Oral History Interview with Nephtali De Leon, 1999

Interviewee: Nephtali De Leon

Interviewer: José Angel Gutiérrez, Ph.D., J.D.

Transcribers: Karen McGee and José Angel Gutiérrez

Date of Interview:November 20, 1999

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Nephtali De Leon

Dr. Gutierrez:

This is tape one. This is November 20. We are in San Antonio, Texas at the home of Nephtali De Leon to do an interview. You have signed the deed of gift form and you are doing voluntarily this, this part of archival project on history of significant Mexican Americans, yes?

Mr. De Leon:

That is what I understand. Yeah.

Dr. Gutierrez:

All right. All right. Well, you know, you, you welcomed me and offered me some coffee and then you immediately started telling what you were doing. You handed me some papers. I'll hand them back to you just for the purpose of the camera. You have a suit, a, a notice of intent to file with the World Court of Justice...

Mr. De Leon:

That's right.

Dr. Gutierrez:

...at the United Nations. And you have a paper here about declaration of sovereignty and, and another document entitled Welcome to

Aztlan

[land west of the Mississippi] that we'll put in your archive, but why don't you tell me what this is all about. Let's begin there.

Mr. De Leon:

Basicamente

... (Basically...)

Dr. Gutierrez:

Oh, let me, let me explain.

Mr. De Leon:

Sure.

Dr. Gutierrez:

If, if you stick to one language it's easier for us, but other than that, I, I’ll only mention it to you once. It's easier for us to transcribe. If you mix it up, it's really tough, so but do it any way you want to.

Mr. De Leon:

Ok. Fair warning. But again, I guess we can only be ourselves,

verdad

? (Right?)

Dr. Gutierrez:

Right.

Mr. De Leon:

Este (Ah,) as, you know, there's been so many things going on in our community for so many years and I think this is an extension, there's a continuation, a continuing of all the things that you have done, that a lot of other good people have done

y basicamente

... (and basically...) This is a recollection, a coming back to

Aztlan

that we may not, that we not forget where we have all been born.

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Dr. Gutierrez:

What is

Aztlan

?

Mr. De Leon:

Aztlan es el lugar

... (Aztlan is the place...) It's a physical, spiritual land where we live, where we practice what we do, what we learned, what we have learned. And it is basically a land somewhere in the United States. It could also be part of Mexico and it is definitely a big part of the United States. People can think of it as the Southwest and I think everybody also knows where it comes from. It is a mythic, it is a mythic grandeur, the original home base of our ancestors. And so, it is now the land that, where we now we inhabit.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Isn't there a, a, a body of information, whether it's theory or myth or hypothesis, I don't know, but the, the Mayas, instead of being extinct simply migrated north because there is evidence in Ohio, in, in that Valley of, of similar structures and, and artifacts. Have you read any of that?

Mr. De Leon:

Yes. As a matter of fact,

Dr. Gutierrez:

So, it's not just the Southwest?

Mr. De Leon:

No, no. It's not just the Southwest at all. No. Not at all. I said some people say. I would not say it. I would say that it could extend to the ends of the world for that matter. As a matter of fact, it is said that say, for instance, the

Quetzalcoatl

[Aztec god] became the image of the Egyptians when they had the bird flying, ok, maybe it is the

Quetzalcoatl

, the pyramids, also people say they came originally from Meso America.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, they do predate the Egyptian ones.

Mr. De Leon:

I believe so. So therefore you know, it's just quite likely that, that our community did extend all over the place and that

Aztlan

perhaps is just another word for Atlantis. I mean, who knows? There is very wonderful realities. Even the seer Edgar Cayce used to say that when they discovered many hidden secretes of the Maya community hidden in great big boxes made of stone that the world would be astounded.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Now who is this?

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Mr. De Leon:

Edgar Cayce, the great American seer.

Dr. Gutierrez:

C-A-Y-C-E?

Mr. De Leon:

C-A-Y-C-E. So, so therefore you know, there's still a lot of mysteries to be discovered. And we are part of that incredible adventure as a people, as a human race, that are still going through our social, political reality in, in, between two countries; were the strange mountains, the strange people that came into being between two countries. So, therefore we are a synthesis, we are a hybrid reality between the United States and Mexico.

Dr. Gutierrez:

These documents are because you want to proclaim a new homeland

Mr. De Leon:

This, this...

Dr. Gutierrez:

Or you want to reclaim an, an old homeland?

Mr. De Leon:

I think we want to perhaps make it official and at some point during eternity, make it legal. We don't have to reclaim anything. We don't have to say that this is ours or that is yours and this is mine, etc., because it already is. We don't have to, to over proclaim reality. We are here. We do have our own ways, our own language, our own world, our own attitudes, our own interpretations of history, so it's not like we have to make a big to-do about it. But what we do have to do is establish it in the reality of other body politics. We are a body politic whether we are recognized or not, whether we ourselves are aware of it or not. Other people see us as a body politic; we see, many of us here see ourselves as a different body politic. What do I mean by that and why am I addressing the United Nations; why am I starting with

Aztlan

; and why am I saying welcome to

Aztlan

? Basically because a lot of people have, because they don't understand us. People have feared us; people have been troubled by us. By us I mean Chicanos in particular.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Now would you define that?

Mr. De Leon:

Chicanos are the people that are, Raza that are of Mexican descent, of mostly Indian, Mestizo blood, or who do not have, we do not have a

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Mexican image of ourselves although we understand our roots and we acknowledge proudly where we come from, which is from Mexican ancestry, and we certainly don't have an Anglo image of ourselves. We certainly don't think of ourselves as the average white, Anglo- Saxon American. We think of ourselves as a particularly unique community that joins perhaps hopefully, the best of two worlds. In this particular case, the Anglo, the Mexican world. And that is Chicano then.

Dr. Gutierrez:

What is Raza? You threw that in also.

Mr. De Leon:

Raza. Raza is another word for, obviously the translation is race, but we use it in a peculiar way; in a particular way of addressing it, directing it to our community and reflecting our community, again saying Chicano people. Raza is basically an all encompassing word that could be anybody that's not white Anglo-Saxon of the United States.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Could it be Black?

Mr. De Leon:

No. It could not be Black.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Asian?

Mr. De Leon:

No. It could not be Asian.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Why? Because those people were here too.

Mr. De Leon:

Yes, but it, again, Razaa, again, reflects Chicano people and Chicano people come from a Mexican background. So, basically we are an Indian Mestizo people, basically made up of Native American, Meso American blood, and Mexican blood along with Spanish blood and all the, all that it means, Moorish and so on, gypsy. We are a motley, strange, wonderful group of people that Jose Vasconcelos early on addressed and called

La Raza Cosmica

(The Cosmic Race) because of the many different bloodlines that we have in our makeup.

Dr. Gutierrez:

So what got you to the UN?

Mr. De Leon:

A very interesting adventure. Specifically, it all started when I was teaching in the public school systems of San Antonio, Texas, the San

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Antonio Independent School District, in particular. After having taught with and being part of the Harlandale School District, Edgewood School District, I spent a great number of years, probably about fifteen or twenty years, in different classrooms across America. But in particular I spent a lot of those years here in, in Texas and specifically here in San Antonio. As part of my pedagogy, and as part of my reflections, they were always our Chicano roots. They were always the way we became a people, the adventure of our becoming ourselves as a community and realizing that we were different and liking our differences and wanting to establish records, wanting to establish viability, that we were here. And this is very much what I would reflect. I would talk about the dedication of Cesar Chavez, the creation of

partido

(political party) Raza Unida. I would talk about the individuals that made it happen. Jose Angel Gutierrez, Reies Lopez Tijerina, Corky Gonzales, and then counting on down to the present, of course. Even people like Joe Bernal, even people that are today running and today are making changes in our society. So, it's always reflecting our poets, writers like Ricardo Sanchez, Tigre....

Dr. Gutierrez:

And you ran afoul because of this?

Mr. De Leon:

Well, yes. Specifically because as part of the reflections that I would make, I would bring in our traditions, our stories, our legends. And in particular, talking about legends, I remember that it was a day of Halloween. And Halloween was proper to talk about the spooks and the ghosts and the things that go bump in the night and so on. And in this particular case, I was talking about la llorona (the crying woman), an ancient Meso American part of us, an ancient tradition of how a certain lady sometimes, in ancient times, being called

Ciaciuahcoata

.

Dr. Gutierrez:

You have to spell this.

Mr. De Leon:

Well...

Dr. Gutierrez:

The, the transcriber is not going to be able to.

Mr. De Leon:

Ok. Ciaciuahcoata is something like C-I-A-C-I-U-A-H-C-O-A-T-A. Ciaciuahcoata.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok.

Mr. De Leon:

Anyway, it is said that she was very despondent and she began to cry in the night because of all the people that had been killed and lost in the war with Spain, the terrible, bloody encounter that occurred that also created us as a people. So, the legend began that she was crying for her lost children and she would scream in the night,

"Ayy, mis hijos."

("Ohh, my children.") And, of course, that was again related, that legend has stayed with us forever and that story, that, that truth, reality, legend, whatever it is, has stayed with us. And I don't know a single person in our, of our community, who has not heard of the

la llorona

. Many will claim that they saw her. An uncle and aunt that would eat tortillas, somebody saw

la llorona

. And somehow it also has something to do with the body of water. She always appears by a body of water. So, that's why these stories that children were drowned. And that's why the

llorona todavia anda llorando

(the crying woman is still crying), just crying in the night. And she appears in any community, any city where Raza lives. So anyway, I was telling the kids. Well, would you write a version of

la llorona

. And, of course, the kids would come up with

la llorona, no porque

.... (the crying woman not because...) "They took away the mom's food stamps and she didn't know what to do with her kids."

