ESPINO:
This is Virginia Espino, and today is May 10th. It’s Mother’s Day in—
BECERRA:
Mexico.
ESPINO:
—yeah, Latin America, and I’m interviewing Mr. Cruz Becerra at his home
in—is this your home?
BECERRA:
This is where I live.
ESPINO:
In Commerce, California. Well, first of all, thank you so much for
taking the time to interview with me. I’m really looking forward to this
series of interviews, and I’d like you to start with your birth date and
what you can tell me about your family history, your parents, if you
know anything about your grandparents.
0:01:37
BECERRA:
Okay. I was born May 3, 1945, which means last week I turned
sixty-eight. My family is from Jalisco. My generation was born here. My
parents were born—they’re from Jalisco. They came here, I think in 1944
for my mom and 1943 for my dad. My dad came here for a year to save up
money. Then he went back home in ’44 to marry her and bring her back. So
he came back here in 1944, and they were both undocumented and they had
[unclear]. So the name on the documents that they had, the last name was
Olmeda, so that’s why I was born with the last name Olmeda. That’s on my
birth certificate, but that’s not our family name.
Later, years later, when my father legalized his status and became a
citizen, he put his family name, Becerra, but it was too late for us. We
were already born with Olmeda. So when I was in the navy, right before I
got discharged, I was in Hawaii in 1966 and I had a legal name change
while I was in the navy. I changed my name back to Becerra, my family
name, but I thought that when you did that, it automatically got changed
on your birth certificate. I sent a letter in to the Recorder’s Office
here, and they sent me a letter back, says "No, we’re not going to
change it on your birth certificate." So I thought, "Well, I guess my
name’s still Olmeda." [laughs] So I stayed with Olmeda until 1977. My
daughter was born in 1976, my first child, but I gave her the name
Becerra because you can give your children whatever name you want. It’s
your child. So she was born with Becerra, and then the year later, in
New Mexico, I changed it to Becerra and then everything was explained to
me. My name was now Cruz Becerra. So that’s why in the early days that
my [unclear] was Olmeda.
ESPINO:
Yeah, because some of the court documents say Olmeda.
0:04:07
BECERRA:
Yeah, all the court documents say Olmeda. Anyway, before my parents
came, my grandfather came, I guess, around the time of the Mexican
Revolution, but he must have been traveling back and forth. So some of
my aunts and uncles were born in the teens, before 1910 and as late as
1926, I think. She had seven children, and my dad was born in 1916. My
grandfather came here, but he would come with permits and then he would
go back. I went on ancestry.com and I found a document from when my
grandfather’s picture from 1930, and so he had permission to come from
1930 to 1932 as a laborer. But when they came way back in—that wasn’t
the first time he come. He’d come way back during the Mexican
Revolution, he came, and at that time he came with his brother, my
great-uncle Jesus and Jose, Jose Becerra.
My grandfather’s name was Cruz Becerra also. I was born on his birthday,
so I was named for my grandfather, Cruz Becerra. But he and his brother
Jose decided to bring their parents to the U.S. because they were old.
They wanted to take care of them, so they brought them over here, so
that my great-grandparents came over here. They were born in 1865 and
they died in 1935. I think one was born in—my great-grandfather was born
in 1862 and my great-grandmother in 1865, and they both died in 1935.
The reason I know that is because I went to Orange County and there’s
only one cemetery there, which is Westminster, so I called them up and
asked them if my great-grandfather was buried there. Said yes, so I went
there.
ESPINO:
Wow.
BECERRA:
And I saw the stone, and they’re buried side by side with their names
right there.
ESPINO:
Did you take a picture?
BECERRA:
No, I’ve got to go back. [laughs] I have to go back and take a picture,
and my cousin, she wants to go with me. She’s about my age. She went to
the university in Utah, maybe Brigham Young, and she majored in, I
guess, anthropology. She focused on Egyptians, but then afterwards she
focused on the Mayas and the Aztecs and she speaks [unclear], and she
wants to go with me back to the cemetery, take a picture. So she said
maybe [unclear] will take flowers.
ESPINO:
Wow. So what did that feel like seeing that gravesite, do you remember?
BECERRA:
Oh, I was happy.
ESPINO:
Did your family teach you about their history? How did you find out
about your name change, for example, or your father’s?
BECERRA:
Well, you know, when we were growing up and we were children, we knew
our parents did not have immigration papers and we knew they could get
deported and we’d go right along with them. We knew it, you know, and we
ignored it, though, because we were kids and we just wanted to play all
the time, you know. But our parents were always afraid, because 1954,
there was a lot of immigration raids, 1954 to ’55. That’s all everybody
talked about. All the factories were being raided. So we knew it. And my
dad told us where our last name came from. My cousin, the one who was
the anthropologist, she joined the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and
she retired as a sergeant from the Sheriff’s Department. And her father,
my dad’s brother, they both came together. They both came with the same
papers from the same family, except they misspelled the name when they
did her father’s papers. So even though we had the same last name, it’s
spelled differently. I’m talking about the illegal last name, Olmeda.
ESPINO:
Olmeda.
BECERRA:
Hers is Almeda or something like that. They put an "A" instead of an
"O." And she said she’s not going to change it. It’s too late. It’s too
late to change it, and she doesn’t have children to pass it on to, so
she’s not concerned about it. That was [unclear] family name.
ESPINO:
So then you were telling me about your parents, and you say when they
came here. You mean Los Angeles?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
So they came straight from Jalisco to—their immigration was from Jalisco
to Los Angeles?
BECERRA:
Yes. I think by then one of my dad’s older sisters was already here and
she had married somebody already. She married a Puerto Rican, and his
name was Edelmiro Gomez [phonetic], and Edelmiro Gomez’s sister is Fela
Mendez, for the family. She’s the one that filed a lawsuit in Mendez
versus Westminster. It’s my uncle’s sister, Edelmiro’s sister, Tía Fela.
Nobody called her Felicitas. They called her Fela, Tía Fela. So my aunt
married a Puerto Rican family, and then a few weeks after I was born, we
moved into an apartment they had on their property in Watts on 84th and
Miramonte or 82nd and Miramonte. And that’s where basically I was born
there. That’s where I was just a couple of weeks after I was born. My
dad was in the army at the time, and my mom went there to live with a
Puerto Rican family, which they became like my grandparents, because on
my mom’s side I had no grandparents. I only had a grandfather on my
father’s side. So they became the Puerto Rican couple, viejitos. They
were like my grandparents.
ESPINO:
So your mom came here, but she had no family back in Mexico?
BECERRA:
She had her sister, one surviving sister, and that was it. And she had
cousins. My cousin Miguel García, the attorney, his mom was cousins with
my mom. I guess that’s why we’re primos.
ESPINO:
Oh, wow. So then this Puerto Rican family, they were not living in
Orange County. They were living originally in—
BECERRA:
In L.A., Watts, yeah.
ESPINO:
—in the Watts area. And the house that you lived in, were you living
with them or were you living—
BECERRA:
They had a unit in the back of their house that they rented. It wasn’t a
garage, because the garage was over here. It was like a big—it was the
size of a double garage, but it wasn’t the garage. A double garage was
next to that room.
ESPINO:
And they became like your family.
BECERRA:
Yeah, oh, yes. [laughs] Yes, so I had a bunch of Puerto Rican cousins.
So growing up, you know, it was the same. Puerto Ricans and Mexicans
were the same. They were my family. There wasn’t any difference at all.
ESPINO:
What about, like, culturally, though? I’m thinking different foods and
different [unclear].
BECERRA:
Yes, but what happened, Mamatita, the couple, the abuelitos, my Puerto
Rican abuelitos, would be Felipe and Teresita, and Teresita was Mamatita
to me. She taught my ma how to cook Puerto Rican food. My mom made the
best arroz con pollo in the world. You can’t even go to any restaurant
and find as good as my mom had learned to make, because my mom was a
really, really good cook. I mean, people got married, they sent their
brides to my ma’s house and teach them how to cook because she cooked
so, so good.
ESPINO:
Wow.
BECERRA:
So when she cooked Puerto Rican food, it was the best.
ESPINO:
Do you remember what it was like, how her arroz con pollo was different
from other—
BECERRA:
Yes, the spices. She used the same spices, but being a Mexican, she made
the spice a little bit stronger, maybe a little bit more comino, which
is, I think, what it probably was, and then something that made
everything yellow.
ESPINO:
Safron? The safron they use in paella?
0:12:17
BECERRA:
I’m not a cook. [laughs] I don’t know, but it was so good. It was really
good. Nobody, not even Puerto Ricans, can make it that good. [laughs] At
least [unclear], it was so good.
So, yeah, the other thing, too, was my father would laugh because he
used to sing Puerto Rican songs, you know, and he would sing to her
growing up because he remembered them from when we lived there. They
were like more campesino-type Puerto Rican, but it wasn’t like New York
Puerto Rican. It was like the island Puerto Rico, because these Puerto
Ricans were campesinos and they were used to working in the fields. And,
well, look, the [unclear], they were on a farm, right? My Tío M____ went
with my dad to pick oranges in the Valley, maybe here. I’m not sure
exactly where they went to pick them, but I know they went to pick
oranges, and my mom went, too, because they sent her to live with—my
mom’s sister had moved to Tijuana, so we went to live with them for
about six months when they went to pick fruit.
ESPINO:
On a regular basis? Just a one-time basis?
BECERRA:
Just one time, just one time. So we lived in Tijuana. Me and my brother
and my sister lived in Tijuana with my aunt for about six months. And my
Uncle Benito, he was a blacksmith. In the old days, when you crossed the
border to Mexico, there was a big sign, an iron sign above the border.
It said "Mexico." He made that sign because a blacksmith—and then when
they built the [unclear] thing there, the big [unclear] they had there
for [unclear], he built two of the doors there for [unclear] because
that’s what he did, was a blacksmith.
ESPINO:
Wow. You have a lot of well-known famous connections somehow or another.
So how long did you live there? Did you go to school in that area?
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
That’s the famous Miramonte Elementary School District right where that
school [unclear].
BECERRA:
I was, like, four years old when we moved out of there. My dad bought a
house in an unincorporated area of L.A. County which was between
Compton, Gardena, Athens. At the end of our block was El Segundo
Boulevard, and El Segundo was the border between the city of L.A. and
the county of L.A. and El Segundo was not paved. It was still a dirt
road. Parts of it were paved and parts of it were dirt road. So, like,
when we’d go to church and it was raining, we couldn’t take El Segundo.
We had to go down to Rosecrans, take Rosecrans down to Willowbrook and
go to church.
ESPINO:
You had a car?
BECERRA:
My dad did, yeah. He had these old, old cars, you know, because we were
really poor. He had Model-As and Model-Ts, and we liked them because we
like to sit in the back of the Model-A that goes back. We loved that.
[laughs] But, yeah, we went to church down Rosecrans, but that part at
the time was undeveloped. The street we lived on was unpaved, so no
sidewalks, no pavement, no sewers, no sewer system.
ESPINO:
So you had an outhouse?
BECERRA:
We had an outhouse. And then my dad, even though he had no papers and
spoke broken English, he got tired of digging those holes for the
outhouse. [laughs] So he went to the county, he got a petition, had all
the neighbors sign the petition, and took it down to the county so they
would put in the sewer system. So we got the sewers in on our block. We
still didn’t have paved streets, but we had the sewers first. Later on
we got the paved streets.
ESPINO:
Wow. So what education level did your father have, do you know?
BECERRA:
He finished grammar school. He finished grammar school.
ESPINO:
In Mexico or—
BECERRA:
Mexico, yeah.
ESPINO:
How about your mom?
BECERRA:
Second grade, second grade in Mexico.
ESPINO:
Did you find them to be—because many people say that the education in
Mexico, especially in those days, was superior to the U.S. form of
education and that you might have come with a sixth-grade education, but
that was like high school. Did you find your parents were literate and
read and had books or newspapers?
0:17:21
BECERRA:
No. My dad was, you know, he was. My mom was intelligent, too, but she
was not educated. Her [unclear] was different than my father’s, okay? My
father was very aware of the Mexican Revolution, the purpose of the
revolution, the principles of the revolution. Those things, you know, he
was very, very partisan in that regard. My dad, for example, was not
religious when he was in Mexico. He hated the Roman Catholic Church
because he was very much aware of the history of Roman Catholicism from
the time of the conquista to a time that Benito Juárez had to fight
them, to the time of the Mexican Revolution. And my grandfather was the
same way, okay?
When my mom got married, this woman who was the head of the Mexican
[unclear], Juventud Católica, when Juventud Católica came to her house
because she had just gotten married, she knew that my mom was going to
come to the U.S., so she gave her, like, a list of, I don’t know, some
rosaries to recite every day. She says, "Because, you know, your husband
is not Catholic. He doesn’t go to church, and your father-in-law is even
worse." My grandpa, I don’t think he has ever set foot in a Catholic
church. And she says, "I think they’re Protestants," which they weren’t,
you know, but she felt that they were Protestants, but they weren’t.
But, you know, this was in 1944. Okay, twenty years earlier, Mexico was
either—I always combine or—to me, Roman Catholicism in Mexico and
backwardness go together, okay? I have a book written in 1923 by an
American author, and he came to the same conclusion because he
interviewed Calles before, when Calles was a general and Lázaro
Cárdenas, when Lázaro Cárdenas was a general before they were
presidents, right, and he talks about them in his book. And one thing he
talked about was Roman Catholicism, and he describes a scene that he’s
witnessed that—did you see that movie Borat? It’s about this guy, a
Muslim from Kazakhstan. It was a comedy. Borat.
ESPINO:
No.
BECERRA:
You didn’t see it?
ESPINO:
No.
BECERRA:
The opening scene, it could have come right out of Mexico.
ESPINO:
Oh, really?
0:20:15
BECERRA:
Yes. When I saw it I was, like, shocked. I couldn’t stop laughing
because it was—people see it and they think these are Muslims. They
don’t see it that those are Mexican Catholics as well. In that scene,
these [unclear] in Kazakhstan are going up the street and they have a
Jew that they’re hanging, and everybody’s throwing rocks at the Jew, you
know, "Kill the Jew," right? And what’s funny is that in this book
written in 1923, Mexicans did the same thing. That Jew was supposed to
be Judas, right, and so they hung Judas in effigy and they walked
through the center of town with Judas hanging and they’d be throwing
rocks, "Kill the Jew," right? So the author went and asked these people
that were there, these Mexicans, "Do you know what a Jew looks like?"
"No." "Have you ever seen one?" "No." "What do you think they look
like?"
"Oh, they have horns, they have tails, and they have hooved feet." These
were Jews, I mean, and, you know, these people had never seen a Jew. The
only idea they had of Jews was what Roman Catholicism taught them.
Nobody else is going to teach them this except Catholics, the Catholic
Church. So that’s one of the reasons I always associate backwardness
with Roman Catholicism in Mexico and I don’t think it’s changed at all.
I mean, I saw that movie El Crimen del Padre Amaro, and you see how
those church [unclear], they’re throwing rocks at the newspaper, the
reporter’s father, and the father’s very agnostic. He hasn’t got time
for that nonsense of Roman Catholicism, right? That was my dad and that
was my grandfather.
ESPINO:
How did they pass those ideas down to you? Did they talk to you directly
or did you just overhear them grumbling or how did you [unclear] that
way?
BECERRA:
They taught me. My father—my mama didn’t. My mama was very, very
Catholic when—I mean those were roles. She was a Mexican woman in the
old days, right? That was her role. You know, with the exception of the
Mexican Revolution, women—we’re talking about not all women were like
that. Most of them were not. So it was my dad. My dad would tell me
those things. He told me, "Mijo, when I was in school, we had
[unclear]." They had a name for the people who carried out the agrarian
reform. Those revolutionaries would come to the schools and teach them,
agraristas. I forget what they were called. And he says, "They taught us
about the three-headed serpent that ruled Mexico. He’s a three-headed
serpent and [unclear] los ricos and el ejército, y la iglesia." That’s
the three-headed monster that ruled Mexico. So, no, from the time I
could understand, he taught me that.
ESPINO:
Wow. Was he involved in any activities? Like, did he channel his ideas
into any organization?
BECERRA:
No. What happens, my dad was—I never saw my dad drink in my life, you
know, but he had been an alcoholic. He was an alcoholic. He was a drunk.
ESPINO:
But you never saw him drink?
0:24:480:25:45
BECERRA:
No, because by the time I was born, he changed. My grandfather told him,
"You better get married. You’re going to be thirty pretty soon. Look at
you. All you do is get drunk." So he said, "Okay." So he got married and
he still got drunk, right? So my mom would have to go down—she’d take
the bus, the little streetcar down to Wilmington to a restaurant that’s
still on Pacific Coast Highway, and she’d go down there because she knew
that was a bar he would go hang out in. It was a restaurant/bar. Then
she would take his check on Fridays because if she didn’t, he would
spend it all, all right? So she would go take his money, you know, so he
wouldn’t blow it. But my dad, he wound up in a situation where somebody
in the family was going to go shoot somebody, and my dad thought, "Shit,
I got three kids. What am I doing?" So he told this person, "You know
what? Let me off right here." And from that point on, my dad says,
"That’s it. I can’t do this anymore."
So that’s when—my mom had already converted from Roman Catholicism to
the Pentecostal Church, okay, so then my dad did the same thing. So once
you become a Pentecostal, I mean, that—then my dad was like me. I should
say I was like my father. My dad didn’t go into this thing, like,
half-assed. Once he became a Pentecostal, that was it. That was his
life. The church became like his life. He had his family life, his job,
and the church. Any activities that would have been political, no. It
was going to be the church. And that did not change his political views,
you know. In fact, he took some of those views into the church with him
and [unclear]. Well, at least in the Pentecostals and the Assemblies of
God Pentecostal, every two years you have an election for who’s going to
be the pastor. And so every pastor has a free election every two years,
unless the church by however majority says, "No, we want this minister
to be here forever," the permanent minister.
So my father always opposed it, and when the annual election and the
minister was elected for life, my dad quit the church, even though he
loved the pastor. It was his best friend, you know, he loved him, but he
said, "But this goes against my principles. I don’t believe in this."
And he got that from his attitude towards the Roman Catholic Church, you
know, that it was autocratic, not democratic. And so he just, "There’s
no way I can accept that," so he left. So for a while we would go to
church with Free Methodists. We didn’t go to the Pentecostal Church
because my dad didn’t want to be in that situation because he knew
people from the other congregations, because they were in the same
religion that we were. They were Assemblies of God Church also. So he
said, "No. If I go there, they’re going to start talking about what
happened. I don’t want any gossiping about what happened in that
particular church and all that."
So we went to the Free Methodist Church, and we attended there for a
couple of years. Then what happened is that a few years later, exactly
what my father told was going to happen happened. The people got tired
of the minister and worked to get rid of the minister. You had to go
through a special process, which meant that the church had to put the
minister on trial and show that he was unfit to be a minister, and they
did. The congregation who were his flock, the people he guided, just
virtually turned on him, and he was removed as pastor.
So he was heartbroken and felt betrayed or heartbroken and he left. He
left the church and set up another church, okay, which is very
successful because that church that he started, his son took over, and
the church now has three thousand members, not because of the father,
but because the son. The son became very prominent. His son hung out, by
the way, with the Brown Berets at the Piranya Coffeehouse, and then, you
know, he was taking acid and got [unclear]. And he decided to go to the
ministry, well, you know, which is cool because he wasn’t into drugs and
he was—so he went into ministry. He went to Harvard and graduated with a
degree in theology. He’s got his Ph.D. in theology. He was the president
of the Latin American Bible Institute in La Puente. He was a professor
at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena and he’s got a 3,000-member congregation
over there.
ESPINO:
We’re talking the Mexican American church or Latino?
BECERRA:
All Mexicans, all Mexicans. Well, actually now it would be Latino, all
Latinos.
ESPINO:
But back then when you were going—
BECERRA:
Back then it was all Mexican, yeah.
ESPINO:
And the minister that you’re talking about was also Mexican?
BECERRA:
Yes, from Durango.
ESPINO:
Was it a Spanish-speaking congregation?
BECERRA:
The congregation was always Spanish-speaking, always.
ESPINO:
But I mean they would give the service in Spanish?
BECERRA:
Yes. Nobody spoke English. [laughs] It had to be in Spanish. Nobody
spoke English, you know, or if they did, it was very limited or it was
very—see, they had at some point Assemblies of God decided to carry out
their mission among the Spanish-speaking, and this one sister named
Lucy, Sister Lucy, came from England and she started the ministry of
Assemblies of God with the Pentecostals, with their outreach to the
Mexicans. And, of course, it was going to be segregated because by then
the church was segregated. Remember, the Pentecostal Movement started in
L.A., downtown L.A., in 1906. It was started by an African American
minister and [unclear] ten years ago, I think.
ESPINO:
I don’t know anything about this history.
BECERRA:
See, this is funny, because there was this white guy at work before I
retired and he’s an Assemblies of God Pentecostal, a conservative,
social conservative, a Republican, and I told him that I picked up this
book that my dad had, and it was about—oh, fuck, I forget what the name
of it was, but it had to do with the roots of the Spanish-speaking
Pentecostal Church in the United States, and they talk about how the
people thought it, and I knew them because it was new. It was new. I
knew the founders, the Mexican founders of the church.
ESPINO:
It’s that recent, the founding of the—
0:30:46
BECERRA:
1940s, 1940. So by then I knew them. I knew them because, you know, when
you figure somebody starts their ministry in the 1940s, 1960s, you know,
that’s no time at all, you know, so I knew them. But anyways, going back
to the church, my dad went back to the church once the minister was
gone. [unclear] the minister, and the minister was in tears, what had
happened to him. And my dad said, "I knew that was going to happen and I
didn’t want to be a part of that. You’re my brother. There’s no way I
would be a part of that. I had to leave because I knew what was going to
happen."
And what’s interesting, a lot of the things that I saw at that church,
the fundamentalism, the religious fundamentalism to a point of
fanaticism. What happens when that church—everything becomes really
internal where everything is done inside the church, very little
outreach, and because they’re very sectarian, they pretty much a sect.
All of those characteristics that I saw in that church, later I would
see it in the Communist Movement and I would recognize it right away.
I’d have to wait for [unclear]—I could see it, you know, because of the
experience I had with that church. The fundamentalism, the lack—I’ll
talk about that later, but I would see all of those characteristics.
And then you would see international, what happened in Cambodia with the
Khmer Rouge. Why did they become the criminals they became? What drives
them to that? What are those kinds of—why is it? Because I would think
about that and I would relate it all the way back to that church, what I
learned in that church.
ESPINO:
You wouldn’t relate it back to the lessons your father taught you about
the Roman Catholic Church?
BECERRA:
No. No, because the Roman Catholic Church was different. The lessons I
learned from my dad—
ESPINO:
Well, it sounds like he gave you some critical thinking. I’m sorry. I
interrupted you. [laughter] The lessons you learned from your dad, yes.
You can go ahead, finish your—
0:32:260:33:35
BECERRA:
Yeah, he did. He did. The things that my dad taught me was, one—let me
give an example. One time—well, two examples. One is the theory of
evolution. The Assemblies of God Pentecostals do not believe in the
theory of evolution, okay? My dad did, and my dad told me, "Look, Cruz,
there’s no contradiction between the Book of Exodus and the theory of
evolution. There’s no contradictions." He says, "In the Bible, it says
that—." [unclear] something else. [cries] [unclear] something else. But
he said, "Look," he said, "for God, one day can be a thousand years." He
says, "You know, it could be a billion years. So there’s no
contradiction," he says. That was one.
And I would say to this minister, because every Sunday the ministers
would come to preach. It was, like, a guest preacher, and this one
minister was giving a sermon. I was listening to it, and it got to a
point where some of the experiences that he had, and I heard it. I said,
"That was bullshit. I can’t believe this." And I looked at my brother,
and he looked at me too. We were sitting in the back row, because at
that time we all went to church because all of our parents forced us to
go, so in the back row, all the young guys, you know. We weren’t cholos,
okay, but we were all dressed like cholos because if you were from the
South Side in Compton and you were Chicano, everybody wore khakis. Yeah,
but that was just the way you dressed, Sir Guy shirts, French toes.
That’s just because you were a Chicano, not because you were a cholo.
So we’re in the back and we looked at each other and said, "This guy’s
lying." So on the way back, driving back home, my mom scolded us for
speaking and making a ruckus in the back row of the church in the middle
of a sermon. "Mom, the guy says something I don’t believe. How am I
going to believe something like this?" He had something that he had this
vision of fire and all kinds of stuff. And I said, "I can’t believe that
kind of stuff."
And she says, "But he’s a minister. He’s a servant of God. He’s
preaching the word of God." My dad interrupted her and says, "No." He
says, "Sometimes somebody gets up there, they’re going to get carried
away, and you just can’t accept everything somebody else tells you, even
if he’s a minister, even from our religion. No." And I thought, "Good."
You know, so respect your father and you respect your father for that.
ESPINO:
Well, that’s what I’m talking about. As far as the critical thinking,
maybe you didn’t call it that, but he was teaching you how to look at
things with a critical eye and not just to swallow. But that makes it
interesting that he would even dedicate his life to the Pentecostal
Church when he had those views about the Catholic Church. How was that
not different for him? I don’t know if he ever talked to you about that.
0:35:30
BECERRA:
Sure. One is, okay, going to ABCs. One is the democracy of the
Pentecostal Church as opposed to the autocracy of Roman Catholicism,
okay? His principles, you know, the Mexican Revolution was for democracy
and against the autocracy of the dictatorship of Porfiro Diaz or the
ruling class in Mexico. That was one. The other thing is that in the old
days, in the church, people didn’t read the Bible, and in the
Pentecostal Church you read it and you studied it and you interpreted
it. Okay, now, true, the Pentecostals have one particular way of
interpreting it, right, and so my father accepted that, but not like a
fanatic, obviously, because he wasn’t a fanatic. He was very dedicated,
but he always said, like, he didn’t totally abandon reason, okay? And so
there was that aspect.
The only other thing was this, that Roman Catholicism was very
impersonal to him. It was a very impersonal religion, whereas with the
Pentecostal Church it was more of a personal relationship that wanted to
establish this with God. There’s nobody in between, all right, so he
prayed directly to God. He didn’t go through the communion of the saints
and all that other stuff, right, because to him the idea of the saints
and the Virgin Mary, all that to my dad was idolatry, okay, which I
agree with him. I said, "It’s nothing else but idolatry." And he said,
"Mijo, when the Spanish came, they [unclear], ‘Why? What’s the
difference? Your gods are white and ours are brown. What’s the
difference?’ They try to bullshit you, ‘No, these are saints. They
intercede for you.’" Said, "Well, you know, you can say whatever you
want, you know, but," my dad says, "but idols are idols. You pray to an
idol or you don’t pray to an idol." He says, "And if you’re saying
[unclear], doesn’t matter, that’s idolatry, and it doesn’t matter
[unclear] was before the Spanish came," he says. So that’s the other
reason he could not accept that from Roman Catholicism was that he
really considered idolatry. And so, yeah, those were differences that he
saw.
ESPINO:
So he didn’t have that viewpoint, that Marxist viewpoint of religion
being the opiate of the—his critique of the Catholic Church was
different than that kind of critique?
BECERRA:
No, his critique, it was political, the same way. It was also political.
His original critique of Roman Catholicism was political, the role they
played in Mexico, okay, and stifling the masses of the people, you know,
[unclear], instilling backwardness and forcing the rule of los ricos.
That was it, and the dictatorship and the church’s role in that, so his
criticism was political. It wasn’t religious until after he became
religious, and then he was really critical. Most of my family on my
dad’s side became Protestants. Not everybody, okay, but most of his
family did.
ESPINO:
Did your mom—was she the catalyst for all that? She’s the one who
converted first?
BECERRA:
She converted first.
ESPINO:
Before anybody else in your family?
BECERRA:
Before anybody else, yes.
ESPINO:
Did she ever tell you how that happened or do you know how and why?
BECERRA:
I think what happened, it was through the Puerto Ricans. First of all,
it was through the Puerto Rican family we were with.
ESPINO:
They were Pentecostals?
0:39:17
BECERRA:
Yes, they were Pentecostal. And what happens, first I’m born, right? So
my mom, being Catholic, she was trying to find a priest to have me
baptized. And so one of my aunts told my dad that my mom was looking for
a priest to baptize me, and my dad blew it. He was not a Protestant, he
was just not a Catholic, and my dad blew it. And says—I remember his
quote—"Ningún alfaldado va tentar a mi hijo." [laughs] No skirt-wearing
guy was going to touch his son, right? "Ningún alfaldado va a tocar a mi
hijo." He was very, very strong about that.
So, no, my mom, through her contact with the Puerto Rican family that we
lived with, then they invited her to go to church, and then she
converted to the Pentecostal Church, and then my dad followed. You’d
think it would be the other way around, but, no, it was this way.
[laughs] My dad followed [unclear].
ESPINO:
So she started going and then she converted. Did she ever talk to you
about what it gave her that was different? I mean, she was a very strict
Catholic. That must have been a hard conversion.
0:41:20
BECERRA:
No, I think that—in fact, I [unclear]. He was going to be writing a book
about that, about the role of the Pentecostal Church and its
relationship with immigrants. I think what happened really was that she
was in this country and isolated from her home, right? My dad’s family
was not the most warming, welcoming to her, right, those who were here,
okay, because some were still in Mexico, some would come later. And then
the people that she was the closest to were the Puerto Ricans, the
Puerto Rican family that we lived with and the extended family, you
know, Blas, Fela, Cristina, there was a bunch.
Tía Fela was the one that was—there was, I think, four sisters and two
brothers, okay. Blas and Miro and then Tía Fela from [unclear], her
sister Cristina. I forget the other one’s names. But these were the
people that were around her, you know, the people that she associated
with, socialized with, talked with all the time. Because she had no car,
she had no way to travel, she had no place to go or any way to get
there, except to get to Wilmington [unclear]. But she’d get to
Wilmington and take my daddy’s check before he spent it at the bar,
right?
And so this is how she got invited to the church. So then she goes to
church and then she sees a community of people who help each other, work
with each other, assist each other, work together, and is very social,
right? And so then she becomes a part of that group and it’s very
inviting. There’s nobody else. And so, you know, they say that there’s
a—I mean, the evangelist said it, when there’s an intersection of a need
and a message, that’s when the conversion takes place, and that’s what
happened there, the message and what she saw and the need for her to be
able to have a spiritual life, because that was her.
ESPINO:
And your father was not supporting her involvement in the Catholic
Church either?
BECERRA:
Oh, no, no. [laughs]
ESPINO:
It sounds like she didn’t have a choice.
BECERRA:
No, no. So she converted, and then my dad followed.
ESPINO:
So he was still drinking then when you were born?
BECERRA:
Oh, yeah.
ESPINO:
Do you know how that stopped?
BECERRA:
Yes, when he converted, he stopped smoking and drinking, like that
[snaps fingers]. That became part of the conversion.
ESPINO:
Wow.
BECERRA:
Just like that [snaps fingers]. No drinking, no smoking.
ESPINO:
How old were you, do you remember?
BECERRA:
No, but I must have been three years old, maybe.
ESPINO:
So do you remember anything about that neighborhood? Do you remember the
ethnic makeup? I mean, you mentioned that the streets were unpaved and
that you had an outhouse, but do you remember anything else from that
first neighborhood that you lived in? I know you were four when you
moved, so you were—the first neighborhood where you lived with the
M_____. They weren’t M_____.
BECERRA:
No. Gomez. No, no, that was different. That was already developed. No,
when I was four years old, we moved to L.A. County, but where I was born
till I was maybe three, four years old, that was Watts. That was already
developed.
ESPINO:
Oh, Watts was developed?
BECERRA:
Yes, yes, very much so.
ESPINO:
So that first house that you lived in, in the back of the Puerto Rican
family, that was developed?
BECERRA:
Oh, yes.
ESPINO:
Oh, okay. So then when you moved out to the L.A. County area, that—
BECERRA:
That was undeveloped.
ESPINO:
Okay. But is there anything that you remember about that first
neighborhood in Watts?
BECERRA:
No, because I just remember the house that we lived in, and they had one
of those ponds in the back where you have these big goldfish, the big
fish, right, big goldfish with the little bridge over the pond and the
fish are swimming around, the goldfish.
ESPINO:
Like a Japanese garden?
0:44:52
BECERRA:
Yes, like that, and they were swimming around it. I always liked to go
look at them, you know, and it was really fascinating. It was really
nice. I’ve seen it now. It’s not nice anymore. I mean, it’s not run down
either. The people that have the house, they remember the Puerto Rican
owners because I think maybe they bought from the Puerto Rican owners,
but they remembered the people who lived there before, the Puerto Rican
family. Because I went there last year because I was in the
neighborhood, so I decided to drive by, see if I could find the house. I
found it, again, because I’d passed by before. And I was looking at it,
and this elderly couple, African American elderly couple, the man comes
out. He says, "Can I help you? Looking for something?" So I explained to
him who I was, I lived there. He says, "Yeah." So he called his wife
over and he starts talking with me, right? And I told him, "Well, you
remember that little couple, that little Puerto Ricans lived here?"
"Yeah. Oh, yeah. He remembers them!" he tells his wife. I have pictures,
you know, of that time when I was on a tricycle. I was, like, three
years old on a tricycle and I have pictures of that, but that’s all I
remember because I couldn’t go up and down the street. I just remember
just the house, okay, but as far as having [unclear], no, that didn’t
happen till I moved to Compton, to the unincorporated area of L.A.
That’s when I started noticing, playing on a bicycle and tricycle and,
you know, the little red wagon and all that.
ESPINO:
And that’s where you went to school?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
You went to the public school?
BECERRA:
Yes, yes.
ESPINO:
Was there a school associated with the Pentecostal Church?
BECERRA:
No, not that I know of.
ESPINO:
So what school did you go to and do you have any memories from that
experience, the elementary school?
BECERRA:
Yes, a lot, a lot, because, you know, we were really, really poor, but
it was a country type of poor. So, like, today you’re poor if you don’t
have videogames and stuff like that. In those days, if you lived in the
country, you don’t even think that way. When it rained, there was a park
a block away, it flooded and when it flooded it was a big pond, right?
And that big pond would be full of frogs, pollywogs, tadpoles. Those
were our toys. We’d go down there and play with them. We’d build rafts
and go across the pond on your raft with sticks, you know, pushing them
across, those kinds of things. So we had adventures that city kids never
had, you know.
A block away, too, was a dairy with sheep, goats, horses, cows and
stuff, and we’d go down there and play with them. When the cows would go
eat, we’d be petting them on their heads, you know, and those were our
pets, right? It wasn’t like you didn’t have anything or were bored at
all. There was construction around the neighborhood, too, because it was
unincorporated. It was hardly any houses, so there was always somebody’s
building houses. So there were places there to go play also with the
wood, and we’d bring the wood home. There’s things that I remember,
memories about that time. My mom denied it later because she was
embarrassed, you know, that she would have a wood stove, but we would
bring the wood home and would burn it, and she was embarrassed that she
would have a metate.
ESPINO:
Wash the laundry?
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
To cook, to make the—
BECERRA:
To grind the corn. [unclear] a stick like this, right? And she was never
embarrassed about the molcajete, that was fine, but the metate, she’d be
embarrassed about that, that we would burn wood in the stove.
ESPINO:
But you didn’t grow your own corn. Did you grow your own corn?
BECERRA:
No, no. And we didn’t have—the gas wasn’t piped in yet. We had
electricity. The gas came in afterwards and then the sewers, but we had
electricity. That came in right away.
ESPINO:
But your parents owned the house?
BECERRA:
Yes, yes.
ESPINO:
So it’s a really interesting kind of poverty, because they owned the
house. They weren’t renting.
BECERRA:
No, my dad bought the house for $3,500, okay, because he got it and he
wanted to move in, and the house was not finished. When we moved in, the
house was not finished. Only the outside was finished. On the inside it
wasn’t. The plumbing wasn’t finished. My dad said, "I’ll finish it." I
mean, the walls were, like, two-by-fours. My dad said, "No, I want to
move in. I’ve got an opportunity to buy the house. I’m going to buy it
now. I’ll finish the house myself," so that’s what he did. He put in the
floors, because they were cement, so put in the hardwood floors. He did
all that stuff. He plastered. He couldn’t do the plaster, but he was
able to put the drywall before the plaster. He did stuff like that, but
he finished it, so he got it like that and he finished it himself.
ESPINO:
Wow. So then he would go to work. And would he spend weekends and the
afternoons working on your home?
BECERRA:
Yes. And then because my dad worked in the garment industry, so he only
worked, like, six to nine months a year. So he had time to work on the
house when he wasn’t at work. Of course, sometimes he said, "Well, when
I’m working, I’ve got the money but I don’t have the time, and when I’ve
got the time because I’m laid off, I don’t have the money. So it’s going
to take a while," which it did. It took a while to finish the house.
ESPINO:
Did you help him, you and your—
BECERRA:
No, we were kids. We didn’t know it was hard work. We watched, "Wow,
Dad!" But it was hard work, really hard work, especially putting in the
floor.
ESPINO:
So how did they divide the responsibilities of raising you and
maintaining the home, your parents?
BECERRA:
My mom didn’t work. My mom didn’t work. She was at home.
ESPINO:
But I mean what kind of work did she do in the home? For example, did
she help your dad with the construction? I mean, did she have specific
this is what the mom does and this is what the dad does?
BECERRA:
Yes, she took care of us. We were three, and she took care of us, the
three kids, and she took care of the house.
ESPINO:
Like cooking and laundry and cleaning?
BECERRA:
All the cooking, all the laundry, yes.
ESPINO:
So can you describe, for example, like, a typical dinner? Would it be
something where your father would sit down and your mom would serve
everybody? Was it that kind of a family life?
0:53:250:55:26
BECERRA:
Yes, yes. That’s one thing. We all had to sit down for dinner. Sometimes
when my dad came in late, we’d eat, and then my dad would eat when he
came in. But, yes, she would cook for everybody. And we had chickens in
the back, so we always had eggs. And if we had company, you know, there
goes one chicken on Sundays, right? [laughs] But we had chickens and the
rooster in the back of the house. But, yeah, then she took care of the
chickens. We did, too, we did that when we were bigger.
But that’s how those things were divided, and then she also would give
us the religious upbringing. She would talk to us, make us pray, and all
that kind of stuff, right, which that really didn’t impress us, okay.
That is not what impressed us about my mom. What impressed us
fundamentally and the real impact she had on us, it was religious, but
it wasn’t the preaching or the praying. It was what she did, you know.
Her Christianity, it’s funny because, you know, these are the things
that you learn when you’re a kid and then you learn from it later on.
You know, the Pentecostal Church, say, ten years ago, twenty years ago,
hated illegal aliens, hated them, wanted them all deported, right?
In the church I had a friend. He was my ex-brother-in-law from my first
wife. He became a Pentecostal. After being a hippie on acid, he became a
Pentecostal. He would go to church, all white. He was, like, the only
Mexican in the church. Everybody there was for Proposition 187. He was
against it. You go to a Mexican or Latino church, everybody there
opposed Proposition 187 and would pray that it would be voted down. In
the white church, they would pray for it to pass because these people
were a threat, right? Same religion, same doctrine, same everything, you
know, but a totally different world view. And later on I would see how
Communists were the same way, same way, all right, no difference. And I
learned that from the church.
My mom was, like, what I would call a Christian, real Christian. I think
it’s the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew is where Jesus talks about,
like, on the judgment day that the nations shall come for judgment, and
that the Lord will separate the sheep from the goats, and that becomes
like a fundamental aspect of Christianity. And that was my mom, okay?
And there that’s where it says that the Lord separates the sheep from
the goats and he deals first with the sheep and he blesses them. He
says, "Look, when I was hungry, you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave
me to drink, and I was in jail, I was sick, I was homeless." And then he
says, "You’re going to heaven. You guys were a bunch of assholes,
because I was hungry, you didn’t feed me, and I got thirsty, you didn’t
give me to drink," and all that. Well, my mom was clearly on the side of
the sheep. That’s where she raised us, you know, and those were her
values. I didn’t care about if there’s a heaven or a hell, you know,
couldn’t give a shit about that, but the values, those were important.
That’s what she raised us with, you know, really, really raised us with.
One time this one minister had gone to Tijuana, outside of Tijuana, and
seen a lot of poverty back in the fifties, and he came back and he
wanted to start an orphanage. So I told my mom. So Mom says, "Well, all
I’ve got right now is a quarter. That’s how you start." Says, "Now we’re
going to start raising money to build the orphanage," so they did. So
after it was built [unclear], my mom went to visit and she says, "Look,
the roof, we have to finish the roof because the rainy season’s going to
come and all these kids are going to get wet." So my mom came back. She
says, "We’ve got to raise money for that," and she did. She said
[unclear] for what I did, "Fue a la iglesia de los puertorriqueños. Con
los puertorriqueños hicimos cenas." She says in two weeks they raised
$1,000, in two weeks, selling dinners. But it’s funny, she went to the
Puerto Rican church to do it. She didn’t go to the Mexican church, she
went to the Puerto Rican churches, and they raised the money.
ESPINO:
You don’t know why she would—I mean, what would be the difference?
BECERRA:
That’s the way Mom was. My mom was friendly with everybody. She loved
everybody and she identified just as strongly, just like me, just as
strongly with Puerto Ricans as with Mexicans. To me, there wasn’t any
difference. Yeah, the Puerto Ricans, they talked differently, they
talked faster than we did, you know, and she had her criticisms of
Puerto Ricans, not as people, but really had to do like a class thing.
We would have dinner at the Puerto Ricans’, and everybody would be
talking at the same time at the dinner table. So at our dinner table, if
we started arguing back and forth, everybody’s talking, "¡Cállense!
Parecen puertorriqueños." [laughter] That was my mom, all right? But,
no, she had just as strong an identity with Puerto Ricans as she did
with Mexicans, so she would go there.
ESPINO:
How old was she then when she—because I’m imagining her maybe being
under twenty when she first married your father and moved to—
BECERRA:
No, no. When she married my dad—let me see. No, she was then about
twenty-six.
ESPINO:
She was that old?
BECERRA:
Twenty-six, twenty-seven years old.
ESPINO:
Ah, she was already—
0:58:36
BECERRA:
She’s been with my dad nine years as a girlfriend. I said, "Damn, Mama,
that’s a long time." She says, "Well, I broke up with him one time."
"But that was nine years." She says, "Yeah, well, you know, I was
getting tired of waiting for him. You know, if I wasn’t going to marry
him, I was going to move to Guadalajara, from [unclear] to Guadalajara."
She said, "I’d go work somebody’s house. I said to hell with it.’"
But she said finally he decided to get married. But, see, my dad was
really irresponsible, just drinking, and he just loved to drink and
stuff like that, so that’s why my grandfather got on his ass, told him,
"You’d better get married. Your whole life, you’re going to live like
that?" So I think she was twenty-six when she got married.
ESPINO:
That’s not young. That’s pretty old for those times.
BECERRA:
For those times, yes. Yes.
ESPINO:
Because I imagined somebody who kind of grows up here as a wife, as a
mother, but she was already a grown woman when she started having kids
and meeting the Puerto Rican family. Was she always involved in that
kind of work, that kind of—I don’t want to call it charity, but helping
others?
1:00:301:02:08
BECERRA:
Yes. Let me tell you. This is why sometimes when they have these debates
about immigration, I’m, like, from another world. Because I listen
sometimes to the debates. Even the progressives, like MSNBC, the only
guy that comes close to it would be Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC because
he’s Irish and he understands immigration, right, and maybe Jews to a
certain extent, but not to a great extent, Jews. But when I was growing
up, when we were kids, a lot of people from Pueblo—Pueblo is a small
port, six thousand people, small town in [unclear], people would come to
our house and they would stay and then they would move on. They had to
have someplace donde llegar, and it was sort of like an underground
railroad. They would come to our house, stay there, any [unclear].
They would know somebody who knew somebody who knew my parents, so they
would wind up at my parents’ house for a day or two and then move on in
order to pick fruit or whatever they were going to do. So that happened
all the time, people that were relatives and people that were not
relatives, or distant relatives. So growing up, we always had people
that stayed at our house. As poor as it was, as unfinished as it was, it
didn’t matter. That’s where people stayed and then they would move on to
another place to live. That was the norm, that people didn’t have
immigration papers, and so when somebody starts talking about that, it’s
like, what are you talking about? [laughs]
It’s like Luis Valdez’s play, you know, "We don’t need no stinkin’
badges." And so when I think about it, if we’re in the Berets or after,
we’d say, "Hey, you know, we didn’t put the border there. We don’t
respect the border," stuff like that, you know, or a lot of different
indigenous viewpoints of the indigenous movement. But really, to me, it
was just the way that I grew up. The people had the right to be here,
they had a right to go to work. They didn’t need anybody’s permission.
This is just the way it was. We need to work, we come here, we work.
That’s it. There was no reason to find legal justification for it, to
justify it. You come here because you’re going to work. You’re going to
bring your family or you’re going to go back to your family, whatever it
is, and that’s just the way it is.
So when people start putting obstacles to that, then what? [laughs] It’s
like a totally different world, makes absolutely no sense, like, trying
to rationalize it legally like some of the Hispanic organizations do,
trying to make arguments for it. I have a hard time with that because in
my mind, growing up, I never had to make an argument for it. That’s just
the way it is. You come here, period. You don’t have to have an excuse.
You just come.
ESPINO:
Did your parents ever talk about why they left and what brought them
here?
BECERRA:
Yeah, my dad told me. My dad was born in 1916 during the Mexican
Revolution. The country was ravaged by the revolution. During the 1920s
it was still a disaster area. 1930s is the Great Depression, okay, and
Mexico didn’t have that economic engine, the manufacturing base to pull
out of it or World War II to pull out of it, so it stayed in a
depression during the forties. So my dad, he said, "I wasn’t going to
have a family and raise you like that. We’re poor." I’ve seen pictures
that he showed us when they were young, all the kids, they’re poor, I
mean really, really poor. I’ve seen other pictures where nobody’s
wearing shoes. It was really country, really poverty, really Depression
era, and it didn’t change. So he said he was not going to raise his kids
like that. He was going to come here, and that’s why. That’s why he
came.
ESPINO:
And you said that they were both without papers.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
And they were always afraid of being caught and deported. What did they
do? Did they just stay close to home or how did they live their lives in
order to [unclear]?
BECERRA:
We were aware of it and it bothered us, but we lived in a children’s
world. But the only thing my dad did, my mom did, was they worked, they
went shopping, and they went to church. That was their life. That was
it.
ESPINO:
They didn’t travel back and forth to another state? Like vacations, did
you ever take any trips?
1:06:08
BECERRA:
No, the vacations that we took, the trips that we took were to Tijuana
to visit my aunt and my cousins. And it’s funny because my dad had his
Green Card, right, based on, one, his illegal papers, and, two, when he
came in 1944, papers or no papers, you got drafted, so he was in the
army. In 1944 he was drafted. So we would travel back and forth to
Tijuana, even though he was undocumented with the Green Card that he
had. One time he was laughing, he says, "You know what? One time they
stopped me at the border and they said, ‘Mr. Olmeda, somebody is running
around the country with your Green Card. Were you aware of that?’ ‘No!’"
[laughter] It was my dad, right? But later on he fixed it, right? But
we’d go down there to travel. In Tijuana, we’d go to the hot mineral
springs [unclear]. We’d go to the beach, the hot mineral springs. My
uncle would take me to the dog races. That’s the only time I’ve ever
been to a dog race, was with my uncle. So we did things like that, you
know, but it was all in Tijuana.
The first time I ever ate birria was a street vendor in Tijuana. It was
a little cart and he was selling birria. My dad went crazy because
birria is from Jalisco, originating in Jalisco. So, I mean, the three
things Jalisco gives to the world, right: mariachi, tequila, and birria.
So he wanted us to know what it was. He goes, "Eat all you want, all the
tacos you want." So we did, 5 cents a taco. That was a long time ago.
[laughs] So we just stuffed ourselves with birria, and that’s when he
introduced us to that part of Jalisco culture. Now everybody eats it,
but it’s from Jalisco. But, no, that’s where we would go, those areas.
ESPINO:
And your mom didn’t need—well, she had her fake papers. Are you saying
she had her fake papers to get—
BECERRA:
Yes, because she was married to my dad. Yes.
ESPINO:
And your dad joined the army or your dad was drafted?
BECERRA:
He was drafted.
ESPINO:
He must have had to register. He was drafted under the other name?
BECERRA:
Under the other name.
ESPINO:
And also he couldn’t get his papers because he wasn’t using his real
name?
BECERRA:
No, not till later on. He decided to go ahead and get it done.
ESPINO:
And you were born while he was in the military, then?
BECERRA:
Yes, my mom used to get her check. She told me she’d get her government
check for me and for her because he was in the—because I was born while
he was in the military.
ESPINO:
Where was he? Was he stationed here locally?
BECERRA:
Yeah, here. He was stationed locally.
ESPINO:
Because she would have been pregnant when he was in the service.
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
He never went abroad?
BECERRA:
No. He was in a unit that was only for people who spoke no English. He
wasn’t the only one. There were other Mexicans and other Italians maybe.
Other people spoke no English, not just Mexican, mostly Mexican. It was
not just Mexicans.
ESPINO:
Wow. That’s interesting.
BECERRA:
He’s not the only one. One time, okay, Isaac, the preacher I told you
about, his dad was undocumented and got drafted. The minister I was
telling about earlier, a friend of my dad’s, he was undocumented. He got
drafted. He legalized the status during World War II. He took his oath
of citizenship in North Africa during World War II. He served in North
Africa and in France, but he got his citizenship in North Africa. He was
undocumented when he went in. Another friend of mine, Blanca, who was in
the August 29th Movement—you know Jimmy Franco?
ESPINO:
I’ve heard his name. He writes a lot, doesn’t he?
BECERRA:
Yeah, he’s got his blog. It was his father-in-law. Blanca’s married to
him. But one time we were at a birthday party, I think for Blanca, and
her dad was there and he was drinking and stuff. So he brought out his
army picture, and it was just like my dad’s army picture from World War
II. He says "Mira aqui estoy! Y mas mojadito que la chingada!" So it
wasn’t uncommon for an undocumented to be serving in World War II
because at least within my own circle, I know three people.
ESPINO:
Yeah, but the difference is that your dad was serving under someone
else’s name.
BECERRA:
Uh-huh.
ESPINO:
But some people, they can enlist. They don’t get drafted because there’s
no record of them being here, so they can enlist and then become
citizens. So I’m wondering about this minister.
BECERRA:
No, the minister was given a choice, because I talked to his son, and he
was given a choice [unclear]. [laughs] It was like the Irish during the
Civil War. He was given a choice, you know. "You can enlist or you can
be deported. Which do you want?" He says, "I’ll enlist," so he enlisted.
He was given a choice of deportation or enlistment in the army, so he
figured, "Well, if I go in the army, I can legalize my status."
ESPINO:
So he wasn’t drafted under a different name. He enlisted his own name.
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
Wow. That’s so fascinating. I wonder how many people were drafted under
someone else’s papers.
BECERRA:
I don’t know.
ESPINO:
Do you know where your parents got their papers from, those fake ones?
BECERRA:
Yes, he bought it from somebody else. He bought them, but whoever it was
must have had more than one copy because they must have sold it twice.
And once he got them, he wasted no time. He and my uncle, they came over
right away.
ESPINO:
And that was after the repatriation.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Some people had been sent back and sold their name. They were going to
stay in Mexico and sold their name to somebody who was going to come
here.
BECERRA:
Yeah. I don’t know.
ESPINO:
I don’t know. So your education, was it primarily religious, or do you
remember anything about the public school that you went to?
BECERRA:
Yes, I remember quite a bit. When I started school, my neighborhood was
mostly poor white, Appalachian white, and a few Mexicans, but when I
went to the school, it was different. It was going to be mostly African
American. When African Americans moved into our neighborhood, the white
people scattered. They left. So my neighborhood became mostly black and
a few Mexicans. When I started kindergarten, I spoke no English, but I
knew when they put your name on the—you had to identify your name.
[unclear] on the board, I knew my name right away because I could read
in Spanish from going to church. In church they sang hymns, and so
everybody had a hymnal, and you sat there with your mom or your dad and
you were reading the hymnal and singing the hymns. That’s how you
learned to read. [laughs]
ESPINO:
Just like that?
BECERRA:
Just like that.
ESPINO:
Once a week?
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
Or did you guys go to church more often?
BECERRA:
All the time.
ESPINO:
What do you mean, all the time?
BECERRA:
Okay, twice on Sunday and at least twice during the week.
ESPINO:
Wow, that’s a lot.
BECERRA:
Yes, that’s a lot.
ESPINO:
So by the time you were five and enrolled in kindergarten, you had
already developed some reading skills.
BECERRA:
Yes, in Spanish [unclear].
ESPINO:
In Spanish.
BECERRA:
Yeah. English wasn’t that big of a deal by then.
ESPINO:
So did they treat you differently, as if you were smarter than the other
kids? Did they give you some sort of—
BECERRA:
No, because I didn’t speak English, so I wasn’t smarter than other kids.
[laughs] In first grade is when we started reading and that’s when it
came easier.
ESPINO:
So how did it work as far as learning English? Was it total immersion? I
can’t imagine they had bilingual teachers.
BECERRA:
No, it was immersion, but you’re five years old and, you know,
everybody’s going to be different. It was total immersion, and I just
merged right in with those [unclear], as far as I can remember. A year
later, I’m in first grade and my brother is in kindergarten, and he
hates school because he can’t understand English and he doesn’t know
what they’re saying. So he would walk down the corridor over to my room,
first grade, and he’d open the door, and I would have to walk him back
to kindergarten and sit in kindergarten class with him so that he
wouldn’t be alone, because he hated it. So every time he’d open the
door—Mrs. Price was my teacher’s name—"Okay, Cruz, you’d better walk him
back." So I’d walk him back and sit with him in kindergarten until he
got used to it.
ESPINO:
And you missed your lessons.
BECERRA:
Yeah, because when I got back, she said, "Okay, class, let’s show Cruz
the song we learned." So this is the song that they learned while I was
gone. [laughs]
ESPINO:
Were you resentful of that?
BECERRA:
No, not at all. That’s my little brother. I wasn’t resentful, no, no,
not at all. And by then I knew English by the first grade. It doesn’t
take long at all when you’re little. My little boy, I told his mom he’s
going to learn to speak Spanish first, and so the first four years of
his life it was all Spanish. Then after he turned four and he was going
to go to—because he didn’t go to preschool—he’s going to go to
kindergarten, I told him now he’s going to learn English. He learned it
right away. Okay, so when he went in to kindergarten, he translated for
the children who didn’t speak English, so the teacher was very happy
with him because he was a translator for the other kids.
ESPINO:
It’s really complicated because it doesn’t work that way for everybody,
for some reason. They haven’t figured out how to make bilingual
education work so that kids can come in with Spanish and transition over
to English pretty quickly. Was your whole family transitioned that
quickly? They learned English in one year?
BECERRA:
Yes, because, see, everybody’s not the same. Everybody’s not the same,
and maybe speaking came easier to me than it does to somebody else or
the translation comes easier to me than it does to somebody else. Maybe
that’s something I picked up from my dad or my mom, not that they spoke
English. I very seldom spoke English to my dad. I always spoke to him in
Spanish out of respect, and my mom, it was always Spanish. But
everybody’s different, so that’s why I’d feel funny in the arguments,
because I can’t make a general rule. There’s just no way.
ESPINO:
Yeah, because your case exemplifies that immersion can work and it can
be fast, whereas in other cases what they’re arguing for is bilingual
education the first three or four years when they establish their
reading skills and then immersion or a transfer over to English.
BECERRA:
My ex-wife, the one I’m divorcing now, when the kids came over, one was
nine years old and one was eleven.
ESPINO:
Her kids from her previous—
BECERRA:
Her kids, uh-huh. So the first year of school, they hung out with all
the other kids who spoke only Spanish. So I told them, "I’ve got no
problem with that because you’re in a new country and everything." The
second year, I told them, "Okay, this year you’re going to drop those
friends just like that. You just drop them." I tell them, "As mean as it
sounds, it sounds mean, but now you have to learn English. You’re not a
stranger here. You know where the stores are. You’re familiar with
everything here. Now you learn English. Make new friends who speak
English, okay, and that’s just the way it is. And those other kids,
they’d better do the same thing, just drop it," and that’s what they
did. The one that came over at eleven, she speaks good English. You can
still see a little bit of an accent, but you have to look for it. The
boy, who is not as bright as she is, who came in at nine years old,
jeez, he speaks English better than if he had was born here. He is so
good at speaking English, and he had learning disabilities, serious
learning disabilities, right, but as far as his ability to speak and
communicate, oh, it’s great, really, really good.
