BRAVO ROAD with DON FELIPE 5.05.18 “SUNSET AND EVENING STAR”

 

It seems to be a truism of history that significant events begin inauspi­ciously. Or at least if one is attuned to the significance of the moment, its augury for the future is importuned less signifi­cantly. Some histories report that MEChA began in California in the wake of the momentous meeting that produced El Plan de Santa Barbara.  There’s no reason to doubt that origin. In the mid-60s California was a cauldron for change, and many organizations supporting change came into being in California. But chan­ge was in the air everywhere. Texas was no ex­ception.

At UT El Paso there was a Mexi­can American Stu­dent Association in 1968 (NOMAS/ UMAS) that quickly became ME­ChA. About the same time a Mexican American student organization came into be­ing at New Mexico State University (NMSU) in Las Cru­ces and also at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. I was faculty advisor for the group at New Mexico State University; Louis Bransford was the institutional advisor for the group at UNM. There was no faculty advi­sor for the UTEP group.

However, what I remember is the grilling I got from the students when I applied for the position of [found­ing] Director of the Chicano Stud­ies Pro­gram. The UTEP Mechis­tas and I remember that moment now with good humor.

The details of how I came to apply for that posi­tion are a bit vague today, but in the Spring of 1970 I recall that Dr. Ray Small, Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at UTEP, called me at NMSU to ascertain if I might be interested in the post since I was gaining some recognition for my public affairs pieces on Chicanos (Cf, “The Minority on the Bor­der,” The Nation, December 11, 1967; “The Green Card Di­lemma,” The Texas Observer, March 15, 1968) as well as pieces on Chicanos and American education (“Language and Reading Problems of Spanish-Speaking Children in the Southwest, Jour­nal of Reading Behavior, Win­ter 1969), and my affilia­tion with the Quinto Sol writers group out of Berkeley. In 1968 two pieces of mine were pub­lished in the premier volume of El Grito (the Quin­to Sol Publication) that attracted some attention. The first was a short-story “The Com­ing of Zamora” (1:3, Spring 1968) based on the trial of Reyes Lopez Tijerina which took place in Las Cruces; the second was a piece entitled “The Mexican-Dixon Line” (1:4, Summer 1968). Hundreds of pieces followed, but in 1970 I was still slouching toward Aztlan with the Chicano Movement.

In many ways I was an “unknown” to the MEChA students at UT El Paso, despite the fact that I completed the Bachelor’s degree there in 1959 when it was still call­ed Texas Western College; and was award­ed the Mas­ter’s degree (1966) from The University of Texas through Texas Western College when all Master’s degrees were con­ferred by UT Austin. That history probably worked in my favor, but I had no way of knowing that in the Spring of 1970 when I inter­viewed for the position. Though I was not a West Texas barrio boy, I did know the bar­rios of San Antonio, Chicago, and else­where when the itinerant work of my parents took us there.

There were many candidates for the Directorship of Chicano Studies, but in April of 1970 Ray Small informed me that the MEChA students had accepted me. He offered me the post with an ap­pointment as Assistant Professor of English. Additionally, I was to serve as Advisor to the President on Chicano Affairs. It turn­ed out I was also the first faculty ad­viser to MEChA. No one in MEChA ever told me if I was their first choice.

I was elated, unaware of just how that appointment was to change my life. I resigned from a ten­ured position at NMSU where I had been since 1964 and moved on to UT El Paso, little realizing that the Chicano Stud­ies Program there would be the first such program in the state and that it would endure to the present. Its endurance is, I believe, a testament to the foundation of the program and the stewardship of subsequent directors of that Chicano Studies pro­gram.

Thanks to Ray Small I started working on the proposal for the Chicano Studies Program in the sum­mer of 1970. That Fall, the proposal was submit­ted to the Board of Regents for approval. What made that proposal unique was the MEChA input from start to finish. Because of that input the Chicano Stud­ies Program at UTEP, unlike a number of Chi­cano Studies programs elsewhere, included a community advisory board and Chicano student partici­pation in building the curriculum and in the recruit­ment of Chi­cano faculty. We built Chicano Studies pretty much by the book–El Plan de Santa Barbara.

