Chicano Quotes
Chicano" was a bad word when I was coming up. At least that's what the elders said. The word referred to a Mexican born in the U.S., so by that definition, I'm not Chicano. I was born in Tijuana, but the Mexicans didn't see me as Mexican and the Americans didn't see me as American. I'm a man without a flag. When I started working among Chicanos as an adult, some accepted me, but some didn't. On either side [of the border] I was the "other"; I've always been the other. Later on when I had a bit of success, people on both sides were much more enthusiastic about embracing me. The word "Latino" seems meaningless to me, and "Hispanic" is just wrong. These days, I just tell people my nationality is "Writer.
Luis Alberto Urrea
We were and still are recreating our own reality. Our vision is that we have been a hard working, courageous people. There have been three prevalent images of the chicano in this country- 1) the pachuco, a violent, urban vato loco; 2) the farmworker, a passive peon, Don Juan-Yaqui brujo type; and 3) el Spanish grandee or Latin lover type.
Luis Valdez
I wanted to have these kinds of images because other Chicano artists were doing imagery that was very political, sending messages about oppression and discrimination, honoring the great muralists in Mexico, and protesting the Vietnam war because a lot of Chicanos had been drafted into the army. There were a lot of protests against the war and the draft. I just wanted to focus on the every day life that we're all very familiar with. We needed to re-celebrate that: the beautiful things that we have always known and grown up with...
Carmen Lomas Garza
Remember that the Latino, Chicano, Mexican American writers are following in the footsteps of the African American writers. This has to do with the antepasados, the people who have come before you, who allow you to take the steps you need to take. I always thank the Black writers because they gave me a sense of freedom...
Denise Chávez
Oral tradition is really how Chicano literature came to be. I was not exposed to the written word, but I had the greatest teacher. I always tell people that my mother was my inspiration because she was the best chismosa, and she had the best stories. And if anyone taught me about drama, it was my mother because she knew how to tell a story. And my grandfather also told stories. One of the reasons why I waned to be a writer was because I was fascinated by stories of La Llorona, supernatural stories and things like that and I love hearing chisme (gossip)...
Josefina Lopez
The Chicano student movement at UC Santa Barbara didn't want me there. These are the same people that sit on a multicultural committee. But they don't want me there because for them I represent a cultural perspective that they do not accept. Their version of multiculturalism is that it all be left wing, that it all be formed by a quasi-Marxist voodooism. And if anybody comes into their world that is any different from that, they can't deal with it. Because they are not multiculturalist at all. They're the most sectarian people I know.
Richard Rodriguez
My grandfather saw a lot of violence and a lot of poverty, and really was incredibly, deeply tortured by it. It was always this elephant in the room that we never talked about growing up. He spoke fluent Spanish, but never in front of us. I think he was really afraid that we would be judged and held back by our Mexican heritage, like he was. Part of writing this play was like digging up my own family ghosts and things that I personally had always been afraid to talk about, because my family never talked about them. Also, because I'm Mexican and I'm white, I often struggle with wondering if I'm "allowed” to tell stories through this lens; growing up, the white kids always told me I was Latina or "ethnic,” and the Chicano kids always told me I was a "gringa,” so I never really felt like I fit in anywhere...
Hilary Bettis
The seed for this book came to me in the mid-seventies in a graduate English class taught by a "white" male professor at the University of Texas at Austin. As a Chicana, I felt invisible, alienated from the gringo university and dissatisfied with both el movimiento Chicano and the feminist movement. Like many of the contributors to Bridge I rebelled, using writing to work through my frustrations and make sense of experiences.
Gloria E. Anzaldúa
I still believe in a Chicano literature that is hungry for change, that has the courage to name the sources of our discontent both from within our raza and without, that challenges us to envision a world where poverty, crack, and pesticide poisoning are not endemic to people with dark skin and Spanish surnames.
Cherríe Moraga