ESPINO:
Where did they move to?
BECERRA:
Montebello.
ESPINO:
Wow.
BECERRA:
Yeah, Montebello.
ESPINO:
And they didn’t have a bilingual program?
BECERRA:
They did have a bilingual program, but that’s not what helped them. What
helped them was hanging out with the other kids who speak English.
That’s going to have more of an influence, your peers, than the programs
themselves. If your peers are speaking English, you’re going to make
sure you learn English.
ESPINO:
What about the skills, like math and science? Were they able to keep up
for their age level?
BECERRA:
Oh, yes. The one that did not have learning disabilities, yeah, she
should have been put in college and stuff. But, yeah, she was really,
really good. She was really good.
ESPINO:
Well, that’s a whole other question, because that was part of the
Chicano Movement, advocacy for bilingual education.
1:18:57
BECERRA:
Yes. I still advocate for that, but I can’t get into the argument and
argue one side or the other. The reason I did was because I believed in
language equality more than anything else and I want to see Spanish
taught to everybody in the schools, which I think it should be, and I
don’t mean that just for political reasons.
When I was in high school and I took Spanish, okay, the first year, no
big deal. Second year is when you learn conjugation, and when I learned
conjugation, it blew me away, because then in the tenth grade, learning
to conjugate verbs in Spanish was when I finally learned English
grammar, studying Spanish. I said, "Oh!" Then the light bulb goes off,
you know. But it wasn’t till the tenth grade that I learned what English
grammar was all about because I was studying it in Spanish. [laughs]
ESPINO:
A lot of people say that, yeah, that it makes more sense when you learn
the grammar focusing on the Spanish versus English. So were your
teachers in elementary school, were they primarily Anglo?
BECERRA:
Yes. In elementary school, yes. I think I may have had one that wasn’t,
but I can’t remember. All I remember is all the white ones.
ESPINO:
And how was that treatment? How was the treatment of those kinds of
teachers with the Mexican students?
BECERRA:
You know, I really don’t remember. Because in every class there’s going
to be a teacher’s pet, okay? [laughs] There’s going to be one kid who’s
really bright or whatever, right, excels at something, right, and there
would be teacher’s pets, but I don’t start seeing anything like what
you’re talking about, how we were treated until the fifth grade. In the
fifth grade I had a white friend whose name was Raymond, and we were
always competing with each other and in geography especially. The
teacher that teaches geography, she would give us what were called map
drills and she had this world map on the wall. She pulled down the thing
and she’d get us to go up there, and then it was a contest to see who
can find—it’s funny because it’s a totally different map today, but at
that time there was French Equatorial Africa or Dutch New Guinea or
Portuguese, this part of Africa, right? [laughter]
ESPINO:
That’s funny.
BECERRA:
So where’s French Indochina, right? [laughter] But you had to know where
all these countries were and you had to be the fastest one, so she’d
give us contests to see—and the person who always won was either me or
Raymond. So we knew geography, where all these countries were, which
is—I can’t imagine today when they say in this poll shows that most
Americans don’t even know where Iraq is. What? [laughs] In the fifth
grade we knew where every country was because we had those drills,
right? But that’s when I started noticing that, maybe because I was
doing good. But, no, I never experienced, like, really, like,
discrimination against me for being Mexican. No, uh-uh.
ESPINO:
You don’t remember being punished for speaking Spanish or having rules
of how you should behave regarding your language and your culture?
People talk about the low expectations that were placed on the Mexican
students by the white teachers. They talk about being separated, as far
as the high groups would be the white kids and the low groups would be
the Spanish-speaking kids. You didn’t have any of that kind of
experience, or your brothers or your sister?
BECERRA:
The white kids, it’s true that there were higher expectations of the
white kids in grammar school. What’s funny is how—look, it was there,
but it wasn’t, like, something we cared about, you know, because we
cared about recess, okay? And really, the thing that struck you more
than that was the racism, okay? And it was from day one, when you don’t
even know you’re a Mexican in the sense of being in this country until
you’re confronted with that racism, then you start realizing, "Wait a
minute." [laughs] That was certainly a strong part of growing up. I
mean, that would put a toll, like, a pretty heavy toll on you. Not the
teachers, but the way that you were treated or looked at by the
students, the white students. And it wasn’t that they hated you. That
wasn’t it. It was just their attitude towards Mexicans and letting you
know that you were a Mexican. So that’s why they had an attitude.
ESPINO:
Like stereotypes or assumptions? How would it manifest itself? They
would make comments?
1:25:431:27:381:29:031:30:33
BECERRA:
Okay, let me go chronologically. You’re little, okay, and you’re
watching TV. And when I was little—this is in the 1950s TV, black and
white TVs, and there’s that program, The Cisco Kid, right, and the Cisco
Kid and Pancho. And to me, I always cracked up because here are these
two Mexicans, you know. One was a charro, the other one was a fat
pendejo. But that was it. It was funny. He was a clown, right, and that
was it. Didn’t think about anything else until this white boy tells me,
"Yeah, but you understand the Cisco Kid, he’s Spanish, Mexican, and
Pancho’s a Mexican."
And I looked at him. I looked at [unclear]. Fuck. [laughs] I’m sure that
was what they were trying to relate in that serial, right, but I never
paid attention to him because I’d see white Mexicans, I’d see brown
Mexicans, and now all of a sudden I’m seeing the distinction being made.
All of a sudden, why is this guy worried about it? But then that’s the
first time that it hits you. Then you start getting older, right, and
that’s when Walt Disney makes that movie Davy Crockett, and so everybody
wants to have coonskin caps, and on your bicycle you want those raccoon
tails and you want a Davy Crockett lunchbox, and everybody’s like that,
you know. [unclear]. Yeah, but it tells you about how the Mexicans
killed Davy Crockett. [laughs]
What? I’m not a history buff. I’m nineteen years old. "No shit?" "Yeah."
But then they start bragging about how Davy Crockett’s killing all these
Mexicans because he’s up there trying to kill these Mexicans with Old
Betsy, his rifle. Now I get pissed off, right? Now somebody starts
telling me that he’s proud because somebody’s killing Mexicans. That
changes everything, right? So I go and I talk to my dad and my tía, my
[unclear] is there, my cousin. My cousin had just come back from the
army, and we started talking, and the family gets all pissed off. And so
my tía tells, "You know what? You tell them that we were here before
these assholes were here. You tell them you’re [unclear]. You tell them
that your ancestors didn’t come over here on the Mayflower, that they
met the Mayflower."
Will Rogers used to say, he said—yeah, and then my cousin got pissed
off. He said, "You know what? Just tell them to answer this question.
Who got the best of Davy Crockett?" I said, "Okay, okay." [laughs] So
I’d have to go back to them and fight, because, you know, even though
you weren’t asking for it, it was being thrown in your face. So that
kid, he was so proud of Davy Crockett. My dad had a toolshed in the back
that he had built himself, you know, wood, good-sized, maybe eight feet
by eight feet, kind of tall. And there’s no lighting in there because
it’s just a toolshed where [unclear] and where he put his tools for
stuff, and there was always spiders and stuff in there.
So one day this kid that was always bragging about Davy Crockett, we got
him in the backyard, right, because we played in the backyard. And me
and my brother got him in the toolshed and then we were right outside
and we shut the door on him, right? And he tried to get out. He
[unclear]. [unclear] said, "No." [unclear] told him, "No!" And he says,
"Why not?" "Because now you’re Davy Crockett, motherfucker. Get out of
the Alamo," and we wouldn’t let him out. [laughs] He says, "No.
Americans never give up. Americans never give up," and kept pounding on
the door trying to get out.
So my brother, "This shit’s getting old. This guy’s not going to give
up." So we told him, "Hey, you step on anything squishy, it’s one of the
rats that’s running around in there." [laughs] He yelled, "Okay, I give
up! I give up!" I said, "Okay." [unclear] So he goes, "Okay." "Who got
the best of Davy Crockett?" "The Mexicans, the Mexicans!" We said,
"Okay, now we let him out." So that’s the way that it was here. And I’m
sitting in the class in the fifth grade, and Mrs. Taylor had gone to
Mexico on vacation with some other teachers, right, and this is when we
first start to learn about classism. They went to meet with some Mexican
teachers and they stayed there and they would have dinners and teas with
these teachers.
They were, like, professionals meeting professionals, right? This was
way before teachers had unions, so they would have unions ten years
later. So they said, "So we’re leaving. We want to tip the help." They
said, "Don’t give them any tips. Don’t tip them. You’ll spoil them."
They were used to the American, you know. Classicism is not like it is
over there, right? So they said, "We couldn’t believe it. We wanted to
give the help tips, and they said, ‘No, you’re going to spoil them.’"
So she told us her experience was like that, you know, in front of the
kids, and one girl said, "Yeah, I was talking to my uncle, and he went
down there, you know, and he says, ‘You know, whenever you park your
car, you’d better have somebody watch it because, you know, them people
down there, you know, they’ll steal anything in your car, your stereo.’"
And the teacher got all embarrassed, you know, so she tried to change
the subject real fast, but I caught it, you know, what she was saying.
The little white girl was being taught that by the adults, right, and
not just the adults, you know. Walt Disney did his part you know, Cisco
Kid did his part, everybody did their part. And it would not stop.
It would not stop. All the time, it was like a constant thing, and even
though you turned your back on it, tried to ignore it, you know, it’s
something that’s always there and it doesn’t stop. The hillbillies move
in next door to us, right? They were going to rent this house, and we
used to really—Appalachian whites that used to move into our
neighborhood, man, I’ll tell you why—this guy, he looks at us and he
thinks he’s better than us because we’re "ferners." So I don’t know what
the hell a ferner is, so I have to go ask my dad, "Dad, what’s a
ferner?"
ESPINO:
He tells you you’re a ferner?
BECERRA:
Yeah, he told me I was a ferner, you know, and so I didn’t know what a
ferner was, so I had to go ask my dad, "What’s a ferner, Dad?" Oh, my
daddy got pissed off. More lectures on who are the real foreigners,
right? And so right from the beginning, you know, my dad starts teaching
me that, no, we’re not the foreigners; they’re the foreigners. I mean,
we used to walk to school, to the bus stop, and we’re little and we’d
walk past this one corner house where these other white people lived,
and they had a pigeon cage, a big pigeon cage, but there’s no pigeons in
it.
And so there was a bunch of possums inside hanging by their tails
sleeping all the time. Every time we’d come by, the possums would be
there just hanging, not doing anything, not playing, just hanging by
their tails, sleeping. So we’d go by and it stunk. Boy, did it smell,
because every time they pooped or anything, it would go right into the
ground, and after a while, you know, the ground is saturated with urine
and feces, so it smells. And I don’t know why [unclear] pets.
They don’t play. They don’t do nothing but hang by their tails. And I
never had any idea, you know, until I was in high school and I saw The
Beverly Hillbillies, right, and Grandma always made possum stew, right?
[laughs] These assholes! These are the assholes. These fucking
hillbillies thought they were better than Mexicans, these low-life
motherfuckers. I was, "Jesus Christ, eating garbage like that," you
know, ugh. Eating rodents. And it wasn’t because there wasn’t anything
else to eat. Jesus Christ. And these were the people who called us
ferners, right? I thought, yuck.
ESPINO:
You developed a lot of anger towards white folks growing up because they
were so racist towards you.
BECERRA:
No, it wasn’t—I didn’t—
ESPINO:
I mean if they would have been kind and nice, you would have had a
different viewpoint.
BECERRA:
Yeah, it was—yeah, you know, I can’t even—my best friend was white,
okay, but he had problems with his family and then he moved. He was only
my best friend for like about a year. Then they moved out because they
were from Tennessee, also from the mountains, and so they never stayed
in one place. They always moved around. All the people from Appalachia
were always migrants. They would never stay in one place very long. But
I’m trying to think who I had a good relationship with that was white.
The only one was this Jewish kid, right, that lived across the street,
but then his father made good money being a cabinetmaker in his garage
and so they moved to Downey.
He was a good kid, really nice kid, was a good kid, a little bit
nervous, a little hyper because his mom was always on his ass, you know,
always yelling at him. I couldn’t believe it. I would think, "My god,
I’m glad my mom ain’t like that," you know, always yelling and really
bossy. But his mom, she tolerated us, you know. She wasn’t, like, mean
to us. In fact, I would very much say she was cordial, and of all the
white people who lived there, she was the only mom who ever had us over,
who ever fed us lunch, who ever gave us, like, preserves, because she
had peach trees in the back because she canned them. She was the only
mom of the white moms who ever treated us nice, that Jewish lady, yeah.
ESPINO:
But were the rest, were they indifferent or were they mean?
1:38:111:39:441:41:471:43:18
BECERRA:
They would be indifferent because we never saw them. We never saw them.
We always saw the kids. I don’t remember any of them except for the mean
guy who called us a ferner, right? Him, I remember, but the rest, no.
But, you know, the anger, when I was a kid, really it wasn’t anger. It
was resentment and, like, how do you teach these people that we’re not
what they think we are, and you resent that, you really, really resent
that. And that stays with you your whole life, but especially at that
time because that was just the way it was and it was relentless, all the
time. But as bad as that was, shit, what the black kids would tell me
was worse. Because the black kids I went to school with, they were just
my schoolmates, playmates when we were young, schoolmates, friends, you
know, and stuff. But at school, in high school, they started telling me
stories about—you know, they were living in Compton, but Grandma and
Grandpa were still in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana.
So at Christmastime or Thanksgiving, the family would get together for
Thanksgiving or Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa, right, and so they
would come back with stories, damn, about lynchings, telling me about
the kid who whistled at a white woman was lynched for it. Damn. But to
me they were gross, it was mean, what they were doing, but it was far
away. And I would see the demonstrations and Martin Luther King and
stuff, but it was still happening somewhere else. And even though I
thought it was mean, it was like—I mean, all I knew was Tijuana and
L.A., right, and not even all of L.A. It was Compton. I didn’t know East
L.A., just in Compton. So everything else was another world, and I
thought, "Man, that’s mean."
And then by the time I was in high school, by senior year I just wanted
to quit school, I was so frustrated. I don’t know why, but I was just
really, really frustrated and I was happy that I was going to go into
the navy. I just wanted to get away. So when I go on active duty, I
first go to electrician school, electrician’s mate school in December.
By then I’m eighteen and I start school in December of ’63. And when
you’re in the navy and you meet guys from all over the country,
everybody is eager to tell you what it’s like back home because they
miss home. Wherever home is, they miss it, and now they’re in California
and California is like a foreign country to them.
They don’t know anybody, don’t know anything, and California, of all
places, is weird. They’ll tell you all kinds of stuff, but the land of
fruits and nuts, you know, between weirdos and queers is what they’re
talking about, right? And at that time that’s the way you talk. And then
some people say, "Yeah, well, California’s full of queers and steers,"
or, "Texas is full of queers and steers." That’s [unclear]. Queers and
steers is Texas, right? And they hated California because everything
that was California was weird, which it was. If you come from a
conservative area, California is going to be very strange to you, right?
So the first day I meet these guys, they’re in my class. Our class for
electrician’s mate school in San Diego, it was the U.S. Naval Training
Center in San Diego. That’s where I went for electrician’s mate
training. There was forty guys in our class. Out of the forty guys,
there was one black, three Mexicans, and thirty-six whites, so for my
first time in my life I was going to a white school, in the navy. And I
realized that because, goddamn, you know, it was different from high
school. There was no whites at all in my high school. So they divided us
into twenty and twenty, twenty in one class, twenty in another room. So
I’m in line to go and eat lunch at the mess hall. We’re going to mess
the mess hall. So this boy, a good ol’ boy from Mississippi, he wants to
tell me how much fun it is growing up in Mississippi, how much fun it
is. So I’m looking at him. He [unclear]. I don’t know.
He just looks like a normal, regular guy who’s got, like, horn-rimmed
glasses like Buddy Holly used to have, right, but I have horn-rimmed
glasses too. And big white boy says, "Yeah, it’s so much fun, man, you
know, Friday nights." Jesus Christ. "Friday nights after the football
game, we’re all getting drunk. We’re drinking beer and we get in the
back of the pickup truck and pull the shotguns out, you know, and then
we go through Coon Town. Oh, goddamn." He starts laughing. He says,
"We’d go through Coon Town and we’d shoot out all the windows, bam, bam,
bam, of all the people. You oughta seen them niggers running out there,
out into the woods. It was so funny. It was so much fun." He was
laughing so hard, he was going like this, you know, laughing. And he
doesn’t know who the fuck he’s talking to, you know. All of a sudden,
all them fuckin’ stories that had been told, I mean this is the fuckin'
monster who did it.
They’re getting down on Castro right now in Cleveland. You know, that’s
nothing. You know, sure, he had those people to harass for ten years.
These assholes had these people terrorized their whole lives,
terrorized, and those people, nothing they could do about it. The people
were running back. They had to clean up their houses, the glass, all
that, and always be scared. They’d never know when these crazy white
people were going to come by in those trucks. And this son of a bitch, I
mean, you talk about dehumanizing, fuck. You know, as I’m looking at
him, I remember my jaw, my jaw just dropped, you know. Fuck. I’m looking
at him and he’s looking at me like what’s wrong with me, right? And I
can’t eat. I’m going to go in. I can’t eat. My stomach’s all in a knot
because I just met a fucking monster, a fucking crazy motherfucker.
What’s wrong with him, you know? And I couldn’t eat, you know. I
thought, fuck.
And so then I’m back sitting in class, like a week later. These two boys
are in there. They’re from Louisiana, they say from Baton Rouge, but
nobody wants to claim they’re, like, from three swamps down from Baton
Rouge, you know, so they’re going to claim Baton Rouge. And they got
into the navy on the Buddy Program. You enlist together, you go to
school together, so you’re on the same ship together, right? So one of
them says, "You ain’t gonna believe what happened." I said, "What
happened?"
He says, "Me and Billy Joe," and that was his real name, was Billy Joe.
"Me and Billy Joe, we went to the zoo," because we were in San Diego, so
they go to the San Diego Zoo. "You won’t believe what we saw." I said,
"What?" "We saw a nigga with a white girl." Said, "Yeah?" "Yeah, right
there in front of everybody, holding hands, kissing in front of
everybody. I told Billy Joe, ‘Billy Joe, look at that, Billy Joe. Billy
Joe, look at that.’ We couldn’t believe it. You know, back home we’d
have got a shotgun and we’d have shot him. We would have killed him." I
thought, "Jesus Christ. Fuck, you know, I’m just, what, two weeks into
school and now I’m with these assholes." And it wasn’t going to stop.
All the time you’re in the navy, you’re going to see that shit, you
know? In the sixties.
ESPINO:
What’d you do? What’d you say? Did you just have to eat it?
1:44:28
BECERRA:
Yeah, yeah. You know, there was one black and one Mexican in there, and
what am I going to tell these guys? I mean, we’re talking about their
religion. You’re not going to convert them to another religion.
This is the way they’ve grown up thinking. To them, this is what is
right. Even when the governor of the state blocks the entrance of black
people to a university, when they’ve rioted because they don’t want
integration, their history of lynching people, and I’m going to change
them? Tell me now, what’s there to argue? There’s nothing to argue. No.
[laughs] No, I made up my mind while I was in the [unclear], I thought,
"For the next few years I’m going to be living with these people, so
what I’m going to do—." [interruption]
ESPINO:
Okay. So we’ll leave it right here and we’ll get back to this period
next time.
BECERRA:
Okay.
ESPINO:
This is Virginia Espino. Today is May 13th. I’m interviewing Cruz
Becerra, previously known as Cruz Olmeda, at his home in Commerce,
California. I want to start with last time you talked about how your
parents were living here without documents, but they did have documents;
they were just fake. So even with their fake documents, they were afraid
of being deported?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
How did they think they could get caught?
BECERRA:
Well, my mom’s in-laws on my father’s side, one of them was really
vicious and she would threaten to call Immigration on my folks, and so
that was the main reason. Nobody else gave us any problems, just the one
crazy aunt that we had. She was the only one. So that was one reason and
the main reason.
ESPINO:
She was your mom’s sister or your dad’s?
BECERRA:
My father’s sister. My father’s sister, and she was vicious and she was
nuts too. On top of everything else, she was nuts. So we thought, well,
if she could do it, somebody else could do it, too, you know, so that’s
why it was an issue all the time until my dad fixed his papers.
ESPINO:
Did they ask you to keep it secret and not tell anyone, or were you able
to tell your friends?
BECERRA:
No, I didn’t tell any of my friends. [laughs] No way. I don’t know how
we knew, but we knew that we weren’t going to talk about that. Some
people don’t know until they’re older, right? But, no, we knew right
away when we were younger, when we were kids. Yeah, we knew right away.
ESPINO:
And you mentioned that there were many immigration raids in the fifties,
around that time. In your neighborhood where you lived?
BECERRA:
No, they were in the factories. Where we lived, there were no factories.
It was country. But my dad would comment and other relatives would call
us and let us know they raided this factory or they raided that factory,
because that’s all they were doing. They were not going to people’s
homes or bus stops, necessarily, although I’m sure they did that, too,
but mostly it was in the factories. There were factory raid after
factory raid, and that’s why we knew it was taking place, because we
didn’t live in the city. We were across the street from the city limit
of L.A., but it was still very much country where we were.
ESPINO:
What about your church? Did they deal with the immigration issue? Was
that part of the culture of the church, the sermon, maybe some of the
social service aspect of what the church did?
00:03:13
BECERRA:
No, the church—the minister that we had—first, the doctrine itself is
very, very sectarian. Everybody else is a sinner. All the other
religions are wrong. They’re all going to hell. So the only focus of the
doctrine was to save souls, right, and that was it. There was no
outreach.
The outreach that did take place would be by individual members of the
church, like my mother or, say, a minister who saw his ministry as being
with orphans or going to Mexico to work with the campesinos, which one
of the—when I came back from the navy, one of the students at the Latin
American Bible Institute, he was a progressive guy and he went to
Mexico, I forget which state, but he ended up as a minister to start a
mission there. And he saw the poverty there and he wrote letters back
talking about how poor people were and also the struggle of the
campesinos.
They ended up converting him instead of him converting them, or maybe it
worked both ways, but he was very strongly in support of the struggle
for land and agrarian reform and for the rights of those campesinos who
were really being oppressed by the ricos over there. But that was the
ministers who was very few, very few who would see their ministry as
ministering to the poor. Other ones, the majority were just trying to
save souls and that was it. They didn’t go beyond that.
ESPINO:
Like food drives and—
BECERRA:
Nothing, nothing.
ESPINO:
—like shelter?
BECERRA:
My sister, I told her that some people were running for mayor in the
city of Maywood. The church eventually ended up in Maywood and they
ended up with a Head Start program there, and I told my sister, I said,
"I couldn’t believe it. I went to this meeting to unclear] for some of
the candidates there, and the representative was—." It’s called Iglesia
de [unclear]. I said, "I couldn’t believe it, that they were there." The
church had never done anything like this before, but they were there to
support one of the candidates, the Head Start people were. So I was
really surprised that the church [unclear], but it took them, like,
almost sixty years or more, more than sixty years to get to that stage.
ESPINO:
Because I imagine at that time the poverty was probably pretty severe
for Mexican Americans.
BECERRA:
Yeah, it was, but, you know, you were, like, on your own. If everybody
was poor, everybody was poor. That was it. In fact, I talked to the
minister’s son today and said, yeah, we were really poor, but we didn’t
know it. We didn’t realize it. This was the world that we knew. So we
didn’t realize it, how poor, except later on you would turn on TV and
you would see Leave it to Beaver and you’d figure, "What planet do they
live on? Because it’s totally different from our world." But, no,
everybody was poor and that’s just the way it was. That was before
Lyndon Johnson came into office and decided to start the Great Society
programs. Lyndon Johnson was the best. He was the best president. He was
like a victim of his own ideology as well with the war in Vietnam, but
he was a southerner and he still had the World War II, Korean War
mentality, and that was his downfall. I feel bad about that, both for
him and for the Vietnamese and for everybody, but domestically, you
couldn’t beat him. He was the best since Roosevelt, maybe even in some
ways better, but certainly the best since Roosevelt.
ESPINO:
Yeah, from my interviews, you could see how his policies had a huge
impact on the Mexican American community and especially in East Los
Angeles. You mentioned a couple of things. One is that when you came
back from the service—so when you left for the service, did you have an
idea that you were going to keep practicing your religion or did you
keep practicing while you were in San Diego?
BECERRA:
No, because [unclear]. Yeah, I would come home on the weekends.
ESPINO:
Every weekend?
BECERRA:
Yeah. What happened was that—this is funny. We’d go in class and the top
three people would have their scores every week posted. You could score
up to 100. You had a daily test, a quiz, right, that was worth ten
points, and then 90 percent of your score was the weekly test. So the
very first week, the three people that scored the highest were posted,
and I was one of the three. Two gabachos had beat me; one had a 99.6, a
99.4, and I was 99.0. So all the Chicanos were so happy, "Orale Cruz!
You’re carrying the flag for la Raza! I said, "All right." So they were
all happy. But when you scored that high, you were given the option of
being what was called a night-school teacher, to be a tutor for the
other sailors who were not scoring as good in school, who were not doing
[unclear] problems. It’s called the night-school instructor. So once you
became a night-school instructor, you had the weekends off, every
weekend off from Friday to Monday.
ESPINO:
Wow.
BECERRA:
So, yeah, I became a night-school instructor and I had a girlfriend in
Compton, so I’d come to see her all the time. So every weekend I would
come. So then on Sundays, of course, we would go to church. When I went
in the navy, yeah, I would go to church for the Protestant services, but
then I stopped. I stopped because I went to one service and I remember
at the end of the service the minister gave a prayer, you know,
[unclear]. It was either the beginning or the end, and he killed it for
me. He prayed for us, for our families, you know, because they were sad
because we were gone and we were away from them, prayed for the officers
and prayed for the president and for wisdom and leadership and all kinds
of crap.
And when he finished, I thought, "Wait a minute. He forgot somebody. How
about the Vietnamese?" He wasn’t praying for the Vietnamese. What
happened was that when we were little, my mom would sit down with us and
pray, and we always prayed for the Russians and the Chinese. She taught
us. She prayed. She said, "We always pray for our enemies." And these
were the enemies of this country. You’ve got to pray for them too. So
when he finished that prayer, I thought, "Goddamn, we’re blowing these
people up, killing them, and he’s not got a goddamn thing to say about
it." So I was pissed, so I never went back to church. That’s when I
stopped. I said, "This is bullshit."
ESPINO:
Was that just that one moment of, like, an epiphany or was it something
that was building over time, your critique?
00:11:57
BECERRA:
No, at that point, that had been building over time. At that point I
decided, "This is bullshit. This is just bullshit. You don’t do this.
This is not what my mom taught me. This isn’t Christianity. This is it."
Bam. I stopped going. Then when I came back, I went back to church. I
went back to live with my folks and went to church, and my folks saw
that I was really pissed all the time, you know. The minister came over,
a different minister that they had, and I asked him about things outside
of the church, how he felt about the Civil Rights Movement and stuff.
And he said, "Well, you know, I support Martin Luther King. I support
him, but, you know, now the black people are getting out of hand.
They’re getting violent." He was talking about, like, the Black Panthers
and stuff like that.
"They’re getting violent and stuff like that." I said, "Oh. Well, what
about the war in Vietnam?" He goes, "Well, I don’t meddle in politics."
Well, you just did, but now he says now he doesn’t meddle into politics,
right? So I said, "That’s it. That’s it. No more." So they said, "No,
no, we’ve got somebody else for you to meet, this young man," the one
that I told you went to Mexico as a young minister. Oh, he was really a
good guy, but that wasn’t enough to convince me to go back. That was it.
I was not an atheist at that point, but I knew I wasn’t going to be that
kind of a Christian. I wasn’t going to go to church. That was it. I was
through with the church.
Later on I would start thinking more and more about it as I became a
Communist and I read about Marx, his writings and other writings on the
church and then the history of the church in Mexico, and then I’d see
these right-wing preachers always preaching for the war, and I thought,
goddamn, they’re just an extension of the state, preaching. This isn’t
an accident. This is not an accident. There’s a reason why they all fall
in line. So I stopped, I stopped going to church.
ESPINO:
So your mom was aware of the Cold War?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
And that’s why she would ask you pray for the Russians?
00:13:18
BECERRA:
My mom, she knew that—there was a draft at the time. We were all going
to be drafted. If you did not enlist in one of the services, the army
would draft you, and she didn’t want that to happen, so she always told
me that she wanted me to go in the navy. And what happened is that she’d
always say, "Tienes que cumplir con tu obligación con el gobierno."
Always, "Tienes que cumplir con tu obligación con el gobierno." And
that’s how I was raised. So when it came time to go and when they
knocked on the door when I was seventeen, right around my birthday, I
was ready, and especially since it was a navy recruiter, which is what
my mom wanted. Yeah, I was ready to go.
Yeah, she was aware of the Cold War. Kennedy had not been assassinated
yet. Kennedy would not be assassinated till after I graduated from high
school. I graduated in June, and he was killed in November, like four,
five months later. And then the church was sad, and one of the people
said—because he was—Mexicans had a different attitude towards Kennedy
than white people did, you know?
ESPINO:
Even though your family was not Catholic, they weren’t opposed to him
being Catholic?
BECERRA:
Some of my family was. My dad never spoke about that, but my aunt did.
She was like a fanatic. She was the one that I told you was a nut. She
said, "Oh, you haven’t lived under the rule of Catholics like we did in
Mexico. You don’t understand what it is to be under that kind of rule."
I understood, because there was the Mexican Revolution because of that
rule, and she felt that with a Catholic president coming in, that we
would revert back to that kind of rule in this country. It wasn’t going
to happen, not like that, you know. And so they tried to influence my
parents. But my father still voted for Kennedy. He might have been a
Pentecostal, but he was a Democrat.
ESPINO:
So your father was in the military during World War II?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Many scholars look at that war as a hugely important war for Mexican
Americans because when they came back, they had these new ideas about
democracy.
BECERRA:
Yes, very much.
ESPINO:
Did your dad have those ideas? Because you said he had a critique of
Mexico, but a loyalty at the same time to the Mexican Revolution.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Did he instill in you any kind of patriotism towards the United States?
Like your mother said that you need to complete your obligation to the
government by—
BECERRA:
Neither of them did. Neither of them did. That really came from school,
and I was always in conflict with what I was taught in school because of
the way my father had raised me, the stories he had told me of Mexico,
the history of Mexico. So, no, the patriotism came from two sources. One
was school, even though I had a conflict there, and the other one was
that I read a lot, and the paper that I read a lot was the Herald
Examiner, which was a right-wing newspaper, and I’d read Walter
Winchell, and he was very right-wing. He was against Martin Luther King,
said the NAACP had been infiltrated by Communists and stuff like that.
So those are the views that I had when I went in the navy. They were not
progressive views with regard to this country. It wasn’t till I was in
the navy that I changed my mind and my views became totally different,
radicalized, and that was because I was participating in a war and it
was wrong. You know, I came to realize it was wrong, not at the
beginning. At the beginning I thought, "Yeah, we’re going to go stop the
Communists. We’re going to kill the Communists and all that." But then,
you know, "What the fuck? Something’s wrong here."
ESPINO:
So you did have an anti-Communist perspective in the fifties.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
And then going into the sixties.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Did you have—well, how would you define it? I mean, how extreme or not
extreme would you explain your anti-Communist views?
BECERRA:
No, they were just normal anti-Communist views, you know.
ESPINO:
But I mean, did you think they all should be incarcerated for life? Did
you think that they should be hunted down? Did you agree with the
McCarthy—that kind of thing?
00:18:35
BECERRA:
No. In fact, on the contrary. If I’d had any ideas like that, my father
would have stopped it, because my father remembered the Smith Act and he
was very conscious of that and he knew they were going after immigrants
behind the Smith Act. And so, no, my dad would have stopped it right
there if I ever went that far. He would have stopped it right there. No,
I was not for incarcerating Communists. In fact, when in 1959, 1960,
Fidel comes into power in Cuba, my dad was very supportive of Fidel. I
remember at that time they did not have, like, delayed broadcasts, and
we’re watching TV, you know, black and white, and they were interviewing
Fidel. I forget what it was that Fidel said. Oh, they said at the end of
the interview, they said, "What do you think about the U.S. relationship
to the revolution, to Batista?"
And Fidel starts laughing and he says, "You want for I tell you the
truth?" They said, "Well, yeah, that’s what we want." "Okay, I’ll tell
you. Batista could always tell his troops, ‘No matter what happens,
Uncle Sam will be here to back you up.’ We could never say that." He
says, "We could never count on the American forces to back us up. We had
to go against them knowing that maybe they would come against us." And
then on another occasion we saw a speech. I think that Fidel—maybe he
addressed the United Nations and we saw that. Fidel was speaking in
Spanish, and between the interpreters we could hear what he was saying.
He was addressing the issue of the executions, which happened either
after the revolutions or during the revolutions, and he’s telling
people, "Yeah, they’re criticizing us for these executions, pero donde
estaban cuando nuestro juventud amanecia muerta, asesinados por ese
gobeirno del Batista en los callejones de Habana. Y donde estaban esas
voces?" He was pissed. And my dad would say, "That’s right. I agree with
it."
ESPINO:
Are you talking about the executions of his own men or the executions of
the enemy?
00:20:36
BECERRA:
After the revolution, they rounded up the Batistianos, okay, and they
executed them. There were public trials that were like people’s courts,
because people would be accused of something, "Okay, what have you got
to say for yourself?" blah, blah, blah. "Okay, paradón." [snaps fingers]
They’d execute them. There were no trials. I mean, that was the trial.
You’d be accused of something and like in any situation like that,
they’re going to have both the guilty and the innocent executed, you
know, and that’s just the way it is.
One time I was at work and this Cuban brother was there, and he and I
would get into arguments over the question of Fidel because he would
always be criticizing Fidel. He hated Fidel. We didn’t argue too much,
but he knew my views. One time we were alone and he says, "Let’s talk
about it. So it’s just between you and me. Nobody else is around, just
me and you are going to talk about this." He says, "Look," he says, "you
know how I feel about Fidel and the revolution. [unclear] to support
it." I said, "That’s asesino. Why do you support him? When it comes to
being an assassin for killing people, innocent people, put them up
against the wall, shooting them, neither Fidel nor Che can come even
close to Zapata [unclear]. They are Sunday School teachers compared to
these guys. After a battle, they didn’t take prisoners of war. They had
no jails to put them in. The enemy was put up against the wall and shot.
These are other Mexicans. They just happened to be soldiers on the
government side, indios. They probably couldn’t even read or write,
probably drafted by force to fight. They were executed by the
thousands."
Remember, 5 percent of the Mexican population would die during the
Mexican Revolution. It was bloody. "Zapata did the same thing," I said,
"and that’s the way revolutions are. You support the Mexican Revolution.
You say, ‘I support this, I support that.’ No, no, you support the
revolution, period. And you can say, ‘Yeah, I don’t like that.’
Personally, I could not have fought in the Mexican Revolution because I
don’t like the idea of picking up a rifle and killing somebody else like
that, my own people. Can’t do it, just can’t do it. But things had to be
really bad, really bad for people to do that, to have to fight like that
and kill each other to stop the oppression and the lives they were
living, the the starvation they were going through. It had to be really
bad." I said, "But Fidel and Che don’t compare. Look. [unclear] and
Zapata are heroes to us in spite of that. The government did the same
thing. The government was doing the same thing." [unclear] to a brother
from Mexico who was in my union and he’s—I won’t say too much about him,
but I told him, I says, "El gobierno hacía la misma cosa!" That’s the
way a revolution is." And so I told him that, I said, "So no matter what
you say about Fidel, [unclear], and Che, they don’t come close, not even
by 1 percent, compared to what our heroes did."
ESPINO:
When you compare that experience with the propaganda in the classroom,
how did you reconcile those two different perspectives?
BECERRA:
How’s that?
ESPINO:
Well, what I imagine you would be learning about Cuba and the Cuban
Missile Crisis and that kind of thing in school would be very different
from what you were learning at home by watching this [unclear].
BECERRA:
No, it was too new. It was really too new, because this was 1960. I
graduated in ’63, okay? In school it would be too early on in history.
It would be too contemporary for us to study that in school.
ESPINO:
So, like as a contemporary issue, as a current event, your teachers
weren’t talking about it?
BECERRA:
No, no. If they were talking about anything, they would be talking about
the election of Kennedy, which they saw as very, very important. After
years of Eisenhower, it was very important. And the civil rights
struggle, those issues there they might raise. In fact, those are the
only two issues, contemporary political issues that they would raise.
They didn’t raise anything else.
ESPINO:
Did you have any teachers that you recall as teaching you the most or
being the most inspirational from your junior high or from any of your
school years?
00:25:45
BECERRA:
No. The best teacher I had, I think, was an eleventh-grade English
teacher. The teachers had to be careful what they said. There was no
unions at that time, and the teacher would talk to us and he’d tell
us—these are the types of things he would tell us. First of all, for our
vocabulary, he would bring a Playboy magazine to school and he would go
through there and pick words out and put them on the chalkboard, up on
the chalkboard, and said, "This is a word." And we learned a lot of
words came from the articles in Playboy magazine. And he said, "You
know, I can’t show the pictures, obviously, but the articles and
vocabulary here, you should know it. This magazine is really for
educated people. Look at this. And the vocabulary is what I’m going to
teach you from here," and that’s what he did. He wasn’t afraid to bring
it in, just couldn’t show us the pictures.
Then what else what he did, he would talk to us about some young
teachers at our high school who were really into organizing the union
for the teachers. He says, "You know, a lot of the teachers here are
saying we’re professionals, unions are not for professionals and we
should not be in unions. That’s for the working class, not for
professional workers, but I don’t agree with them. I can say it because
I’m old and I’m about to retire, but these youngsters, these younger
teachers, they have a lot of guts by taking on these administrators, but
they have a lot of courage because they’re at the forefront and they’re
doing this." And so he told us [unclear] trade unionist. And then the
other thing, this one Chicano stood up when he gave his book report, and
it was on the book Exodus. They made a movie out of it, too, and there
was a ship called Exodus. It was about—
ESPINO:
World War II?
00:27:30
BECERRA:
After World War II, close of World War II, the Jews are displaced
persons, and they can’t figure out where to take them. Maybe they don’t
have documentation. They say, "I’m from Poland, I’m from—," wherever.
And the Zionists have this dream about Israel and get this boat and they
call it the Exodus, named after the Bible, and they bring a lot of Jews
on to that ship and they take it to Israel. The British are pissed
because it was a British colony and they didn’t want [unclear], but they
make sure they get there. Then they have to struggle against the
Palestinians and against the Jordanians, etc., Syrians, Egyptians, to
try and establish a state.
So this Chicano stands up and gives a book report on that, and when he
finished it, the teacher stands up and goes, "You know, something I have
to tell you, okay? You should not allow people to manipulate you. This
book is—." I’m not sure if he used the word "Zionist," but he says,
"This book is propaganda and it’s written in such a way as to manipulate
your thinking and how you view things, how you analyze things. You
should not allow yourself to be manipulated by these types of writings,
because it’s propaganda." [laughs] He didn’t have to tell us it was
Zionist propaganda, but you saw it. "Wow, why is he telling me that?" I
couldn’t figure—I had never read the book, but I saw the movie, right,
and the movie was very powerful. Paul Newman is in it, and it showed the
Palestinians as ruthless cutthroats, really literally cutthroats, right?
And he was trying to warn us against that in the eleventh grade. Other
teachers didn’t do that. I had a Spanish teacher, a Mexican American
Spanish teacher. He was talking to us and the question of conquista came
up, right, and he says, "Well, you know, people, they kind of talk about
how bad it was, but, you know—." [laughs] I thought, "What the fuck?" My
daddy had told me it was bad. It was bullshit. This guy tried to tell
me, like, it wasn’t that big of a deal, right? I didn’t pick up on it
right away. So, no, you would think that he would be the one [unclear].
No, he wasn’t no Sal Castro, obviously. [laughter] Other teachers would
start to say things and then they would stop because they were, like,
really scared. We were coming out of the McCarthy era, the Eisenhower
period, and so there was only so much they were going to be able to say,
and so they were very conscious of that. They would start to say stuff,
but they wouldn’t.
ESPINO:
Well, that’s fascinating, because you don’t often hear about the
teachers that might have had a political perspective, but just were
nervous about expressing it. What I’m hearing in the interviews is more
about the teachers who didn’t hold Mexican Americans in high regard and
who pretty much ignored Mexicans in the room and focused their teaching
on the white students and helping the white students get into college.
BECERRA:
Well, I didn’t see any white students at school, so—
ESPINO:
There were no white students in your—
BECERRA:
Not a single one.
ESPINO:
What happened to—okay, so I’m confused, because you said that in your
neighborhood there were a lot of people from Appalachia and Tennessee.
BECERRA:
Yes, when I was four, five, six, seven, eight years old, nine years old.
Okay, then what happens, by the time I’m ten, eleven, twelve, the first
African Americans moved on to our block, and then when that happens, all
the whites scattered. And every time a house was sold, an African
American family would buy it or rent it, so they’re buying and renting
in that neighborhood. But that was, like, by the time I was, like—they
[unclear] me when I was eight—no, when I was, like, nine, ten, eleven
years old, that’s when that change took place. When I was in elementary
school, I could see the pictures, and it was integrated. Kids from the
white part of Compton would come to MacKay Elementary School, and black
students and some Japanese students and ourselves, the Latinos. But then
towards the end of junior high school, I think there was only one white
student at Enterprise Junior High School.
ESPINO:
Wow.
BECERRA:
And then high school, nothing.
ESPINO:
Wow. That changed fast.
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
How did your parents feel about the African Americans moving into the
neighborhood?
BECERRA:
It didn’t bother them at all because—
ESPINO:
There’s racism, too, in Mexican American families towards blacks and
towards—
00:33:49
BECERRA:
Yeah, but with them it was no different. The families started moving in,
right? The black families were moving in. And let me give you examples.
One family, it was a white woman married to a black man and she was of
Greek origin. She wasn’t Greek from Greece, but she was like Greek
American and she spoke very good Spanish and she used to talk to my mom
all the time. And my mom used to spend all kinds of time with her.
Terry. To us, her husband was like a hero to us because you’re a little
kid and this black man, the only job he could get was at the junkyard.
So we’d get on our bicycles and we’d go [unclear]. The junkyards were
kind of far down on Broadway, so we’d get on our bicycles and we’d go
down to the junkyard to see Mr. Bibbs [phonetic].
He would save the ball bearings, had steel bearings like that, you know,
and we’d use them for playing marbles. They were steelies, you know, and
so he would save them for us. So it was a big adventure to go to the
junkyard, see Mr. Bibbs. And so we’d come back and we’d play marbles.
We’d have regular marbles, glass marbles and those, and then we’d see
him. He was poor, so he would go out to the desert and shoot rabbits,
jackrabbits, and bring them home, and he opened up the trunk of his car,
and it’d be full of dead jackrabbits, right? So he’d take them in the
backyard. He’d skin them, right, and then they’d put him in the freezer.
That was their meat for quite a while. I mean, that’s pretty poor. Jesus
Christ.
So my mom didn’t have a problem, and then what happened was she started
working because she had never worked. She starts to work. My baby sister
is babysat by one of the families there, Mrs. Ruth [phonetic], and I’ll
tell some stories about that family. So then that’s what happens is that
my little sister learns to speak English and not Spanish, so there’s a
communication problem between my mom and her baby.
ESPINO:
Oh, because she was in childcare most of her—
BECERRA:
Well, not just that, but after she came out of childcare with the
neighbor, she’d want to play outside with children and all the children
were black children. Okay, so the English again, and, of course, it was
African American English, right? I didn’t tell you about that?
ESPINO:
No.
BECERRA:
Oh, my god. Yeah, I came back from the navy, and my baby sister is three
years old now, right, and my mom would call me, "Ven, van para aca Cruz!
Que quiere? Dime que quiere!" My little sister had opened up the
refrigerator and she couldn’t open the drawer in the bottom where the
fruit was, and she was trying to tell my mom that she wanted an apple
and she didn’t know how to say it in Spanish, didn’t even know how to
say it, "Que quiere? Dime que quiere!" So I’d be laughing. I go, "What
do you want, mija?" "Apple." I’d said, "Okay, okay, quiere una manzana."
"Okay pues que me diga!" She did, but she doesn’t speak Spanish. So they
couldn’t talk to each other, they couldn’t communicate, right?
ESPINO:
Oh, wow.
BECERRA:
And I thought it was funny, but then I go outside and she’d be playing
with all the little black girls, you know, and they’d be playing
patty-cake in a circle. They would all be standing in a circle, and
she’s only three years old. At three years old, you don’t understand
rules in a game, you know, and if somebody explains it to them, you’re
not going to understand the rules. You’re only three years old. So she’d
be playing patty-cake and all the girls, all the little black girls
would all be dancing as they’re singing the song [unclear]. And so she’d
be dancing, too, just like them, right? And then she was out. She was
out, you know, and they tell her, "Okay, you’re out." And she’d get mad
because she did not understand the rules. So she’d get mad and she’d get
pissed and she got—and they’d be telling her, "You’re out." And she got
mad, so she goes—I swear to God this is exactly what she did. She puts
her hands on her hips just like this, "Huh. Nigger, you hush your
mouth," just like that. And I heard her, right? So I come running and I
said, "Mija, you can’t talk like that." And she looks at me like am I
crazy, you know, because—
ESPINO:
They all talk like that.
BECERRA:
They all talk like that. She doesn’t understand she can’t speak that
way. But that was her little world. That’s the world that she was
growing up in, right? And forever she and my other sister always spoke
with that kind of an accent, you know, a Compton accent, a black Compton
accent, right? But, no, the neighborhood, we grew up around it and it
grew up around us. The problem did not occur until after 1965, okay, and
after the whole rebellion in Watts, a lot of the youngsters changed
their attitude about their acceptance of the way things were and they
began to have really rebellious attitudes. And then what happens,
though, is that drugs come into play. There had been no drugs in the
neighborhood. Now drugs come into play, and once that happens, you have
crime. Once you had drugs, you had crime, and so then my parents decided
they’re moving out. It wasn’t African Americans that moved them out; it
was the crime that came along with the drugs years later. Originally,
there wasn’t any drugs, no crime, nothing, but then things changed. You
get drugs, you have crime, and they decided to move and they moved to
[unclear].
ESPINO:
So your mom never learned English?
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
And your sister never learned Spanish?
BECERRA:
Oh, yes. The thing is, she spoke it, but she was the baby, so she would
speak it all broken and stuff, and they thought it was so cute for the
baby to be speaking funny Spanish, so they would not correct her. But
she speaks Spanish, not as well as her older sister and I did, but she
spoke it and she understood it because she had to communicate with my
mom as she was growing up, because my mom quit working and she was
always at home with my mom. So, yes, she learned it later, but not when
she was a baby. She spoke Compton English. [laughs]
ESPINO:
Wow. That’s fascinating. So it seems like it was a safe neighborhood, I
mean if you’re letting your little three-year-old out, play by
themselves out in the street.
BECERRA:
Sure. It was a very safe neighborhood. There wasn’t any problems at all,
at all, and it wasn’t a middle-class black neighborhood. It was a
working-class black neighborhood, and, yes, it was very safe. There was
no problems at all. You know, things changed, but things change.
ESPINO:
What year did they move out?
BECERRA:
Probably 1970.
ESPINO:
Until 1970?
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
So you were coming back every weekend. Did you come back around the time
of the Watts—
BECERRA:
No, because I was in school. In that school, I was in school in 1963 and
’64, from December of ’63 till April of 1964, and Watts didn’t happen
until ’65, when I was overseas.
ESPINO:
You were overseas already in ’65. You were twenty years old. Okay. So we
were talking about your—
BECERRA:
Oh, just one thing about Watts. The way that I found out about it,
what’s happening in Watts, was I was in Tokyo and I was going on
vacation. These girls were going to go to this island. It’s like a
lovers’ island. It’s got a volcano, and the tradition had been when a
Japanese boy and girl fall in love and their parents won’t let them get
married, they would go to Oshima, this island, Oshima, and honeymoon,
and they’d go up to the volcano, hold hands, and jump into the volcano.
ESPINO:
Wow.
BECERRA:
So now when we went there, they had a fence around it to stop suicides.
It was lovers’ leap, is what I guess what you’d call it here. So we’re
in Tokyo and we’re going to go get the ferry to go to the island, and I
look up and there’s this marquee like in Times Square where the news is
being flashed, and it says in Compton that there was rioting in Compton
and that three people had been killed. And I look. I said, "What the
fuck? I’m from Compton. What the hell’s going on?" But I couldn’t figure
out why in Tokyo it was, like, headline news, right? So then we went to
the island and we spent some time there, a few days there, and we come
back. I go by the same marquee at Tokyo, and now all kinds of people
have been killed and the rioting is still going on. I said, "Damn."
That’s how I learned about it. Then later I would read in the newspapers
overseas and the magazines what had occurred. But that’s how I found out
about what was going on. It was headline news around the world.
ESPINO:
I bet.
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
Because they had all the images of the fires and the—
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
Plus you had the images, I would imagine—I don’t know if you were
watching news with your parents or on your own or if it was part of your
experience when you were in San Diego of the civil rights struggles in
the South, as far as the sit-ins and the repression and integration and
all of that. Were you following those stories too?
BECERRA:
Yes, but I was following them and I thought they mattered, but they
weren’t getting to me. They weren’t getting to me until I went in the
navy and I met those southern good ol’ boys. Jesus Christ, that’s when
it finally hit me hard. I thought, "These people are—." And they’re
still crazy. The racism down there, you know, they say, well, there’s a
new South. Bullshit. It’s still the same way. I mean, the guy that
really hates this immigration reform is Senator Sessions from Alabama.
So I’m watching Rachel Maddow, and she says, "Yes, Senator Jefferson
Beauregard Sessions." Jefferson Beauregard, oh, my god, the third, by
the way, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. That means he comes from a
long line of racist assholes, you know, and they’re not going to change.
He’s not going to change, and probably his kids aren’t going to change.
I said, "Well, maybe the next generation. Hmm. I don’t think so." He
might have kids like Dick Cheney has, like Dick Cheney’s daughter,
right? She’s just like her daddy, just like her daddy, except because
she’s lesbian she supports gay marriage, but outside of that, no. So,
no, I think Beauregard, Senator Sessions’ kids are probably going to be
just like him.
ESPINO:
Well, those soldiers that you encountered—
BECERRA:
Sailors.
ESPINO:
Sailors. Sailors. How did they feel about Mexicans? Did you pass for
white?
BECERRA:
Yes, in this regard, okay? Their attitude towards Mexicans is different,
not on the basis of racial equality, but on the basis of that at least
we’re not blacks, okay, number one. Number two, we’re still going to be
just as dumb, just as dumb and dirty and lazy as ever, but at least
we’re not blacks. When we were in [unclear], in all the ports that you
go to where you have bases, naval bases, you go on liberty into the town
and you go to where all the sailors hang out, so you go to the bars and
the whorehouses. If you’re a sailor, that’s where you’re going to go.
And the blacks would go to the black part of town. When I say black part
of town, I don’t mean that there are black people living there; I mean
the black bars. The same Japanese might own the same bars, but you
didn’t go to the same bars where blacks—and maybe not even to the same
whorehouses as the blacks. It was separate.
ESPINO:
Even in Japan?
BECERRA:
In Japan, yeah. I mean, I saw the movie Sayonara, too, but it doesn’t
matter. This is Japan, and, yeah, the Japanese were racist too.
ESPINO:
You don’t think it was a U.S. military philosophy trickling down on to
the Japanese culture? You think it was the Japanese themselves setting
up the segregated—
00:47:2400:49:19
BECERRA:
No, it was Japanese business. I’ll tell you why. If you have a bar and
got all these white southern drunks and black drunks in the same bar,
guess what’s going to happen? [laughs] What’s going to happen is exactly
what was happening in the Philippines in 1965. The fleet would come into
Olongapo Bay. All the sailors would go ashore. The gate was here, and
you had to go maybe three or four miles, five miles to where the ships
were. So you’d be picked up not by buses, but what were called the
cattle trucks, cattle wagons. Cattle trucks, I think we called them,
cattle wagons. They were diesel trucks with huge trailers, and they’d
throw all the drunk sailors in there and they’d go by the piers, "Okay,
we’re at this ship, these three ships." These sailors would stumble off,
bam, you know, all drunk, go to the ship.
Okay. Well, what happened, they’d have all these drunk sailors on these
trucks, you know, and, sure enough, you have a race riot, bam,
[unclear], just bam, bam, bam. And then they’d go on the ship and they’d
have race riots on the ships. The difference was that after the riot was
over, the people who would be prosecuted would only be the black
sailors. The white sailors were not prosecuted. So it was a big scandal
in the Congress over that. How come only the black sailors are being
prosecuted in the race riot? A race riot, there’s going to be at least
two races, right? No, only the black sailors.
So in Japan, one time we were in a bar and we told this one black sailor
to meet us at the bar where we were. His name was Curtis. They called
him Curt, but here they would call him Pete. Okay. Pete was not a
southern black man. He was from L.A., and not only was he from L.A., but
he was from Baldwin Hills, L.A., okay? [laughs] He didn’t have time for
this trash from Appalachia in the navy, right, or from Alabama or
Georgia, and he would be pissed. He says, "I’ve got to sleep with these
motherfuckers." In the berth where he was, there was, like, fifty
sailors, and we slept stacked four high. We didn’t have bunk beds. We
had hammocks, okay, but they were modern hammocks, but they were still
hammocks, and four high. I think we were only two or three high where I
slept. So we’ve got fifty guys, and he slept with a knife under his
pillow every night.
He says, "Look. I don’t know if one of these motherfuckers is going to
come back in here and think he’s still in Alabama or Mississippi. He’s
going to come here drunk, looking for some nigger to go lynch, and I’ve
got to be ready for these motherfuckers. I’m the only black man down
there. They’re going to come down there. I’m the only one they’re going
to find. I said, "Goddamn, I wouldn’t want to be in your position." At
least where I was at, there were more Mexicans and everybody identified
as a Chicano. Sure, we fought with each other, but we also stuck
together.
So one day we’re in this bar and we had told Pete to meet us there. So
Pete walks into the bar. "Hey, there you are. Hey, come over here,
Pete." And the Japanese bartenders, they run to him. They said, "No, no,
no, no, you can’t come in here. No, can’t come in here." And it wasn’t
because they were racist. That was the rule, you know, because you’re
not going to have drunk blacks and drunk whites in the same bar anywhere
because something’s going to happen, especially since all these
southerners—one time I’m sitting down in the mess on the ship at sea and
I’m talking to this one white guy from Oregon, but he was country, and
this black sailor comes to sit at our table, and I always talk with
them, you know. We’re sailors on the sea. We’re shipmates. We always
talk, you know?
The white guy stands up and leaves the table. He says, "I may have to
live with these motherfuckers, but I don’t have to eat with them," and
he left. Jesus Christ. This is the world, right? So when Pete walked
into the bar and they tried to stop him, we walked up, said, "Wait a
minute. He’s with us." We had never in our lives seen something like
that, that somebody, because he was a different race, could not go into
the bar. I said, "Goddamn, it’s like being in Alabama or something,"
right? And then we realized why they were doing it. They were going to
have bar riots every day, every time, because all this stuff is going to
come out, the resentment and the bitterness of the blacks and the racism
of these whites who didn’t hide it. Yeah, it was going to come out. You
could have riots. And sure enough, in the Philippines it was happening.
It happened.
ESPINO:
Did you ever witness an encounter between one of those southern whites
and an African American?
BECERRA:
No, no, because usually the southern whites would say stuff when there
were no African Americans around. I could talk about these issues to the
African Americans and I could talk to some of the whites, right, not all
the whites. It depends where the whites were from. If they were from
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, you know, Chicago, you could. There was no
problem, and they would see it from the southerners—but, of course, if
you were from the North, a white northern, you knew that the South was
white trash, you know, and so you always had that attitude toward
southern whites. And they weren’t far off the mark, for the most part.
