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Chicano Studies
Chicano Studies

The Genesis of a Discipline

Michael soldatenko

The University of Arizona Press


Tucson
To my granddaughters, Graciela and Angela

The University of Arizona Press


© 2009 The Arizona Board of Regents
All rights reserved
www.uapress.arizona.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Soldatenko, Michael.
Chicano studies : the genesis of a discipline / Michael Soldatenko.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8165-1275-1 (alk. paper)
1. Mexican Americans—Study and teaching. 2. Ethnology—
Study and teaching. 3. Minorities—Study and teaching. I. Title.
E184.M5S611 2009
305.868'72073—dc22 2009024369

Manufactured in the United States of America on acid-free,


archival-quality paper and processed chlorine-free.

16 15 14 13 12 11  6 5 4 3 2
Contents

Acknowledgments    vii

Introduction   1

1. The Genesis of Academic Chicano Studies, 1967–1970:


Utopia and the Emergence of Chicano Studies   12

2. Empirics and Chicano Studies: The Formation of


Empirical Chicano Studies, 1970–1975   38

3. Perspectivist Chicano Studies, 1967–1982   67

4. Chicano Studies as an Academic Discipline, 1975–1982   94

5. Chicanas, the Chicano Student Movements,


and Chicana Thought, 1967–1982   130

Conclusion   168

Notes   189

Bibliography   231

Index   271
Acknowledgments

Like most acknowledgments, mine are tied to my life.


As part of an attempt to bring my wife to the Department of Wom-
en’s Studies at Arizona State University (ASU), in the fall of 1995 the
Hispanic Research Center offered me a postdoctoral fellowship so that
I could change the direction of my research agenda and become part
of the Department of Chicano(a) Studies. I had received my doctorate
in European history in 1987. Unfortunately, my attempts to link my
dissertation work on British economic thought with ethnic studies had
been unsuccessful. One journal reviewer found my attempt to look at
eighteenth-century Scottish thought through the lens of ethnic studies
and Chicano(a) Studies “barbaric.” At ASU’s Hispanic Research Center
I began the transition to becoming a scholar in the field of Chicano(a)
and Latino(a) Studies. This book is part of the result of that transfor-
mation. I thank the center, especially its director, Felipe Castro, for
their support. I would also like to thank my colleagues at ASU: Mary
Romero, Eric Margolis, and (in a bizarre way) Ray Padilla.
Sadly, the Department of Chicano(a) Studies at Arizona State
decided that I did not fit their needs. We returned to southern Califor-
nia, where I reestablished my relationship with Chicano(a) and Latino(a)
Studies scholars in the area. With their help I was able to continue my
exploration of Chicano(a) Studies as a discipline. In particular, I would
like to thank Ray Rocco, Bill de la Torre, Mary Pardo, Adolfo Ber-
meo, Rudy Acuña, Tony Hernandez, Raoul Contreras, Jose Calderon,
Marta Lopez-Garza, David Hayes-Bautista, and the Chabráns (Angie
Chabram-Desnersesian, Richard, and Rafael Chabrán). I found that
many of my questions could not be answered through printed sources
alone. I turned to archivists and librarians, who guided me to materials
that helped me discover ever more questions. Richard Chabrán, who
at that time was the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center (CSRC)
A c k now l e d g m e nt s

librarian, played the role of Virgil, as he led me through the confusing


history of Chicano(a) Studies. I spent many hours exploring the UCLA
CRSC archives and having Richard clarify what I was reading. When
he was too busy, his well-trained assistants (such as Romelia Salinas)
came to the rescue. I would also like to thank the folks at UCLA’s
University Archives, in particular Dennis Bitterlich.
At the University of California–Berkeley, I would like to thank the
many individuals at the Bancroft and Ethnic Studies Library, in particu-
lar, Lillian Castillo-Speed. I would also like to thank Christine Marin,
who worked in Special Collections at the Hayden Library at Arizona
State University. I would like to thank the editors of Latino Studies
Journal, Latin American Perspectives, and Ethnic Studies Review for
publishing earlier versions of my ideas. For their support and friendship,
I would like to thank my colleagues at Santa Monica College and now at
the Department of Chicano Studies at California State University–Los
Angeles.
I would like to thank a few scholars who set me on this path.
While I am now a different type of historian, my intellectual develop-
ment arose from my discourse with their positions and ideas. I wish to
thank Jasper Blystone at Loyola Marymount University. In the history
department at UCLA, I want to recognize Amos Funkenstein, Norton
Wise, Russell Jacoby, and Robert Brenner, who chaired my dissertation
committee.
This book would not have been possible without the critical eyes
of Maria Angelina Soldatenko and our two sons, Gabriel and Adrian,
as well as our daughter, Rosie Salazar. I want to thank Adrian, for
interrupting his work on his doctorate in physics to read this manu-
script; Gabriel, for spirited discussions about my particular readings of
Foucault given his philosophical training; and Rosie, who kept us going
with fine sustenance. Of course, Gela has always been there to point
out when my gender, heterosexual, and race privileges have bubbled to
the surface. I would like to thank the University of Arizona Press for
their editorial assistance, in particular freelance editor Amy Smith Bell.
Last but not least, gratitude must be given to our juguetones pugs that
always alerted us when we became too serious.
Although many people have helped me work through my ideas, I
alone am at fault for any inaccuracies and errors. I hope that this book
results in a spirited debate about the future of Chicano and Chicana
Studies.
Chicano Studies
Introduction

My interest with Chicano Studies as an academic discipline originated


with the struggle at the University of California at Los Angeles for a
department of Chicana and Chicano Studies in the spring of 1993.1
While I had done some research in the area, I had never really thought
out the assumptions, models, theories, and practices of the field. Chi-
cano Studies as a discipline did not seem to differ from my own field of
training (history). I had not thought about the formation and genesis of
Chicano Studies. Just like history, its characteristics, terminology, and
methods were assumed to be “neutral.” Chicano Studies appeared as an
oppositional discipline that could coexist, albeit in tension, with other
fields. While Chicano Studies had problems (what discipline did not?),
they were resolvable. I expected that with effort Chicano Studies could
be restored to a healthier manifestation. I was naïve.
The 1993 struggle woke me from my intellectual slumber. The
protest at the university made me realize that Chicano Studies could not
be a singular subject, although many students, scholars, and activists
acted as if there had always been a single Chicano Studies. During the
protest, however, multiple articulations of Chicano studies appeared. 2
The central questions that emerged were the following: Why was there
only one acceptable Chicano Studies? Why did the field demand such
compliance? How did it become singular? I came to appreciate that just
as this homogenized Chicano Studies had silenced many at the 1993
protest, it was possible that other Chicano studies had existed in the
past, different from the current orthodoxy. What happened to these
other expressions? I was curious to explore and unpack the discursive
formation of Chicano studies with its multiple dissensions, elisions,
erasures, and silences that eventually resulted in Chicano Studies. The
UCLA struggle made me concede that the Chicano Studies I had been
practicing had a particular history with a set agenda. It had intention-
ally excluded (and continues to exclude) other visions and readings of
2 C h i c a n o S t u di e s

the Mexican American experience and denied its institutional relation-


ship with the academic world.
Motivated by this protest, I decided to diagnose how and why
Chicano Studies had become the practice that I had observed. The
patriarchal practices and the politics of nationalism that occurred
throughout the 1993 protest were not new. Yet why, after twenty-some
years of teaching and practicing Chicano Studies, did Chicanos(as) still
find themselves grappling with patriarchy, nationalism, and homopho-
bia, together with chingón politics?3 Was the facile transformation of
the protest into Chingón Studies inevitable? More disturbing, possibly
reflecting the continued oppressive power of Chicano politics, the pro-
testers did not question these exclusionary, antifeminist, and homopho-
bic practices. These practices appeared as second nature. All of this
was made even more troublesome by the apparent ignorance over the
production, control, and distribution of academic knowledge. Could
this be the nature of Chicano Studies, at least as practiced at UCLA?
These concerns led me to this book, which interrogates the genesis,
formation, and development of academic Chicano studies from 1967
to 1982. Throughout this fifteen-year period, I trace the maturation
of Chicano studies from its initial equivocal and fluid character to its
construction into a unitary academic discipline. My story delineates a
multiplicity of Chicano studies, exemplifying a diversity of intellectual
and political positions. 4 Like most intellectual enterprises, these early
Chicano studies pushed particularity over homogenizing endeavors
and theoretical constructs. Within this multiplicity, some Chicanos(as)
wanted to corral the anarchy of particularism by creating a unitary
theme and practice. They sought to construct, whether they stated it or
not, a discipline as defined by U.S. higher education. As Chicano stud-
ies established itself in the academy, scholars’ intellectual production
became regulated and defined by the discipline’s methods, methodol-
ogy, and epistemology as well as by the institutional procedures and the
system of academic hierarchy.5 Chicano studies, whether independently
or as part of some type of inter- or transdisciplinary program, operated
as a social science or humanities discipline.
I explore the association between Chicano studies and certain non-
discursive domains—in particular, Chicano(a) student politics and aca-
demic institution building. Chicano studies appeared during a period
of campus struggles that reflected personal agendas, ideological beliefs,
societal pressures, as well as institutional procedures. Some scholars
I nt ro du c t io n 3

have argued that there is a determinant relationship between the origins


of Chicano studies and both campus politics and the larger Chicano
movement. A few have suggested that effective programs retained
this connection with nondiscursive practices. To avoid this position,
I trace the emergence of Chicano studies without situating it within a
particular political or institutional oeuvre. Therefore, besides laying
out a discursive archeology of Chicano studies, my goal is to trace a
genealogy that explores the nondiscursive tracts of Chicano studies and
its development from a nonacademic though intellectual oppositional
epistemology into a traditional, albeit alternative, academic discipline:
Chicano Studies. 6
The accepted narrative of Chicano studies begins with the social
and political struggles of the 1960s, collectively referred to as el movi-
miento. As self-identified Chicano(a) students arrived on campus, many
became active in their educational institutions, initially working with
white organizations but eventually establishing organizations that chal-
lenged their campus’s policies on admissions, retention, and funding.
They began to organize actions to “transform” their home communi-
ties. For these students, commitment to a more equitable world for
Mexican Americans was central. Chicanos(as) were also concerned
with curricular issues. If students were planning to change the world,
they had to comprehend it. For many Chicanos(as), the explanations
provided by higher education were wanting. Like white and black radi-
cals, Chicanos(as) began to explore the meaning of education and the
academic knowledge that resulted from the compact among faculty,
academic institutions, and a selective intellectual tradition. They were
critical of the academic culture and its institutional apparatus that
provided neatly packaged knowledge—assembled by fields, disciplines,
departments, schools and the like—to its consumers. They hesitated
before an academic knowledge that privileged scientism and empirical
methods and sought to establish the laws of nature and society—using
a masculinist language. They suspected that this knowledge was part
of the continuous reconstruction and defense of American exceptional-
ism.7 Chicanos(as) understood that the Mexican American had little
space within this intellectual dynamic.
In the late 1960s, for most Chicanos(as), their conceptualization
of knowledge had ensued from the culture of academic life and its
“hidden curriculum.”8 Knowledge was produced through academic dis-
ciplines and fields with their corresponding methods, ­methodologies,
4 C h i c a n o S t u di e s

and perspectives. The division among social science, humanities, sci-


ence, professional programs, arts, applied science, public programs,
and so on shaped their view of how knowledge was assembled and
reproduced. Thus academic knowledge revealed itself in the curricular
programs that fostered a selective intellectual tradition and canon. It
therefore became impossible to detach concepts like “knowledge,” “dis-
cipline,” “social science,” and “humanities”—they were all involved in
the building of the institution of higher education. The simultaneous
connection among academic culture, knowledge, and the university
system left limited possibilities for the germination of alternative (much
less oppositional) perspectives or to conceive of knowledge outside the
bounds of the academy.9
At the center of American academic knowledge was a scientific and
masculinist discourse. The social sciences and humanities privileged
empirical and realist methods to ascertain the fundamental laws that
operate in nature and society. This language was built on a gendered
speech of hard facts, science, and power.10 This version of knowledge,
as the historian Dorothy Ross has described, emerged in defense of
American exceptionalism that had been challenged by the possibili-
ties of change at the turn of the twentieth century. Furthermore, as
historian and journalist Ruth Rosen has advanced, “Cold War culture
and its ideas about gender patrolled the boundaries between men and
women, gay and straight, patriotic and subversive.”11
To avert this crisis, Ross explained, academic practices redrew
the uniqueness of “America” and turned natural law and historical
principle into the unchanging bases for American civilization.12 The
faith in scientism was reinforced by an academic professionalism that
provided an authoritative understanding of the world. As the university
system in the United States flourished, its decentralization nurtured
the separation among the disciplines, reinforcing the antihistorical and
antiphilosophical tendencies in American academic knowledge. More-
over the American university experience consecrated a covenant among
professional instructors, a canon, and a group of young affiliates that
reproduced the disciplines and legitimized American knowledge.13 The
augmenting specialization and professionalization of the social sciences
and humanities, bounded by academic cultural dogma and procedures,
created a particular knowledge whose purpose was social control and
empire building.
Firmly conjoined to American exceptionalism was race. Many pub-
I nt ro du c t io n 5

lic intellectuals had written the United States as the central figure in the
universalist commitment to civil and human rights. In particular, U.S.
history had become the mythic tale of a nonethnic national ideology,
where ancestral (and racial) affinities meant little. As the historian
Nikhil Pal Singh explained: “Civic myths about the triumph over racial
injustice have become central to the resuscitation of a vigorous and stri-
dent form of American exceptionalism—the idea of the United States
as both a unique and universal nation.”14 But he questioned this perfor-
mance: “What if there is a recurring oscillation between universalizing
abstractions of liberal democracy, in which individuals are considered
equal with respect to nationality, and a persistent regression, in which
the actual individuals and communities who benefit from national
belonging are implicitly or explicitly constituted in white supremacist
terms?”15
In American academic practices, race is erased while simultane-
ously being at the center of intellectual production. In much of the
public intellectuals’ engagement with “America,” the issue of race was
envisioned as always being at the point of resolution and therefore no
longer (or ever, for that matter) a concern. Singh, following on the
work of others, has added that both American liberalism and race
are connected to American imperial expansion. Imperial expansionism
and Jim Crow at the turn of the twentieth century “gave new life to
racist schemas of thought already deposited in the American past.”16
When higher education fostered the tale of “America,” it also asserted
a racialized view of the United States and the world.17
In the 1960s, students of color, following radical whites, contested
American academic knowledge and laid siege to the pact among profes-
sors, their acolytes, and a selective intellectual tradition. Furthermore,
they questioned the association among knowledge, American excep-
tionalism, and empire (though less clearly regarding race and often not
at all looking at gender or sexuality). To undermine this bond, students
sought to subvert the university as a political institution. Given the gen-
eration of this mythic universalism, students of color initially sought to
disrupt academic knowledge. In its place, they wanted to design a new
body of knowledge. They required a knowledge that could more hon-
estly and truthfully explain the condition of people of color. For Mexi-
can American activists, this often meant that a space had to be carved
out of higher education—a space that would be controlled by Mexi-
can Americans and driven by Mexican American social and ­political
6 C h i c a n o S t u di e s

c­ oncerns. This could only be accomplished by direct confrontation with


the academic institution. This occupied territory of higher education
would deal with student services, teaching, and research. This was to
be Chicano studies—a liberated zone within the oppressor’s institution.
From this liberated terrain, activists could then direct their attention to
transforming the community. The political scientist Rick Olguin has
asserted that ethnic studies was to have a distinct discourse from all
academic models; it was to be grounded in its community orientation,
its historical and social perspective, and self-reflexivity.18
As el movimiento progressed and the Chicano(a) student move-
ments flourished, students and faculty constructed several formulations
of Chicano studies. These perspectives reflected sundry regional, politi-
cal, and intellectual currents. Nonetheless, all of these constructions
sought to disrupt academic knowledge that had denied space to the
Mexican American experience.19 In the process, Chicano studies pro-
duced a variety of intellectual tools required to express and analyze the
experience of Chicanos(as). Many Chicano(a) students felt that institu-
tional control was central to this intellectual revolution and the struggle
for self-determination and liberation. In the academy, Chicanos(as)
conflated political with intellectual concerns. What was left unclear
was how their perceived need to separate Chicano studies (or ethnic
studies) from academic work was due solely to the quest for autonomy
or the inadequacy of academic practices as a way of knowing.20
To explore these various issues, I examine two expressions of early
Chicano studies. Although other vistas existed, I believe what I have
termed Empirical Chicano Studies and Perspectivist Chicano Studies
were the most common. By examining the intellectual expressions of
each thread, I show distinct practices of Chicano studies. To understand
how these came about, I examine the intense intellectual discourse
that took place in the late 1960s. From the first essays in El Grito: A
Journal of Contemporary Mexican-American Thought (1967) to the
appearance of El Plan de Santa Bárbara (1969) and the initial issues of
Aztlán: Chicano Journal of the Social Sciences and the Arts (1970), this
era reflected a maelstrom of academic Chicano studies. Through these
writings, several expressions of Chicano studies appeared with various
possible options of bringing Chicano studies to (and not only into) the
academy. No univocal version of Chicano studies existed. Although
these versions of Chicano studies overlapped, they expressed radically
distinct meanings and approaches.
I nt ro du c t io n 7