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, they didn't want to write to begin with.

Mr. De Leon:

Right. They didn't want to write to begin with. Exactly.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Or speak in public.

Mr. De Leon:

Or speak in public. So you had to kind of listen, you have to kind of cajole, and you had to kind of make it exciting for them. And I said, "Well, you know what? How about... Now that you have written this thing, created your own version of

la llorona

... ““The low-rider that went away with so and so and the children were lost. And now the

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mom is looking for them and she's crying out in the night." They created very wonderful, incredible versions. As a matter of fact, I have all these records of the kids' writings. Most of them illustrated. Very beautiful. So it happened that I told the kids, "Look, you know what? You're going to have to get up.... No, we don't want to get up.... No, but look, everybody will be with you. The class will join you and it will be exciting and it will be fun." "Well, how is it going to be fun?" "Ok. Every time that

la llorona

, your version of

la llorona

, every time she is going to cry out, "

Ahhhhh, la llorona

," everybody in the classroom is going to have to help. And here's this Anglo teacher that's checking everybody out and checking me out.

Dr. Gutierrez:

She's your supervisor?

Mr. De Leon:

In that sense, yes. That she's, she reports back

Dr. Gutierrez:

So, so you went, you went there a teacher. How is it that you had a supervisor in the classroom?

Mr. De Leon:

Well, she was more like a, like an observer. Not so much a supervisor as an observer, as a part of that classroom experience.

Dr. Gutierrez:

But what was your title?

Mr. De Leon:

I was an artist in residence.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Oh. Through the program of, of the state humanities program and, and some local...

Mr. De Leon:

Precisely.

Dr. Gutierrez:

...funding.

Mr. De Leon:

State humanities, Texas Commission of the Arts, in particular, and a local part of the studies and the teachings that occurred here in San Antonio. Basically what they wanted was a fresh point of view, somebody to excite the kids, to get them away from the doldrums of hating literature, of hating art, of hating all the things that sometimes...

Dr. Gutierrez:

Writing.

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Mr. De Leon:

...is a chore. Writing in particular, which is speaking and writing, getting in front of a classroom, etc., which is a great chore to them. So anyway, I got the kids very excited and every time somebody would get up in front of the classroom and hear the

llorona, "Ayy, mis hijos.

" (the crying woman, "Ohh, my children.") would be crying out

ahhhh la llorona

. because there's twenty-eight, thirty kids shouting in unison, yelling. You could hear them down the hall, the whole school probably heard them, the principal, everybody. Everybody was

ahhhhh mis hijos

. Everybody was getting a great big kick out of it. The teacher was just, she didn't no, her eyes were about to pop out; she didn't know what to make of it. She had never seen young Chicanitos, these are middle, mid-school, or middle class, or rather middle school, she had never seen young Chicanitos so excited and actually enjoying it and writing and, and getting up in front of the classroom and reflecting and sharing, and being excited about having something to say. But she couldn't understand it. She could not understand it all. So I was written down as this artist in residence, there's something Satanic about him. There's something unusual and strange about this individual and, and he thinks, he talks about the devil and he has a Satanic kind of approach to what he does. And basically he's doing Satanic rites in my classroom. And she couldn't understand this. So, she wrote it down. It was taken down to, to the real supervisor and so that happened. And anther particular case happened. This was in the east side of town where all the little Black kids, it, it happened that I was asked to teach this Black group of kids. And I thought, well how wonderful and you, I get to, to experience, to share from a multi-cultural perspective and the fact that we as Raza can also say, "Said what?" with the Black strain and go with the Black reality and the Black culture along with the Anglo, as well as, the Chicano, the Indian, and the Mestizo, etc. So I said, "Well, you know what? I'm going to introduce them to some Swahili." These

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poor little Black kids had never been taught any Swahili words. They'd never been told that they have a great culture as well, that they have a great incredible past, magnificent and so. So, as it turned out, I said, "Ok. Well, let's write some things on the board and let's learn some Swahili words. Ok.

Ndugu

. N-D-U-G-U. Ok. That's one word.

Mungu

M-U-N-G-U. Word for God. K-A-K-A.

Kaka

. Word for older brother." So pretty soon all these kids are really happy and enjoying it. "And I went with my Kaka to school." Everybody would get a laugh because they also realized that, you know, it could mean something else. So the principal gets word of it. Oh no. This artist is showing our little Black kids about

caca

(shit) and all these things. And they reported it to the main office. This guy is talking about C-A-C-A. Almost like, excuse me. I think somebody's at the door. I'll have to answer it.

Dr. Gutierrez:

We are recording again. You were explaining how the, the word

Kaka

, K-A-K-A.

Mr. De Leon:

And what it means, Kaka, see, the principal who made this report about how negative this was, never even bothered to ask what was going on or what the word meant or what the spelling was like. It means older brother. K-A-K-A in Swahili is the word for older brother.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Now, was he Mexican American?

Mr. De Leon:

The older brother?

Dr. Gutierrez:

The principal.

Mr. De Leon:

The principal was an Anglo, you know.

Dr. Gutierrez:

I see.

Mr. De Leon:

It was an Anglo woman. Again, the former, remember I, I made allusions to another lady, there's also an Anglo lady from the northeast somewhere.

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Dr. Gutierrez:

But I'm wondering. In the San Antonio independent School District there's got to be some level or layer that you're going to get to a Mexican American that you can take all of this.

Mr. De Leon:

Exactly.

Dr. Gutierrez:

But apparently not.

Mr. De Leon:

Apparently not. Except, but the irony of it all is that the word got to the supervisor of the arts program who happened to be Mary Ester Bernal. And when she called me in, I said, "Well look, Mary Ester, you, you're aware of la llorona." "Uh, yes I am, Nephtali." What's particularly interesting, a few weeks earlier than that my immediate supervisor working directly under Mary Ester who was taking care of all the artist evaluations, the reflections of you, "They are so great. Everybody just applauds you. Everybody says you are great. You're fantastic." I mean she was literally telling me all

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this stuff, looking at the papers, the reports of me, said, "If this program should ever have to be curtailed, or we should ever have to be done, [she] said, you'd be the last person to be considered [for elimination]. Everything on you is so fantastic. I can't believe the reports on you. Look at this." and she showed me. You're supposed to have all theses reports on paper. Oh, gee, I'm glad to hear that. So, anyway, ten days later, all this comes down. And Mary Ester is telling me, you're telling me this, they're telling me that.

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The truth of the whole matter was that throughout the whole event, I was reflecting many, many Chicano realities that the poor little Chicanitos had never heard about. And I would always question the teachers who said, because I was supposed to find out. The, the ethnic breakdown of the classroom. "Thirty-two Hispanics." I looked around. "Where are the Hispanics, Mrs. Robinson?" "Right there." I don't know about them Hispanics. "Let me ask. How many Hispanics are here?" All the little kids were looking at each other. Occasionally one would go like this or two and say, "Well ok." And I wouldn't say much more than that. But then, I would later on tell, "Well look, I don't know about you. And I don't want to confuse anybody, but I happen to be a Chicano. I enjoy that very much. Go home and ask your parents, go home and talk about it. What do you call yourselves? What do they call themselves at home? What do they call you? What do you, what are you comfortable with?" And I tell everybody, from elementary to high school, I was teaching all classes, elementary to high school, I'd say, "I cannot tell you who to be, but you can find out for yourselves who you want to be. And you can only decide that by discussing, by talking about it." And a lot of them would say, "I'm real, I'm proud to be a Chicano." A few of them would say, "I'd like to be Hispanic." "Ok. That's what you want to be, fine." I would never want to contradict anybody, whatever they felt themselves. Anyway, the whole idea was that my classes had been obviously just too Chicano for the school system. A school system that had already decided that

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we were all going to be Hispanics because they would actually literally tell me on the written reports we have ninety percent Hispanics, ten percent other, Anglos or one percent other, whatever. Orientals or whatever, Blacks or whatever. And I would always question that. How, how, how can you say these people are Hispanics? I mean, I, I think that came just recently from Washington, D. C. This word of Hispanics. I would always question that identity. And I would say something like if we don't have a history, if we don't know who we are as a people, we will be very confused by anybody that brings a new label upon us. I said, "We are already confused enough as it is. Our community has had a long history of confusion, of people wanting to make them over and over and remake them, putting new identities on us. And we have a right to create our own identity." In other words, and they, many Anglo people did not like it. Some Chicanos would or a few Chicanos would, a few "Hispanics" would also question me, but I would continue to do my, my pedagogy, my approach. I would continue to reflect what I wanted to reflect. And in the first place, they had really hired me because I would reflect our culture. That was the reason; they had actually told me, "We need somebody like you." They looked at my books. We talked about

Chicanos, Our Background And Our Pride.

[a book written by Mr. De Leon],

I Will Catch the Sun

[another book written by Mr. De Leon] and so and so on, Chicano poets. What, what more do you want? They knew who I was. But anyway, I was fired. I was fired because they said that my, literally, they actually put it on paper, my classes were Satanic and that I had used the word

caca

in the classroom. I'd say, "Well how did they spell it? How did those teachers spell it, Mary Ester?" "C-A-C-A?" I said. She, obviously she was never in the classroom. And I have the writings of the little Black kids and that word is never used once by

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anybody. And in spite of that, they, they still went ahead and fired me.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Did you sue?