They were really, really racist, you know.
ESPINO:
What about the hierarchy in the military, like coming from the top down?
Was that racism also coming from the top down within the leadership of
the military, like the sergeant? I don’t know how it would work.
BECERRA:
The big officers?
ESPINO:
Yeah.
00:53:29
BECERRA:
No. You could say, like, at the sergeant level, the chief petty
officers, they were enough careerists to not instigate anything like
that, but the officers themselves were the exact opposite of racism.
They were professionals. They wanted to see a very—how would you say
it—a military unit that got along very, very well. They didn’t have time
for racism. They hated racism and they would demonstrate it. No,
military officers were probably leaders in integration, from what I saw.
That was my experience. They were not leaders in segregation.
Now, if I was to go to the Officers’ Club and there were southern
officers there, that might be different, but I didn’t see that. All the
officers that I saw in the military were the exact opposite, and that I
would see later on in civilian life, guys who were ex-air force officers
and stuff, no, they were the guys who would be the most anti-racist, the
most pro-integration of anybody. They didn’t have time for that.
ESPINO:
Did you ever think about why, why that was?
00:55:01
BECERRA:
Yeah. The military needed a very coherent war machine. They needed for
sailors to be able to get along, right? The fragging that took place in
Vietnam was going to be more racial than it was because somebody hated
an officer. One brother that I was with, I worked with at Northrop, an
African American, in Vietnam he was in a combat unit. They were going to
go out on their patrol. These two southerners had decided they were
going to kill this black guy because he was black. They’re racist,
right, when they’re out on patrol. So this other white soldier se dio
cuenta and said, "They’re going to put you on point. They’re going to
kill you while they’re out there, so we’re going to work around that."
So they did. So when they went out, he told me, "We killed them. We
killed those two guys, [unclear] shot by the enemy, dragged their bodies
back." But that was not with officers; that was with the enlisted men.
On our ship, no. I knew who the racists were. They were all southerners
and they hung out together and they resented the African Americans, but
the machine, no, the machine was opposed to—I mean they can’t have that
kind of an army where everybody’s killing each other on the basis of
race. So if you’re a military officer, you have an education, you should
know better, and then this is the policy of the military. You’re going
to enforce that policy and you’re going to change your mind. You’re
going to be surprised. If you’re a career officer, you’re going to be
surprised how quickly you’re going to learn not to be a racist and to
enforce the policy of the military, which is integration, you know,
racial harmony.
ESPINO:
Were they outnumbered, the racists?
BECERRA:
I would say yes, quite a bit, quite a bit. The majority of the white
sailors who were not racist like that, they were not like the
southerners. Big difference. They would have nothing to do with the
southerners. Like I said, they considered them trash. They would not
hang out with them. They would prefer to hang out with a northern black
or a Mexican or a Jew than a southern white. They didn’t like them. They
didn’t like them at all.
ESPINO:
Did you have Asians in the navy when you were serving?
00:58:39
BECERRA:
Yeah, one officer and he was fresh from ROTC school, right off the
campus and everything [unclear]. He became a joke to the guys, because,
"If we’re going to start shooting at the Vietnamese, you’d better go
hide now." Shit like that. I mean, there was no mercy for him, and even
though he was Japanese and where our ship was stationed in Japan, but he
was Japanese American and maybe he didn’t speak Japanese, right? Because
some parents, certainly the grandmothers here, would want their children
to speak Japanese. I had a friend at Northrop, his father was African
American, he met a Japanese girl when he was stationed in Japan, married
her. So his mama was Japanese. His grandmother was English, and so his
father was, like, half black, half English. So he had, like, English in
him, too, besides African American, and he looked African American. So
then he goes to Harlingen to work on a contract for General Dynamics in
aerospace, right, and he meets a Chicana from Texas and so he marries
her, comes back to California, they have a baby. And so the baby, he
looks more like his mama than like him, right? He’s got these huge eyes,
you know. And I start laughing because he doesn’t have those Japanese
eyes that my friend has, right? He’s got a lot of the African American
features, but Japanese eyes, the smaller eyes. And I started laughing
when I saw his boy’s eyes. He goes, "He’s got my eyes, huh?"
So his mother, the grandmother of that baby, right, that half Chicano
baby, tells him, "I’ve been looking around and I found the perfect
school for him," and she’s Japanese. [laughs] Didn’t matter to her. That
was her baby, her grandchild, you know. If he’s half Mexican, half
English, he’s Japanese. Like any grandma who’s Japanese, she wants him
in a Japanese school learning Japanese, right? But maybe this officer
that I was with, maybe he didn’t have a mother or a grandmother like
that, and so in Japan he would be speaking English and be lost, so it
would be embarrassing because I’m sure [unclear]. And, look, they came
up to me. I’m in Yokohama walking the street, you know, in civilian
clothes, and a cab driver pulls over and he moves over to me asking me
for directions. He thinks I’m Japanese. [laughs] Anywhere I go, I could
pass for a Turk, I could pass—I was in a meeting of Arab Americans, and
they come up to me speaking in Arabic thinking that I’m Arabic, right?
So we could pass for everything.
ESPINO:
Some of us, yeah.
BECERRA:
Some of us, yeah.
ESPINO:
Some of us look more one thing. Some of us look like many different
things.
BECERRA:
[unclear].
ESPINO:
Yeah, you do look—
BECERRA:
I look like a Japanese [unclear].
ESPINO:
Yeah, you do look really mutt-like. [laughter] Wow. That’s interesting.
Jeez, I can’t imagine what that would be like.
BECERRA:
The officer was the only one who was Japanese and, no, unfortunately,
people didn’t take him serious, first of all, not because he’s Japanese,
but because he was a new officer. He was a jaygee, a lieutenant, junior
grade, and so all junior grades are going to be treated with a lack of
respect by all the sailors, so that’s the first thing against him. The
fact that he was Japanese American just added to that, you know, as far
as joking around with.
ESPINO:
Well, especially in the military culture, there was a hatred towards the
Japanese from people who served in World War II or whose parents served
in World War II, there was a strong—because of the bombing, and then you
had Vietnam. So what you read about the men that served the U.S. during
that period, they were inculcated with a hatred towards Asian. You know
the derogatory names that they used to call them. So I brought that up,
wondering what it would be like for an Asian person to have to be in
this military when you’re at a war with an Asian country.
BECERRA:
Yeah. Where I slept, there was maybe like thirty of us on one side and
maybe thirty sailors on the other side. No, not thirty. Maybe like
fifteen, twenty sailors. They spoke very little English. There was a
special program, maybe it still exists, where the Filipino sailors could
join the U.S. Navy—it was a tradition—but they served as stewards, okay,
served the officers, like servants for the officers.
ESPINO:
And butlers.
BECERRA:
Yeah, the butlers, valets, you know, ironing the clothes, washing the
clothes.
ESPINO:
Wow.
BECERRA:
And we were [unclear] speaking Tagalog, and so [unclear], "They’re
talking that gook talk again." All Asians were "gooks," whether they
were from the Philippines, anywhere, China, Japan. Didn’t matter; they
were all gooks. "They’re talking that gook shit again," because you
could hear them talk because they’d be laughing and joking, right? So,
yeah, that attitude against Asians, yeah, it was there, and I didn’t see
it so much as a racist thing, for the most part, as a macho thing, that
it’s us and the gooks, right? And so they said it, like, trying to be
como atrevidos that you dare to say something like that. Of course, the
result, of course, was racism because the guys would go—it might have
been on the base of machismo, but it was still, any way you slice it,
the attitude was still going to be there because when you go into a port
and the attitude they would have towards the native population was
always the same. If they were gooks, "Fucking gooks," this and "fucking
gooks" all the time.
ESPINO:
In Japan?
BECERRA:
In Japan, in the Philippines, in China. In Thailand, not so much. We
weren’t there long enough.
ESPINO:
So when you were in the navy, you traveled to Japan, to the Philippines,
and what other countries?
01:05:11
BECERRA:
We were in Hong Kong, China, also across the strait to Taiwan and
Taipei. I think it was Taipei we were at, and Formosa, and then we went
around Indochina to the other side to Bangkok, Thailand, and we were in
Thailand also, but we were only there for, like, five days, and it was
like a totally different universe when we went there. That was Thailand
before it was ruined, because there was really—it’s not the same
Thailand anymore, Bangkok especially. When we went in there, there were
very few Americans that had been there, very few military, and the very
few military who were there were like at secret bases, so nobody really
saw Americans. So we went there and we were the only Americans that
people were seeing. They would see other sailors from other countries,
they were merchant seamen, but military, no.
In fact, it was against the law for any military police to be ashore,
because we had to have our own military police shore patrol as
[unclear], and so there were no shore patrols. So we went, "Great! We
can do whatever the hell we want," which basically we did because we
were with girls. [unclear] put on your hat. You’re supposed to be
uniform. Nah, we’d take off our hat, go put it on, take off our shirt
[unclear] be wearing part of the uniform, walking down the street like
that. Nobody can say anything to you because there’s no shore patrol.
The guys got into a fight in a bar. They were all down at the bar, onto
the street, and it was a main street, you know, maybe four lanes this
way, four lanes that way. The police saw them and the police come
running over, but they won’t interfere because these are American
sailors. They don’t want any problems. So the guys [unclear] in uniform
and we were in whites, our white uniforms. So finally we broke the guys
up. We broke it up [unclear] police [unclear], "We’ll take care of it.
Don’t worry." So we went back with them. But these guys always fought
all the time. I mean, drunk sailors, that’s what’s going to happen,
right? But the land was beautiful, beautiful. Okay, I’ll tell you the
story. It’s really, like, a real male chauvinist story, but if you’re a
sailor and—
ESPINO:
And you’re a male chauvinist? [laughs]
01:07:28
BECERRA:
—and when you hit port, you’ve only got one thing on your mind. So you
go to the bars and you’re going to go either to the whorehouses or pick
up a girl in a bar, right? So I pick up a girl in a bar, and she takes
me home, right? I mean, this is oral history, so I’ll tell you what
happened, okay? So to get to her house we have to take a boat, [unclear]
like canoes, but they have motors on them because she lives in, like, a
hut that’s on stilts over the river. And so I said, "Wow." So we get off
the boat, into her house, and the bed is on the floor, right, a mattress
and a long pillow and a net, a red net. It was a mosquito net, a very
pretty one, right? When you live on the river, you’ve got to have a
mosquito net, and so she has that. And I mean she—I feel like a goddamn
king, man, because she feeds you food in your mouth. I said, "Fuck, I
think I’ve died and gone to heaven," right? Besides the sex and
everything else, right? Jesus Christ, you know?
And what struck me when I was there, I couldn’t believe how beautiful
these Thai girls were. I thought, "My god, they’re so beautiful," and I
can’t figure out why. Then I realized what had happened. They looked
like Chicanas. That’s why they were so beautiful. It took a while to
figure it out, beautiful long black hair, big brown eyes. I thought,
"Jesus Christ, that’s why they look so beautiful." I haven’t seen a
Chicana in years, all right? Two years I hadn’t seen Chicanas and now
I’ve finally seen them, right, but they’re Thais. They’re Thai women,
you know? And we were treated so well everywhere we went.
ESPINO:
But she wasn’t a prostitute?
BECERRA:
Of course.
ESPINO:
Okay, so you were paying for these services?
BECERRA:
Yes. Yes, I mean, the girls make their living—
ESPINO:
I just was wondering—[laughs]
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
Because you said "picked her up," so I wasn’t sure if you meant picked
her up, like, you know you pick up a girl in the bar and whatever. But
she was a prostitute?
BECERRA:
Yes, yes.
ESPINO:
It wasn’t like there was some romance, you met a girl and there was a
romance that blossomed?[laughs]
BECERRA:
No, I’m surprised because, like here, you know, you go to a bar, you
pick up a fichera, well, of course that’s the relationship you’re going
to have, right? You could maybe develop some kind of relationship later
on, but the way you meet, if she’s a fichera, of course you’re going to
pay. The girl’s making a living, right? So, yeah. But all the things
they told us that things were different, trying to make us, like,
culturally sensitive, you know, "Don’t cross your feet and point your
toe at somebody because that’s an insult."
ESPINO:
They educated you like that?
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
Who did?
01:09:39
BECERRA:
The military. They told us we had to have classes on that. "You guys are
going to go in here like American ambassadors, goodwill ambassadors, so
you have to learn how to respect these people’s culture." So, yeah, back
in 1965, they taught us that and they said, "They’re going to see if
things. If you see a lizard going up the wall, leave it there. Those are
their pets," those lizards that would kill the mosquitoes and the bugs
in the house.
So sure enough, we went to a—because, you know, you still go to the
whorehouse, not just the bar. So we’re sitting in the whorehouse and
we’re waiting, and I forget if I was waiting my turn or if I was waiting
for somebody else, you know, and I seen the lizards crawling up the
walls. That’s what they’re there for. And then, too, is that the
prostitution then is not like the prostitution today, okay?
ESPINO:
I wouldn’t know. [laughs]
BECERRA:
Huh?
ESPINO:
I wouldn’t know. [laughs]
BECERRA:
Oh, no. Then, you know, the girls are making a living, and you go there,
you talk with them, you have a few drinks with them, go to a motel, come
back. Next you go to a different bar, the same girl, right? But what
happened as a result of the military buildup and all kinds of military
personnel, a whole industry of prostitution developed and a lot of
gangsterism and the nightclub owners, you know, they just flourished,
and, of course, human trafficking and children trafficking, totally
different worlds. It was not like it was then.
ESPINO:
So you think that back then women made money for themselves, not for
somebody else?
BECERRA:
Yes, most prostitutes do that. This idea of—
ESPINO:
Well, when you think of pimping and gangster and human sexual
trafficking, that kind of thing, they’re not making money for
themselves.
BECERRA:
It’s not like in this country, right?
ESPINO:
Well, I don’t know. I’m just wondering.
BECERRA:
I’m thinking if they’re working over there, I think they’re probably
working for somebody else, not for themselves, okay. Today, okay, I
think they’re working for somebody else because now it’s an industry,
and like any industry, it’s going to be—you’ve got mass production,
you’ve got to be a quota that’s got to be met, stuff like that.
ESPINO:
Wow.
BECERRA:
Of course, it’s not like you’re here. Pimps may represent maybe 5
percent of prostitution; 95 percent of girls work for themselves.
ESPINO:
Right. When you described it, you made it sound almost romantic. I
really don’t know too much about prostitution or what it would be like,
but I wouldn’t imagine—I mean, then you see the images on television and
it doesn’t seem romantic. It doesn’t seem like there’s care and time
taken with the individual, but the way you described it, it sounds like
that.
BECERRA:
No, the way I—
ESPINO:
Like there’s some sort of tenderness. Like there’s tenderness. I guess
that’s what I’m getting at.
BECERRA:
No, I think what it is is that there’s a certain amount of respect that
you have for the girls, okay? You meet them. These are the only girls
you can meet as a sailor. By exception you meet other girls. Like I had
a girlfriend in Japan who was—at that time they called them a commercial
artist. They might be graphic artists. I met her when we went to the
clubs in Yokohama, and the Japanese go to those clubs, right, and that’s
where you would meet Japanese girls that were not bar girls. And that’s
how I met her. But for the most part, these are the only girls that
you’re going to meet, and so unless you’re a racist, you know, you’re
going to show the respect that you would any other girl that you met.
You treat them like a girl, you know, not like a prostitute, or you
treat the prostitute the way she should be treated, okay?
ESPINO:
I don’t know. [laughs]
BECERRA:
Like a girl, like anybody else, I mean, that you respect.
ESPINO:
Oh, uh-huh.
BECERRA:
And like a human being, okay. The relationship that you develop with the
prostitutes, if you went to the same bar, you would see the same girl
all the time. I never did. I would go to different bars and meet
different girls and [unclear] a relationship with the girls in the bars,
just because when I went to the bar I just want to get drunk, you know,
and if I want to be with a girl, I’d just go to the whorehouse, you
know. And sometimes I did, I guess. Maybe I went for the girls in the
bar for the most part. But you asked me how the guys looked. This one
boy from Mississippi, did I tell the story about him? He was from
Mississippi and, like a lot of guys, he fell in love with one of the
girls in the bars. The sailors who married the girls, who married, for
the most part, the girls from the bars.
ESPINO:
Prostitutes.
BECERRA:
Yes, and then they stop being prostitutes and started, you know, I
think, maybe living on the base and stuff like that. So this guy, he
falls in love with this girl. She was a beautiful girl, and so he
married her. They even had a Shinto wedding, and we went to the wedding,
but the military would not recognize the wedding because in order to be
married, you had to have the permission of the commanding officer. It
was a very racist attitude that they had, "Look, you’re only marrying
her because you’re lonely or away from home, and it’s not because you’re
in love." So you would have to have permission of the commanding officer
to be able to get married. Jeez. You might as well be a Mexican daughter
from some rancho in Mexico to go and get permission of your parents. So
he married her and then towards—
ESPINO:
So you had to prove you were in love or you just needed to get the
permission?
01:15:55
BECERRA:
You needed the permission of the officer. I don’t know how you got it.
So then this guy from Mississippi was really sad, talking to us, he was
really sad because he says, "Look. Now, if I marry her, I can ask for
permission to marry her, but if I marry her, I’m going to take her back
home to Mississippi, Mississippi, and it’s not going to be long before
somebody’s going to say something. I’m going to have to get my shotgun
and go kill some son of a bitch." I said, "Well, don’t do it. Stay in
California. Don’t go back to Mississippi."
"California? Goddamn." Says, "California’s full of nuts." I said, "Look,
if you want the freedom to live with this girl, you’re going to have to
move to California. Don’t move back to Mississippi. Stay in California.
Take her back and live in California. That’s why California exists, for
people like this." And, no, he wouldn’t do it. He could not stand the
idea of going back to California, living in California with people who
are different, people who accept racial equality and all this. It was
too much for him. But, no, but I’m answering your question of how did
the sailors look at the bar girls. That’s how you saw them, to the
extent of marrying the girls, okay? And even though the girls, when you
left, would have to work still. I mean, you’re not supporting them
[unclear], and you’d come back and the guys would want to marry them and
some of them would. But they were still the only girls that you really
knew, all right, for the most part. And then, by exception, I got to
meet a girl while I was there and in Japan. But for the most part, no,
the guys would respect the girls.
ESPINO:
Why do you think that you never fell in love with any of the girls from
the bar but you fell in love with this other one?
BECERRA:
Yeah, I really liked her a lot, you know.
ESPINO:
But what made her different?
BECERRA:
What made her different? First, she was not a prostitute, okay? She
wasn’t working the bars, okay, number one. Number two, see, if the girl
from the bar treats you nice, you know why she’s treating you nice,
okay? And there’s money involved, right, and, sure, and you’re treating
her nice, too, you know. The money’s there and there’s always that
issue, right, but you still can treat her nice. With this other girl, if
she treated me nice, which she did, it wasn’t because there was money
involved, right? The reason she treated me nice, besides the fact that
she liked me, is that she was very proud of being Japanese and she was
going to show me how Japanese people treat guests, okay, not how a
Japanese woman treats a man, okay, but how a Japanese person treats a
guest. And that’s what she did. Her and the other girls, when we went on
that island that I told you about and they ordered this great
Japanese—in my whole life I’ll never see another dinner like this.
So they were very hospitable in the same way that Arabs are hospitable
when you go to an Arab home. It’s like old world. So she treated me that
way and, of course, you know, boyfriend-girlfriend type of a
relationship too. So she treated me really, really nice, and those were
things that were different. The girls in the bar were not going to be,
like, middle-class like these girls were, okay? They were from the very
poor class of Japanese, okay, the very poor, and that’s why they were
working in these bars. All of a sudden you meet a girl who’s, like, more
middle-class. Even if they’re working-class, they’re still not as poor
as these other girls.
There were words that we
would learn from the Japanese bar girls because [unclear] that we knew
Japanese, too, right? And we would use it in front of these girls.
They’d say, "No, don’t use those words. No, no. Those are bad words."
Damn, we don’t know. We’re learning from the Japanese girls in the bars.
That’s the Japanese that we were learning, right? Jesus Christ. It’s
[unclear] can’t talk that way. Goddamn. But still, the girls that we
knew in the bars, we still treated them with respect. We’re
working-class, too, just like them, you know?
ESPINO:
So the girls who were more educated, they spoke English?
BECERRA:
Yes. The bar girls did too. Of course, if they’re going to make a
living, they had to learn it, and the girls that were educated spoke it
also.
ESPINO:
And they had these brothels in every single port that you land, in
China—you said you were in Hong Kong and Taiwan, Japan, and Philippines?
Each one had—
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Wow.
BECERRA:
Look, let me tell you. The other day—
ESPINO:
A lot of prostitution.
01:21:37
BECERRA:
Oh, there’s even more now. The other day I was looking for a room, for a
motel, and I was trying to get as cheap a room as I could get, right? At
Denny’s and some McDonald’s there’s a magazine for discounted hotel
rates. So there was one in Wilmington. It’s called the Brothel. So I
called them up. I said, "Hey, I want to know about the room. Tell me the
history of this place."
He goes, "Oh, this used to be a brothel. It’s in Wilmington," which at
one time was full of sailors just [unclear], so this used to be a
brothel. "So we’ve changed it and made it to a motel, but it used to be
a brothel." But, yeah, everywhere, everywhere.
ESPINO:
And did they primarily serve the military or do you think they served
locals as well?
BECERRA:
No. They may have served locals, too, but for the most part—for example,
in Yokosuka it would have been the military because it’s a military
base. In Yokohama it would be mostly merchant seamen who would come in,
and military sailors would be an exception. It would mostly be merchant
seamen who would come in. They had a lot more money, too, than we did.
They got paid good. I’m telling it to you very matter-of-factly because
that’s exactly the way it is, very matter-of-factly, that’s the way it
is. I’ve read other critiques of this by feminists who criticize this,
and this happens to the women that are there and that’s true. But as
long as it’s a way to make a living and women are going to do that—these
women were not being trafficked, okay? They didn’t have pimps. These
were very, very independent women, and almost everywhere we went, that’s
the way it was. But when they criticize us, you know, it’s not something
that just developed with the U.S. military. This goes back thousands of
years. As long as there were sailors, you know, there was going to be
this industry. They aren’t called the oldest profession for nothing. You
know, it’s been there. Anyway, that’s what it was. It’s not like the
Japanese, you know, recruiting the hospitality women in Korea.
ESPINO:
Or kidnapping.
BECERRA:
Yeah. Yeah, putting them in to serve the military, or like the Nazis,
you know, the German soldiers rounding up Jewish women to rape and then
keeping their secret because, you know, it’s too embarrassing, not the
rape, but the fact that they were Jewish women that they’d had the—you
know, that kind of thing.
ESPINO:
Right.
BECERRA:
[unclear], okay?
ESPINO:
So you felt like these women had some kind of agency, some kind of power
in that business transaction?
BECERRA:
Yes, they decided the price, they decided when, they decided with who,
they decided your rates, they decided everything. You’re not going to
stop it. They decided whether or not they were going to be with you or
not.
ESPINO:
Were you ever rejected?
BECERRA:
Yes, because the girl was waiting for her boyfriend, quote, "boyfriend"
coming from another—he was going to come in, and she was going to go
with him, okay?
ESPINO:
So it sounds like there was all this coded language. You didn’t really
talk bluntly about, like you said in quotes, "the boyfriend," meaning
that wasn’t really a boyfriend. And then you said, "pick her up," as if
you were meeting a girl at a bar and becoming friendly and then taking
her to her place.
BECERRA:
You still did that. You still did that very much. First of all, you’re a
sailor, you’re away from home, you want to have a girl to talk to. You
could spend an hour, two hours, three hours talking with her before you
ever went. You didn’t just come in and say, "Hey, let’s go." No, that
didn’t happen.
ESPINO:
Oh, okay.
01:26:22
BECERRA:
No, no. [laughs] No, no. You spent quite a bit of time and then you
might come back for the same girl while you’re in port and see the same
girl all the time. So, yeah, that’s why these guys would fall in love
and get married, you know, because that was—you treat them like human
beings, you know. If you went to a brothel, okay, that’s different,
okay, because there you may not even know who you’re going to be with.
The mamasan would bring out one of the girls, "Here. Go." That’s just
the way it was. She didn’t have any choice and you didn’t have any
choice, okay? Whoever the mamasan decided the matter, right, that was
who you were going to be with. Yeah, there, that’s just the way it is.
You just don’t know.
And here, you know, you go to a—I’ve never been to one, but I know that
when you go there, to all the brothels here, because hundreds of
brothels probably here, you get to choose the girl, okay? But over there
at those brothels, you didn’t.
ESPINO:
So you never got the feeling that they didn’t want to do what they were
doing?
BECERRA:
Oh, the bar girls?
ESPINO:
Well, either, the bar girls or the women in the brothels, like they were
being forced into this kind of business relationship, not really wanting
to?
BECERRA:
Okay, when you’re nineteen, twenty years old, you don’t even think about
these things, you know? You just know that you’re going to go there. The
girls works there. The mamasan is going to bring a girl out. She’s going
to tell you, "This one." And you say, "Well, no." "Okay, this one." "No,
no, you go with this one." The mamasan would get mad and scold you and
tell you, "No, you’re going to go with this one." So that’s who you’re
going with, yeah. But as far as like me getting the feeling like they
were being forced, no. First of all, it wasn’t even on your mind, okay?
ESPINO:
You didn’t care.
BECERRA:
No, we didn’t think about it. It wasn’t that you didn’t care. If I
thought somebody was being forced, yeah, I would care, you know? Even at
twenty years old, I would care, but it never entered your mind that they
were doing something they didn’t want to do. That’s what they did, you
know?
ESPINO:
It was a whole part of the culture. It was a part of the culture of
serving in the navy.
BECERRA:
Yes, or being a merchant seaman or just being a sailor of any type.
ESPINO:
Yeah.
BECERRA:
The girls in the bars was totally different. They decided who they’d go
with or not go with. Yeah, they decided those things.
ESPINO:
So were you getting any messages about—I mean, if it was so much a part
of the culture, were you getting any messages about STDs or birth
control or getting women pregnant or that kind of thing? I mean, did
they give out free condoms as you guys went on leave?
BECERRA:
They would talk to us about it. In boot camp they showed you pictures,
"This is what—." And it scared the hell out of you. It was like being
scared straight, right? And they would tell us to use condoms, right?
But once you were in the bar and you were drinking and you saw the girl,
you didn’t think about condoms and you went and had sex. And if you got
sick, you know, a few days later, you were getting shots. At the time,
there was no AIDS, okay, and the only true venereal diseases that were
common was gonorrhea and syphilis. If you got gonorrhea, they treated
you as if you had gotten syphilis because what’s going to happen, the
symptoms for gonorrhea showed first. If they treat you for gonorrhea,
it’s going to hide the symptoms of syphilis, so they treated you as if
you had syphilis and they gave you a series of shots. So that’s how you
paid for unsafe sex, what today you would call unsafe sex, but you knew
that you were cured, and that was it. And people very seldom got sick. I
don’t know why. They very seldom got sick.
ESPINO:
And you’re talking about a culture of people who did use condoms? I
mean, it wasn’t like part of—just trying to imagine what the mindset was
at the time. You’re pretty regularly going to see prostitutes and you
don’t think that—and you know that these are prostitutes and are
probably having sex with a lot of other different men.
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
You’re not worried about—
BECERRA:
No. Let me tell you why you’re not worried. Number one, you said you’re
very frequently going to see—no, we’re not. We’re at sea for a month or
two months at a time, number one, so we’re not seeing them very
frequently. Number two, when you’ve been at sea for a month—[laughs]
ESPINO:
And you’re twenty or nineteen or whatever.
BECERRA:
Yeah. Yeah, you know? No, that’s going to be the last thing on your
mind, okay?
ESPINO:
Wow.
BECERRA:
You’re going to come in like any sailor who’s been at sea for a month,
twenty years old, you know, going crazy, right? At sea you don’t worry
about it, okay, you don’t worry about it, and there’s Playboy magazines
and stuff like that, and when the officer come by, "Don’t look at those
things." [laughs] Okay. So, no, you didn’t think about—you’re twenty,
you’re going crazy because you’ve been at sea for—and you come in and
see the girls. You don’t come in raping women, you know, like in the old
days what the pirates used to do or something, you know. You go in and
you meet a girl in a bar and you start talking. "Hi, how are you? Will
you buy me a drink?" "Sure." And you start talking with her, and the
girl, for the most part, she’s interested. She makes her money from the
drinks, okay, and she’s not going to want to go right away to the bar.
The bar may tell her, "If you leave with somebody, don’t come back,
because we want you here making money for the bar selling drinks."
ESPINO:
Ah.
BECERRA:
Okay?
ESPINO:
Uh-huh.
BECERRA:
So it will be like towards the end of the night that she’ll go with you,
okay?
ESPINO:
When the bar’s going to close?
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
That kind of thing?
BECERRA:
Yeah. And sometimes they’ll go before that, but for the most part, the
bartender tells her, "If you’re going to work here, you make money for
me before you run out and make money for yourself." So it wasn’t like
the girls were going in and out of the bars, okay, and it wasn’t like we
were there every day. We were there just when we were in port. We’d be
out at sea for a month, come in for four days, back out at sea for a
month, come in for three days, because there was a war. There was a war
going on, and it wasn’t like during peacetime. You had to be at the
front all the time, all the time, so we didn’t get to be in port very
often. One time we were at sea for, I think, sixty-four days, sixty-four
days without—you know. Goddamn, you know? So when you come in, you know,
you only got one thing on your mind, you know, and that’s the way it is.
ESPINO:
Was there a taboo about condoms at that time?
BECERRA:
No, they wanted you to use condoms. They encouraged it.
ESPINO:
The women did. What about the women themselves, like if they would have
suggested it, would it have been—because you know some men feel like
that’s not the same experience.
BECERRA:
I can’t remember—oh, I feel it’s not the same experience right today,
you know? No, I cannot remember—
ESPINO:
[laughs] [unclear] we were talking [unclear]. Okay.
BECERRA:
But, no, nobody ever said you had to use a condom, not the girls. Only
the military told us, and they weren’t there when we were there, when we
were with the girl.
ESPINO:
Right, right, right, right, right. Wow, that’s all very interesting. But
like you said, I think today it would probably be a lot different
because of the AIDS scare.
BECERRA:
Yes. Yes, today it would be very, very different. Sometimes I think if
my son ever decided he wanted to go in the military, I want him to go in
the navy, you know, but then I think, goddamn it, I don’t want him to be
like me. You know, you’ve got to use condoms, but people are being
raised in a different culture about using condoms, you know, for good
reason. But, no, at that time, no, we didn’t think about that. [laughs]
ESPINO:
But I’m thinking, like, for example, just the whole period of sexuality
at that time, because women didn’t have access to a lot of birth
control. I don’t even think the Pill was available. So how would the
women deal with that kind of situation? And I don’t mean just abroad; I
mean here locally. I mean, you said you had a girlfriend, and some of
the other people I interviewed, they also had girlfriends, and other
women, too, I’m interviewing. It was a really complicated thing trying
not to get pregnant.
BECERRA:
No. If I’m in Japan or in China, for example, they have their cultures
that are centuries, millenniums old, and the issue of unwanted pregnancy
is not going to be something new to them and they’re not going to be
like here, clothes-hanger time. Here, the clothes-hanger because there
was no access to abortions, right? Over there, medications that are
available over there are not available here. Cures available—like
there’s pills that I’ve heard of that will cure a heroin addict. It will
cure him. He doesn’t have to go on methadone. It will just cure him.
It’s used in other countries, but not here, okay? So there were other
things a woman could do to avoid pregnancy and things that were
available to them over there, in terms of abortion and stuff like that,
that were not available here, so I don’t think that that was as much of
a problem overseas as it was here. We had to have a Supreme Court
decision to legalize abortion in this country. No, I don’t think in the
ports of Yokohama and Hong Kong and—no, I don’t think that was going to
be an issue.
ESPINO:
But I mean would you even want to get to that point of getting pregnant?
Would you even, as a woman, would you want to get pregnant, allow
pregnancy, knowing that abortion was available, or would you want to
avoid pregnancy altogether?
01:37:54
BECERRA:
You know, I think the women did everything they had to do to avoid
pregnancy, things that we didn’t know about, okay, and I don’t mean just
being operated on. Maybe they used spermicides. Maybe they used all
kinds of other things to avoid pregnancies, because all those things
were available too. In fact, in high school, one of the guys told me
that his girlfriend used some kind of foam, right? So there was a lot of
things that were available to the women to avoid pregnancy. Women here
that maybe came from cultures where they did not want to talk about
those things to their daughters, maybe that’s different. Like, I didn’t
want to talk about sex to my daughter. I was so happy when my daughter
comes in. She’s in eighth grade and she’s having sex education. "What
did they teach you?" "Oh, Daddy, he showed us—." I think it was a banana
or a cucumber. "Shows us how you put on a condom."
I said, "Okay." I couldn’t do that with my daughter. Jesus Christ, you
know? So I’m glad the teachers were able to do that. But in those days,
maybe there wasn’t that education, so the girls were just not going to
know.
ESPINO:
Right, right.
BECERRA:
Culturally, you don’t teach that to your daughter, not the mother,
nothing.
ESPINO:
Right, right. So then what did you do? Did you worry about it yourself?
BECERRA:
About getting somebody pregnant over there?
ESPINO:
Yeah, or here or anywhere before you got married. Or was it the woman’s
responsibility to worry about it?
BECERRA:
[laughs] You know, I don’t know. Even here I don’t ever remember using
condoms, not with any of the women I was with, not with my wives, ever.
Ever, ever, I don’t remember ever—
ESPINO:
So birth control was the woman’s responsibility in your relationships.
BECERRA:
Which, the STD or the—
ESPINO:
Birth control, just birth control.
BECERRA:
Just birth control?
ESPINO:
Uh-huh.
BECERRA:
You make me sound like an asshole. [laughs]
ESPINO:
I’m not trying to. [laughs] I’m not trying to make you sound like an
ass. It’s a good question, and I’ve asked it of some other people, too,
and women too. What did you do? Because that’s a big issue. If a woman
gets pregnant, it can change her whole life. It doesn’t necessarily
change the man’s life. It could—
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
—but not necessarily. But for the woman, it’s an important question.
BECERRA:
Yeah, I never even thought about it, okay, until she would tell me that
she’s pregnant, okay? Then I would think about it. But I’m married.
Let’s see. I can only think about it recently in the last twenty
years—that’s how old I am—only getting two women pregnant, you know, and
one, I had a heart attack.
ESPINO:
Like a real heart attack?
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
Like you or she didn’t want to be pregnant?
BECERRA:
No, she wanted the baby.
ESPINO:
No, but you didn’t want her to be pregnant. That’s why you had a heart
attack, like, meaning—
BECERRA:
No, I didn’t care.
ESPINO:
Oh.
BECERRA:
I think if she wants to have a baby, fine, we’ll have a baby, you know?
ESPINO:
Well, you said you had a heart attack.
01:41:54
BECERRA:
Yeah, because this is the kind of thing you have to be careful who you
get pregnant. I’d always go to her house, you know, with a bag of lemons
and a bottle of tequila, and she’d pull out the weed, right? And I’m
already in my fifties, right? And so we’d drink tequila, smoke weed. So
then what happened, I go over there one day, you know, and she tells me,
"I’m pregnant." "You sure you’re pregnant?" She says, "Yeah." I said,
"Well, what do you want to do? You want to terminate the pregnancy or do
you want to have the baby?" She says, "I want to have the baby." I said,
"Okay, fine with me. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I’m with you.
Whatever we did, we do together." She says, "Okay." So then I stand up
and I get the bottle of tequila and the bag of lemons and I go to the
door to walk back to the car. She says, "Where are you going?" I said,
"I’m going to go put this away. I’ll be right back." She said, "What do
you mean, you’re going to put it away?" I said, "You’re pregnant. We’re
not going to be drinking and smoking weed when you’re pregnant." She
says, "Why not?"
I said, "Jesus Christ." Oh, we got into an argument over that. I said,
"Because you’re pregnant. You can harm the fetus. You can harm the baby.
You can’t be doing that." "Well, I had those two children and they’re
fine," which wasn’t true. The girl was fine. The boy was not, okay? He
had learning disabilities, but I don’t know if it was because she drank
and smoked weed when she was pregnant, and the last thing you’re going
to do is tell a mother he’s like that because this is what you did.
ESPINO:
Wow.
BECERRA:
Because first of all, I don’t know that, and you don’t do that to a mom,
you know? And I don’t know that that’s the reason he has learning
disabilities, you know? I don’t think her smoking weed and drinking
helped, you know, but you’re not going to tell her that. And I’d seen
that before where the mom drank a lot, the baby was born with learning
disabilities. I’d seen it, you know?
ESPINO:
Yeah.
01:43:13
BECERRA:
So then I thought, "Goddamn, what are we going to do?" So we had
arguments over that. I was pissed. Finally, one day she says, "Well,"
she says, "I’m not pregnant anymore. It was a water bag." So I said, "It
was? Well, how come you tested positive for a pregnancy if it was a
water bag?"
She says, "I don’t know." So now I don’t know if she was just testing
me, you know, because she really wasn’t pregnant, if she really did have
a water bag, or if she terminated the pregnancy, or if she had a
miscarriage. It could be any one of those four things.
ESPINO:
Yeah.
BECERRA:
And I didn’t know. But, boy, it scared me because then I thought, "Man,
I’ve got to be careful who I get pregnant. I’ve got to think about using
condoms.[laughs] I’ve got to be careful about who I get pregnant,"
right?
ESPINO:
So you came to that when you were fifty years old, that you had to worry
about—
BECERRA:
Yeah. But remember, I’d been married for, like, twenty years.
ESPINO:
Oh, okay.
01:44:16
BECERRA:
But even then, you know, when I was thirty years old and my wife got
pregnant—you know, I tell my daughters, "Be careful. Think about it. I
want you to get pregnant and I want you to have babies, lots of them,
but the first month I was with your mama, we got pregnant." Jesus
Christ, you know, we were crazy. It was crazy, every day, all the time.
Then one day she’s nauseous and she tells, "Oh, I feel nauseous." Oh,
she feels sick, so I run to get her some medicine at the drugstore for
nauseous, and the nausea doesn’t go away. She’s throwing up, and I’m
thinking, "Oh, my god, I think maybe she’s got the flu." I had no idea.
So she comes back—
ESPINO:
And she didn’t know either?
BECERRA:
No. So she goes to see the doctor. She’s not getting better. She comes
back and she said, "I’m pregnant." And I think—I can’t figure out how
did that happen. [laughs]
ESPINO:
Wow. Wow. [laughs]
BECERRA:
How did that happen? Duh. What have you been doing for the last thirty
days all day, all night, you know? I mean literally all day, all night,
you know, and it never entered my mind that she was going to get
pregnant. So I had my first baby—
ESPINO:
Wow.
BECERRA:
—my first little girl. But, no, I’d never think about that, you know.
ESPINO:
And she wasn’t either, obviously, or—
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
—you weren’t talking about it. You didn’t have a discussion.
BECERRA:
No, we’re just having a ball, you know, we’re having fun. And all of a
sudden she’s pregnant with our first child, you know, and of course it
changes everything. But, I mean, I love my little girl. I was so happy.
ESPINO:
How old were you?
BECERRA:
[laughs] Let’s see. Jeez. I was thirty, thirty years—
ESPINO:
Oh, you were already thirty.
BECERRA:
I was thirty.
ESPINO:
Oh, okay.
BECERRA:
But, see, the other [unclear] about men, we never change, okay, no
matter what. We stay the same, you know? That’s why you’re thinking,
"Oh, [unclear] don’t change. [unclear]."
ESPINO:
[laughs] Whew! Okay. I think that’s pretty good for now. We should
probably stop here. I’m going to turn it off.
ESPINO:
This is Virginia Espino, and today is May 20, 2013. I’m interviewing
Cruz Becerra, previously Cruz Olmeda, at his home in Commerce,
California. Today I want to start with—well, you mentioned that you were
serving in the navy during the Vietnam War, but we didn’t get a chance
to talk about what impact the war had on your life, on your day-to-day
life as a person in the military, but also ideologically, intellectually
it was something that was in the news a lot and people were starting to
develop opinions about our role. Can you tell me what you were thinking
or how it affected you, even though you weren’t actually in Vietnam, how
it impacted you?
00:02:01
BECERRA:
Well, initially when we went over there, it was very superficial. I was
conservative, politically I was conservative, not so far as being a
Chicano, because there I wasn’t conservative. We all knew we were
Chicanos and we understood what racism was because we’d grown up seeing
it. But as far as like the Cold War is concerned, I was a conservative
in that regard. When our ship left Pearl Harbor, we were headed for
Yokosuka, Japan, and halfway there we were rerouted to Vietnam to the
Tonkin Gulf to go on patrol. We were upset because we were sailors. We
didn’t join the navy to go to war; we joined the navy to be sailors, to
have fun, travel, especially if we were in port, because most of the
guys in the navy when I was there, most of the guys came from poor
backgrounds, no matter what your race was. Not everybody, but most of
the guys.
So we went to the Tonkin Gulf and then back to Japan. Well, over a
period of a year, there were things that would happen that we would see.
The Tonkin Gulf incident, we were at sea when that occurred and we were
in what was called Condition Yellow, not Condition Red, which meant
precaution. There’s some things that you do on the ship to take
precautions in case of an attack, we’re halfway ready for it. But it
wouldn’t be till a year later that we would start figuring out that
something was wrong with that issue of the Tonkin Gulf incident, where
the Maddox and the Turner Joy supposedly were attacked by North
Vietnamese torpedo boats, and then Johnson takes it to the Congress and
they pass the Tonkin Gulf Resolution authorizing Johnson to bomb North
Vietnam. Okay, so we were at sea when that incident was supposed to have
occurred. A year later, our ship was being prepared to go on the same
type of a mission, and we were not privy to all the details because we
did not have secret clearances, but the guys in the radio shack, they
did and they were pissed. They said, “These assholes are going to get us
killed.” So we said, “What going on?”
ESPINO:
What assholes?
00:04:07
BECERRA:
The military. Because what was happening is once we were on our way to
that mission, we were no longer under the control of what was called
CinCPacFlt. CinCPacFlt stands for Commander in Chief of the Pacific
Fleet out of Pearl Harbor. Okay, now we were directly under the control
of Washington out of the Pentagon because we were going to go on a
special mission, and what we were supposed to do was go up to the North
Vietnamese coast, shell their oil refineries and anything else and lure
them into coming out into the open sea and firing on us. Well, they had,
like, 1,000 torpedo boats and we thought that was a suicide mission and
we were pissed. You don’t join the navy for something like that.
And so that started us, that started getting us pissed, you know,
because we’re not Marines, we’re not gung-ho. We’re sailors, right?
ESPINO:
You’re saying they train you differently?
00:05:10
BECERRA:
Oh, yeah. Hell, yes. I mean, when they train the Marines, “You’re a
Marine, you’re a Marine for life,” blah, blah. And I’ve been with guys
that were in the Marines afterwards and they think they’re still
Marines. One guy, Rudy, he just died a couple years ago, I worked with
him at [unclear]. He was another mechanic and he carried his dog tags
and all kinds of stuff still from the Marines, and he was very proud of
being a gunner on a helicopter and shooting everybody. One of the kids,
white kids there at work, asked him, “Well, how could you tell who to
shoot or who not to shoot from up in the air?” He said, “You don’t care.
You shoot everybody.” I mean, that’s the way it was. And so, yeah, they
think a lot different than we do as a sailor.
We’d go on shore—well, I’ll tell you one incident in particular, okay?
We were off the coast of Vietnam, and this is where I really started to
change. We’re off the coast of Vietnam and there’s a village. You could
see it on the beach, but there’s a village and there’s fishing boats,
and we’re waving to them and they’re waving to us, you know. And then
all of a sudden, I’m not sure if this was the mission where they were
going to land Marines and the South Vietnam Army was on the south side
of the village. I can’t remember if this was that particular mission,
but what I remember is that they sounded general quarters. I had
different places I went during general quarters. Sometimes I’d be at the
emergency diesel. This time I was at the magazine, and our job was to
take powder from the magazine, take it up, do like a bucket brigade up
to the gun mount, because in the gun mount they had all the shells, but
they didn’t have the powder, and the powder would send it up. It came,
like, in canisters. So we’d send the canisters up from three decks below
up to the gun mount. And we’re just firing and firing, and what they
were firing was white phosphorous shells. White phosphorous shells will
explode over the village and when they explode, white phosphorous, when
it hits the atmosphere, it becomes a ball of fire. So that village was
being burned up. [cries] [recorder turned off]
ESPINO:
Ready?
00:08:46
BECERRA:
Yeah. So we couldn’t see what was going on. We just knew we were firing
shell after shell because we’re below decks. So when there’s a break in
the firing, the gunner’s mate comes down from the gun mount and he’s a
lifer, and he’s an E5, a second-class gunner’s mate, but he’s stupid,
you know, but we asked him, “What’s going on out there? What are we
doing?” And he says, “Ah, it’s fuckin’ great, man. Everything’s burning.
The whole village is burning. Everybody’s running around, their hair’s
on fire, their head’s on fire. Everything’s running around on fire.” So
we said, “What?” What the fuck?” And so everybody that’s passing powder
up stops. A guy had come down to make us hurry up and pass the powder up
faster, and when he told us that, that all these people are being burnt
alive, everybody just freezes, you know. Everybody just freezes.
We can’t believe what we’re hearing, you know, and everybody just stares
at him. And then he looks at everybody just staring at him. Everybody
just froze, and so he starts yelling, “Get that fucking powder up
there!” So we start passing it up again, but everybody’s in shock, you
know, “What the fuck?” And after the fire mission is over, we go up on
the deck and we can see the village is just ashes and smoke coming up.
So then we go sit on the decks and, you know, guys are bummed out. So
I’m sitting down with some other sailors, and the gunner’s mate walks by
and so I look at him, “Hey, motherfucker, what are you going to do now?
You going to go find someplace to jack off now?” And he got all
embarrassed, you know. The other guys wanted to say the same thing to
him, you know, and then he just left because he knew we weren’t like
him. We were not like him at all.
But the thing about it is that even though we were doing something wrong
and we realized what we were doing was wrong, we still kept doing it. We
still kept passing the powder up there. And everybody didn’t like it,
everybody knew it was wrong, we kept passing powder up to that gun
mount, and that bothers you. I mean, you’re nineteen, twenty years old,
and you’re in a military environment where you follow orders no matter
what. And that’s why sometimes I think about the Germans, you know, that
it wasn’t just the SS that killed Jews; it was all the army. Everybody
would just go out on killing missions and just line up Jews and shoot
them down, and you did not have to be in the SS. You could just be a
normal regular soldier who had been drafted into the army and you find
yourself doing the same thing.
ESPINO:
So there was like, a culture of obedience?
BECERRA:
Yes, yes. And also you think about what happens during a revolution,
because I talked to you the last time about the Mexican Revolution, how
prisoners were not taken prisoners; they were shot, they were executed.
Today, of course, all the liberals would be demanding action, you’ve got
to catch guys like Pancho Villa just like you did Milosevic and put him
on trial for war crimes for killing all those prisoners, but that’s the
way liberals are. It wouldn’t matter what the people were going through,
the suffering of the people. What would drive these Indians to revolt in
Mexico? Because besides being a social revolution, it was also a Native
revolt. I see the pictures of those soldiers where they were Indians.
And I think about them when people, like, right now, will the government
take your guns away? I say, yes, they will. And will American soldiers
turn on the American people? Yes, they will, just like Tiananmen Square.
Chinese soldiers turned on Chinese students and fired those weapons,
yes. Human beings are capable of doing that because we did it. We did
it, and the guys on the ground did the same fucking thing. My Lai, there
was thousands of My Lais. You know, it wasn’t just one.
ESPINO:
But they hadn’t prepared you that you would do some killing, that you
would be involved in killing?
00:12:09
BECERRA:
Yes, we did. They did, but, see, this is the only time we actually got
to see what we were doing. The rest of the time we would fire over the
hills. They would tell us, “There’s enemy positions over there you’re
going to bomb.” We didn’t know what the hell—we’re just [unclear] enemy
positions, so we fired. One time they would say there’s—the spotter
plane would be flying. Okay, if you tell us how far away the enemy was,
there’s twenty Viet Congs over here, so they tell us to fire. So we
fired three rounds. The first one, too far though, next one, too short,
so we get a bearing of how to fire the next one. But this time on the
first round of fire, all twenty of the Vietnamese—he said, “They’re Viet
Congs.” He doesn’t know who they are, we don’t know who they are, but we
just assume because they told us, and so you kill twenty people.
So, yeah, and on the side of our ship we had for how many confirmed
killings we had, there were stripes on the side of the ship and also for
the planes shot down because we were a radar picket destroyer. So we
would spot the Vietnamese MiGs coming toward us, and then they would be
intercepted from the carriers and shot down. So those planes were kills
and they were on the side of our ship.
ESPINO:
So meaning that was a symbol of pride?
00:14:07
BECERRA:
Yeah. The kills were, yes. I worked with some guys who—one of the guys
that I work with in the union, he’s a Chicano and he was on a patrol,
for example. He was in the army. He was on patrol. He was on a tank when
they were ambushed. There was an explosion. Everybody had got killed
except three guys. He was one of the guys that didn’t get killed, but he
was all shot up. But before that happened, he was a young sergeant and
before that happened, he says, “I had forty-nine ears.” That means
forty-nine Vietnamese that he killed. He cut off their ears and he wore
their ears, “I had forty-nine ears.” They used to call it those ears. I
mean, that is the degree that not only is the enemy dehumanized, but
also you are dehumanized. That’s what it turns you into. I was lucky I
was not in that situation. Then also times changed. Later, as the
soldiers were going in, they were going in drafted and they hated the
war and they refused to go fight. In fact, that’s when fr_____ takes
place, you know, you kill the officer in charge, the platoon leader. He
wants to lead you into combat. No, you’re not going to go and get
killed.
But at the time this man was in, everybody was still gung-ho. For us on
the ship, after that incident, that’s when we destroyed that village, we
went into port and we would talk to sailors who were on other
destroyers, and they would tell us that they had blown up a hospital.
They said, “But the old man marked it down ‘destroyed a white
building,’” but it was a hospital. So I thought, “Jesus Christ, what are
we doing?” So that’s when I started reading. That’s why I told you I
read and came to the conclusion that, no, that’s not what I believe. I
wasn’t raised that way.
ESPINO:
But how would they prepare you for something like that?
BECERRA:
They don’t.
ESPINO:
They don’t prepare you to hate the enemy? They don’t give you an
ideology about communism, about threat to U.S. security and those kinds
of things where you feel like you were defending something? You’re
defending something against something.
00:16:18
BECERRA:
Yes. Remember, at that time I was going to grade school in the fifties
when you had drills in case there’s an atomic attack, get underneath
your desk, those kinds of things. So, yeah, from childhood, we were
prepared for this anti-Communist thing, right? And, yeah, it was always
a part of the ideology of growing up in the fifties under the Eisenhower
administration, and then later under Kennedy. I mean, Kennedy almost got
everybody killed during the Cuban Missile Crisis, right? He almost
killed the whole world, but this is how strong that ideology was. And
that was, like, in ’62 and I went in in ’63. So, yeah, we were very
much—the military didn’t have to brainwash us. The political climate was
such that you went in to contain communism, right? And then when you
find out that you’re not containing anybody, you’re just killing people,
campesinos, you know, Vietnamese campesinos, “No, this is fucked up.”
That’s not the way you’re raised.
Obviously not everybody is going to start looking at what you’re doing,
examining it, analyzing it, you know, but I was raised that way. My
father raised me like that, you know, think and be critical. And so when
I’m in that situation, yeah, fuck yeah, I’m going to start thinking,
“This is fucked up. I wasn’t raised this way, you know.” That’s when I
started thinking, I’m thinking but not everybody’s like that. Not
everybody’s going to be the same way. Some people are going to come back
proud, you know, and they’re going to go to join the American Legion or
the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and other guys will just want to forget.
Like some guys will go live up in the mountains of northern New Mexico
because they messed up and they can’t go back and live in society,
Chicanos.
ESPINO:
Drugs or alcohol.
BECERRA:
Yeah, yeah. So everybody reacts different ways. I just got pissed. I got
really pissed, you know, because I felt betrayed, really betrayed.
ESPINO:
By who?
BECERRA:
First, by the government, by the military. Because I told you before
about what my experiences are in religion. The church, the churches, the
government, the military, the upbringing that I had, you know, in the
schools that prepared me for something else, and I was bitter and
pissed, you know. So that’s the way I came back: pissed.
ESPINO:
You were already pissed when you left. Then you got more pissed.
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
So was that the first time that you really felt what you were doing was
wrong, was that one Vietnamese experience?
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
And then after that, did you have more of those? Did you have to go
through more of that?
BECERRA:
Yeah, but we didn’t see it. We weren’t going to see it anymore.
ESPINO:
It was a one-time—
BECERRA:
Just that one time we saw it, yeah. Yeah, the one time we saw it and the
rest of the time we didn’t see it. We’d just be told there’s a target,
blow it up. We’d blow it up and we didn’t have to see it. But, no, when
I came back, I was pissed.
ESPINO:
You mentioned—I don’t know if we recorded it; I don’t think we did—that
you started reading. You started absorbing a lot of different ideas.
00:19:1900:20:47
BECERRA:
Yeah. When this happened, after I saw that everybody else was doing it,
too, the other ships were doing the same thing we were doing, and then
all these things started to accumulate, that they were going to send us
on provocative missions to provoke the Vietnamese to attack us and all
that, I went back to the commissary, the store on the base, and got
those books that I told you about. I started reading books on the black
Civil Rights Movement and on the black liberation—not just the black
liberation story here, but in the third world, what was then going to be
called the third world. It wasn’t called the third world yet, and the
struggle against colonialism.
And I started reading about M_____ in Algeria and Lumumba in Africa,
Patrice Lumumba, Fidel, and other leaders in the struggle against
colonialism, and then reading about and being introduced to terms like
neocolonialism. What is neocolonialism? What does independence really
mean? And I would read those and then I would read the struggle of
African Americans and I came to the conclusion it was the same struggle
against the same people. I mean, I was a sailor, but I could see it.
What I was reading, it was the same thing, and I didn’t need anybody to
tell me that. I could see what was happening, the same struggle. And
then because of Cuba, I could identify so strongly with those struggles
because of Fidel and Che. Even though I was not a left-wing politically,
even though I had been raised conservative, I still loved Fidel and Che
because I thought they were right. They were revolutionaries and they
were right. So whatever these struggles, people in other countries, I
identified with them immediately and with the struggle of African
Americans, and so that’s when I started thinking and thinking about
what’s going on.
Also when I was at sea, I had a radio and I would get shortwave from
China, from the People’s Republic of China, and that’s the first time
that I heard about the invasion of Santo Domingo, where Johnson sent the
Marines into Santo Domingo. And I told one of the sailors from South
Carolina—I swear to God, the southerners are so fuckin’ stupid. I told
him what I had just heard on the radio, that the U.S. had invaded Santo
Domingo. He said, “Where did you hear that?” “On the radio from the PRC,
from Red China.” “You’re going to believe that shit? That’s a Red
China’s [unclear].” They’re not going to lie to the world about
something like this. The whole world can—.” “Nah, it’s a fucking
[unclear].” “Jesus Christ.” And, of course, then afterwards, I read Time
magazine and Newsweek magazines where they talk about it, and they were
interviewing the president who had been elected, and how they were
pissed. They were pissed. They said, “Well, this is like the elephant
that’s afraid of the mouse,” the U.S. reaction to the election in Santo
Domingo or the Dominican Republic. And so those kinds of things, you
know, were going through my head, “What the hell’s going on?” And that’s
when I became a Socialist, as a result of that.
ESPINO:
How did you maintain that while serving for the U.S.? Did you have to
hide it? Were you just waiting out your time? Did you want to defect?
00:24:05
BECERRA:
It happened, like, during the last six months I was on active duty. I
think that’s about when it happened. Remember, we’re not in combat all
the time. Most of the time, we’re on patrol. It’s boring. We’re just a
radar picket ship, right, and there were some times you’d go into
combat. At least once a month we’d be in combat, okay, at least once a
month, but most of the time we were on patrol. Our role as a radar
picket ship was to keep tabs on the North Vietnamese MiGs and to defend
the aircraft carriers that were bombing both the North and South. So if
any MiGs came towards the aircraft carriers, we had to warn the aircraft
carrier, or any torpedoes, any subs, anything. We’re there to warn them,
but then we would be relieved on patrol and go back to Japan. But during
those missions, we would go on combat missions and that’s when these
things would take place.
