Rodolfo Gonzales
Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales was a Mexican-American boxer, poet, political organizer, and activist. He was one of many leaders for the Crusade for Justice in Denver, Colorado. The Crusade for Justice was an urban rights and Chicano cultural urban movement during the 1960s focusing on social, political, and economic justice for Chicanos. Gonzales convened the first-ever Chicano Youth Liberation Conference in 1968, which was poorly attended due to timing and weather conditions. He tried again in March 1969, and established what is commonly known as the First Chicano Youth Liberation Conference. This conference was attended by many future Chicano activists and artists. It also birthed the Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, a pro-indigenist manifesto advocating revolutionary Chicano nationalism and self-determination for all Chicanos. Through the Crusade for Justice, Gonzales organized the Mexican American people of Denver to fight for their cultural, political, and economic rights, leaving his mark on history. He was honored with a Google Doodle in continued celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month in the United States on October 1, 2021.
Early life
Rodolfo Gonzales was born the youngest of Federico and Indalesia Gonzales's eight children in Denver, Colorado in 1928. His father had immigrated to Colorado at an early age from Chihuahua, Mexico. Even as an immigrant, Federico Gonzales taught the histories of Mexico's struggle against Spanish domination and against Porfirio Díaz. Federico Gonzales imparted his knowledge to his son, a struggle that culminated in the Mexican Revolution. Rodolfo’s mother, Indalesia Gonzales, died when Rodolfo was two years old; his father never remarried. His siblings were raised in Denver's tough "Eastside Barrio", where the Great Depression took an even heavier toll on Mexican Americans. However, according to Gonzales, "though the Depression was devastating to so many, we, as children, were so poor that it was hardly noticed". The Gonzaleses were a very poor family. Gonzales, along with his mother and siblings worked in the fields, and his father worked hard in the coal mines to provide for the family throughout Gonzales's life. Gonzales attended high schools in Colorado and New Mexico while simultaneously working in the beet fields, and graduated from Manual High School at the age of 16. Since his youth he demonstrated a fiery tendency, which caused his uncle to say that "He was always popping off like a cork. So, we called him Corky." The nickname stuck.In February 1949, at the age of 21, Gonzales married Geraldine Romero, aged 17/18. They had eight children, who eventually took on their father's legacy of the Crusade for Justice.
Boxing career
Gonzales had a successful professional boxing career and at one time was ranked as a top three Featherweight by Ring Magazine. However, he always lost when competing at the highest level and never received a shot at the title. He retired from the ring in 1955 after compiling a record of 63 wins, 11 losses, and 1 draw. Gonzales found the sport empowering, saying, "I bleed as the vicious gloves of hunger cut my face and eyes, as I fight my way from stinking barrios to the glamour of the ring and the lights of fame or mutilated sorrow." His success in boxing lent him a prominence that he would later capitalize upon during his political career. He was inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame in 1988. When Gonzales turned to politics, he was ranked the 5th best boxer in the world.He once fought Willie Pep, losing by decision.
Political activism
Gonzales's early political involvement in the Democratic Party centered around campaigning for Denver Mayor J. Quigg Newton in 1947, registering Latino voters for the Democratic Party in 1950 and leading the Colorado "Viva Kennedy" campaign in 1960.Gonzales's successful efforts to organize for change within the Democratic Party became a crucial turning point toward Chicano Nationalist politics and the foundation of the Crusade for Justice in 1967. In 1966, Gonzales had written a letter of resignation to Alfredo J. Hernandez, the chair of SER in Denver, stating, “S.E.R., is offering a gateway to a society that offers hypocrisy, sterilization, castration, and neurosis in exchange for the values of integrity that are inherent in our culture...I will not compromise my principles, me ideals and my honor to be seated at the same table with hypocrites.” Gonzales concluded that the two-party system offered little benefit. Believing Chicanos could not rely on the "gringo establishment" to provide education, economic stability, or social acceptance, he sought alternatives.
The Crusade for Justice was an idea born from the Fisherman's meetings. These meetings were the original organization of Chicanos discussing issues surrounding Chicano rights and culture. The Fisherman meetings started out small, without the structure the Crusade for Justice developed later. The goal was to gain a following, and to spread education on the injustices Chicanos were experiencing. To begin with, the Fisherman's meetings were only open to men. When the conversation started to cross over from culture to more political issues, such as border laws, women demanded a part in the discussions, as they were directly affected just as much as the men, by the topics at hand.
Gonzales believed strongly in the power of educating the people around him, and bringing the Chicano community together to hear one another's voices. He said, “You have to get people involved, and the best way to do that is to live among the people, to hear what they are saying and to agitate them”.