Mr. De Leon:

Yes. Precisely. We went, it started, first of all, the state has a weird process that you have to exhaust all avenues. That's actually what they ask that you do. You have to exhaust all avenues of redress in the school system.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Administrative?

Mr. De Leon:

Administrative. All, exactly. As a matter of fact, they have a mock court system that we attended. The lady who presided, she was dressed just like a judge. It was a courtroom just like a legal courtroom, but it had no standing, no legality. Neither her decision nor the physical space itself, but it was all a mock trial, which we, my attorney, my, my, we went in Austin

Dr. Gutierrez:

Who was your attorney?

Mr. De Leon:

Rodolfo Munoz was and has been my representation to this day. We knew what it was. It was a sham, a hoax, a play, a game, but we went through it anyway because you had, we had no alternative. You either did that or you never got to court. The court would never listen to you, would not even admit you, if you had not attempted to exhaust all administrative processes and which we did. Boxes and boxes of, of arguments literally. So, that happened. The judge, the court judge or the school judge did not pass a ruling. She just simply decided that she could not and would not pass a ruling or, or make a decision.

Dr. Gutierrez:

What was her name?

Mr. De Leon:

I don't recall at the moment. I don't.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, when was this?

Mr. De Leon:

This was about six years ago.

Dr. Gutierrez:

In, in Austin?

Mr. De Leon:

In Austin.

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Dr. Gutierrez:

So, the hearing at the state board? You've already gone through the local procedures...

Mr. De Leon:

We've already gone through the local...

Dr. Gutierrez:

...state board

Mr. De Leon:

...the state board of education, and the state of Texas.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok.

Mr. De Leon:

From there we go on to one of the minor courts.

Dr. Gutierrez:

State or federal?

Mr. De Leon:

State court.

Dr. Gutierrez:

State court.

Mr. De Leon:

State court. And they decide that they cannot pass a ruling either. So, then we had to go to, was it Judge Sparks?

Dr. Gutierrez:

That's federal?

Mr. De Leon:

That's federal by now. And he decides that we cannot even bring up the word Chicano. We cannot use the word Chicano. And that was what the whole argument was about. My right to teach under the First Amendment and to reflect whatever I wanted and needed to reflect as, as a teacher, ok.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Do you have the, the filing in the state court with the style of the case? Do you know what that is?

Mr. De Leon:

We, we do have it. I, I don't know the whole ramification of it, I don't remember right now, but yes, we do have all the arguments, we have all the records of it. Rodolfo Munoz has all the records. A federal judge, basically Judge Sparks in federal court in Austin, Texas, Sam Sparks, in particular, he threw us out of court literally. He said, "I will not hear your case either." So that left our attempt to get into the Supreme Court, Fifth Circuit Court.

Dr. Gutierrez:

So, this is not that they did not render a judgment, they upheld the state...

Mr. De Leon:

Yeah.

Dr. Gutierrez:

...that said you're fired?

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Mr. De Leon:

Exactly. Basically that's what it was.

Dr. Gutierrez:

No decision is a decision.

Mr. De Leon:

No decision is a decision which had me and kept me fired. And, precisely upholding what the local school district had done which is the state. So, we tried to get into the Fifth Circuit Court, the Supreme Court, all the proper work was done, the presentation was done, the briefing, the argument and everything. They threw us out too. They said we will not hear your case. So basically they are sustaining everybody. Upholding the original decisions, the real, local decisions.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Where did you get the money for all of this?

Mr. De Leon:

We had, you see, we did not have any money then or now, but we are still fighting it. And we are still going all the way to the, to the United Nations. Now we are saying well, as a people, as a nation, as the Chicano people; no one has ever dealt with us on a legal fair basis. Said well, our only other source or only other thing that we can do is try to go to the United Nations and...

Dr. Gutierrez:

Now you are arguing cultural rights?

Mr. De Leon:

We are arguing cultural rights, we are arguing the right to define ourselves, the right to be ourselves, the right to have our own reflections in the public school systems. We are arguing that, as a people, we have a right to decide who we are, to get our own education, to talk about our own experiences, to talk about our, our own background, our own history that is not taught in the public school systems, and so on. The United Nations throws us back a letter saying, "We cannot deal with individuals. We deal with states, with nations." So, that puts us right back where we, perhaps, started many, many years ago, that we are indeed a nation. And that when the United States Constitution was formed, "of the people, by the people, for the people," it, those people that are being referred to are only and specifically the newly arrived European people. They are the people. Our ancestors, our native ancestors who were here all the time were

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not the people. They were neither included nor allowed participation. So basically, that leaves us that in a situation where our ancestors were specifically, by our ancestors, I mean the Meso American and the American Indians, American Natives of this land, were never asked to participate. They were never asked permission to take over their country which is what has happened to us. So, basically we have never been a part of the Constitution of the United States. We never participated, we never allowed it to happen, it was imposed upon us back then and it's still now, so everything still holds today. The illegality of a new nation imposed upon our community and it's still there. It's something that still has to be dealt with. I don't think it will ever go away. As long as there are Chicanos and this is part of the reason why they are trying to erase the word Chicano, the identity of Chicano, because the Chicanos are very political beings. Hispanics are willing to be part of America as far as I know. Latinos are willing to be part of America as far as I know. To my knowledge, only the Chicano people are the ones that have a memory of sovereignty, that have a memory of respecting their ancestry to the degree that they are aware that their ancestors would not want their progeny to be enslaved, to have a government imposed upon them. They did not raise children to be objects, to be nonentities to a government that imposes its background upon them, its hegemony, its identity upon us. And this is why we went all the way to the United Nations. And we are a country that has been forgotten. We are the Palestinians of the Americas that have no nation. We need our own nation.

Dr. Gutierrez:

What is Latino?

Mr. De Leon:

Latino must be, I don't know. I can only conjecture. It must be people that are unhappy with being, with the term Chicano. It must be people that are unhappy with the term Hispanic. It could also be a people that might speak Latin from ancient Rome. It could also be people that are from the edges of America, meaning the island people.

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These are the people that started to introduce the word Latino in the east coast and in the west coast. And basically, they are people that are newly arrived into the United States, who are not aware of the history or the background of Chicano people. So, they feel comfortable with the word Latino because they have to call themselves something, which is why a lot of people use the word Hispanic. For the same reason, they need to call them, refer to themselves as something. The word Latino or Hispanic does not carry the political overtones of fright of, of in a sense of reclaiming our sovereignty that we don't need to reclaim. But in that sense, yes. These are words that are not threatening. These are self- denominations that do not threaten anybody else. And there are many people that want to be as passive or assimilative as they can be while attempting to retain some sense of cultural difference. So, it's a strange, it's a strange game because it is, after all, in a sense, possibly that people refer to themselves as Hispanic or Latino as opposed to white Anglo-Saxon American. So at least there is a sense of love of difference from, from a Hispanic perspective, from a Latino perspective. But what is really lacking is a sense of political awareness, of a certain destiny that we will carry in our memory, in our extension, of, of, of a sovereign people that we have always been and only the Chicano reclaims that.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Some argue that, that Latino is a creation of Napoleon, III trying to divide the, the other Spanish power from, from the, the conquered peoples and gave them an option because you have Latin American studies, you have references to Latin America. In other words for those that didn't want to be Hispanic, it would be Latin...

Mr. De Leon:

Yes.

Dr. Gutierrez:

...and avoid again being Mestizo.

Mr. De Leon:

Exactly.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Our true identity.

Page: 18

Mr. De Leon:

I think that plays into it. I think it's part of it.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok. Ok. How long have you been fighting all of this?

Mr. De Leon:

Ever since I can remember. I come from the work fields. I come from

las labores

(the fields), a migrant worker. I grew up in South Texas. Pharr, San Juan, Alamo, Mission, and

Edinburgo

(Edinburg), McAllen Harlingen, La Joya, you name it, that's where I grew up. I was born in Laredo, Texas, but I never grew up in Laredo.

Dr. Gutierrez:

When?

Mr. De Leon:

1945.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Why don't you tell me a little biography? Who are your parents; what are their names; where did they come from and when; and grandparents, if you remember them on the sides? A little bit of the family history. How, how did we get to, to have the blessing of having a Nephtali De Leon among us?

Mr. De Leon:

Well, I think because we, you were blessed enough to be

Indios

. They were always migrating, all of us. That's how I began. That's how my family began. My family used to migrate between Mexico and the United States in wagons, wagon trains literally.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Let's give them names and years.

Mr. De Leon:

They would come back,

mi abuelito, Cresencio y mi otro Abuelito Diego

(my grandfather, Cresencio, and my other grandfather Diego) would come back and forth and this is, literally on wagon trains for, from

Linares, Mexico

to San Marcos, to Lubbock, to Martindale. They used to call it

Morondel

, names like that right. And this is why my mother, although all her life she practically lived in Mexico, she was born here, in San Marcos in particular.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Como se llama?

(What was her name?)

Mr. De Leon:

Maria Guadalupe, mi mama

,(my mother)

Maria Guadalupe y my papa

, (my father)

Francisco

.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Maria Guadalupe?

Mr. De Leon:

Maria Guadalupe Gonzalez.

Page: 19

Dr. Gutierrez:

Which, which is the maternal grandfather?

Mr. De Leon:

The maternal grandfather would be Cresencio Gonzalez.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok. And the other one?

Mr. De Leon:

Diego De Leon.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok.