So most of the time I was not doing that. Most of the time I didn’t have
to even think about it, and that gave me time to read and to think and
that was it, you know, that was it. It wasn’t till I came back, and then
there were things that would happen. I come back, and Muhammad Ali has
become the champion, and my brother’s all pissed off, “Goddamn it,
Cassius Clay’s got a big mouth.” Well, yeah, Cassius Clay had a big
mouth, of course, you know? And so I tell my brother, “But that’s good.
That’s good. Somebody’s got to speak up like that, Ruben. Somebody’s got
to speak up like that for black people. He’s not supposed to be humble
and quiet.”
So then my brother started thinking about it. My brother was the same
way and so he starts thinking about it and then he became, like, very
left-wing, very critical of the government, and my whole family, my
whole family, my brothers and sisters. But I saw Muhammad Ali and the
stands that he took. So then I enrolled at Compton College, and the
first thing I wanted to do is go to the library and get a book on Karl
Marx. So I don’t know anything about communism, so I go get Das Kapital
and, you know, like I said, I read the first page and I said, “That’s
it. Forget it.”
ESPINO:
It’s pretty dense reading to read alone. In a class, maybe.
BECERRA:
Today you can go on the Internet and there’s classes on Kapital on the
Internet. You’ve got an instructor that will take you through it, but in
those days, you know, we didn’t have the Internet. So either you have a
class, have somebody leading you, or forget it.
ESPINO:
Were you afraid, though, to be seen with a book like that? Did you hide
it? Did you cover the book cover so nobody could see what you were
reading, or was it something that you felt safe doing in public?
BECERRA:
[laughs] Okay. I got out in ’66, and then a year later I’m working—I got
out in July of ’66. I got discharged. A year later I’m working at
Douglas Aircraft on the line, right? I had been working on the military
work and then I went over to the commercial side. Most of the work I did
was commercial. But I was pissed, and this is 1967, and so I grow my
beard, I’ve got my jacket on, on the back in [unclear] it says “Viva la
revolución,” right? [laughs] I went to work with that in that place
where you’re supposed to have a security clearance to work, right? I
didn’t care. I didn’t care. I was still so pissed, I didn’t care. No, it
didn’t bother me at all.
ESPINO:
Did you know what you were building at Douglas Aircraft?
BECERRA:
Yeah, the military part was on the Phantom, the F-4 Phantom, which is
[unclear] still used today. They just upgraded it, and this is, like, a
forty-year-old plane. But I was on the F-4 Phantom and the T-38 trainer.
Those are two planes. And the Phantom was being used in Vietnam. The
single most-used plane in Vietnam was the phantom.
ESPINO:
I’m assuming you developed an anti-Vietnam War position.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
When did you develop that? Was it while you were—
BECERRA:
While I was in the service.
ESPINO:
But you came back and you were working in a place where you were
actually building bombs.
00:28:26
BECERRA:
Yes. To me it was two different things. I didn’t know at the time that
that’s exactly—the Communist position is that it’s two different things.
Because wherever I went, I wasn’t going to shut my mouth about what we
were doing, okay? I mean, I’ve worked on F-18s afterwards, the navy
F-18s, and I’ve never cared. I mean, I’m working, look, at Northrop in
the eighties, at Northrop in the eighties I worked on the F-18s. I was a
toolmaker, not an assembler, but as a toolmaker. There were guys working
on those planes rolling their toolboxes and they got KPFK stickers on
their toolboxes [unclear]. I mean, this is your job, this is what you
do, okay? And then sometimes the guys would get pissed off and they
would sabotage these planes. And then [unclear] would come in, they’d be
all pissed off. But that’s the way it is.
So, no, I had no problem working on the F-4 Phantom, the T-38 trainer or
the commercial, because I worked on the DC-8 and the DC-9, yeah, DC-8
and DC-9, yeah. DC-10 would come out later after I quit Douglas.
ESPINO:
So when you returned home, you immediately were able to get a position?
BECERRA:
No, I had bum jobs that I hated, both union and nonunion, because I
didn’t have a way to get into a skilled job immediately. So the only
experience I had was an electrician, so I applied as an electrical
sub-assembly at Douglas and I got in, both because I was a veteran and I
had—they want to know if you can work with your hands, you know, the
dexterity and all that, and I did, so I got in there.
ESPINO:
Did they give you a test?
BECERRA:
Yes, you get tested quite a bit. You have to have the dexterity, the
manual dexterity to work there in sub-assembly, and, yeah, I had it. I
had it from high school when the type of work that I had done, part-time
work that I had done while I was in high school, that developed my
dexterity a lot. It was packing and unpacking eggs, dairy products, but
the eggs primarily. And so that teacher [unclear] fast, everything fast,
“And don’t break those eggshells as you’re handling them,” right?
ESPINO:
Just being careful.
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
Fast and careful.
BECERRA:
Yeah. So I was trained for that.
ESPINO:
So in 1966, that’s when you moved back to—
BECERRA:
Compton. When I came out of the navy, I went back to live in Compton.
ESPINO:
And that’s where your parents were?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
And you stayed with them?
BECERRA:
I stayed with them for about a year and then moved out.
ESPINO:
Why did you move out?
BECERRA:
Stupid. Because you think that you’re already a man, you shouldn’t be at
home, and the girls wanted to be with guys that have their own
apartment, and I buy into that. In ’66, I buy a ’66 Impala, right,
because now, you know, I’m a veteran. This is what I should be doing.
And you’re young and stupid, you know. I should have stayed with my
parents longer. Just a lot of things I could have done while I was
living with them, which I didn’t do. But that’s what I did.
ESPINO:
Like what? What could you—
BECERRA:
I could have helped them just pay off the house faster, okay, and then
at the same time, I could have, for my own future, I could have started
buying property at the time. Because later on in the eighties I would be
buying a lot of real estate, but then in the nineties I would lose it
all. But I could have bought property then, you know, and things that
you have to do to be able to have a certain amount of freedom to do
things that you really want to do and not be stuck in the factory all
the time.
ESPINO:
So you were making good money then?
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
Did you regret having joined the navy or did you think that—
BECERRA:
No. No, even today, even today I don’t. If I hadn’t joined the navy, I
would not have had the experiences that I had. I would not have the
understanding that I have. I would not have traveled. I mean, you have
to get away. You have to get away from the barrio or the ghetto,
wherever. You’ve got to get away, you know, so you can start back and
reflect, and the only way to get out was the navy. There was no other
way. And the fact that there was a war going on, I’m sorry, but that’s
the way it is. I mean, these are things that happen in life. You can’t
go back and rewrite it and you’ve got to go back and learn from it. And,
no, I’m not sorry that I joined the navy. I enjoyed [unclear].
ESPINO:
When you came back, you said that you joined the Young—
BECERRA:
Chicanos.
ESPINO:
It wasn’t Citizens?
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
How did you hear about that group? Because this was in 1967, so the year
after your return.
00:34:1000:35:19
BECERRA:
Yeah. I was driving through East L.A. These are things you remember
forever, right? My cousin and I had gone to see some girls that lived in
Ramona Gardens in Hazard, right? Come back, we go to a hotdog stand to
get something to eat, and at the counter there’s a magazine there, just
a four-page, like, paper, and so they call it a magazine, but it’s not
really a magazine. It’s just four pages. I pick it up and I start
reading it. It’s La Raza magazine, right? So I start reading it. And
this was maybe in September or October of ’67, a year later. And so I
start reading it and I read it and I react like my daughter did when she
read that book on Killing the Black Body. I read it. I said, “What the
fuck? I’m not crazy. I’m not the only one who thinks this way.” So I
read it. “Son of a bitch,” you know. And so there was a phone number, so
I called up La Raza, and the guy that answers the phone was Chicho
Jiménez, Narciso Jiménez, and he was a steelworker. I think he was out
of 2058, Local 2058, I think. He answers the phone and I told him that I
saw the magazine. I wanted to get involved, go help put out the paper
and stuff, and he says, “Tell you what. You should go down to the—.”
First he asked me what I do. I told him, “I’m [unclear].” “Oh, you’re in
the Autoworkers?” “Yeah, I’m in UAW.”
He says, “Hey, we need you there, man. We need more Chicanos in the
unions.” I said, “Yeah, but, you know, what I want to do isn’t the union
[unclear] local. I want to get involved with—.” I didn’t know there was
Chicano Movement at the time. I just thought there was this magazine.
And this is ’67, so the movement hasn’t really exploded yet. So he told
me to go to the Piranya Coffeehouse. He said, “There’s young Chicanos
like you who think like you.” To me, a coffeehouse meant beatniks,
right, and jazz. I said, “Wait a minute. Fucking beatniks. I don’t want
to go to a coffeehouse with a bunch of beatniks.” “No, no, no, no, no.
They’re young Chicanos like you.” So then I go to the Piranya
Coffeehouse with my cousins, the same ones, and I start talking to the
people there. I think, “Goddamn it, these people think like I do,” and
they’re involved in different issues in the community, different
political issues and social issues, and they’re involved with UMAS and
MASA, the student organizations at the time.
And so what happens, you know, I want to go to some of the
demonstrations and get involved, but I can’t because I’m working day
shift at Douglas, so I asked for a change to go on swing shift. I go on
swing shift, so on the day shift I can be active in the community. Well,
in a way that’s what got me arrested because then I’m involved in the
walkouts. If I’d stayed working day shift, I would have [unclear] at
nighttime, right? I would never have gotten busted, right, but I go on
day shift and I got swept into that. But, yeah, that’s what got me
involved was la revista. Years later I would tell Risco, and he was very
proud, you know, that that’s how I’d gotten involved, because Risco was
[unclear] that struggle, right? But that’s how I got involved with the
Young Chicanos for Community. So I talked to David Sanchez. He said, “We
changed the name to Young Chicanos.” At that time, Vicki Castro was not
there anymore. Moctesuma was not there anymore because he went to
school. Moctesuma Esparza was involved; I just did not see him because I
was working swing shift and he was going to school and after school he’d
be involved in organizing the walkouts and stuff.
ESPINO:
He had an opposite schedule to you.
BECERRA:
Yeah, we had opposite schedules, and with a lot of people it was like
that. That’s why these people say, “Remember we used to hand out at the
coffeehouse?” I wasn’t there. I was working, and that’s why I missed a
lot of people who were at the coffeehouse during that period.
ESPINO:
In the night.
BECERRA:
In the night, yes.
ESPINO:
So do you remember who was there at the first—well, let me back up,
because you said that he told you we needed people in the unions, we
needed Chicanos in the unions. And you said—
BECERRA:
I said no. I said, no, I wasn’t interested. I wasn’t interested. I
wanted to know—I read the magazine. Where I was doing that, that’s what
I wanted to do, okay, and I did not want to do that in the local, and I
think I was right. That was the right decision to make.
ESPINO:
Do you remember specifically what issues drew your attention?
BECERRA:
No, I don’t. No, I don’t.
ESPINO:
Have you seen that same magazine?
BECERRA:
Probably. I’m sure there were things there that had to do with police
brutality and with Reddin. Reddin was the police chief then. But I can’t
remember all the stuff.
ESPINO:
Be interesting to see what was in that issue that—I don’t have any. I
have one, but it’s from 1977, so it’s ten years later. But they do have
it in the library, which is nice, if you’re interested in ever checking
those out. So then you go to the La Piranya and you do meet David
Sanchez.
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
What was your impression of him back then? Not today, but back—yeah.
[laughs]
BECERRA:
I thought Dave was cool, “David, you’re raising the right issues,
David.” Ralph Ramirez was there. I think Fred might have been there by
then. Carlos Montes wasn’t there right away in ’67, but he was certainly
there in ’68, by January, February, you know. But the thing, too, is
that I would not see Carlos, because Carlos was there at night, and I
didn’t see Carlos again in the daytime until the walkouts. He was there,
but I was on a different shift. But I remember Johnny Parsons was there,
and Johnny Parsons became like a mythical symbol in the Berets and in
the movement.
ESPINO:
Johnny Parsons?
BECERRA:
Johnny Parsons, yeah. His name was Manuel Alva, but he used the name
Johnny Parsons. His father was a Mexican lawyer who had been a part of
the administration of the president who tried to start the initiative to
modernize Mexico, Aleman, Miguel Alemán. Miguel Alemán is really
criticized real heavily in the movie La Ley de Herodes.
ESPINO:
I’ve never seen it.
BECERRA:
Oh, you’ve got to see it.
ESPINO:
It’s a history film about Mexico?
00:40:2400:42:16
BECERRA:
Yeah, it’s a film about La Priista at the time of this push to modernize
Mexico in the fifties, early fifties, and it’s called La Ley de Herodes.
And when you see it, you understand. You know el Rey Herod was Herodes
Remember when King Herod is king of the Jews, right, and the wise men
come to tell him that the king of the Jews has just been born, and he
says, “Oh, well, tell me where he is so that I might go and worship
him.” And he wants to kill him so they don’t go back and tell the king,
right? That’s the story, right? So then the king says, “Well, hell. Then
I’m going to have to kill every little guy that’s under two years old.”
So King Herod goes and kills all the children under two years old. So in
other words, before you kill me, I’m going to kill you. I’m going to get
mine before you—I’m going to wipe you out so I can get mine, right?
That’s La Ley de Herodes and the movie’s [unclear]. Well, Miguel Alemán
was the one who starts to push to modernize Mexico. He’s not a
character, but he’s like a topic in that movie.
But anyway, Johnny Parsons’ dad was a Mexican lawyer. His mom was
Jewish, but I can’t remember if she was Jewish from the U.S. or Jewish
from Mexico, but she lived here and I met her, a really, really nice
lady. So Johnny Parsons is important because Johnny Parsons is a guy who
came up with the idea of wearing a brown beret, and he would explain to
us the importance of it. So when somebody would think that we did it
because the Panthers had berets and that influenced us, but that wasn’t
the reason. The people in MASC, the Mexican American Student
Confederation, they wore black berets, and we had seen them in December
of ’67 at the statewide conference of UMAS and Chicano Student
Organizations, and that influenced us as well.
But Johnny says, “We have to have a brown beret because we’re brown
people. We represent a brown continent.” And he says, “And it’s
important because it’s a symbol of urban guerilla warfare. This is what
the Europeans used against the Germans.” You know, when you see pictures
of the underground in France and stuff, they all wore berets. He says,
“That becomes a symbol of guerilla warfare against the occupiers of our
land.” He says, “That’s why we have to have it, as a symbol of a
struggle against the occupation of our land.” And then he had the symbol
for it, the crossed rifles, and then he put the cross. I said, “Johnny,
why do we have to have a fucking cross, Johnny?” I didn’t want to have a
cross. He says, “No, because our people are Catholic.” “Doesn’t give a
fuck, man. We don’t need a cross. All right, fuck it. We’ll have a cross
on there.” And so it has a cross and the rifles, right? I mean, I’ve got
to wear the name Cruz right [unclear] the beret, right? Anyways, so that
goes on there and that becomes a symbol. And so then, you know, the
berets, all the grief [unclear] that’s what we’re going to have. That’s
going to be our symbols, that’s our causa, and Johnny’s the one who came
up with the idea.
ESPINO:
You were there? You witnessed him making these statements?
BECERRA:
Yeah, we talked about it, not just me. Tacos was there. David Torres
[phonetic], he was there. Everybody saw that. Yeah, we all saw that.
ESPINO:
I’m going to go back and look at my—because I write the names of the
individuals that are mentioned in my interviews for the people who are
transcribing so that I give correct spelling. I don’t remember hearing
his name.
BECERRA:
Who? Johnny?
ESPINO:
Yeah, I’ve interviewed David Sanchez and Gloria A_____ and Carlos
Montes.
BECERRA:
Yeah. You’re not going to hear the name. Nuh-uh.
ESPINO:
What happened to him?
00:46:3700:47:59
BECERRA:
He went back to Mexico and later went to San Diego. You can go to San
Diego and ask anybody who’s Johnny—his name was Manuel Alva. That’s one
of the reasons why people say, “Here was Johnny Parsons.” In San Diego
he was known as Manuel Alva. In San Diego he established, like, a new
life, and the people down there know him, okay? Johnny was—whew. Johnny
was almost like an ideological leader for the Berets. He’s the one that
gave us, like, how to think about—first, to think of ourselves not just
as Chicanos, but as part of a brown continent, and not just to think
about Aztlán, even though at the time we didn’t talk about Aztlán till
afterwards, but to think about ourselves as fighting not just for the
Southwest, but for the whole continent, that it was a brown continent
and that we were brown people and to look at things that way.
He’s the one that told us the importance of having the symbol as the
Brown Berets. He’s the one that taught us that we had to make a break
with the Mexican Americans, and the only way to make that radical break
was to have radical symbols and radical rhetoric that would isolate them
and would cause a split among the Mexican American community. They had
to be put in a situation where they had to take a position either with
the movement or against it, and if you’re against the movement, you’re
with the whites, you’re with the Vendido. That’s where the Vendidos come
out and the Tío Tacos comes out, because we started to really push and
push that issue, who are the Tendidos, who are Tío Tacos, who’s going to
side with the Chicanos, who is going to call themselves a Mexican
American, who is going to call himself a Chicano, who’s going to cause
that split, that polarization. And he explained to us how important that
was, that we had to push it hard, which we did, to the extent of going
to jail.
Everything we had to do had to push, because that ideological push that
we had to do, and the thing is that the time was right for it. By the
time the walkouts came, shit, after that, there was no stopping it. But
we had to make that split and Johnny Parsons was the ideological leader
of all of us, and that’s the line that he pushed. That line did not come
from anybody else except Johnny Parsons, not David, not Ralph, not
anybody except Johnny Parsons. The thing about Johnny is that he was
just as militant, and when he talked, that’s just as militant as he was,
actions that he took, things that he did. So people had a lot of respect
for him, a lot of respect. And, yeah, people will forget him or they
didn’t see him, okay? The people that forget him, porque no les
conviene, remember to remember him, okay, and people that won’t mention
him, they weren’t there when these decisions were being made.
Like, there’s an argument, who were the original Brown Berets. Okay,
that’s how you find out too. Ask him who was Johnny Parsons, and the
people that know who Johnny Parsons was, those are the original Brown
Berets because they know him.
ESPINO:
Was he part of the Young Citizens? Young Chicanos, or did he come—
BECERRA:
Yes, he was there. Young Chicano for Community Action. He was there at
the Piranya Coffeehouse. Now, I don’t think he was part of Young
Citizens for Community Action.
ESPINO:
Okay. There were no women at this time, in those early days?
BECERRA:
Yes, there were. My sister, okay, my sister was there. Lizzy was there.
Diane Robertson was there, but Diane Robertson had a problem, in that
David Sanchez was anti-Communist. And Diane Robertson, because she hung
out with the Panthers, was very much a Maoist, okay, and so she would
come and talk to us. And, you know, there were elements in the Brown
Berets who would, like, try to isolate her based on her ideology.
ESPINO:
Not because she’s white? I’m assuming she’s white by her name.
BECERRA:
Yeah, she’s white, but, you know, it depends on how you’re going to say
that, okay? She’s Portuguese, I think, and her family owns—on [unclear]
Street, you know when you drive by at the corner of Alameda and Sunset,
you see Celito Lindo, the taco stand? Okay, her family owns that. She’s
my age. So she’s one of the owners of that, okay, so I see her, like,
separate from the community. She’s part of our community. She’s one of
us, okay?
ESPINO:
Culturally.
BECERRA:
Yeah, culturally she’s one of us, okay? And as far as racially, it
doesn’t matter because we’re everything. We’re black, we’re everything.
But she’s one of us.
ESPINO:
Well, let me just clarify. I asked that because the Brown Berets were
nationalistic.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
And if you look at the Chicano Movement, some factions of the movement,
like, for example, Corky Gonzales, very nationalistic, not allowing
whites to—they don’t want whites to be in the leadership. They don’t
really want whites to be a part of it because they want
self-determination of the Mexican American people. That’s why I asked
that, because in some of the rhetoric in La Causa, it’s very anti-white,
anti-Anglo. The Anglo is almost likened to the devil. So that’s why I—
00:51:16
BECERRA:
No, I don’t think it was that because, first of all, there’s always
going to be white girls there anyway, right? Well, there were. This is
1967, ’68, okay, and the white girls are going to come, right? No, that
wasn’t the reason for Diane being [unclear]. Because of her ideology.
So, yeah, there were women there, okay, but if you were a Communist,
there was a real strong anti-Communist thing. I wasn’t a part of that
anti-Communist thing. I didn’t have a problem with their Red Books. Some
of the people did. And she would pass out the Red Books and then there
was a bonfire. Somebody got the Red Books and started a fire with the
Red Books, which pissed me off, but I wasn’t there when it happened,
because I don’t believe in that. You don’t burn books, you know. But,
yeah, there were women there, but like I said, I changed shifts. Like in
February I changed shifts. And these were important early days, too,
February of ’68. The walkouts happened in March. So I stopped seeing who
was there at night.
ESPINO:
Well, okay. So you mentioned Johnny Parsons, who at the time also was—is
Manuel Alva his real name?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
That’s his name in San Diego?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Manuel Alva is his name by birth?
BECERRA:
His real name, yes.
ESPINO:
By baptism or whatever. And the way you describe it, it sounds like
there was a unity of thought based on his ideas. Is that correct?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
And then you’re talking about the anti-communism. So where did Johnny
Parsons—what was his position on that? I mean, if he was like the
ideological leader, how did it become David—
BECERRA:
Oh, he left.
ESPINO:
—directing the anti-Communist position?
BECERRA:
Okay. First of all, if I didn’t want to be anti-Communist [unclear]
people, we would just laugh because we’re not a Communist organization.
So if you want to hate communism, hate communism all you want. We don’t
care. We have an agenda, which was a democratic agenda, democratic in
nature, about dealing with issues of school representation, all kinds of
issues, anti-discriminatory. And so we weren’t fighting for socialism.
So if you want to be anti-Communist, that’s your business. We don’t
care. We’ve got an agenda. That’s what we’re fighting for. There’s a
program. That’s it. So we didn’t care.
ESPINO:
Well, what about the Little Brown Book? Where does that come into play?
BECERRA:
Never heard of it.
ESPINO:
You never heard of the Little Brown Book?
BECERRA:
Somebody mentioned it sometime, but I never—
ESPINO:
David’s Brown Book, the book that he wrote, the little manifesto he
wrote when he was in jail.
BECERRA:
Jesus. Yeah, now I remember. I’ve never seen it. I’ve never read it.
I’ve never had any interest in reading it.
ESPINO:
He never had the Brown Berets study it and memorize the policies? I
don’t have it with me. I thought I brought it with me, but I think I
might not have it. I’ll bring it next time. I have a photocopy of it. I
don’t have the actual Brown Book. So that wasn’t, like, the doctrine
that—
BECERRA:
Not in ’68. Not in 1968, no. It might have come in later, but not in
1968.
ESPINO:
So then what was your objective? You said you had a philosophical belief
system and things that you wanted to accomplish as the Brown Berets.
What would those be?
00:56:17
BECERRA:
The things that struck us right away was, one, was the issue of police
brutality, okay. That was like a day-to-day thing. The other issue was
that there was no representation anywhere, like on the Board of
Supervisors, on the City Council. We had Nava on the school board. That
was, like, our way of exception. And so the question of having
representation, democratic—that was important. The question of schools,
the quality of education, what we were being taught in school, the lack
of respect for our history in the schools, those were issues. There were
issues of jobs, and I think one of the things that stuck out really
strong was the war. Initially, when the issue of the war came out, I was
against the war. There were going to be elements who did not want to be
a part of the Antiwar Movement. I remember David Sanchez saying that
that was a white thing, that struggle against the Vietnam War was a
white thing, right, and that was not our thing. Well, that’s okay
because, I mean, I was for the war too. I changed my mind. Everybody
grows, and it wouldn’t be long before he was opposed to the war.
Let me give an example. In February of 1968, the Congress of Mexican
American Unity had their convention at Belvedere Junior High School, at
the auditorium at Belvedere Junior High School, and it was to endorse—
[interruption]
ESPINO:
Education. Okay, we’re back. You were telling me what the issues were,
the important issues of the Brown Beret, and you left off with a
description of the problems in the educational system that you saw.
Those issues, were they based on your own personal experience or what
you were getting from the community? How did you define—
BECERRA:
For me they were based on my experiences, and what I heard from the
community really just verified what I had already seen in high school at
the time, the alienation that I felt, and to a point of wanting to drop
out. I only stuck it out because I figured I’m too close to graduating,
might as well stay here, but those issues were real. The school was like
a reflection of society as a whole, their attitude towards Chicanos. And
so you’ve got all those issues that were being raised were the things
that I had seen, so that’s what it was based on.
ESPINO:
What about the influence of the black Civil Rights Movement? Were you
looking at what they were doing and thinking you had the same problems
and you should address them? Did they have any influence on what the
Brown Berets were going to tackle first?
BECERRA:
A lot and, in particular, the Black Panther Party. But the whole
militant wing of the African American struggle influenced us a lot, a
lot. For example, we would go to the dances at the Black—what’s it
called? I was going to say Black Workers [unclear], but it’s not. It was
the Black Congress Building on Florence and Broadway. There was a
two-story building there, and they had the Black Congress Headquarters
there. We’d go there. We went to the Free Huey Newton rally in 1968, and
it was a tremendous experience. People present there, I mean, jeez,
there was Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Betty Shabazz, the widow of
Malcolm X. Let’s see. God, I can’t remember all of them, all the people
that were there, but Reies Tijerina spoke, and people went crazy over
Tijerina. When they were introducing him—remember, this was after Tierra
Amarilla and the courthouse raid, okay, because that had happened in
June and now six months later, seven months later, this is February, and
the courthouse raid was front-page news.
It was, like, on the second page of a right-wing newspaper here, the
Herald Examiner, so people were very much aware of Tierra Amarilla. This
took place at the Sports Arena downtown, and when they introduced Reies,
I remember the brother who introduced him said, “All you people out
here, you’re talking about revolution. I’m about to introduce the man
who is making revolution!” Everybody went crazy. And then Reies didn’t
come out. His brother came out. They came from [unclear]. One of the two
came out and said, “He’s not here yet.” But then afterwards Reies walks
out and everybody went crazy. It was a great, great rally and it was to
raise funds to free Huey Newton. So, no, we were influenced a lot, I
mean a lot by the black liberation struggle. That would have a really,
really deep effect on us all the way.
ESPINO:
It would be ideology or strategy or—
BECERRA:
I think those two things. One was an identity with that struggle, okay,
identifying with that struggle, especially for me, from Compton, where I
grew up. The other one was the message, you know, of racism is bullshit.
We’re not going to put up with it. We’re going to fight it right down
the line, the most militant tactics, by any means necessary. That was
the second thing. So from the tactical issue, ideological issue, yeah,
we were not just impressed but identified so strongly with it, and all
of us did. I mean, even today, you talk to Ralph Ramirez. It was just
like if it was yesterday. He still feels very strongly against it,
attitude against racism, and I mean, he still doesn’t give an inch on
it. [interruption]
ESPINO:
Anyway, we’re back and we were talking about the issues.
BECERRA:
We were talking about Ralph Ramirez and that his views are just as
strong today as they were then.
ESPINO:
Right.
BECERRA:
He’s still a fighter, you know, his attitude is the same.
ESPINO:
Right, but also we were talking about—I asked you if the ideas of the
Brown Berets came—oh, you were talking about the Black Panthers and how
Ralph still gets angry when people are racist towards blacks or whoever.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
So when you were talking about the Free Huey Newton demonstration, did
you feel at that time that you were part of a community of
like-minded—like a revolutionary cadre or—
BECERRA:
Yes, at that point, definitely. I totally felt that way, and also I saw
the black revolutionaries as definitely taking the leadership role. Yes,
we had [unclear], true, and we had Corky and we were young. You know, we
were like—yeah, we were very, very young and we were accepting them as
our role models, you know, people to emulate, very much so.
ESPINO:
So did you have a critique of Martin Luther King and that kind of civil
rights activism?
BECERRA:
Yes, we did, and it was an unfair one. It was very unfair. But you have
to remember that we were young, and our criticism of Martin Luther King
was just as shallow as anybody else’s, all the black militants, that
Martin Luther King was a good man, but that his path was not the right
path to bring about equality. That had to be a revolutionary path, that
we had to answer violence with violence. There was no turning the other
cheek. And our attitude towards Martin Luther King was not a positive
one. Later we would grow out of that and realize what a great man he
was.
ESPINO:
How much later?
BECERRA:
I can’t remember. I can’t remember how much later, but it would be
later, yeah, years later. Not days later, years later.
ESPINO:
Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking, years later.
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
So who in the Chicano community or Mexican American community would you
liken to or did you liken to Martin Luther King? Because a lot of the
history talks about how the Chicano Movement was in opposition to the
generation of, like, the G.I. Forum and the LULAC people. Did you have a
critique of the way older Mexican Americans conducted their civil rights
activism, like Esteban Torres or Julian Nava, for example?
01:05:35
BECERRA:
Yeah, basically they were, like, at the mercy of the white liberals, and
that was the first problem that we had, that even if they were elected,
they were at the mercy of the white liberals. Today it’s different.
Today they’re at the mercy of whoever has money: insurance companies,
oil companies. [laughs] So, you know, only the master has changed,
right? But we were pissed about that. We were pissed about their
attitudes, their attitudes towards racism and towards militant action.
They were Vendidos, you know, and like I said, we had to make a turn
away from those very traditional views. We criticized them as Vendidos
and Tío Tacos, even though by any standard they were still progressives,
okay, but to us they were Vendidos, given how everything was changing,
given how young we were, given the times, but they were progressives.
They just were not radical enough, and we had to light a fire under
their ass to get them to change or at least to put on a show for us that
they were changing. So, yeah, that was our attitude towards them, that
they were [unclear], they were Vendidos.
ESPINO:
What does it mean to be a white liberal? Does it mean the same today as
it did back then?
BECERRA:
It does to me.
ESPINO:
Well, I don’t know.
BECERRA:
Basically, that you can’t trust them.
ESPINO:
What kinds of things would they do or how would their ideology shape the
Mexican Americans in power, like, for example, Edward Roybal or Julian
Nava, who was surrounded by whites? I don’t even think they were all
liberals, though.
BECERRA:
Are you talking about today or back then?
ESPINO:
Back then.
BECERRA:
Back then, basically, they would be afraid—first, they would be afraid
to speak out, and we would have to put a lot of pressure on them. But
remember, there were very, very few elected officials, if any, and those
that were there tended to be more conservative because they had gotten
in with the traditional way and so they would be afraid to offend either
liberal Democrats, liberal Chicanos, and so they would be afraid to
speak. They would isolate themselves, as far as they were concerned.
They would not be able to work in Sacramento. They wouldn’t be able to
do anything. I mean, you might as well call yourself a Communist. So
they were very much affected by the white liberals.
ESPINO:
So you’re saying that they would be afraid to offend the white or
anybody who didn’t have—who had—well, I guess the people in power. They
would be afraid to offend the people in power, which would be the white
people.
01:09:07
BECERRA:
Yes. Look, it’s just like today, okay? An issue comes up. President
Obama orders the execution of an American, two Americans, one fifteen
years old, one an adult. He orders their execution without a trial,
without charges, without anything. [unclear] execute them. You would
think there would be an outcry from the whole liberal community. Nada,
okay? The Mexican liberals fall into line. There’s only so much they can
do. They’re not going to criticize Obama. Okay, you have to turn to the
Tea Party, the libertarians, to be outraged. The guy that goes on the
Senate floor is Rand Paul to filibuster, to filibuster on the issue.
Since when does any president have the right to order the execution of
any American anywhere without charges, without a trial? And everybody
else is falling into line as a liberal, okay?
That’s why I say I don’t trust liberals, okay? You don’t accept that,
and that’s not counting what the intelligence community’s doing as far
as eavesdropping, I mean totally ignoring the Fourth Amendment. Like,
right now a hundred journalists, all their files confiscated by the
government because they said there’s a security [unclear]. No Fourth
Amendment Rights. Not just Fourth Amendment; it’s also First Amendment,
freedom of the press, right? So it’s like the Bill of Rights doesn’t
mean anything, and those were put there by revolutionaries who didn’t
trust the government because they were revolutionaries and they would
only accept the Constitution if later on those civil rights were going
to be protected.
That’s why we have the Bill of Rights, because revolutionaries demanded
them, or there would be no Constitution. And they’re like, you know,
what are they worth and where are the liberals, right? And when you do
see the liberals speak up on an issue, it’s on the Second Amendment, to
abridge the Second Amendment, okay? Because I don’t believe in that
gun-control stuff and I’ll tell you why whenever you want to ask me why.
[laughs] But now when it comes to abridging the Second Amendment, yeah,
some liberals will speak out. And they’re being abridged, like,
flagrantly, the Fourth and the First, they shut their mouths, and you
would think these people would be speaking out. So, no, the liberals
have not changed. Liberals are the same.
ESPINO:
So what you’re saying is it’s really about their self-interest, not
about an ideology that crosses all these different issues and borders
and that kind of thing.
BECERRA:
No, they’re cowards. Self-interest, cowardly. [laughs]
ESPINO:
So when you were in the Brown Berets, what was your ideology? You said
you had become a Socialist.
BECERRA:
Yes, I was a Socialist, [unclear] Socialist, and I remember David Tacos
[phonetic] heard me talking to a group of Brown Berets and I told I was
a Socialist. Okay.
ESPINO:
You were out-of-the-closet Socialist. You were out in the open.
BECERRA:
Yeah, I was out in the open. I was never hiding it. You know, when you
have a program, you speak to the program. If somebody wants to know if
I’m a Catholic or whatever, I’ll tell you, I’m a Catholic or I’m an
atheist, whatever, right? So if it doesn’t come up, you know, I’m not
there to propagate socialism. We have our agenda, our program. So when I
said that, yeah, I was a Socialist, one of my friends in the Brown
Berets, David—we’re very close—says, “Damn. I didn’t know you were a
Socialist. I mean, you didn’t tell me. You never said so.” “Well, no, we
never talk about it.” He says, “No, but that’s cool. Now I’ve got to
find out what a Socialist is.” [laughs] But, no, I was a Socialist, but
our program was a democratic program and that’s what I propagated, you
know. Before that, I was Catholic or anything else, it wasn’t an issue
until somebody brings it up, and, yeah, of course.
ESPINO:
Right, because the program wasn’t about changing the government; it was
about changing the educational system or improving relations with the
police department so that you wouldn’t experience the brutality.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
But it wasn’t a revolutionary program. Am I wrong? Was it a
revolutionary program?
BECERRA:
No, the written program was not, okay? The practical program was. Yeah,
the practical program was, but it was not written.
ESPINO:
Well, how would you define that practical program?
BECERRA:
Wow. [laughs]
ESPINO:
Do you need time to think about it?
BECERRA:
No, I know exactly what it was. I just don’t want to get anybody into
trouble.
ESPINO:
Oh, okay. I don’t want you to get anybody in trouble either. I mean, you
don’t have to name names or anything.
01:14:14
BECERRA:
Well, no, but it was public record, I mean, what happened at the
Billboard, okay, and there would be other actions that would be taken,
right, and the agitation, okay, the agitation around different issues
was revolutionary, okay, and was being spoken—look, the walkouts were a
violation of law, okay? We were not acquitted of those counts. The only
thing the appellate court said was that our right to organize was
violated, so those felonies had to be thrown out, because the only
felonies we had on us were conspiracy.
Then the court said—I read the opinion. They said “Now, as far as the
misdemeanor counts of disturbing the classes, all that other stuff that
they did, the vandalism, all that stuff, nail them. Go after them,
because they very clearly violated a law.” And the appellate court said,
“Kill them, get them,” you know, come after us. So those actions, those
were revolutionary actions, okay? They were a violation of law,
flaunting the law, but they had to be done. Some of it was nonviolent
civil disobedience and some of it was violent civil disobedience,
depending on how you see violence, the destruction of property, those
kinds of things. So, no, the practical program was revolutionary.
ESPINO:
I’m going to do a little bit more reading on that because that’s a
really interesting comparison between revolutionary and violent and
civil disobedience, because when you define the walkouts, there were
many people involved in the walkouts who didn’t have a revolutionary
ideology like you did.
BECERRA:
But you’re asking me about the Brown Berets.
ESPINO:
So I’m saying it’s like, and I think—maybe I’m wrong, but even some
members of the Brown Berets did not have a revolutionary ideology. Or do
you think that they all shared that same revolutionary ideology that you
did, that you had?
BECERRA:
I don’t know. I know that the ones I hung out with did, and maybe it’s
because when you speak a certain way and to a certain point to those
issues, the people that share that point of view will gravitate towards
you, okay? And if they’re put off by it, they’ll move away from you, so
the people that would gravitate towards me would be people that shared
those views. So I can’t answer your question.
ESPINO:
So the people in your circle all shared your views?
BECERRA:
Yes, yes.
ESPINO:
But you said you were very close to David Sanchez.
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
No, you weren’t? Who did you say you were close with?
BECERRA:
Johnny Parsons and David Torres.
ESPINO:
Oh, you said David, but it’s not David Sanchez.
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
Okay, so it’s David Torres.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Okay. So you didn’t see eye-to-eye with David Sanchez from the very
beginning?
BECERRA:
No, I didn’t see eye-to-eye with David from the very beginning, but I
respected him at the very beginning. I always respected him, even when I
couldn’t make sense out of what he was saying. I figured, okay, you
know. But at a certain point, I figured it was time to leave, and there
was no way I was going to start factionalizing in the Brown Berets. I
had too much respect for what we had done and the creation of the Brown
Berets and the historical role, as far as I was concerned, of the Brown
Berets. There’s no way you factionalize and destroy it. You leave.
That’s what I did. But, no, not everybody was going to share those
revolutionary ideas, no, but the people around me did.
ESPINO:
What about the symbol of the gun? Did you believe in an arms struggle?
Was that something that—
BECERRA:
Yes, yes. It wasn’t symbolic. To me it wasn’t symbolic. It was real.
ESPINO:
It wasn’t self-defense? How would you—
BECERRA:
It was self-defense, but if whatever it would take, okay, at that time
with the perspective I had at the time, whatever it would take to attain
equality, whatever it would take to recover our land, whatever it would
take, you know, and by any means necessary, that’s what the rifles
meant.
ESPINO:
Is that the ideology that came down from Johnny Parsons, or was that
your interpretation of that symbol?
BECERRA:
That was the influence of the militant wing of the African American
liberation struggle. They influenced us a lot and we respected them,
highly respected them, and that’s where the influence came from. Sure,
we could point to icons from the Mexican Revolution, you know, Pancho
Villa, Emiliano Zapata, all of that, surely that influenced us, but more
immediately it would be the black liberation struggle.
ESPINO:
Yeah, because when you look at La Causa, you see a lot of—like, there’s
one that celebrates the 16th of September. I guess it makes sense that
you would just focus on—but it’s mostly Mexican and Chicano. You don’t
see, like, where the African American struggle influenced you.
BECERRA:
You don’t?
ESPINO:
No.
BECERRA:
Watch. Right there, that’s the influence.
ESPINO:
What? The big gun? The big tank? What?
BECERRA:
No. All this. Everything that you see there, okay? The creation of the
Brown Berets, okay, the struggles, the demonstrations, all that was
influenced by the black liberation struggle.
ESPINO:
But was it something that the Brown Berets themselves wanted to be
identified with? Did they want to be identified with the black
liberation struggles?
BECERRA:
No, no.
ESPINO:
That’s my point [unclear].
BECERRA:
No, not at all. In fact, we wanted the movement to be seen as
independent of the black liberation struggle, but in solidarity with the
black liberation struggle, but totally independent. The attitude of
self-determination hinged on that. The legitimacy of the Chicano
Movement hinged on that, that it was independent, it was autonomous, the
issues were legitimate, and so even though we were influenced and were
in solidarity with the struggle of African Americans and we saw them as
our brothers, I mean really ideological brothers and brothers in
struggle, we’re still independent of them. So you’re not going to see
that in there, okay, because that’s the real issue.
ESPINO:
But did they or did you feel like your issues were different, that your
experience was different, or did you feel like it was the same struggle,
well, in general the same struggle in general, just that you lived in
East L.A. and they lived in, you know, in Oakland and South Central?
01:22:30
BECERRA:
No. We thought it was different, okay? First, there was the question of
land, the question of annexation and inequality based on that
annexation. All the issues that we had were based on an annexation of
our land. So it had different roots. Same system, same enemy, but a
different character to the issue of national oppression that was rooted
in the annexation of the Southwest. Okay, sure, there was issues in
education and jobs and war, of racism, but even the racism was
different, okay, because the racism against us was not as brutal as the
racism against African Americans. It was just totally brutal. So it was
different because some Latinos or Chicanos could pass as whites. In
Texas or in the South, Mexicans and whites could marry and there’d be no
lynchings, where that couldn’t happen with African Americans.
So, no, the racism was not on the same level as with—and that in the
violent sense, okay? It was in the same level if you talked about
discrimination in jobs, although Chicanos still had an advantage over
blacks, okay, but for us it doesn’t matter. You’re still not getting
that job. You’re not getting that job. If you’re not getting that
education, you’re still not getting it. So you’re not worried about the
differences and how much. It’s still an issue, but underlying it all is
that annexation. That annexation will not go away because, based on
that, everything falls in, from the question of deportations, who has a
right to be here, you know, that white supremacy is based on that
attitude of justification of the annexation, all those issues. So, no,
there were some differences on the causes of it, but fundamentally, of
course there would be the same enemy for the same reason, the
exploitation of our people.
ESPINO:
Well, will you talk about self-determination and autonomy, but you have
this other movement that’s talking about the same thing, the end
product, what does it look like? When you talk about Chicanos and the
retaking of Aztlán, which was the ideology of some people during that
period, how do you justify that to the African Americans? Like, what
would their role be? The Asian American community and other peoples, how
do they fit into that system?
BECERRA:
Okay. That was our maximum program, we would call it, okay, was the
question of self-determination for the Southwest and for Chicanos in the
Southwest primarily. Because it’s not just the Asians, it’s also Native
Americans. For us the issue was first things first, okay, and when it
becomes a practical issue, we’ll deal with the issue then. Right now
this is our maximum program, what we’re fighting for, and that’s it.
What happens afterwards—I mean, we can show the unity and struggle of
African Americans and blacks and— [interruption]
ESPINO:
Okay, so what did you call it? The ultimate program?
BECERRA:
Maximum.
ESPINO:
Maximum program.
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
And was that something that you discussed amongst yourselves or
something you just instinctively knew?
BECERRA:
In the Brown Berets, you mean?
ESPINO:
Yeah.
BECERRA:
Yeah, we always talked about that. Yes, we always talked about that.
ESPINO:
So can you tell me a little bit about what the—or not tell me a little
bit, but if you could describe a scene of you—would it be at La Piranya,
or where would you have these conversations and what would it look like?
BECERRA:
We’d have the conversations everywhere. It could be what are we going to
do, we would say, when we kick white people out, even though we didn’t
believe in kicking white people out, but really what that meant was when
we had control, self-determination, and we discussed that over and over
again.
ESPINO:
Well, like in your cars, at someone’s house?
BECERRA:
Anywhere. Somebody’s house, in a car, on a picket line, anywhere. But,
yeah, we would talk about that over and over again, that if we got rid
of white rule, that things would be better, okay, that we had controls.
Now, with time, you start realizing, even then, that that was only a
part of the problem. Right now, for example, there’s some people wanting
to incorporate East L.A. [unclear] heard anything from [unclear], from
[unclear], from Compton, from—they still haven’t learned? Do you still
want another one, another [unclear]? Jesus. And so it’s not, you know,
an end in itself, okay?
ESPINO:
But at that time it was.
BECERRA:
Yeah, at the time it was, yes. We didn’t know any better, and so, yeah,
at that time it was.
ESPINO:
Even with your—well, you said you were a Socialist. Can you define more
what that meant? Did you have a class ideology? Because if you have a
class ideology, it would seem that you wouldn’t be involved in a
nationalist organization, that you would be in more of a leftist kind of
organization versus one that just focused on one ethnic group gaining
power.
BECERRA:
No. For example, Martin Luther King, when you read his speeches,
post-’65 speeches, he’s pretty much a Socialist, his criticisms of
imperialism, of capitalism. The program that he lays out is very much a
Socialist. Malcolm X afterwards, you know, was very much a Socialist.
His criticism of capitalism, those are very much Socialist. And even
though neither of them would spell out more, but programmatically, they
advocated it. So, no, later on, when we would be in the August 29th
Movement, we would use the term “national informed, Socialist in
content.”
ESPINO:
Wow.
BECERRA:
So even though content was Socialist, the form that it took would be a
national forum. And then you can look to other countries. That’s what
happened in China. That’s what happened in Vietnam. Those are called
national liberation fronts led by Communists, but they were still
national liberations struggles. So, no, that never became a
contradiction at all.
ESPINO:
So how would you define your understanding of socialism, what politics
would they manifest?
BECERRA:
Then or now or when?
ESPINO:
Yeah, back then.
01:29:3001:31:04
BECERRA:
Okay. For me, what it meant to me then, okay, one, it would be there’s
an end to these policies that I saw as policies at the time of
imperialism, to leave the other countries alone, quit picking on them,
quit invading other countries, killing people in other parts of the
world. It meant self-determination, sovereign governments for blacks,
for Indians, for natural minorities, for Mexicans in this country. It
meant the right to self-determination for the Southwest. Okay,
politically those are the issues that I meant.
On the economic level, it meant the nationalization of industries and of
banks, that the source of the evil that I saw in society was private
property, and private property of the mass institutions, because why
else would you go to war? Why else would you subjugate people of color,
except for these types of views of the world and of other people who it
benefited somebody? And I thought of that and I didn’t have to listen to
somebody else telling me this; I just figured that out on my own,
because later when I would hear other people give it in a very
mechanical way, I hated to hear it, okay, because I can’t stand it.
I’ll give you an example. Evi Alarcon, when she was the head of the
Southern California Communist Party, for International Women’s Day she
gave a speech and I either heard or I read a copy of it. She starts her
speech, “It’s the impression of women, based on private property and the
division of societies in classes,” and she goes on and all she does is
tail behind what the feminists are already doing, right? So I thought,
“Wait a minute. If you’re a Communist, you’re supposed to be leading
these issues. You’re supposed to be developing the theory for feminists
even further.” But they didn’t, no more than they did for the
nationalists, for us, did they do it for the feminists, and I can
understand why they would be in that position. They’re caught off guard.
So, for example, for Chicana feminists or black feminists to take that
struggle up, developing from this theory and having Socialist
perspectives as they do that, okay, and that’s what I like to see. And I
didn’t hear that—when people talk about the roots of our oppression
being based on capitalism, I don’t like to hear that because I already
know that and I want to know what’s the program, okay? That’s why, even
though I came to that conclusion at the time, it was because of what I
saw in Vietnam, what I saw here, what I saw in reading about people
around the world and what I saw happening in this country. And I knew
somebody had an interest in the oppression of people of color in this
country, and certainly there was questions of white-skin privilege. I
saw that as support for the oppression of people of color, but I figured
we’ll deal with that. Okay, we can deal with that. I hate it when I see
it and I didn’t handle it the best way because I’d get pissed off. I
still have a hard time dealing with it, but I think I handle it more
maturely now, I think, than I did then.
ESPINO:
Okay. I’m going to end pretty soon and I want to come back to that
point, but before we talk about that, what would be your—at that time,
not today, but thinking about your 1968 self, your ideology, what would
your utopian country look like? Would it be a country? What were you
imagining?
BECERRA:
I would be imagining an Aztlán as a nation, free and independent as a
Socialist nation, free and independent. That was what I dreamed about
then.
ESPINO:
What would the geographic boundaries be?
BECERRA:
The same boundaries early on in “Fan the Flames.”
ESPINO:
I don’t know. Sorry.
BECERRA:
Okay. “Fan the Flames” was the position of the August 29th Movement on
the Chicano national question, okay, and there the basic outlines of a
Chicano nation are laid out.
ESPINO:
“Fan the Flames.”
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Do you have a copy?
BECERRA:
Yes. I’ve got to find it. I think it’s in my garage.
ESPINO:
So what would that be? Because you said something earlier about the
Americas, like the American continent, or that’s what—
BECERRA:
Johnny Parsons.
ESPINO:
—Johnny Parsons said. But you’re talking from Canada down to Patagonia
and Argentina. Is that what you are referring to as Aztlán?
BECERRA:
No, no, no. We’re talking about the Southwest, California through Texas.
ESPINO:
Not Mexico?
01:34:4701:36:31
BECERRA:
No, no. In fact, a lot of us were very much opposed to the idea of
reunification, very strongly opposed to it. It had to do with two
things. One, I talked to you earlier about our relationship, how we saw
the African American struggle and ours and the legitimacy of our
struggle and our particular issues based on the annexation. Okay. That’s
one issue, the legitimacy of our struggle.
The other one is we felt like orphans, too, from Mexico because we were
pochos, right, and Mexico didn’t want to have anything to do with us
anyway. And that’s where we were raised, you know. And also we saw the
corruption in Mexico and for some of us, it looked like a step backward
in terms of the democratic struggle. It looked like really a step
backward. Going back to one of the questions that you asked about my
attitude toward Cuba and the issue of democracy and authoritarian rule
and democratic rule, those types of issues, you know, I told this to my
daughter about twenty years ago when she asked me that question when we
were talking about Stalin.
I told her, “Look. Mexico has been an independent country, supposedly
fought for democracy, tried to model itself after the U.S., and it’s
been two hundred years of a struggle for democracy and a number of
rebellions and revolutions, and it’s not there. Two hundred years and
it’s not there.” And even today, you know, we still don’t have an
independent judiciary in Mexico, and questions of free elections are
still up in the air. So the issue of going back, reuniting with Mexico
was like a nightmare to us. There was no amount of nationalism or
pro-Mexican sentiments could overcome those types of issues that we saw.
If we had advanced on a democratic process that far, why go back? Okay.
And I still feel that way.
It also goes back to the issue that I told you about China, that a
Maoist had told me that they saw China as the last best chance for
mankind. I scratched my head. I couldn’t understand it because I thought
the U.S. was not on an imperialist, capitalist basis, but on the basis
of the struggle of minorities, of women, of gays, that it’s a grassroots
struggle from the bottom coming up, not edicts coming up from the
Central Committee down to the people, which don’t have the same—they’re
not grounded as well in people’s hearts as something that comes from the
bottom up.
ESPINO:
That’s fascinating. Because people were right about the Chicano
Movement, well, not so much anymore, but in the early days when the
first books were coming out about that history, describe it as this sort
of homogeneous set of beliefs when your viewpoint is very different from
other people in other organizations. Like, for example, that group that
became CASA in ’73, I think, they were talking about no borders, and I
don’t know if they were speaking about a reunification, but definitely a
common struggle. You didn’t see a common struggle with Mexico?
BECERRA:
Yes and no, okay? Yes, in that it was just as common for me as the
Vietnamese struggle was. What happened in Tlatelolco, to me it could
have happened in East L.A., okay? The drone bombings right now that are
killing innocent people in villages could be happening in East L.A. to
me. I don’t make those kinds of distinctions. They’re the same. Martin
Luther King taught us that, too, in the Riverside Church speech, you
know, there’s no difference. But you were asking how I saw things in
1968. How I saw things in 1976 would be different, okay? Basically it
would be the same, but it would not be as utopian as before, but it
would still be the same. It would still be the same.
ESPINO:
So looking back, do you think that that was a naïve set of ideas that
you had?
BECERRA:
No, no. History’s not over. [laughs]
ESPINO:
No, because you said it wouldn’t be as utopian, so that’s why I say—
01:41:11
BECERRA:
This is what I imagined then ideally, right? No, to me the possibility
is still there, but that doesn’t mean that’s what I prefer at all. I
prefer a very strong sense of unity with all the American working class,
all nationalities, you know, but you also have to ask yourself how
possible is that, is that still, and without being hateful of anybody or
without being suspicious of anybody, because I’m not. At some point you
say, “Okay, is it possible?” You struggle for it. You certainly struggle
for it. But the right of Chicanos to self-determination, I think, is a
right. And even today I still believe that, and even as a Marxist I
still believe that, and I don’t think there’s anything utopian, because
history’s not over, and you don’t know what’s going to happen fifty
years from now and how people change their minds—I’m talking about the
masses of people, not me as an individual—and how conditions change.
There are a lot of ugly things that can happen and a lot of beautiful
things that can happen, and I don’t know what’s going to happen, but the
right to self-determination, regardless, is still there.
Let me explain something else to you, because we’re talking about
utopian and how practical this is. I’m a member of the International
Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. About twelve years ago,
there was a convention that we have every four years and we pass
resolutions. A lot of resolutions are passed. One of the resolutions
that was passed had to do with which political party in Canada we
aligned ourselves with, because our union, because we’re in the airline
industry, a lot of stewards—oh, I don’t know what they call them now,
but they were called stewards and stewardesses. I forget what they’re
called now. There’s a more politically correct name for them. They’re
both from English-speaking Canada and from French-speaking Quebec,
right?
So our training schools are both in English and in French and now in
Spanish, trilingual. So we align ourselves with the most progressive
political party in Canada, which is in Quebec and it’s called, in
French, Parti Québécois, something like that, and that’s who we align
ourselves with as a union. So a resolution was passed when it was being
debated on the floor, and the English-speaking Canadians spoke up in
opposition to the motion of aligning ourselves with that party. They
said, “The reason is because that party opposed the right of Quebec to
secede from Canada, and that’s our country. How would you like it in the
United States if you had people in your country, a political party, call
for secession in your country? You wouldn’t like that. We oppose
secession of the French-speaking province of Quebec and we want this
union to oppose along with them. We understand that that’s a pro-labor
party and that no party in Canada supports labor like that party in
Quebec. Still, they call for secession, of the right to secession, so we
stand in opposition to that resolution.” The resolution passed. So the
question of secession as a practical issue in the working class, it’s
still real.
ESPINO:
Wow. What was your position on it? Did you agree with what your—
BECERRA:
The union position? Hell, yes. [laughs] Hell, yes. From the time of that
asshole T_____ declaring martial law and clamping down on the Québécois,
yeah, since that time. Because I didn’t know they were struggling for
national self-determination until that son-of-a-bitch leader of the
Canadian Civil Liberties Union, right, liberal, right, becomes prime
minister and declares martial law, clamps down on Quebec because of the
liberation struggle. Yeah, since that time I support the people of
Quebec, yes.
ESPINO:
Well, what would you say about Texas wanting to secede? That’s been
thrown around. Or southern states wanting to—or the Civil War?
BECERRA:
Okay. Yeah, of course I oppose that. From a Marxist perspective, the
issue of secession is always tied to the overall struggle of the working
class internationally, whether or not it’s going to support the struggle
for the emancipation of people, okay, of nations and peoples, and the
South seceding, which was [unclear] slavery, what the fuck [unclear] And
every time they raise it, they raise it in opposition to progressive
policies that they see in Washington. I mean, like I talked about
Senator Sessions, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. Jesus Christ,
that’s what secession would mean. So, no. Fuck them.
ESPINO:
So it really depends on the situation, the circumstance?
BECERRA:
Sure.
ESPINO:
It’s not secession in general?
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
It’s just the particular circumstance?
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
Okay, final question. I interviewed Gloria A_____, and you know now
she’s very much in touch with her Tongva. Did you know that, her Tongva
heritage?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
So she has great problems with the whole concept of Aztlán because she
says that the Tongva were here first, so that doesn’t make sense in the
sense of the first peoples in the Southwest. How do you feel about that?
BECERRA:
I think these were the first people in the Southwest, okay? That’s how I
feel about it, exactly like that. The issues of different minorities in
the Southwest, including Native Americans and the different tribes, you
know, they call themselves nations.
ESPINO:
Yes.
01:46:30
BECERRA:
They’re not nations in the sense that we talk about nations as Marxists,
you know, but certainly the question of autonomy is real, but those are
issues of democracy. But that does not in any way deny Chicanos the
right to self-determination.
