Lorenzo Cano.
Lorenzo Cano is one of those “silent” leaders of the Chicano Movement. Originally from Corpus Christi, Texas, he became the Associate Director of the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Houston where he taught classes and contributed to its growth and development for over 35 years. Lorenzo was the go to guy for thousands of students who passed through the Center. He was also the Mexican American community’s connection to the university.
Lorenzo retired in 2018 and was honored in Mexico City with an homenaje.This distinguished recognition comes as a result of his decades of advancing the Mexican American and Latino community. We share this interview with Lorenzo Cano in the hopes that our readers will gain a greater insight and appreciation for the contributions he has made in advancing the goals and dreams of the many students he has worked with over the years.
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La Voz: Recently you were honored with an “Homenaje” by the faculty of la Universidad Iberoamericana and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico. Share with us how this came about.
Lorenzo Cano: Over the years I’ve been involved in the advancement of the Mexican American and Mexican immigrant community in the United States, not only as part of the University of Houston but through my numerous other activities. For example, I was involved in organizing the massive immigrant rights marches in Harris County which then were the largest protest marches in Houston. As a consequence, my involvement and contributions have become known to quite a few people here in the United States and in Mexico. Dr. Abelardo Rodriguez Sumano, a professor of International Relations at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, in collaboration with other
faculty members, felt it was necessary to bequeath me this honor.
Other professors involved in the homenaje were Dr. Luis Villanueva, Director of the Department of International Studies at the Ibero, Dr. Fausto Quintana Solórzano, Coordinator of the Center for International Relations at UNAM, and Dr. Javier Urbano Reyes, Coordinator of the Masters’ Program in Migration at the Ibero. Dr. Rodriguez Sumano and I had collaborated in different ways over the years. He visited
UH on several occasions where he became acquainted with my work on campus and out in the community, including my work in
defense of undocumented Mexican workers and DACA students.
I invited him and Adolfo Aguilar Zinzer to speak at the University of Houston just after Vicente Fox was elected President of
Mexico. Aguilar Zinzer became National Security Advisor to President Vicente Fox and the UN Security Council Ambassador during the invasion of Iraq by the United States. Aguilar Zinzer also gave talks to students that I had taken to Mexico City at UNAM during some of my
trips there.
My students also visited classes at UNAM with such notable UNAM professors (at the time) such as Jorge Castaneda. My work in building bridges between Chicanas/os and Mexico and Mexicanos was duly noted at the Ibero and at UNAM, thus a partial reason for the decision for honoring me with the homenaje. I was delighted that the homenaje included the recognition and presentation of my novel, Peril and Intrigue Under El Sexto Sol, which focuses on Chicanos and Mexicanos embroiled in the political realities of the day in Mexico and the US.
La Voz: Have those institutions brought students to Houston in an exchange program of sorts?
Lorenzo Cano: Perhaps they have but I’m not aware of it. The biggest obstacles to this are the living expenses for students from Mexico who may want to study in the United States. Even with a full scholarship that would cover tuition, books and fees, most university students in Mexico would find it impossible to obtain the money for rent, food and other living expenses while studying in the US. I looked at this possibility as the associate director at CMAS but recognized the challenges without more funding beyond the usual university expenses. Keep in mind that even our federal government student financial aid for US students includes living expenses and not just tuition, fees and books. I can visualize Mexican students visiting for at least a week where they can attend Chicano Studies classes and tour the Mexican American neighborhoods and other social and cultural groups in the community. This would be a great learning experience and would help build bridges between them and Mexican American and other Latino students in Houston and other cities in the US. It would be great if Mexican American
students could do the same in Mexico. It would be cheaper but could have a great impact on both sets of students.
La Voz: You and I have been friends for more than 40 years. I met you right after I move to Houston in 1979. For as long as I
have known you, you have have been one of the most dedicated activists in Houston, Texas. Share with our readers how it
was that you decided to make the move to Houston?
Lorenzo Cano: I needed to move on to a four-year university after spending two years at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi. I considered the University of Texas but heading out to the largest city in Texas appealed to me. Some of my siblings had moved to Houston after they
graduated from college so it made sense to me to head out there and join them. My brother, Luis, had started teaching Chicano Studies at Austin High School and I had heard of the huelga schools there so I was drawn to the idea of being part of the Chicano Movement in H-Town.