El Plan became literally our bible; and our for­tress. Every part of the construction of Chicano Stud­ies was tested against El Plan. What didn’t fit or couldn’t be made to fit was discarded. Philo­sophi­cally there was consensus among all of us for the Plan’s injunction: Better no program than Chicano Studies without Chi­cano control or Chicano faculty! That was the prin­ciple that created differences be­tween the Administra-tion and Chicano Studies/MEChA.

Joseph Smiley was president at UT El Paso when I joined the university in the summer of 1970. He had come to UTEP from the Univer­sity of Illinois at Champagne/ Urbana; and had been professor of French in an earlier stint at Texas Western Col­lege. He was not a newcomer to El Paso. Nor was I.

In August of 1958 the Air Force assigned me to Biggs Air Force Base in El Paso. I had spent the last three years with U.S. Air Forc­es Europe (USAFE) as a Stra­tegic Intelligence (Threat) Analyst in Soviet Stu­dies, and had come to El Paso as a Special Weapons Officer (Cap­tain) for the B-36 Wing based at Biggs Air Force Base. The long-range delivery of a nuclear pay-load by the B-36 was staggering but flawed  by its refueling limitations.

In 1958 there were few His­panic Air Force offi­cers, fewer who had gone to flying school. I went to flying school at Good­fellow Air Force Base in San Ange­lo, Texas, in class 53-O, an officer’s class. I had received an Air Force Re­serve commission as a 2^nd Lt upon completion of Advanced ROTC at the University of Pittsburgh in 1952. Though I spent four years at Pitt, from 1948 to 1952, for odd reasons I did not take a degree. Which is why when I arrived in El Paso the Air Force authorized completion of my degree through its Bootstrap Program in an effort to keep me in the service. I received the B.A. degree in English (with minors in Spanish and French) from Texas Wes­tern College in 1959. I was 34 years old.

But military service provided me with little op­portunity for grad­uate work in English. I finally left the Air Force in 1962 to pursue graduate studies in Eng-lish, ex­plaining that I didn’t have any future in the Air Force since I was not going to be Air Force Chief of Staff. That humor helped ease the tran­sition from military life to civilian status. I had spent nine years in the Air Force, and with the three years I had spent in the Marines during World War II, I had ac­cumulated twelve years of military service. I did not regret my decision. I left the Air Force as a reserve Major. I was a Platoon Sergeant when I was dis­charged from the Marines.

I took up graduate studies at Texas Western Col­lege while teach­ing at Jefferson High School in El Paso where I was the French teacher. There were no posi­tions for a Mexican American teacher of Eng­lish. French, yes. Maria Esman [Barker] was director of For­eign Languages for the school district. In 1964, I was re­cruited by New­man Reed to teach at New Mexico State Uni­versity. I had only the B.A. then. Quickly, though, I com­pleted the M.A. in Eng­lish at Texas Western College and fin­ished the Ph.D. in Eng­lish at the Uni­versity of New Mexico while teach­ing at New Mexico State University.

In the meantime, I wrote furiously and published slightly. Through it all, I was becoming a Chicano. Philip D. Ortego was becoming Felipe de Ortego y Gasca (adding my mother’s name). Though my birth certificate list­ed me as Felipe, my public persona had become Philip since the first-grade when Felipe was changed ­to Philip because Anglo teachers thought Philip was more Ameri­can than Felipe. I suffered the traumas of starting public school as a Spanish speaker, repeating first-grade, held back in the 4^th grade because of what teach­ers perceived as a language prob­lem, and wind­ing up in the 9^th grade two years older than the rest of the class. I quit going to school at the end of the 9^th grade. That was 1943, the year I turned 17, during the grim days of World War II and old enough to join the Marines. At war’s end I wound up in the Pacific with service in mainland China. I was discharged from the Ma­rine Corps in 1946 and made my way to the steel mills of Pittsburgh where I worked on the ore-trestle of Jones & Laughlin Steel as a laborer until I de­cided to try college.

To say that I was unprepared for college in 1948 is an under­statement. Still, thanks to Chancellor Fitz­gerald at the University of Pittsburgh, I enrolled at Pitt as a provisional student. In 1945 Chancellor Fitz­gerald decreed that Pitt welcomed any ex-GI re­gardless of academic preparation.

