Unsettled Debts: 1968 and the Problem of Historical Memory| <i>Con Che?</i> The Specter of Communism in the 1968 Chicano Blowouts

Authors

  • Magally Miranda University of California, Los Angeles
  • Efren Michael López San Diego State University

Keywords:

archive, Chicano Blowouts, Cold War, communism, New Left, repression, social movements, specter

Abstract

The influence of communist politics is underemphasized in the historical record of the 1968 Chicano Blowouts. Much like news media at the time, official histories mischaracterize the Blowouts as having been either completely spontaneous or thoroughly entrenched in the politics of representation and reform. Drawing on archival documents, oral histories, and critical research, this study uncovers the communist presence in the movement and demonstrates how activists of the period navigated this presence amid virulent Cold War anticommunism. Using the “specter of communism” as a methodological heuristic, we excavate the margins of the archive: overlooked pamphlets, moments in oral histories, and personal accounts and interviews. We show how Marxist materialist analysis can be brought to bear on archival gaps and silences, and thereby highlight the liberatory potential of activist archival research.

Author Biographies

Magally Miranda, University of California, Los Angeles

Maga Miranda (she/they) is a graduate student in Chicana/o and Central American Studies at UCLA. Her research explores care work in contemporary Los Angeles and the uses of technology by subaltern Latina immigrant domestic workers. Through methods that emphasize the co-production of knowledge with rank-and-file workers and reformers, their research explores the contested meanings of care, work and Latinidad in the context of the global digital economy.She is also interested in Chicana/o/x radicalism. Her writings on Latina immigrant women in the care labor sector, gentrification in Boyle Heights and contemporary socialism can be found in The Nation, Verso and the New Left Review.

Efren Michael López, San Diego State University

Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Efren Lopez is an Assistant Professor of American and Chicanx Literature at San Diego State University, Imperial Valley. His research lies at the intersection of racial contact and notions of freedom. His dissertation, “Arrested Solidarities: Resistance and Racial Contact Zones in the 19th century US.”, is interested in the way multi-ethnic literature of the 19th century constantly strategized and imagined pathways to liberation.  In a previous life, Efren worked for several years as a CNC Machinist and Certified Quality Inspector in Aerospace Manufacturing in a UAW shop. Before arriving at UCLA Efren earned a B.A. in English and an M.A. in 19c American Literature from CSULA, where he was a campus organizer during the Mass Immigrant Rights protests in 2006. Currently, he on the editorial team of the digital journal Insurrect! Radical Thinking in Early American Studies. He also works in late 20th century Chicanx history, with an upcoming article on the 1968 Chicano Walkouts.

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Published

2022-10-04

Issue

Vol. 16 (2022)

Section

Special Sections

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