Jesus, now I’ve got to get into a theory. Okay, unless you want to start
off with this, I can get into this right now on the question of national
rights, okay. All right. For us as Marxists, even though I still call
myself a Marxist, even though it’s kind of contradictory because I’m not
in any organization, and really to be a Marxist you have to be involved
in some organization in an organized form of struggle, because you can’t
be like an armchair Marxist, okay? That’s contradictory. But for us, the
natural question, the issue, the discussion really starts with Stalin.
Around 1905, 1907, 1909, I forget which one of those years, Stalin wrote
a book because the issue of national rights presented itself to the
Russians because they had so many nations from the Caucasus going back.
Remember, Europe looked down on Russia as, like, a non-white nation
because most of Russia is not European, it’s mostly Asian, and so they
had a kind of racist attitude towards Russia. Even Stalin comes from
Georgia. He’s not Russian. So all these nations were coming up and
saying they wanted the right to self-determination, and so the
Communists from Russia—see, this is before the Bolshevik Revolution.
They had to deal with this issue, and so Stalin writes this book. I
think it’s called The Rights of Nations to Self-Determination. And what
he does is he outlines the development of the modern national states in
Europe, and primarily they’re in Western Europe. He says, “This is how
they developed.” And then when he sums it up, he says, “These are the
primary characteristics. They’re historically constituted nations with a
common language, common culture, common language, and common territory.”
And he says—it’s amazing how you don’t forget all these things after
forty years. [laughs]
ESPINO:
.
01:50:23
BECERRA:
So when I get to Lenin. [laughs] No, I forgot those [unclear] on Lenin.
But anyway, so he says some of these nations arose, and inside of these
nations were other people who were in different stages of development
who eventually could have became independent capitalist states, but they
were trapped inside of these developed nations. He says, “Do they have
the right to self-determination? Well, they’re not nations in the sense
that we look at them. So, no, we’re going to be talking about issues of
regional autonomy, and sometimes they’re not even issues of that.
Sometimes they’re issues of language equality, sometimes they’re issues
of people want to have their own Parliament where they can decide things
that concern them and they would be happy to be federated into that
larger union. There are many different issues involved, and even though
we’re not in that stage, things have changed.” But when you look at the
development of tribes in this country or anywhere else, that’s not what
you see. You don’t see the development of independent national states
capable of surviving, taking on threatening neighbors. I mean, Mexico
hasn’t even developed to that stage with Uncle Sam. But still, you know,
people have not developed to—they’re not in that type of development.
The fact that Chicanos have, to a certain extent, developed to that
stage, it’s different. It’s totally different. That means that the
relationships between Aztlán and Chicanos and Aztlán, and even Aztlán
and the Native Americans is something that would be worked out on the
basis of national equality and the demands of Native Americans, but they
aren’t there right now. They are trapped inside [unclear] state. So if
they’re going to have a problem, they would have a problem with the
state that exists, not to the state that doesn’t exist right now, and if
they want to discuss that issue with Chicanos, great, because there is a
common struggle. But to say that I don’t agree with the concept of
Aztlán because I’m a Native American makes no sense because you’re not
even interested in the issues. I don’t know how narrow your viewpoint
has to be to not even look at the struggle of your people in a
capitalist system, if you know that you’re only going to view it as only
a democratic struggle and oppose another democratic struggle—
ESPINO:
Or a geographic struggle that’s just confined to this region.
01:52:17
BECERRA:
Most of the time what I see, when I hear the issues, it’s the people
have not—if that’s how you feel [unclear] and you identify with that
tribe, then you have to think the issue out. Think it out, okay? And I
don’t think they have, because when they think it out, they have to
decide whether or not they’re going to be happy with the existing
Socialist social system that exists. Because if they’re happy with that,
then you can have no problem with Aztlán, okay, because Aztlán, whether
it’s capitalist or whether Socialist, nothing changes for you, okay? So
what’s your problem? Think it out. And sometimes when you’re into the
Indigenous Movement, you raise legitimate democratic issues, but you
haven’t thought the issue out.
I’ve listened to people, but I have not seen anybody who thinks it out
and lays it out, what their program is. They might go into sweat lodges.
They might talk about the Great Spirit. They can talk about a lot of
things and about going back to our culture, going back to our values,
and, fine, good for you. I support you 100 percent. But if you haven’t
developed your program to be incorporated into a struggle against a
common oppressor, then what’s your problem? Where’s the issue?
ESPINO:
What about the idea of being displaced? It’s almost a similar question,
the Palestinian-Jewish question, who was here first. So if you’re the
people that were here first, that are indigenous to this land, then does
it not belong to you? Isn’t that what Reies in a way was kind of saying,
Reies Tijerina?
01:54:2101:56:1401:58:09
BECERRA:
Okay, first, the Palestine and Israelis, okay? Yes, the land belongs to
the Palestinians, and, yes, I believe in the right of of return with
everything that encompasses, okay, but the issue, as a democratic issue,
still has to be worked out between the Palestinians and the Israelis. I
hear sometimes people get frustrated and say, “Well, the Jews should go
back to Europe.” I don’t believe in that. I don’t believe in
deportations. I don’t believe in ethnic cleansing. I don’t believe in
any shit like that, okay? I don’t believe in a two-state solution. I
believe in one state, a secular democratic state where religious
fundamentalism is outlawed, because that’s the biggest, I think,
obstacle to peace there, and because everything can be worked out on a
secular basis.
I believe in a democratic secular state primarily of two nationalities,
a binational secular democratic state, okay? And as much as I believe in
the right of return for Palestinians, I do not believe in deportations
for Jews. I believe you have to work it out. You’re there. Work it out.
And that’s why I don’t believe in a two-state solution. That’s not
working anything out, okay? Really, to say you believe in a two-state
solution is to say that you don’t have any faith in humanity to work out
these kinds of problems. You have no faith in mankind. It’s bullshit. If
that’s a temporary [unclear] has to be done, you have to accept it, but
at the same time, it’s a total rejection of your faith in mankind.
It’s bullshit. People can work it out, you know, and they can, but there
are things that get in the way: imperialist policies, white nationalist
policies in Israel, the religious fundamentalism both in Israel and with
the Palestinians and throughout the Middle East before religion took
another form and took the form of radical Marxism-Leninism that had a
very infantile attitude towards the issue of Israel, you know, “Drive
the Zionists to the sea.” Bullshit, you know. It’s bullshit. That’s not
what you do. And now the religion has changed from Marxism-Leninism as a
religion, not as a science, but as a religion. Now it’s Islam, not real
Islam, but fundamental Islam again, like you had fundamental in terms of
Marxism-Leninism. You don’t look at things scientifically. But, no,
that’s Palestine and Israel, so those are different.
Now, as far as coming back here, you know, about who was here first,
well, how far do you want to go back? Ten thousand years? Fifteen
thousand years? Twenty thousand years? But in terms of the European
invasion, okay, so Europeans come and the Europeans are going to come,
whether they came to Mexico or here, and you can’t turn history back.
It’s here. And so [unclear] has to take place in that context. You’re
not going to drive the white man out, you’re not going to drive the
Europeans out, and I don’t even want to drive them out. They’re my
brothers and sisters, period, and I love them just as much as I love
anybody else. I don’t hate them. This idea that this is ours because we
were here first, no, it’s yours because you’re born here, okay? That’s
why it’s yours. That’s why you don’t deport illegal aliens. Whether they
cross an imaginary line or whether they’re born here, it doesn’t matter,
no. The idea that it’s ours because we were here first, no. It’s nice,
it’s romantic, but it’s just not an issue.
To me it’s not an issue. We say that to the white man, too, but I know
it doesn’t have any legitimacy. To me it doesn’t have any legitimacy
that we were here, no. The issue is that we were a republic, okay, and a
part of that republic was annexed by another republic, and in that
annexation, the basis for national oppression took place of an
independent republic. It didn’t take place of a wilderness, which was
just as wrong, because even though treaties were made with the Native
Americans, even though they were supposedly equal, okay, those treaties,
you know, had said, “This is going to be yours for as long as the world
exists. This is your land,” and then you fuck ‘em. Goddamn, you know?
So, no, those treaties are real, okay? And remember the Indians made
those treaties, okay? That land is theirs. By law that land is theirs
when they made those treaties, and, yes, those treaties have to be
enforced. As long as the Americans want those treaties in force, yes, to
me they have to be enforced because these were treaties made by Native
Americans that forever that that was going to be their land. And, yes, I
mean, now we’re talking about real program, real issues, not concepts,
you know, that we were here first. I mean, those are the ways you
approach those issues. Whose oil is that? If that land was given to—it
doesn’t matter if it was in Southwest. People that bargain with the
American government, and that oil is yours if it’s on your reservation.
It doesn’t matter that that land was taken away from Mexicans. Tough.
[unclear] an agreement [unclear] into that, bamboozled into that, it
doesn’t matter.
They went into it in good faith. It’s yours, period. But those are
issues that you work out, democratic issues. You don’t deal with issues
on a metaphysical basis, you know, we were here first. No, there are
real issues to be resolved, and that’s how you approach them. That’s why
[unclear] question that we had as Brown Berets. That’s the only way you
keep Aztlán and the right to self-determination as a real practical
issue. Because the issue will come up again just like it did for the
people at Quebec, which is why they continue to vote in Quebec [unclear]
on the right to self-determination, just like you have in Puerto Rico.
People still vote on those plebiscites. We have that same right and we’d
never give that right up. That’s how I feel about it.
ESPINO:
That’s a lot. Okay, I’m going to stop it because it marks two hours
here.
BECERRA:
Okay.
ESPINO:
And I’m going to stop it right now.
ESPINO:
This is Virginia Espino, and today is June 7. I’m interviewing Cruz
Olmeda Becerra at his home in Commerce, California. I wanted to start
today—did I give the date, June 7? Yes. You told me last time how you
met David, how you got involved in the Young Chicanos for Community
Action. Can you tell me, if you recall, how that group transformed into
the Brown Berets, what you remember from that?
BECERRA:
Yes. Before I start, though, I want to raise something. When I’ve talked
to you before, I tried to express what was happening in terms of what
was happening at the time, how people thought, what was going through
our heads and what I saw. So when I talk to you, I have told you—for
example, I never use the “N-word” when I’m talking, but I used it when I
was talking about southerners, if you recall, when I was in the navy and
how they talked, okay? I never use the word “whorehouse,” but I used it
when I was talking to you because that’s how we talked when we were in
the navy, okay? So when I’m answering your questions, I’m trying to do
it in the historical context that it occurred in, okay? So I make that
clear, okay?
ESPINO:
Perfect. Yes. Thank you. That’s important.
BECERRA:
Yes. Okay, you’re asking about my role in—
ESPINO:
Well, what you remember about—there are different stories about how
Young Citizens became the Brown Berets and why certain people didn’t
follow that transition from Young Citizens to Young Chicanos to Brown
Berets. Like Vicki Castro, Moctesuma Esparaza, and some others started
off with David Sanchez in the Young Citizens, but didn’t make that
transition with him. And then you came in, you said, when it was Young
Chicanos and then you made the transition to the Brown Berets, and what
you remember from that and why it happened and, I don’t know, maybe what
your role was in that new organization.
00:03:5800:06:1700:08:15
BECERRA:
Okay, the reason really that Moctesuma and Vicki Castro were not—what
happened, they went to school. They left to go to school full-time, and
Moctesuma was, I think, at UCLA, so they couldn’t be there all the time.
They had to adjust to being in school and studying and everything. They
would still be active. They just weren’t there at La Piranya. They
weren’t there when the transition took place into the Brown Berets. What
happened, I came into La Piranya and I talked with David. He told me how
they had changed the name to Young Chicanos for Community Action, and we
talked about why that was important, you know, to change the name. I
think I talked to you before how we were making the break with the
traditional liberals, the Mexican Americans, the Mexican Americans and
the Democratic Party and the liberalism that we saw, that that wasn’t
enough, that more radical change was necessary. So we were not going to
call ourselves Mexican Americans. We were going to use the term
“Chicano,” Mexican American, the term “Mexican American” being reserved
to the sellouts or the people who were not making that transition to a
more militant and more focused attitude on Chicano issues. And so we
would use the term “Mexican American” in a very derisive manner in
referring to people, right?
So what happens then, we go to a student conference, we see some
students that are wearing black berets and they’re wearing, like,
fatigue jackets and they’re smoking cigars, right, so we knew
immediately the image they were trying to project. These were students
from San Jose, maybe San Jose State College, at this conference. So we
came back and we talked about that, specifically Johnny Parsons and
Manuel Alva. He used both names. His real name was Manuel Alva, but he
used the name Johnny Parsons, okay, here in L.A. In San Diego, everybody
knows him by Manuel Alva because he spent the last years of his life in
San Diego around Chicano Park and the artist community, down in the
Chicano artist community down there. Here he was Johnny Parsons. He
talked about the importance of making that psychological break and
causing a polarization in the community to break with the liberal
Mexican American image and dialogue and go in a more radical direction.
He said that was very important and the way to do it would be with the
Brown Beret and with the bush jackets, because the beret was like a
symbol of urban guerilla warfare from World War II and France. Urban
guerillas, that’s what they wore, and in Spain as well. And so, you
know, there was a history to that and we would be tying in with that
history, apart from the fact that the Panthers were wearing it as well,
and we very much respected the Panthers, almost to the point of
idolizing them. They were our brothers, you know, and we really saw them
very much as our brothers and in a sense we would be, like, in a sense
emulating them in terms of form. Content would be different because our
issues were different.
The basis for our issues was different, even though we still had to deal
with police brutality as they did, bad education, same types of issues,
urban issues as they had, but we had other issues that we had to deal
with and also we had a different type of a movement that we were
involved in because at that point the Chicano Movement mushrooms.
Especially after the walkouts, it just mushroomed, and there was
organizations for everything from welfare rights to social workers to
teachers to union. We became more and more active as Chicanos, Chicanos
in the unions and all the community groups, the churches. Everybody was
involved, the students and then the farm workers. So it just mushroomed,
and so ours was a little different than what the Black Panther Party was
faced with, how they were dealing with things. So we started pushing
that militancy in all the demonstrations we went to, the community
meetings we went to, and it became important because people would see us
and they would know that uniform stands for something. There’s a message
there, and so people knew and people respected that, you know. There was
no compromising. This is it. This is the way it is, and people have to
take a stand of what side are you going to be on. And that became so
important, the question of identity, of Chicano identity, and a type of
Chicano, a militant Chicano identity, not a bourgeois, liberal Mexican
American identity, okay. So made a distinction there between those two,
those two identities, and that was important.
At the time, the student organizations were called United Mexican
American Students. East L.A. College was MASA. Another one would be
UMAS, United Mexican American Students. At San Jose State it was MASC,
Mexican American Student Confederation. So when MEChA comes along, the
name was changed. The “Mexican American” was taken out and it became
[Spanish name of organization]. All of us were a part of that. I’m not
saying it’s just the Brown Berets. It was throughout the movement this
was taking place. The students on the campus were just as much aware of
this and taking part in it as anybody else. Just happened we did it
within the Brown Berets.
ESPINO:
Were you talking about the—I mean, can you maybe set the stage of how
these discussions were occurring, or were you thinking about these
things on your own individually or would you sit down and talk about it
with other members?
00:10:01
BECERRA:
No, we sat down and talked about it, especially with Johnny Parsons. In
the group you had, like, thinkers, okay, and thinkers would be people
like Tacos, which was David Torres, Joe Razo because he was around us.
He was also a thinker. He thought broader on issues. We had Johnny
Parsons and myself, and then there would be other people drawn into it,
like hippie, which would be David Salcedo, who were drawn in to having
these kinds of discussions.
Other people were not too interested in that kind of discussion. They
were more interested in the show, okay, putting on the brown beret, kind
of showing up somewhere, and not dealing with the political content of
what we were doing. If you look at what was then called the program of
the Brown Berets, it’s okay in the fact that it was very simple, a very
easy, simple one. In that sense it was okay because it would be hard for
people to argue against it. In that sense it was okay. In another sense
it was not, because the program didn’t go much further than that. So
those of us, we were always thinking about these issues. We didn’t stick
to just that program, okay, and this became apparent. That’s one of the
reasons that David comes back from the Poor People’s March, back to La
Piranya, because these kinds of issues are now being discussed.
ESPINO:
So there’s the thinkers, there are the people who show up for actions,
and then how would you categorize some—are there more groupings of
members?
BECERRA:
Yeah, there were new people, a lot of new people who were showing up,
mostly kids from the high schools. And when that happens, I get, like, a
little bit disappointed with that, because if you do that, the character
of the organization changes because now—I mean, you can’t ask kids to do
the things that we were doing. You’re going to get them in trouble and
it becomes dangerous for them. You can’t do that. It also became the
conduit for Bobby—I forget his last name—the cop that came in from
Wilson High School, supposedly from Wilson High School. He was an
undercover cop and he claimed to be from Wilson High School and he
infiltrated the Brown Berets. He was the first one.
ESPINO:
Sumaya? No.
BECERRA:
No. It might have been Bobby Avila, something like that.
ESPINO:
Yes.
BECERRA:
So he became a conduit because he could pose as a student. So things
were changing in a direction that I wasn’t crazy about. I wasn’t
becoming anti-Brown Beret at all. I was not becoming, like, angry at the
organization or anything like that. I just saw that things weren’t going
in the direction that I wanted to see them going, and the thing is, you
know, I thought we should be going in a more militant direction and
David thought otherwise, okay? And in reality, David was right, because
had we gone in the direction that I wanted to go, a lot of us would have
gotten killed.
ESPINO:
And this is you looking back and saying, in hindsight—
00:13:44
BECERRA:
In hindsight, yes, in hindsight, because young people would have gotten
killed. As it was, people got into trouble around the Biltmore and
things like that, you know, and so really that was not the direction for
us to be going, even though at the time that’s the only direction to be
going, you know, because that’s the way—you have to look at what was
taking place in society, the question of the war and of the civil rights
struggle and the question of police. And it left you, like, no other
direction to go. See, like, that’s the only way to go, the desperation,
you know, the anger, everything.
So that’s the direction we all moved. I mean, look at the white kids. I
mean, even later on they would become the Weather Underground, stuff
like that. So it was very—how do you call it—turbulent at that period,
and those are the directions we were going.
ESPINO:
How would you describe your fundamental difference with David Sanchez
back then, looking back? Not in hindsight, but just trying to recreate
your thinking back then, considering what you just said, you know, the
social, political, economic dynamic of the Chicano community and David
Sanchez’s viewpoint.
BECERRA:
It would be really hard to come up with something on that, and the
reason was that when the group of us that left the Brown Berets left the
Brown Berets, we didn’t leave attacking anybody or criticizing anybody.
We just thought things had to be done differently and we defended the
Brown Berets still. We were very, very proud of our history with the
Brown Berets, having been founders of the Brown Berets, and we would not
criticize the Brown Berets. I remember that, because I have a recording
of an interview by Stan Steiner from 1968, where he interviewed us for,
like, an hour for a book that he wrote, and I remember in that we would
not criticize the Brown Berets. We said, “No, we’re very proud of the
Brown Berets,” even though, like, some of the differences with David
would be more questions of personality than they would be of political
issues, because there was no time to have a meeting where we were going
to discuss these issues and work them out or talk them out. There just
wasn’t a time or anything where that took place.
ESPINO:
Right. But you said that you wanted the organization to go in a
different direction.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
So I’m just assuming—and I’ve interviewed David Sanchez, who does talk
about his authoritarian leadership, which he recognizes that it was
basically a top-down organization. So when you say the Brown Berets were
not going in the direction, I’m assuming it’s based on David Sanchez’s
leadership.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
So David Sanchez was taking the organization—and correct me if I’m
wrong—in a direction that you didn’t want it to go.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
So I’m asking you what was that difference. Where was he taking it and
where did you want to take it?
BECERRA:
I wanted us to emulate the Black Panther Party, okay? He did not. And in
hindsight, of course, he was right, but at the time, no, I didn’t think
we were going in the right direction. So those of us who would talk
about what needed to be done about the issues in the community decided,
no, there was no basis to stick around and fight over this issue. It
just didn’t make sense. Just leave, you know, just leave.
ESPINO:
What were your key issues? What were the issues that you saw as the
critical issues for the—there were so many.
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
What did you view as the critical issues?
BECERRA:
You know, now I can’t even remember. I can’t even remember now.
ESPINO:
Because then the Free Clinic becomes—I know you had already left the
organization, but it was one of those—like the Black Panthers were doing
the free breakfast.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Were those things that you thought were important, or did you think that
was the wrong direction to take the organization?
BECERRA:
I thought the free breakfast program was the wrong direction, okay? I
didn’t agree with that. I didn’t think that’s what we should be doing.
But remember, the Black Panther Party, they had, like, two wings. It had
the militant wing, which would have been Huey and Eldridge Cleaver and
maybe Bobby Seale, and it had another wing, which would have been, like,
Elaine Brown, and they were not into the machismo of showing up at the
Capitol steps with shotguns and all that kind of stuff. They were more
into organizing and organizing the community, and so they would be more
responsible for all those types of programs in the community because
that’s the way they felt the organization should go. And I was not
inclined to go in the direction of free breakfast programs and stuff
like that. Even though that was the Black Panther Party, that was not
what I was interested in.
ESPINO:
What did you think needed to happen?
BECERRA:
Okay, at the time—it seems crazy now, okay, and it was crazy. I felt
that what we needed was a Chicano underground organization like kind of
had existed in the past in New Mexico, you know, la mano negra- what is
it blanca? I forget what it was called, but at that time I did know. But
it would be like an underground—sort of like a Chicano vigilante type of
organization that would strike back at the people who were responsible
for violence against Chicanos, and that’s what I wanted to see.
Obviously, you can’t do that if you’re a Brown Beret because you’re
very, very visible, okay, so you can’t do that. And that’s the
contradiction of being in the Brown Berets. And some of the people
agreed that that’s what we had to do. And then what happened, as we
started leaving and we started thinking and talking about what we could
do practically, that’s when we started developing La Junta, which was
not going to be that kind of an organization.
ESPINO:
So how did you feel about the walkouts? Was that something that you
thought was a good action? Did you think that that was going to be
effective and create the change or the improvements? Or I don’t know how
to define your ideology at the time, but attack the issues as you saw
them?
BECERRA:
I saw the walkouts as a super militant act that was being carried out by
students in the high schools and it was carried out in direct
contradiction to the authorities, right? They’re clearly a violation of
law, obviously, especially for us who were not students, but it was a
direct [unclear] the educational system for what it was doing. So I saw
it as a very militant, very revolutionary act on the part of the
students. It was nonviolent, but very revolutionary nonetheless. So it
was exactly what I thought had to happen.
ESPINO:
Do you remember when you first heard about the walkouts?
00:23:22
BECERRA:
Yes. In Young Chicanos for Community Action, we were already discussing
it, and then going into January, then we were frustrated because it
wasn’t taking place. And then in February, one of the reporters from the
Eastside newspaper—it might have been the Eastside Sun—came to interview
us at La Piranya, and we discussed the walkouts before they had taken
place and why they were necessary and how pissed off we were that they
hadn’t taken place. So what happens, the newspaper publishes that, and I
think it was in the headlines of the newspaper, so now it’s all over the
community. Now all the students know about it, all the teachers know
about it, all the administrators know about it. “What the hell is this?”
And so the newspaper really publicized what was going to happen in
March, right? And then one day, because we’re frustrated—and then some
of us that aren’t taking part in the meetings, okay, the organizing
meetings for the walkouts, like, I was not taking part in any of those
meetings, and most of the Brown Berets were not taking part in those
meetings, even though those meetings were taking place and there was
some Brown Berets that did participate and also because I was working
the swing shift, I wasn’t around to see all that.
But one day we run into Sal Castro at La Raza magazine, and he was in a
happy mood, right? [laughs] So we talked to him, and he says, “Goddamn
it, when the hell are the walkouts going to take—when are the kids going
to walk out [unclear]?” I think these were his exact words, “All right,
walk ’em out, walk ’em out, walk ’em out.” [laughs] So he gave the green
light, you know, he gave the green light. So as soon as he gave the
green light, bam, it happens. We were out there. The Brown Berets were
out there. The kids—the word spread. As soon as the walkout started, it
was all over. We didn’t have Facebook and all that other stuff in those
days, but the word was out fast.
ESPINO:
Wow.
BECERRA:
And all the students knew. They were calling each other up and so
everybody knew.
ESPINO:
Were you part of that propaganda campaign of getting the word out? What
role did you play?
BECERRA:
None. None. In the preparation for it, none, the planning, none. The
only meetings that I participated in were at La Piranya Coffeehouse,
where we discussed the walkouts themselves.
ESPINO:
How did you know what your role was going to be?
BECERRA:
Oh, we already knew what we were going to do. We were going to go to
schools, tear down the fences, and walk the kids out. Kids already knew
what they were going to do, and the administrators knew what was going
to take place. That’s why they shut off—the fire alarms were shut down,
which is against the law, but they didn’t care. So is a walkout; that’s
also against the law. So we already knew what we were going to do.
Garfield High School, I think, was the first one, the first one I
remember, and we waited till the bell rang and the students were walking
between classes and then we started chanting, “Walkout!” And they
started coming out.
ESPINO:
You, yourself, you were at Garfield?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Because from what I’m hearing, different people were assigned
different—it depends. Everything is different for every group because
there were so many involved. But, like, for example at La Raza, they
were so close to Lincoln, that’s where they went first. So you’re saying
you went to Garfield.
00:26:16
BECERRA:
Yeah, I went to two, three. The first day was at Garfield, and then the
second day or maybe the same—I can’t remember—was at Roosevelt, and
that’s where I saw Carlos Montes at Roosevelt. I saw him. He jumped on a
gate to try and tear down the gate that was held together by a chain,
and I thought, “He’s never going to tear that down. He’s crazy.” Nah,
that gate came down, you know.
And then after that, I got a call from Wilmington, and a friend of
mine’s sister was there. So she called me and she says, “The kids are
ready to walk out. You’ve got to come down so we can walk the kids out.”
So I went down there, and, yeah, there was a walkout. The kids walked
out, and it was a little bit more militant, a little bit more like
vandalism because they were putting trash cans on fire and rolling them
down the halls—
ESPINO:
Huh. Wow.
BECERRA:
—which was crazy, you know? I was arrested there. I was arrested. At
Banning High School in Wilmington, I was arrested.
ESPINO:
By yourself? Were you alone?
BECERRA:
No, I was with somebody else, but I can’t remember who. But I was
arrested by myself, yes.
ESPINO:
But I mean you went as a Brown Beret or with other Brown Berets?
BECERRA:
Yes, with other Brown Berets. But I just can’t remember who. Damn, it’s
been forty-five years. I can’t remember who was with me.
ESPINO:
So you were arrested at Wilmington High School.
BECERRA:
No, at Banning High School in Wilmington.
ESPINO:
Banning High School in Wilmington. And that was around that same week?
BECERRA:
Yes, it was all in the same week.
ESPINO:
Wow.
BECERRA:
Within days of each other.
ESPINO:
Can you tell me, maybe walk me through what happened at Garfield and
then the subsequent days after that and what you did?
BECERRA:
Yeah, at Garfield, after we were chanting and the kids were walking out,
everybody started—
ESPINO:
That was the next high school after Wilson.
BECERRA:
That was what?
ESPINO:
Wilson was first.
BECERRA:
I don’t know.
ESPINO:
Yeah, Wilson was first and then Garfield was after that.
BECERRA:
Yeah, I didn’t even know where Wilson was. I knew it was in East L.A.,
but I didn’t know where it was. I wasn’t from East L.A. We were all from
Compton.
ESPINO:
That’s right, yeah.
BECERRA:
And this was my first months in East L.A. So I’d hear all the people
talking about Belvedere Junior High School, all these other high
schools. I didn’t know where they were.
ESPINO:
That’s funny.
BECERRA:
I’m from Compton. No, Garfield was the first one I was at. We walked the
kids out, you know. We were chanting and stuff, and the kids were all in
front of the gate and at first there were hundreds of kids out there.
And the sheriffs came by and they got between the kids and the fence.
They all lined up, I guess like as if the kids were going to attack the
school. They’re walking out of the school. They weren’t going to attack
the school. [laughs] And then one of the cops recognized me, you know. I
remember who he was. I forget his name, but he was a sergeant and he
spotted me, you know, among the students. So he pointed his finger at me
and told the other cops to get me, right? So the cops came, started
coming at me, right? So all the students blocked them. They all closed
ranks so they couldn’t get me, and so I ran. I left. I ran down to a
cafe or a bar or something that was down the street, and I called KGFJ,
the radio station, to tell them the walkouts were taking place. And so
then they announced it on the radio—
ESPINO:
Oh, wow.
BECERRA:
—that the walkouts were taking place. At the time, the people who
answered the phone there, they weren’t very supportive, and there was
sort of like a jealousy or like we were trying to copy them or take
attention away from the issues of the black community, right, which is
very normal attitude to have when you don’t think about the issue and
just react right away. If the people that answered the phone had been in
the Black Panther Party or the US organization or been members of the
Black Congress, that would have been different. They would have wanted
to know everything. They would have been very supportive, but the person
who happened to answer the phone wasn’t. And so you’re always going to
have the more progressive have a different attitude than people who
don’t know. And then I left. I didn’t stay there. And the next day, I
think, I was at Roosevelt again, the first time on this one.
ESPINO:
Did you wear your Brown Beret and that whole thing?
BECERRA:
Yes, yes.
ESPINO:
So you weren’t worried about—I mean, did you think that you were going
to be identified by your—because I think it was David who said that he
wouldn’t wear it because he didn’t want to stand out. Was that, like, a
general thinking?
BECERRA:
No, we wore it to stand out, okay? [laughs]
ESPINO:
Like he wouldn’t wear it to the Chicano Moratorium and some other big
marches.
BECERRA:
No. The whole purpose of the Brown Beret uniform, the bush jacket and
the beret, was to stand out, you know? No.
ESPINO:
You weren’t worried about being identified easily?
BECERRA:
No, not at all. And remember, we went through dozens of times of the
sheriffs pulling us out of La Piranya Coffeehouse, lining us up against
the wall, searching us, taking our IDs, writing incident reports who was
there, all our names, you know, and taking them back to the station,
building up dossiers on us. I mean, that happened over and over and over
again. So it’d be too late to worry about, you know, if they’re going to
recognize us. I mean, they recognize us right away. They knew who we
were, so it was too late for that. It wouldn’t have bothered me anyway,
you know.
ESPINO:
So how would they treat you? What would they say to you?
BECERRA:
The cops?
ESPINO:
Yeah. Like what was their spiel or what was their way of—they were
obviously harassing you. How did that manifest verbally?
BECERRA:
First they would pull us out. Everybody had to line up against there.
First, that’s harassment just by itself.
ESPINO:
Yeah.
00:33:3300:35:07
BECERRA:
And making us identify ourselves so they can take down our names of who
we are, which is really politically reactionary, right? And we knew what
they were doing. At times they would, like, two cops would get around
you, right, or three, and just by the way that they moved and the way
they talked, their attitude, they were looking for an excuse to beat the
hell out of you, right? And you knew it and they wanted you to know
that, okay? So, yeah, sometimes you said, “Oh, shit, I’m going to get my
ass kicked now,” you know, but you had to take it. You’ve got to stay
there. You’ve got to take it. Another time when I was arrested with
David, David was in another police car, I think. Or maybe we were both
in the same car. We were both in Brown Berets and are dressed with our
berets and everything, and the cop was taking us to the police station.
He was all pissed off and he says, “So you guys believe in class
distinctions in society.” And so he was telling us, like, we were
Communists, you know.
We weren’t Communists, you know, and so just to fuck with him, you know,
I told him, “No, we don’t believe in classism. We believe in race
distinctions.” [laughs] And he got all pissed off, you know. The reason
he got pissed off and scared—first he got scared and then pissed off—was
he could handle us as Communists. He could isolate us and everything,
but as Chicanos he couldn’t do shit because he was surrounded by a
million Chicanos all around. What the hell is he going to do? “Oh, you
guys are Chicanos?” “Yeah. What are you going to do?” Nothing, you know.
And that scared the hell out of him because they didn’t want us to
become a movement like the Black Movement, and this scared them. They
weren’t worried about a Communist Movement. They were worried, just like
J. Edgar Hoover, of a Brown Movement, especially if we hooked up with
the black one. That was their nightmare. And then when he asked me that,
I played right into it, “Yeah, race distinctions.” “Oh, shit.” It scared
him. One time, afterwards, I was in the Brown Berets [unclear] La Junta,
when the cops were taking us out. We were at Chuco’s house, and the cops
did really just come out from behind the bushes. I mean, they were
behind the bushes waiting for us, and [unclear], you know, IDs, up
against the wall, searches. And we were wearing our Mao Tse-tung
buttons, right? And then they looked for marks, you know, see if we’re
addicts.
And the white cop says, “I can’t believe it. I’ve got four Mexicans
right here and not one of you guys has tracks.” And we said, “We’re not
going to have tracks.” And he says, “Yeah, well, you know what? That guy
you got right there, he’s sending all the heroin over here so you guys
can get addicted.” And we said, “That’s stupid. The heroin is not for
us. It’s for white people, all your hippies that are just smoking dope
and taking heroin and all this. That’s for you white people. That’s what
that’s for. What do you think we wear these for? We know where we’re
getting that—.” Oh, you know, we’re fucking with the bank, you know,
that we’re smoking heroin from the Chinese to feed the white people to
make them addicts. And these dumb mother—they believe it. They believe
it because they don’t know. They don’t know Chicanos. They don’t know
nothing. They believed it and they would get scared. You could see it on
their faces. They were like, “What the hell,” because they didn’t know
what to expect from us. They don’t have that advantage anymore because
they didn’t know anything about Mexicans then.
ESPINO:
So you’re saying that people like that feared a race war?
BECERRA:
Yes, that’s what they were afraid of. They weren’t afraid of—this isn’t
the thirties anymore where they would be afraid of a class war. They
were afraid of a race war, yes, the cops, the cops.
ESPINO:
Did anybody ever say anything directly related to that, that you can
remember?
BECERRA:
The police?
ESPINO:
Yes.
BECERRA:
Not to me.
ESPINO:
So you’re saying you could just see it in their faces.
00:37:41
BECERRA:
Yes, yes. But you have to remember that they made it like their duty.
I’m sure that when they were at roll call before they start the shift,
they’re going to be told about the Brown Berets, and there was a lot of
things that we would find out later they were telling them. They would
go to community meetings, right, because kids would come and tell us
that they’d gone to a parents-teachers thing, a big conference, and the
sheriffs—Calderon was the name, Sergeant Calderon was from the sheriff’s
station, and he would address the teachers and tell them, “These are the
Brown Berets. They’re troublemakers,” all kinds of right-wing, bad stuff
about us. And he would say, “And we have information that they’re being
funded by foreign sources.” [laughs] I wish Kadafi had given us some
money, right? [laughs] Kadafi wasn’t around yet. So we asked them, “What
did the people say?”
“Nothing. They ignored him. They ignored him.” They didn’t even know
what the Brown Berets were. Now they know. So they were, like, doing
advertisement for us, you know, and they did more advertising for the
Brown Berets than we were able to do because they had all the cops
everywhere, the newspapers, the cops, because they were reacting to what
was taking place. So at that time they didn’t know how to react to us.
ESPINO:
I don’t know if it’s just a stereotype that you see in the movies, but
when there’s that kind of harassment, there’s like verbal shaming and
humiliating. It’s almost like what happens in the military when you’re
in boot camp, you know, the stereotype of the sergeant humiliating the
private, I guess it would be. But did that kind of thing occur?
BECERRA:
Between the cops and us?
ESPINO:
Yes.
BECERRA:
No, not with me. I didn’t see it.
ESPINO:
They didn’t call you names and—
00:39:35
BECERRA:
No. See, the thing is that they—one time I was arrested, okay? They
found a weapon there where I was, that had been discharged. The weapon
was registered to me, okay. They arrested me. They went to interrogate
me, and I wouldn’t talk, nothing. And they had me at Hollenbeck and they
pulled out my jacket and they were looking at it, and the cops all
gathered round to read the jacket on me. And then they’d look at me and
read it. They’d look at me. I said, “Oh, shit.”
And so before they did that, one of the cops had come in and they said,
“You know what? We haven’t got time to fuck around with punks like you.
We’re going to take you upstairs.” I said, “Oh, shit. There goes my
ribs.” But after they read my jacket, they decided they weren’t going to
touch me, and the reason was because I think they were afraid of a
community response, okay, because by then we were getting roots in the
community as Brown Berets. We had gotten roots in the community. I
wasn’t a Brown Beret anymore, but my jacket was still there, and so they
did not want any more—by this time the walkouts had taken place, the
indictments had come down, they’d seen the response of the community to
the indictments, so they were not eager to beat up anybody anymore,
anybody who was an activist. Now, if they get a chance and you’re by
yourself somewhere and they can do what they want, that’s different.
But, no, I never had that issue.
ESPINO:
So you were almost untouchable, although you were harassed?
BECERRA:
Yes, yes.
ESPINO:
That’s interesting.
BECERRA:
They hated us and they harassed us, but they were afraid to go too far.
They didn’t know who we were. They didn’t know what to expect.
ESPINO:
Right. You never got beat up by the police?
00:42:59
BECERRA:
No. Oh, yeah, that one time that I just told you about when I was
arrested, I wasn’t beat up and I had, like—they did beat me, but I had a
lot of sympathy for the cops that night. They pulled up. They were
scared. They had their high beams on me. They had their .357 Magnums
aimed at me. They found the clips with the bullets in them in my pocket.
They didn’t know where the gun was. They didn’t know what they’d walked
into. It was dark. They could have walked into an ambush, they didn’t
know, so they wanted to know where the gun was. So one of the cops took
the clip in his hand and he started punching me in the ribs, asking,
“Where’s the gun?” Bam! Bam! “Where’s the gun?” And I was so scared,
that I could not feel him hitting me and I was just glad they had a
shadow when they had those two guns aimed at me.
Okay, now, in real life, not in book life or civil liberties life, but
in real life, those cops acted as normal, and under the circumstances,
as normal as they should have acted. They could have killed me, but they
didn’t. When they wanted information, they were scared for their lives
and then they beat me to try and get information out of me, and it
wasn’t a prolonged beating. It only lasted for about twenty seconds,
right? And I can’t blame them. They were scared. One of the cops that
was there—there was two cops—would tell me a few years later that he was
scared shitless because he remembered that arrest. He says, “That was my
very first bust,” he says. I met him because he had a part-time job at
the White Front store and he was selling paint, and that’s when I ran
into him. I didn’t recognize him, he recognized me, and that’s when he
told me. He says, “I was scared shitless that night.”
I said, “Yeah.” So I could appreciate what he had just gone through, you
know. Sometimes these cops can be racist and everything, but you still
can’t deny the fact that they get into some very dangerous situations
and they risk their lives to keep people safe, you know. In spite of
being racist assholes, they still do that. That’s the contradiction.
ESPINO:
Right. But back then when you were—I mean I just look at some of the
propaganda in La Causa and some of the literature about “the pig” and
that kind of thing. Did you have that viewpoint back then?
BECERRA:
Yes. now?
ESPINO:
Yeah.
00:44:33
BECERRA:
No, I didn’t get that viewpoint until that night. They educated me when
they were beating on me, and I thought about it afterwards. That was my
first reality education, okay, because I understand the cops kill
innocent people brutally, but it’s not the cops. It’s particular cops.
And if the cops [unclear] really go out of their way to filter those
people out because they don’t want problems. They have enough problems.
They don’t need more problems. So they don’t want those kinds of cops.
Today; not then. Then it was a totally different world.
But that night, yeah, I got an education on what those guys go through,
because I thought about it afterwards. You’re the first person I ever
tell about this. I’ve never told anybody in any public—because I’ve gone
to a lot of meetings and a lot of things on police brutality. I never
tell anybody about this because I don’t think it’s fair. I don’t think
it’s fair to say, “Yeah, I was once beat up.” Shit, they could have
killed me. They didn’t do anything that I think was wrong, okay? They
were scared, they feared for their lives, they didn’t know what they’d
walked into, and I don’t blame them. I don’t blame them at all for what
they did, so I never tell anybody about it. And if somebody’s getting
down on police brutality, I don’t say, “Yeah, I once [unclear].” No, I’m
not going to do that. That’s not right.
ESPINO:
Do you agree that police brutality—because when you talk to—also Carlos
Montes. Carlos Montes and David Sanchez, they both talk about that being
one of their most important issues as Brown Beret members: brutality.
00:46:23
BECERRA:
Yes, it very much was. It very, very much was and for quite a while, for
quite a few years after that too. It took time to change the police
department. Same thing with the LAPD. It took quite a while to change
it. But, yeah, that was the number-one issue for us. I mean, every day
they just messed with us and messed with us, and we used to have to go
to—I used to see pictures of the guys that were all beat up. We’d have
to go to demonstrations and support them, where the Montebello Police
Department had beat the hell out of them. And now I’ve got to call them
up and thank Detective [unclear] for helping me out.
So, yeah, the world changes, and when the world changes, you can’t live
in the world that existed in the past. So you have to understand that it
has changed and adapt to the new world. There are still going to be
issues, but they may be different or they may take on a different form.
Maybe the way you struggle around those issues is going to be different
than what you did before, but the world has changed, and you can’t deny
that.
ESPINO:
Well, you, growing up—and we talked about your role in the military and
the racism that you witnessed against blacks primarily, but I guess I’d
like to know what was your big issue? What was the thing that you felt
like caused you to have your consciousness awakened?
00:48:2500:50:03
BECERRA:
There was two things. One was Vietnam and my participation in Vietnam,
which pissed me off, and the other one, I mean, just shattered me,
[unclear], everything. The other thing was the racism, yeah, and racism
against Chicanos, because I’d grown up with that and it just built up
and built up all those years. Those were the two main things. It was not
police brutality. Police brutality was—I didn’t see it as an issue just
of police brutality. I saw it tied into racism, okay, as a manifestation
of racism. Today I don’t see it that way. Today I see police brutality
as a manifestation of a dehumanizing of people by the police, okay,
where it’s not going to matter what race you are. And I’m not saying
that race doesn’t matter. When you have a Chicano cop in Fullerton beat
a white guy to death, you can’t say it’s racism. That’s something else.
I may have told you this before, that my daughter did this study on
feminist [unclear] Juarez. One of the things she told me about was—it
might have been the Green River killer somewhere in northern California,
Oregon. He would kidnap prostitutes, rape them, kill them, and bury
them. And sometimes he wouldn’t bury them; he’d just throw them on the
side of the road. The cops would find them, okay, and they’d record it,
take photographs and all that, but they would not conduct an
investigation and they would not link all these women together. So
somebody asked, “Why didn’t you follow up on that investigation?” “Oh,
that’s a NHI.” They said, “What’s an NHI?” “No human involved.” That
kind of an attitude the cops will have towards people, where that white
guy that Chicano cop beat to death wasn’t a white man. He wasn’t even
human. He was a homeless bum, okay, which is beneath being a human
being. That’s why they beat him up. If a black man is homeless or a
white guy’s homeless or anybody, they’re beneath being a human being, so
it’s okay to beat them up and kill them, and I think that’s really the
issue. Sometimes racism will be a manifestation of that, but it’s really
the dehumanizing of other people, and it happens all the time.
Like I was watching MSNBC cover that Boston bombing, the terrorist
bombing, right, and all the networks that carried it, like, forever, and
interviewing the victims, interviewing the families of the victims,
saying how bad this is and all—I mean, they just would not stop. And I
thought, “Fuck, this is going on every day, the drones that Obama sends
out. They don’t bother you?” I think that’s part of the dehumanizing
aspect, because only these lives matter, right? Those other lives
someplace else don’t matter, the total dehumanization of other people.
And you think it’s not going to come back here? It does come back here.
When Obama orders the killing of four Americans somewhere else, of
course it comes back here. And I think that’s the issue that the police
have, is the dehumanizing of other people because they’re thugs, they’re
hoodlums, they’re dope addicts, they’re prostitutes, they’re anything
else, they’re homeless, they’re bums. They don’t care. They’re not human
anymore. They look at them through a different type of eye. That’s why
you can go to Skid Row and take all the belongings of all these people
and put them in a trash can and throw them away, because these people
don’t matter. That’s all they have in the world and it’s going in a
dumpster. Why? They’re not human.
ESPINO:
Did you actually get that feeling from the cops back then?
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
Did you get the feeling that you weren’t human in their eyes?
BECERRA:
I had the feeling that they felt I was a stupid, dirty, lazy, greasy
Mexican, okay? They’re racist, and that’s why they do that to us. That’s
what I felt, and that’s the way they treated us all, okay? That was how
I felt and that’s why that issue was so [unclear]. And I think if you
grew up thinking that way, you know, that’s your place in society, and a
lot of people accept that, and they become, like, ashamed to be Mexicans
or they learn to accept that position. Not everybody. But somebody’s got
to stand up against it and say no. And sometimes you’ll get your ass
kicked for doing it, but that’s what you do. And you’ve got to be either
idealistic enough, like Martin Luther King, or you’ve got to be pissed
off enough, like Malcolm and Huey Newton and the Brown Berets, where you
don’t give a fuck. You’re going to stand up to them anyway.
ESPINO:
Where do you fall between those two?
BECERRA:
I was pissed. I was pissed. Yeah, I was just pissed with all the things
that had happened, and so I didn’t care. I didn’t care.
ESPINO:
Did it intensify as the months passed? Like from ’68 to ’70, did that
anger intensify? Because for some people it kind of got diffused with
certain things that happened, like arrests, murder, or deaths, you know,
like Ruben Salazar. Then they become less angry and they retreat
more—they become more fearful. Fear replaces anger.
00:54:39
BECERRA:
No. With me, I got angrier and angrier. What happened, for example, in
’72, here in California, there was a law that passed. It was called the
Dixon Arnett law and it was passed by the California legislature aimed
at anybody who hired illegal aliens. So now we had to defend ourselves
for being Mexicans again. Those kinds of issues and police brutality
continued and there was always, always one issue after another. The
killing of black people, it didn’t stop. It would continue over and over
again and that didn’t bother me any less than if they killed a Mexican.
They killed that white guy out there in Fullerton. That pisses you off.
Beaten to death. Shit.
But what happens now, I think what happened—I read this article by Frank
del Olmo in the L.A. Times, and Frank, he was a columnist and he was on
the editorial board of the L.A. Times before he died. It’s when he
writes that story where he addressed himself to the Chicano militants in
East L.A. and he tells them about the story in—that moment in Zoot Suit,
where those Chicanos are going to fight and they pull out knives and
just start killing each other, and he snaps his finger. Every time he
snapped his finger, everything freezes up on the stage, right? So he
says, “Orale!” When he snapped his finger, everybody stops. They have
switchblades. They want to kill each other. “Orale vato! It’s only a
play. You don’t have to kill each other.” [laughs] So Frank del Olmo put
that into one of his columns. He said “And that’s why I have to say to
the militants in the community.” He says, you know, “Cool it.” He says
“Look, time and the numbers are on our side.” So we remember that and it
helps you deal with a lot of issues that would ordinarily drive you
crazy.
ESPINO:
Is that enough? That’s enough?
00:58:22
BECERRA:
No. You still have to be active. My place was [unclear] my union, okay,
around issues in the union, but, no, that’s not enough. You still have
to be active, but it helps you to cope with the anger, okay? You asked
me how do you cope with that. That’s how you cope with that anger.
Otherwise, if you’re really conscious of these issues, it’ll drive you
crazy, and so for me, that’s how I have to cope with it, okay? It’s only
a matter of time. We’ll deal with it. And it’s also very satisfying to
see when Chicanos finally get to kick ass, you know. When Willie Brown
makes a deal with Art Torres and Richard Alatorre in the state
legislature that they support him for Speaker of the Assembly, that
he’ll reciprocate, and they did.
He became the Speaker, the baddest, bad-ass Speaker they’ve ever had,
and he makes Richard Alatorre the head of the commission that
redistricts all the legislative districts for California for Congress,
Senate, and Assembly. Shit. You know, finally we’re going to get people
into Sacramento and, of course, that helped us a lot. And then when the
Republicans decide they’ve had it with Willie Brown, there’s no way
they’re going to unseat him, so they decide to use term limits. So they
do their campaign on term limits, and all these whites may get voted out
of office, replaced by women and minorities. And they fucked themselves,
you know. Every time they attack Mexicans and blacks in California, they
screw themselves, you know, and it happens over and over. And I would
see stuff like that and I would laugh, you know. I’d tell the white
Republicans at work, “You guys just keep shooting yourself in the foot,
man. You just keep screwing yourselves.”
And the last presidential campaign, where they tried to see which
Republican candidate hated Mexicans the most, right, and they shot
themselves in the foot again. Now that’s the only reason that the
immigration issue is back, and then, of course, you’ve got Jefferson
Beauregard Sessions today leading a charge against immigration reform.
But those are things that I also have to see, to help me cope with some
of the anger that I’ll still have.
ESPINO:
You were following that redistricting while it was happening?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Was it something that you [unclear]?
BECERRA:
No, I watched it happen. I was laughing, you know. I was watching it
happen, yeah.
ESPINO:
That was the eighties, right?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
That was the 1980s. Well, getting back to the walkouts, what do you
think the community gained from that, if anything, or do you think it
was a failure in the long run, in the end?
01:00:28
BECERRA:
There is no way it was a failure, okay? If you’re going to look at
it—well, first of all, look how many Chicano teachers we have there
today. That’s the one thing, okay. The other issues, I don’t know,
because we did get Chicano Studies into a lot of the high schools. A lot
of cultural awareness issues that are in the high schools today, they
weren’t there before. There’s a lot that aids the teachers and the
students in the classes. Yeah, we still have problems with academic
achievement, but not as bad as it was then. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be
having so many—I mean, today there was a report from Fullerton, because
KNX is doing a report on the city of Fullerton, and Cal State Fullerton
graduates more Chicanos than any other university in California and
number four in the nation. So, I mean, damn. So the schools, you know,
they’re doing something right, okay? So, no, it was not a failure.
But more than that, a lot of people see the walkouts as the beginning of
the Chicano Movement. I don’t, because I know how things developed, but
a lot of them do, and a lot of [unclear] came out, all kinds of
organizations in the community, and got the community involved in all
kinds of things. So it wasn’t just the high schools, not just the high
school issues. I mean, it went to the universities, it went to the
community, a lot of the community organizations. It went to the
legislators. No, it was a phenomenal, phenomenal success. You can’t just
look at it as the dropout rate today compared to then. That’s not the
only issue. That’s a very, very narrow view of the student strikes, the
student walkouts, because you don’t expect miracles, and don’t think
that society still had the fundamental changes that it needs. The
changes still have to come, but it was a success, phenomenal success,
because you can’t look at it that narrowly. [recorder turned off]
ESPINO:
So you were saying that—
BECERRA:
I think the walkouts were a phenomenal success, and then they were
emulated in other parts of California, other states. So, no, I mean,
talk about the blossoming of a movement. So, no, they were very, very
much a success.
ESPINO:
Were you involved in any of the actions afterwards, like, for example,
the sit-in at the Board of Education and demonstrations and those kinds
of things?
BECERRA:
Yes. I was not arrested at the Board of Education, but I was there. I
was there for the sit-ins. Yeah, I was there, but I didn’t spend as much
time as the other people did. I didn’t sleep in. Because people were
camped out there, they were sleeping there.
ESPINO:
That’s right.
BECERRA:
Yeah, I didn’t sleep there.
ESPINO:
Were you part of the discussions as to how the group was going to
proceed, which direction?
BECERRA:
No, I didn’t take part in that at all. That would have been—I think Joe
Razo would have been involved in that—
ESPINO:
Yes.
BECERRA:
—and other people.
ESPINO:
In looking back, do you think that the arrest was—I don’t know if this
is the right way to phrase it, but worth it, that you would do it again?
BECERRA:
Okay, which of the arrests? [laughs]
ESPINO:
The first one, the walkouts, relating to the walkouts.
BECERRA:
Okay. Well, I was arrested twice in the walkouts, once at Banning High
School and then for the indictments.
ESPINO:
Right, the indictments.
BECERRA:
Yes, of course. They had to be done, you know, they had to be done. I’m
glad that after the appellate court threw out the indictments that the
district attorney did follow up with the rest of the decision. The
appellate court, I couldn’t believe how pissed off they were at us, you
know. They said no matter what we did, that we had the right to organize
that strike, in spite of how rowdy it got, but that they should proceed
with the other charges, the misdemeanor charges against us, because we
did interrupt the school. We did interrupt the—you know, all those
things that happened. I mean, they had a long list of stuff against us,
you know, because a strike is not orderly, and they said they had every
right to prosecute us on those other charges, and there was a lot of
them. I mean, I didn’t realize it until I read the appellate court
decision, which is on the Internet. Yeah, the justices were pissed and
they wanted us to be prosecuted, but not for the conspiracy. But do I
think it was worth it? Yes, yes.
ESPINO:
Because I was interviewing Vicki Castro and I was surprised to read that
she was not arrested, and she makes the joke that they weren’t arresting
girls at that time. [laughs] So when you look at all the people that
were arrested, does that make sense to you that those individuals played
the same—or had the same impact? Do you think that you should have been
one of those people who were included in the arrests? I have the names.
So there’s Sal Castro; Moctesuma Esparza; Henry Gomez; Fred Lopez;
Carlos Montes; Gil, but they have you as Gilberto Cruz Olmeda; Ralph
Ramirez; Joe Razo; Eleazar Risco; David Sanchez; and Patricio Sanchez
and Richard Vigil.
BECERRA:
Richard Vigil is Mangas Coloradas. Okay, of all those, only Pat Sanchez
maybe shouldn’t have been in there.
ESPINO:
Should not have been in there?
BECERRA:
No. He was my father-in-law.
ESPINO:
Oh.
BECERRA:
But he should not have been in there because I don’t think he really
took part in any of the planning. Remember the charge was conspiracy,
okay, so you have to have—all of those people could have been linked
into the planning and the execution of the walkouts. So, yes, those were
[unclear]. There were other people involved, of course, that were not
indicted.
ESPINO:
Oh, okay.
01:06:21
BECERRA:
But at least those people, yes, those people were involved. I don’t know
about Mangas because, see, I didn’t see—like, I know Moctesuma Esparza
was involved, but I wasn’t there to see him involved because a lot of
people that were involved, I didn’t see them all the time. Most of those
people I did see.
Eleazar Risco never went to one of the campuses, okay, but he was the
editor of the paper. The meetings were held in the basement of the
church where the paper came out of, right? So why didn’t they arrest
Father Luce and Father Woods? So there were other people could have been
arrested, but they didn’t. But at least these people that they did
arrest, they were involved in the planning or execution of the walkouts,
but they call it conspiring, where we call it planning, right, because
you have to plan.
ESPINO:
So Patricio, Pat, they call him Pat Sanchez or Patricio Sanchez, why do
you think he was arrested?
01:07:55
BECERRA:
I have no idea, but, see, Pat had a history in MAPA 40 he was an
activist, very much an activist, always involved, and they wanted him
anyway as a Communist, okay? So this gave them an excuse to arrest him
because he had been involved in a lot of things. He had been involved,
for example, in Chavez Ravine, when they were trying to kick those
people out, he was among the people that would take food up to the
people who were sitting-in that would refuse to leave Chavez Ravine.
Even though they were tearing down all the houses, people would still
stay there. He was involved in the organizations that were taking food
up there to those people. So going back to those days, they wanted him.
He was involved in the Save Hazard Park. Remember, they wanted to get
rid of Hazard Park and make it an extension of that hospital they have,
that Veterans Hospital in Westwood, and they would have a land swap. The
white people over there would get a new park and we would get a hospital
for veterans, right, not for the community. And so there was a big fight
over that, okay? Pat was involved in that, and the fact that he was—they
considered him a Communist. Whether he was or not doesn’t matter. They
considered him a Communist, and as it was, he worked very closely with
the Communist Party. So that’s why they would go after him. Now they had
a chance to get him, so that’s why they went after him.
ESPINO:
It seemed like there were also other Communists, too, like, for example,
Mita Cuaron’s parents and the Mounts, Tanya Mount’s parents.
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
Interesting that they would pick him out.
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
Did you ever ask him or talk about what—
BECERRA:
No, not at all.
ESPINO:
And then did you follow the proceedings, the trial with—what did you
think of Oscar Acosta’s legal skills [Becerra laughs] or his decision to
subpoena the judges in the grand jury selection pool?