When I discuss Perspectivist Chicano Studies and Empirical Chi-


cano Studies, I do not imply any necessary relationship to a particular
philosophical orientation; my use of these terms is merely descriptive.
When I use “perspectivist,” I want to point out the tendency of these
scholars to center their research on a Chicano standpoint that arises
from their particular, often cultural, experience in the United States. I
contrast this with those intellectuals who center their analysis on the
institutional mechanisms that result in inequality. Because of this latter
perspective, these scholars saw the battle for Chicano studies as one
of institutionalization of programs. This group I call the “empirics.”
Of course to assume any clear-cut separation is to ignore the massive
overlapping of these expressions and to miss the chaotic and complex
history of the making of a discipline—especially one created in a hostile
and turbulent environment. Nevertheless, only one of these visions
would eventually become “official.”21
The most successful expression of adapting to institutional control
and intellectual production came from the empiric scholars, who molded
Empirical Chicano Studies. They saw the battle for Chicano studies in
two stages. The first and most important stage was the institutionaliza-
tion of all programs that dealt with Chicanos(as) under Chicano control.
The empirics visualized these programs as part of the overall political
struggle for Chicano self-determination. Their second concern was to
develop objective methods that could provide students with a structural
knowledge of their historical and cultural inheritance. These curricular
concerns supplemented the institution-building process. Empirics suc-
cessfully replaced other potential versions of Chicano studies. By 1975,
Empirical Chicano Studies had become the only legitimate vision of
Chicano Studies and simultaneously matured into part of the American
academic project.
It is more difficult to provide a thumbnail sketch of Perspectivist
Chicano Studies, however. This vision failed to become a successful and
legitimate interpretation of Chicano studies. By the mid- to late 1970s,
Perspectivist Chicano Studies had become a fragmented intellectual
agenda, surviving in the periphery of teaching institutions, alternative
educational institutions, the arts, and certain community organiza-
tions. As victorious Empirical Chicano Studies dominated the field,
perspectivist writers were progressively pushed toward peripheral jour-
nals or self-publication. Because of this, Perspectivist Chicano Studies
never matured into a concise intellectual style, and its practitioners
8 C h i c a n o S t u di e s

were often isolated. Their lack of success allowed much differentia-


tion among perspectivists. Given these caveats, however, we can still
provide a working definition for this intellectual style. Perspectivist
scholars centered their work on formulating a Chicano standpoint that
grew out of Chicano(a) experiences in the United States. Critical of
social-science research and questioning academic work, these thinkers
sought to establish an oppositional epistemology rooted in the process
of Chicano(a) identity formation.
Empirical Chicano Studies progressively transformed itself into Chi­
cano Studies by exorcizing all possible competitors and critics. After
1975, Chicano Studies had become a singular subject and began to
accommodate itself within the academy, increasingly mimicking the
behavior of traditional academic disciplines. While some scholars and
campus activists have argued that the weakening of Chicano Studies
was due to the demise of el movimiento, it can be argued that the incor-
poration of Chicano Studies resulted from the participants’ inability (or
unwillingness) to understand the process by which the academy con-
trols, produces, and distributes knowledge. In short, Chicano Studies
was mainstreamed and its research depoliticized.
African Americans, Chicanos(as), feminists, Asian Americans,
Native Americans, and Latinos(as) expected that the assault on the acad-
emy would rupture the compact and initiate a transformation of knowl-
edge and its production. What most did not comprehend, though, was
how the academy composed knowledge. By drawing attention toward
the various aspects of the university structure (such as “disciplines” and
“fields” or “admissions” and “services”), these student activists uncon-
sciously affirmed the process by which knowledge was assembled and
distributed. In the end, the challenge to academic knowledge became
incorporated and served to strengthen the very institutions that had
manipulated knowledge production. Like the formation of ethnic stud-
ies, Chicano studies was incorporated into the academic institution.
In the struggle for institutional power, many activists ignored how the
academy composed and distributed knowledge. The initial desire to
establish a discussion between various knowledges and life-situations
was transformed into curricular objectives through which the academic
institution reproduced itself. In effect, the community was replaced by
the institution. Moreover, theories came to the fore that reduced think-
ing to the methods and epistemologies of academic knowledge.
Much like the narrative the cultural critic Raymond Williams has
I nt ro du c t io n 9

told about cultural studies in Britain, the various manifestations of


ethnic and racial studies were incorporated into the academic institu-
tion. In comparing the formulation of Chicano studies with British
cultural studies, we can discern a similar zeal to establish a discus-
sion of literature and writing in relation to “life-situations . . . outside
the established educational system.”22 Once in the university, however,
curricular interests soon supplanted this bond; knowledge began to
reproduce itself in the image of the institution. Cultural studies became
disassociated from its community (adult education, in the case of cul-
tural studies), and its development was reduced to textual analysis—
expressed in academic jargon. “At the very moment when that adven-
turous syllabus became a syllabus that had to be examined,” Williams
wrote, “it ceased to be exciting.”23
Success was transformed into institutionalization. The same trans-
pired in most ethnic studies programs in the United States. The rebel-
liousness and anarchy between students and discipline gave way to
management (that is, the need to be “professional” and “organized”).
Williams has remarked that at this point of institutionalization, “a
body of theory came through which rationalized the situation of this
formation on its way to becoming bureaucratized and the home of
specialist intellectuals.”24 For him, this meant the arrival of theories
that “tended to regard the practical encounters of people in society
as having relatively little effect on its general progress.” 25 For the case
of ethnic studies, and in particular Chicano studies, it meant an ini-
tial return to academic liberal arts methods and principles, later fol-
lowed by acceptable academic alternatives (such as colonial theory and
Marxism).
Was this unavoidable? Was Chicano studies destined to incorpora-
tion just like Marxism, women’s studies, and cultural studies? I am
not certain. I believe that the life of Chicano studies as oppositional
could have been extended by the continuation of a multiplicity of voices
within Chicano studies itself. Contradiction and conflict kept various
manifestations of Chicano studies from simply following some teleo-
logical or set pattern. The oppositional quality of the variety of early
Chicano studies rested in their rhizomic character and in the belief that
utopia was possible. The tension between Empirical Chicano Studies,
Perspectivist Chicano Studies, and other Chicano studies was essential
for its autonomy; this made it more difficult for academic incorpora-
tion and allowed a necessary academic unruliness. However, with the
10 C h i c a n o S t u di e s

dominance of the empiricists, Chicano Studies soon began its negotia-


tion with the academy.
Yet there was an undercurrent that bared the weaknesses and
contradictions in Chicano studies. Chicana critics of el movimiento
questioned the patriarchal practices they were forced to accept—
especially in its nationalist garb. Their political rebellion challenged
the narrow vision of both el movimiento and the student movements,
generating a potential alternative insight. This Chicana perspective
established a foundation for a critique of Chicano studies and eventu-
ally an alternative Chicano(a) studies that would provide the hope of
a new Chicana(o) academic project. In the groundbreaking collec-
tion This Bridge Called My Back, women of color, drawing on their
political activism, provided the tools to disrupt Chicano Studies as an
academic discipline. This Bridge echoed philosopher María Lugones’s
use of mestizaje “as a central name for impure resistance to inter-
locked, intermeshed oppressions” by complicating notions of identity,
especially sexuality. 26
In chapters 1, 2, and 3, I establish the core of the book: the genesis
of academic Chicano Studies. Chapter 1 details the initial Chicano
works that emerged and sought to understand the Mexican American
experience. Many of these endeavors started from a rejection of schol-
arly assumptions, methods, and theories. By examining some of these
writings, I introduce two potentially conflicting expressions of Chi-
cano studies: Empirical and Perspectivist. Chapter 2 develops Empirical
Chicano Studies with particular emphasis on the attempt to develop
the internal colonial model as the research method for understanding
the Mexican American experience. The endeavor to push this model
as the academic method in Chicano studies was assisted by the rise
of the journal Aztlán. In contrast, chapter 3 traces the contradictory
evolution of Perspectivist Chicano Studies. Given its inability to hold
off the success of Empirical Chicano Studies, perspectivists never for-
mulated an academic camp with a particular methodology. Rather, we
encounter a myriad of individual expressions of Perspectivist Chicano
Studies, often centered on personal standpoint, cultural nationalism,
and artistic expression.
Chapter 4 focuses on the success of the empirical camp in the
1970s. In addition to tracing the various new intellectual layers of
Empirical Chicano Studies, I examine the institutional grafting of Chi-
cano Studies onto the academy. By acknowledging the subordination of
I nt ro du c t io n 11

Chicano Studies to academic practices, Chicano Studies legitimated its


position within the academy. We turn to the case of UCLA to under-
stand this process. Ironically, as an academic expression of the “loyal
opposition,” Empirical Chicano Studies provided legitimacy to Ameri-
can exceptionalism.
The last chapter heralds the demise of Chicano Studies by examin-
ing the rise of a gender critique and its transformation into a feminist
epistemology. Women, as participants in both expressions of Chicano
Studies (Empirical and Perspectivist), found themselves physically and
intellectually excluded. Female scholars drew attention to the central
contradiction: How could Chicanos talk about a Mexican American
experience without speaking about women? Some of these scholars
further complicated the Chicano(a) understanding of women, resulting
in a two-level critique. On the one side, women, even as participants
in either view, wanted to draw attention to the Chicana-story that had
been excluded. Female empirics and perspectivists rejected how these
vistas framed their analysis within a masculinist language and set of
assumptions that had subordinated women and excluded any gender
analysis. On the other side were women who rejected both outlooks as
simply yet another example of academic patriarchy; they too called for
Chicana-story.
Hidden in herstory was the ground for an oppositional feminist
epistemology. The story of Chicana experiences threw light on the one-
dimensionality of any struggle for unity; rather, the Chicana narrative
drew out the multiplicity of lived experiences and identities. Thus at the
same time that Empirical Chicano Studies was establishing its singular
definition of the discipline, some Chicanas were preparing the ground
for a feminist epistemology that would lead the charge against Chicano
Studies in the 1980s and create the conditions for a renewed multiplic-
ity of Chicano, Chicana, and Chicana(o) Studies.
1

The Genesis of Academic Chicano Studies,


1967-1970
Utopia and the Emergence of Chicano Studies

As Chicanos and Chicanas protested social, political, and economic


inequalities, Chicanos(as) on university and college campuses demanded
the introduction of courses and eventually programs that examined the
Mexican American experience. By the late 1960s, the first programs
in Chicano studies appeared on a variety of campuses. Faculty, who
only a semester before might have been student activists, faced the
task of constructing a curriculum and the more thorny undertaking
of developing the procedures of an academic program. In the process,
they sought to flesh out a Chicano pedagogy and specify the content
for these courses. Unfortunately, most Chicano(a) faculty were unclear
about their understanding of the intellectual meaning of Chicano stud-
ies. Some accepted the rhetoric of white radicals and African Americans
about the need of a relevant education. Yet Chicano(a) activists did not
offer any explanation of what this relevant education might be—aside
from the general endeavor to uncover the historical, social, economic,
political, and psychological experiences of the Mexican American. At
the same time, for many participants in nascent Chicano studies pro-
grams, a central concern was the establishment of cultural programs
that highlighted an often mythical past and present. The establishment
of Chicano studies was made more difficult by the desire to couple
academic programs with the political struggle over control of academic
institutions that, the Chicano(a) faculty hoped, would advance the
transformation of the Mexican American community.
In this chapter, I explore Mexican American writings within the
academy (1967–1970), tracing the genesis of Chicano studies as an
academic program. These writings were in opposition to an American
academic epistemological constellation that denied Mexican Ameri-
can ontological and epistemological autonomy. Hidden among these
Chicano(a) writings and their equivocation with the typical American
T h e G e n e s i s of A c ad e m i c C h i c a no S t ud i e s 13

university were a myriad of Chicano epistemological gazes that held the


totalizing U.S. academic epistemological field in tension. To understand
these developing intellectual alternatives, I assert the importance of
campus political behavior without suggesting a one-to-one relation-
ship between el movimiento or campus protests and Chicano studies.
Political action in the Mexican American community created a utopian
spirit that provided a space for the construction of Chicano studies
and a questioning of traditional U.S. academic practices and American
exceptionalism.
In these temporary decolonized spaces, Chicanos(as) accomplished
two goals. The first was to start to explain the Mexican American
condition. Chicanos(as) began to reexamine materials on Mexican
Americans, disseminate information on this community, and research
and ascertain new materials to replace deficient or nonexistent data. In
the process, Chicanos(as) challenged the assumptions concerning the
Mexican American. The second aim was to utilize this new information
to transform their communities. This proposed transformation ran the
gamut from individual self-discovery through cultural rebirth to radical
political change. To achieve both goals, Chicanos(as) had to deal with
university institutional procedures and the American academic episte-
mological field. Chicano(a) academics equivocated before this abyss.
Some Chicanos(as) proposed a radical mutation of academic prac-
tices; others projected the creation of a Chicano space in the U.S. uni-
versity system without any fundamental change of intellectual practices.
This distinction could only be read after the fact, however. Even those
concerned with overturning the academic framework appeared to accept
Chicano studies as part of higher education. For their academic sur-
vival, Chicano(a) academics had to present cogent arguments using a
particular methodology that fit academic definitions of knowledge. In
looking over this early Chicano literature, I discern at least two trends
in negotiating this intellectual revolution. From one direction came the
work of the Quinto Sol collective, in particular the essays of the anthro-
pologist Octavio Romano in El Grito: A Journal of Contemporary
Mexican-American Thought. From a different direction, Chicano(a)
activists presented another manner of engaging in Chicano studies. This
perspective found its initial expression in El Plan de Santa Bárbara and
was further developed in Aztlán: Chicano Journal of the Social Sciences
and the Arts. This chapter traces the roots of these distinct visions of
Chicano studies.1
14 C h i c a n o S t u di e s