Mr. De Leon:

So, my father, Francisco De Leon. But going back to why my grandparents were moving back and forth. That's how my mother was born in San Marcos, so my mother is an American citizen by birth, but most of her life she lived in Mexico.

Dr. Gutierrez:

What years are these?

Mr. De Leon:

This would have to be I915, 1920. More like I920, I think. My father was born in 1910, the year of the revolution, and so on. So, it's in my blood, like in so many of us. I'm not particularly unique or different. To be part of this mi, migrating people that we, this would be natural lands for all of us to come, to come back and forth according to our particular needs, to live and survive and to cultivate the land. We are basically cultivators, all of us. We, we love the land, we love the plants, and to this day, I have not, all the migrant labor and all the migrant work did not make me hate, did not make me hate plants. I still love them even more. To this day I cultivate plants. But because of that, again, in one of those trips back and forth, I'm born in Laredo. Some of my family is born here, some of my family is born in Mexico.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Which Laredo?

Mr. De Leon:

Laredo, Texas, over in Laredo, Texas. So, I was just born there because we were on our way to some other fields to, to go, to keep on working basically and then that's why we, we kept on going back to

El Valle

, [Rio Grande Valley] all those little towns that I mentioned.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Was the crop cotton?

Mr. De Leon:

In those times there was very little cotton in

El Valle

, but there was some. No, it was mostly in South Texas. It was mostly

melons

,

Page: 20

sandias, chile, tomate, cebolla, narnjas, toronjas

. (melons, watermelons, chile, tomatoes, onions, oranges, grapefruit.) You name it, it's there because everything that was growing at the time. Of course, now they've changed it.

Dr. Gutierrez:

But not in Lubbock or Martindale.

Mr. De Leon:

No. In Lubbock or Martindale, there was a lot of cotton and sorghum, a lot of sorghum and that's what it's called. Like in sorghum, great big plants, they have a great big head of, a bunch of orange little seeds, they use it to feed cattle and to crush and to make oil out of the sorghum head. They look like canes. That's what we call a

la limpia

. (a weeding). In, in the sorghum, you

limpia

(weed) with a great big hoe. And you take out all the bad sorghum, you take out the weeds and all. That's a

limpia

. (weeding). We'd go out there at five o'clock in the morning and get a little truck and we'd all go out to the

limpia

. And, of course, a lot of cotton in, in West Texas. Amarillo, Lubbock, Mission, Muleshoe, Tahoka, Midland.

Dr. Gutierrez:

I'm being picky because that, that also is seasonal. So...

Mr. De Leon:

Very.

Dr. Gutierrez:

So, so...

Mr. De Leon:

That's part of the reason why we w The migrant worker, by the age of ten or twelve, has already seen five, ten states. By the time a person is fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old, they've heard English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, all kinds of languages

Dr. Gutierrez:

And can do math in their head.

Mr. De Leon:

And can do math in their heads. Exactly. They have to deal with the Laundromat, they have to deal with food, they have to deal with getting paid, with how much change you get back and so on and so on. Migrant workers are extremely sophisticated people. As a matter of fact, I continue to marvel every time I go back to the Valle, back to South Texas, many wonderful people over there, how much they can tell me about Michigan, about Chicago, about Illinois, about San

Page: 21

Francisco, about these other places, about Idaho. I mean, they can fill my mind with so many things that other people don't know and will never know. The poor little Anglo kid, that's the poor little Anglo kid, the one who's never been away from his block because perhaps he doesn't have to and also perhaps out of timidity and so many other reasons.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, tell me some of your, your stories of that childhood when you were a migrant, your housing or education or doing math in your head or being the family spokesman, if you were. Tell me about some of that childhood.

Mr. De Leon:

Actually I was very fortunate in that I had two brothers and one sister. I'm the youngest of the family.

Dr. Gutierrez:

And what are their names?

Mr. De Leon:

Francisco Efrain De Leon. He's, is, has been a fighter pilot.

Dr. Gutierrez:

That's one.

Mr. De Leon:

One, for a great number of years. My other brother is Hector De Leon. He was in Viet Nam for eight years during the thickest of the war, specifically the Tet Offensive of I968, one of the most horrendous moments of any war in the world, of all of the wars of history. Tet Offensive of 1968. My brother was right in the midst of that.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Can you stop for a minute because I, I don't think you're going to pick up with the dogs barking? All right. We are recording after that dog break.

Mr. De Leon:

Dog break. Barking.

Dr. Gutierrez:

You were, you were, I was asking you for examples of your childhood memories.

Mr. De Leon:

Recuerdo, to mas triste que recordaba

, (I recall, the sorriest of recalling,) the people working next to us who were not born here. It's like we always lived viz a viz the illegally entered people here, what they call illegal entries here, right? So, we were as legal as anybody

Page: 22

else. There was nothing illegal about our community. The people we perceived as illegal were the

Migra

, [U.S. Border Patrol] the armed guard, the armed people who would come and pursue half of us. Half of us were always running for cover. And I always thought that was very cruel. That, that was when my political awareness was born, when I saw that half of my community was all, always persecuted.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Where did you first see this?

Mr. De Leon:

This was in South Texas. I think it was in

Edinburgo

(Edinburg), in Edinburg, Texas. I must have been about six or seven, give or take, years old.

Dr. Gutierrez:

So Operation Wetback in the early Fifties?

Mr. De Leon:

Operation Wetback, exactly. And to me they were wonderful, lovely people, full of knowledge and information who would take me by the hand and say "

Mira mijito, asi hacemos estas cosas. Si viera usted los pollos y las gallinas que tenemos alla.

" (Look son, this is how we do these things. If you could see the chicks and hens with have back home." And I was fascinated by their speech, by their knowledge, by their awareness, which was also a part of me. I, I mean, I could relate it immediately to my grandfather and my grandmother, to all the people that I had always known. But...

Dr. Gutierrez:

Have they passed away by then?

Mr. De Leon:

What's that?

Dr. Gutierrez:

Had they passed away by then, your grandparents?

Mr. De Leon:

They had already passed away by then. So, ...

Dr. Gutierrez:

So it's just your nuclear family moving around?

Mr. De Leon:

It was my nuclear family moving around.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Excuse me. I think I interrupted you when you were with the second brother. We didn't get to the sister.

Mr. De Leon:

To the sister, Maria.

Dr. Gutierrez:

And the dog started

Page: 23

Mr. De Leon:

Yeah. Ok. My sister is named Maria. She studied, she wanted to be a pharmacist, and then, she studied psychology, and got her degree in psychology. Today, she's a bilingual teacher. My other brother, like I said, which is very peculiar, my two brothers, they got their degree in fine arts and I always find it, found it ironic to imagine my brother with a degree in fine arts ordering a lot of destruction and/or protecting his men from a lot of destruction as a captain.

Dr. Gutierrez:

This is the fighter pilot or the second one?

Mr. De Leon:

Both of them. But...

Dr. Gutierrez:

They are careerists in the military?

Mr. De Leon:

Both of them had, had degrees in fine arts, both the fighter pilot and the careerist as a military as, in the army specifically. My brother was, I believe he was twenty-two years old when he lands in Viet Nam as a Second Lieutenant out of Texas Tech University; and because all the officers were killed, he was made a captain immediately, instantly at the age of twenty-two. One of the youngest captains in any, any war, or in present wars. He didn't particularly want to be an officer, a captain in particular. He, he immediately realized that all the officers were being killed so that the people would not have a leader, so they would not have someone to be commanding them. So again perhaps, out of habit, Chicanos have this wonderful habit of survival, he instantly decided that he was not going to wear anything that said that he was an officer. Only his men would know that he was an officer. So, he looked like any common soldier to, to the enemy, to, to the Viet Cong. And that's pretty much how he survived. Because he's brown skinned, thin, my brother is, he could actually mingle with the Vietnamese and be one of them and be part of the Vietnamese community and the Vietnamese people, so much so that he married one of them. He married a Vietnamese girl and they thought he was, they see him coming, they thought he was an oriental like them. So, that's how he survived. And he's, as a matter of fact,

Page: 24

he stayed eight years in the war and he was coming back and forth between all communities. He, he was pretty much welcomed in all communities. He made a career of it. To this day, he's very spartan. To this day, he works two or three jobs, day and night. Always coming, always going, always doing something. Always having something to do with public, with the great numbers of community. He has been a P. R. person for different political entities in Washington. He lives in Washington. They send him to all kinds of countries to preview things like the forward scout. Again, you can't use this for ...

Dr. Gutierrez:

You must have interesting debates when you get together.

Mr. De Leon:

Very, very much so. Definitely. And so, the same thing is with my brother Francisco, the older, who is a fighter pilot. We used to have intense quarrels, but we learned to live with each other, so we get along quite well now. But there, there were some difficult moments in, in our family. but not any serious bad difficult moments. And of course my brother loves to fly because the fastest jet in the world, the Phantom 4, has always done it.

Dr. Gutierrez:

He's still a fighter pilot?

Mr. De Leon:

He's still a fighter pilot. One of his dreams was to be an astronaut, but he realized that it was not as exciting as having dogfights in the air and he decided that's what he wanted to do. Again, with a degree in fine arts, both of them. They are extremely talented. Both of them have made a living as artists, but they decided they wanted to do something. And it was so easy. In other words, they, they needed the challenge of something different because art was so natural. They're, they're really literally extremely talented.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, where did that come from because you certainly are an artist in your own right?

Mr. De Leon:

I think my mother gave that to us. She has always been a, a painter, a poet.