For two years I struggled to get the hang of aca­demic scholarship. My first semester at Pitt I re­ceived two A’s and three F’s. My two A’s were in Spanish. To remain en­rolled as a “probation­ary” stu­dent I need­ed to have one of those F’s changed to a D. The history professor turned me down; the che­mistry professor also. My English professor, who had been a Marine Lieu­tenant during World War II, sympathetically chang­ed my F to a D. The next semester I took the second half of Fresh­man English with the same professor and I earned the D. He did not have to give it to me. I some­times wonder if that’s not why I pursued the Ph.D. in English.

Anyway, that was the canvas I took with me to UT El Paso as found­ing director of Chicano Studies.  I knew I was ready for the challenge. What I did not know was what that challenge would exact from me.

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and with much enthusiasm we (ME­ChA and I) under­took the responsibilities of Chicano Studies. The UT Board of Regents approved the program in the Fall of 1970 but the administration of Texas Western College prov­ed intransigent in supporting the pro­gram.

I’ve never thought that Joe Smi­ley was the prob­lem. The infrastructure of the school was the problem. Depart­ment chairs were immovable in recruiting Chi­cano faculty. While they had signed off on the inter­disciplinary courses in their departments for Chicano Stud­ies, I believed they had done so to placate the Chicano students who were increas­ingly becoming more strident in their expectations of the university.

There were a number of His­panic faculty at UTEP in the Fall of 1970, but only four who were Mexi­can Americans/Chicanos. Santiago Rodriguez and I join­ed UTEP in the Fall of 1970. Our appointments doubled the Chicano faculty. Santiago’s ap­pointment was in Social Work. There was Jesus Provenc­io in Physics. Norma Hernandez in Educa­tion. A mejicano de Mexico taught in the Foreign Language department. That was it. We were the “Chi­cano” faculty. Hardly enough to launch a Chi­cano Studies Pro­gram. But we knew that going in. We thought, however, that the university would sup­port the Chi­cano Studies Program with new faculty in the participating departments. On reflection, that was naivete on our part. But we thought the univer­sity was truly going to be a part­ner with us in devel­oping the Chicano Studies Program.

After all, almost half the students at UTEP were Mexican Ameri­cans. The university was situated in a community that was some 75% mejicano. It was time for a new beginning, time to put internal colonization to rest. Both the mejicano students and the mejicano community of El Paso needed to see a balanced faculty and a balanced curriculum in place at the university. Surely that was not too much to ask in 1970. Chicanos had served their country well, par­ticularly during World War II, and, if education was the key to a successful future, then a Chicano pres­ence at the university would enhance that future that much more.

Almost 100% of the grounds keepers were mejicanos; almost 100% of the custodial work­ers were mejicanos. None of us thought the university needed prod­ding towards affirmative action. But we were wrong! We were in for a rude awaken­ing. In the mean­time, the MEChA students kept asking me (as Director of the Chicano Studies Pro­gram) what the delay was in fully implementing the program? My explanations were as lame as those the department heads gave me.

Still, we tried every venue, every tactic, every strategy. In the Spring of 1971, Tony Bonilla, then president of the Texas LU­LAC, led a delegation of us from UTEP and El Paso to governor Preston Smith’s office to beseech his help in the UTEP mat­ter. When our conversation turned to the prospecti­ve appointment of a Chicano to the UT ­Board of Re­gents, he huffed and puffed citing his ­­­responsi­bili­ties as governor to all the people of Texas and not to any special interest. He called for the Sergeant at Arms to escort us forcibly from his office.

Chicano Studies was not stand­ing still during all this period. We were teaching some Chicano Studies courses under the aegis of departmental listings. I taught a Chicano Literature cour­se with an English designation. As an interdisciplinary program there were no Chicano Studies cours­es per se. John Had­dox in the Philosophy department taught a Chicano Philosophy course with a Philosophy designation. Elsewhere in the university, Chicano Studies cours­es were taught by non-Chicano faculty. In the meantime there seem­ed to be no progress in re­cruiting Chicano facul­ty. All the while the MEChA stu­dents kept turn­ing up the heat on the hot­seat of the director of Chi­cano Stu­dies. That heat turned hotter in the kiln of Chicano ideology. I was starting to feel like a Tio Taco mak­ing excuses for the university, trying to explain institutional processes to the MEChA stu­dents.