BECERRA:
I think Oscar had stainless-steel balls. [laughs] He did. No attorney
would do that to every—remember the L.A. County Superior Court? He had
very much—he also hated racism and he saw them participating in the
system of racism, and he wasn’t too keen on the legal system as it was,
okay? He thought it was racist, and this was his chance to strike back
and that’s what he did. And he had a good basis for that. Some of those
admissions he got out of those judges, you know, “Don’t you have any
Mexican American friends?” “Well, no, I may know one or two.” He says,
“But you know what happens.” This is a white judge telling Oscar on the
stand, on the witness stand, “You know what happens. Even in the
municipal courts, you appoint a Mexican American, next thing you know,
he’s a Spaniard.” [laughs] He says, “He’s a Spaniard. You know what I
mean?” I mean, this is a white judge. So these Mexican Americans were
the ones we were fighting against, right, as Chicanos in ’68. Those were
the very Mexican Americans that we were fighting against, those
Spaniards, right, closet Spaniards, we’ll call them. [laughs] So, I
mean, who are these Spanish judges trying to shit? They weren’t
impressing the white judges. They became a caricature to the white
judges.
ESPINO:
Well, what did you think about his style, his presentation? Did you
think he was capable, in addition to the other thing that you said about
him?
BECERRA:
Yes, he was. You know, there’s different areas of law that people will
be able to be very capable and they specialize in them, maybe contract
law, maybe family law, whatever, and maybe he wouldn’t have been good at
those. I know he would have hated being a corporate lawyer. He wouldn’t
have been any good at it. He would have hated it. But this was something
that he had a passion for, okay? So, yes, he was going to be very, very
good. He was going to dedicate everything to it, to these issues, and
so, yeah, besides being bright, he was going to be very good at it.
ESPINO:
You didn’t worry about his—because people talk about his indulgence in
narcotics and the fact that he was kind of just unstable. You couldn’t
predict how he was going to express himself. He wasn’t even-tempered.
BECERRA:
Okay, that’s true. Okay? That’s true, but, you know, he was a package,
okay? And that was him. You cannot expect a reserved, conservative or
career-oriented attorney to do what he did, so you take him as is or you
don’t. I didn’t have really that much of a problem with him in that
regard. He was not my attorney. Neil Herring was my attorney. He was
with the National Lawyers Guild. Different people had different
attorneys in the conspiracy.
ESPINO:
Why? Why is that?
BECERRA:
I don’t remember. That’s just the way it worked out. Because what
happened was that the attorneys came forward offering their services,
you know, and to help us out, from the National Lawyers Guild, from the
American Civil Liberties Union, and other people. I don’t know where
Herman Sillas—what his affiliations were, but he worked on the case too.
So to represent us as defendants, you know, different lawyers came, and
I told Neil when he offered service, I said yes.
ESPINO:
You guys weren’t like—my husband’s doing this piece, this book on the
Chilean miners, the ones that were trapped, and they made a pact. Every
decision that they made was going to be made together, and they were
going to have one lawyer. You guys didn’t come together as defendants
and work as a group in how you were going to present your cases? It was
each on an individual—
01:15:22
BECERRA:
Okay, we never got to that point. The issue only came up one time. When
we got together, the defendants and our attorneys, and one of the
attorneys—his name was Posner, and he thought he was going to try this
case like any other criminal case. He didn’t understand that we were
Chicano activists. So he represented Carlos Muñoz, okay, and he says,
“Look,” he says, “I’m going to defend it my client, and one of the
things that we should all agree on and face up to is the fact that there
are varying degrees of involvement and of guilt here.” And we said,
“Your ass. Your ass. No. We all did this together. We all go down
together or we all—we’re going to stick together. We’re not going to be
pitting one guy against another.”
And Carlos Muñoz, this was the first he had heard of it, I guess, so he
says, “Wait a minute.” He says, “That is not my position at all.” He
says, “I know he’s an attorney, speaking as my attorney, but that is not
my position. I’m a Chicano like everybody else. That’s it.” So, yeah, we
were going to stick together. We decided that early on.
ESPINO:
I don’t know enough about the law to know how it works, but I thought if
you’re all indicted together, you all face the proceeds together. Or was
it separate or did each one of you had your own lawyer in the same
proceedings?
BECERRA:
They’d show up. The attorney would say who he was and who he was
representing. But I can’t remember how many lawyers there were. I don’t
believe that there was one lawyer for each defendant.
ESPINO:
But you didn’t share your lawyer with anybody else?
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
You remember that.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
And then you said you were arrested at the same time at Banning.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
What happened with that case?
01:17:27
BECERRA:
I went to court in [unclear], I think, and the party got me an attorney
pro bono. We show up to court, and the prosecutor talks to my attorney
and tells us, “Look, the docket is all filled up. I don’t know when
we’re going to get to your case.” This is on Monday morning. He says,
“We might not even get to your case until Friday.” So what an asshole.
This is a pro bono attorney. He’s going to give him a week of his
practice? No way.
So my attorney explains it to me. I said, “No. We’re going to cop a
plea. I’m going to plead no contest.” There’s no way. I mean the man’s
already representing me. How am I going to tell him to give up a week of
work to represent me on a misdemeanor? This is not a felony. So I
pleaded no contest, okay, and I think I got a suspended sentence or—I
can’t remember what the hell I got. It’s in my record. I have to check
my jacket. I have it now because of the hearing and the Children’s
Services thing, so I’ve got several copies in my jacket.
ESPINO:
Oh, wow.
BECERRA:
It’s all in there.
ESPINO:
Oh, fascinating. So they arrested you. What were you doing at the time
that they arrested you?
BECERRA:
I was standing on the sidewalk.
ESPINO:
Just standing?
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
You weren’t yelling or—
BECERRA:
No, no.
ESPINO:
What did they say when they approach you and arrest you? How does it
play out?
BECERRA:
They didn’t say anything.
ESPINO:
They just grab you?
BECERRA:
Yeah, tell me, “You’re under arrest.” “For what?” “For loitering,
loitering around a school. It’s against the law.” [laughs] Well, I was
loitering around the school and it is against the law, so there wasn’t
too much I could say. [laughs]
ESPINO:
It’s funny. So then—and this can be our last thing that we talk about
today and it might take a long time to talk about it, but when did you
decide that you wanted to leave the Brown Berets?
BECERRA:
First of all, I stopped going. I stopped going, like, around the time of
the indictments. I think it was around the time of the indictments or
around the time of the Poor People’s Campaign. I can’t remember. I think
it was closer to the time of the indictments. But I just stopped going.
I just didn’t go anymore.
ESPINO:
Do you remember why? Do you remember what it was that—were you just busy
or—
BECERRA:
No, I was just, like, disillusioned, okay, with the way things were
developing. And so then what’s-his-name came by and told me, “Hey,
you’re no longer a Brown Beret.” I said, “Fine.” [laughs]
ESPINO:
What’s-his-name? Do you mean David Sanchez?
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
Ralph Ramirez?
BECERRA:
No. You know, in every organization you’re going to have new guys that
come in. They want to suck up to the leadership, right? And he was one
of them. I can’t remember his name. I think his last name was Diaz.
Might have been Richard Diaz. So he came in and he told me that, and I
said, “Okay.” I had no problem. I was going anyway and I had already
stopped participating. So that was it.
ESPINO:
Did they make you turn in your brown beret and your bush—they did?
BECERRA:
Uh-huh, and I [unclear]. So I shouldn’t have done it, but I was so—what
happened, I got kind of pissed, you know, and so I did. But I didn’t
have to do it. I just did it, just made a clean break with what I was
involved in.
ESPINO:
But leading up to that, were there arguments? Were there disagreements?
BECERRA:
No, none, nothing. It’s just David was very, very scared that he was
going to lose leadership. And, look, every organization that I’ve been
involved in, usually I was one of the founders and usually I was in the
leadership, okay? And David Sanchez sensed that. He saw that, okay, the
people that gathered around me. And being as paranoid as he was, that’s
why he left the Poor People’s Campaign. Yeah, he was going to try and
get rid of anybody who maybe presented a threat to his leadership, that
he thought—I did not present a threat to his leadership because I didn’t
believe in doing something like that. I just felt if I disagree, I just
get out, you know. [unclear] organize another organization. That’s what
I wanted to do anyway by then, because I thought we had to go in a
different direction. But, no, I—
ESPINO:
You didn’t want to take over the leadership of the Brown Berets?
BECERRA:
No, no.
ESPINO:
Did you feel like you would make a better leader than him?
BECERRA:
At the time, yes, absolutely, absolutely. I don’t think there’s any
question that the people who came with me also felt that way. There was
no question about that. In hindsight, I did the right thing, leaving,
not causing any splits in the Brown Berets and not taking the Brown
Berets in a different direction, that they went in the direction that
David Sanchez wanted them to go, okay? I think that was the right thing
to do or at least the better thing to do. With the options available,
that was a better thing to do, because, like I said, if we had gone in
my direction, people would have gotten killed, just like they did with
the Black Panthers. So it’s better that we didn’t go in my direction.
ESPINO:
How did you feel about some of the other members who were close to
David? Did you have more of a similar ideology, like, say, for example,
with Carlos Montes, who even David himself says was more militant than
he was?
BECERRA:
Yeah, Carlos was more militant, okay, but I wasn’t around Carlos enough.
So we didn’t have very much interaction, me and Carlos, while we were in
the Brown Berets. I didn’t see him very much.
ESPINO:
Why is that?
BECERRA:
I don’t know. I don’t know. I just didn’t see him very much. I know that
one of the nights that I was arrested, that he and my sister went out on
the street with bottles and stuff, breaking windows and stuff, you know,
in retaliation for the arrest. There were other people involved, but I
remember that Carlos and my sister—Carlos was a very militant guy. But
we didn’t talk enough. Like, for example, he was at the Poor People’s
Campaign. I was not, okay, so I didn’t have enough—
ESPINO:
Bonding time?
BECERRA:
Bonding time or any discussion. But even if we had bonded, okay, I’m not
sure that Carlos would have left anyway, because remember, regardless
whether he was more militant or not, he might have had a different idea
of what the Berets were capable of. It wasn’t like he was going to think
like I did or like the people that went with me thought. So the fact
that he stayed, I want to say that it was good for the organization. I’m
sure it was, but at the same time, they got into trouble and not because
it was Carlos’ fault, but together they did get into more trouble, like
around the Biltmore issues, right? And there are things that I’m sure if
we had it to do over again, there are a lot of things we would not do, a
lot of things, if you think them through you would not do.
ESPINO:
Like what, for example?
BECERRA:
I would say the Biltmore. You would not allow the cops to maneuver
people into something like that, okay? If somebody would have brought
that up, you’d expel them from the organization. In ’68, we would not do
that, okay? In ’69, we would not do that because that was in line with
our way of thinking of maybe taking an action without thinking it
through, okay? Suppose worst case, okay, a hotel catches on fire and
people are trapped in inside. What would that do to the Chicano
Movement? How far would it set it back, especially the militant wing of
the Chicano Movement, how many years back? So it’s a good thing it
didn’t happen. So years later you think about that, of things that you
did without thinking when you were young. And I think about things, you
know, that we did. But the thing is that that’s in hindsight, okay, and
today you’re not as desperate, because those were very desperate, very
tumultuous times. You were swept into something. You were fighting back
against an evil, evil, evil thing that was far more evil than anything
you were going to do, the Vietnam War, the racism that people [unclear].
None of that came close to the things that we did. So even though today,
no, we wouldn’t do it today, but today isn’t 1968 or 1969 anymore.
ESPINO:
You think it’s less evil today than—if you look at society?
01:29:03
BECERRA:
No, I think that what happens is we’re older, okay? Carlos Montes is
fighting back today just as much as he was and more today than he was
then. He’s involved in a lot of issues, from police brutality to school
reform to immigration, a lot of issues that he’s involved in. He hasn’t
slowed down, but he’s not doing things the way he did them then. We
change. The world changes. We change, and you think things through more
today than you did then. So, yeah, things, in some ways, are a
lot—Jesus, just yesterday and today—we used to be worried about being
infiltrated by the cops. Look what they just disclosed yesterday.
The government is listening to every single recording, every single
conversation that takes place in the U.S., every text message, right,
that’s sent, everything by phone and on the Internet, all your emails,
everything. There’s no Fourth Amendment protection for that? I mean,
it’s insane, you know, and I mean that’s a lot worse than it was then.
Guantanamo, no habeas corpus for prisoners, you know, killing Americans
with no charges being pressed against them. Yeah, a lot of things. The
police brutality still happens, you know. Maybe it’s not as brutal today
in the LAPD as it was in the past by any means, but it still happens.
The racism today is focused a lot on undocumented people, people with no
papers, and they catch the brunt of it right now, dying by the thousands
in the desert trying to come across, the racism that can be so overt
against Mexicans, not all Mexicans, and it’s only against illegal
aliens, right?
I used to have those kind of arguments with people, you know,
Republicans at work. I said, “Who are you trying to bullshit? Why don’t
they have drones flying over the Canadian border?” It’s us, you know.
So, no, the racism is even stronger when candidates for national office
use Mexicans as a piñata, right, the racist attacks on us, you know.
Yeah, that’s a lot worse. And they pay for it and now they’ve got to
kiss our ass, you know, try to go through immigration reform and
everything. One time David Sanchez couldn’t believe how well things had
gone for us. He shook his head. He says, “I think Reies Tijerina is
right. Maybe God is on our side.” [laughs] And sometimes, you know, you
think about that. Like today I’m going to take flowers to my mom and dad
for what happened in court yesterday. So, yeah, some things have gotten
worse. But the thing, too, is that today we’re so organized all across
the country and fighting those things, but we don’t have a Chicano
Movement like we had before. That’s true, but that has to stop people
from fighting back.
ESPINO:
Right. In different ways.
BECERRA:
Different ways, yes.
ESPINO:
That’s right. Well, when you think about that time and you look at the
Brown Beret symbolism and the—well, the fact that people were carrying
arms, the Brown Berets were practicing—I don’t know if you were a part
of the target practice up in the mountains, the hills. Did you feel like
you were at a war?
BECERRA:
Yes. Not only were we at war, but we were preparing for war. If the war
wasn’t here, we were preparing for it. Yes, very much.
ESPINO:
You didn’t feel like it was a—if you think about the terminology and
your position as a Brown Beret, was it a position of self-defense or was
it a position of revolutionary change?
BECERRA:
It was both. It was almost like our response to racism and to us.
Revolutionary change, the way we looked at it then, was not a Socialist
revolution.
ESPINO:
By any means necessary, is what I’m referring to.
BECERRA:
Oh, yeah, that was very much a part of what we believed in, very much,
and it was not just self-defense. It was self-defense maybe at the
program, but the practicality was that we were preparing for—well, we
hopefully, after organizing, would be an armed insurrection for Chicanos
to have freedom, our own Aztlán. That’s what we were fighting for and we
knew it. We knew that’s what we were fighting for. There was no
ambiguity at all.
ESPINO:
Everyone was on the same page?
01:32:56
BECERRA:
Everybody knew that we were fighting for a free Aztlán. Everybody knew,
and it was stated in different ways. Some would say we’re going to drive
the white man out of here, you know. That was one way of stating it.
When we drive the white man out of here, they weren’t going to rule.
Southwest will be ours again, and we’ll rule the Southwest.
So it wasn’t a question like when we had a position on the Chicano
[unclear]. It wasn’t like that. It was just to liberate Aztlán. And
remember, two years later, in ’70, the slogans that people would raise
would be—like, in the Chicano Moratorium would be, like, Vietnam,
Aztlán, same battle, two fronts. And so people were very clear that
there was a question that we were liberating Aztlán. That was clear to
everybody. That’s what we were doing or were trying to do. That’s why
the question of going to [unclear], that was not to defend ourselves
from the pigs, even though that might be what was in people’s minds. We
thought that it would become necessary one day that [unclear] defend
ourselves with the police, but basically the most basic thing was to
fight for the liberation of Aztlán. That was it. Certainly the people I
talked with knew about it in the Brown Berets. That was our view,
insurrection for the liberation of Aztlán.
ESPINO:
So when you left the Brown Berets, did you take that ideology with you?
BECERRA:
Yes, yes.
ESPINO:
And what happened? What did you plan next?
BECERRA:
First it was La Junta, but it never developed to that point until that
was in ATM, and that’s when we decided we had to develop that position
on Chicano national question. And when we formed the larger ATM, that’s
when we decided to study the position and go over the position on the
Chicano national question. So the issue of self-determination, that’s
never changed. For me it’s never changed. The fact that it’s not on the
front burner at any given point, that’s the way a movement is. Different
issues come to the fore at different times. They may never come to the
fore again, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to
self-determination. I would like for us to never have to deal with the
issue of secession because I don’t look forward to that, but it’s still
our right.
ESPINO:
In La Junta, were you alone in founding that or—
BECERRA:
No. No, it was Johnny Parsons, Tacos, Little John. Who else? Little
John. I can’t remember.
ESPINO:
It was all men?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Why was that?
BECERRA:
Because that’s what we gravitate to. [laughs]
ESPINO:
Because at that time, wasn’t Gloria Arellanes—didn’t she have a
leadership role in the Brown Berets?
BECERRA:
Not then.
ESPINO:
She didn’t have one yet in—I thought from the beginning she had a
leadership role, like in ’69, she had a leadership role.
BECERRA:
Sure, but in ’69 I wasn’t in the Brown Berets. Remember, this was in
June—
ESPINO:
Oh, ’68, right. You told me that. Okay, so were there even women when
you were in the Brown Berets? Were there even women in the Brown Berets
at that time?
BECERRA:
Right from the beginning there were women that were there and that
participated with us. My sister was one of them. Lizzy was another one.
Diane Robertson was there. She had a problem because she was a Maoist,
but she was there. Even if they gave her a bunch of shit, she was there.
They didn’t give her shit because she was a woman; they gave her shit
because she was a Communist, okay? And David was very paranoid about
communism, you know. I think Fred Lopez may have been also, and some of
us were not.
ESPINO:
Well, what was your position as far as the women’s role in the
organization? Did you have one?
BECERRA:
No, because there were no women around. And the ones that—
ESPINO:
Well, you just mentioned three of them.
01:38:22
BECERRA:
Yes, but the thing is that when I was there, we just barely started to
get structured, okay? A woman’s role to me was if we’re going to go to
an action, she comes as a comrade to do the action, just like any
guerillera, okay? Period, and that’s it. Whatever we’re going to do,
she’s going to do, too, right along with us.
As far as, like, you’re saying a role in leadership, at that point there
was really—there’s two types of leadership, okay? One was David, who
was, like, structurally the leader. The other type of leadership is the
one by influence, okay, and I was that type of a leader. So if you ask
women in leadership, where, which of those two, okay? Because you have
to put it into some kind of—by ’69, you can put into a context, but not
in May and June of ’68, no. There’s no context to put that into.
ESPINO:
Well, when you look at society as a whole and you look at expectations
for women, even, I think, you still could not wear pants. Basically,
women wore skirts to work and to school, and those kinds of rules were
in effect. How did that play out into the organization? Were you trying
to transform—I mean, was self-determination just a part of the way you
looked at the structure of society or were you trying to transform those
kinds of relationship as well, male-female relationships, and having
different expectations for—
BECERRA:
That wouldn’t happen till a few years later in ATM. Yeah, that wouldn’t
happen until ATM.
ESPINO:
Because sometimes I look at the photographs of the women, and the women
look very powerful but they also look like ornaments. Not ornaments.
What is the word? Like jewelry or like the accent to the men versus—
BECERRA:
They were like tokens. Tokenism?
ESPINO:
Something like that, but like a pretty woman on a man’s arm. She’s like
an ornament. She’s like an accessory, not always somebody who’s there
because of her intelligence and her strength and her knowledge, etc. I
don’t know if I’m making sense, but—
BECERRA:
Yeah, but in ’68 in the Brown Berets, that never presented itself. It
won’t be till years later that would present itself. It happened in La
Raza Unida Party and then it happened in ATM. I’m talking La Raza Unida
Party, California, not Texas. California La Raza Unida Party.
ESPINO:
You mean as far as women asking for leadership, that kind of thing?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Okay. I think I’m going to stop it now.
BECERRA:
Okay. [recorder turned off]
ESPINO:
Okay. You had a story that you remembered. You want to tell me?
BECERRA:
This happened the last time I talked with you, two weeks ago, and we
talked about Gloria and her indigenous mother and her attitude towards
the Chicano Nation and Chicano National Movement, right?
ESPINO:
The concept of Aztlán.
BECERRA:
Yes, the concept of Aztlán, okay, which, by the way, is an indigenous
concept, okay? [laughs] And then I told you that, to me, these issues
were political issues that had to be looked at politically, not as a
form of religion or as a form of real estate of who was here first,
okay?
ESPINO:
That’s right.
01:44:0401:45:2701:46:55
BECERRA:
Because, you know, if the issue is who was here first, it becomes like
two children fighting over a toy, “I had it first.” “No, I had it
first.” No, no, no, no, that’s not the question. Okay. That day after I
talked with you, I got a call from a brother who’s also involved in the
indigenous movement, and he’s going to Ghost Mountain or something up in
the Four Corners area. There’s going to be a demonstration over there
against Peabody Coal. Peabody Coal has been digging over there. They
found a lot of artifacts and a lot of bones of Navajos because that’s on
the Navajo Reservation. And so they’re going to have a demonstration
demanding those artifacts be given to the university. There’s, like, 100
million artifacts, he told me, something like that, or 100,000, 100,000
artifacts, so he wanted me to help in support of that.
So I said, “Okay.” I told him, “Look. What’s the issue, just the bones
and the artifacts?” He goes, “Yeah.” I said, “Well, look. Tell me what
the point is. Because every time I turn around, indigenous movement is
going to lay claim to some bones somewhere, a sacred burial site. And
that’s all you do, go from burial site to burial site. And I don’t know
if you have any kind of a political agenda that this is a part of,
because you can make a whole career out of going from burial site to
burial site.” “No, you don’t understand. The elders have asked us to do
this.”
I said, “Okay, well, then the elders probably have a plan, some kind of
a plan, a program that they’re implementing, and this is a part of it.
Do you know what that is?” “No, they just asked us—.” I said, “Brother,
you can’t do this. You can’t ask people to just take part in going from
burial site to burial site and spend the rest of their lives like that
and get nowhere. That’s called religion, you understand?” “No, I just
want you guys to give us some support, anybody you know.” I said, “I
know people, but I’ve got to tell them something, you know, there’s this
program that you’re involved in, and this is part of the program, the
demands you have, etc., not just that you’re going from burial site to
burial—.”
“Well, we want those artifacts back.” I said, “Okay. Look. First of all,
Peabody can’t go in there and dig for coal on a reservation unless they
have permission from the Navajo government, so I think that would be
your first issue, would be dealing with the Navajo government, who are
the representatives, who is the jurisdictional president for that area.
I know Peter MacDonald was the president of the Navajo Nation for many
years, but there may be different jurisdictions, and that’s who you have
to go up against. If you don’t like what they did, change the
leadership. You have a political issue right there. Change the
leadership so they don’t give these things away.”
“Well, no, we know the history of—they set up different groups to fight
against each other, the Navajo Nation.” I said, “Okay, that’s your
issue. That’s what you should be dealing with as well.” “No, but, you
know, they’re a bunch of sellouts.” “That’s why you should deal with
that issue.” So then that same day I’m watching the news, and there’s a
big demonstration against Peabody Coal in West Virginia. Why? Because
Peabody Coal bought another coal company, and the only purpose for
buying it was so they could declare bankruptcy, get rid of the pension
plan, okay, which was a liability, get rid of the contract, the union
contract, or renegotiate it, and now they would have a very valuable
asset that they could work or sell. But first you buy it to declare
bankruptcy, to get rid of the pension plan.
So I called him back. “Hey, you’ve got allies. They’ve got other people
demonstrating against Peabody. Hook up with those union workers, United
Mine Workers over here in West Virginia. I mean, this is great.” “No,
we’re not doing that. We’re going to go—.” I said, “Wait a minute.
That’s not how you work politically. You understand? You’ve got allies.
You guys can make a hell of a statement hooking with them.” “No. We’ve
got our plans made. We’re going to go meet with the elders and we’re—.”
I said, “What the fuck? What the fuck? You’re acting like kids. What the
fuck are you doing?”
But that’s what I was dealing with the other time that I talked to you
about when people don’t deal with a serious issue politically. And it
may be, you know, people in the indigenous movement are not looking at
this as an issue of the Great Spirit, our values, our ancient values,
which is religion, or sweat lodges and burial sites. When my daughter
went to study in Ireland and she was very close to the IRA, I
said—because I always have to do this when my daughter’s—whatever her
interests are intellectually, boom, I jump on it.
So I went and researched the Easter Rebellion of 1916, and that’s when I
first read about James Connolly. James Connolly was one of the martyrs
of the Easter Rebellion who was hanged by the British for his role as a
leader of the Easter Rebellion in Ireland. I read his writings. He was a
Socialist. And I loved his writings. As a Nationalist, he was an Irish
Nationalist and a Socialist. One of the things he says, “There’s been a
revitalization, a rebirth of Irish culture,” he says. And he talked
about the language, the music, the literature, all these. He says, “But
we have to be careful that we understand these things and—.”
ESPINO:
This is Virginia Espino, and today is July 8th. I’m interviewing Cruz
Becerra at his home in Commerce, California. I wanted to start today
with a look back at the Brown Berets. We talked about your role a bit
last time we met, and I was wondering if you could tell me—you talked
about some of the reasons why you left the organization, but your role
during the time that you were in the Brown Berets, what do you think the
biggest successes of the organization were while you were there? I’m
thinking it was about two years that you were actually—
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
A year?
BECERRA:
Less than a year.
ESPINO:
Less than a year you were an official Brown—so you were with the Young
Chicanos.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
And then—
BECERRA:
Brown Berets.
ESPINO:
And the time encompasses less than a year?
0:01:250:03:280:04:43
BECERRA:
Yes. Yes, it’s less than a year. I think there was a number of things
that—the significance of the Berets was that we were at—the movement as
a movement did not exist, not as a movement that identified itself as a
movement. And there were people doing work in different areas, but where
the students or labor, community organizations, educational
organizations, social workers, organizations, but as a movement, it
didn’t exist yet.
What happened with the Berets is that—there’s two things. One is that
first there had to be a break made with the traditional politics of
Chicanos, of tailing after the liberals and the Democratic Party and of
being very traditional, politically traditional. That break had to be
made. Otherwise, Chicanos would always be at the mercy of white
liberals, and that’s what we wanted to break away from to be
independent, to have an independent political movement, at least
independent of the white liberals, because that’s who we had to go
running to every time we had a problem, liberals who patted you on the
head and went about their business. They’re also the ones that would
stab you in the back. I thought, you know, maybe things had changed, but
they haven’t changed at all.
I go on MSNBC and you see these liberals on there and they talk about
how progressive they are, and some of them, they’re quite good, Chris
Hayes and Rachel Maddow, but the other ones are quite Democratic Party
hacks and they will defend Barack Obama against Snowden. They’ll talk
about he’s siding with the enemies of our country, and I don’t know how
Bolivia or Venezuela or Ecuador are enemies, you know. They’re not
enemies. It’s just that they criticize imperialism, they criticize the
historical relationship between the U.S. and Latin America, and if you
stand up to the giant, you’re an enemy. So they’re still liberals and if
they’re liberals on international issues like that, they’ll stab you in
the back. They’ll stab us in the back here, too, and it’s harder for
them to get away with it here because now they’re depending more and
more on Latinos and the Latino vote.
Also there’s a pretty strong coalition politics of blacks and browns,
Asians, gays and lesbians, women, youth, so that kind of coalition is
pretty strong, and so it’s kind of hard to just to zero in on us, but
they will. They’ll do it on immigration issues. They’ll say, "We had no
choice. We had to give in on this issue, give in on that just so we can
get something through." But from what I understand, that immigration
bill is really—it’s really bad, you know. I mean, it’s really bad. Who’s
going to be able to come in? Maybe you’ll never have citizenship. We’ll
have to go nineteen years before you have a Green Card. I mean, it’s
really bad. So you always have to still watch out for the liberals. So
at that time, that’s what we saw, and that hasn’t changed. So we had to
have a new type of politics, independent. And one of the ways we had to
do that was really to go against the white power structure, what we
called the white power structure. So we had to launch that organization
and then influence as much of youth as we could in that direction, and
we succeeded.
We weren’t alone. The students at the universities were doing the same
thing, the very same thing. We just weren’t doing it together, but they
were doing the same thing. Of course, in the Student Movement there was
a split. There was still a split between those who wanted to go
tradition, because, remember, these are going to be the professionals,
the future professionals, and so there was some who wanted to go in an
independent militant direction and others who wanted to go the more
traditional, and they were split just about in half. But within a few
months, that changed, changed dramatically. But at the time, there was
still a split in the Student Movement as to which direction to go, a
more or less conservative—they weren’t real conservatives, but you would
call them more conservative, more conservatives than the more radical
militant Chicanos, the more nationalist Chicanos and UMAS and MEChA. Not
MEChA. UMAS and MASA.
ESPINO:
MASA.
BECERRA:
So those are people who wanted influence as well. So the direction of
independent, move independently of the Democratic Party, it wasn’t 100
percent, okay, because we still would work to some degree or another
with some of the Chicano Democrats. Because I remember Calderon was
running for mayor or for Congress or something or another, and he asked
the Brown Berets for help, and we did, we helped him. It wasn’t the
voter registration, okay? It was other ways we helped him, but he got
our assistance, okay?
ESPINO:
Well, Vicki Castro has a picture where it’s, I believe, David Sanchez,
herself behind a poster that says "Nava for Board of Education."
BECERRA:
Board of Education.
ESPINO:
So that must have been in ’68.
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
Sixty-seven?
BECERRA:
No, it would not have been—’67, maybe, but no earlier than that, because
in ’68, Nava would not be running.
ESPINO:
He ran right before the walkout. He won right before the walkouts.
BECERRA:
Yes, that would have been before. That was ’67 or else March of—but I
think it would be—because there would have been a big backlash against
Nava if it was after the walkouts.
ESPINO:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was in ’67 that that happened. Okay, so you’re
saying that in ’68, if you were only with the Brown Berets for less than
a year, it would be from ’68 to ’69?
BECERRA:
No, ’67 to ’68.
ESPINO:
Sixty-seven to ’68.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Yeah, and then the walkouts were in March.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
You’re still with the Brown Berets at that time.
BECERRA:
Yes, and the indictments came down in June, and I was still with the
Berets.
ESPINO:
Wow. That’s early.
BECERRA:
[laughs] It didn’t take too much time. What happened, we just had to
strike out in a militant direction. Oh, my god, it was radical—
ESPINO:
Wow, yeah.
BECERRA:
—quickly.
ESPINO:
Okay, I want to talk about that, like your shift and the political
ideology that you were developing. I’m assuming that’s part of the
reason you left the Brown Berets, from our conversation and some of the
things that I’ve read, the class analysis that you had. But going back
to what you said about the white power structure, how did you define it
back then? Because you mentioned—would white liberals be part of the
white power structure?
BECERRA:
Yes, yes, yes, everything—and then in those days, I mean, everything was
really, really black or white, you know. It was a real, real dichotomy
there because we hardly had any representation at all politically, so it
wasn’t—when you’re talking about the white power structure, it really
was there. It wasn’t some mystical thing. It was there and you saw it
every day. Whether it was in the form of the police or the form of the
politicians, whether it was the mayor or the City Council, it was there
and you saw it. And, of course, then you had Vietnam and you saw Vietnam
as a racist war, which it was, very much so. I mean, I’d come out of the
navy and, you know— [interruption]
ESPINO:
Okay, we’re back. We were talking about—you were describing the white
establishment and differentiating between—not really differentiating,
but you were saying that white liberals were included in that and you
were talking about how it’s not like today, where everything—I mean, it
was just—like, it wasn’t a fantasy. Like Aztlán was this concept, this
romantic concept, but the white power structure was a real, tangible
thing.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
And I don’t know if you want to elaborate on that, but there’s one—I
mean, the interesting thing for me in doing these interviews is finding
out how many white and Jewish people were involved in the Chicano
Movement. Like, for example, Rona Fields, as far as helping the Brown
Berets with some of their endeavors. Did you have a chance to meet her
at all? What was your impression of her? Would you consider her a white
liberal or would you put her in a different kind of category?
0:11:24
BECERRA:
No, I would say she was a white liberal, definitely, and I didn’t see
her helping so much, okay. I saw her mostly studying us more than
helping us, okay. And there were a lot of people like that coming to
study us more than really help us. Now, that was my personal
encountering her, both at La Piranya and at her house. She lived up in
Altadena. How much she helped, I don’t know. Different people have
different ideas today. Eagle doesn’t find her too helpful, but I don’t
know.
There were people who you would call white liberals who were around who
were helpful to one degree, were very supportive, but they weren’t
liberals. They were [unclear]. They were like Socialists. I mean, one
guy, in fact, he’s still a friend of mine. He called me last week from
Guadalajara. He lives in Guadalajara now. He’s Jewish. He grew up
Monterey Park and Mark Keppel High School, speaks Spanish, a really,
really a good guy. I thought he was, like, a Trotskyist, and he said he
wasn’t a Trotskyist. He just liked Trotsky more than he liked Stalin.
But a very, very good man, very principled guy. When they had the
clinic, the Brown Berets had the clinic, he was there and the reason he
was helpful is that David Sanchez didn’t speak Spanish, okay. I don’t
think he still speaks Spanish. And so people would come there for help
and he would translate. The people would come and speak in Spanish.
David didn’t speak Spanish, so he would serve as a translator for David
so he could communicate with the Chicanos in the community, right? And
my friend tells me, "Imagine that, a gringo asking for a leader in the
Brown Berets." He said, "It’s crazy." But, yeah, but he was supportive.
He was around.
ESPINO:
What was his name again?
BECERRA:
Bob Briggs. Bob Briggs, yes, and he hung around with another guy named
Levi Kingston, okay, an African American brother who’s still doing work
here, hired by M_____. Right adjacent to us, he’d have, a children’s, I
think, a preschool kind of place, and he still works there, but they may
be getting their funding cut now. They’re still on a day-to-day all the
time because of the state cuts in funding. And then apart from that, I
can’t remember anybody at that time.
ESPINO:
Did you have interactions with Ruth Robinson from La Raza newspaper?
BECERRA:
Oh, yes. Yeah. Ah, she was one of us. I mean, I don’t consider her like
a white liberal, you know, now. She’s a sister. You know, she was one of
our sisters, and I would not consider her a white liberal at all. You’ve
got to make those kinds of distinctions, okay.
ESPINO:
Yeah, those distinctions are important because, like, they lumped
everybody within the Chicano Movement as this one thing. Well, not so
much anymore. I mean, now we’re starting to understand it as more people
study it, but to lump all white folks in one category, you know, as the
power structure, as white liberals, as—but how would you—I mean, you say
she’s a sister, but was that rare to find somebody like that or was that
common?
0:14:38
BECERRA:
I don’t know how rare it was because in the nationalist movement, the
national movement, I didn’t have as much contact. Generally, the whites
would go towards the centers of activity, okay, whether it was La Raza
magazine, the Brown Berets, things like that.
After La Junta, I wasn’t involved really in anything until we started
the Labor Committee. In the Labor Committee, the whites who come around
are not liberals; they’re Communists. They’re Marxists-Leninists, you
know, so they’re not white liberals anymore. I mean, they are committed
revolutionaries, so it’s totally different than it was in the Chicano
Movement, where there you didn’t make a distinction between white
liberals and committed people who were really committed to the movement,
committed to the revolution, and that’s what I saw Ruth. I mean, she was
a committed person. She wasn’t a liberal, a white liberal at all.
ESPINO:
What about Father Luce and Father Wood, those individuals from the
church?
BECERRA:
It’s hard to categorize them because these people were really committed.
I mean, this was their life, you know, and so you can’t say they were
white liberals. Maybe they were liberals in terms of their ideology, you
know, the kinds of changes they wanted to make within the system.
Whether they were real revolutionaries and all that, that really wasn’t
important to me. What was important was that they were committed, they
were committed to a struggle, and in that regard they were not liberals.
I mean, they were there for the long haul and they were there,
committed. I was surprised that they weren’t indicted along with us, you
know, except I think the district attorney was trying to isolate us from
the rest of the community, not [unclear] with the rest of the community.
It would have been a big mistake. Especially when we were indicted and
we were there for our bail hearing at the arraignment, and they do the
bail hearing, and the archbishop for Los Angeles, the Episcopal
archbishop, asked the court to release us into his care [unclear]
recognizant into his custody. No bail. [laughs] So these people that
Father Luce were, you know—he was something else. He was a really,
really good guy. He was a committed man, really, really committed. You
don’t call him a liberal. I don’t know what his ideology was. I just
know what his commitment was, and that’s what mattered, you know.
ESPINO:
So you look at these individuals as—you understand them based on their
work, based on their actions.
BECERRA:
Yes, their commitment.
ESPINO:
What about the power distribution? Because some people say that even
leftists, even people who are Communists, who are Socialists, who are
committed to a revolution, try to come in and take over different
movement organizations, whether it be within the black community or the
Chicano community. Did you experience that kind of a—like somebody like
Ruth or Father Luce, did they insert their power? Did they try to take
leadership, or did they take leadership and people basically did what
they were asking of them?
BECERRA:
No, Father Luce never did that. Ruth never did that. Father Luce, he
helped to develop the conditions for leadership to develop in the Young
Chicano Movement. He encouraged, he would have talks with people, and he
never would tell you what to do. He’d make some suggestions, you know.
Once in a while he would give you ideas, but, no, he didn’t try to take
over leadership. He helped create the conditions for the development of
a movement, you know, plant the seeds and do everything that he could
for the development of a movement that he believed in. So I didn’t see
that from him. No, those people would not be in that—I did see—are you
talking about white people coming into Left organizations or white
people coming into the Chicano Movement to try and influence it in that
way?
ESPINO:
Yeah, Chicano Movement. Some people have said that about, well, even the
Chicano Moratorium, that there were individuals who were going to use
that as a reason to, well, start the revolution, in their eyes. They
thought that—I mean, they really believed that a revolution was imminent
and that these were some of the organizations that were going to help
make that happen.
BECERRA:
Okay, I don’t know about the Moratorium Committee because I never worked
with the Moratorium Committee. I was in La Raza Unida Party, and when we
would have our county or even the state caucuses, the Socialist Workers
Party would come in and they would, like, set up their tables. They’d
want to pass out their literature, sell their newspaper. Even though we
were the Labor Committee and, for the most part, we were all
Marxists-Leninists, what we resented about the Socialist Workers Party
was two things. One is they would not get into the trenches with you.
They would not be anywhere near where the action was, right? They just
wanted to come in like missionaries, right, and try to convince people
that they had the truth, right? And we resented that.
The second thing was that, for the most part, they were white, and we
didn’t like white missionaries coming in, you know, any more than the
Mau Mau did in Africa or anyplace else. We resented that, so we would
chase them off. I mean, sometimes [unclear], get them away because we
didn’t want them, first—you know, it was a Chicano thing, and the La
Raza Party had to stay a Chicano thing, okay, even though when we
identified who La Raza was, it wasn’t just Chicanos, okay. We talked
about people from the Caribbean, from Latin America, from the Antilles,
Filipinos. For us, La Raza was very broad, but we had to recognize that
it had to stay Raza. We couldn’t have white organizations coming in,
whether left-wing, Communists, or whatever.
But these people from the Socialist Workers Party we particularly
disliked because, first of all, they were Trotskyists and we were
Stalinists, okay, first thing. Second thing is that we didn’t like the
idea of missionaries coming in, and that’s what these people were doing.
If they had been people—[unclear] suppose it had been the Black Workers
Congress who came in and set up. We’d welcome them, you know, because we
knew that they had a history of struggle that we knew, and it was very
close to us. But that’s not what happened here. So, yeah, that’s the
only time that I saw that. They never got into the organization where
they could have influence.
ESPINO:
What about with the Brown Berets? They weren’t trying to, well, sit-in
and collaborate and influence. I’m assuming—considering David, you have
mentioned that David was anti-Communist, I’m assuming he was anti-class
politics.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
I’m just assuming that. I don’t know for sure. He talks about not really
having that—that wasn’t his goal, like a workers’ revolution. But I’m
assuming that during that time there were leftist groups who wanted to
educate David and turn the Brown Berets into an arm for that kind of
change.
BECERRA:
I saw some of them come around to—I mean, Diane Robertson was one, and
even though her last name is Robertson, she’s a Latina. And she came
around and she tried to do that, but not as an organization; as an
individual. She tried to do that out of—how do you say it—not as a white
liberal, missionary-type person. No, as a revolutionary, and she saw
revolutionary organization and she wanted to influence it, and I didn’t
see anything wrong with it. She was Raza, first of all, and I didn’t see
anything wrong with that, you know. But some people may have seen her as
white, you know, but it doesn’t matter.
She was still Raza and she still was doing the right thing. Whether you
agree with her or disagree with her, she was doing the right thing.
There were other people would come in and were opportunists, were not
Left. They were like leaders of community organizations, white, who
would come in and they would want to work with us on
conflict-resolutions issues, right? "What the fuck are you talking
about?" Stuff like that, so, you know, we’d chase them away. All of us
would chase them away. David did not want anybody influencing the Brown
Berets other than him. That was it, so that was not going to happen.
ESPINO:
I asked you a few sessions back if you had seen the Brown Book. You said
you had never seen it.
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
And I don’t know if you’re interested in seeing it now, but I have a
photocopy of it. It says it was written in 1968 and it just talks about
David’s plan for the organization.
BECERRA:
Okay. We were both in jail at the same time on the same case. We both
got sent to Wayside. We were young, okay? David was younger than I was,
and they had him working in the bakery at Wayside. He told me one of his
jobs with this—he’s telling me this while we’re there in jail, and he
tells me he got this loaf of bread and he runs it through the slicer,
right? And he said he was thinking of getting a pipe or something in
this loaf of bread and running it through and just destroying all the
blades. I thought, "What the fuck for?" [laughs] And then we got
separated. What happened, I got the flu while I was there, so they sent
me back to the county, to the new county, because that’s where they had
medical facilities and I was going to get everybody else sick. And then
I was there. Then from there, after I was okay, they sent me to Mount
Wilson, the camp at Mount Wilson, so I was only with David for a few
days at Wayside and then I caught the flu. I got shipped out of there.
But, yeah, I was in jail, I guess, when he wrote this.
ESPINO:
He said for some reason they kept him in solitary confinement, and
that’s when he started to write that.
BECERRA:
Okay. I don’t know about solitary confinement. I wasn’t there all the
time. I was just there for a few days, and during those few days, he was
working in the bakery, so he was with everybody else. What happened to
him afterwards, if he started saying stuff, you know, which he would
have done, you know, then they might isolate him just to not have any
trouble. They don’t want to have any troublemakers in there.
ESPINO:
Oh, you mean like talking back?
BECERRA:
No, talking to other prisoners, talking to other inmates, you know, and
trying to—
ESPINO:
Politicize?
BECERRA:
Yeah, politicize, create trouble, okay? They don’t want any riots in
there. [unclear] understand us. I mean, we’re in there for inciting a
riot anyway as it is, right, so they put us in a maximum security.
Wayside Max was where we were, Wayside Max. And [unclear] might have
done that for that reason after he’d been there a few days. But, no, I
didn’t—
ESPINO:
You never read that?
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
I just imagined, after talking to him and few other people, that all the
Brown Berets were carrying that around in their pocket, like the Little
Red Book. It wasn’t like that?
BECERRA:
This happened after I wasn’t in the Berets anymore.
ESPINO:
That was after—that soon?
BECERRA:
Yeah, because he wasn’t at Wayside—no. February of ’68, we had just been
arrested. We hadn’t even gone to court yet.
ESPINO:
Yeah, and it wasn’t even the walkouts yet—
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
—because March ’68 were the walkouts.
BECERRA:
Yeah. This was not February. We were in jail in—we spent Thanksgiving in
jail.
ESPINO:
Of ’67?
BECERRA:
Of ’68.
ESPINO:
After the walkouts?
BECERRA:
After the walkouts.
ESPINO:
So it’s impossible that he wrote that in February of ’68.
BECERRA:
Yeah, yeah. No.
ESPINO:
Okay. So then you were no longer in the Brown Berets, so you never saw
that document?
BECERRA:
No, and as far as, like, if there’s a conflict in dates, I can resolve
that real easy because I have my rap sheet, and it tells you when I was
arrested, okay. Because when I was arrested, you know, we’re arrested
and we went to East L.A. court, talked to Vega, Judge Vega. He was
pissed off at us and he gave us the maximum. First offense, maximum.
ESPINO:
And can you tell me why you were arrested?
BECERRA:
Yeah, we were on Whittier Boulevard and—
ESPINO:
What were you doing there?
BECERRA:
Causing trouble, almost like inciting a—really inciting a riot, okay?
And the cops came and they chased everybody. They caught me and David.
They cornered us, and the other people got away. The night they took us
away, my sister was there. My sister was in the Berets. This is February
of ’68, and her and Carlos Montes went out that night throwing—well,
just, you know, vandalizing, okay, breaking windows, throwing—I don’t
know if it was Molotov cocktails or bottles or one thing, but they went
out that night, like revenge for arresting us.
ESPINO:
Can you back up to the beginning and talk about how you decided to come
together that night on Whittier Boulevard and what was the goal and what
was the—like, did you all meet and—
BECERRA:
No, we went—
ESPINO:
What was the plan?
BECERRA:
We would say that, you know, "Let go out on Whittier Boulevard," right,
and we were going to be—well, we were passing out flyers. I think we
were passing out flyers for Piranya Coffeehouse, and it was, like,
agitational material, okay. It was agitational material, and we’re
passing it out to the people that are cruising the boulevard, okay. And
the cops came to stop us, and that’s when that happened.
ESPINO:
When what happened?
BECERRA:
That they arrested us and took us in.
ESPINO:
Just like that?
BECERRA:
Just like that. They never needed a reason, because we were dressed like
Brown Berets, okay. They don’t need a reason, okay, and since when we
were getting arrested, we were, like, causing a ruckus, you know, and
it’s like inciting other people to riot, right?
ESPINO:
Okay, so then there was a reason.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
And what exactly were you doing? Because the story that I’ve heard is
that David was on a soapbox, like he actually got on a box. Do you
remember what he was saying?
BECERRA:
No, no, but the idea—that doesn’t matter whether he was on an actual
soapbox or not. That’s what we were doing. We were agitating, okay? We
were agitating, passing out flyers. So if he was on a soapbox, whether
he was actually on the soapbox or not—
ESPINO:
On something, or he elevated himself.
BECERRA:
Yeah, that’s fine, and that might be exactly what happened because I
remember we used to go out and do stuff like that. So that might be
exactly what happened.
ESPINO:
Do you remember what the message was?
BECERRA:
Yeah, it was against—yes, it wasn’t complicated. [laughs] It was going
to be for brown power against the white power structure, our land, and
the pigs. So that would have been real short, to the point, okay? We
called on people at the coffeehouse to join the Brown Berets and take on
the struggle.
ESPINO:
Wow.
BECERRA:
It wasn’t going to be too complicated at all.
ESPINO:
Yeah. Did people come around and—
BECERRA:
Well, yeah, they would.
ESPINO:
Were people afraid or did people heckle you guys?
BECERRA:
Nobody heckled us at all, not at all. They wanted to know what was going
on and people were very, very—kids were very supportive, very, very
supportive, saying stuff like, "Yeah, it’s about time," you know, and
stuff like that, very supportive. No, we were not heckled. I don’t
remember anybody, any young people heckling us out there on the
boulevard at all.
ESPINO:
So what was the agitation? I mean, did you guys start throwing stuff and
that’s when the cops came in?
BECERRA:
No. When the cops came, they wanted us to stop what we were doing, first
of all, okay. Remember, if we were in La Piranya Coffeehouse where we
were supposed to be, they would pull us out and line us up against the
wall, you know, start taking notes who was there, your name, you know,
so they’d have a list of who was there, and so it didn’t matter what you
were doing. If you were driving a car and they saw you, they’d pull you
over. It didn’t matter. They didn’t have to have an excuse. Long as you
were Brown Beret, that’s all the excuse they needed. That’s all they
needed, nothing else. And so when they saw us out on the boulevard, they
get pissed, you know, and they would see what we were doing, passing out
these flyers. They’d get pissed, you know, and they would arrest us.
They could have [unclear]. No, they arrested us. They could have told us
to stop. The other thing, too, they chased us, okay? That’s the other
thing that pissed them off.
ESPINO:
Because you ran. You guys ran?
BECERRA:
Yeah. Yeah, and so they got pissed off about that too.
ESPINO:
And they just caught you and David?
BECERRA:
Yes, that was it.
ESPINO:
Did you have any idea how you were—that was the first time you got
arrested?
BECERRA:
Yeah, for being in the Brown Berets, yes, I think so.
ESPINO:
Did you have any idea how you were going to respond? Did you guys talk
about what you would do as far as what you would say, what you would not
say? Did you know about your rights? Did you know anything going into
that situation?
BECERRA:
No. No, we were very super amateurish, okay, very, very amateurish. I
mean, we wouldn’t know. There was no way we would know. We did not have
police records, okay. We were not in gangs. If you’re in a gang,
everybody tells you you don’t rat, shut your mouth, don’t talk to pigs,
you know, everything. So you’re already growing up in a gang, you’re
already being trained on how to respond, and the cops know that, okay,
because they’ll tell you the differences with different types of people
that they arrest and what they expect. No, we didn’t know anything like
that because that wasn’t our background. I mean, he was Young Citizens
for Community Action. I’m a Vietnam vet. We didn’t have gang activity in
our background, so, no, we would not know what to do. We’d have to learn
the hard way.
ESPINO:
So what were those first lessons, then, after that arrest?
BECERRA:
I didn’t even learn then. I didn’t learn until March after the walkouts.
You shut your mouth, you know. We were raising funds for the Defense
Committee. We went to go talk to the Committee for Defense of the Bill
of Rights, the Los Angeles Committee for Defense of the Bill of Rights,
which was on Third Street just a few doors west of Broadway, the second
floor. It was an organization of the Communist Party and they were very
active in raising funds for activists, anybody who was being harassed by
the police, being arrested, because they also saw this as a
revolutionary period. Even though they weren’t going to—they’d already
done their part. They were old. These people were, like, in their
seventies already, you know, viejitos in their eighties, you know,
folding envelopes for mailings.
ESPINO:
They did the thirties. They were the Depression-era Communists.
BECERRA:
Yes, and so I was very proud of them, you know. When I’m in my eighties,
I want to be here folding envelopes and all that, you know, with the
Communist Party.
ESPINO:
Wow.
BECERRA:
Even though I wasn’t a Communist, I wasn’t going to join the Communist
Party, but I wanted to help, you know. If that’s what they’re going to
be doing when I’m eighty years old, I want to be here with them, you
know? So we talked to Rose Chernin, and she says, "When the cops arrest
you, you shut your mouth. You don’t talk." We didn’t need a Miranda
ruling to know what to do. She says, "You know you’re a revolutionary.
The cops arrest you, you shut your mouth." She says, "We were in jail
for six months under the Smith Act." She said, "We kept our mouth shut.
That’s just the way it is." [laughs] They weren’t bullshitting. They
were revolutionaries, you know, and she told us just like that, period.
She didn’t want any loose talk while we were at the committee office,
loose talk, talk crap. Everything was businesslike. She let everybody
know that. There’s no way that they were going to go through that shit
again as the Communist Party being caught up in any kind of conspiracy,
any kind of anything.
ESPINO:
Leaving themselves vulnerable.
BECERRA:
Yeah, nothing. So she made it very clear.
ESPINO:
Wow.
0:38:37
BECERRA:
Yeah. So, no, I mean, that was a good experience for the Communist
Party, probably the best experience. The other members of the Communist
Party really didn’t know what they were doing at all. One thing that was
really, like, heartbreaking for me when I was there at the Committee for
the Defense of the Bill of Rights Office was one of the Communists told
me, "You know, before, we used to think that maybe the Chinese would
have to come here and liberate us, you know, and now that we see all you
young people, all these revolutionaries, you know, we’ll make the
revolution ourselves." And I thought, "Jesus Christ."
I mean, that was so foreign to my way of thinking, you know. I mean,
they had seen the liberation of Eastern Europe and when the Soviet
forces came in and liberated Eastern Europe from the Nazis, right? So
the idea of foreign forces coming in and liberating a country wasn’t
something foreign to them. They’d seen it already in Eastern Europe.
And, of course, when revolutionaries do that, you don’t turn around and
say, "Okay, now, capitalism, compared to this, you can have them back."
No, you don’t do that, okay? The Red Army liberating those countries,
you know the Red Army [unclear] eventually, like, but after they set up
regimes and the withdrawal, there’s no way they’re going to say, "Okay,
NATO, here you go. You can have ‘em all back." Bullshit.
So anyway, that’s the way they thought. I was an Eisenhower-era person,
a Cold War-era child growing up. I didn’t think that way, you know, the
way that they thought. To me, we’re going to make the revolution, not
somebody else, and that’s the way we thought. When FBI people made their
reports that foreign powers are pulling the strings, maybe they heard
something like that, you know, but nobody was pulling our strings, you
know. This is our land. We’ll liberate it ourselves, you know, period.
ESPINO:
Right, right. Well, during that first arrest, do you remember what kind
of information they were trying to get from you, and how did you handle
yourself? If you didn’t know how to handle yourself, what did you do?
0:39:55
BECERRA:
When we were in the patrol car—I think I told you this—there were two
sheriff’s deputies in the front, and they were pissed at us, you know.
They were brutal. They were just pissed, and they turned around, said,
"So this is what you guys are about, huh, about class distinctions?"
Well, we know what they’re talking about, you know. We had an idea,
right? They were talking about a class struggle, right? So [unclear]
turned around and told them, "It’s not about class; it’s about racists."
And they shit. They shit because, I mean, they could understand
isolating Communists, but a bunch of pissed-off black and brown people,
they don’t know how to handle that at all. And so they got scared, you
know, and as long as we kept talking that way, they didn’t know what to
do. They were scared. That was like their worst nightmare. I mean, they
see Watts in ’65. Now here it is ’68, you know?
ESPINO:
Yeah.
BECERRA:
You’ve seen Newark, you’ve seen all this, and now you’ve seen a nascent
movement of Chicanos, and they’re afraid. They were really, really
afraid. So, no, when they interrogated us, no. There were bullies in the
police station. The sheriffs who were bullies would come by and they try
to intimidate you, you know. They’re going to beat the shit out of you
if we mouth off. Instead of, like, trying to get information from us,
they were trying to tell us to shut up or they’d beat us up. So, no,
those particular officers were not interrogating us at that time.
ESPINO:
That’s interesting. So they themselves weren’t prepared for what was
important to them.
0:41:54
BECERRA:
They didn’t know what was going on, had no idea. I mean, they would go
around—there was this one sergeant, I think his name was Calderon or
something like that, Danny, I remember that was his first name, sheriff,
and he would go to community organizations to put down the Brown Berets,
right, and tell them, "We have reports, we’ve heard that they’re being
funded by foreign powers," right, so to try to scare the parents.
The kids would come back and talk to us. "You know what they’re saying
about you?" And they’d be all pissed off the cops were talking that way
about us, you know. And that wasn’t working and there was no way that
was going to work, no way it was going to work. After we were arrested
for conspiracy, the cops would go to community meetings, and people
would talk. "You know what?" [laughs] This is at a community meeting.
"You know that you are arresting these guys for conspiracy." This is a
community meeting. "You know that’s a [unclear], man. That’s bullshit.
You know that." And the cops didn’t know what to say because they knew
it was and they didn’t know how to handle things. That’s why they would
send people in.
Like the first guy, Bobby, he didn’t know how to handle us because he
said, "These guys are not what you say they are. They’re not being
manipulated by Communists or foreign powers or nothing. We’re with them
every day." And I think that’s one of the reasons they started setting
him up instead of sending spies in, sending in provocateurs to set a
situation up where they would be able to arrest something, arrest them
like for the Biltmore. Sure, they may have had fertile minds to work
with, you know, but this is the type of thing the cops would have to do
to get us for something.