Page: 25

Dr. Gutierrez:

At home?

Mr. De Leon:

At home.

Dr. Gutierrez:

She had time?

Mr. De Leon:

Yes. My mother, we always contributed. We always helped in everything that was needed to be done in the house, so it wasn't like my mother... What I do remember, she was the first one to get up and the last one to go to sleep, of course. Mexican mothers do that. But the rest of the time we all contributed to, to whatever needed to be done. But yes, she would find time to write. She has been published in a few journals and to paint, so I guess we got it from her. Three of us were artists. I did not study art. In fact, I didn't study anything. And that's probably why I, why I became a poet and a painter. Two weeks of Texas Tech University college, I said, "Jesus, I'm turning into something I'm not. My head is going to be full of facts, things, information that has little or nothing to do with me and my community and/or that might help whoever is teaching me this to continue to colonize myself and to continue to colonize my community. If I stay here, I will be a colonizer. I will become a colonizer or without becoming aware, I will just be something that I never intended to be."

Dr. Gutierrez:

You had those thoughts then?

Mr. De Leon:

I, I had those thoughts then.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Where did they come from? How did you figure all of that out?

Mr. De Leon:

Because by the time I was a, I graduated from high school

Dr. Gutierrez:

Where?

Mr. De Leon:

I, Lubbock, in particular. The reason that, and this is really true and it happened to many other friends and people that I know, one of those migrant trips, our car happens to break, a little car

que no servia para nada

(that was not good for anything), happens to break down in Lubbock, Texas. As a result of that, I spent the next seventeen years in West Texas simply because we all needed to go to school, we

Page: 26

couldn't get back to the Valley, Rio Grande City, McAllen, Harlingen, and so and so. We couldn't get there. We didn't have wheels.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Or a house. I guess you were renters because you...

Mr. De Leon:

Oh, exactly. Renters.

Dr. Gutierrez:

...don't want to just leave the home?

Mr. De Leon:

No.

Dr. Gutierrez:

So you rented?

Mr. De Leon:

We rented. Most migrants don't own homes.

Dr. Gutierrez:

And, and what, what was that decision about to resettle in Lubbock because I mean...

Mr. De Leon:

Well,...

Dr. Gutierrez:

...seven months is ok, but seventeen years,...

Mr. De Leon:

Seventeen years.

Dr. Gutierrez:

...somebody had to decide to stay.

Mr. De Leon:

Basically because it was time that my older brothers in particular needed a higher education. Here we had been hop scotching from school to school to school to school and somehow we made it, particularly my brothers and sister. It was time for them to go to college, to universities.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Your parents wanted them to do that or they wanted to?

Mr. De Leon:

They wanted it. Everybody. My parents had no formal education. I mean, literally none. I think my father got to the second grade and my mother perhaps to the third grade. But they were extremely erudite. They were extremely knowledgeable of many, many things, extremely well read. My father loved to recite poetry. I hear, I never heard him do it professionally, but I hear that in his youth he was, he would recite it. He would actually be a

declamador

(declamationist), an official teller of poems. When I, by the time I grew up he didn't do that anymore, but he still loved it and he shared it with us. An occasional poem he would remember and recite it to us. So I grew

Page: 27

up, like I said we all grew up in that environment. I, I remember the most exciting thing that ever happened to us in South Texas. Great big old truck suddenly coming to our little house, hovel of a house, a little one room shack for six in the family. Four children and father and mother. One little room shack we are living in La Casita Farms close to Rio Grande City. Great big old trucks appear. We are all excited. We didn't know what was going on. This man drops this great big old box in our

casita

(home). It's a set of Compton's Picture Encyclopedia. Nothing could be more exciting for any and all of us. We just dug into the night, deep into the nights, so excited about this strange wonderful language, the images, the pictures, and later on my brother, Francisco, would take me literally by the hand and say, "Look, listen to this. I want to read you a poem." And he'd take a book of poetry,

"El brindis del bohemio. En torno de una mesa de cantina, en una noche de invierno, resoyadamente repartian seis alegres... "

(The toast of the carefree. Around a table in a bar, a winter night, six happy men shared....") And here I was listening. I was too young and very often I did not understand the words that were beyond my, my comprehension, but I loved the, the, the sound. Obviously I enjoyed the attention of my brother. So, so that stayed with me.

Dr. Gutierrez:

What's the age difference here?

Mr. De Leon:

My older brother is eight years older than I am.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok. So it was pronounced at that younger age, not now?

Mr. De Leon:

Very much, yes, very much.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok.

Mr. De Leon:

So anyway, obviously that stayed with me because then I grew up to love poetry and write poetry and, and become a poet without my wanting ever or deciding that I was going to be a poet. I just became a poet. But my first book came out when I was a senior in high school in Lubbock High. My first book, titled

Chicanos, Our Background and Our Pride

, I wrote it because I had seen so many

Page: 28

wrongs, so many bad things, so many injustices. Specifically all, all across the country, the, the places that I had already been to as a migrant, but then when I stayed that long in, in West Texas, Lubbock, Muleshoe, Amarillo, Plainview, Tahoka, La Mesa, Littlefield. I could go forever naming all those little towns and big towns. I, I actually got to see the signs saying "No Dogs, No Mexicans Allowed" in barber shops. I actually got to see them. I quoted them in my first book. At the time, Preston Smith was governor of the state of Texas and that very much impressed me because he was the owner, Preston Smith was the owner of the downtown theaters in Lubbock, Texas. Mexicans could not go and sit with everybody in the downtown theatres in Lubbock, Texas when I grew up there, when I was there, seventeen, eighteen years old.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, when did the family settle in Lubbock? What year?

Mr. De Leon:

It must have been around '60, I959, 1960, give or take. '59 or '60.

Dr. Gutierrez:

And you were in what grade?

Mr. De Leon:

I must have been around the eighth, ninth grade.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Oh, so you graduated around '65, '66?

Mr. De Leon:

Well no. Actually it must have been a little earlier because I graduated in 196I.

Dr. Gutierrez:

1961?

Mr. De Leon:

1961. So it had to be,

Dr. Gutierrez:

So in `6...

Mr. De Leon:

I guess it was about two or three years before in Lubbock, Texas.

Dr. Gutierrez:

I see. So they...

Mr. De Leon:

And by that time I had already been helping a man,

el borachito del pueblo

, (the town's drunk), wonderful, little guy, Gus Medina. It was Agustin Medina. One way or another, now he was the town drunk, the, the Chicano town drunk. There's a lot of them who had a brain, but the one, the main one, he would put out a little piece of paper, like a tabloid little thing called

Noticias

. And even as a ninth grader, tenth

Page: 29

grader, I would go help him put the paper together in downtown Lubbock. I had a ride from, I, I had a job and here and there and I would go and still work. And out of that experience, by the time I graduated from high school, I put out that book of mine that specifically what I am referring to, I created my own newspaper titled La Voz de los Llanos which I ran for some eight, nine years out of Lubbock in particular. And through that newspaper, La Voz de los Llanos newspaper which today is archived at West Texas Museum at Texas Tech University right next, ironically, right next to the papers of Preston Smith. Governor, former Governor Preston Smith of the state of Texas has his papers next to mine, and right next to him are all my papers, all my newspapers, my, some of my writings of today when they acquired my stuff and so on. And he is the mar I actually accused in my first book,

Chicanos, Our Background and Our Pride

, of being such a racist, a terrorist against our community. At that time, not that many people were saying that. As a matter of fact, my book,

Chicanos, Our Background and Our Pride

, maybe if not the first, one of the first books, written material that made the specific reflection of a Chicano written and using that word, and specifically the title because these were the times of the Mexican American. You remember we've gone through many eras. And we were at one time Latin-Americans, Spanish boys, and then, there was a time that we were Mexican Americans. All the magazines of the time and all the reflections about us and that talks about us all use the word Mexican American. Nobody yet wanted to use the word Chicano. And that is specifically why I used it and that's why I specifically titled my first book

Chicanos, Our Background and Our Pride

.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, where did you get it from?

Mr. De Leon:

Obviously from our streets. Obviously from our reality of the word we used to identify ourselves with. It is almost like the Mexican Indians of yore. When they would refer to each other, they were

Page: 30

Meshicas

[another name for Aztec] What are your parents?

Meshicas

. They were saying, "I'm Mexican." The tribe, the people in particular. We're saying so we're, soy Meshica. The Meshica. So, we are Chicanos on the street. When we talk, we talk Chicano. SO it was natural for me to call my book,

Chicanos, Our Background and Our Pride

. Although other people were saying, "You can't use the term." "Well, of course I can." And shortly after that I came up with the series of other books such as

Five Place

, published out of Denver, Colorado, Presila Salazar out of Denver, Chicano Poet out of California, I Will Catch the Sun that I created a publishing house myself and published, I published several other writers such as Arturo Escobedo, a great wonderful book entitled

Chicano Counselor

.

Dr. Gutierrez:

This is all out of Lubbock?

Mr. De Leon:

Out of Lubbock, uh huh.

Chicano Counselor

by Arturo Escobedo. Fantastic book.

Dr. Gutierrez:

What was the name of your publishing company?

Mr. De Leon:

Trucha Publications. Came up with

Trucha

Publications. Just like the name on my newspaper was

Loa Voz de los Llanos

. That was a separate entity though.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Trucha

(Trout) did not mean the fish. You meant it being astute.

Mr. De Leon:

Astute.