La Voz: Before coming to Houston, I believe I read you were involved with the Mexican American Youth Organization in Corpus Christi. Tell us about this experience. Who were some of the people who came out of this movement? Did any of them join you in Houston
Lorenzo Cano: I had heard of MAYO through the news media. I learned of the Edcouch-Elsa walkout, and the MAYO march in Del Rio protesting Governor Preston Smith’s action of shutting down the VISTA Program. After enrolling at Del Mar College in 1970 I immediately sought out a student group that was Chicana/o Movement oriented. I found out that the Mexican American Student Organization, MASO, operated on campus and I attended one of their meetings. I became an active member right away. Some of the MASO members were also members of MAYO which operated out in the community. I immediately joined MAYO as well. One of the activists that I met in MASO and
who also joined MAYO was Rey “Eskimo” Rodriguez. Rey was an Air Force veteran who had been stationed in Alaska, thus the nickname. We shared many views concerning society, racial, ethnic and linguistic discrimination, and the need for our community to organize against the racist power structure in Corpus and throughout the state. Later, we both decided to transfer to the University of Houston and continued our
activism after we both joined the UH Chapter of MAYO. The late Enrique “Rick” Dovalina was a a member of MASO at Del Mar and also relocated to Houston. Rick became an attorney and later became the National President of LULAC (1998–2002). Rey became one of the founding members of Centro Aztlan in Houston, which among other things, offered immigration counseling to those seeking their
permanent residency and/or citizenship.
MASO at Del Mar organized one of the first Chicano Movement Conferences on the campus in order to make students and youth in general aware about the need to seek our empowerment as a people. We had charismatic speakers such as MAYO member from Robstown, Carlos Guerra, and an art exhibit from local Chicano artists such as Armando Estrella. As MAYO and MASO members we helped place the RAZA UNIDA PARTY on the ballot in Texas for the 1972 elections by getting the necessary notarized signatures. It was an exciting time for us as young people.
La Voz: How did you find out about the Center for Mexican American Studies at UH?
Lorenzo Cano: I became aware of the Mexican American Studies Program at UH before I enrolled in 1972 because my brother, Luis Cano, was scheduled to teach a course called The Barrio. I enrolled in MAS classes during my first semester and throughout my undergraduate
semesters. I received a certificate in Mexican American Studies. It was in these classes early on where I met other like-minded Chicana and Chicano students and quickly developed meaningful friends; friends that were involved in one way or another in advancing the Mexican
American community like Cynthia Perez who was recruiting Chicanos/as to UH out of the Student Life Building and who later participated in the take over of a building at the University of Texas. Other notable students were Maria Jimenez, Ruben Reyna, Ana Olivarez, Louise Villejo, and Jesse Rodriguez but there were many others.
La Voz: What year was this?
Lorenzo Cano: Between 1972 – 1974
La Voz: A number of today’s elected officials were at one time students at the University of Houston. Share with us some
of those who you worked with before they went on to elected office.
Lorenzo Cano: If I recall correctly some were State Representative Ana Hernandez, State Representative Armando Walle, State Senator Carol Alvarado. The current Fire Chief, Thomas Munoz, was one of my students.
La Voz: At one time shortly after you earned your master degree you were working with Leonel Castillo at the Hispanic International University (HIU). In fact, weren’t you at one point the Chief Academic Officer? Tell us about this project.
Lorenzo Cano: I was hired there as a Counselor and Instructor by Dr. Ted Grossman. Later the name was changed to the Houston International University. Hispanics were never the majority of the students there and the University never adopted a philosophy of “Hispanic” education as was the case for the short-lived Colegio Jacinto Trevino or Juarez-Lincoln University. Nonetheless, it operated as a
University Without Walls fairly well under Grossman.
La Voz: In 1989, there was a student walkout at Austin High School. I remember seeing you and Dr. Tatcho Mindiola outside observing the picketing that was going on. Do you remember the outcome of that walkout?
Lorenzo Cano: The outcome was that the Houston ISD Superintendent, Joan Raymond, was fired for failing to do a good enough job. The 1989 Fall walkout by students was due to the fact that well into a month of the school year many students still did not have a class schedule, others
had classes assigned to bathrooms or other non-classroom areas, and many had not been given their books. One of the major protests against Raymond was the Hispanic Unity Walk in which I was one of the main organizers along with others such as Carol Alvarado and W.R. Morris. This was in the summer of 1990 where some 500 people marched from Immaculate Conception Church to the site where Talento
Bilingue currently sits.