Utopia and the California Chicano(a) Student Movements


Most Chicano(a) scholars have argued that Chicano studies was
the product of the 1960s and 1970s Chicano and Chicana student
movements.2 Despite the fact that not every campus in California had
Chicano(a) student protests, all benefited from Chicano(a) student
activism and the wider movimiento. The Los Angeles “blowouts” in
March of 1968 and the ensuing months of conflict, together with the
university strikes at San Francisco State and the University of Califor-
nia at Berkeley (1968–1969), generated campus mobilizations that were
fundamental to the genesis of Chicano studies throughout the state.
To achieve their immediate campus goals, students used a variety of
political positions that later formed the background for institutional-
izing Chicano studies at California universities and colleges. A partial
explanation of the diverse styles of Chicano studies stemmed from these
different tactics, ideologies, and practices. These activists sought an
academic program that would serve to prepare the next generation of
activists and provide students with the proper political and organiza-
tional orientation. Therefore these activists saw Chicano studies as an
extension of Chicano politics.
Most histories of this period accept this narrative as the starting
point for any dialogue about Chicano studies. The usual argument is
part of a Chicano studies creation myth with a teleology that creates a
continuous story linking past, present, and future. 3 This origin myth,
often summarized in departmental mission statements, homogenizes
the student movement and el movimiento by asserting that control of
academic institutions would assist in the transformation of the Mexi-
can American community. The creation myth proposed that Chicano
studies was to offer an oppositional practice of intellectual investiga-
tion that would explain Mexican American inequality and provide
a radical pedagogy, a continuous involvement with the community,
and a transformative political practice. This story erased the conflict
among political ideologies as well as the gendered behavior of activists
in their creation of a singular masculine identity, with its assumed
association to a particular Mexican and Mexican American historical
pageantry. Even today, however, this myth provides meaning and unity
to contemporary Chicano(a) awareness of the discipline and its role in
the American academic project.
In Youth, Identity, Power, political scientist Carlos Muñoz Jr. has
T h e G e n e s i s of A c ad e m i c C h i c a no S t ud i e s 15

asserted a variation of the creation myth. He establishes a continuum


of Mexican American politics in the second half of the twentieth cen-
tury. Chicano power politics, while distinct from post–World War II
political action, formed part of a larger Chicano political project. He
homogenizes Chicano power around the movements of César Chávez,
Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzáles, and Reies López Tijerina, and eventually
around a variety of student organizations. Muñoz’s chronology allows
nationalism, Marxism, or a hybrid of the two to provide an ideologi-
cal cover to this particular periodization and its historiography. His
origin myth constructs a series of connected causes and effects that
creates a lineage from 1945 to 1975, and in the process, it dismisses
assorted ideological perspectives and potentially disparate events. The
second element of Muñoz’s origin myth is to connect this historical and
political chronology with the formation of Chicano studies. Thus he
briefly traces the institutionalization of Chicano studies programs and
attempts to bridge these efforts with an academic framework through
El Plan. He argues that Chicano(a) scholars were searching for a para-
digm of Chicano studies as part of the long-term battle of Chicanos(as)
with dominant society. This narrative, with major variations, resonates
with most Chicano(a) scholarship. 4
Yet I hesitate to accept this Chicano studies creation myth, espe-
cially as it relates to the genesis of Chicano studies. Instead, I explore
the emergence of Chicano studies by examining the written dialogue
among Chicanos(as) from 1967 to 1970 in their endeavors to sketch
the Mexican American experience, their elucidations of those experi-
ences, and the politics of change. Although Chicano politics forms a
background to the discipline, it is not vital to the intellectual origins
and development of the discipline—no matter what the creation myth
insists. Therefore I look at the Chicano(a) student movements as a series
of events that were not necessarily linked or directed but nonetheless
disruptive of the “institutional imaginary.”
One way to minimize the creation myth and evade any dependent
relationship between student protests and Chicano studies is to empha-
size the particularity of each campus protest. Thus Chicano(a) move-
ment scholars need to highlight the differences among campus protests,
like those at UCLA, University of California at Berkeley, San Francisco
State College, San Fernando State College, Merritt Community Col-
lege, or University of California at San Diego, to name just a few in
California, in order to avoid a standardized story to these protests and
16 C h i c a n o S t u di e s

Chicano studies. These disparate protests, however, did serve to make


hope possible. The particular political positions, ideologies, or goals of
the actors became secondary to the anarchical practices that disrupted
the institutional imaginary. Thus descriptions of campus protests do not
center on the political hopes of the actors; rather, focus is placed on how
peoples’ actions—whatever they might have thought—disrupted the
­

American imaginary and presented a contrarian possibility, an oppo-


sitional imaginary, a utopia. Only by accepting these events, without
their imposed chronology and narrative, can we turn to a discussion
of Chicano studies without some guiding narrative. In this way, we
avoid the privileging of some works and events over others. My goal is
to acknowledge campus politics as a central backdrop without repro-
ducing a narrative that links these events and then privileges them as
foundational to Chicano studies.
I begin by acknowledging the chaotic rupture that el movimiento
and campus protests caused on typical political and social activity. Their
query to American exceptionalism and the colonial condition was the
result of a community’s struggle for autonomy and self-­determination,
an expression of participatory democracy. The Chicano(a) community’s
quest for self-management questioned the legitimacy of the system and
created the possibility of solutions to problems that had earlier seemed
irredeemable. In other words, what happened among people of color,
in particular Chicanos(as), was the creation of hope that utopia was
indeed possible.5 The “American dream,” always postponed for Mexi-
can Americans and people of color, was thus exchanged for a utopia
constructed by Chicanos(as) and people of color. In the academy this
suggested a new knowledge, study, and pedagogy that would provide
a better understanding of the Mexican American and the conditions
in which they found themselves. Chicano studies programs were a by-
product, not of student protests as a movement but of the rupture of the
institutional imaginary that Chicanos(as) (as well as other disenfran-
chised communities) created.
The concept of utopia has multiple meanings and uses—from early
Christian thought to contemporary discussions of dystopia. 6 Its long
history has laden utopia with layers of meanings. The intellectual and
art historians Frank and Fritzie Manuel have written that utopia is
“shrouded in ambiguity” and therefore “acquires plural meanings.”
Given this, I have avoided any rigid definition for utopia.7 One solu-
tion is to follow the historian and critical theorist Russell Jacoby’s
T h e G e n e s i s of A c ad e m i c C h i c a no S t ud i e s 17

usage: “Utopia here refers not only to a vision of a future society, but a
vision pure and simple, an ability, perhaps willingness, to use expansive
concepts to see reality and its possibility.”8 Utopia becomes present
when individuals challenge official life, formulating community and
laying claim to other possible, albeit temporary, worlds. Utopia turns
into a possibility when people subvert the day-to-day practices that
uphold usual social and political operations. Utopia is about hope.
Hope becomes possible when alienated people engage in unhindered
dialogue, debate, and activity, fostering a temporary though unstable
unity that results in a provisional but real democracy. Utopia is unique,
irreproducible, and momentary; it is the product of its historical location
and therefore reproduces aspects of established power differences.9
There is a tendency to think of utopia as fantasy and unrealistic.
This results from the structures that society constructs around us. The
Mexican scholar César Gilabert has written that in order to under-
stand utopia, we need to recognize that societies create imaginary
relations to comprehend and control real conditions: “La sociedad,
para mantener las condiciones de su reproducción, construye conjun-
tos de imágenes, representaciones, símbolos, signos, con las cuales los
individuos se comunican, establecen metas y posibilidades, valores y
esperanzas, puede decirse entonces que la producción imaginaria, ‘en
última instancia,’ corresponde a lo que se han dado en llamar estruc-
tura o base de la sociedad.” (Society, in order to maintain its conditions
for reproduction, constructs constellations of images, representations,
symbols, signs, by which individuals communicate, establish goals and
possibilities, values and hope; it can be said then that imaginary pro-
duction, “in the final instance,” corresponds to what has been called
structure or base.10) We might add, following the critical pedagogue
Peter McLaren’s discussion on schooling, that society implants a “ritual
rhythm” in our nervous system. “We are ontogenetically constituted
by ritual and cosmologically informed by it as well,” he says. “All
of us are under ritual’s sway; absolutely none of us stands outside of
ritual’s symbolic jurisdiction. In fact, humanity has no option against
ritual.”11 Ritual or the imaginary is thus reinforced by an activist state
in its defense of society’s economic, political, social, psychological,
and ideological structures. This institutional imaginary, however, can
be challenged by alternative imaginaries that typically remain wishful
and unrealistic.12
How can the unreal and fanciful become possible and thereby
18 C h i c a n o S t u di e s

challenge patterns and rituals that are fundamental to our lives? The
Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch’s concept of “not yet” can help us
answer this query.13 The “not yet” is a hope based on possible futures
that lie dormant in the remnants of the past.14 In this way, hope is an
expression of what is really possible.15 Utopia is therefore as real as
any presently unfolding possibility, since it is grounded in the many
possibilities of the past. Interpreters of Bloch have written about
“remembering the future,” which is possible because “reality” is not
what is but includes what is becoming and what might become. This
propensity-to-something is not the result of material conditions alone.
Of course in our day-to-day practices, we reproduce and acknowledge
only a given static objective world; in this world, the utopic is repressed
and hidden.16 Hope must be understood as a cognitive act.17 For Bloch,
“concrete utopia” flows from a willful thinking that interacts with real-
ity. “Reality, in this view,” the coauthors Henry Giroux and McLaren
have written, “is engaged as both a subjective and objective experience,
and due to its unfinished nature it is seen as something that is always
in a state of becoming.”18
Human activity thus chooses which possible futures may become
real. Utopia is not some abstract fanciful thinking about the future.
Since hope permeates everyday consciousness, it is human action that
draws out these unrealized dreams, lost possibilities, and abortive hopes
buried in reality.19 Different futures depend on tapping this repository
of possibilities. The political philosopher Stephen Eric Bronner said it
this way: “The future is thus no mechanical elaboration of the present;
nor does it emerge from a series of ‘steps’ or ‘stages’ deriving in linear
fashion from the past.”20 This depends on the degree of consciousness
generated in the present. Utopian possibilities begin with the subjects’
awareness of the complexity and ambiguity of reality.21
Yet we should not underestimate the power of the institutional
imaginary to replace hope with tolerance. The Marxist philosopher
Herbert Marcuse has claimed that in contemporary capitalist society
“[t]olerance toward what is radically evil now appears as good because
it serves the coherence of the whole on the road to affluence or more
affluence.”22 We come to accept things as they are as the only way they
can be.23 In another essay, Marcuse contends that once a specific moral-
ity is firmly established as a norm of social behavior, like McLaren’s
“ritual rhythm,” it becomes second nature managing our “voluntary
servitude.”24 For this reason, the institutional imaginary denies hope
T h e G e n e s i s of A c ad e m i c C h i c a no S t ud i e s 19

and utopia. The second nature that comes from capitalism and the
authoritarian state burdens us with its inescapable regulations and ritu-
als. In the process, utopia is maligned because no one really can or
wants to visualize, much less actualize, possibilities.25 Hope is brushed
aside and replaced by continuous discussions about the necessary or
proper conditions for change.
For the Marxist critical theorist Max Horkheimer, the only real
possible choice, recalling Bloch’s notion of the “not yet,” is to accept
that the time for utopia is always now. He writes: “Present talk of
inadequate conditions is a cover for the tolerance of oppression. For
the revolutionary, conditions have always been ripe.”26 Horkheimer
proposes that the first step in resistance is “to keep oneself from being
deceived any longer.”27 Utopia is the time/place when self-deceit is
recognized and laughed away. In “remembering the future,” Marcuse
suggests we can open the space for real and universal tolerance. The
ability to determine one’s own life, together with the capability of being
free with others, creates “the society in which man is no longer enslaved
by institutions which vitiate self-determination from the beginning.”28
This radical change must reach into people’s “biological dimension”
to bring out a new sensibility. Here the imagination, drawing on the
“not yet,” becomes the grinding force in the reconstitution of reality.
Only then can second nature, with its self-perpetuating majority, be
recognized for what it is—rationalization of the status quo.
Simiotician and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin’s discussion of the
carnival adds to this conversation on utopia. He allows us to see the
construction of a second world and second life outside officialdom. 29
This oppositional world supplants official institutional rituals by bring-
ing change, freedom, and disorder. At carnival, for instance, popular
behavior overthrows normal social operations. Through these endeav-
ors, new forms of speech and new meanings to old forms appear. Pro-
fanities as well as sexual and bodily innuendos become part of political
discourse. As Bakhtin has pointed out, there is a transfer to the material
level. This freedom, of course, is possible “only in [a] completely fear-
less world.” Only then is laughter positive, regenerative, and creative:
“Laughter create[s] no dogmas and could not become authoritarian;
it [does] not convey fear but a feeling of strength.”30 Student political
action parallels carnival.
Bakhtin’s analysis allows us to understand how official political
culture asserts that all is stable, unchanging, and perennial. Seriousness
20 C h i c a n o S t u di e s

and authoritarianism are coestablished with liberty. The activist and


philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis has suggested that politics becomes
technique and bureaucratic manipulation. 31 In the second world, how-
ever, politics is “carnavalized” and democracy appears. 32 Bakhtin
writes: “As opposed to the official feast, one might say that carnival
celebrate[s] temporary liberation from the prevailing truth and from
the established order.”33 Here participants suspend hierarchy, rank,
privilege, norms, and prohibition. In this politics-as-carnival becom-
ing, change and renewal manifest the merging of utopia and the real.
In this freedom, “reckless” laughter disrupts official seriousness and
fear. In the fearless world of utopia, laughter purifies and completes
seriousness. “It is a temporary transfer to the utopian world.”34 In Los
Angeles and the Bay Area, Chicanos(as) created the conditions for this
second world through political action.
The Chicano student movements and el movimiento unveiled a
variety of possible futures. Hope was not simply a projection of an
“abstract utopia,” born of only wishful thinking, but a willful expres-
sion of what could be possible. As the ethicist Ze’ev Levy has written:
“Reality holds within itself the anticipation of a possible future.”35 The
student rallies, marches, demonstrations, and innumerable meetings
manifested the hope and recognition of possibilities that might lead to
an alternative future. Self-determination and participatory democracy
were the passageway to this different utopic possibility. 36 Chicano(a)
protests delegitimated the institutional imaginary and subverted ritual.
In particular, the Los Angeles Chicano(a) high school walkouts rup-
tured the cultural ether that made all hope utopic and revealed real
emancipatory qualities allowing a new social imaginary to emerge.37
For Chicanos(as) who participated in the protest, utopia was the only
viable option. Utopia cohabited with an epistemological tremor that
contested the American epistemological constellation. Chicanos and
Chicanas defied officialdom and its multiple social, economic, psy-
chological, and political practices. The historical structures of control
and management were challenged, making possible a world driven by
autonomous action. Although this was not the stated goal of activists or
participants, the very enactment of a different set of practices, not their
conditioned second nature, made possible the “not yet.” The utopic
moment was not reducible to particular leaders, organizations, state-
ments, or actions during the walkouts or the various campus protests;
these succumbed to passive tolerance, reproducing officialdom. 38 What
T h e G e n e s i s of A c ad e m i c C h i c a no S t ud i e s 21

mattered were those moments when people actualized a different set of


rules that existed outside the static and given world.
Intellectually this suggested an alternative curricular and institu-
tional world. Again, we need to distinguish between what activists and
their organizations might have said and the unintended consequence
that resulted from their actions. To suggest curricular transformation
and a reinterpretation of the academy’s vision of community service as
the promise of the utopic world, misses the point. In fact, these choices
did not challenge the official world. The production, distribution, and
legitimization of knowledge remained undemocratic. However, within
the utopic moment, to question admission procedures, curricular defi-
nitions, teaching methods, and the like—all driven by student practices
outside the limits of tolerance—suggested a possible new intellectual/
academic world. That this world was temporary did not take away
its radical and transformative quality. Thus the demand for Chicano
studies or Ethnic studies should be read as this contradictory “not yet.”
At one level, these programs were simply possible alternatives within
curricular practices, in the end reproducing the university. At the same
time, they were at the center of a different conception of knowledge
and the university. Chicano studies at the utopic moment articulated an
oppositional possibility that vitiated the university by creating it anew.
Chicano studies allowed the practitioner to ask and answer traditional
and new questions without the inquisitorial fear exercised by the aca-
demic sacerdotal class.
Unfortunately, the utopic moment did not survive, and with its de-
mise went the intellectual quake initiated by the questions of excluded
communities. Without the hope of a future, the curricular revolution
found its home within the American epistemological framework. Al-
though the new programs retained their hope of community trans-
formation and self-determination, Chicano studies’ language was a
balance of the normative instrumentalism of the academy with naïve
anti-intellectualism.39 Chicano studies was reduced to another tool in the
Chicano(a) battle against oppression. 40 Chicano studies programs and
Chicano(a) student organizations pushed this instrumentalist vision.
This was reflected in their use of terms like “community,” “activism,”
and “organization.” Whether successful or not, these programs and
organizations presented themselves as activist programs whose links
with the community allowed new community organizations necessary
for the struggle of justice and self-determination. Real transformation
22 C h i c a n o S t u di e s

was long forgotten as some utopian dream. What happened to the


campus activists’ desire for a curricular revolution?

