expect a conclusion, nor a cohesive narrative.  These are notes, perhaps for something in the future.

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Pancho and Emiliano Converse

I picked the following from a search on Microsoft Bing for the definition of “conversation.”

According to the Oxford Dictionary, a conversation is “a talk, especially an informal one, between two or more people, in which news and ideas are exchanged.”  It is an interactive communication between two or more people where thoughts, feelings, and ideas are expressed, questions are asked and answered, or news and information are exchanged. The development of conversational skills and etiquette is an important part of socialization.

Well, that explains a lot about my poor socialization habits.  I never learned how to make good conversation!  Many people who have been stuck with me for more than fifteen minutes would agree – conversationalist I ain’t.  

Be that as it may, I do talk with people.  A few days ago, I had a short but stimulating exchange of ideas with a local Chicano artist.  Among other subjects, we talked about what it meant to grow up Chicano in the 1950s and 1960s, and that simple beginning eventually (i.e., after the artist and author went their separate ways) got me thinking how the cultural and ethnological vibe I associate with my youth has changed dramatically, and is, in fact, disappearing.  The concept of a Chicano reality (yes, we really did exist) is being replaced with constructs such as Latinx identities and the sociology of migrants and migration. I don’t necessarily think this is a bad trend, it may be unavoidable, perhaps necessary in the big picture.  But I feel like someone should acknowledge the passing of a major historical paradigm. 

During the conversation, the artist and the author deliberated about how their generation distinguished between “us” (“Chicanos, although, for the most part, we didn’t call ourselves that yet) and the Mexicans.  The artist labelled the period when he was coming of age as “before the Mexicans.”  This differentiation was not a negative or discriminatory practice.  It simply expressed the obvious – there was a difference between Chicanos (Pochos) born and/or raised in the U.S., and the (newly arrived) Mexicans that were slowly increasing in numbers but were still a relatively small and invisible group.

Today, immigrant Mexicans (which, in today's world, may mean any immigrant from any country south of the U.S.)  are certainly not invisible or small in number.  Thus, in a twist of conversational logic, the author and the artist were here "before the Mexicans."

Of course, there was no way that Chicanos could have existed in the U.S. “before the Mexicans,” not even in New Mexico populated with Hispanos.  But the artist and the author understood how the phrase was used and what it implied. It was more a term of art than a scientific label, and as such it was not precise and may have been self-contradictory.  

The phrase attempted to highlight the gaps between generations of immigrants, but it doesn't quite fit the situation of my grandfather and me.  My maternal grandfather was as Mexican as one can get, yet by the time I was born he had lived in the U.S. for almost forty years and raised a U.S. family of soldiers and prom queens.  That grandfather fought in the Mexican Revolution in Pancho Villa’s army. He spoke only Spanish even though he understood English, listened to Mexican music only, and told ghost stories based on Mexican myths.  His grandson eventually lived off campus in a house filled with posters of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. The grandson's Spanish was weak, his music choices included José Alfredo Jiménez and James Brown, and his first published piece of fiction was a short story that riffed on the Mexican legend of La Llorona.  

Seems to me that Chicano explains the dynamic of the grandfather and grandson.  I don't think Latinx does.

What does that all mean?

Later.

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Manuel Ramos writes crime fiction. Read his latest story, Northside Nocturne, in the award-winning anthology Denver Noir, edited by Cynthia Swanson, published by Akashic Books.