La Voz: I remember that in the early 2000s you were involved in a publication called La Nueva Raza Newspaper. Tell us about this
project.
Lorenzo Cano: La Nueva Raza was a Chicana/o community-oriented newspaper that practiced advocacy journalism which I founded along with Mike Espinoza. We were quickly joined by Iris Rodriguez, Stace Medellin, and a group of other interested individuals who agreed with the
mission of writing articles on social justice, the empowerment of the Mexican American community, the promotion of Chicana/o cultural expressions, and the educational advancement of Chicanos. The newspaper was published intermittently as it was an all-volunteer effort. It
was established to support the on-going social and political struggles of Mexican Americans, especially due to the backlash against Mexican immigrants and the backlash against our civil rights after 9-11. The newspaper was an unapologetic effort to promote what we recognized as the interests of the Chicana/o and Mexicano community in the US. The newspaper ran from the summer of 2004 to 2009.
La Voz: When you look back and reflect on your career and time at U of H, what changes in the students coming on campus stand out in your mind and why?
Lorenzo Cano: One change that I noticed over the years is the growing number of students who were the sons and daughters of Mexican and Central American immigrants or who were immigrants themselves. When I first started teaching, the vast majority of the students were Mexican Americans with Mexican American parents. As we entered the the 21 st Century I came across more students that were undocumented and quite concerned about being deported or that their parents would be deported. Students, with some exceptions, were not so inclined to getting involved in politically oriented Latino organizations as was the case with groups like MAYO and MECHA back in the 1970’s and 80’s.
Latino organizations leaned more towards socializing or organizations relating to their major such as the Mexican American Business Student Association. Exceptions were student organizations made up of undocumented students who organized to get the Dream Act passed and/or who sought to pay state tuition rather than international student tuition. Another exception was the last group of MECHA students and Chicano students that had joined non-Chicano/a organizations such as the Young Democrats. These groups were quite political and like
the student group, FIEL, got involved outside the University campus to push for comprehensive immigration reform at the national level. Many of these students, regardless of what organization they belonged to, helped me out with the College Career Days that I organized to showcase the University to Latino high school students from the Houston area. UH Students gave campus tours and talked about their
majors and the amenities at the university. I believe these university visits are what got UH to become a Hispanic Serving Institution a few years ago. Did I notice any other major difference between UH students in recent years to those back in the 20 the Century? I would have to say that the female students tended to assume the leadership role of student organizations. In fact, more Latina students attended UH compared to male students sometime after the turn of the century and it is being observed in the professional workforce. Apart from this,
the students are no different than in years back; young people with all the anxieties and excitement about their future and how
they will fit in.
La Voz: What other activities and events have you been involved with related to the Mexican American community over the
years?
Lorenzo Cano: Too many to mention here. However, some of the more notable for me was when I organized the Statewide Conference on implementing Mexican American Studies in Texas in the public schools and which was held at the University of Houston. The turnout was great with several hundred educators from the Houston area and from throughout the state. Another thing I was involved with was putting
together a plan for Houston City Council Districts after the 2010 census that would be more equal and favorable to Latino residents.We still need more representation in the City. I also organized over 30 toxic community tours demonstrating the pollution and contamination in Houston’s east end neighborhoods in hopes of educating more young people on the health of our community and global warming.
I spearheaded the saving of the Chicano Student Mural at UH when a renovation of our Student Center planned to do away with it by covering it up behind a storage closet. Students, like Diana Gutierrez, and the actual mural artists who painted it back in 1973, Ruben Reyna and Mario Gonzalez joined me in this effort. Other contemporaries of mine, and real compañeros/as like Rey Rodriguez and Maria Jimenez
also joined us and we were able to save it. It currently is housed in the UH Bookstore in the Student Center and a beautiful piece
of art. There is much more that I and many of my generation did over the years. At age 73 I just wish that we were all younger so that we could have more time to continue building a better place for us as we move forward into the 21 st Century.
La Voz: Pos con eso let’s go ahead and wrap this interview up. I want to thank you for taking the time to sit with us and share
your reflections
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Copyright by Alfredo Santos and La Voz newspapers. This interview appears in the December 2024 issue of La Voz and is reprinted here with permission. To read the entire issue of La Voz visit: www.lavoznewspapers.com