I threatened, I cajoled, I went to meetings ad nau­seam, I did everything but kiss the administrat­ion’s butt to move Chi­cano Studies forward. I was fully prepared to do that too in order to get things mov­ing. But like under­ground lava, the volcan­ic pressure of hope meeting the resistance of intransi­gence was heating up the ground of expectations, looking for a vent. When the “blow” came it sur­prised everyone but MEChA students.

Ya Basta! Became the watchword of that fate­ful December  day of 1971 when 35 MEChA stu­dents, one graduate student (Pete Duarte), and one Assistant Professor of Eng­lish (me) met with Joseph Smil­ey in his office with a list of non-negotiable demands for Chi­cano Studies.

In retrospect perhaps the locution “non-negotia­ble demands” could have been omitted from that meet­ing. But desperate times require desperate mea­sures. Or so it seemed to us at the moment. I knew full well that repercussions of my involvement in that meeting would devolve on me and my future at UTEP. But the rightness of our cause stayed my course.

I’ve never thought of myself as an ideological martyr, nor have I ever thought of throwing myself into the consuming pyres of ideological conflagra­tions or throwing myself on my sword. The conflicts of World War II were enough for me. But on that balmy December morn­ing of 1971, I little knew what lay in store for me–nay, for all of us. Perhaps none of us knew what the outcome would be.

Today, when we talk about our roles in that historic moment I detect no regret for our actions on that fatiric day. For the partici­pants, it has be­come a badge of honor.

20/20 hindsight illuminat­es the past clearly. Would I make the same choic­es today? I think so. Today I am fulfilled by the choic­es I’ve made in my life. This doesn’t mean those choices were not pain­ful. Many were. But the charac­ter of my life is more clear­ly defined by those choices, shap­ed by how we confront moments of choice. We are always at choice in life. Many people, though, choose to be at the effect of life, buffeted by the vagaries of life with­er they take them, rather than accept responsibil­ity for one’s life, taking char­ge of the reins.

In December of 1971 I was 45 years old. I had made the transition from being an American to being a Mexican American, metamorphosing into a Chi­cano. There was no hesitation, no second-thoughts when the outcome of our meeting with Joseph Smi­ley seem­ed futile and when without a word spoken the meeting turned into ­one where Joseph Smiley became fortune’s hostage until the MEChA de­mands were met.

For 36 hours some 3,500 Chicano students at UTEP (though Agapito Mendoza, now Vice Provost at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, says 5,000 Chicano students) encircled the administration building keeping out the police and other authorities, chanting paeans of liberation. Other stu­dents were letting the air out of the tires of police cars and buses, alert to police snipers on the roofs of nearby buildings, alert to the aggregation of sher­iffs’ posses and military troops from near­by Fort Bliss. On that autumn day of December 1971, Chi­cano stu­dents at UT El Paso had storm­ed their Bastille and were at one with other student liberators around the globe.

I was not the leader of the group, but as its most elder I wheed­led, I pleaded, I sought to get Joseph Smiley to see the justice of our cause. Nothing seem­ed to work but, finally, 36 hours later the impasse broke and we reached a settlement with the presi­dent. Via his office, he would support stronger re­cruitment of Chicano faculty, more departmental collegiality with Chicano Studies, a stronger institu­tional affirmative action plan to improve opportuni­ties for Chicano staff within the university infra­structure.

We had won. But what had we lost? Personally, I had lost the good­will of the president. I had always liked Joe Smiley. He was affable, he was attentive. But he was part of the “oppression”–we would both, it turned out, be casualties of that moment.

But the acrimony that event engendered from the Anglo professoriate at UTEP, the Anglo students on campus, and the Anglo community of El Paso, per­sisted for many years after. Some professors stopp­ed talking to me; others became hostile.

Things changed. In the English department alone there were three Chicanos: Donald Cas­tro, Hector Serrano, and me. Rudy Gomez join­ed us in history, Tomas Arcinie­ga in Educa­tion, Rudy de la Garza in govern­ment. More followed. But my days at UTEP were numbered. The Dean of Arts and Sciences speculated that my future at UTEP did not look promising. My request for ten­ure, a promotion, and an in­crease in salary were po­litely shunted aside.