El Grito, Octavio Romano,


and the Emergence of Chicano Studies
With El Grito, an oppositional academic Chicano studies, not as social
sciences or humanities, was made possible. As the editors pointed out in
the initial issue, Chicano(a) intellectuals have to wage war against the
“intellectual mercenaries,” the social scientists who create and propa-
gate a language that erases the Mexican American. Therefore the task
of Chicanos(as) is to destroy these rhetorical structures that subvert the
Mexican American. 41 In this battle, Chicanos(as) would have to fashion
an intellectual perspective that situated itself on the border between the
academy and society. What this meant was not clear. In most cases, the
articles in the journal saw their intellectual responsibility to criticize the
university and society from the vantage of a minority community. 42
Although the voice of Octavio I. Romano dominated El Grito,
we should not forsake the many intellectuals that gave rise to the
vision present in the journal and the construction of this expression
of Chicano studies. Even though internal conflicts would fracture the
Quinto Sol collective and eventually El Grito, their intellectual work
provoked an epistemological quake. This intellectual movement was
the product of an intense dialogue among members of the Quinto Sol/
Mexican American Student Organization at University of California
at Berkeley and later in the editorial staff of El Grito. This is not a
denial of the important role Romano played; I simply would like to
acknowledge that this early expression of Chicano thought, like other
intellectual formations, came out of collective work. As the art critic
Tomás ­Ybarra-Frausto observed: “The earliest and most historically
significant group which functioned as purveyor of the new Chicano
aesthetic was ‘El Grupo Quinto Sol’ established in Berkeley, California,
in 1967. In a series of ‘Mexican American Liberation Papers’ distrib-
uted at meetings, street corners, and community gatherings, they called
for a recognition that the Mexican American ferment of the time was
not the result of new consciousness, but rather a continuation of a long
struggle for human dignity.”43
Aside from their endeavor to help students succeed academically,
Quinto Sol also engaged in an examination of the Chicano(a)’s relation-
T h e G e n e s i s of A c ad e m i c C h i c a no S t ud i e s 23

ship with the university and the academy’s construction of the Mexican
American. An example of this work was Nick Vaca’s essay, which can be
read as the “call” of the Quinto Sol collective. It serves as an introduc-
tion to his and Romano’s later pieces in El Grito. “Mexican-Americans
have never been passive or docile,” Vaca emphasized in the first line of
his essay.44 He contended, using the recent UCLA Mexican American
Project as his starting point, that social scientists had stereotyped Mexi-
can Americans into a passive population. Social scientists’ discovery of
the Mexican American movement led them to conclude that the Mexi-
can American was only now “emerging” or “changing.” These social
scientists argued that this provided evidence that Mexican Americans’
passivity, fatalism, and docility had come to an end. Vaca responded
that the Mexican American has never been docile, passive, or fatalistic.
Rather, the attempt to depict the Mexican American in such a manner is
an instrument of control. He wrote: “To tell them such is to try to prevent
them from ever thinking of themselves as accomplished.”45 Vaca’s essay
called into question the relative ease with which the American episte-
mological totalizing project had created a Mexican American fantasy.
As the anthropologist Karen Mary Davalos has written, “Vaca’s most
significant contribution to the conversation is his suggestion that the
power and politics of racism and nationalism, which in turn can disguise
the sources of oppression, mediate research.”46
Romano’s various essays exemplified El Grito’s program allow-
ing us to discern the evolution of this Chicano(a) critical perspective
at the periphery of the academy. 47 In both “Minorities, History, and
the Cultural Mystique” and “The Anthropology and Sociology of the
Mexican Americans: The Distortion of Mexican American History,”
Romano depicted social scientists as scholars who have translated the
Mexican American into a masochistic, passive, irrational, fatalistic,
and questionable American. Social scientists, Romano noted, use con-
cepts, such as “traditional culture,” that distort the realities of these
communities by presenting them as ahistorical peoples. 48 Social scien-
tists, the “high priests of modern society,” he went on to say, engage
in creating a “social science fiction.”49 In fact, contemporary social
scientists view Mexican Americans in the same fashion as did those
“westward pioneers” of more than a hundred years ago.50 In “Goodbye
­Revolution—Hello Slum,” Romano reminds us that the social scientists
have erased Mexican American history: “This amputation is profes-
sionally performed by social scientists wielding the scalpel of sociologi-
24 C h i c a n o S t u di e s

cal and anthropological semantics.”51 In “Mugre de la cancíon—A Play


(Sin Fin) En Tres Actos,” Romano pokes fun at social scientists and
their eternal quest for funding to research the “chai-cay-nose.”52
As Romano lashed out at social scientists in these essays, he initi-
ated his critique of social science research and its failure to investigate
knowledge and truth. He built an intellectual framework to overturn
social scientists’ myths and began an exploration of the real Mexican
American experience. 53 This approach had to start with the restoration
of Mexican American history, given that academic practices had denied
any claims of a rigorous self-reflexivity.54 In “Goodbye Revolution—
Hello Slum,” Romano recovered a portion of this history to reconstruct
the Mexican American: “a vivid reinterpretation of Twentieth Century
Chicano history.”55
In “The Historical and Intellectual Presence of Mexican Ameri-
cans,” Romano provided the guidelines for encountering the Mexican
Americans’ intellectual roots. Reacting to the Mexican author Octavio
Paz’s “quixotic quest for the Mexican,” Romano proposed that Paz’s
work instead revealed a multiplicity of lifestyles and therefore many
Mexicans.56 The Mexican American inherited at least four distinct
ideological trends tied to historical experiences: Indianist philosophy,
historical confrontationism, mestizo philosophy, and the immigrant
experience.57 Indianism, Romano explained, permeates Mexican Amer-
ican life, for it provides a “timeless symbol of opposition to cultural
imperialism.”58 Historical confrontation, secondly, manifests the long
history of Mexican American resistance. Romano further observed that
this “confrontationist philosophy” had multiple expressions: it could be
self-deterministic, protectionist, nationalist, reactive, and existential. 59
The experience and philosophy of the mestizo manifests a reconceptu-
alization of nature and man that leads toward humanistic universalism,
behavioral relativism, and a recurrent form of existentialism. Romano
linked the “transcendent idea of the Mestizo” with a “form of Cultural
Nationalism.”60 Thus for Romano, cultural nationalism is “unlike the
rampant ethnocentrism with its traditional xenophobia . . . that has
been so characteristic of ethnic groups in the United States.”61 These
three trends, together with the immigrant experience, undercut any
idea of a “pure” Mexican American and destabilized the work of social
scientists.
Here we have to note Romano’s use of cultural nationalism. He
noted a connection between Aztlán, Mexico, and chicanismo as articu-
T h e G e n e s i s of A c ad e m i c C h i c a no S t ud i e s 25

lated in El Plan, but he did not limit its expression. Romano rejected an
empirical view of independent and autonomous historical and cultural
traditions. He emphasized the mutual interdependence of histories and
cultures. Chicanos(as) needed to move toward a politics that postulates
“that duplicity, complicity, coalitions, and social networks are much
more fundamental to the historical process than are ethnicity, skin
color, group history, tradition, and religious affiliation.”62 Given this
formulation, Romano’s use of cultural nationalism brought his ideas
closer to the politics of the Bay Area Third World strikes that occurred
as the first issues of El Grito appeared. How then can we come to know
these Mexican American experiences? In a review of Carey McWil-
liams’s North from Mexico, Romano continued his endeavor to con-
struct his framework. To know if something is true, one has to converse
“with los viejos in the barrios.”63 The need to turn to the community, in
particular the elders, was already present in his dissertation. 64 From the
elders, he suggested, Chicanos(as) could learn that Mexican Americans
have been both participants and generators of the historical process:
“The picture that emerged from the dialogue with the viejitos was one
of constant struggle.”65 These stories, together with McWilliams’s text,
exposed “how ‘social’ ‘science’ ‘studies’ have prostituted and distorted
the history of Mexican-Americans.”66
In these pieces, Romano worked in two directions. First, he criti-
cized the work of social scientists on the Mexican American. He saw
himself as the Socratic gadfly irritating and confounding the academy
and its claims to veracity, asserting that academic knowledge was not
the truth that the institution claimed. His second concern was to vali-
date and present the Mexican American as an active historical agent.
Romano wanted us to reflect on the complex nature of the Mexican
American that social scientists had distorted. But his thinking did not
stop here; he moved beyond critique and a simple return to history.
In “Social Science, Objectivity and the Chicanos,” we encounter a
refinement of Romano’s critique. Where initially he attacked individual
works, scholars, and disciplinary models, Romano now problematizes
the field of social science and reveals the assumptions behind academic
knowledge. He begins by tracing the intellectual origins of objectivity
to dehistoricize the concept, subvert its meaning, and more important,
undercut its utility.
Romano wrote: “[T]he concept of objectivity is impossible without
a corresponding belief in man’s ability to separate his mind not only
26 C h i c a n o S t u di e s

from his body, but also from all of his ecological surroundings.”67 The
Western European quest, he maintained, for objectivity and objective
reality demands the separation of events, phenomena, and ideas from
personal self-consciousness. 68 This empirical project is at the center of
academic knowledge. Moreover, this dualism grants methodological
and conceptual legitimacy to social science, since an assumed unity
exists between the laws governing the physical universe and those that
govern human behavior. 69 For this reason, social science is presented
as value-free, culture-free, and tradition-free. Romano, as the activist
and political scientist Raoul Contreras has pointed out, extended “the
ideological critique of social science on the Mexican American to a
critique of the ideology of social science.”70
At this point in his argument, Romano took a crucial step beyond
his earlier work and many of those who had recognized that the work
of social scientists was not objective, since it was influenced by time,
place, and culture.71 For Romano, the very nature of objectivity, based
on the separation of mind and body, had to be rejected. Thus social sci-
ence studies about the Chicano must also be set aside. Instead, Romano
proposed to initiate Chicano(a) research from the perspective of the
Chicano(a) subject. Chicano studies must begin from the “self-image”
of the Chicano(a). Given the deception of objectivity and social science,
Chicanos(as) needed to reclaim and rewrite themselves. “If this self-
image is rejected by non-Chicano social scientists,” he wrote, “then,
in effect, they will have rejected summarily the rationality of the Chi-
cano.”72 As the Chicano(a) became subject, social science and academic
knowledge would be tossed out. Romano thus altered the relationship
between Chicano(a) scholarship and the academy. From this point,
Chicano(a) research had to start from the standpoint of the Chicano(a)
and his/her position in U.S. society and not from assumed social science
or humanities-based academic practices.
Romano proposed a form of standpoint epistemology in contrast
to the empiricism of the social sciences and other fields. This provided
a radically new starting point for Chicano(a) intellectuals who sought
an oppositional stance to myths created by academic intellectual prac-
tices. Furthermore, it afforded an argument that rooted knowledge
in the multiplicity of Mexican American experiences. Unfortunately,
Romano himself did not follow up on this epistemological break. In
subsequent pieces in El Grito, he either returned to his criticism of
social scientists’ work, to issues of identity and history, or he delved
T h e G e n e s i s of A c ad e m i c C h i c a no S t ud i e s 27

into policy.73 More important, his work moved increasingly toward the
arts. In his evaluation of the publishing record of El Grito and Quinto
Sol Publications, while noting the need to “analyze the fallacious and
educationally detrimental content of social science studies of Mexican
Americans,” his main concern was to provide an open space for alter-
native literary voices.74 He saw his various enterprises as providing a
necessary outlet for Chicano(a) talent, to “forge new ground in literary
publications.”75 Thus in his anthology El Espejo The Mirror, he wrote
that he saw his role to provide “the Chicano community [with] works
by Chicano authors which reflect Chicano experiences from a Chicano
perspective.”76 By the appearance of El Grito del Sol in 1976, Romano
saw Tonatiuh’s role to “leave the narrow horizons of the immediate
past behind, and to publish literature which is more representative
of the rich, varied, and infinite universe that is the Chicano world.”77
Romano’s standpoint position led him away from a rupture of academic
knowledge to the production of another knowledge through the arts.78
Though Romano did not build toward an epistemic break, his
essays, together with the work of the Quinto Sol collective and El Grito,
provided Chicanos and Chicanas with a radical weapon in their battle
with the academy and knowledge.79 Their recognition of the Chicano(a)
scholar as an engaged intellectual opened up new intellectual possibili-
ties for Chicanos(as) in the academy. This vision allowed a radical repo-
sitioning of Chicanos(as) in relation to the engrossing academic project;
a Chicano(a) perspective that made possible a Chicano(a) studies that
could avoid the pitfalls of university-based knowledge. If Chicano stud-
ies accepted the assumptions of the academy, as Romano had noted,
it was doomed to incorporation. 80 Thus he articulated, though not as
clearly as he could have, a nondisciplinary, nonsocial-science Chicano
studies that could survive, albeit always peripheral and questionable,
in the university. This epistemic framework would remain ambiguous,
tethered to a utopian hope. Unfortunately, Romano did not pursue this
discussion; he remained a critic of social science without forcing an
oppositional epistemological and methodological break.

El Plan de Santa Bárbara


El Grito provided one approach to explicate the relationship of Chi­
canos(as) with the academy. However, for some, the critique in El
Grito seemed disconnected from the political and social needs in the
28 C h i c a n o S t u di e s

Mexican American communities and lacked a program for change.