Trucha

which again... I know that you are leading to the several meanings it can have. Trucha is a fish which also is the fish of Christ, and so on. And I used the emblem of, of an Aztec Indian for the logo. But along with the Aztec Indian, in his shield of the Aztec Indian is the Ying and Yang. So I was saying look, we are really a cosmic people. We are a world people, so here's an Aztec Indian with a Ying and Yang shield. And so, I used the logos, both of them. I interplayed them together, one against the other.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Maybe at the next break, if you have one, maybe you could show them to the camera and let me at least film them.

Page: 31

Mr. De Leon:

Ok. Sure. And out of that published other people like Ricardo Mora out of Pueblo, Colorado

tambien

(also), great, fantastic poet, who had spent sixteen years in prison, in the Colorado system, which again reflects how many people dealt with our better thinkers, with our very astute minds. So many of our great, wonderful poets and reflectors and thinkers spent quite a number of years in jail, in prison, not only jail, but prisons. Such as Ricardo Sanchez, a tremendous poet writer that most people know. Raul Salinas

tambien

(also), another great poet and a wonderful friend. And so many others. Brown Buffalo, etc.

Dr. Gutierrez:

You financed this all yourself?

Mr. De Leon:

Yes. The publishing company came out just like everything else came out, like the rest of everything that we had been doing. By we I mean our people across the country. Not having resources, economic resources, we have people resources, we have human resources. So what I would do, I created a, an enterprise, I joined several people together in Lubbock to create Trucha Publications. Street sweepers, dishwashers, cleaners,

pues era to unico que habia

(well, that is all there was), there's still no attorneys, few teachers, no other professionals, no engineers, no anything. We are talking early 1970, late Sixties in Lubbock, Texas. At the time we were about fifteen percent of the population in Lubbock, Raza in Lubbock, Texas. So, I would gather my friends or people that I knew, trabajadores, (workers), just, we were labor, all of us were labor. So here people would bring in fifty dollars, ten dollars, twenty dollars, a hundred dollars occasionally, but somebody would have a fundraiser. This is how Trucha Publications came to me, through fundraisers and individual contributions. I think we did get a couple of hundred dollars from an Anglo doctor who was sympathetic, so I think that was the biggest singular contribution.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Where, where did you go print and cut and bind?

Page: 32

Mr. De Leon:

Different...

Dr. Gutierrez:

Where did you go?

Mr. De Leon:

...different places there in Lubbock. Literally, there in Lubbock. I was able to befriend a publi, I mean printers or people with presses and this is where we would have our books printed and bound. A few of them like my personal writings, some of them were published out of state by different people who had obviously better equipment, more resources. But they were generally the smaller presses. The big presses have never been ready to, to embrace us. They still cannot understand us, our edifice, and I would prefer to stay with our community in that often when you want to get published, you might want to reflect what the publisher wants you to do or the way or the manner, the language, the method, etc., etc. And I would not want to become a Hispanic author or a Latino writer. I want to remain a Chicano writer, a Chicano poet. Again, being highly aware of the great difference that there is specifically like I mentioned earlier from the political perspective.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Now during those years there are also walkouts...

Mr. De Leon:

Many, many walkouts.

Dr. Gutierrez:

...occurring even in your area. Can you tell me if you were involved in any of those or did you report on any of those? I assume that you are still carrying on your newspaper at that time.

Mr. De Leon:

The truth is that I, I was both. It was a very interesting mix because I was both a reporter, an editor, a publisher and a direct, directly involved activist. So very often I would be at the head of the march, but at the same time, directly reporting what was going on. I would often be in legal court battles in, against school systems. Amarillo, Abilene, Lubbock, Muleshoe, Plainview, Tahoka. I mean, the years I spent in Lubbock were years of direct involvement, direct activism with so many different communities in West Texas and it's all reflected in the newspaper I was publishing.

Page: 33

Dr. Gutierrez:

Were you

Mr. De Leon:

Very often the local media would pick up also and so I, I was in several front pages of the different newspapers like from say Abilene or Amarillo. In fact, some of it continues to be very recently. When, Ruben Sandoval, a wonderful civil rights attorney who passed away maybe six, seven months ago here in San Antonio, Texas. He and I flew directly to Amarillo to confront Judge Kaiser who was telling this lady, this young mother that for her to teach Spanish to her little daughter would be to condemn her to become a maid for the rest of her life. So, we flew up there to confront him directly. When Judge Kaiser, Sam Kaiser as a matter of fact, when he was having his P. R. moment, all the media was there, I confronted him directly right in front of the media. And we have a video of it saying something like, he was saying, "Well, this is America, and so, we've got to reflect America." And I said, "Could America include

La Virgen de Guadalupe

? (The virgen of Guadalupe?) Could America include a mother speaking Spanish to her daughter?" The guy went immediately red and purple and went into all kinds of changes. And just like that, he was there about one or two minutes into his speech when I interrupted him immediately. He gets up real angry into his private chambers. And that was the end of the public review at that moment. And all the media were there from all over the country because it was a big thing. So that, that's what happened in Lubbock. And this is actually what many of us would do, by many of us I mean the youth and often the elders of the community of the different West Texas cities. There was so much racism. There still is. There is. In this part of the Bible belt of West Texas that communities would jump right and left against the establishment, against the educational system, against the police system, against the legal systems, the court systems, against almost any entity that had anything to say about how we were going to experience our life in America, in the United States

Page: 34

of America. We realized that we were not the whole, the monolingual, monolithic attitude of dealing with human beings. So then, it was actually my community would propel me. It wasn't something that I was, that I was creating or that any one of us particularly, the community was speaking out about the injustices. I was happy to be there to be able to be supportive in reflecting what the community was upset and angry about. And there were many ample local leaders too who, present, to do, but those, they would include me. And I was, of course, very happy to be part of it because they also needed someone to reflect what they were about and their concerns. And here I was,

La Voz De Los Llanos

, a newspaper dealing with it every week. It was a weekly newspaper, Spanish-English.

Dr. Gutierrez:

How long did it last?

Mr. De Leon:

About nine years. But what's interesting...

Dr. Gutierrez:

From when to when?

Mr. De Leon:

It must have been late Fifties to the middle of the Sixties, give or take.

Dr. Gutierrez:

No how...

Mr. De Leon:

Now what is interesting about that, the , the newspaper continued.

Dr. Gutierrez:

You sold it?

Mr. De Leon:

Yes. No. I left it with my assistant, Bidal Aguero. You know him. Bidal Aguero in West Texas, in Lubbock in particular. At that time Bidal Aguero was already helping me when I was creating my newspaper. Carlos Quirino, who you also know, now living in Houston.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, age wise they are not very far from you, so you were a, a high schooler kind of. You, you were all of nineteen, twenty years old and these are your...

Mr. De Leon:

Yes. We were all high schoolers.

Dr. Gutierrez:

...assistants and they were sixteen and seventeen?

Mr. De Leon:

Exactly. We were all young people, high schoolers. We, we were still in high school and already fighting the, the establishment, already

Page: 35

fighting the system, presenting cases. So anyway, he, he took it over. It's still publishing, something like twenty-five years later. The same newspaper

que commence yo con el, otros

. (that I began with him, others.) It is still going on, it has continued to be published for twenty-five years every week.

Dr. Gutierrez:

But he changed the name to

El Editor

?

Mr. De Leon:

El Editor de Texas..

Dr. Gutierrez:

Oh. Well, undoubtedly there were battles, you know, about the signs in certain shops, the...

Mr. De Leon:

Many.

Dr. Gutierrez:

...the confrontations with people like this other judge of recent times. But clearly the war was, was between high schoolers and the educational system. Can you list the walkouts that occurred in that area that you remember?

Mr. De Leon:

There were so many in Lubbock, middle schools, high schools. I remember.... Hi Josie. [Spouse enters yard.]

Josie:

Hi.

Mr. De Leon:

Come and join us.

Josie:

Here is some tea.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Gracias

(Thanks).

Josie:

Como estas?

(How are you doing?)

Dr. Gutierrez:

Fine. Just fine. Thank you.

Mr. De Leon:

Yes, I remember being escorted out of Lubbock High by a police officer right after I graduated from it because I wanted to go back during open house week. And I was escorted out by a police officer. They didn't want me there. The reason given to me by the principal was because I had a beard. And that the principal was telling him... He knew me and. I knew him, that we could not allow a beard in high school, Lubbock High. And I turned around...

Dr. Gutierrez:

This is recently?

Page: 36

Mr. De Leon:

No, this was some years back. The year after I graduated from high school, I go back to my high school, my alma mater as it were, to be with my chums and to be supportive of the Raza community that was in the school. I was not allowed. I was interrupted immediately. I was called, taken into the principal's office. And I was told, "We cannot allow you because you have a beard." "And also because I was a revolutionary, because I was an instigator. I said, "I need to be that because you are such a racist. You are so narrow minded I have to be that." "Well... But the real reason is because you have a beard." I said, "Well, look at these images here."

Dr. Gutierrez:

Abraham Lincoln.

Mr. De Leon:

"Abraham Lincoln has a beard. He's in this school. In fact, you think he's a great, wonderful person. So what's wrong with me?" Anyway, they escorted me out. As a result of that, there's an immediate protest against Lubbock High by the local community. Carlos Quirino, Bidal Aguero, and so many others. A few years later, there was a great

huelga

(strike) from the trash collectors in the city. They decided to stop their work because they were being so, treated so badly, and so ugly and so bad, so unkindly, paid very little, and so on and so on. But basically, their dignity was crushed every day by...

