The Making of a Movement: The Archival Reconstruction of Chicanismo in Northern New Mexico

The recovery of a movement is explored in this project inspired by the New Mexico Highlands University (HU) Archives and Special Collections. Known for its liberal student body in the 1960s and 1970s, I argue that HU was a catalyst for the Chicano Movement in northern New Mexico. The movement was punctuated by an influx of visitations by prominent activists such as Reies Lopez Tijerina and Rudolfo “Corky” Gonzales. Campus life at HU shifted from an Anglo-centric atmosphere to fostering a cultural space fueled by the Spanish language and the overt accusations of racism against minority students. Through my work, I show how Anglo and Chicano students confided in their school newspaper to express personal opinions and engage in racially charged correspondences across both groups. These conversations ignited a Chicano-student-based effort to elect the first Nuevomexicano and Chicano president of HU. These protests necessitated the involvement of the HU Board of Regents, whose readiness to elect a university president under such stipulations oscillated over the course of a year. Their responses to Chicano students are recorded in the HU Archives. I assert that the contrast of dialogues produced from the administrative entity and Chicano students reveals the latent racial tensions present on the HU campus. Finally, I demonstrate the manifestation of Mexican-American identity by investigating its historical contexts in New Mexico and its implications through a national lens. Post-Vietnam War sentiments speckle the racial commentary of students’ published works through art, poetry, and articles published in Spanish. By investigating primary, non-fictional sources, I work to reconstruct an historical movement and weave social commentary within a politically infused undertaking of exploring identity

Written and Oral Histories of the Chicano Movement at New Mexico Highlands University, 1968-1970

This thesis presents spoken, written, and drawn histories produced before the Chicano Movement at New Mexico Highlands University in November 1970 and the discourses which have followed in the movement’s wake fifty years later. This qualitative study explores the campus climate at NMHU using the student newspaper Highlands Candle. Its contents from 1968 until 1971 are contrasted with the multiple voices of a generation which adopted the term Chicano as a racial identifier into the NMHU vernacular. Social factors including the formation of student-of-color groups and the return of veterans from the Vietnam War appear to change the student body at NMHU as indicated by Highlands Candle in 1968. The demand by student-of-color groups for representation on campus and the Chicano Movement at NMHU is perceived by the newspaper as a sudden and brief event, but the contrast between written texts and oral histories contributed by participants show quite the opposite. I determine that the Chicano Movement was fomented by a variety of actors two years before the Movement. Four former NMHU students share their student experience as witnesses of the Movement as observers, activists, and participants in events leading up to the Chicano Takeover at New Mexico Highlands University. This paper synthesizes oral histories recorded in 2018 and sources from 1966 to 1971 to prove that the Highlands Candle had a slow undertaking in reflecting the majority of the student body: students of color, veterans from the Vietnam War, and Spanish-speaking students. The significance of this work is more than outlining the events which led to the appointment of the first Chicano university president in the country, Dr. Francisco Ángel. The comparison of oral histories by members of resistance and social groups in the context of textual artifacts reveals a contrary narrative. Public-facing, accessible written sources and the spoken experiences of participants and observers who bore witness to the Movement at New Mexico Highlands University act as demonstrators and perpetrators of resistance in public accounts. The mobilization of a movement happened in the shadows on campus as recounted by a generation of college students who adopted the Chicano identity as part of the landscape of New Mexico