As the Chicano student movements unfolded, the growing number of
Chicanos(as) in higher education demanded some response to their
concerns about the political relevance of education and its examina-
tion of the Mexican American experience. For campus activists, politi-
cal, social, and economic problems in their home communities had
to be dealt with through Chicano studies programs. Drawing on el
movimiento, university activists—many having participated in the Los
Angeles “blowouts,” Bay Area Third World strikes, or United Farm
Workers struggles—pushed for the creation of Chicano studies pro-
grams (centers, departments, support programs) throughout California
and the Southwest. As students extracted these programs from reticent
institutions, many conceded that some structure and system of ideas
were necessary to implement and direct these Chicano programs if they
were to achieve their political goals. Chicano(a) activist Rene Nuñez
played a pivotal role in bringing together a select group of students,
faculty, staff, and administrators to devise a plan. The result was El
Plan de Santa Bárbara. 81
The Santa Barbara conference can be read as an extension of the
first national Chicano youth conference, organized by the Crusade for
Justice in Denver in March 1969. Among the Crusade participants were
California students from organizations like United Mexican American
Students, Third World Liberation Front, Brown Berets, and others.
The three-day Denver conference dealt with unity, identity, culture,
and revolution. For the first time, it offered “a clear demonstration
of the growing concept of ethnic nationalism and self-determination
among Chicanos in the entire Southwest.”82 All this was reflected in
the key document of the conference, El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán. Of
course not everyone was happy with the spirit of the Denver confer-
ence. 83 The split between Chicanos(as) from the Bay Area who were
Marxists and the nationalists at the Denver youth conference were not
resolved; rhetorical statements that “Marx was just another gabacho”
were made. 84
The authors of El Plan wrote that the Chicano struggle for self-
determination and self-liberation could be assisted by a “strategic use of
education.”85 This strategic plan rested on building institutions within
the academy that would be under Chicano control and provide them
relative autonomy. In this way, Chicano power could be realized on
campus and university services could be redirected to the Mexican
T h e G e n e s i s of A c ad e m i c C h i c a no S t ud i e s 29

American community. 86 For the authors of El Plan, the university could


serve as an institutional base in the struggle for Chicano equality. 87 El
Plan proposed that the “resources [not only academic] of the university
be harnessed to enrich and develop the Chicano community.”88 The
historian Juan Gómez-Quiñones commented: “The major thrust of
the plan was to stimulate the growth and operation of Chicano studies
programs along movement premises and to coordinate politically and
organizationally local programs statewide in an effort to further a
particular vision of education and one with a particular purpose, both
of which the plan provided for the first time.”89
The Chicano(a) student and community were central to building
Chicano studies institutionally. Carlos Muñoz Jr. has recalled that the
hope was to develop “organic intellectuals of Mexican descent within
the university—that is, the kind of academic who would be an integral
part of his community and actively participate in the Chicano Move-
ment, do research critical of society, and simultaneously contribute to
the shaping of a Chicano consciousness”—and in the end be part of
the transformation of the Mexican American communities.90 El Plan
supported the formation of an organization that acknowledged the
reality of a hostile and oppressive environment; the various constituen-
cies were to develop a junta or mesa directiva to provide leadership and
direction to Chicanos(as) at the university.91
El Plan further examined the role of Chicano studies as an aca-
demic program in their political agenda. It stated: “Chicano Studies . . .
thus represent[s] an over-all university program for the Chicano and
his community. As such, the academic aspect of Chicano Studies is but
one dimension, albeit a major one, of a broad and multi-component
program.”92 Chicano students demanded a relevant curriculum that led
to an activist program. Chicano(a) intellectuals, therefore, must engage
in research that would establish a compendium of data useful to the
community. This information could foster a well-developed political
agenda. As the document stated: “[S]olid research becomes the basis
for Chicano political strategy and action.”93
Contemporaneous with this view on research was the need to pre-
pare and organize Chicano(a) students for political battle. Chicano
studies would “socialize the Chicano student by providing him with
the intellectual tools necessary for him to deal with the reality of
his experience” and help him/her engage the world at large.94 Thus
the academic side of El Plan proposed a Chicano studies that would
30 C h i c a n o S t u di e s

provide the manpower and resources for the struggles with dominant
society. To achieve this curricular goal, lower-division courses would
affirm identity through an appreciation of the Chicano cultural heri-
tage. Upper-division classes would examine the Chicano(a) experience
from the angles of history, economics, psychology, sociology, literature,
political science, and education. The end result would be “to provide
a coherent and socially relevant education, humanistic and pragmatic,
which prepares Chicanos for service to the Chicano community and
enriches the total society.”95
Unfortunately El Plan’s intellectual program was underdeveloped.
It remained unclear what exactly El Plan did offer epistemologically
speaking, aside from a collection of courses on the Mexican and Mexi-
can American experiences with special attention to culture. This weak-
ness allowed Chicano studies academic programs to be framed within
traditional university practices, muting El Plan’s radical hope. Although
many who followed the political vision of El Plan also acknowledged
El Grito’s critique of social science, they did not see a possible con-
tradiction between institutional building and the limits of American
academic practices. In fact, the battle for institutionalization further
justified minimizing academic concerns as secondary if not divisive.
For many researchers tied to the Chicano studies creation myth,
the decline in student activism compounded the curricular limitations
of the new programs.96 The educator Raymond Padilla, for example,
has explained the failure to develop a radical curriculum in Chicano
studies as the result of the de-emphasis of an activist agenda.97 Thus in
his study of the Ethnic Studies department at University of California at
Berkeley, he concluded that the decline of activism left only one “route
to curricular legitimacy . . . the liberal arts model.”98 With this shift,
Chicanos brought traditional and workable technologies to bear on
Chicano studies. On the one hand, Padilla believed that activists could
manipulate the university for the purpose of changing the Mexican
American community. Yet, on the other, he wondered how could they
utilize the university if it was an inhospitable and alienating place.
“Viewed in its most extreme manifestation,” he wrote, “some campus
Chicanos sought to address community problems by using campus
resources but maintaining an adversary relationship with the very same
campus.”99
For Padilla, this inconsistency was acceptable and resolvable so long
as activism was present. As student and community politics declined,
T h e G e n e s i s of A c ad e m i c C h i c a no S t ud i e s 31

however, this contradiction led to a transformation of the goals for


Chicano studies from community transformation to self-preservation
in the academy. “What began as a Chicano Studies goal of people-
­community development based on the use of university resources,”
Padilla wrote, “changed to sheltering students from an alien and inhos-
pitable university environment.”100 At this point, the degree and disci-
pline had taken precedence. Chicano studies conflated administrative
control with intellectual production.101 Padilla’s assumption that the
vitality of Chicano studies relied on activism was simply an expression
of the origin myth. He was unable to escape El Plan’s equivocation
about the university. Although Padilla criticized the shift, he believed
that this acceptance of the liberal model could have been averted. He
agreed with the authors of El Plan that it was the existence of an
organized and activist student body that would had given Chicano
studies the autonomy it needed to survive as an oppositional site in the
academy. Even though he was close to Romano and others in El Grito,
Padilla did not seem to fully grasp the depth of the epistemological
critique they had offered. His work became an early articulation of the
Chicano studies creation myth.

Two Traditions Emerge


The language of El Grito and El Plan should be read as a bifurcation
in the development of Chicano studies. Although the differences were
not as keen as I make them out to be, there clearly existed at least two
potential directions for the growth of Chicano studies after 1969. On
one side was the vision, albeit imprecise, that Romano had presented
through his essays and leadership at El Grito. His use of the Chicano
self-image, as his point of departure for the production of knowledge,
turned research away from social science empirical models toward a
“perspectivist epistemology.” By questioning the dualism inherent in
Western thought and reversing the traditional epistemology-ontology
dynamic, Romano’s work pointed Chicanos(as) toward a “Perspectivist
Chicano Studies.”
This contrasted with the vision presented in El Plan. For activists,
the struggle was to capture the academy, or at least some of its resources,
to continue the fight to transform the barrio. Their interest was to use
the institution as a political tool. Simultaneously, the thinkers behind
El Plan, while agreeing with the critique of the social sciences and
32 C h i c a n o S t u di e s

the humanities, held on to a traditional outlook on knowledge and


the academy. Academic work was ancillary to political work. For this
reason, they had no vision for intellectual work and could easily accept
social science models for academic work. The problem with Anglo
research was that they allowed their research to be tainted by their
assumptions and stereotypes of race and therefore resulted in “serious
distortions.”102 To counter this problem, Chicanos had to engage in
correct empirical work to draw a more accurate image of the Mexican
American. This outlook led to “Empirical Chicano Studies.”
Certain intellectuals and essays reveal the differences in perspec-
tives, but I do not want to suggest that they were necessarily aware of
the implications of their work. Intellectual production is always more
complicated. We could say that the various social, political, cultural, as
well as intellectual activities wrote these very pieces. Let’s borrow the
language of the biologist Ludwik Fleck, when he wrote about “scien-
tific facts” to stress the autonomy of the epistemological configuration:
“Cognition is therefore not an individual process of any theoretical
‘particular consciousness.’ Rather it is the result of a social activity,
since the existing stock of knowledge exceeds the range available to
any one individual.”103 Fleck uses the concept of “thought collective”
to denote the community of people who maintain an intellectual inter-
change, sharing a special “carrier” that facilitates the development of a
field of thought. This intellectual facilitator, Fleck terms the “thought
style.” For him, the individual in the collective is hardly aware of the
prevailing thought style, “which almost always exerts an absolutely
compulsive force upon his thinking and with which it is not possible to
be at variance.”104
Following Fleck, Chicano(a) early writings manifested particular
thought collectives and styles. Thus Romano’s writings told us much
about the Quinto Sol/El Grito collective and their thought style (a bur-
geoning critique of knowledge and academic politics). The multiple ver-
sions of Chicano studies were not about personalities and biographies;
these styles were more than the sum of a set of writings and individu-
als. The difference between a perspectivist and empirical thought style
can be illustrated in their view of UCLA’s Mexican American Study
Project.105 The project, conducted in 1963–1968 and partially funded
by the Ford Foundation, aimed at depicting the realities of life for
Mexican Americans. They questioned the notion that this community
was unassimilable by demonstrating changes in the community. The
T h e G e n e s i s of A c ad e m i c C h i c a no S t ud i e s 33

Mexican American population was “showing a growing potential for


participation in the larger society.”106 The authors concluded that, even
though there were many obstacles, the basic policies needed to meet
the concerns of Mexican Americans were already present or under
development.107 At the same time, Mexican American leaders made
clear the weaknesses and failures of the system by their presentations
and boycott of the 1967 Cabinet Committee Hearings on Mexican
American Affairs.
El Plan’s authors were unhappy with the research by Leo Grebler,
Joan W. Moore, and Ralph C. Guzman. They wrote: “the study is sub-
ject to controversy as to its validity.” Yet they also believed that “these
works [the various reports that form the study] should be consulted.” 108
They acknowledged that only an examination of structural inequality
was the path to understanding the Mexican American condition. In
other words, the problem with the project was not fundamental; there
were facts that could still be salvaged from the project. For the thinkers
of El Plan, facts were not theory laden. In contrast, however, Nick
Vaca saw the same “liturgical repetition” in the Mexican American
Study Project of social science’s myths about Mexican Americans.109
The political scientist Charles Ornelas launched a similar critique. The
study suffers, he argued, from an assimilationist perspective. It had an
Anglo perspective toward integration and cultural pluralism.110
By exploring two key essays of the period, a better understanding
of these two styles of Chicano studies can be explored. Padilla’s essay
on the work of Leonard Pitt (“A Critique of Pittian History”) resonated
with Romano’s criticism of social science as the best epistemological
device. Padilla concurred with Romano that social science could not
offer Chicano(a) intellectuals an instrument for understanding their
condition. The intellectual had to start from his/her own reality,
unobstructed by social science appurtenances. In contrast, Deluvina
Hernández’s essay (a criticism of Audrey J. Schwartz and C. Wayne
Gordon) did not explore the epistemological shift that Romano’s work
implied. Instead, she rejected “bad” social science but accepted the pos-
sibility of doing “good” social science, though reconstituted through
a Chicano perspective. Hernández’s work pointed to the need for a
Chicano social science.
Padilla’s “A Critique of Pittian History” works within El Grito’s
vision of Chicano studies. In a critique of Pitt’s California history,
Padilla epitomizes how cultural and attitudinal biases affect ­historical
34 C h i c a n o S t u di e s

thinking and writing. At the same time, he sharpens Romano’s appraisal


of academic work. He interrogates the meaning and relevance of social
science research for Chicanos(as): “I also want to challenge the Chicano
to examine critically the generic concept of research and its implications
for the Chicano.”111 Padilla rejects social science research, not because
it is incorrectly applied or not fully developed, but because its very
nature cannot allow the Chicano(a) to exist as subject. Therefore the
Chicano(a) cannot operate by the rules of academic research because
he/she becomes victim of the logic of rationalism and objectivism. The
Chicano(a) response, Padilla emphasizes, must come from the existen-
tial level: “His response is fundamentally an act of self-assertion where
the Chicano refuses to negotiate the authenticity of his own reality.”112
Again, we encounter a form of standpoint epistemology to challenge
and, more important, to overturn empiricist discourse. But like Roma-
no’s work, Padilla did not complete the epistemological rupture.113
Hernández’s criticism in Mexican American Challenge to a Sacred
Cow initially draws from Romano’s criticism of the work of social
scientists. Social science thinking, she stresses, is founded on fixed ste-
reotypes and ignorance.114 Social science cannot be a science in the same
way as physical science; rather, social science, Hernández emphasizes,
hides its prejudice behind the image or myth of science. “The mask of
physical science,” she wrote, “gives to social science researchers the
image of objectivity in social matters, in politics and in the ethics of the
individuals they observe. This image carry-over is false.”115 Hernández
asks Chicano(a) scholars to be wary of social science: “A fact is not the
end truth. It itself is not science. Scholars therefore cannot and must
not continue to unquestioningly offer observance to the sacred cow of
social science. They must continue the quest for relevance and truth—
elusive and illusive as they are.”116
Up to this point, much resonance exists between Padilla’s and Her­
nández’s pieces. Hernández, however, is not clear why social science has
this style of thinking. Is this an epistemological issue, or merely one of
bad social science? Unlike Romano or Padilla, she is unable to visualize
an adequate response. Her uncertainty results in an unintended return to
social science and academic knowledge. This regress is reinforced by her
belief in the existence of objective science; her dichotomy between social
and physical science reflects this vision. Thus Hernández hopes and
believes social science can still be done: “Research which is founded, as
much as is humanly feasible, upon a reliable knowledge base combined
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the officers saw that every Bluejacket on returning from the trenches
25
hung his wet garments in the drying shed, which was heated with
a stove, so that he did not lie down in his wet clothes. Later in the
siege, when our men got their pay monthly, there was some
drunkenness, and it being detrimental to health, was checked by a
Tattoo Roll parade taken by officers, who in those days did much of
the work performed by non-commissioned officers in the Army.
MARCHING ORDER, ON THE MARCH,
JULY, 1854. SEPTEMBER, 1854.

THE TRENCHES. APRIL 1855.


JANUARY, 1855.

