Chicanas/os en Phoenix También Resisten! Cultivating Resistance Capital in the 1970 Phoenix Union High School Chicana/o Boycott

• In Event: 18.022 - Dimensions of Community Cultural Wealth Across Time and Place: Chicana/o Efforts for Educational Equity

Abstract

Walkouts and boycotts can be traced across several social movements, including the Chicana/o movement, in the United States as a strategy in order call to question socio-economic and political conditions in their communities. While Chicana/o educational history scholarship has afforded us a significant insight into these historical events during the Chicana/o movement of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, the geographies of history have centered around more thoroughly documented or recognized movements such as the 1968 East Los Angeles Blowouts, Crystal City in 1969, and Denver West High School Walkout in 1969 (Delgado Bernal, 1988; Muñoz, 1989; San Miguel, 2013). Beyond the sphere of these comprehensively researched Chicana/o educational historical events lies other examples of student and community resistance calling to question inequitable educational conditions and racism as a stand-alone issue or intersecting with other forms of marginalization or oppression. One of these historical events that serves as an example of a boycott connected to the larger historical lineage of Chicana/o educational resistance is the 1970 boycott of Phoenix Union High School in Phoenix, Arizona (Echeverría, 2014; Luckingham, 1994).

This paper focuses on unpacking historical accounts lacking comprehensive and accurate depictions of Chicana/os in Phoenix, but more specifically at Phoenix Union High School during the 1970 boycott. Moreover, the task at hand is not only to retell this boycott history but recount this narrative in collaboration with participants through a Critical Race Educational History lens to draw out the role of race and racism while merging with educational experiences of Chicanas/os in the larger scope of Chicana/o history to highlight the interwoven presence of resistance capital (Santos et. al, 2017; Yosso, 2005, 2013) .

This paper utilizes oral history interviews and archival documents to create composite counterstories mapping out the presence of resistance capital to provide a Critical Race Educational History account of the 1970 Chicana/o boycott at Phoenix Union High School. Composite counterstories to identify resistance capital serves as a tool of resistance towards the marginalization of Chicanas/os at this high school and Phoenix history by centering their experiences while expanding on Chicana/o educational history (Solórzano and Yosso, 2001, 2002). Delgado (1989) refers to the creation of stories existing amongst two groups described as in and out groups. Stories that are created by in groups are deemed to be “natural” and reinforce a dissimilar identity to those who a part of the outgroup while the outgroup creates stories to disrupt this societal reality created and reinforced by the in groups. Therefore, because society is socially constructed as Delgado (1989) argues, counterstories “open new windows into reality, showing us that there are possibilities for life other than the ones we live.” The task therefore for this paper is to center the knowledge and experiences of the Chicana/o community during this time period to gain a more thorough understanding of what motivated their organizing efforts and their racialized experiences at Phoenix Union and Phoenix at large.

Author

• Bryant Partida, University of California - Los Angeles