ESPINO:
Because basically just looking at everybody’s experience that I’ve
talked to up to this point, everybody was pretty much obedient in the
sense of doing well in school, liking school, participating in voting
and the Democratic politics of the early sixties, and then you don’t
have this kind of like—I don’t know if "lawbreaker" is the correct word,
but like you did your service for the military, you never got in
trouble.
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
The rule-followers. And then you become these militant activists. How
did that happen, or can you pinpoint when that change occurred?
BECERRA:
No, because it never is one thing, you know. It’s a thing of how you
grow up. I had to deal with racism and poverty, but especially racism,
and then for me, the war, and then doing things you don’t believe in
doing and being frustrated when you come back and still see the racism
and still see—I mean every fucking day, every day the war’s still going
through your head. And then, you know, knowing that there has to be an
alternative to all of this and then trying to read about socialism,
trying to read Marx and not being able to. [laughs] And finally when you
hook up with Young Chicanos for Community Action, okay, now there’s
people who think like I think, people who know we have to do something,
we have to change things. That became the tipping point for me, that I
wasn’t crazy. [laughs] Or like my daughter told me, "When they realized
my daddy’s not crazy." She was already in college, third year of
college, right? [laughs]
ESPINO:
That you’re not making all this up. Wow. So you said that the judge was
really angry with you and he gave you and David the maximum.
BECERRA:
First offense maximum sentence, yes.
ESPINO:
Okay, before you finish with that thought, they didn’t ask you, like,
who else is in the organization, what are your—they didn’t interrogate
you like that?
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
Wow. That’s fascinating. So then, okay, so the judge gives you the
maximum sentence. You don’t have to testify or—
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
You just basically go before him, plead?
BECERRA:
You know what? I think we did have a trial, a short one. Yeah, we did,
we did, and what I remember about that trial—that’s right, we did have a
trial. It was very short, and what I remember was the cops got up there
and just lied, lied like crazy. And I was surprised to the extent that
they lied, okay, I mean really fabricated stuff. It wasn’t like if they
come in here with a search warrant and says, "Yeah, we saw some cocaine
on top of the table as we walked in," when really they searched all over
to find it, right? No, they made shit up like crazy. And so we got up
there. We said, "No, that’s not what happened," but it didn’t matter.
They believed the police, which makes sense, you know, for the state to
believe the police. Otherwise why are you paying them if you’re not
going to believe the guys that you’re paying to do the job for you,
right? You have to prove that they’re lying, you know, and it’s hard to
do. So we didn’t have cell phones or cameras in those days, right?
[laughs] So the judge sentenced us to the max.
ESPINO:
What were you thinking at that time?
BECERRA:
I’d just go do it.
ESPINO:
Really? You weren’t afraid or—
BECERRA:
No, no. I’d already been to boot camp. I’d already been overseas, you
know. I’m just going to be in jail. It wasn’t going to be that big of a
deal. And then when I got in there, I realized it wasn’t that big of a
deal, you know. The worst part was being in the county eating shitty
food, food that was really [demonstrates]. But once you got to camp, oh,
god, it was good food, you know, and it was really like being in camp,
you know, like if you’re a kid, right? Only thing is you have to work.
You’re either in the plantation crew or the fire crew, and I was on the
plantation crew, which I was very happy about because I didn’t have to
go fight fires. And they had good food. Everything was great, you know.
I mean, I’m sure today conditions are pathetic because there’s no money
for anything.
ESPINO:
Right.
BECERRA:
But in those days, no.
ESPINO:
And the overcrowding.
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
What about privacy? Was that something that was important to you or not
important to you?
BECERRA:
I was in the navy laying on a ship with three hundred other guys. Forget
about privacy. [laughs] I mean we used to sleep stacked three high,
sometimes four high. That’s how we slept. That’s how we lived. So
privacy, and I mean that’s in the navy, you know. Privacy’s not an issue
at all. I mean, that was gone a long time ago.
ESPINO:
Well, when you think about some people who didn’t have that experience,
what it must have been like to be arrested, like Moctesuma Esparza, who
didn’t have that navy experience, you know, to get thrown in with all
these—I don’t know if privacy was an issue for him, but it would
definitely be for me, at least, thinking about it, so that’s why—
0:50:070:52:01
BECERRA:
No, the only issue that was really—the most dehumanizing issue is when
you get booked in a central jail, okay? You’re strip-searched,
cavity-searched. Those kinds of things are really—you get pissed. The
last time I was in jail was two years ago, okay, for tickets that I
didn’t pay, right? No, I did pay the tickets, but then I had to show up
to show the judge that I paid them, that I’d taken care of everything.
No, I didn’t pay the ticket. I took care of the violation. Everything
except I didn’t go back to court to tell the judge.
Okay, so then what happens, I go through, and they don’t do cavity
searches anymore. They don’t do strip searches anymore. They stopped
doing that. In fact, the cell I was being held in at East L.A. Court,
one of the guys had—I don’t know if it was cocaine or heroin, and he’s
talking to another guy. So they’re both drug addicts. So the guy, he had
a "keister stash," right? So he takes it out and they clean it, they
wash it. I guess it was wrapped in cellophane or whatever, and then they
do the dope, right? And he asked me, you know, did I want some because
he has, like, four rows. There was four of us in the cell, so he’s got
four rows, one for each guy, and he asked me if I wanted some. I was so
pissed, you know, what I just saw. He’s living, like, in a halfway
house. He’s living with a priest who runs the halfway house.
He was supposed to be doing this to get over it and the guy is violating
the confidence of the [unclear]. I understand he’s an addict and it
doesn’t matter what; he’s still an addict. He’s going to be an addict
his whole life, right? Even if you stop using it, you’re still an
addict, right? And so then I’m so pissed off, and it’s not like I got
this holier-than-thou attitude. Maybe because I’m an old man now.
[laughs] I’m sure that has a lot to do with it, too, right? And so they
do it and he tells me if I want some. I said, "No." So they do it. Then
he puts what’s left, he puts it back up in there, and the guy says,
"Hey, man, they’re going to search you." He says, "No," he says, "they
don’t do cavity searches anymore," which was true. So we got booked. He
was able to take it in with him because he wasn’t searched.
Now, I can’t even understand, if you’re only going to, like, do it two
times while you’re in there, why bother? But the thing is that he got
released a day before I did because I was held over one more night. He
got released before I did, the guy that had the "keister stash," so
maybe it was worth it for him. But, no, they don’t do "keister stashes,"
no more cavity searches anymore.
ESPINO:
Can you repeat that? I’m not sure what that is. What are you calling it?
BECERRA:
The "keister stash"?
ESPINO:
Keister?
BECERRA:
Stash.
ESPINO:
Is that a name of something? [Becerra laughs.] I’m sorry. I don’t know.
BECERRA:
Okay.
ESPINO:
I’m just wondering if the transcriber’s going to be able to—if I Google
it, how am I going to find it? [laughs]
BECERRA:
You can Google it. You’ll find it.
ESPINO:
How do you spell it?
BECERRA:
I don’t know.
ESPINO:
Okay. That’s the problem. You have to know how to spell it.
BECERRA:
Probably with a K.
ESPINO:
Keister. Okay.
BECERRA:
"Keister," okay, is an old-fashioned term for your butt.
ESPINO:
Oh, I didn’t know that.
BECERRA:
Okay, so when you "keister stash"—
ESPINO:
Okay, now I—
BECERRA:
Okay.
ESPINO:
Yeah.
BECERRA:
And since they don’t do cavity searches anymore—
ESPINO:
Oh, right.
BECERRA:
Yeah, no more strip searches, which usually involves a cavity search,
then they can get away with it. So they don’t have to worry about it.
ESPINO:
So did that experience make you feel like they should still be doing
them or—
BECERRA:
No, no. I mean, who cares? The only thing you’re going to get are their
drugs and it’s going to be very limited how much you can get in. So, no,
I don’t think it’s worth it.
ESPINO:
Yeah, to have that—
BECERRA:
People going through all that.
ESPINO:
Yeah, because—yeah.
BECERRA:
To go through all that, put people through all of that—
ESPINO:
Right.
BECERRA:
—when just a few guys, very few guys are going to be actually doing
"keister stashes."
ESPINO:
Right, right.
BECERRA:
Because you’ve got two that got those and one guy who was, like, a
recreational user. Those three guys did it, and I didn’t, you know. I
didn’t let them see how disgusted I was with the idea, right, but, no,
it’s all right. I just said, "No." [laughs]
ESPINO:
And you don’t know why you were so disgusted, why it [unclear]?
BECERRA:
Yeah, I know why. Because I’m thinking, you know, the assholes. People
that you were living with are trying to help you out, you know, and you
still won’t give it up. And I’m reacting very, like, emotional to it,
rather than objectively. You know, the guy is an addict, okay? Forget
it. He’s going to be an addict for a long, long time, until something in
his life makes him change and he makes that change on his own. But he’s
too young. Maybe he’s thirty years old, okay. He hasn’t come to that
point in his life when he’s going to give it up, okay, and maybe he’ll
never reach that point; he’ll OD before that point comes.
ESPINO:
Right.
BECERRA:
So I’m just reacting very, like, emotional to it.
ESPINO:
Did you always have that position about drugs?
BECERRA:
What’s that?
ESPINO:
Well, it sounds like you’re against people using to that degree.
BECERRA:
No, I’m against people using it. I’m not sure—like, as far as, like, the
War on Drugs thing, no, I don’t buy into that at all.
ESPINO:
Well, one of the issues that the Brown Berets were working toward and
some of the other organizations, like, for example, the Committee to
Free [Spanish name], they were trying to get drugs out of the community.
I thought the Brown Berets were also trying to deal with that issue.
Maybe I’m confusing—maybe they were using drugs. [laughs]
BECERRA:
No, they weren’t. I mean, David, maybe acid, you know, but you’ve got to
remember, in those days, you know, I would have taken acid. In fact, I
think I did, or mescaline or something, right? But you’d make a
distinction between that and, say, heroin or reds. We called them reds
at that time. Those kinds of drugs, no. That was totally different. You
know, maybe a little bit of speed because you had to drive a lot of
distances, but [unclear], stuff like that, you know, but as far as,
like, heroin were just the main thing, not cocaine at that time, we
would have been opposed to that. As far as getting drugs out of the
barrio, that was more a slogan, because you’re not going to be able to
get them out of there.
ESPINO:
Uh-huh. But some people were definitely—like, I can’t remember now who
told me, but someone said that they never did drugs because they saw
what it did to the community, about what a poison it was. Did you have
that position, that you looked at drugs, even marijuana, as a poison in
the community?
0:57:29
BECERRA:
No, no. To me, you know, I liked smoking weed. I liked taking mescaline,
not acid so much, but mescaline. That was it. And the only time I ever
took anything like speed would have been when we went driving for a long
distance cross country, and that would be the only reason, not
recreation uses, but very utilitarian use. But as far as recreational,
no. It would have been weed, mescaline, that’s it. And, no, I didn’t
have any problems with it, not then, not ever.
Afterwards, I had problems with people taking acid because I did see the
results of it, you know, but as far as going on a campaign against acid,
it made no sense, you know. To go on a campaign against heroin, it made
no sense. People were going to use it for different reasons. The reason
had nothing to do with us. You can say we’re on a campaign against drugs
in the community. Well, all you can do is talk about it. That’s all
you’re going to be able to do, you know, nothing else.
ESPINO:
Well, how about the idea that the Brown Berets were partying a lot, were
getting together? Someone said that—well, maybe this was after you left,
but that the clinic, the barrio Free Clinic was used as a place where
the Brown Berets, mostly the men, would go and take girls and drink, and
then the next day they would have to open up and clean up the mess that
had been made the night before. Was that ever part of your experience?
BECERRA:
No, no. But let’s say that—I don’t know what you expect, you know. I
don’t mean you personally, okay? [laughs]
ESPINO:
I expect a lot. [laughs]
BECERRA:
But I don’t know what you would expect. These Brown Berets are in their
early twenties. They’re going to party, okay, and, yes, they’re going to
hook up with girls and they’re going to go party in the office. I don’t
know if it was done and how often was it. I wasn’t there. But why am I
supposed to find that unusual that young people like to party? They like
to smoke weed, they like to drink, they like to have sex. Why am I
supposed to [unclear]? It wasn’t a seminary, okay? It was young people,
and we’re talking about the sixties, where people were drinking, smoking
dope, and having sex. Okay, so why are the Brown Berets going to be any
different than anybody else when it comes to that? And they’re part of
that movement, that cultural change that’s taking place in the sixties.
So I don’t know what the problem is here.
ESPINO:
Well, the critique wasn’t so much that it was happening. It was more
about leaving the dirty work for other people.
BECERRA:
Like what dirty work?
ESPINO:
To clean up the mess that was left.
BECERRA:
Ah, shit. Well, okay. Well, that’s different. Okay, that’s different.
That’s a different issue altogether.
ESPINO:
Yeah, cleaning up—like using this space that was meant to help the
community and using it in a way that it wasn’t meant to be used and then
leaving a mess for the people who worked there to clean up.
BECERRA:
Yeah, of course. [unclear] just be rotten, selfish. Yeah, that’s just
[unclear]. Okay, that’s a different issue altogether, okay? No, that’s a
rotten thing to do, obviously.
ESPINO:
But you didn’t witness that?
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
You’re saying you never experienced that?
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
You don’t know who or what, when, where, how?
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
So my question just was did you witness that, were you a part of that,
and I guess the idea for bringing that up is you are in this cultural
change, the 1960s. Everything is shifting. Gender roles are shifting and
people are taking on different responsibilities, and you’re interacting
with people who you might have never met had you not been in the Chicano
Movement. But then you join—because last time you said that when you
started to form La Junta, there were no women involved, and you said
because you generally gravitate towards the men.
So, not looking today, because today you have a different consciousness,
you have your daughter, who you say is a strong feminist, who’s
influential in helping you to come to these ideas, but back then it was
a completely different—how did you view women’s roles back then in the
sixties? Did you see them as—I mean, could you cross that line and not
look at them differently? Because it’s David who says that, "We never
put them on the front lines because they were scared." I think that’s
what he said, they were afraid or they never wanted to be on the front
lines. And then the women say something different.
BECERRA:
Okay, there’s a difference between, say, ’68 and something totally
different by ’71, ’72, okay? In ’68, the role of women, I just saw two
roles, okay? They were either my comrades or the girls I partied with.
That was it. Like you talk about Ruth. She was my comrade, you know, and
there were other women like that who were my comrades, and that’s the
way I viewed them, period, you know, respected them, right. And then
there were the girls that you met, the groupies, and that happened a
lot. Those are girls that you partied with, and, no, you weren’t—you
know, yeah, you could talk politics, stuff like that, but you can tell
when somebody’s there basically to party, hang out, okay, and that’s
what you’re going to do.
Then as far as, like, La Junta, yeah, we gravitated—it was all guys, you
know. It’s all guys, and, yeah, there were going to be girls around, but
the girls were not in La Junta. They were friends, you know, girlfriends
and stuff like that. And La Junta wasn’t going to last that long anyway
before we moved on. Okay, then by the time 1971 comes around, because
that wasn’t active, say, from ’69, 1969, I’m not active anymore after
that, so I’m not active again for two years, till ’71, and then
everything’s totally different.
ESPINO:
Take a hiatus?
BECERRA:
Huh?
ESPINO:
You take a hiatus?
BECERRA:
Yes. Yes, and then everything is different, totally, both in terms of my
consciousness and in terms of the movement’s consciousness. In ’68, even
into the early seventies, the Chicanas are still really pissed off at
the white feminists, okay, really pissed off at them. They have a strong
dislike for them and they talk about it a lot.
ESPINO:
They themselves talked about it?
BECERRA:
Oh, yeah, they hated them.
ESPINO:
Because there’s some literature that says—where the women say that if we
had any feminist views, the men would call us agringada or they would
call us "whitewash" or they would say that we were trying to be like the
white liberals rather than having their own evolution of an idea of
[unclear].
1:06:581:08:27
BECERRA:
Okay, that’s going to depend on what year you’re talking about, because
everything changes, okay. If you’re talking about ’68, ’69, ’70, yeah, I
can see that very, very clearly. But remember, I mean, I used to talk to
the Chicanas who were activists and they referred to the white feminists
as our white feminist sister. They call them the white bitches, "That
white bitch, hear what she’s saying?" blah, blah, blah. Because they
were trying to turn the Chicanas against the Chicanos, okay, and they
saw themselves as revolutionaries, you know, and so they would get
pissed.
By the time ’70 rolls around, the changes that have occurred affects
both the men and women. There’s still a big split between the Chicana
feminists and the white feminists, okay, even in ’71, ’72, but also the
Chicanas are getting a lot more conscious and the Chicanos that I was
around are also changing a lot, a lot, not a little bit. Even when we
don’t understand the issues involved, you know, we understand that
they’re right, you know, that equality for women is right. We understand
that democratic rights are the right thing, and even if some of the
white feminists are still throwing shit at us and we don’t like them, we
understand these are our sisters, you know, we’ve got to treat them
right, you know.
To even put it more into context, in 1975, I think I told you before
that the International Women’s Conference takes place in Mexico City,
okay, and a big split occurs there between the white feminists, which
are North American, and the European feminists on one side and the
third-world feminists on the other, okay. And the big split takes place
over what are the issues. The white feminists take on solely the
question of men, okay, the white men, you know, patriarchy, period, and
all they want to do is take on men. And it makes sense.
You know, it makes sense that the white feminists would be doing that
because for them the only thing they have to deal with, really—because
these are bourgeois feminists—the only thing they have to deal with is
white men who stand in the way of moving forward, moving up, okay. With
non-white feminists, they have a lot of other issues. Questions of class
are more crystallized, questions of nationality, ethnicity, race. Those
are far clearer to them, and that’s what they see when they walk out the
door, right? The issue that the white feminists are seeing aren’t the
same as what they see. When they open up their door in the morning, walk
out in the street, the world they see is not the one these women are
facing when they walk out the door.
They have totally different issues, and that crystallized in—they’re not
totally different, but the priorities are different, okay, and that
affects us, too, how we’re going to see things, not just the Chicana
feminists, but how we’re going to see things. And so we’re changing
because we know what we’re supposed to be doing. And so we understand
that is how it affects Chicanas, those issues are important, you know,
and so we react different, not 100 percent. Not by any means is it 100
percent, okay, but we understand that we’re going to have to be changing
and we start slowly, slowly, a huevo, the men, okay, that we have to
deal with it. We have to discuss those issues, okay. Like in the Labor
Committee, we have to discuss those issues and we do, okay, as men,
okay, and then with the women, together with the women. All right? And
then we set up a woman’s group in the Labor Committee, but that was a
disaster. [laughs]
ESPINO:
What are you talking about? Are you talking about La Junta? No.
BECERRA:
Labor Committee.
ESPINO:
The Labor Committee, which is something that you were involved in—
BECERRA:
La Raza Unida Party.
ESPINO:
—in the La Raza Unida—okay.
BECERRA:
1971, 1972, La Raza Unida Party.
ESPINO:
So with the La Raza Unida Party, then in ’71, you start to deal more
theoretically with these issues. Prior, like in La Junta or even
ATM—when does ATM form?
BECERRA:
After the Labor Committee.
ESPINO:
After the La Raza, okay. Many, many of the men in the Chicano Movement,
well, for many different reasons, were drawn to Anglo women, dated them,
married them. Was that ever something that you felt or were you drawn to
white women in that way as far as—there was a different kind of an
intellectual relationship, having come from different cultures and
different upbringings, and maybe some of the men were in universities
and there just weren’t a lot of Chicanas at that time, so they formed
relationships.
BECERRA:
No, in the Brown Berets and into La Junta, I was very proud that I never
dated a white woman, okay. [laughs] It was a point of pride, right, an
issue of pride, so, no. Then in the Labor Committee and as a Communist,
I dated one white girl and she was very nice. It only lasted for a few
months because then I met another girl who would become my second wife,
and when I was with her, I thought, well, I can’t continue. I had to
choose. I had to decide. I said, "I’m coming to stay with you, so I have
to break off the other relationship." So I had to go back and tell the
other girl, "No, I can’t." I had to choose and I decided to go with the
other girl. Just one of many times I was an asshole. [laughs]
ESPINO:
So that’s interesting. Can you elaborate on that, on the point that you
made that it was a point of pride, it was something—why was that
important to you?
BECERRA:
Because I couldn’t talk about being brown and being proud and then going
out with white women. I mean, it didn’t make any sense, you know. And
the other thing was if I was going to make babies, I figured they better
be brown babies. You know, I’m not saying that I was right for thinking
this. I’m just telling you what I was thinking then, okay, and it wasn’t
a point of disliking white people at all, you know. It was just the
point of just being proud of being a Chicano and I wanted my girlfriends
to be brown. They didn’t have to be Chicanas, you know. They could have
been South Central Filipino. It didn’t matter, okay, but they just
couldn’t be white, okay. Yeah, that mattered to me. It mattered a lot.
Otherwise I thought that was being—I was a bullshitter, really. I was
just bullshitting, you know. [laughs] I told you years later I was
talking to Bill Gallegos and he tells me, "Remember all those white
girls we turned down when we were Nationalists?" "Yeah." "Don’t you want
to kick yourself in the ass now for that?" [laughs] I said, "Yeah," but
it did matter. That’s how we felt then. I mean, we just turned it down.
We just turned them down, right, because it wasn’t an abstract issue,
just that, no, I’m not going to do it. No, it was there.
ESPINO:
Right.
BECERRA:
It was there and we just said, "No."
ESPINO:
So how did you view those who didn’t turn it down? Did they lose
credibility within the movement?
BECERRA:
They did with the women, you know, certainly with the women. With the
men, you know, you didn’t lose credibility. You just were disappointed
with them. I’m talking about guys doing it then, okay. If guys were
older and had married a white woman before the movement started, no,
that’s what they did before, and we could forgive them, right? [laughs]
But we’re talking about youngsters our age, you know, talking one thing
and doing another thing. Yeah, it was hypocritical. To me, it was
hypocritical.
ESPINO:
Were African American women or Asian American women part of that
community? Was that ever—I mean, it seems like white women made
themselves present in different ways, maybe helping out or participating
in the marches or maybe even in the church, in the Episcopal Church, but
would you see African American women, other groups as well?
BECERRA:
No, no. And, you know, most of the time, you know, not all the white
women who came around, not all the white women were the same, okay?
There were women who came in with a lot of self-interest, okay, into the
Chicano Movement out of self-interest for whatever, okay, like
professionals who want to see what we were like, maybe want to write a
book, whatever. Okay. Then there were other white women who came who
were much more, let’s say, selfless, okay, who saw the struggle as
something they wanted to be a part of okay? And those were different
girls, you know, and there was different young women and you looked at
them differently, but your attitude, as far as, like, having sex with
them, no, they were still white women and, no, you still didn’t do it.
Some of us, okay, some of us. There were other guys who, you know, they
were just—I think I didn’t get the point, you know. I didn’t get the
point why they would do that. I didn’t understand why they would do
that.
ESPINO:
Now, looking back, do you understand why they did that?
BECERRA:
No. Now, looking back, on the one hand, I don’t see it wrong with
interracial couples at all, right, but under the circumstances then, you
know, no, you can’t do that. You can’t say one thing and do something
else. No, you can’t do that. And, yeah, I think it was wrong, not wrong
in the sense that you disown somebody for doing that. It was just wrong.
And it was going to be the other way around, too, where Chicanas are
going to be with white guys. That was going to happen too.
ESPINO:
It doesn’t seem like it happened that much.
BECERRA:
Oh, shit. [laughs]
ESPINO:
Maybe I’m not interviewing the right people.
BECERRA:
I really didn’t want to talk about it, okay? [laughs]
ESPINO:
Maybe I’m not asking the right questions.
BECERRA:
No, it happened. [laughs]
ESPINO:
Well, because there are several prominent white women in—well, maybe not
several. Like, for example, Ruth is one. Devra Weber is another woman
who was involved in the movement. But I can’t think of any white men
come to my mind that had that same—like really penetrate, were able to
become part of the movement, be accepted, be brought in, except for
Father Luce and Father Wood, but they’re older and at a different level
than—
BECERRA:
Okay, maybe because that is [unclear] ’68, okay? I didn’t see that until
the seventies.
ESPINO:
In the seventies.
BECERRA:
What I’m talking about, yeah, I didn’t see it till the seventies.
ESPINO:
Okay.
BECERRA:
But in the sixties, ’68, no, ’69, no. I didn’t see it till, say,
starting like in ’72 on. Then I saw it.
ESPINO:
Right. Then it became different.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Well, let me just—before I forget, Dionne Espinoza, do you know her?
She’s a professor at Cal State University Los Angeles.
BECERRA:
What’s her name?
ESPINO:
Dionne Espinoza. She writes on Chicanas in the movement. So she looks at
the La Raza Unida Party, the Brown Berets, and I believe another
organization.
BECERRA:
Is she the one who started the archive?
ESPINO:
Yes. Yes, she did and she has a paper on women in the Brown Berets and
she was able to read Rona Fields’ study, and Rona Fields says that—where
is it? Let me just pause it for a second. [recorder turned off]
ESPINO:
Okay, so she says that her account, it’s more like an ethnography, it’s
not really—so like an anthropologist, like you said. She came in to
study you like an anthropologist. So she says that the women appear
passive, silent. The men were macho, kept the women in a secondary role.
Do you think that’s an accurate observation of those early days?
1:22:18
BECERRA:
For what I saw, even though there were very few—remember, there was a
lot of time that I wasn’t there because, like I told you, I was working
swing shift. And so when people would gather at La Piranya at night, I
wouldn’t be there. But based on what I did see, yeah, I would say that
was true. I would say that was quite true. There were some women who
were not going to be that way, okay. My sister was not that way at all
and my sister let her views known and my sister was not protected in the
background. This is a man’s job to throw rocks through windows and throw
Molotov cocktails; that was not my sister. My sister would be right
there in the front, okay? She wouldn’t want to hear any shit like that,
that a woman’s role is to be in the background. Now, she would
definitely take a position of standing by her man, backing her man,
stuff like that, right, but when it came to fighting, no. No, she’d be
right in the front line. If it was going to throw blows at cops, she’d
be in the front line. If it came to being shut up as a woman, no, she
would not take that. So it was like part traditional and part
revolutionary, okay. Some tradition she’d hang on to, some she would
not.
So on the one hand, she would still have her boyfriend, she would still
show him respect in front of other people, let people know that’s her
man, stuff like that, but he better not shut her up in front of other
people, because she’s not going to take that, right? She’s not going to
be docile, okay. I remember her. I remember how she was, you know, and
when it came to throwing blows, she’d be in the front. She would not be
in the back. She was not about to be protected, not at all.
ESPINO:
How did she get involved in the Brown Berets?
BECERRA:
Through me.
ESPINO:
You brought [unclear]?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
And then how long did she stay? Did she leave with you when you left?
BECERRA:
About the same amount of time. I can’t remember too much because either
she was going to go back to work or she was going to go to San Jose
State. I can’t remember exactly. A friend of ours got her into San Jose
State, so I can’t remember exactly what it was like.
ESPINO:
She moved away?
BECERRA:
Yeah, but I can’t remember the exact time. But she was there quite a
while, because I remember at her funeral this last January, the preacher
who officiated there used to hang out at the coffeehouse, La Piranya
Coffeehouse, and his sister. And I never saw them because of my job,
right, and that was for several months. So my sister was still there
quite a bit of the time, but she was not going to be one of those docile
people.
ESPINO:
How did she pass away? How did she die?
BECERRA:
Heart attack.
ESPINO:
Oh, I’m so sorry.
BECERRA:
She was young. She just turned sixty-five. It was just like a week, not
even a week after her sixty-fifth birthday, she passed away.
ESPINO:
And nobody ever recorded her story?
BECERRA:
No, nobody did.
ESPINO:
Oh, that’s too bad.
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
That’s too bad.
BECERRA:
She was the first Brown Beret girl.
ESPINO:
She was the first one?
BECERRA:
Yeah, the first girl Brown Beret.
ESPINO:
Wow. Oh, gosh. She lived here in Los Angeles or she stayed in San Jose?
BECERRA:
No, she moved back.
ESPINO:
She did move back.
BECERRA:
Yeah, she was living here in Buena Park, not far from her—almost across
the street from her son. The last few weeks of her life, maybe the last
two months, she was living with her son because she had ailments and
stuff like that, so she was living with him.
ESPINO:
So what was her complete name that she was using back then?
BECERRA:
Back then it was Linda Olmeda. She never changed her name to Becerra.
ESPINO:
She never did?
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
But she got married?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Did she change it after—
BECERRA:
Yeah, Ross was the last name. Ross, Linda Ross. So on her stone it’s
going to say Erlinda, because that was her full name, Erlinda, Erlinda
Becerra Ross. We’ll leave Olmeda out. When my brother’s stone, it says
Ruben Olmeda Becerra.
ESPINO:
You’re the last survivor of your family.
BECERRA:
I’ve got a sister, a younger sister.
ESPINO:
Oh, that’s right.
BECERRA:
A younger sister.
ESPINO:
That’s right. You did have a little one after you were in the military.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Wow.
BECERRA:
She was born the same year that I went into the military.
ESPINO:
Did your sister have—I’m going to ask you because she’s not here to
speak for herself.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
So I’m going to ask you about her. Generally, I wouldn’t because she
could speak for herself, but since she’s passed, did she have a
relationship with Gloria and—
BECERRA:
Gloria came in afterwards, right? Okay, Gloria came in afterwards.
ESPINO:
What about David? How did she deal with his leadership?
BECERRA:
Okay. There was no problem there. My sister, she was, like—her
personality was like a cholia, you know, and she belonged to—I don’t
know if you’d call it a gang, Harbor City. She claims Harbor City. She
had the initials "HC" penciled on there, and so when she would come
in—you’re not going to keep a cholia like that quiet, you know, or
knowing her place, right? So she’d be joking, all talking, you know, and
joking with everybody and stuff. She would be willing to get along with
everybody, yeah. So, no, she would get along with everybody. That’s the
way she was.
ESPINO:
But she wouldn’t challenge his leadership or criticize his—
BECERRA:
No matter what, women were never going to be a challenge to leadership,
okay, not in the Brown Berets. Anywhere else, maybe, but not in the
Brown Berets. That was going to be very much David’s leadership, period.
ESPINO:
So she looked up to him, essentially, do you think? She admired him?
BECERRA:
I don’t know. Later on, no, a few years later, no, but at that time,
maybe. My sister was not—she looked up to me, okay, but she did not—I
can’t see her looking up to somebody—oh, and Johnny Parsons, of course.
She would look up to Johnny Parsons very, very much, because Johnny
Parsons, he was like a theoretician. As a Nationalist, he was like a
theoretician, and so to him, definitely. And to Ralph, she really liked
Ralph a lot. Those are the people that she—and David Tacos. David, she
liked David a lot, and everybody else she would just get along with. Oh,
and Carlos, she liked Carlos.
ESPINO:
Carlos Montes?
BECERRA:
Carlos Montes, yes. She liked Carlos. But other people, I can’t
remember, you know, her really liking.
ESPINO:
Richard [unclear], he was in the Brown Berets, wasn’t he? [unclear]? He
was never a Brown Beret?
BECERRA:
Well, when I was there, he wasn’t.
ESPINO:
Okay.
BECERRA:
But she knew him. I think she knew him and she would have gotten along
with him.
ESPINO:
Did they come to her funeral? Did anybody from that time come to her—
BECERRA:
Yes, Carlos Montes and Yvonne de los Santos, because in the seventies
and eighties, my sister was at East L.A. College taking classes again to
get her RN, and in MEChA she worked with Yvonne de los Santos, who was
in the League at the time, and she worked with her on issues. And then
the minister and his sister, Lizzy, they were at the coffeehouse, they
were there also. But the actives from the time, Brown Berets from that
time, Carlos Montes.
ESPINO:
And you mentioned Lizzy. Is it the same Lizzy that went to La Junta, the
one you’re talking about right now? You mentioned a Lizzy going over
with you to La Junta, I believe, or early Brown Beret. I would have to
look at my notes.
BECERRA:
Early Brown Berets. I don’t remember she went to La Junta. I can’t
remember.
ESPINO:
Okay, early Brown Beret, yeah. Oh, wow. I’m so sorry to hear that.
That’s tragic that—do you think she has anything from that period, any,
I don’t know, memorabilia or—
BECERRA:
I’ll ask her son. I’m supposed to get a hold of him.
ESPINO:
So were you involved in La Causa at all?
BECERRA:
The paper?
ESPINO:
Yeah.
BECERRA:
No, not at all.
ESPINO:
And you said that you didn’t see the Brown Book.
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
And so I’m going to ask you about—except my computer died. Oh, no, there
it is. When you decided to form La Junta, and this will be my—is that
clock correct, 2:20?
BECERRA:
2:26.
ESPINO:
Okay. Did you already have an idea that you wanted to form La Junta
before you left, or was that something that evolved after you left the
Brown Berets?
BECERRA:
It evolved after, after.
ESPINO:
Can you talk to me about how that happened and what your thinking was at
the time and what you wanted to obtain, what your objectives were for
that group?
BECERRA:
[laughs] Okay, you’re going to have to ask me this next time. Let me
tell you why.
ESPINO:
Is it a long story?
BECERRA:
No, it’s not that. It’s exactly that period of time we’re talking about,
I have, like, a one-hour recording by Stan Steiner. He interviewed us,
and Johnny Parsons was there, Tacos is there, I’m there, and Hippie is
there. He left the Brown Berets also. And we talk about why, what,
everything. We discussed this.
ESPINO:
Oh, perfect. Oh, perfect. So do you have it digitized?
BECERRA:
Yes, it’s on a CD.
ESPINO:
Can I hear it, or do you want to—
BECERRA:
Let me make a copy for you, because I don’t want to lose it.
ESPINO:
Okay. Okay, no, I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you at all.
BECERRA:
I mean that was 1968 or ’69. I can’t remember.
ESPINO:
When you wrote that book, it was early.
BECERRA:
Yeah.
ESPINO:
Then we’ll skip that, and you can tell me about the role of class
politics in the movement and if it was important or if it—some books
talk about it, but it’s, like, a page about the Marxist groups and the
influence of Marxism. How important do you think Marxism was in shaping
the ideology of Chicano Movement activists?
BECERRA:
[laughs] I think it was, like, fundamental, okay, not in 1968, not in
1969, okay, but from ’72 on. From 1972 on, yes. I think that it
influenced a lot of the Chicano Studies departments, a lot of the
professors, a lot of the professionals who came out, and I think it was
a lot of politicians that were, at that time, Marxist-Leninist, you
know, who are today politicians, right? I don’t want to mention their
names, but I can roll them off, right?
ESPINO:
Really? That many?
BECERRA:
Sure. [interruption]
ESPINO:
So you can tell that it’s recording when it’s not blinking.
BECERRA:
So you had asked me did we influence the movement. Yes. [laughs]
ESPINO:
Or how important, like, for example, certain ideas, like as the movement
was beginning to emerge, people mention Franz Fanon, those kinds of
ideas.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
The Civil Rights Movement, Malcolm X. So I’m just wondering, in
comparing Marxist ideology, Leninism, how influential do you think those
ideas were for members of the Chicano Movement, at least the members
that you came across in the organizations that you were in?
1:34:411:36:23
BECERRA:
Okay, whose ideas now we’re talking about? Because if we talk about
Franz Fanon, we rejected his ideas, not his psychology, just one issue
that we rejected on his part. Okay. The only issue that we rejected
really was that he said that in third-world countries that were not
industrialized where there was no industrial proletariat, that the
vanguard of the revolution would be the Lumpenproletariat, and we
rejected that totally, thoroughly, totally rejected that.
But he did influence some people, okay, and in that regard, because
there were people who were involved in what was called a Prison
Movement, okay, and I think the Prison Movement was a good movement. I
wish we had it today, but the conditions of the prisons are not such
that we could have a Prison Movement today, of taking study material to
the prisons, giving talks to the prisoners, Marxist talks, talks about
the social struggle, the outside, helping them prepare for their life
when they can come out, what the world would be like, how we could add
some meaning to their lives for when they came out of the prisons so
they wouldn’t just come out and think, "I’m just an ex-junkie," or, "I’m
just an armed robber. There’s a reason why this happened, and I’m a part
of society. There’s something that I can do beyond what I’ve done."
You can add a lot of importance and a lot of significance to their
self-perceptions when they would come out. I think it was very
important, that Prison Movement, and it wasn’t a question of turning
them into Communists at all. Franz Fanon, that theory of the proletariat
being the vanguard of the revolution was what we rejected. Black Panther
Party accepted it. We did not, okay, because by now it’s 1972, ’73, ’74,
and we have a Marxist perspective and so we’re going to stick to that,
that the working-class is the vanguard of the revolutionary struggle,
not by itself, but it’s the vanguard of the revolutionary struggle, and
certainly the ideology of the working-class is going to be the leading
ideology of any movement, of any revolution.
That’s one of the views that we put forward, and when we were in La Raza
Unida Party, we were not alone in California. We were not alone. In
fact, our views were, without a doubt, not as the Labor Committee, but
as Socialists, our views were, without a doubt, the dominant views of
the La Raza Unida Party in California. That would put us on a collision
course with Texas, okay, which was very conservative and whose views we
did not agree with. Today [unclear] Chicano this, kill the gringo, stuff
like that. They used to have Kill the Gringo marches in Texas, and we’d
think, "What the fuck is that?" They were kept on that course by people
who thought it was important that they not turn to socialism or
Socialist views, for whatever reason.
So the ideas what we had, academics coming from Texas, they would be
influenced by Marxist ideology because they didn’t stay in Texas and
their experiences weren’t restricted to the Rio Grande Valley, okay, and
they knew the history of the Rio Grande Valley, which had a very strong
influence by the Communist Movement in the Rio Grande Valley during the
thirties and then into the forties. So, no, we, as a movement, as a
Marxist Movement, had a tremendous influence and it went to everywhere
and schoolteachers, politics, everywhere you go, in the trade unions, in
the Labor Movement, everywhere. Yeah, we were very, very influential. I
mean, the examples I gave you. I could go to labor and give you examples
in labor. I just gave you in politics, and that’s not counting in the
academic arena. And of course that was going to influence teachers and
professionals in other areas. So, no, it became fundamental.
ESPINO:
More than any other ideology, Trotskyism? I don’t know. What else would
there be? [interruption]
ESPINO:
I’m trying to think of what other—well, the Socialist Workers Party,
they were still around. They’re still around.
BECERRA:
Yes, they changed their names, but they’re still around.
ESPINO:
And the RTP, is that what it is, the Revolutionary something?
BECERRA:
It was the Revolutionary Union then.
ESPINO:
Yes, yes, RU, and then the Long March.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Are these all Marxist—
1:40:14
BECERRA:
Yes. Okay, the October League was Marxist. They were very good people.
I’m sorry that the opportunist wing gained control there and voted to
dissolve the organization, okay, and they liquidated the organization.
They still have influence, though, on a lot of Chicanos. The
Revolutionary Union became the Revolutionary Communist Party. They’re
still around, but they did not get a real foothold in the Chicano
Movement. I shouldn’t say that. They did get a foothold and they were
able to influence Chicanos also, not to the degree that the League did,
okay, the League for Revolutionary Struggle, yeah, not to that degree.
Nobody got that close.
The October League also did get a foothold, but they didn’t come close
to the League for Revolutionary Struggle. The Communist League also
influenced it, but again not as much as what would become the League of
Revolutionary Struggle, nowhere near that. But even given that, all
together we’re also Marxists, and so they did influence the movement as
well all together, with all their groupings. Yeah, all of them did, and
that was the most influential ideology, I mean I think even more than
the Communist Party was able to influence things within the Chicano
Movement, even though they did, okay, they did. But the problem was that
then the McCarthy era came in and the Smith Act came in and just
destroyed them. So maybe they did get—was influential. I think that in
terms of the [unclear] developments in the community, yes, they did.
They were just as influential as we were, but given how many—but they
were not, I wouldn’t say, as broadly influential as we became after the
Chicano Movement, because that made a big difference.
ESPINO:
Well, how would you describe that difference? How would you
differentiate? Because I’m thinking about some of the most profound
episodes of that period when you’re looking at ’68 to ’78 were the
walkouts, the moratorium. What would be some of the defining actions of
that mid-seventies period when Marxism is heavily influencing the
organizations?
BECERRA:
Okay, it isn’t ’78. Maybe ’88 would be closer.
ESPINO:
Eighty-eight?
BECERRA:
Yes, because, like, for example, the League wasn’t liquidated until just
about ’88, ’89, 90, maybe ’91, and by then it had a tremendous influence
on all the—you’re looking at events. Again, I’m looking at
organizations. I’m looking at MEChA, okay, and the fights within MEChA
to save Chicano Studies, for example. I mean, even Rudy Acuña has made
the statement that the League saved Chicano Studies because the League
was taking on CASA at the time. There was this huge struggle between
CASA and the League over the leadership of MEChA and whoever led MEChA
would also be determining the role of Chicano Studies [unclear]. Of
course, Chicano Studies today isn’t what it was then and the influence
of MEChA today isn’t what it was then, but all the people that were
influenced during that period of time, because whether it was CASA or
whether it was the League, I think they were both Marxist. They were
both Marxist-Leninist organizations and both were organizations that
were fighting for the control of MEChA. I mean, everybody else is out of
the picture, all right? So when you ask about the role of Marxists in
the movement, I mean, it’s phenomenal. [laughs] It’s phenomenal. And the
people are still here, they’re still alive and the leadership, I told
you.
ESPINO:
Are they still operating on those ideas, though?
BECERRA:
No. There’s a couple of things, things that changes. The organizations
are not here anymore, okay, so they have to operate on the basis of the
views, the values that they had at that time. Now, obviously, some
things are going to change. I don’t think any of them are going to be
calling for an insurrection, for an armed insurrection. That has
changed, definitely. I mean, first of all, it’d be so out of context. It
wouldn’t make sense to do that. Okay, that’s changed. But if you look at
their values and the stance they take on issues, it wouldn’t matter. It
would be the same stance they would be taking if they were still
dues-paying members of those organizations, because those are exactly
the same issues and the same stands that we would be taking because
that’s what stands we took then and those are the stands we would be
taking today.
Sure, there would be tactical differences, but in terms of values, no,
they would be the same, the same basic stands. Yeah, so that hasn’t
changed. And then you influence also the liberals, because the liberals
have to take those stands, too, to maintain any kind of credibility. So
even the liberals were influenced, you know, going through [unclear]
that period of time. They never joined these organizations, but they
were influenced very much by those organizations. They might have been
afraid because of their career goals. They were [unclear] they had in
college and so they had to be careful then who they joined and what they
hooked up with.
ESPINO:
Well, how would you describe the change? I mean, how would you describe
the influence on your own changing, evolving ideology? How did it shape
your activism after you left the Brown Berets?
1:47:591:49:521:51:461:53:40
BECERRA:
Okay, first and foremost was the role of the working-class as a class
and that occurred, say, in 1970, ’71, during the two major strikes I
think I told you about, two wildcat strikes, one by the Teamsters and
one by the postal workers, that brought the country to a halt, okay. No
matter where you were working, it brought the country to a halt. And
then I saw what Marx was talking about, about the strategic point of the
working-class in society that can stop everything. That was the first
thing. Okay, that’s what gets me thinking, "Okay, wait a minute. This is
the way we have to go, okay, because the ideas of Marx are not abstract.
I just saw them happen."
One day I was talking with my daughter, and because she’s studying
philosophies and all kinds of philosophers and stuff, she’ll go through
different changes in terms of who she’s studying, why, and everything.
One of the things she told me one time was, "Dad," she says, "you know,
I was thinking. Society has changed so much that Marxist writings don’t
apply anymore." I say, "They don’t apply anymore?" She says, "No."
[laughs] And I said, "It’s a good thing I’m not paying for your college
anymore." But I said, "You’re just studying a lot of different
philosophies in college and that’s good. I mean, not that I have
anything to say about it or do about it, but I’m happy. We’ll discuss—."
And we do. We do discuss a lot of issues.
But as far as Marx not being applicable anymore, you know, every month
when my Social Security check comes in, I kiss it and say, "Thank you,
Karl Marx." So I don’t really need a philosopher to tell me how he
applies or doesn’t apply. Every month I’m reminded of how he does apply.
These things, we didn’t get these things if it wasn’t for Karl Marx and
the threat that communism posed to American capitalism. We wouldn’t have
gotten it. That’s how we got it. But at that time, you know, in ’70, I
got a very rudimentary understanding of what it was. Then I had to seek
out other people who thought that way, and that’s when for a second time
I ran into Jimmy Franco, who I’d known before and he, too, was studying
and trying to understand these things, and then Rudy Quinonas and then
together we founded the Labor Committee of La Raza Unida Party and we
started studying.
Then we had to seek help from other Marxists who would be able to help
us, right, which we’d be studying right now. That’s where they give us
the correct writings of Marx to be studying, not the heavy stuff that
we’re never going to understand unless we have somebody teaching us,
giving us a course in it, but writings. Marx wrote specifically for the
working-class the Manifesto, Wage, Labor, and Capital, and there’s
another one, but I forget the—with price and profit. I forget if it
was—it wasn’t Wage, Labor, and Capital. It was Value, Price, and Profit,
I think it was called, was the name of it.
Those things are so the working-class can understand how we create
superfluous value, how it is appropriated by the capitalist class, how
that’s utilized to rule, and the Manifesto already tells you how it’s
being utilized to rule. But all those things coming in together, then we
start getting understanding. Then we start studying revolutionary
writings of Lenin and then of Stalin and of Mao, writings of Engels and
some things that we understand are revolutionary writings and are going
to start guiding us. They’re hard to read. Most of the time, they’re
very difficult to read. With Lenin, because of the way he writes, he
writes like he was writing a thesis, you know, I mean, like, very
intellectual writing, and then it’s out of context for us because he’s
writing at a particular time in a particular place under particular
conditions.
So then we have to study those things and we need to study them enough
to understand what he’s trying to tell us, but we get an idea. Stalin
was much easier to read, and then Mao, but with Stalin and Mao, the
issue became one of context. But still, it’s things that we could
identify with much easier than with Marx or Lenin. Lenin later on, he
writes things that—like he writes like maybe you don’t understand the
first time, okay, so I’m going to write to you again so you understand
this time, and he writes The State and Revolution. He writes about
communism and infantile disorder and then he writes imperialism, the
highest stage of capitalism. When he writes that, it changes everything.
It changes everything.
And then even if you miss Marx, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.
"This is how the world is today and this is how you make revolution
today." Sure, wage, labor and [unclear] labor, yes, this is true,
although now wage labor isn’t just here, it’s going to be in Mexico,
it’s going to be in China, it’s going to be in these other countries and
we have to deal with that issue now. Okay, now the banks and finance
capital and industrial capital are going to merge and finance capital is
going to be on top and you’re going to have to understand that now. Now
you’re going to see that yesterday’s superpower is today’s third-world
country, okay. All those things are going to change. So now how are you
going to make a revolution when everything is changing? And he says,
"Now you have to find out where, since you have one economic system
worldwide, where is the chain in imperialism going to be the weakest and
where’s the weakest? That’s where you’re going to strike."
He said, "So the countries in the third world are going to be just as
revolutionary, if not more so, than workers in the industrialized
countries." He says, "That’s where we’ll make revolution first, because
that’s where the chain of imperialism will be the weakest." Okay, so
don’t look for it in Europe and don’t look for it in the U.S. He says,
"It may happen there, but it may not. It may happen in third-world
countries." Stalin steps in and then he starts saying, "Okay, now the
struggle for the liberation of the colonized countries, of the oppressed
countries, it’s not going to fall to the revolutionary nationalists
anymore. Now it falls to the Communists. The Communists have to pick up
the banner of national liberation and carry it forward and that’s how
you’re going to lead the revolution."
Okay, when we read that, we said, "Chingao." [laughs] "You guys are
telling us what we’re supposed to do." I mean just laid it out for us,
just laid it out for us. So now we have to deal with the issue. How do
you do that in an industrialized country with a multinational
proletariat? What is our role? Now comes the real work, have us figure
out how we’re going to carry out that struggle, how do you apply the
theory now or develop it because these are new conditions. And there
were people who tried. The revolutionary [unclear] tried. We criticized
them for it, but they said that Chicanos in the Southwest or blacks in
the South were a nation of a new type. We were a nation, but we were a
nation of a new type, I think with the proletariat in the forefront,
etc., but the slogan for us would not be national independence; it would
be regional autonomy. So at least they tried to develop a theory. We
rejected it.
ESPINO:
For people of color in the United States?
BECERRA:
Yes, yes. And actually not just—that would be the issue for the entire
revolution, okay, because there’s no way you’re going to talk about
black people and the struggle of Chicanos unless it’s part of the
overall revolutionary struggle.
ESPINO:
Right.
BECERRA:
You can’t. That’s impossible, right? So that’s a part of a
revolutionary—how does it fit in? That’s where we’d have disagreements,
both with the October League, with the Revolutionary Union, with the
Communist League, you know, in the application of Lenin’s theory and the
development of Lenin’s theory, because now we’re having to evolve it
further. We couldn’t go on the basis of, yeah, here it is. Now what’s it
going to mean here? No, you have to get all the [unclear].
ESPINO:
And that’s what happened, say, with CASA when it changed, when Bert
Corona was no longer in the leadership?
BECERRA:
I don’t know the exact struggle there. I do know that the guys who were
there were always revolutionaries. I disagreed with them, but you can’t
doubt for a moment that they were always revolutionaries. But how that
change took place, I don’t know. I wasn’t around them just to see that—
ESPINO:
They weren’t part of your same study groups, people from the Committee
to Free [unclear] and CASA? You had your own separate—
BECERRA:
Yes, we had our own separate—
ESPINO:
So it’s like these two parallel organizations studying the same thing,
basically, maybe interpreting it different, but the same texts, reading
the same books.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
But in the same locale, East Los Angeles, or were you in a different
location at that point?
BECERRA:
No, we were at the same place. We were [unclear] bigger, but we were in
the same place here, basically L.A. They did have CASAs in other places,
okay, not just L.A., but the main struggle took place here. Yeah, but
there’s a couple of things. One is that we disagreed theoretically, and
once you disagree theoretically and you want to be the most influential,
because if you think you’re right, you want to spread that influence,
right? So at a particular moment, that theoretical struggle becomes very
much a political struggle, and then you get into a clash and then you
get down to the basics of what this was all about in the first place:
power. [laughs] It all goes back from the day you walk into La Piranya
Coffeehouse, the issue is power, okay? There’s a lot of power. [unclear]
to be pancho. The only reason we have any respect today at all, power.
You don’t have power, you don’t have anything. The reason the gays have
been able to move so quickly, so fast, power, and also, of course,
there’s both power and conscience. I don’t mean political conscience; I
mean doing what’s right.
ESPINO:
They’ve helped us to open our minds to those kinds of things. Anyway, so
I’m going to stop it here. [End of July 8, 2013 interview]
ESPINO:
This is Virginia Espino, and today is July 26. I’m interviewing Cruz
Becerra at his home in Commerce. I want to start with your involvement
in the organization La Junta. Can you give me the date that it started
and your role in it and the goals of the organization?
BECERRA:
It was towards the end of the summer of 1968, okay, because I have the
disk. I found the disk.
ESPINO:
Oh, that’s right, that’s right.
0:02:220:03:520:06:14
BECERRA:
On the disk it says "Johnny Manuel Parsons, [unclear], Cruz Olmeda,
David Torres, and David Salcido." David Salcido was—we called him
"Hippie" because he had long hair and a little beard and he played the
guitar all the time, singing songs. I don’t know how many times I heard
him play "Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao." That’s what he used to sing all the
time. This was in July of ’68, this recording here. So what happened,
there was a group of us that had left the Berets and we were trying to
decide what organization we were going to develop because we were going
to be involved, we were going to stay involved. I was listening to part
of this recording in July of ’68, which is when we had all left the
Berets, and what was really interesting here was the difference that we
saw between what was taking place in the Berets and these discussions
that we were having with Stan Steiner.
The same way that we had started in the Berets discussing what was
taking place in the Chicano community, what was needed, trying to deal
with the issues and how we were going to move the issues forward and how
we wanted to change the character of the Chicano Movement, our influence
on the Chicano Movement, and the question of what role the Brown Beret
uniform and the attitude, the stands that we were taking, what effect
they were going to have on the Chicano Movement and the polarizing
effect that it would have, those types of issues, that was taking place,
like, in December and January, December of ’67, January of ’68.
And then six months later or seven months later in July, we’re not in
the Berets anymore and we’re having the same discussions again, okay,
basically the same group of us, more or less, not everybody, because
some guys stayed in the Berets, but of the original guys, yeah, we’re
talking again and we’re trying to deal with issues again. Even though,
when I listened to it, they were very, like, primitive in terms of our
thinking, we were, like, twenty-two years old, you know, twenty-three
years old and we had no college education, so we had nothing, and we
weren’t studied people, you know, educated people, so we had to deal
with the world as we saw it. What interested me so much in this was how
we were thinking. We were thinking, okay. That was the first issue, that
we were thinking and thinking and thinking things through, which we
didn’t really feel free to do so much in the Berets, because in the
Berets there was this anti-Communist perspective, okay, and
anti-Socialist perspective, and so that would kind of restrict you in
your ability to think analytically, to think questions through.
So in the Berets, we would always be going as tactics, as process of one
tactic after another tactic, you know, one crisis after another crisis.
It would never be a question of one issue after another issue. It would
never be a question of laying out a program. Even though we didn’t
understand some of those things at the time, we did understand it in a
basic sense, so in La Junta we had to start dealing with these issues
again. We came to some decisions. One, okay, we’re still militants.
We’re still militant Chicano nationalists, although we were
revolutionary nationalists, not narrow nationalists like some of the
other people were, and so that meant that whatever we did would take on
that aspect, that perspective. And we were talking with other people who
were in gangs, "Little John," for example, John Sermeno, and then David
Torres’ brother, even though his brother was from Maravilla, from El
Hoyo Mara, you know, long-time El Hoyo Mara.
So we were just talking with these guys and that’s when we decided that
La Junta would organize gang members, and that’s what we did, we started
organizing gang members. We were never a part of any gang. We only dealt
with the leadership of the gangs. We had meetings with the gang members
and the leadership of the gangs all over the Eastside. And then those
guys would go out, those gang members would go out and meet with other
gang members, and most of their meetings would take place in jail, where
you’re in an environment where different gangs come together and they
could talk about killing each other. That’s where they would discuss La
Junta, and then other guys would go in there. By the time they would
come out, they said, "Damn, everybody at the county, they’re all
claiming La Junta," because the concept of not kill each other, but to
take on the system, take on the issues that we were presenting.
The biggest one was the issue of the police because these guys were
constantly hounded by the police. I mean, they had come up with ideas
that they wanted to retaliate against the police on their own. They
didn’t need La Junta to come up with those ideas, you know, how you take
them on, and that’s what we did in La Junta was— [recorder turned off]
ESPINO:
Okay. We’re back. You were explaining to me what the goals of La Junta
was and you were talking about the work with gang members, but before we
go back to that, I was wondering if you could explain the difference
between a revolutionary nationalist and a narrow nationalist, because
you said that there were some of these two different kinds of
nationalists at that time and that you guys in La Junta were
revolutionary nationalists. Is that how you would describe—
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
So what’s the difference between those two?
0:07:45
BECERRA:
Okay, the revolutionary nationalists were very narrow in their
perspective and their views. To them, everything was for Chicanos.
Everything had to be for Chicanos and everything had to be put into that
context. If you were opposed to the war in Vietnam, you would oppose it
because it was a white man’s war and there were people over there
killing for the white man. They would be very reactionary in every other
issue, also, the women question in particular, and they were very, very
narrow in their perspective of everything.
The revolutionary nationalists were different. The revolutionary
nationalists had an international perspective, okay. The Vietnamese were
our sisters and brothers. We were solidarity with the Vietnamese. We saw
ourselves as also—we could see the struggles in Latin America and
throughout the world as part of our struggle. We weren’t Communists; we
were revolutionary nationalists and we had this sense of solidarity with
revolutionaries all over the world. The narrow nationalists saw it only
as a struggle for Chicanos, of Chicanos, for Chicanos, and that was it.