My situation at the moment reminded me of a com­parable time at New Mexico State University in 1968 when I was president of the campus chapter of AAUP (Ameri­can Association of University Profes­sors). During a period of presidential despotism on cam­pus, the AAUP chapter voted unanimously to censure the university president with a vote of “no-confi­dence.”  As head of the AAUP chapter, I deliv­ered the “no-confidence” mes­sage to the president of the university, al­though I would have preferred Clyde Tombaugh deliver the message. Clyde Tom­baugh, discoverer of the planet Pluto, was on faculty at NMSU, and led the no-confidence vote. The presi­dent promptly shot at the messenger. In part, that promp­ted my departure from New Mexico State Uni­versity in 1970.

Here I was again, caught up by circumstances in a situation where I played out a role pre­scribed by the event because I happened to fill an office. An actor carried from one play into an­other, not know­ing the lines of the character, ad-libbing through the scene, hoping I was doing what I was supposed to be doing in the play.

When MEChA finally gave up the presi­dent’s office, 36 hours later, the police took into custody everyone involved in the siege, carting all off to jail for booking and fingerprinting.  All were charged with kidnapping and trespassing. Hours later, after bail was  made,  all were released—thanks to the good offices of Hector Bencomo who was a mem­ber of the city coun­cil and also a member of the Mesa Direc­tiva (Com­munity Advisory Council) of the Chi­cano Studies Program. Thanks also to the legal work of Tati Santiesteban, Paul Moreno, and Jesus Ochoa who eased our legal difficulties.

One outcome of the takeover event was that we were able to see who our friends were. To many on cam­pus, Chicano Studies was seen as an interloper, a pro­gram of little academic worth, established only to placate the stri­dency of stu­dents manipulated by anarchists and radical groups out to subvert Ameri­can democracy. We were obviously un-Ameri­can. One Anglo woman accosted me on the street one day after the incident and asked me if I was a Communist. I said, No, whereupon she asked if I believed in God. Publicity demoniz­ed us and made us personae non grata. Joe Smiley was removed from the presi­dency of the university.

Currently, Chicano Studies is beset with the same problems of demonization in efforts to dis­credit the discipline. We must stand as firm today as we did yesterday. Tenemos que defender MEChA y Chicano Stud­ies como hijas queridas.

Disheartened but not demoralized, I faced bleak pros­pects in the Academy. In March of that year I put out feelers for a position else­where. There were some nibbles. Perhaps I had over­estimated my value as a Chicano scho­lar. After all, had I not produced the first historical study on Mexi­can American Literature in 1971? Was Simon & Schuster not bringing out my anthology of Chicano Literature, the first by a major mainstream press? Had I not beat out Paul New­man as narrator of the documentary film North From Mexico? My hopes im­proved when I was invited for an interview at Stanford University for the position of Assistant to the President; and for a position in the English depart­ment at UC Santa Barbara. But it was the call from James Pal­mer, Pres­ident at Metro State in Den­ver, that buoyed my enthusiasm. From a mutual friend he had heard of my plight at UT El Paso. I was the person he wanted as his assistant.

That move to Denver in the sum­mer of 1972 pret­ty much defined my future activities. At Metro State I learned about college administration. I at­tended a post-doctoral program on management and planning for higher education at the Harriman Insti­tute of Columbia’s Graduate School of Business. I orga­nized Metro State’s Affirmative Action Pro­gram. I prepared the presi­dent’s agendas for his meet­ings with state law­makers. I filled in for him at social functions. I thought I was ready for a presi­dency of  my  own. In 1973 when I applied for the presidency at Texas A&I in King­sville, I was not selected even though I was the number one choice of the search committee. I sued the university and 9 years later with the help of the EEOC the matter was settled. I went on to be Vice Chancellor of the His­panic University in Den­ver.

Suffice to say, the road has been long and wind­ing and arduous but the jour­ney exciting. Sunset and evening star and the memories of those years with MEChA at the University of Texas at El Paso during the hubbub of the Civil Rights Movement com­fort me. And like Don Quijo­te, con un pied en el estribo and a lance at the ready, I summon Rocin­ante for my mnemonic expeditions and my bouts with wind­mills.

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Copyright © 1998 by the author. All rights reserved.   This paper was presented on the occasion of the UTEP MEChA 30^th Anniversary Reunion in El Paso, Texas, August 29, 1998. At the time Felipe de Ortego y Gasca was Professor of English, Director of the Bilingual Studies Program, and Director of the Title III HSI Program, Sul Ross State Uni­versity, Alpine, Texas.