When we moved over our camp to the sheltered ravine, the


Queen’s officers made a hut twenty-four feet long, eight feet broad,
and seven feet high. Following the Tartar fashion, we sank the hut
about four feet, allowing the roof only to show above ground. In it
we had our meals, but it was not big enough for use as a dormitory.
A day or two after we shifted camp, Commodore Lushington had a
visit from the officer commanding the French regiment encamped
immediately to the westward of our ravine, who said most politely,
“We gather that some of your men have indistinct ideas on the
ownership of animals. Now, I have given our men strict orders they
are not to retaliate, but I had better explain to you that this one-
sided arrangement cannot continue, and as I have got in my corps
some of the most expert thieves from Paris, unless your men desist,
some morning when you wake you will find that half your camp has
disappeared.” We passed this on to our Bluejackets, and the hint
must have been taken, for we remained good friends.
On the 11th December I received a message from the Officer
commanding the Infantry detachments in the trenches, asking me to
fire on a working party of some twenty Russians, employed under
the Malakoff Tower, in extending a trench towards the Mamelon. I
trained a Lancaster gun on the party, a range of 1720 yards; but as
the gun always carried to the right, I laid a little to the left of the
Russian right-hand man. They usually kept a look-out man, who
gave warning when our guns fired, when the men disappeared into
the trenches: on this occasion, however, at least half of them
remained at work, and the shell catching the left-hand man cut him
in two.
Next night when I went to sleep, at about eight o’clock, in
battery, it was freezing and bitterly cold, so I had crawled into a
hole, being more anxious for shelter from wind than rain. The wind
dropped about 2 a.m., and rain fell. This awoke me, and I realised
that I was getting wet, but was too tired to rise. When I tried to do
so at daylight, on the Relief arriving, it was freezing again, for with
the coming day the temperature had fallen, and I was unable to
move. My comrades carried me back to camp, and with hot bottles
to my feet and all around me, I revived. About this time the Naval
26
officers, before returning to camp at daylight, went round to help
in soldiers who from the intense cold had become incapable of
movement.
At the end of that week I made the acquaintance of Lord
Raglan. When I was not in battery I went down daily to Balaklava or
Kamiesh Bay to buy food for our Mess, and being at the latter place
27
I went on board H.M.S. Beagle, to see Hewett. I stayed for the
night, appreciating greatly the good food, but still more the
unlimited power of ablution, and a new coat and trousers he gave
28
me. Lieutenant Burgoyne, H.M.S. Swallow, my former shipmate in
H.M.S. Queen (vide p. 13), dined with us, and next morning asked
me to take a letter to his father, Sir John Burgoyne, the Engineer-in-
Chief of the Army. I willingly assented, although to deliver it I should
have to go a mile or so round. When I left Kamiesh it was raining,
and by the time I had walked eight miles to Headquarters, it seemed
to me double that distance. I was covered with mud to my knees
and wet through, so was anxious not to be seen, for besides being
very dirty, Midshipmen were then taught to regard their superiors
with awe. I was hurrying away, after handing in my letter, when I
was called back and taken to see Lord Raglan, who had lunching
with him General Niel, to whom I was presented. My host covered
me with confusion by narrating the incident of trying to carry the
powder into battery, and the story of the burning magazine, of which
he had heard from Captain Peel, and said pleasant things about me,
after which, to my great relief, I was allowed to talk to one of his
Staff, who was told to provide me with food.
I spent Christmas Day in the battery, and while speaking to a
sergeant in charge of a working party, was nearly killed by what we
thought was a shot, for it lodged in the parapet close to us without
interrupting our conversation. A few seconds later it burst, and a
fragment cut my cap off my head without raising the skin. I dined
that night with Captain Peel, the other three guests being
Commodore Lushington, our Commander, and Captain Moorsom, the
Commander of the Left Attack. I felt much honoured by the
company in which I was placed. Mr. Daniel, Captain Peel’s Aide-de-
Camp, had been invalided, and so I was acting for him. The dinner
was a culinary triumph, considering the circumstances, and included
all the dishes to be seen on a Mess table in England. We certainly
did not realise at the moment the intensity of the suffering of our
soldier-comrades close to us. We could not have done anything by
individual effort of the sailors, for if such had been acceptable it
would have been useless; but we certainly should not have enjoyed
our dinner had we understood what the proud reticence of the Long-
service soldier concealed.
One of the senior Regimental officers wrote at 4 p.m. that day:
“At this hour the Division to which I belong has not had an ounce of
meat for dinner; in fact, dinner there is none.” This was the worst
time of the winter, and to the middle of January was the climax of
the misery of our men. Since Inkerman we had only had 14,000
effectives, and on the 1st January there were only 11,300 “at
duty,”—it cannot be said they were fit for duty,—and there were
23,000 in hospital. From this time on, however, our men’s state was
ameliorated. On the 28th December the sailors obtained the first
instalment of the Crimean Army Fund. A small sheep was selling at
£5 that day, but by the liberality of the British Public we bought from
the Fund very good tea at 6d. instead of 3s. 6d. a pound, and other
articles in proportion. This Fund was due to the plain writing of Dr.
29
W. H. Russell, of the Times. It is remarkable that Lord Raglan and
Sir Colin Campbell were the only senior Officers who did not in the
first instance resent Dr. Russell’s outspoken comments on the
incapacity of our Government, and the inefficiency of the
Departments. As I showed in The Crimea in 1854-’94, officers came
round later to Russell’s views: Lord Clyde (Colin Campbell) left him
by will a keepsake, and the survivors of the Crimean War feel
grateful to him, and the Times, for his outspoken statements.
In January snow fell, and lay three feet on the ground and
twelve feet in drifts; but the Naval Brigade never ceased to send
carrying parties to Balaklava. I should not like my readers to infer
that the Army did nothing, for the troops at Balaklava in December
and in January carried on their heads 7000 loads of siege materials
from the harbour to the Engineer Parks, and 145 tons of biscuits to
the Army Headquarters; if they had not done so, not a man in the
Front could have existed. The half-starved, insufficiently clad,
overworked, but uncomplaining Old soldier, serving at the Front, was
generally in the trenches four or five nights, and in one recorded
instance for six nights, in a week; those on sentry duty, 300 yards in
advance of our works, having to stand motionless for two hours at a
time. When they got back to camp they had but the shelter of a
worn-out tent, through which the rain beating, collected in puddles;
the feeblest fell asleep, completely exhausted, to awake shivering,
and carried to a hospital tent but little better than the company tent,
and two or three days later to a grave. The stronger men went out
with picks when available, and dug up roots of stunted oak and
vines for fuel, and then roasting the green coffee berry in the lid of
the canteen, pounded it in a shell fragment, and boiled it. The
greater number, however, unequal to so much effort for so little
result, consuming their biscuit and rum, slept, generally in a wet
greatcoat or blanket, until required to carry a load of ammunition or
biscuit. These loads were limited to 40 lbs.; but the exertion was
great, for the men on the Balaklava track waded through mud.
When going down that track on the 31st January, I had my
boots sucked off my feet in the tenacious soil, and I saw eighteen
horses trying in vain to move a gun-carriage similar to that which we
had dragged up by hand on the same ground in the previous
October.
However, the ground was now drying up, and we mounted some
new guns in both Attacks during the first week of February. There
was still great misery amongst the soldiers, but it was lessening, and
there were a few days of fine weather early in the month.
On the night of the 3rd a party of 150 Bluejackets were dragging
guns down to the Left Attack. For some reason to me unknown,
they, it was said owing to injudicious treatment of the officers,
turned sulky, and at a further unpalatable order given just as they
got the guns on the rising ground overlooking the Left Attack
trenches, the men dropped the drag ropes, and in spite of the
expostulations and orders of their officers, returned to camp. Next
day all these men were handed over to me for punishment on the
principle of “Watch and watch,” but the watch in their case consisted
of manual labour. They were employed in carrying duties, and were
not to be allowed more rest in camp than four hours. The unusual
experiment of giving a young Midshipman the command of 150 men
who had behaved badly ended satisfactorily, the men being forgiven
after undergoing a week’s punishment.
Towards the end of February we re-armed the 21-gun battery
throughout, mounting some 8-inch 65 cwt. guns, and long 32-
pounders, 56 cwt., besides two more 68-pounders, and another
Lancaster, 95 cwt. gun. We had now more soldiers to guard our
Position. The Right Attack trenches, which extended over a mile, had
been often held by 350, and one night by 300 men; but
reinforcements were now arriving. Admiral Boxer, who came to
Balaklava and took charge of the Port at the end of January, effected
vast improvements: he built landing-stages, and evolved order out of
Chaos, and thus, when carrying parties went down to the harbour,
they were no longer kept waiting for their loads.
The last week of February, the 2nd Division was annoyed by the
shells thrown up from two Russian men-of-war, moored in the outer
harbour. Their guns were slung on deck at an angle of 45°. Captain
Peel worked out a scheme for the capture of the vessel, on which he
did me the honour of asking my opinion. He proposed to take six
boats after dark down the face of the Inkerman cliff, almost opposite
the steamers, which were lying 300 yards from the shore. We were
to launch the boats, board the ships, and kill or drive below the few
men only who would be on deck, as we believed, after the crew had
retired to rest. If we succeeded, we were to tow the ships ashore, or
if necessary, higher up the harbour, immediately under the hill on
the crest of which the critical struggle of Inkerman took place. I was
silent, but when pressed for an opinion as to the probable result I
frankly said that I thought its success was more than doubtful; I
argued, however, that our loss of men would not be in vain, for the
Russians would probably withdraw their steamers, while our men
would be encouraged by the adventurous nature of the undertaking.
I gathered later that Lord Raglan was in favour of the attempt, but
the Naval Commander-in-Chief vetoed it.
Captain Peel’s scheme having become known, it encouraged
other seamen, and later John Shephard, Boatswain’s Mate of H.M.S.
St. Jeanne d’Arc, invented, and constructed a small boat for one man
carrying a powerful explosive. He got amongst the Russian ships
without being noticed; but the ferry-boats, which plied to the north
side, and back, prevented the execution of his plan. To my grief,
Captain Peel now being sick, re-embarked, and the Diamond’s men
were recalled to their ship, Peel himself passing later to the
command of H.M.S. Leander, a larger frigate.
On the 22nd March the Russians attacked the French near the
Mamelon early in the evening, and were repulsed, after inflicting
considerable loss on our Allies. Later, another strong column, passing
up by the left or western end of the French works, moved on our
No. 8 battery, just below the 21-gun battery, led by a handsome
Circassian chief, who was attended by a small bugler about sixteen
years of age. The lad stood on our parapet, sounding the advance,
until he fell, pierced by seven bullets. There was much hand-to-hand
fighting, but the end of it was that the Russians were driven back,
mainly by parties of the 7th, 34th, and 90th Regiments.
Next day a flag of Truce was arranged for 12.30, and I was sent
down to the trenches with a large piece of calico, which I handed
over to the Senior officer in the battery, and then hurried on to our
most advanced trench, hoping to reach the Mamelon before the
sentries on either side were pushed out. When the flag was hoisted,
I ran as fast as I could to the Front, and picking up a wounded
Russian, on the north side of the ravine, sent him back by soldiers
who were following me. The man must have been told we were
cruel, for he made signs begging for his life. Near to him I picked up
a haversack, and the Russian, when he saw that he was not to be
killed, begged me to give him the black bread inside it. For two
hours the combatants on either side engaged in friendly
conversation.
There were some few Russian officers who spoke English, and
many could converse in French. Some of them remarked on the
excellent practice we made with the 68-pounder gun in the 21-gun
battery, and said they hoped to open upon us with one of a similar
calibre next morning, with which they intended to silence our gun.
We accepted the challenge eagerly, and arranged that other guns
should not take part in the duel. Soon after daylight the Russian gun
opened fire, and we answered it shot by shot, no other guns taking
part in the cannonade. Our practice was, however, better than that
of our opponents, and the seventeenth shot caused the Russians to
cease firing, and drop a mantlet over the embrasure, thus admitting
that they were out of action.
On the 2nd April Captain Peel rejoined, bringing with him 200
men from his new command, H.M.S. Leander, and took me for his
Aide-de-Camp, for Mr. Daniels had not then returned. Captain Peel’s
opinion was valued more and more from this time, and with Lord
Raglan he daily gained influence. Before he rejoined the Brigade, he
proposed a scheme for breaking the floating boom which enclosed
the entrance to the harbour. His plan was to lash on either side of
H.M.S. Leander a laden collier, and then, sending everyone below, to
steer the ship himself at full speed against the obstacle. He
calculated that the combined weight of the vessels would break the
boom, and once inside the harbour Peel intended to engage the
forts, being supported by the whole of the Fleet, which he urged
should follow him. Though his plan was not adopted, his enterprise
and carefully-thought-out scheme gained him increased
consideration at Army Headquarters.
I nearly lost my appointment as Aide-de-Camp on the 6th April,
when going up the “Covered way” on the right of our 68-pounders.
Just as I reached the gun a man called out to me, “Look out!” I
stood still, but had not time to move before a 13-inch mortar shell
fell within six feet of me. It was fitted, however, with a long fuse,
and by using my legs freely I got out of reach before it burst.
Besides the great privilege of being associated with Captain Peel, I
gained another advantage in that I was now entitled to draw forage
for my pony. During the following week I profited by the animal’s
sagacity. I had been sent with a message to a party constructing a
battery in front of our Left Attack, the ground of which I did not
know in the same way as that of the Right, where I could almost
find my way blindfolded. It was just dark, when, having delivered my
message, I turned my face as I thought homewards, but
inadvertently rode out to the left of the Left Attack, just where it
joined hands with the right of the French. My pony was going
unwillingly, and seeing that I had lost my way I halted. I could not
identify my position, so threw the reins on the pony’s neck; it turned
sharply round, and cantered direct to my camp.
CHAPTER VII
1855—SIEGE OF SEVASTOPOL

Narrow escape of Lord Raglan—Michael Hardy’s


dauntless courage—Death of Lieutenant Douglas—
Selections for the Victoria Cross—Stephen Welch’s
Divine-like act of self-sacrifice—Sardinian outposts
at Tchorgoum—Assault of the Mamelon—An intrepid
Zouave—Terrible losses of the Russians.

D URING the first week in April, Lord Raglan, accompanied by


General Sir Harry Jones, walked round our battery, and on
reaching the guns under my command asked where he could sit
down, and Sir Harry told me to place some empty shell-boxes near
the 68-pounder, so that his Lordship could sit on them. There was
only desultory firing at the time, but probably Sir Harry did not know
that the 68-pounders received more attention from our foes than all
the rest of the battery. He went away, and was scarcely out of sight
when a shot cut through the parapet, six inches only above Lord
Raglan’s head, smothering him with stones and earth. He stood up
to shake some of the dirt off his neck and head, observing in an
unmoved tone, “Quite close enough.”