The development of the Crusade for Justice helped gain momentum for the Chicano Movement in Denver. The movement was not strictly political in their organizing and education; "it was about art, music, vision, pride, culture, and value of participation." Gonzales explained. Gonzales took the ideas developed through the Crusade and implemented them at a personal level, making it into the political force it became. He had the courage, confidence, and ability to inspire greatness within the entire Chicano community.
File:Two of the most forceful personalities in the militant Mexican American movement 1968 Edit.jpg|thumb|right|"Two of the most forceful personalities in the militant Mexican American movement lead a march to a La Raza Unida conference in El Paso. Beside a banner carrier is Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzalez, chairman, Crusade for Justice, Denver, Colo., and third from right, Reies Tijerina, president, Federal Alliance of Free City-States, Albuquerque, N.M. with his brother, Ramon, at his right arm, his wife, and another brother, Anselmo, on his left." Civil Rights Digest, Spring 1968
Gonzales became co-founder of a new political party, focused intensively on the rights of Mexican-American people. The party was called Congreso de Aztlán, referring to the land of the Southwest United States. Gonzales believed the only way to meet the goals created by the Crusade within the political world, was through the creation of a third political party. The main goal of the creation of this party was to unite the Mexican-American vote under one banner. The idea for this party was born at a pioneer youth conference in 1967, the conference was called by Reies Lopez Tijerina. The party gained immense support in Texas by 1970, and began spreading the party's reach shortly thereafter. Once it began to spread, there were issues due to a lack of coordination among different groups supporting the party. There were not enough resources to keep the party going, and it died out within the decade. Tijerina became one of Gonzales’ largest rivals throughout the parties expansion. Tijerina believed that the Congreso de Aztlán was doing more to separate the Mexican American vote than to unite it, and that working within the Democratic Party would provide larger success in the political world in reaching their goals.
Gonzales’ found a private school in 1971 as a solution to the issues within the public education system. The school would focus on building students' self-esteem through culturally-relevant curricula. It was named after Tlatelolco, a square in Mexico City. During the conquest, it was the site of the last stand of the Aztecs, witnessing the massacre of thousands. In post-Revolutionary Mexico, Tlatelolco became home to the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, which celebrated Mexico's dual cultural heritage, seen as vindication of indigenous Mexico. It was also home to a community of scholars. In 1968, Tlatelolco became the staging ground for massive student protests, and saw yet another massacre, this time by Mexican forces. As such, the school's name evokes the history of duality, reconciliation, and hope for indigenous and Mestizo people. The Tlatelolco massacres were in response to the Olympics, where thousands of people were being displaced for an Olympic event.
''Yo Soy Joaquín'' - Poem
With his poem Yo soy Joaquín, known in English as I Am Joaquin, Gonzales shared his new cosmological vision of the "Chicano", who was neither Indian nor European, neither Mexican nor American, but a combination of all the conflicting identities. This new "raza", or "race" found its roots in the Pre-Columbian civilizations, which he believed gave it rights to inhabit the ancestral land of Aztlán. It was strengthened by conceptions such as those of José Vasconcelos, Mexico's Secretary of Education under the Revolutionary Álvaro Obregón, who proclaimed that the hope of humanity lay in the mixed "Raza Cósmica" of Latin America. But perhaps more than anywhere else, Joaquín, the archetypical Chicano, found hope for his future in his own personal and spiritual awakening, a realization forced upon him by his status as an oppressed minority in the United States.Some scholars have credited Gonzales with authoring this historicized, politicized definition of what it is to be a "Chicano". The far-reaching effect of the poem is summed up by UC Riverside professor Juan Felipe Herrera: "Here, finally, was our collective song, and it arrived like thunder crashing down from the heavens. Every little barrio newspaper from Albuquerque to Berkeley published it. People slapped mimeographed copies up on walls and telephone poles." It was so influential that it was turned into a play by Luis Valdez's Teatro Campesino that toured nationally. It is seen as a foundational work of the burgeoning Chicano Art Movement that accompanied, complimented, and enhanced the Chicano Movement, and, as the Plan Espiritual de Aztlán exhorted those talented members of the community to use their abilities to advance la Causa, Yo soy Joaquín provided a strong example.
A feminist analysis of Gonzales's poem reveals that women are submissive, and extensions of the men to which they are related in communal and familial ways. Chicanas are depicted as faithful, long-suffering religious figures or family matriarchs who exist to support Chicano males. Women are only discussed in relation to the suffering of Chicano males, and to serve as a support as for the epic heroes referenced in the body of the poem.