Dr. Gutierrez:

These are all Chicanos garbage collectors?

Mr. De Leon:

All Chicano garbage collectors.

Dr. Gutierrez:

But there's a little Black community in Lubbock. But this was a Chicano fight?

Mr. De Leon:

It was a Chicano fight. I would later also work with the Black community of Lubbock, Texas. But anyway, the strike was going on and on forever and forever. And nothing was being resolved. So, I go to the priests in Lubbock, Texas, and I said, "Father Hoffman, you've got to do something about this." Father Hoffman? "Father O'Brien, you've got to do something about this." "Yes, yes. But what are we going to do?" Here I was telling them and l was kind of crying out in

Page: 37

the wilderness. Hey, we can't take this sitting down. We gotta do something. Nothing happened. The, what was particularly hurting is that the guys were out of a job. Their families were going hungry, you know. I think it's a couple of months that have already gone by, and the people were really hurting. They didn't have food on their table because they were on strike. So, a couple of days after I go to these to all these priests, and we try to create something, make something happen. Nothing. And these trashes are piling up all over the city, and the city stinks and reeks and everything. A couple of days later, to and behold, there's a report, a public report that the city hail awoke to find great heaps of, piles of trash right at its doorsteps, brass, beautiful doors and everything, beautiful tile on the floor. It was just stinking. Piles and piles of trash right at their doors. Well, we happened to be close by, some friends of mine and I, happened to be close by, kind of early in the morning. They decided that we must have done it because we were the rabble-rousers of the city. Whoosh! Straight into jail.

Dr. Gutierrez:

You and who else?

Mr. De Leon:

Josie and... Who just gave us tea, another

poeta alivianada

, (with it poet), who is Josie, and several others. By this time...

Dr. Gutierrez:

What is Josie's last name?

Mr. De Leon:

We can ask her. But...

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, I mean, you know their names. Just for the record.

Mr. De Leon:

Oh, I'm sorry. What, what did you say?

Dr. Gutierrez:

What is her last name?

Mr. De Leon:

Oh, her last name. I, I thought you said, "What is she going to say?"

Dr. Gutierrez:

No, what is her last name?

Mr. De Leon:

De Leon.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok.

Mr. De Leon:

I thought you had a different question. I forgot to say, in all these things that I've been saying so long, I had already established also a

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theatre, a Chicano theatre. And we got to perform in El Paso and Corpus Christi and Albuquerque and Hagerman, New Mexico, in Amarillo, Plainview, Canyon. We were getting successful. We, we...People were inviting us and paying us, which was really surprising to us. We couldn't believe that we could actually go there and, and get fed and get extra money for it, and pay our way. I mean, to us this was all a novelty.

Dr. Gutierrez:

What is the Chicano theatre?

Mr. De Leon:

It reflected precisely these injustices, these, these situations or these cases that came up, cropped up in city after city after city, issues that needed to be resolved and so that's what our theatre did.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Was it modeled after or was described as Guerrilla Theatre or

Teatro Campesino

? [The farm worker union theatre group].

Mr. De Leon:

It, it took from everyone that we could. I mean, we were sure of what other people were doing, by this time we were aware of

Teatro Campesiono

and other

teatros

. So, but, but we honed it down to our communities, whatever needed to be said.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, describe a play or describe what you would present.

Mr. De Leon:

Well for instance, a very popular play was "Chicanos, the Living and the Dead." In it I would, I... I'm the author of it. I would tie in the specific situation of the, the racism, the radical approach to Chicanos in the school system, viz a viz more mature rebels such as Che Guevara. And also at the time, the name, what's the name of this, the, the writer from Los Angeles?

Josie:

Ruben Salazar.

Mr. De Leon:

Ruben Salazar. So what I do, thank you, what I do, I bring in, I tie in Ruben Salazar and Che Guevara into the play, and I juxtaposed them. I, I reflect one of the group of young Chicanos who are trying to be activists and there's a conflict in the young Chicanos. We got to have an armed struggle. No, no. Wait a minute. We've got to reason with, with the enemy. We've got to talk to them and, and we've got to tell

Page: 39

them of our issues and, and, and our cases and our situations and, and... This is America. There's got to be a sense of fairness here. And then, the other kids would say no, no, no. We can only pick up the arms. That's what we got to do. We got to have the Brown Berets and all this. So, there was conflict in the local community and then Ruben Salazar already dead, Che Guevara already dead in heaven, arguing, "See, see what we created." And Che Guevara would say, "Well, you can only use a weapon in America. That's the only language they will understand." Ruben Salazar would say, "No, no. Wait a minute. You got to reason. You've got to rationalize things. And that's why I'm a writer," dah, dah, dah. So, it's the same thing that was going on in heaven going on on Earth. These were the kind of plays we presented. Became extremely popular. I mean, we would play to full houses almost every time we presented it. And the little whimsical things like the flies and three actual, real flies from... And having those whimsical little existential plays. So we had a, a, all kinds of presentations. But anyway, going back to the trash. It was our theatre group. They were out having a cup of coffee early in the morning which was our habit because everybody was in school, everybody worked, so we would practice deep into the night and then we would get tired and go have a cup of coffee. That was normal for us. So we were hauled to jail. All nine of us, I believe it was. And everybody accuses us of doing this. We don't even know about it. We, we were not even close, immediately to the vicinity. We were several blocks away in coffee shop. But we were accused of it and we're going to be taken to court. It took about thirty minutes for the community to find out what had happened. Somebody got the word out. The very next day, well, that same night a great big crowd of people come over, led by the priests, say, "You cannot imprison our community. You cannot jail our, our community, our theater group or our, our wonderful young people here. They are tomorrow's leaders."

Page: 40

All of these nice things they were saying about us. And by the very next day the whole community had already a very long list of people saying that you've got to let them out. And sure enough, they let us out the very next clay. So there was one, I remember that was one of several...

Dr. Gutierrez:

No charges filed, no trial?

Mr. De Leon:

No charges, no trial. Nothing was ever, we were just let go.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok.

Mr. De Leon:

That would happen again on a more limited basis. A few of us were arrested.

Dr. Gutierrez:

What was, what was the issue then?

Mr. De Leon:

Some things would occasionally be destroyed, fires would appear in the community. As a result of this, the, the police kept killing, literally, killing, I mean murdering some of our people. I wrote a play about one of the.... Ernesto Herios killed by the tracks, on the wrong side of the tracks. He was accused of stealing candy. A twenty-two year old man accused of stealing a ten-cent piece of candy. The candy was neither found. He was accused of being armed. There was no arm on him. Then, he had a knife. There was no knife on him. I mean, situations like this appeared time, I mean, one after another. I mean, I wrote a whole play about it with the permission of the family, the whole thing, it has been presented. Here in San Antonio it has been presented. It has been presented in Los Angeles, in so many cities, several of those cities. At a dance, for instance, there, there was a scuffle between some of the people, some of people that were just there at the dance, the police would just come and crush them out. One of those situations, they took about thirty-five people and jailed them all. Husband, wife, children. This was Lubbock, Texas. Late Sixties. So, Brown Boys, Brown Berets cropped up. I was a member of the Brown Berets.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Who started that there? Do you remember?

Page: 41

Mr. De Leon:

Some people say I did. But...

Dr. Gutierrez:

What do you say?

Mr. De Leon:

That it's possible. But what I think. What I really think is that everybody was a Brown Beret. Like when they killed Zapata, they said everybody is a Zapatista. So basically everybody in the community was a Brown Beret.

Dr. Gutierrez:

All right.

Mr. De Leon:

What is so amazing is that there were elder people, forty, fifty, sixty years old that wore brown berets. There were young kids, six, seven, eight, ten years old that wore brown berets. And they dressed, by dressed like Brown Berets, I mean they, they wore the combat boots type, brown suits, brown cap. I mean we a, a cadre of people, paramilitary and none of us had any military experience. None of us could, even knew how to fire a weapon. None of us had any weapons. But things would still be destroyed. Fire would consume a whole section of the city, a part of' the city, a building or something. Nobody knew how it came about. There was real anger.

Dr. Gutierrez:

But you were blamed?

Mr. De Leon:

Pardon? But you were blamed?

Mr. De Leon:

We were blamed. Sometimes we were put in jail, but there was never any, any reality to it. I mean, people were angry. Things happen when people are angry. I remember, for instance, the Brown Berets confronting the police in a situation that it got several Brown Berets immediately arrested, beaten up, etc., there in, in West Texas. But anyway, so as a result of all these things that happened, like I said a whole bunch of people were thrown into jail out of a dance. Something like thirty-five, forty people. There was a great big march of which I was very instrumental in, in organizing in Lubbock, Texas called

Marcha de la Paz

(March of Peace) like there would be in Abilene, like there would be Amarillo, like there would be in Tahoka,

Page: 42

like there would be in Muleshoe. So many marches. I mean, hordes of people, great numbers of people coming out to protest all these awful things, injustices that were happening. There are photographs of the great

Marcha de la Paz

in Lubbock, Texas down Broadway to the courthouse. I'm kind of in the front... And the rooftops, it's Lubbock, Texas, the rooftops of the court buildings and the other twelve buildings are laden with officers pointing high power rifles at us. And there are quite a few photographs. All, most of my people, my friends, and the people that know me say, "Nephtali, all those rifles were pointed at you." And say, "Look at these photographs."And sure enough, there were probably about thirty-five high-powered rifles pointing at me at that moment. And there's photographs, and we have those photographs. So, a lot of such situations happened. When I knew that it was very dangerous to do what we were doing because some of us had already been obliterated, some of us had already been killed, literally. Ruben Salazar. The great incredible, wonderful, majestic poet that few people will ever know, Heriberto Teran, out of Laredo, Texas, murdered. He was probably about twenty-one in Boulder, Colorado. He was blown up ir his car along with six other people, five other people.

