La Raza, 1967-10-01

              el Barrio
Have you heard about the so-called
apathy and indiffer-ence
of the Mexican-Amen-can?
We aneaiways accused
of not caring, not being in-tenested,
and that indiffer-ence
is givenas the main
cause of the political disen-franchisement
of our people.
Our pseudo-politicians go a-long
with that assessment of
our problems, with the re-suit
that we end up attacking
each other for the common
misery: The "leaders" ac-cuse
their tttroops" of being
apathetic, and the "troopsT' accuse their "leaders" of
being vendidos.
There is some truth in those
mutual accusations, but, in
our view, bothapathyand sel-ling
out are the resultand not
the c au s e of ou r condition.
The main cause is the lack of
power. Our community is di-vided
against itself, but that
division is not of our own ma-king.
The best example is
what has happenedtothe bar-nos
in the Eastside,
The Eastside has had for
years the largest concentra-ti
on of Mexican-Americans
anywhere in the U.S. , in fact
the largest concentration of
Mexicans outside of Mexico
City. Wave after wave of im-migrants
became "ame rican-ized"
and moved out, and still
the areahas retainedits char-actenistics.
Infact, the num-ber
of "spanish surname"
people inthe Eastside in-
C r e a s e d between 1960 and
1965. Whythendowe have no
elected representative at the
city, county, state, or nati-onal
levels. The answer is
gerrymandering.
Gerrymandering is not un-american,
it is very ameni-can.
The word comes from
the name of the man, Elbridge
Gerry, one of the signers of
the Declaration of tndepen
dence, who set the boundaries
for some local elections in
Boston. The Eastside is di-vided
among several asses-blyand
congressional dis- tricts , with their bases of
power outside of East Los
Angeles. Eachone ofthe dis-tnicts
is given a few "Mexi-cans"
to insure the marginof
votes which will guarantee the
election of s e 1 e c t e d politi-oians.
The resultis that po-liticians
turn deaf ears to the
demands from the communi-ty.
Supervisonial districts
and city council districts are
also gerrymandered with al-most
the same effects.
But gerrymandering is not
limited to political boundar-ies.
Our communityhas been
divided physically into many
sections. Boyle Heights and
Lincoln Heights "belong" to
the city of Los Angeles; Al-hambra,
Monterey Park,
Montebello, and Commerce
want to "annex" other sec-tions
ofour community. Cha-vez
Ravine was destroyed to
build a stadium. Hazard Park
is in dangerof being destroy
ed to buildahospital. Whole
sections of the barrio have
been destroyed tobuild free-chicano
power
g
1O
ways for people to go back
andforthto places of employ-ment
whe r e we work
ourselves. If the trend con-tinues,
the only things that
will be left to us will be the
C em ete r ie s where we can
come tó be buried, and stores
to come and spend our money.
All the decisions that affect
Our lives, economically and
politically , a r e s a d e out-side
of our community.To
take a good look atthepublic
agencies providing vital ser-vices.
Theemploymen,
welfare , education , health,
sanitation, light and gas, and
manyotherneeds ofour com-munity
are handled in
conference rooms located
o u t s i d e of our community.
The people who occupy ad-ministrative
positions in
those agencies, have little, if
any, knowledge of our com-munity
and our culture.
Sometimes we wonder if they
even have any desire to find
out what we want.
The negro became aware of
those facts a long time ago,
and has been able to demand
a share ofpower for self-determination.
The power
structure knows that the
black people will no longer
p a s s iv e ly a c c e p t second
class citizenship. Maybe we
should, in a way consistent
with our tradition and Our cul-tune,
demand a share of that
Power: CHICANO POWER.
REtES TIJERINA & GORKY GONZALE
MEXICAN AMERICANS aNd he VIETNAM WAR
'oan baez SUNDAY OCTOBER 15
*. TEATRO CAMPESINO . 2:00 p.m.
I1i The Midnighters e.I.a. college stadium
VT9
Vol. i No. Z October 1, 1967 Los Angeles