It rained for twenty-four hours on the 8th April, and when we


went to our guns on the 9th, the water was up to the level of the
platforms, which stood ten inches above the ground. The Russians
had apparently not anticipated a renewal of the bombardment, for
they scarcely answered our fire; but we did not know at the time
that they had run out of gun cartridges, and were obliged to use
infantry cartridges, to make up charges for their guns. We got the
range immediately with the 8-inch gun, which stood in the obtuse
angle of the battery, the right face of which looked to the Malakoff,
and the left face to the Redan. The gun was served by Queen’s, who
had been in battery since October, but the Leander’s, who had the
two 32-pounders, 56 cwt. guns, were new to the work, and the
shooting was wild. While I was myself getting the range with the
centre gun, the captain of the right-hand gun made such erratic
shots that I ordered him to “cease firing,” when No. 3, the “Loader,”
Able-seaman Michael Hardy, asked me if the gun’s crew might
“change rounds,” and that he might be No. 1; I assented, and after
two trial shots Hardy got on the target, and made excellent practice.
During the first hour the embrasure of the 8-inch gun, which
drew the greater portion of the enemy’s fire, was cut down and
rebuilt three times. A sergeant and two Sappers, detailed for
repairing that part of the battery, were wounded, and I had
personally to repair the embrasure after the first occasion of its
being demolished. After three hours’ firing, the 8-inch gun where I
was standing became so hot from incessant use that we were
obliged to “cease fire,” and the men released from their work
crowded up on the platform to be out of the water, which in the
trench was half-way up to their knees. My other two guns continued
in action; I had a telescope laid in my left hand along the gun, and
was steadying my right hand on the shoulder of Charles Green, First
Class boy, of H.M.S. Queen, who was sitting on the right rear truck
of the gun.
While I was calling out the results of the targets made, a man
handed round the rum for the gun’s crew, and Green asked me to
move my elbow, so that he might not shake me while drinking his
grog. We both stood up, and he was holding the pannikin to his
mouth, when a shot from the Redan, coming obliquely from our left,
took off his head, the body falling on me. At this moment Michael
30
Hardy, having just fired his gun, was “serving the vent.” Hardy had
turned up his sleeves and trousers, and his shirt being open low on
the neck and chest, his face and body were covered with the
contents of the boy’s head. Now, if he had lifted his thumb from the
vent the result might have been fatal to Nos. 3 and 4, who were
then ramming home the next charge; but Hardy never flinched.
Without moving his right hand, he wiped with his left the boy’s
brains from his face. Those sitting at my feet were speechless, being
startled, as indeed I was, for I had felt the wind from the Russian
shot which had passed within an inch of my face. We were brought
back to a sense of duty by Hardy’s somewhat contemptuous “You
—— fools, what the hell are you looking at? Is he dead? Take his
carcase away. Ain’t he dead? Take him to the doctor.” “Jim, are you
home?” he asked of No. 3, the Loader, who was in the act of giving
the final tap, after having rammed home the charge, and seeing him
nod, without bestowing another look on us, or possibly even thinking
of me, he gave the order, “Run out. Ready.”
From this time to his death I saw a great deal of Hardy, as we
generally went to battery together, for although I had become an
Aide-de-Camp I remained at battery duty, when Captain Peel did not
require me.
Hardy carried down my blanket and tea-bottle, receiving my
allowance of rum for his services. He was in many ways a
remarkable man, for when stationed at Eupatoria in the autumn of
1854, he amassed by questionable means a number of ponies, and
started a livery stable, hiring them out to officers of the Fleet. I
cannot say any more of his courage than that he was as brave as
Captain Peel, but in quite a different way, for I doubt whether Hardy
ever felt danger.
Whenever I was in battery during this and the following
bombardments, Captain Peel gave me the same charge as that held
by Lieutenants, and although I never went near him unless I was
sent for, he somehow managed to see or learn anything I was doing
well. About 1 p.m. on the 9th I was taken ill; I had been working
since daylight on a cup of coffee, in a thin jacket, and chilled by the
incessant rain, shivered continuously. Captain Peel noticing my state,
sent me back to camp, and in doing so expressed his satisfaction at
my conduct. Later, I learnt he had told Lord Raglan of my mending
the embrasure twice under heavy fire, after the sappers had been
wounded, which I was not previously aware he had seen.
Before night fell on the 9th, one face of the Redan was in ruins,
the guns being silenced. All that night, and throughout the 10th, a
steady fire was kept up on all the Russian batteries by mortars. On
the 11th I was sent early by Captain Peel with a note for
Commodore Lushington, and by him was ordered to take it on to
Lord Raglan. The paper was inscribed with these words: “If the Allies
intend to assault, a better opportunity than this will not offer; the
fire of the Russian batteries round the Malakoff is completely
crushed.” When close to Headquarters and galloping fast, my pony
put his foot into a hole, and turning right over covered my face and
clothes with mud, and I thus appeared before the Commander-in-
Chief, who was in the farmyard at Headquarters casting troop
horses, apparently belonging to his escort. He astonished his Staff
by warmly shaking hands with the very dirty Midshipman, as he
offered him breakfast. He then read the note, but merely remarked,
“Impossible, I fear.”
As I rode into the battery on my return, I met four men carrying
away the body of Douglas, my most intimate friend. The top of his
head had been knocked off by a round-shot. On his handsome face
there was still the pleasant smile which endeared him to all of us. He
was singularly unselfish, and by his undaunted courage had
attracted the notice of Captain Peel, who had paid him the
compliment of asking him to show his indifference to danger. On the
evening of the 10th, Douglas observed to me at dinner, “You have
lost a good many men to-day, perhaps it will be my turn to-morrow.”
I answered laughingly, “Yes, and mine next day.” After dinner he
went over to H.M.S. London officers’ tent, and returning said, “Our
friends are in considerable trouble, for their Mess caterer, Twyford,
was killed to-day. I shall now close my accounts, and you shall all
pay up to-night.” This we did, and in spite of my earnest
remonstrance he insisted on giving back some money he had been
keeping for me.
During this second bombardment, although the Russians were
short of powder, yet their practice was much better than it was in
October. One of their shells dropping into the magazine of the 8-gun
battery immediately in our front, exploded it, one man being killed
and nine wounded; and although the guns in the battery were
uninjured, yet the earth from the crater formed by the explosion of
the shell, twenty feet in diameter, embedded some of the guns so
deeply that they were unworkable until they were cleared next day.
A shell which burst on striking the parapet near me killed two
men and literally buried three others, so that we had to dig them
out; they were insensible, but all recovered. Ten days later the 21-
gun battery had a fortunate escape, for the Russians dropped a 13-
inch mortar shell through the roof into a magazine; it crushed the
magazine-man to death, but did not explode.
I forbear to enumerate the many narrow escapes most of us
had, but there were two peculiar ones which merit notice. Alongside
the magazine which supplied the gun I was working we had some
tools for fitting fuses; a man was actually sawing a fuse which was
clamped in a vice on a little table, when a shell bursting on the
parapet sent fragments all around us; one fragment struck and
ignited the fuse, but the man escaped with merely a scorched wrist,
burnt by the composition. We were not always so fortunate, for a
shell bursting over one of our 68-pounder guns killed or wounded 13
men. I saw a remarkable escape of Lieutenant Graves, Royal
Engineers, who was killed when speaking to me at the Redan three
months later. On the 10th of April he was standing in an embrasure
the faces of which required repair, when a round-shot struck the sole
—that is, the ground surface—immediately under his feet. He was
considerably shaken and bruised by his fall, but was on duty again in
a few days.
It was calculated that during the bombardment the Allies threw
130,000 projectiles into Sevastopol, the Russians answering with
about three to our four shots. Their losses, however, were in
proportion greater, as will be understood on reference to the map at
end of Chapter IX. The Russian projectiles, unless they actually
struck the targets, i.e. our parapet, guns, or bodies, exploded behind
the battery without doing damage. Many of their works were to
some extent enfiladed by our guns, and thus a shot or shell missing
its object often killed someone farther off. The Malakoff presented to
us a target of about 200 yards wide from east to west, but it was
more than double that depth—that is, from south to north—and thus
few of our shells failed to explode inside the works. Their losses
were terrible; and later, during a flag of truce, when one of our
officers observed we had suffered heavy losses, a Russian officer
replied, “You talk of your losses—why, you don’t know what loss is,
in comparison with what we are suffering.” Sir Edward Hamley
describing the Russian hospital, states that the floor of the
operating-room was often half an inch deep in coagulated blood.
By the 18th of April the Allies had beaten down the fire of the
Russian batteries, and General Todleben daily expected that the
31
French would carry the Bastion du Mat.
The ammunition supply of the Naval guns was much better
arranged than in October, and it was brought in without casualties
through the “Covered way”; but as there were as yet no animals for
such purposes, our men were employed both night and day in
carrying up powder, shot, and shell from Balaklava.
Our losses were heavy. The Bluejackets were somewhat more
exposed than were the Artillery, for their guns, mounted on large
wheels, “ran up” in half the time that it took us to haul out our guns
mounted on trucks, or little wooden wheels. After the April
bombardment, and from that time on, however, the casualties in the
two Services were reversed, for the Artillery manned nearly all the
advanced batteries, and suffered accordingly.
One night early in May, we were replacing some guns which had
been disabled during the April bombardment, and I had occasion to
rebuke Michael Hardy, whose stoical courage had impressed me so
greatly on the 9th of April. A party of about 60 men was in charge of
a Lieutenant who had recently joined the Brigade. He was not a
good officer, and had an unpleasant, querulous manner, which
accounted for the trouble. Our 32-pounder guns were put in position
by the guns being placed upside down on the ground, and the
carriage fastened on top of it, with its trucks (wheels) in the air. A
long rope was fastened to the carriage, and a turn of it taken round
a hand-spike, which was placed in the bore of the gun; 50 men were
then put on the rope, and with a sharp pull they turned the gun over
into its proper position. Unless the men holding on the rope were
kept in an absolutely straight line, which was difficult at night and on
broken ground, the gun instead of “coming up” properly would fall
on its side, and this happened several times, mainly through the
fault of the officer. The Russians heard the noise, and sent several
shells close over our heads. While the men were laying hold of the
rope for the fifth or sixth time, the Lieutenant irritated them by some
unpleasant observation, and a voice from the end of the rope was
heard to say, “Will nobody send that —— fool away, and put a man
there as knows how to do it?” The Lieutenant immediately ran off to
report to the Senior officer in the battery the insubordinate state of
the men. I waited until he was out of earshot, and then called out,
for I had recognised the voice, “Michael Hardy, drop that, or you will
be a prisoner.” I replaced the men, just as a couple of shells fell
close to us, and giving the words, “One, two, three, haul,” the gun
came up “righted” on its carriage. When the Lieutenant returned
with the Senior officer, they found the men standing at attention,
and the gun in position.
Young officers who may read this book will probably think I was
wrong; officers who have served long, and know the difficulties of
getting a conviction by Court Martial in such a case, will probably
think mine was the better course.
In the second week of May, Commodore Lushington, at a
parade, ordered his Secretary to read out his recommendations for
the Victoria Cross Order, which was not, however, formally instituted
till 1856. He had submitted seven names, and told us he hoped all
would be approved; but in any case he meant to maintain the
sequence of names. The first three were: Captain W. Peel;
Midshipman —— Daniel; Midshipman E. Wood. I was naturally very
pleased, but no one in the Sailors’ camp then realised the value of
the proposed Order, and the opposition to it amongst the senior
officers in the Army raised doubts as to its being instituted. When
Commanding officers professed inability to select recipients, the
Government ordered the selection should be made by the Rank and
File, and in one distinguished battalion a soldier was chosen who
was never long under fire. He lived a comparatively safe and easy
life, for on account of his honesty and steadiness he was entrusted
with the rum keg, which he brought down to the trenches, and
having issued to every man his tot, returned to camp.
During the second week in May, the Sardinian Army, of 15,000
men, landed at Balaklava, and occupied the left bank of the
Tchernaya, from the aqueduct opposite Tchorgoum village to Tractir
Bridge. Two days later, Lieutenant Dalyell of the Leander, my usual
companion (after the death of Lieutenant Douglas), and I, leaving
camp at 4 a.m., rode down the Balaklava Valley, anxious to enjoy a
ride in fresh country after being confined for six months to the
limited space of the Upland. The French sentries on Tractir Bridge
declined, and rightly, to allow us to pass; but we went higher up the
river, and the Sardinians mistaking us for Staff officers, from the gold
lace on our caps, raised no objection to our going to Tchorgoum, on
the opposite side, telling us, however, that it was occupied by a
Russian picket. We saw no one except two vedettes on the hill
overlooking the village, 150 feet above us. One of them dismounted,
and fixing his lance in the ground used it for a rest for his gun, and
had several shots at me, at about 300 yards’ range, as I was holding
Dalyell’s pony, while he was foraging in a house. Some of the bullets
fell near to me, and three Cossacks hearing the fire came into the
road 400 yards up the village. I shouted to my comrade to mount,
and as he emerged six more Cossacks joined the three men. They
formed up in two ranks facing us, as Dalyell handed me a cat, which
I put into my haversack, while he carried an article of domestic
crockery greatly prized in camp. We hastily consulted as to what we
should do, for if we had turned the Cossacks might have overtaken
us before we got back to the aqueduct, so decided on an aggressive
movement. I fired one barrel of my revolver at the more
troublesome vedette of the two, who was, however, a long way out
of pistol-shot, and we then cantered at the group in front of us.
They probably imagined that we had others behind us, for they
turned and fled. As we rode back a company of Sardinians advanced
to our assistance.
Cholera broke out in the Army during the second week in May,
and the Naval Brigade moved out of the sheltered valley where it
had encamped since November, to the top of the hill, near the 3rd
Division. We did not escape altogether, but suffered little in
comparison with the soldiers. On the evening of the 21st May I
counted twenty-one bodies outside the Divisional Hospital tents,
sewn up in blankets ready for burial.
During the forenoon of the 3rd June several men of the Relief for
the gun detachments were going into battery from the Woronzow
road; there was little fire at the time, and the men, disregarding the
order which prescribed that they should enter by the “Covered way,”
were walking over the open ground. As the last of the party
approached the 21-gun battery, there was a shout, “Look out,
Whistling Dick!” This induced the men to run, for the appalling size
of “Whistling Dick” struck terror into the bravest heart amongst us.
It is illogical, no doubt, to fear an enormous shell more than a bullet,
for either can send us into the next world, but most of us have a
32
greater fear of the larger destructive object. All the men except
John Blewitt, of H.M.S. Queen, safely reached the trench, and were
crouching in it, waiting for the explosion. Blewitt, as he bent forward
to run, was struck immediately at the back of the knees by the mass
of iron, 13 inches in diameter, and fell to the ground crushed under
its weight, in sight of his horror-stricken messmates. He called out to
his chum, Stephen Welch, “Oh, Stephen, Stephen, don’t leave me to
die!” The fuse was hissing, but Welch jumping up from under cover
of the edge of the trench, which must, humanly speaking, have
ensured his safety, called out, “Come on, lads; let’s try,” and running
out, he had got his arms round Blewitt, and was trying to roll the
shell from off his legs when it exploded, and not a particle of the
bodies or of the clothes of the two men could be found. I did not
witness Welch’s Divine-like act of self-sacrifice, but passing
immediately afterwards helped the men, though in vain, to look for
his remains. Captain Michell of the Queen, out of his own small
income, pensioned Welch’s mother.
During the night of the 3rd June, the Artillery alongside of us
were firing some “carcases,” but it became necessary to stop firing,
as nearly every round burst at the muzzle, wounding some soldiers,
and frightening more. I looked at some of these missiles next
morning, and found that they had been made at the end of the
previous century.
On the 6th June I accompanied Captain Peel round the Sailors’
Battery on the Right Attack, to ensure everyone being ready for
what we hoped might be the last bombardment. At 2 p.m. we fired
our first gun at the Malakoff, and immediately afterwards, from the
Inkerman ridge overlooking the harbour, round to Kamiesh Bay, on a
frontage of five miles, shells were thrown from 550 guns with a force
which shook the ground. The Russians had still about double that
number of pieces in position, but they were slow in answering our
fire, which we continued till dusk. Then the bombardment was taken
up by mortars, which lit up the Russian works throughout the night,
so constantly were shells bursting amongst our enemy. I left the
trenches at 10.30 p.m., but went back again at 1 a.m. with fresh
gun detachments; for my duties as Aide-de-Camp never interfered
with my regular employment with the Queen’s men, unless when
actually required by Captain Peel. At daylight we re-opened
horizontal fire, and early in the forenoon had silenced the Mamelon
and Malakoff batteries. Nevertheless, although we slowed down our
fire, we kept the guns in action to prevent any repairs being
undertaken; and at five o’clock Captain Peel gave me charge of two
8-inch 65 cwt. guns, with instructions that I was to fire during the
assault as long as possible, without endangering our Allies.
At six o’clock, while we were anxiously waiting the signal for
attack, the setting sun had cast a broad red light over the sky, and a
soft mist rising from the ground obscured now and then from our
vision the troops assembling for the assault, about a mile on our
right front. I have described at length the taking of the Mamelon in
The Crimea in 1854-’94, and I now confine my story to the help the
two guns I superintended were able to afford our Allies. The
remainder of the guns’ crews in the 21-gun battery had orders to
cease firing as soon as the French started, but I was allowed greater
latitude from my having been over the ground on which the Russians
and French were about to fight. Soon after six o’clock a group of
rockets sent up from the Victoria ridge gave the signal. At that
moment there was only one Russian battalion in the Mamelon, nine
being held some way back under cover. Admiral Nakimoff was
visiting the Mamelon at the time, and having left his horse at the
33
gorge, was walking round the battery, when the almost total
cessation of fire from our batteries, followed by the shouts of the
French, made him look round.
As the signal went up, 25 men jumped out abreast of the trench,
and ran up the slope of the hill towards the Mamelon, from which
came but one cannon-shot. Some Russian sharp-shooters were lying
in a trench half-way up, and firing, killed three or four men, and then
ran, they and the leading Frenchman crossing the ditch of the
Mamelon simultaneously.
A Frenchman mounting the parapet waved a Tricolour, and in
four minutes the Russians were driven from their work. My two 8-
inch guns were ready, with fuses accurately set, and we sent several
shells into the retreating Russians before I ceased firing, for fear of
hitting the French following in pursuit. The leading group of Zouaves
was led by one man, who, 60 yards in front of his comrades, chased
the Russians as they ran. I kept my field-glass on that Zouave until
he crossed the abatis of the Mamelon, where he fired his rifle and
disappeared into the ditch. When his comrades fell back, he did not
accompany them.
While this was occurring two columns of Russians assembled on
the east of the Malakoff, on the northern slope of the ridge which
connects the Mamelon and the Malakoff. I had looked carefully over
this ground during the Truce in March, and knowing the lie of it,
could when standing on the parapet locate the Russians, seeing as
low down as their waist-belts. I was thus enabled to pour on them a
destructive fire from the 8-inch guns, the shells of which, bursting
just short enough for effect, literally cut lanes through the masses;
but their comrades closed up as fast, and in a few minutes the
Russian columns advanced, and entering the Mamelon pushed the
French out. The man with the Tricolour was struck down, and
replaced four times by others, and then the flag went up and down,
in rapid succession. Eventually the Russians came down like a rolling
wave from the Mamelon, and penetrated the trenches of our Allies.
Just as night closed in, however, the work was retaken by the French
as bravely as the Russians had recaptured it.
When Lord Raglan saw the French assault he gave the order for
our troops to advance on the Quarries, which were easily taken; but
to hold them and reverse the work was a task involving much labour
and loss of life. The enemy’s works looked right down into the
entrenchments, and the Russians made repeated attacks on the
working parties who were striving to obtain cover before day broke,
but our men held on. The French took 93 guns, and had 5500
casualties; the British, including 47 officers, had 700 casualties;
while the Russians lost nearly 5000 in killed, wounded, and
prisoners.
Next morning I went to battery at 4 a.m., as it was intended to
continue the bombardment. About eight o’clock, missing Captain
Peel, I traced him as going towards the Mamelon, where I met him
as he was coming out. He ordered me back, but eventually said I
might go and look for a few minutes. Men spoke in whispers: it was
not a place to linger in; for in the short time I was there, say five
minutes, I saw a dozen Frenchmen killed and wounded. Inside, dead
men were lying heaped in every attitude imaginable, some of the
bodies being literally cut into two parts, while numbers were crushed
under overturned cannon. That afternoon there was a truce for
collecting the dead and wounded, and again going down, I looked
carefully over the work, which was a marvel of labour in constructing
cover from fire, enormous baulks of timber being used to support
masses of earth.
During the truce Captain Peel and I strolled up to the Russian
sentries, about 200 yards outside the Malakoff. We recognised a
Circassian chief to whom I had spoken on the 23rd of March, and we
exchanged felicitations on our being alive. Captain Peel’s shirt collars
excited the envy of the Russian officers, who asked how we
managed it, and he replied, “We brought our laundry-women with
us.”
Two days later, when Captain Peel, Lieutenant Dalyell, and I
were discussing the chances of the impending assault, Peel asked,
“If you had to lose a limb, which one could you best spare?” I
replied without hesitation, “Left arm.” Dalyell agreed with me, but
our Chief argued that arms are more useful for sailors than legs;
eventually, however, on my suggesting that a one-legged man would
probably become very stout, he came round to our view. It is
remarkable that a week later we were employed in the Assault, and
all three of us were wounded in the left arm.
CHAPTER VIII
1855—ASSAULT OF THE REDAN