Sometimes they’d go beyond that, but not much. And if you were going to
see it—though I think the most blatant thing they did was their attitude
towards women, okay. That was the thing because, I mean, it’s bad enough
when they would say stuff, they didn’t care about anybody else. That was
bad enough, but then that also meant they didn’t care about women
either, Chicano women, or they saw them as, "Yeah, it’s our job to
protect them. We’re going to protect our women," that kind of an
attitude, right. Those were the revolutionary nationalists and those
were our differences.
ESPINO:
Those were the narrow nationalists or the revolutionary nationalists?
BECERRA:
The narrow nationalists were the ones who had problems with women and
had problems with anybody else who was not a Chicano. Those are the
narrow nationalists. The revolutionary nationalists were the ones that
had a broad perspective, maybe even be Socialists, but the program was
still revolutionary nationalism.
ESPINO:
Do you have any examples of organizations or individuals who made up the
narrow nationalists? [Becerra laughs.] You don’t have to name names if
you don’t want to, but maybe some groups or some generalities or some
examples where you witnessed their behavior.
BECERRA:
Let me put it this way. Generally, people that were anti-Socialists,
anti-Communists and anti-Socialists, were generally going to be the
narrow nationalists. They would go beyond—they weren’t always confined.
They would maybe go a little bit beyond, like solidarity with African
Americans at times with some, but then, you know, making distinctions
within the black liberation struggle and still supporting the black
liberation struggle, maybe only supporting the Black Panthers, things
like that.
ESPINO:
So also you mentioned when you were talking about the early formation of
La Junta that you had simple—I’m not sure you used that word, but simple
ideas as young twenty-one, not formally educated. But what would those
ideas—were you talking about bread-and-butter issues or were you talking
about the kind of change that you wanted to work for?
0:11:32
BECERRA:
No. One was the kind of change that we wanted, but also it was dealing
with the national question, how we viewed the national question, the
question of territory, how were we going to address that, the question
of secession, of independence, the roles of different races,
nationalities, ethnicities within a liberated region, whether it’s
federated or independent, whatever. At no time would we ever consider
reunification with Mexico, at no time. It was always a question of
either a federated relationship or independence.
So those kinds of issues we were taking up then and we’d carry them into
the future. Those issues had been there for a long time, for 150, 160
years. So those are the types of issues. We didn’t deal with every
issue. We would not deal with, say, with the women’s issue because there
were no women around us, you know, and it wasn’t like a practical issue
for us because we were not involved with feminists, because Chicana
feminists, if they existed, a lot of the Chicanos really didn’t like the
feminists because they were white and they saw them as white, they saw
them as racist, they saw them as causing divisions in the Chicano
Movement because they didn’t understand us. So we were dealing with
issues of women, just the national question, the question of politics,
because we were still going to be supporting reformist politics,
politicians, and in spite of having a revolution perspective, we still
support them. We would be involved in campaigns, political campaigns for
progressive candidates. Those were the issues that we were discussing.
ESPINO:
Well, when you talk about the national question, was that something that
emerged during your time in the Brown Berets or did you start studying
that after you left?
0:15:12
BECERRA:
In the Brown Berets we would talk about it, but we’d never really
discuss it, okay. I’m talking about in’68, early ’68. What happened
after that is something else, but at that time, no, we hardly discussed
it at all. My first introduction to the national question as a national
question happened in that summer of ’68, or maybe it may have been going
into ’69, but I think it was ’68, maybe. I was invited to the home of
Delfino Varela. Delfino Varela was a member of the Communist Party, and
I went there with some of the guys from La Junta. I think I told you
this before. He had someone there from the party who gave us a
presentation of the national question. He gave us a presentation of the
national question based on Stalin’s writings. The book is called The
National Question by Stalin. He had written it around 1907, maybe, and
he explained to us the Communist Party’s position that based on Stalin’s
writings, Chicanos did not constitute a nation, okay.
We didn’t understand why he was telling us this. Even if he was the guy
to deal with the national question on the part of the party, he was not
schooled in it at all, and it wouldn’t be till years later that we’d
understand that. He was dealing with Stalin in 1907 when he talked
about—some people refer to it as the five criteria, but that’s not what
it is. What it is is the five characteristics in the development of
Western capitalist countries, Western Europe, like Britain and France
and Germany. And what he said was there was a people with a common
history and a common territory, language, economy, culture, and
territory, so everybody was running around trying to find out if
Chicanos qualified, right, as if that was the basis for it.
It had nothing to do with the Chicano national question, but people
didn’t understand that. Lenin wrote about the national question
afterwards and he writes about it around 1919, I think, and he kept
writing about it. He wrote about it for about thirty years; he didn’t
stop. What he did was he changed the issue. It had to deal with why was
there no revolution in Western Europe like there was supposed to be, and
why was revolution taking place somewhere else. So he makes an analysis
of imperialism and he lays out different characteristics of imperialism
and he says, "Therefore, from that we can conclude the following," one
of which was the national question. He said, "The revolution will not
take place in advanced capitalist countries. It will take place wherever
the chain of imperialism is the weakest," which means that the
nationalities and the colonies, that the— [interruption]
0:17:11
BECERRA:
Which will mean that the nationalities and the colonies, the colonial
people may be the most to lead the struggle for socialism, and not the
people in the capitalist countries. That’s what was happening, and he
spoke about it. He even addressed the issue in different meetings at the
international conferences. And then Stalin took it even further, much
further, and Stalin said that whereas before it was up to the national
bourgeois class to lead the struggle, well, that was no longer—for an
example, that would be Sun Yat-sen in China and, later on, Chiang
Kai-shek. And Stalin said, "But that is no longer the case. Now they’ll
sell out like Chiang Kai-shek, for example. They’ll sell out. It’s up to
the Communists to pick up the banner of national liberation and carry it
forward."
Okay, none of this—that member of the Communist Party who was trying to
teach us about the national question, he didn’t know any of this stuff
and he was there representing the party on the national question and he
didn’t know anything about this, the question of territory, question of
boundaries, of borders, all those issues, you know. Nothing, he knew
nothing about it. So for us, you know, the question of whether or not
the oppressed people are inside of a given state or outside of that
state on another continent doesn’t matter. The issue is the same, the
question of the democratic right to either self-determination, which
means independence, or whether it’s a federated relationship of some
type or regional autonomy, whatever it is. The member of the Communist
Party would talk to us. They’d teach us that.
He was still stuck with Stalin’s writings of 1907, which Stalin
rejected. He said that’s obsolete. Lenin said it was obsolete. Stalin
said it was obsolete. You can’t go on the basis of those writings
anymore. This man had never read that. I can see why the Communist Party
was so far behind while the black liberation struggle surged forward.
Then the Black Panthers and all the revolutionary aspects of the black
liberation struggle and the Chicano National Movements moved forward.
The party was caught off guard, okay. The Trotskyites were caught off
guard. They didn’t know how to deal with it. When I say Trotskyites, I’m
talking about the Socialist Workers Party. The Socialist Workers Party
can adapt real quickly. [laughs] They were flexible, but only in form,
only in form. The party was caught way off guard and they never caught
up. They never caught up.
ESPINO:
Do you know how long Del Varela was in the Communist Party?
BECERRA:
Del Varela, I talked to him one time, and he addressed a conference of
the Communist Party back east and he wanted me to take the position on
the Chicano national question. He had a position that he presented,
right, at the national conference of the Communist Party, and it was
modest. What he said was that this national question was different from
other issues, from the black liberation struggle and from the question
of immigrants, because the party was looking at it as just a question of
immigrants. He said, "No one said there’s a question of territory,
question of land," and he wanted that to be voted on. The party was not
going to pass it and the party was going to look really, really bad if
it didn’t pass that, so they put a lot of pressure on Delfino Varela to
withdraw that resolution, okay. So he withdrew it, and then afterwards
he told me that Chicano members of the Communist Party [unclear] good,
good for the unity of the party, for the unity of the party. He says he
wanted to spit on them, he was so pissed off, because he said, "These
are the people that don’t have any balls to fight for these issues," and
he quit the party. He left the party. I don’t know when. By the eighties
I remember—
ESPINO:
So this was in the seventies that you’re talking about when he gave his
presentation?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
But you don’t know how long he had been in the Communist Party?
BECERRA:
No, but he’d been there for a while, maybe even when he lived in New
Mexico. He may have been in the party in New Mexico.
ESPINO:
In the fifties?
BECERRA:
Yeah, but for sure once he was here he was in the party.
ESPINO:
Because he’s well known for his work with immigration.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Not as a Chicano Movement activist.
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
So how would you describe his role or his legacy?
BECERRA:
I remember Delfino for a number of things. One, his work on immigration,
immigration and educating people around the issue of immigration, even
the Communist Party. [telephone interruption]
0:21:45
BECERRA:
Even the party on the question of immigration, because the party did do
important work on the question of immigration, and I remember him also
for raising the issue in the eighties in the Communist Party on the
Chicano national question. Even though he lost, he fought for it.
Later he quit. I don’t know where he went, but I know that one of the
leaders of the League did have meetings with him. He used to [unclear].
He must have been close to the League later, the League for
Revolutionary Struggle. But to me, he was an activist on the Eastside.
He was involved with MAPA 40, he was involved with all the political
issues of the Eastside, but he was not—how would you say it? Remember,
these were party members that had gone through the McCarthy era, through
the Smith Act. They were not going to be like us. We were younger. We
had not really had that experience. We were not scared, because we were
too young and too dumb to be scared, really. But these people had to be
careful. No, I’ll always remember Delfino for those things and you
respect him for those things too.
ESPINO:
Did he have a role in La Junta? [recorder turned off]
ESPINO:
Okay. So you were going to tell me if Del Varela had a role in the
formation of La Junta.
BECERRA:
No. No, he didn’t. We would talk to him, but I don’t think we ever
talked to him enough, because he had a lot of history, a lot of things
he could teach us. But we didn’t talk to him enough.
ESPINO:
What about Bert Corona? Because he was also involved with immigration
issues. He was one of those older Chicano activists who didn’t come of
age during the Chicano Movement. He was already in his late thirties,
possibly, in the sixties.
BECERRA:
Oh, he was older than that.
ESPINO:
Forties, maybe?
BECERRA:
Well, look, in the 1930s, during the Spanish Civil War, he was in
college, so—
ESPINO:
Bert Corona?
BECERRA:
Bert Corona, yeah, and he was raising funds for the Abraham Lincoln
Brigade fighting in the Spanish Civil War.
ESPINO:
So he was already in his sixties or seventies? Well, 1942, he was in the
military.
BECERRA:
Yes. I believe he was in the merchant marine.
ESPINO:
Yeah. Maybe fifties. Maybe he was in his fifties. But anyway, the point
is, is that did you come in contact with Bert Corona after you left the
Brown Berets while you were starting to develop more of a revolutionary
nationalist perspective?
0:24:480:26:42
BECERRA:
Yes. He had no influence on us when we saw him, because we would go to
the same meetings, the same rallies. We would accompany him when he
would be up here on television speaking on Chicano issues. We would show
up in the studios, because he was on television and we’d show up at the
studios to support him.
He knew other people, too, like Corky and everybody who was involved
in—all the leaders at the movement at the time. He was well respected as
a spokesman and a representative of the Chicano Movement. So I had a lot
of respect for him as an elder, you know, and somebody who really
spoke—you were proud to have him speaking for you, representing
Chicanos. Then we didn’t run into him again until 1972, ’71, ‘72, ’73,
and that’s when he had formed CASA, Centro de Acción Social Autónoma,
over on the Westside and he was doing work on immigration, and people
would go there and they would have labor issues of different types. They
got fired or were injured on the job, so he would send the people to us.
We were the Labor Committee of La Raza Unida Party and we had our
headquarters on Wheeler and—it was, like, Wheeler and I think Chicago,
Wheeler and Chicago. We were on the corner. So he would send people
there, and sometimes we would be happy to meet the people. Sometimes we
would say, "What’s Bert doing?" Did I talk about El Mormón? His name is
Antonio Rodriguez. He was from Mexico and he spoke very little English,
but he had been recruited by the Mormons in Mexico. So when we met him,
we found out that he was a Mormon, so nobody knew his name afterward
because everybody called him El Mormón, and that stuck. [laughs] That
stuck with him for life, you know, El Mormón. In fact, he lives in Bell.
When the scandal broke out in Bell, he was at a City Council meeting
when he ran into one of the guys that worked with us, who’s still a
friend of mine, Doug Marshall. And Doug Marshall told me, "You know
what? I saw Antonio Rodriguez." I said, "Yeah?" He says, "He remembers
you. He wanted to say hi. He wants you to call him," and he gave me his
phone number. But I thought Antonio Rodriguez was the one that we know,
right, the lawyer. But no. I said, "The lawyer?" He said, "No, the
other. Don’t you remember from the Labor Committee?" I said, "No." And
this went on for like six months, eight months, and they started talking
to me about him. I said, "Oh, El Mormón." [laughs]
ESPINO:
Funny.
BECERRA:
Because I didn’t know him by his name.
ESPINO:
Yeah, that’s kind of a bit of a jump from—
0:27:52
BECERRA:
Yeah, but El Mormón came to our office at the Labor Committee and he
said, "I want to talk to Bert. I paid my money for the stuff," the
papers that they give you there and all that." He says, "And I told them
that I lost my job. I want help getting a job." And Bert told him, "No,
no, no. Nosotros no nos ocupamos con eso. Mira, vete alla con los
muchachos del Labor Committee. Ellos estan encargados de piquetear."
[laughs]
And we had people coming in like that all the time from CASA. This is
before the Rodriguez brothers were involved with CASA. This is before
that. Women would come in injured, like, from the sewing machine
accidents. One woman was putting rivets on jeans and she stuck her thumb
in, and the rivet went right through her thumb. So she came over to us
with her hand wrapped up in a handkerchief. These were people coming in
from Bert’s organization and we were dealing with those kinds of issues.
So then that was the second time that I ran into Bert, okay, and then
after that I didn’t see Bert anymore, but I know that Bert contributed
immensely to the movement from the thirties, the forties, the fifties,
everything from the [unclear] case, everything, all the way through till
the day he died. He was always involved, training a lot of political
leaders and organizing. But my own personal contact with him was limited
to seeing him at meetings. I wasn’t trained by Bert and I did not work
with Bert.
ESPINO:
He wasn’t the same kind of advocate that Del Varela was, as far as
having house parties of political education on the national question?
[unclear].
BECERRA:
No. Bert Corona’s teachings on issues, where they took place was he
became a professor at Cal State L.A. and he used to teach there, and
that’s where he would lay out his views, his political views, in the
Chicano Studies classes.
ESPINO:
Did you ever take any of those?
BECERRA:
No, but I was there for one and I liked it. It was very, very good.
Because Bert knew a lot. Man, he knew a lot, not just from experiences,
but also from reading and studying. I mean, that man knew a lot. To meet
with him and really have a long talk, you would really be impressed with
Bert Corona.
ESPINO:
So how long did La Junta last and what was your biggest impact, do you
think?
BECERRA:
The biggest impact, I didn’t see it, other people saw it and the police
saw it, too, was with the gang violence in that period, that one year.
Gangs shooting each other went down, I mean really down almost to zero,
and the cops were pissed. [unclear] would arrest people and say—but I
can remember dragging [unclear]. Vampire, the guy’s name was Vampire,
and I forget his real name, but he was being arrested one time, and they
criticized La Junta. He says, "Yeah, but you notice there’s no more gang
fighting. They’re not killing each other anymore." And the cops knew
that was true and they were pissed. But remember, that was a different
police department than what we have today, you know. Today they would be
happy that there’s no gang violence. [laughs]
ESPINO:
Right. It’s true. Well, how difficult was it or how easy was it to
organize gang members?
0:31:33
BECERRA:
It wasn’t hard, because you always knew somebody who knew somebody, you
know, and you didn’t go talk to people when they were getting high at
night. You went to meet with them during the day, you know, and you
would meet with the leadership of different groups, different gangs.
It’s not like it is today. Today, Jesus, it’s really, really bad. It
wasn’t that bad in those days, and you would meet with them and would
exchange ideas.
They didn’t join La Junta. Some of their members did, but they didn’t
join La Junta. More than anything, we influenced them, influenced their
attitudes towards each other, towards the movement, towards Chicanos,
towards other gang members. That’s what we were doing, and, amazingly,
it was very, very successful, or what everybody else told us, because we
were not recruiting people, because we had a group of people, the group,
you know, and that was it. We were not going to try and build a little
empire. That’s not what we were trying to do.
ESPINO:
An army?
BECERRA:
Yeah. We were not trying to do that.
ESPINO:
You weren’t building an army.
BECERRA:
No. No, that’s not what we were trying to do at all.
ESPINO:
What were you trying to do?
BECERRA:
Influence the young people, influence the gang members and to politicize
them, influence their attitudes politically towards the Chicano
Movement, towards the police, which they already knew. We didn’t have to
teach anything about that, and their attitude towards other gangs. They
were raza. They were brothers, but not doing it like missionaries,
because that’s not going to work. We weren’t there to talk like priests,
not do it in a militant way. If they’re not going to be the—[unclear]
going to be the enemy, okay, because that was important. You can’t turn
these guys into pacifists. They were not pacifists. All we had to do is
just turn their aggression, the anger, and everything in a different
direction and that’s what we were doing. And we were successful in doing
that while we were active.
ESPINO:
Okay. So then was it just a question of education and raising
consciousness?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
What about job opportunity or going back to school or degrees or
political involvement?
BECERRA:
No. No, we were not like a service agency. [laughs] We were
revolutionaries.
ESPINO:
Well what did you hope to achieve?
BECERRA:
We did.
ESPINO:
Did you have an end goal?
BECERRA:
Yeah, that. That was the—
ESPINO:
Just that?
BECERRA:
That was it. That was it, yeah.
ESPINO:
And then how come it ended?
BECERRA:
I forget. I forget, but it ended.
ESPINO:
And then what happened after that? So then that lasted ’68?
BECERRA:
No, ’69.
ESPINO:
Till ’69?
BECERRA:
Yeah, and then I wasn’t active anymore until 1971, ’72, around that
period.
ESPINO:
What were you doing?
BECERRA:
Nothing. Just working. Just working.
ESPINO:
Is that the time that you were married?
BECERRA:
Yes. I was not making any babies, but I was married. [laughs]
ESPINO:
I won’t say anything, because that will go on a whole other tangent.
[laughs] Okay, so you were working. And then how did you start up again?
I mean, did you feel good about not being involved? What did that feel
like?
0:35:30
BECERRA:
I didn’t feel good about not being involved. I started going to school
at Cal State L.A. and I was working full-time. No, no, I did not do both
things at the same time, but I did go to the moratorium march in 1970
with my friends here, tried to get guys from work. I was working in the
oil refinery then, tried to get people to go. I think one guy did try to
go, but he couldn’t get in because by then everything was blocked off.
The cops had blocked the whole area out. But what happened was that I
ran into Jimmy Franco, and Jimmy Franco, I’d met him when we were
working with Victor Franco—there’s no relation—when he was putting out
the magazine Inside Eastside. We had met and then we met again and we
started talking and we decided we were going to get a group of people
together to start organizing. What had happened was we were both
influenced very much by something that had just taken place, and that
was the wildcat strike of the Teamsters and the wildcat strike of the
postal workers. We saw how powerful those strikes were in just bringing
the country to a complete stop.
The things that we understood about Marx, but now we understood in a
practical way, because during this period of time I was meeting with
some Marxists, going to meetings, you know. They’re giving me stuff to
read during that time, so I was reading a little bit, studying a little
bit, getting more familiar with the writings of Marx, but the basic
writings that were for the working-class, not his theoretical,
philosophical works. So we decided to form what would become the Labor
Committee. He got some people together that he knew from the university,
I got some people together, workers that I knew, friends of mine that
were workers, and we came together. We formed what became the Labor
Committee of La Raza Unida Party, which later became the August 29th
Movement, okay, which later became the League for Revolutionary
Struggle. It would merge into, become the League for Revolutionary
Struggle.
ESPINO:
Before we get into that evolution, can you tell me what you remember
from August 29th? Was that the first antiwar march you participated in?
BECERRA:
No, but it was the biggest. I had gone to two other ones and I would go
to ones after that, too, but it was the biggest Chicano one and probably
the biggest one, period, because I’d only gone to marches here in L.A.
ESPINO:
What was the first one that you went to?
BECERRA:
I can’t remember. I can’t remember at all. In fact, this one may even be
the first one, but I can’t remember.
ESPINO:
Okay, because there were those—the march in the rain. That was
documented.
BECERRA:
Yes, I didn’t go to that one.
ESPINO:
And then there’s the antiwar march that wasn’t organized by Rosalio and
the Chicano Movement activists; it was organized by the Resistance,
which were white antiwar activists on the Westside.
BECERRA:
I don’t know if [unclear].
ESPINO:
They had a big march downtown.
BECERRA:
I can’t remember if I went to that one. But, no, I was at the August
29th, 1971, yeah, I was there.
ESPINO:
That one stands out most in your memory?
BECERRA:
Yes, yes.
ESPINO:
Can you tell me about that day? Or how did you hear about it?
BECERRA:
Oh, everybody heard about it. Everybody knew. Yeah, everybody knew. I
had called some friends and we all went together. I was with my wife. I
can’t remember if we were married yet. We were living together, but I
can’t remember if we were married. I went with Rolando, with Tino, with
Neto, with Net, and we were marching. [unclear], remember. Like Rolando,
he was from El Salvador. He was from the upper-middle-class of El
Salvador. His whole family was left-wing. Over there, he went to a
private school and he was in school, the middle school, when Nixon
visited. It was his famous trip to Latin America. He visited El
Salvador, visited at that school and shook hands with the students
[unclear] when Nixon was vice president under Eisenhower. His family is
progressive. I won’t go into that. That’s something else, but very, very
progressive. Rolando was there and [unclear] was there.
ESPINO:
Rolando?
0:40:220:41:49
BECERRA:
Rolando Menjivar. Rolando was a Vietnam veteran, very antiwar. Even when
he was there, he was antiwar because when they would send us out on
patrol, we’d go out of the way, sit down, roll up a joint, smoke, and
say, "Fuck it. I’m not getting out there and getting killed." Well, at
this march I remember because Rolando, he had his own chant. He was
chanting, "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, the NFL is going to win." There was none
of the "Peace now," "Give peace a chance." No, no, no. That was his
chant, and then there was the other chants. I can’t remember them
exactly, but there was like, "Vietnam, Aztlán, same struggle, two
fronts." That’s the revolutionary nationalist perspective that I talked
about.
I remember we were marching, we’re drinking wine, getting high and
stuff, and then we sat down at the park to see the program, and then I
wanted to go get something from the store and when I went I said,
"Damn." There was like a little riot going on there, and so I walked up.
And then pretty soon here comes the cops, man, all kinds of cops coming.
[laughs] I said, "Chingao." So I ran to tell everybody, "What the hell?
Cops, they’re charging. There’s a riot here," and to get everybody out
of there, right?
So then we started going east on Whittier Boulevard away from the park,
and then I blew it. Something snapped in my head. I blew it, and so I
just started getting bottles and throwing them at the cop cars, right,
and my wife tried to get me out of there. I said, "No, no, no, no, no,
no. This has built up too long. I’m going to do it now." So I remember
going behind—it was either a liquor store or a bar, and they used to
save the cases of beer bottles. I guess they used to return them. When
they’d come to deliver beer, they’d take the empties, right, and I saw a
whole case of beer bottles. So I picked them up and I took them to the
sidewalk and I got two or three bottles and I walked out in the middle
of the street.
All the sheriffs was just zooming down the street. They had
reinforcements at the park, so I don’t know where these sheriffs were,
but they were just coming in a convoy, wham, wham, one cop car after
another. So I was fucked up by then, you know, so I just stood in the
middle of the street, and as they were coming down, I threw a bottle
through the windshield, one car after another. But I would look at them,
and the cops had these really scared, scared looks on their faces,
right, because they didn’t know what they were walking into. And then
they were seeing the cop cars coming in the other direction, and those
cop cars were full of injured cops. Cops are, you know, all fucked up
because they were getting their asses kicked, right?
So then I’d run and get some more bottles and keep it up. And then
during one of those times when I turned around to go get some more
bottles, that cop car was coming and he hit me. First he hit me with the
fender, and I went back. Then his tire rolled on my foot, and when it
rolled on my foot, I came forward again, right? And then when I came
forward again, his spotlight hit me in the arm and that knocked me on my
ass. Boom. I was out of commission. So some people picked me up and they
carried me to the gas station. Somebody said, "You can come to my house
because I live right here," so I went to somebody’s house, and they cut
my pants because my legs were all fucked up.
I was off that day, and I couldn’t go back to work because I was
injured, and so I had to call up work and tell them I can’t go to work.
They all knew that I was there. They all knew that I had invited them
all to go, you know, and so they thought maybe I’d been shot, maybe I
was in jail. They didn’t know what was going on. And I told them, "No, I
got run over." He said, "Did you report them?" I said, "How am I going
to report them? I’m throwing bottles at them when they run over me. What
the hell? I can’t report something like that." But, yeah, that was my
day, August 29th.
ESPINO:
So when you headed out to go there, what were you thinking it was going
to be like? Were you expecting a peaceful demonstration with music and
poetry?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Or were you expecting police and protestor confronting? Were you
expecting an angry mob?
BECERRA:
No. You know, a lot of times when I go to demonstrations like that,
you’re going to go there and you’re going to have fun, you know. You’re
going to sit there, you’re going to drink, you’re going to talk with
people. There’s going to be people with posters and all kinds of stuff
that they’re selling and there’s going to be speeches. There’s going to
be entertainment. It’s like a festival more than a protest, you know.
That’s the way Chicano rallies are, you know, and that’s what I was
expecting. I didn’t expect the cops to attack everybody, no, not at all,
you know, not at all. I mean, it just blew me away when it happened, but
I reacted quickly. I said, "Fuck it. That’s it. Get it on."
ESPINO:
Was that first time that you reacted that way in public?
BECERRA:
In public, yes, yes. Yeah, but it just built up too long, too many years
building up like that. It was enough. That was it. [laughs]
ESPINO:
So were you ready to get arrested or—I mean, I don’t know if it’s too
extreme to say, but were you ready to die at that moment?
BECERRA:
Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was it. [laughs] That was it, yeah. Everything had
built up till that moment. Yeah. Hell, yeah.
ESPINO:
What did it represent to you then?
BECERRA:
[cries] Everything that had built up to that moment, growing up, the
navy, the movement, all the struggles. Everything had built up to that
moment, and when the moment was there, I was going to react. I wasn’t
going to walk away from it. I wasn’t going to—I mean, people react
differently, you know. I didn’t have any children in daycare. I would
have reacted much, much different—I would have ran in there to get the
kids out, protect the kids, you know, but that wasn’t where I was. I had
no children, you know, and I still saw myself as a soldier, you know.
That’s the way I reacted.
ESPINO:
You mean a soldier like when you were a soldier—
BECERRA:
A revolutionary.
ESPINO:
Not a U.S.—
BECERRA:
No. No, no.
ESPINO:
You mean like a Brown Beret soldier?
BECERRA:
Yes, yes. Yeah, that was it.
ESPINO:
So when you heard about the death of Ruben Salazar, did you have any
theories about that? Because it sounds like—you’re the first person that
I talked to that actually says, "Yes, I threw something. Yes, I
responded with violence back." Well, maybe a couple of other people have
said that, but most people focus on what happened to Ruben Salazar and
the whole conspiracy theory around was he murdered or was he a victim of
this bullet that came in unknowingly, this officer shot unknowingly into
this bar, you know, that story. Was that important to you, that part of
the march that occurred that day?
BECERRA:
Yeah. What happened, I’d seen Ruben Salazar. I had met him and seen him
at meetings, right, and I knew he was a good guy, and he was really
growing as a person, was really, really growing. He hung out with Sam
Kushner, right, a lot, and that’s why I think that it wasn’t an
accident, because he had started to represent something real, okay, like
a real threat. And it’s okay if you have people—see, the role of
Salazar, even though his writings were not the most militant—
[interruption]
ESPINO:
Okay, if you could just repeat that last statement.
0:49:16
BECERRA:
I saw then his role is much more significant than I saw at the time,
even maybe today. But even though his writings were not for the
militants, they were geared towards the Anglos and trying to prepare,
like, the environment in which we were going to be struggling and also
for the more moderate Chicanos that were not radicals, and trying to get
them to understand what was taking place in front of them. I mean, guys
like Roybal needed that kind of education, but they really praised
Roybal and I don’t think he deserved any of it myself. They say he was
the first this or the first that, but, you know, it doesn’t matter, you
know. I saw him as repairing the environment in which we were struggling
and bringing along some of our people who were not as militant. And I
know that he was, like, restricted, how much he could do, how much he
could say as a columnist for the L.A. Times, but he was still doing a
good job.
He could understand what people were feeling because he was part of the
community again and he would try to put that into his writings, but they
had to be in a certain way that you were going to be able to write that.
Otherwise, it doesn’t get written. But issues, he was raising the
issues. He was raising the issues that were important in the community,
and I think somebody saw him as dangerous, as a dangerous spokesman
because he did have standing in the community, standing in the media,
you know, and people like that are dangerous, very dangerous, when they
stand with the people, and that’s why I think some—you know, it wasn’t—I
don’t see how—I think the guy did shoot in there and I think that if he
hadn’t killed him then, they would have killed him later.
It’s very hard to—I mean, the guy walked almost up to the door, and,
yeah, there was a curtain there. I can’t remember if he actually stepped
inside to shoot or if he shot from the outside and he could see inside.
It’s hard to tell because the bars are dark and you’re out of the
sunlight, but he did know that Salazar was in there. So that could have
been a lucky shot that he got, but if they hadn’t killed him then, it
would happen later. Some people did not represent the threat, as big of
a threat, or some people—Chavez did not represent that kind of a threat,
but guys like Salazar did.
ESPINO:
So what impact did it have on you when you heard? Do you remember what
you thought when you heard that he had been killed?
BECERRA:
I was pissed. I wasn’t, like, sad, you know. I was pissed because, you
know, to me, they killed him. That was it. They just killed him, and the
particular circumstances, [unclear] to kill him. And there’s still a lot
of stuff that’s still covered up that’s not released yet, but I think it
would show that there were cops already on the way. They already knew he
was in there. There were already cops on the way, and if they hadn’t got
him, you know, in there, they would have got him coming out.
Remember, the cops had their own secret groupings, their own secret
paramilitary groupings, you know, organizations, and all the police
departments had them, especially the rotten ones like the sheriff’s
department. They had them. Sometimes it comes out, they called
themselves the Vikings or they’re called different things, right, and
they give themselves points for how many people you beat up or stuff
like that. I mean, that comes out in the L.A. Times, but this was in a
period that was even worse, okay. So if they hadn’t killed him in the
bar, they could have killed him coming out of the bar, and the cops were
already on their way there, so, you know, to me, they killed him. They
just killed him, and I don’t think—it’s too much coincidence for it to
have been an accident.
ESPINO:
So I know you were out of commission because of what happened, but how
did you respond to that as an activist, as a community member? How did
you respond to that violence, I mean the arrests and these—well, there
were other people who were killed, too, not just Ruben Salazar.
0:55:01
BECERRA:
Yeah, sure. No, there were more marches, and I went to one more march
and then I stopped going to them. My reaction, because this was in
August of 1970, my reaction became—how would I say it? It culminated in
the meeting with Jimmy Franco when we decided that we—we saw what had
happened and there were more marches, like in September, maybe, and
January. More and more people were shot, you know, and then, of course,
different people reacted in different ways maybe. One group that we
wrote about before—we didn’t write about the group, but one of the
reactions that we saw coming out of that would have been the development
of the Chicano Liberation Front, and we didn’t go in that direction. I
met with Jimmy and we went in a different direction, forming the Labor
Committee, which became the ATM, and moving in that direction.
So that was like a direct consequence of what happened with Salazar and
the marches that happened afterwards, and the cops were shooting at us,
that we had to figure, "Okay, you know what? We’ve got to do something
about this. How are we going to deal with this?" And we decided that
becoming Marxist-Leninist was the way we were going to deal with it and
organizing as Marxists-Leninists and having to learn it, because we
didn’t know crap. But we knew that other revolutionaries were
Marxist-Leninist in China, in Vietnam, in Cuba, so we knew that these
were the people we admired. These were the people who had been
successful in a revolutionary struggle, and we were going to become
Marxists-Leninists. We were going to study it because we knew that we
were anti-imperialists, at least, which is not a big deal, because,
remember, Mark Twain was an anti-imperialist and he was a member of the
Anti-Imperialist League, the American Anti-Imperialist League.
But that’s when we knew that we were anti-imperialists and we were going
to organize a Marxist-Leninist organization and we had to study and we
had to get the experience, which we got in the August 29th Movement, a
lot of experience, really, really, I mean a lot of experience under a
lot of pressure, you know, because we were organizing strikes and
leading strikes. These were wildcat strikes. [telephone interruption]
BECERRA:
So, like, that came directly from that experience of August—in fact, we
called ourselves the August 29th Movement. Everybody came directly from
that experience of what happened that day.
ESPINO:
So the August 29th comes from that?
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
So would you say that the repression of that march was more impactful
than the walkouts, than the repression of the walkouts, in helping you
to form your—
BECERRA:
Oh, as an individual, yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. I saw the impact that
the walkouts had, okay, and I saw the impact that they had on me, in
helping me understand what we were capable of doing, okay, as a people.
The moratorium had that impact also, but also when it turned out the way
that it turned out, yeah, because then from that point forward, I mean,
killing people in marches, one march, more shootings after being on the
subsequent marches, it was crazy, you know. So you had to stop and
figure out, okay, what are you going to do? So, yeah, in that way, yes.
ESPINO:
Is that what also led you to participate in the La Raza Unida Party?
BECERRA:
Yes. When we went into the La Raza Unida Party, we were already going in
there— [interruption]
BECERRA:
When we were going to La Raza Unida, we were already going in as
Socialists. We were already going in as Marxists-Leninists. Now, most of
the people in La Raza Unida Party in California, in L.A. and in
California, were Socialists. They did not belong to the Communist Party
or the Socialist Workers Party or any Socialist organizations or
Communist organizations. Their experiences had brought them to that
view. And in northern California they formed collectives,
Marxist-Leninist collectives, you know, that became part of La Raza
Unida Party California. But when we went into La Raza Unida Party, yeah,
that was part of what we were going to be doing.
ESPINO:
So how did you get involved in the La Raza Unida Party? Was it someone
recruited you or—
0:59:08
BECERRA:
No. In talking with Jimmy Franco and with Rudy Quiñones, okay, we
discussed what the activists on the campuses were doing, and La Raza
Unida Party was being formed in L.A. County and there were chapters. So
we discussed going to La Raza Unida Party Central Committee, L.A. County
Central Committee, and telling them that we wanted to organize a
chapter, but it would not be a geographical chapter like San Fernando
Valley or La Puentes or [unclear] chapter or the East L.A. chapter. We
wanted a chapter that was going to be a labor chapter organizing workers
and it would be the Labor Committee of La Raza Unida Party, and the
party was very, very open to that. We would go and have voter
registration drives in front of General Motors in Southgate. We set up
our tables. Oh, workers just signed up.
So, yeah, they were open to it and they were very happy to see that.
Later, they would be very critical of us because they saw that we were
not doing as much voter registration as they were doing, okay, as other
members were doing, but we did do voter registration. But they were open
to us because, remember, these were people who were also Socialists and
so they were very much open to the Labor Committee becoming part of La
Raza Unida Party.
ESPINO:
What drew you to the idea of a third party, of a political party? I
mean, I know you were involved in a couple—like, you mentioned
somebody’s election, Calderon, I think it was, who you, as a Brown
Beret, did some work for Calderon, who was running—
BECERRA:
Yeah, actually, we didn’t do work for Calderon as much as we did for one
of the guys who was running for district attorney, Mike Hammond or Mike
something like that. I can’t remember his name.
ESPINO:
Not a Chicano?
BECERRA:
He was not a Chicano, but he was running for district attorney. And
remember, we hated Evelle Younger because he indicted us.
ESPINO:
Right.
BECERRA:
So we wanted somebody else and so we supported someone else.
ESPINO:
So what’s your philosophy as a revolutionary nationalist? What’s your
philosophy when you look at Democratic politics? Because La Raza Unida
was going to fit into the structure of a Democratic politic as a third
party within this larger U.S. framework.
1:02:021:03:52
BECERRA:
Okay. It was two things that we saw. One, it was going to be independent
of the two other political parties, so it would be an independent
political party. Second, it would be a party that was addressing the
needs of La Raza, which would be really mainstream issues, you know, for
the most part, crime, police issues, education, jobs, but there would be
other issues that we’d be dealing with that the other parties were not
dealing with, like bilingual education, for example. So we saw it as an
independent political party, so it was legitimate to work within that
system. Okay. Now, while we were doing this, because there were Latinos
and some guys were from Mexico, [unclear] said we should not organize
people into the trade unions because we were being Judas-coats, okay,
and so we had to stay out of the Labor Movement because the Labor
Movement was corrupt, we were being Judas-coats leading our people into
these trade unions. So that became one of the first ideological choice
that we had in the organization.
But these kinds of issues, ultra-left issues, Lenin had already
addressed them. He had written a book called—he called it a pamphlet. It
was a book. What I call a book is a chapter. [laughs] Like my little boy
says, "It’s a chapter book, Daddy." Dealing with ultra-leftism in the
Communist Movement around the world, and just like Marx, he said it was
going to be the Latinos who would have a problem with ultra-leftism.
Marx had talked about ultra-leftism of the Latinos, specifically the
Spanish and the Italians, okay. Lenin would address them primarily, but
we had the same problems with the Latinos in Latin America, okay, even
during Lenin’s time, same issues. So in that, he talked about the
importance of doing [unclear] work. You work with the trade unions. You
don’t form an independent movement. You work in the trade unions.
People say you don’t go to parliaments, congresses. These were bourgeois
institutions. We don’t work with them. Of course they’re bourgeois
institutions. We still work in them. You still have to raise these
issues to the people. He went right down the line. So we understood and
we had to work within that framework, okay, and in the trade unions. And
to us, it make sense anyway. We didn’t have to read Lenin to understand
that. We were revolutionaries. In a bourgeois society, in capitalism,
the most advanced industrial society in the world, you know, we didn’t
have to read Lenin to understand this is what we had to do, and if
somebody didn’t like it, well, tough. We understood we had to do this,
okay? So we didn’t have a problem with that.
We finally did [unclear]. You know, from a nationalist perspective,
because by then we had become Socialists, we were fighting to become
Marxist-Leninist, it was a big struggle to understand it, you know. But
even as nationalists, with the nationalist background we had, as
revolutionary nationalists, this is where our people are stuck. This is
where our people are at. This is where we want to be, you know. So it
was never an issue as revolutionaries about working within that
framework of bourgeois politics. We had to. This is where the story was
going to take place, even today.
ESPINO:
So then were there candidates that you supported or was your focus
mainly in raising consciousness among the working-class through voter
registration, that kind of thing?
BECERRA:
We did voter registration and we did support—by now we could only
support La Raza Unida candidates. We could not support Democratic Party
candidates anymore. Now we would support La Raza Unida candidates, which
would be Raúl Ruíz, for example. He ran. That is who we would be
supporting. As far as the issue of revolutionary work, no, we continued
that. Within the Labor Committee, we went on to develop the August 29th
Movement as an organization, and we were already doing it. We were
working, recruiting, leading strikes. We were recruiting people. El
Mormón, who I told you about, we recruited him. He was a worker. Then I
got him a job where I was working. Even though he was undocumented at
that time, it didn’t matter. As long as you could provide phony
documents, you got a job, you know. They didn’t have e-Verify.
ESPINO:
Right, right, those days.
BECERRA:
And we recruited other workers, Chicano workers, also, who became
leaders in the August 29th Movement and in the League. So, no, we saw
our work still to continue, to carry on revolutionary work as
Marxists-Leninists and recruiting workers into the organization.
ESPINO:
What did you think of Raúl Ruíz? Did you put your 100 percent support
behind him? Did he really symbolize what you wanted to achieve as far as
all of your goals of self-determination and awareness of the
working-class and the struggle of the working-class?
1:07:56
BECERRA:
We’re talking about 1972, okay? And if you were a candidate of La Raza
Unida Party like Raúl was, yes, we backed him 100 percent, absolutely.
I’d known Raúl since 1968. I’d known him for four years by 1972. He was
doing a lot of photographs. He put out the magazine Blowout. He was an
activist, and, yes, to me he had more than enough credentials for me to
support him. He didn’t have to agree with us. That wasn’t the issue. La
Raza Unida Party really weren’t in there because everybody had to agree
with you, you know. We did put forward our views of program and so did
the people from northern California. We had our state caucuses and then
the conferences, and we came with our views and our program, our
resolutions, and it had to be something that everybody agreed to, okay.
It can’t be so far out that nobody could agree with them, or so backward
that nobody could agree with them.
At one conference where we were preparing for the state convention, one
of the artists—we have pictures of him—was so backwards. He said, "You
know what? I want to have a big painting for the convention of La Virgen
de Guadalupe." I said, "What?" [laughs] [unclear] a room full of—
ESPINO:
Atheists.
BECERRA:
Atheists. Cesar Chavez this and Cesar Chavez that. We had a group of
Chicana feminists who were also Socialists, radical Socialists, and they
sat there and they really didn’t know how to attack this idea, right? So
Jimmy Franco stands up, "No, no. This ain’t gonna work. First of all,
why are you putting a virgin up there? What the hell are you telling the
women, that they’ve got to be virgins? No." He opposed it. And of course
it was, like, unanimously shot down. No. So when I say you couldn’t be
so radical that people were not going to unite, you also could not be so
backward that people would not unite with you. Because that was a very
backward idea to present, so that was shot down. So, no, we had no
problems with our candidates. We had a program, resolutions of what we’d
stand for.
ESPINO:
What about the incorporation of East Los Angeles? Were you involved in
that effort as well?
BECERRA:
No. At that time I was supportive of it, but I was not involved in it,
okay. I just thought it was a good idea, we should do it. I don’t feel
that way anymore. Today it makes no sense to me to do it anymore, but at
the time, yeah, I was in favor of it, but I did not get involved in
that.
ESPINO:
You didn’t have a role?
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
What about any of the other conventions, like the well-known convention
that occurred in Texas? Did you go to those?
BECERRA:
Yes, I was there.
ESPINO:
So what was that experience like? Because I understand it was—you did
find a lot of factionalism. So the statement that you just made, it
sounds like you did have division, but you managed, as a California La
Raza Unida Party, to come together on consensus, but it sounds like from
some of the things that I’ve read about the La Raza Unida national, that
it wasn’t like that. There was a lot of infighting.
1:12:25
BECERRA:
Okay. First, in California, what I’ve been talking to you about there
being active chapters that were involved, before the conference in El
Paso, José Ángel Gutiérrez tried to set up fake chapters. He set up fake
chapters in other states, okay. So what happened is we got the state—the
La Raza Party, we got letters from chapters saying San Diego. "We are
the San Diego chapter." We said, "Yeah? Let’s see your minutes of your
meetings, okay, if you’re real." Because we knew it was bullshit, you
know, bullshit. So we said, "Oh, you got a chapter? Good. Let’s see your
minutes." Okay, because if you’re a chapter, you’re obviously meeting,
you’re passing a resolution, something. Nada. So all the people that we
knew, Gutiérrez was trying to form these chapters in California. We knew
they were fake, so we rejected them.
They were not a part of La Raza Party of California, okay, because they
wanted to have representation in El Paso. [unclear], a student attending
some university in Kansas. Okay, you got a chapter. You got so much
votes automatically for having a chapter, right? So that’s the kind of
shit that was going on, right? Corky didn’t play that game, okay?
[unclear] wasn’t involved in it at all. Anyway, so we get to Texas, and,
yeah, there was a big struggle, but we aligned ourselves. California
aligned itself with Corky Gonzales, okay, and running for the chairman
of the party. We almost won, not quite, but almost won. Corky was
impressed because we handled that convention like—even though we were
outnumbered, really outnumbered and we didn’t have a chance because it
was so stacked with fake delegations and fake everything.
I remember one time Rudy got up to the suite, the hotel suite where
Gutiérrez had his headquarters for running the convention, right. He
said, "Man, I walked in there, fucking wall-to-wall liquor, man, like it
was a bourgeois convention. Goddamn, I can’t believe what I seen." So if
you go to see where Corky was, you weren’t going to find that. Corky was
a revolutionary nationalist, and Gutiérrez was not. Okay. When it was
over and the votes counted and we had lost, Rudy went to the
headquarters for Corky there, El Paso, to his people, and he said Corky
was fucking impressed with the work that California had done, you know,
and he told Rudy, "You know, I don’t know what you guys have got, man,
whether it’s your Marxism, Leninism, or socialism or what the hell it
is, but you guys did a kick-ass job." He had never seen anything like
it, [unclear]. I mean, we had gone through so much shit by then, you
know, and so many in the party and in the Labor Movement, that when we
got there, we were in our prime. [laughs] We were at the top of our
game, you know, so we did a very, very good job. It was stacked against
us, but we worked it. We worked the floor, the delegations, the floor,
everything, and it was good. It was really good.
ESPINO:
Are you referring to Rudy Acuña?
BECERRA:
No, Rudy Quiñones. Rudy Quiñones. I’ve got pictures of him. Rudy
Quiñones.
ESPINO:
Well, there’s a story about some violence, because Corky really
wanted—and then Ernesto Vigil writes about Corky Gonzales, and the story
is that he wanted to be in the leadership. Like you say you aligned
yourself with Corky and his platform, but was there violence against the
people who opposed him and were supporting Ángel Gutiérrez? I mean,
because there’s some women that say they were threatened, some female
delegates. Did you guys put that kind of pressure on people? Did that
exist within the La Raza Unida? Because even people here in California
talk about guns being pulled on them. Jesus [unclear], a filmmaker, he
tells a story about that when he’s making a documentary, that somebody
pulled a gun on him because they don’t want him to make this documentary
for a mainstream television station like KCET or PBS. So that did happen
within California, and I’m wondering if that happened at that
convention.
BECERRA:
What happened in California? [unclear]?
ESPINO:
That people took the issue so seriously that at times they threatened
violence against those who disagreed with them.
BECERRA:
Not La Raza Unida Party. I didn’t see it in La Raza Unida Party, and I
was involved a lot, and I didn’t see that, no. El Paso, I can’t remember
if something happened at El Paso, because I remember one confrontation
that did become violent, but I can’t remember what the issue was and I
can’t remember if it was in El Paso or if it was in California. I know
that part of it had to do with a personal issue, okay, more than
anything, but I can’t remember what the issue was or anything, and I
can’t remember if it was California or Texas where it happened.
ESPINO:
Do you didn’t witness any violence?
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
While you were there.
BECERRA:
No violence, no intimidation, nothing like that, nothing like that. If
it happened, I didn’t see it, okay? And I was involved quite a bit.
ESPINO:
Did you ever visit Corky Gonzales where he had his organization?
BECERRA:
Only for the Youth Liberation conference there, and then I went a couple
of other times, but to have meetings with him—
ESPINO:
Well, I’m just wondering what your impression of him and how he ran
things, because people have different viewpoints of his impact. Some
people say that his nationalism didn’t allow for what you’re talking
about, for solidarity with these other organizations, like he was, I
guess—I don’t know, but using your own term, narrow nationalist, he
would be defined as, not a revolutionary nationalist.
1:18:28
BECERRA:
I don’t know, and I don’t know what years we would be talking about
either. From his speeches, when he spoke, he was critical of the
parties, the Democratic and Republican Parties, and the role that they
played. I thought he was a revolutionary nationalist. I don’t know, I
think, because if you’re going to ask me, for example, on particular
issues, I don’t know. I know that they were very supportive of the
struggle at Wounded Knee, you know, and running supplies in there. They
were nationalists, right? [laughs] [unclear] okay for anybody, you know,
any revolutionary to do that, but he did it.
I mean, here’s the thing. People can be critical of him, you know,
because maybe he wasn’t—if they’re saying what you’re telling me, that
he was too narrow, but goddamn, you know, Corky put his money where—not
just [unclear], his life where his mouth was, you know. Sorry. I don’t
know how anybody who criticizes him has ever placed themselves in that
situation, putting your life on the line time after time, you know, on
these issues calling for equality, for democracy, democratic rights for
Chicanos. Yeah, you can come back today and say, well, he was never
here. So what? So what? You know. He was a revolutionary. He put his
life on the line time and again, you know.
ESPINO:
Right. Well, I guess my point is that when you’re looking at the history
of it and you’re thinking about the future, and somebody ten years from
now is thinking of how to analyze society, are they going to look to the
Crusade for Justice as a model?
BECERRA:
No.
ESPINO:
Or are you going to say, well, he wasn’t open to having white folks
participate, and that might have been a way he could have expanded. I
don’t know. I’m just giving some kind of hypothetical. That’s why I ask.
BECERRA:
Okay, let me tell you. I don’t even think that’s the way it should be
looked at. I think it should be looked at—look, this is what he did,
this is how he did it, and yet he was limited to only Chicanos and
support for these kinds of struggles, okay? If he wanted to work with
other people, you know, say at the time, at the time— [interruption]
1:21:171:22:03
BECERRA:
Say at the time, for example, that gays and lesbians were struggling for
their rights, okay? I’m sure Corky would not have been for it. I’m sure
the Brown Berets would not have been for it. I don’t know if parts of
the La Raza Unida Party would not have been for it. You might say, well,
that’s where things were at that time for these particular people, okay?
But yet there were organizations that would be open to it, all right? So
that’s what they were playing in bringing that kind of consciousness to
the rest of us who weren’t there yet, you know? And that’s the way I
would see it. I would not write an essay on how screwed up they were for
not supporting lesbians and gays, because the consciousness just wasn’t
there, okay? And that’s just the [unclear].
If they were going on a campaign of hate, a campaign against gays and
lesbians or against women’s equality or something, then you’ve got
something to talk about, okay? But if the consciousness just isn’t
there, it just isn’t there. And, yeah, you can say [unclear]. Sure. But
that’s what all I think you can say, unless they were being very
repressive towards women, for example, because that’s [unclear] more
important than whether or not they had solidarity with the Vietnamese or
having a practical way the most practical question was going to be how
they treated women, okay, not how they treated Democrats or the
Republicans or anybody else. It’s women, okay? Because now we’re talking
about how we treat our own people, okay, and that’s going to be the
question.
In that regard, I don’t know. I don’t know what happened in the Crusade
for Justice, because I was not there. We were united on different
issues, but I was not—like around his ideology, I really don’t even know
what it was, now that you’re asking. We just organized around different
issues in general, in general principles.
ESPINO:
Well, back to the La Raza in California. You mentioned that there were
some women.
BECERRA:
Yes.
ESPINO:
Do you remember any names of those who were involved in California?
BECERRA:
Jimmy wrote their names down and he wrote it in one of his blogs about
the history of La Raza Unida Party. He wrote down the name of one of the
women, and I can’t remember, because—
ESPINO:
Only one?
BECERRA:
Yeah, because I don’t remember all their names, and I don’t know where
she was from. Maybe she was from San Jose area. That matters, okay? It’s
not a question of whether there were members here in L.A. or in San
Francisco or—no. San Jose matters. The reason it matters is because the
collective was women, okay? The collective was women members of La Raza
Unida Party, from the chapter, and they were progressive women way ahead
of everybody else, okay. That’s where that one matters more than any
other women’s participation in California. And I know they would have a
lot to say, okay. I just don’t know who—I don’t remember their names.
ESPINO:
I think probably asking around, now that you mention that, people will
start to—
BECERRA:
And if you want to see a critical view of La Raza Unida Party from
women’s perspective, those would be the people to talk to, and you can
ask the issues that they raised and stuff like that.
ESPINO:
Right. As far as sexism or—
BECERRA:
Yes. Specifically, let me tell you one issue that I’ll never forget.
They made a motion at the state caucus to have parity of men and women
in representation at every level, and it was voted down, okay? It was
voted down. And everybody who voted it down was embarrassed because
those organizations did not have what they felt women that were trained
to be in those positions, right? Which is really the wrong view to have,
you know, because really the view to have is put them in the positions
so they’ll learn the leadership and you’ll find out what qualities they
have, what leadership qualities they have. But it’s never going to
happen if they’re not put in those positions. So that was voted down,
and that, to me, is the only embarrassing low point in our history of La
Raza Unida Party in California.
ESPINO:
How did you vote?
BECERRA:
No. No. No. And it was for the same reason everybody else voted, that
you were involved, even though there were different chapters and you
wanted to have as much influence in the party as you could possibly
have, okay, and you want to have the best spokesmen for the positions of
your chapter there, to make sure that it got through, okay, and so you
put the best people that you had there, and that was the reason.
ESPINO:
But you regret that vote now?
BECERRA:
Yes, because for a whole bunch of reasons. I regret it. I regretted the
vote when I did it, okay? [laughs]
ESPINO:
You even knew then?
1:28:001:29:53
BECERRA:
Yeah, that it was wrong. Yes, I knew then. You’ve got a conflict, okay?
On the one hand, yeah, the women should be there and you understand it
in a very basic way. And then you’ve got a conflict because you feel so
strong about these views and you’re such a fanatic about them, and you
think you’re the only one or somebody else—who are the people who can
get this done, okay, and get this through, you know, and those things
come into conflict, you know, and you have to decide at the time which
is more important. So even though you vote against the motion, you know,
you know you’re doing it for not the best reasons, okay?
Because this was over—this other reason, the equality of women, parity
for women, it wasn’t a question of equality; it was a question of
parity, okay? And that is a very—how do you call it? It carries a lot of
weight, that issue, okay? And so then that’s the conflict. So you vote
against that motion and you hate it because—for several reasons. One,
this collective of women who raised that issue, you fucking respect them
so much, you know. I mean, they’re like—whew! They’re up there. And
you’ve got to vote against them, you know. And I’ve got to face them
afterwards, you know. Jesus. They tell us, "You’re bullshitters, guys.
You guys are bullshitting." And your credibility with them, you know, is
going down the tubes, you know.
I remember one time we came back after the conference, and I mean, this
is when you see the role of women as a viewpoint totally different from
yours, okay? I mean, I think I told you before about this one cop who
was a lieutenant and he’s training cops how you’re going to deal with
situations on the street. He was at the sheriff’s department. He tells
them, "I’d rather have two women standing next to me than ten cops, ten
male cops." And you see it like when Rachel Maddow on MSNBC during the
primary battle between Obama and Hillary Clinton, and it was obvious
Obama was going to win, but Hillary won’t stop fighting. So these male
commentators on MSNBC, especially like—I forget his name, the crazy one,
but anyway, they’re saying they attend the death watch of Hillary
Clinton, you know, that she wouldn’t give it up, right?
So finally the other guys are saying she should give it up, so [unclear]
party before the convention, right? And she should fight it all the way
to the convention, take it all the way to the convention. And so they’re
really down on Hillary Clinton for not conceding prior to the
convention, right? And just uniting the party now instead of carrying on
any more primaries against Barack Obama. So Hillary Clinton, off camera,
has a meeting with these guys and tells them, "Look, guys. I understand
what you’re saying and it makes sense politically, but there’s something
you have to understand. What does Hillary Clinton represent to women?"
You can’t be getting down on her like that. Women are offended by your
attitude towards her as a woman.
So, you know, women have a different perspective and these women in that
collective, they had it down. After the El Paso conference, we had a
meeting. The state met again. I forget it if was a conference or
probably a caucus, to sum up what had happened in El Paso, and I
remember what their summation was. [laughs] "Look, what we had at El
Paso was a struggle between Corky Gonzales and José Ángel Gutiérrez to
see who was going to be king of Aztlán." [laughs] Just cut off
everybody’s balls. That’s all it was. And that’s the way they summed it
up. You have to look at it, there were a lot of issues. The California
delegation was much better than the conference in El Paso, okay? And
these women were a part of that process, so the thing in El Paso, they
said, hey, that’s what it was, a fight between Corky and José Ángel
Gutiérrez to see who was going to be king of Aztlán. [laughs] You know,
all the fighting, all the struggle, all the strategy, everything. They
said no. [unclear] for you. You want them on a plate? [laughs]
ESPINO:
Did they ever—I mean, I’d like to find out more about this collective. I
wonder if they ever went on to actually get involved in local politics
in San Jose, if they ever won seats within the Democratic Party, I’m
wondering.
BECERRA:
I don’t know. I don’t know what happened after.
ESPINO:
I’m going to pause it right now. [End of July 26, 2013 interview]