Long months of danger blunt sensibility—Preparations—


Description of the work to be attacked—The Naval ladder
party is destroyed.

T HROUGHOUT the week of the 10th-17th of June, in common


with many of my comrades in the Naval Brigade, I suffered
from low fever and severe intestinal complaints, and although I
managed to evade our doctor, I was much reduced in strength, nor
did I shake off the fever until I had been some time on board ship,
where I was sent after being severely wounded. I was at battery
again at 2.30 a.m. on the 13th June, and we re-opened fire on the
Malakoff as soon as we could see. The Russians in it, however, had
now not only lost the support of their guns in the Mamelon, but
were being battered by the French from it, and they could only hold
the Malakoff under heavy loss. Unskilled Infantry were employed to
replace the trained Seamen Gunners, most of whom had been killed.
The Russian batteries were crippled also by having to keep some
gunners in the sea-front forts, for our steamers stood in, and
bombarded them. Our gallant foe, however, managed to fire some
19,000 projectiles in twenty-four hours of the 13th-14th.

On the 16th I was lying in blankets, feeling very ill, when my


friends of H.M.S. Leander came to see me. I was groaning with pain
in my bones, but they insisted that a ride and a bathe would be
more likely to do me good than medicine, and somewhat unwillingly
I accompanied them to the cliffs under the Monastery of St. George,
where the deep water enabled us to take headers from a rock.
Strange as it may appear, I did feel rather better afterwards.
During the forenoon of the 17th, General Pélissier arranged with
Lord Raglan to re-open fire on the 18th, and to assault two hours
later. Late in the evening, Pélissier sent to say he had changed his
mind, and wished to assault at dawn. Lord Raglan did not get the
message until very late in the evening, for he was riding round the
camps, and thought it was better to assent rather than to create ill-
feeling by refusing, and so our troops parading at midnight got into
their assigned positions before dawn on the 18th.
On the 17th I was asleep in battery, suffering from fever, and
towards the middle of the day awaking, I missed Captain Peel, and
found he had gone back to camp; there I again missed him, and so
returned to the battery. I was cantering my pony up the “Covered
way,” and had got within 50 yards of the Lancaster gun, when the
pony swerved to the right out of the trench, and stood still,
trembling. There were many shells bursting near the battery, but
none very near to the pony, which was generally steady under fire,
so I applied both spurs; but planting his fore feet on to the ground,
he refused to move, and just as I was shortening my reins to urge
him on, I heard the noise of something falling through the air, and in
less time than it takes to describe a large piece of mortar-shell fell in
the trench close to the pony’s forehand. He evidently had heard it
when he swerved.
When I saw my Chief in camp that evening, I found with him
one of our senior officers, and from what I heard when entering his
tent, gathered that he was arranging for an assault. He turned to me
and said, “Oh, Wood, you are not well to-day.” I replied, “Not well,
sir, but not very ill.” “You had better go to bed; I shall not want you
to-morrow morning.” “I suppose, sir, that we are going to assault?”
“Yes, and as you are not well enough to go up with us, you will
please stop in camp.” “Are you going to take your other Aide-de-
Camp, sir?” “Yes; I promised him a long time ago.”
I left the tent no doubt showing the disappointment I felt, so
Captain Peel called me back and said, “Well, well, you may go on
with me as far as the battery, but no farther.” To which I immediately
replied, “Is the other Aide-de-Camp to go on with you?” And he said,
“Yes, I intend to take him to the Redan.”
That evening in our camp I had to submit to a good deal of
chaff, for it was known immediately that Captain Peel did not intend
to take me out with him. On entering one of the Messes of which I
was an honorary member, the conversation turned on the impending
Assault, and one of the officers laughed at me, but in a friendly way,
for having been forbidden to go beyond the battery. I said, “Barring
accidents, I’ll bet you I go as far as my Chief.” Another officer
observed, “I’ll lay five sovereigns to one, young Wood is killed to-
morrow.” Dalyell replied, “Done; but bet’s off if I am killed.”
My friend was more irritated by the remark than I was; but the
man had however, no intention of being unkind, for nine months’
constant warfare with the daily losses in the trenches had no doubt
blunted our senses. The question of Life and Death was discussed at
meals with the utmost freedom, and there were indeed some
grounds for supposing that the immunity I had hitherto enjoyed
could not continue. Fifty Naval officers landed on the 2nd October,
and there were only two of us present who had been on duty
throughout the winter. Some of our comrades had been killed, more
wounded, and the remainder invalided home, or sent to England for
various reasons, the more common being that of their promotion.
At ten o’clock that night, having instructed a Bluejacket standing
sentry near my tent to rouse me when the Ladder parties paraded, I
fell asleep. The sentry, however, did not awake me, having been
cautioned personally by Captain Peel that I was not to be aroused.
The men “falling in” awoke me at midnight however, and my brother
Aide-de-Camp coming to see if I was awake, we agreed that if, as
was probable, our Chief was killed in the assault, one of us should
stand by him, or bring in his body.
I had been taking heavy and repeated doses of laudanum for
three days, and when Daniel left me, feeling thoroughly worn out, I
turned over and slept again, until Michael Hardy came into the tent
and shook me. I told him to go away, as I was too ill to move, to
which he replied, “Shure, you’ll never forgive yourself if you miss this
morning’s fun;” and against my will he proceeded to dress me. It did
not take long, for my attire consisted of cap, jacket, trousers, and
low shoes. Hardy having propped me up against the tent-pole,
brought my pony, on which he put me, being obliged however, to
hold me in the saddle, for I was too weak to grip with my legs. We
hurried after the men for two miles down to the trenches as fast as
darkness permitted, and soon after 1 a.m. reached the 21-gun
battery, where I tied the pony up to a Lancaster gun.
When I reported myself to Captain Peel, he was seeing the men
told off into parties, six men to each ladder, and a Petty officer to
every two ladders. I asked if he had thought to bring down a Union
Jack, that we might have it up in the Redan before the Regimental
Colours, which, as I found later, were not taken out. He regretted
that he had not thought of it, but agreed that it was then too late to
obtain the flag. Somewhat later he sent me with a message to the
other end of the battery, and having delivered it I was obliged to sit
down for a quarter of an hour to rest, for my legs appeared to be
incapable of carrying my body.
The battery was a scene of apparently inextricable confusion.
The night was still dark; excited Commanding officers were looking
for the Engineers who were to guide the assaulting columns, and the
number of men passing into the battery, meeting and crossing each
other, together with the attempts to enforce silence, which were not
altogether successful, made me fear the parties would never get into
their assigned positions before daylight.
When, after resting, I returned to the right of the battery where
I had left Peel, the Ladder parties had moved off to pick up their
loads, placed by the Engineers in a hollow to the north of the 3rd
parallel. I went a short distance towards the place, and then
realising that the parties must come back again towards the
Quarries, waited; presently coming on my Chief, who was having the
sections renumbered, to ensure every man being in his proper place
on either side of the ladders. When this was done, we lay down
under the breastwork, about three feet high, waiting for the signal,
which was to be a flag hoisted in the 8-gun battery. While we were
lying there, Captain Peel sent me on five different errands, none
34
being of any importance. On the last occasion, just at the false
dawn, disregarding many bullets from the Redan, I walked straight
across the open towards the Rear, instead of going round by the
zigzags. Captain Peel then called me back, giving up the attempt to
get rid of me.
The Russians foresaw that the impending Assault must be
delivered soon, and at two o’clock that morning their bugles
sounded the “Assembly,” the troops getting into position about the
time the Allies were moving into the trenches. General Mayran, who
fell in leading his Division with great courage, mistaking the blazing
fuse of an ordinary mortar-shell for the signal rocket, launched the
Attack before dawn broke.
Pélissier had intended that the advance of all three of the
assaulting columns should be simultaneous, but owing to some
mistake in Orders, the Divisions were late in getting into the
positions of “concentration,” and eventually the French, after
suffering great losses for about forty minutes, retired. On the
extreme left of the British Attack, General Eyre pushed into some
houses at the foot of the enemy’s main line of works, and held them
till sunset, but lost in casualties 560, including 93 officers, out of a
total strength of 2000.
The Redan, as its name technically implies, was formed of two
faces, each of which was 70 yards in length, meeting in a salient,
the lines of parapet being continued to works on either flank. It
stood on a hill 30 feet lower than the 21-gun battery, but as the
ground fell between them, held a commanding position—indeed,
looking down into the Quarries, some half-way between it and our
21-gun battery. The parapet at the salient itself was 17 feet high,
and on the left face, where I approached it, stood 15 feet above the
surface of the ground. The ditch was 11 feet deep, and varied in
width from 20 at the salient to 15 feet at the faces. As the work was
open in the rear, we could not have held it if we had got in, as long
as the enemy was still in the Bastion du Mat and Malakoff. The glacis
of the Redan was the natural surface of the ground, which met in a
35
ridge on the line of the capital: part of this ridge was seen in some
degree from the adjoining flanks, though they were on a lower level
than the salient, and the ridge itself was exposed to fire from both
flanks. The slope up which the Stormers passed was covered by long
rank grass, seamed by disused gravel-pits and holes made by
explosions of mortar-shells, by innumerable rifle trenches, and
craters formed by small portable mines.
Each column was composed as follows:—10 Sappers, 100
Skirmishers, 120 men carrying ladders, 60 being Bluejackets, and 50
men carrying bags of hay or wool. Storming party:—400 bayonets;
Reserve 800; working party 400.
The arrangements for the Assault contemplated that 800 men,
covered by the fire of about 200 skirmishers, were to advance a
distance of 400 to 500 yards over open ground, accompanied by
men carrying ladders 18 feet in length. The Orders issued after dark
detailed the 34th Regiment as Storming party, and detachments
were ordered to form the Supports, which were lying down before
daylight immediately outside the 8-gun battery, about 300 yards in
the rear of the Ladder party. All had orders to move out when the
flag was hoisted in the 8-gun battery, where Lord Raglan stood.
In my Crimea 1854-’94, I gave a full account of the operations
on the 18th June, showing the arrangements for the Assault were
faulty; here I limit myself to stating what happened to the column
which I accompanied. The sad story of the failure, although not
perhaps interesting to civilian readers, can be studied with
advantage by soldiers who may have to conduct a similar operation.
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