So por eso en esos tiempos se hablaba de los

(That's why at that time there was talk of the) Boulder Six. Heriberto Teran and five others, they were blown to bits in a car in Boulder, Colorado. An incredibly gifted, marvelous individual. I have a book of his,

Espejo de Alma y Corazon

. (Mirror of Spirit and Heart). I'm one of the few that has some of his literature because he was wasted at such an early age. But the list is very long as you are well aware of, so many people, so many of our community that were just wasted. So I, I was also worried that I could be next. And that I probably was zeroed in to be next. How I survived, I thank God, I don't know.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, you had...

Page: 43

Mr. De Leon:

There were so many of us that survived.

Dr. Gutierrez:

...you had problems with the FBI.

Mr. De Leon:

Exactly. As a matter of fact...

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, tell us about that.

Mr. De Leon:

...at one time, there's a loud knock on my door. It happens that

el poeta

(the poet) Ricardo Mora from Boulder, Colorado, from Pueblo, Colorado was visiting with me because his book had just come out. He was very happy about it. Let me close the...

Dr. Gutierrez:

What, what year is this?

Mr. De Leon:

This must be about '73 or '74.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok.

Mr. De Leon:

Several of my books had come out. Maybe a little earlier because I remember part of the reason was I had just written to President Richard Nixon. He was bombing Cambodia at the time.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, that has to be after '72 then.

Mr. De Leon:

'72? He did, he did, during the bombing of Cambodia.

Que fue el 73, 74

..? (That was in 73, 74...?)

Dr. Gutierrez:

Right.

Mr. De Leon:

It, it was at that time. And the war had illegally spread from Viet Nam to Cambodia and they had already been bombing Thailand as well. But anyway, so many things are happening throughout the country. A lot of people are protesting the Viet Nam War and the local injustices, the racism, and so on and so on, the murders of our community, so I, along with other people, I too protest what's going on in the war. My brothers are in the war, I'm next to go in the war. As a matter of fact, I'm right there. Almost. But, anyway, I sent a letter to President Richard Nixon saying that what he was doing is so wrong, that he can only atone for it by doing what Judas Icarius did, which is take a rope and hang himself from the highest tree. And that's actually what I wrote in my letter. I sent copies to Bella Abzug, representative from New York, to the Kennedy's, and to quite a few

Page: 44

other state, I mean, national senators who represented us. Well, a few weeks later there is a loud knock on my door. And Ricardo Mora who had just spent sixteen years in, sixteen, seventeen years in prison, just come out recently, he's at my house visiting with... The great poet. And when this... I said, "Who is it?" It's cold. So, I don't immediately open the door. "This is the FBI." Ricardo Mora's ears just pop up, and he turns purple. He dives into the bed, underneath the bed. He said,

No digas que estoy aqui. No estoy aqui

.- ("Don't say I am here. I am not here.") I don't know what's going on either. None of us knows what's really going on. This is my house. My family is there. My mother, my daughter, my

companera

. (companion.) But they are all in the hack. So I open the door and say, "Yes?" Big tall guys. Just like you see in Hollywood. Literally, big nice suits, everything tight. This is very strange for West Texas even. So I say, "Yeah, can I help you?" Said, "We are here to arrest you." Say, "What?" "We are here to arrest you." I said, "What charges? Who are you? You already told me your name, but who else?" "Did you write this letter?" A copy of the letter that I wrote to Richard Nixon. I said, "Yes, that's my paper." "Well, we're here to arrest you for what you've done. You are going to kill the president." I said, "Of course I'm not going to kill him. I'd have to be crazy. And if I do it, you'd, you'd be the last to hear or know about it. I'd be somewhere else." "We are still here to arrest you." I said, "Well ok. I'll go with you. But before I do, let me show you these other letters." I bring out a slew of letters. Bella Abzug, Kennedy thanking me for the opinion I had on the illegal war in Cambodia. And I bring out a whole bunch of letters. "Here. Come on, let's go." "Well, wait a minute." So they go have a little private tete a tete, private like you we go through all this rigmarole, you know, all the motions, away from me. "What we need from you then... We're not going to arrest you right now. We, we'll arrest you later. We

Page: 45

need a letter from you saying that you are not going to kill the president, that you are no threat to our government." I said, "You are crazy. I wrote what I wanted to say and that's the only letter you'll get from me. I'm not going to give you anything else." And I could hear the bed shaking because all this time I could hear Ricardo Mora just going brrr brrr. He was going, I mean, he didn't want to have anything to do with the law. Seventeen years in one of the most horrible prison systems in the country. As a matter of fact, there were photographs that he had shown me when he's come out in the newspaper, in the Colorado newspapers. They tied him up like this. And he's being beaten on his back, literally,

chicoteadas

. (whipped). And there's a real photograph of him where they are beating him on his back in the prison system. And...

Dr. Gutierrez:

What was he in for?

Mr. De Leon:

It's hard to tell. It could be anything from. from theft to murder.

Dr. Gutierrez:

He never told you?

Mr. De Leon:

He's accused of all of those things.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok.

Mr. De Leon:

But I don't know that he ever did any of them. He's a wonderful guy. I cannot imagine him killing a cockroach. I think he loves cockroaches, too.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Let's go back to your story.

Mr. De Leon:

So anyway, so they leave. Said, "We're going to be observing you." Said, "You've been doing it all along." Said, "You've been doing it for a number of years." I'm aware of it. You and I don't know how many other people. They take off. About ten days later, tat, tat, tat, tat. "Hello. Who is it?" "Secret Service. We are from..." Two guys again, "We're from the Secret Service." "Ok. Can I help you?" "We've got a lot of reports about you. And we are going to have to arrest you. We are going to haul you in," I said, "For what?" "You are a threat to our government. You are a threat to the president." I

Page: 46

mean the whole, repeated... Now it's the Secret Service. I do the same thing again. Bring out the letters, which I'm glad I had done. The same thing happens. "We're going to be observing you. And you'd better watch your step," dah, dah, dah. "Fine. Bye. I don't want to see you." That was the last l heard from them. But I was nervous. I was intimidated. I played like I wasn't. I tried to act real secure, but I knew they could wipe me out. I mean, I, I, I know that anybody can wipe out anybody else if they really want to.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Have you ever asked for your FBI file; have you requested it?

Mr. De Leon:

No. No, I haven't.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Is there a reason why?

Mr. De Leon:

I've never been that curious. I've never, never, but it, it's a good...

Dr. Gutierrez:

Would you give me a notarized letter so I can do it?

Mr. De Leon:

Sure.

Dr. Gutierrez:

...for these archives?

Mr. De Leon:

Surely. I'd be glad to. I'd be glad to. What's interesting, all this time, we are targets, all of us. My friends, my community, and, and I'm almost sometimes I don't want to go to certain persons homes because of their wonderful kindness. Did I really want to involve so and so in reflecting what, in reflecting the, the, the anger, we felt. The, the passion we felt about not being stepped on? How my, how many of our community did we want to involve in this because it could be dangerous for them? I, I could see FBI, Secret Service intimidating people or, or people being wasted because they were friends of mine or because they were part of what we were about. I did not like it at all. I, I, I was quite unhappy about it, but, but the people wanted to be part of it. And you cannot hold people down if they want to be doing something. Many, many things occurred there in particularly in West Texas. And many of this I've written about. In fact, I remember the time, for instance, that I'm in San Francisco doing a poetry presentation. Orlando Lettilier from Chile, the Ambassador to the

Page: 47

United States, I mean to the United Nations rather from Chile, a great, incredible man, a great, incredible gentleman, a good friend of Pablo Neruda,

el gran poeta Chileno

, (the great Chilean poet,) winner of the, what, what's the prize?

Dr. Gutierrez:

Nobel?

Mr. De Leon:

Nobel Prize. He was there to give a presentation in San Francisco right in downtown, the middle of San Francisco somewhere. And I'm there and we exchanged a very nice conversation, information, etc., and we were having a wonderful chat and talk and I give him some of my poetry, he gives me some of his things that he got from his country. And it suddenly occurs to me to look up and around and I said whose, whose house is this? It was in a private home. There were a lot of people. I mean a lot meaning they had come to hear Orlando Lettilier. By this time the president had been murdered of...

Dr. Gutierrez:

Allende.

Mr. De Leon:

Allende. President Allende had been murdered. So Orlando Lettilier was there to seek support for his country, for his people, and his community in the name of Allende. And I said, "Well, whose place is this?" And so, they... I said, "Can I talk to you?" "Yeah." I said, "Who's guarding this guy? Where's your security?" "Security? We don't need security." "What do you mean you don't need security?" I was just coming, leaving West Texas, going to that area and I knew that we needed security. "We don't need security." So I, I'm saddened by that statement, but I say, "Well ok." Everything's cool, I guess. I'm coming down about five, six, ten days later out of San Francisco and coming down Sandia Mountains in New Mexico. I'm driving. Radio is on. We interrupt this program. Bulletin, bulletin, bulletin. Orlando Lettilier has just been murdered in Washington, D. C. Car bombing. Lettilier along with his companion. And I'm shocked. Tears start coming out of my eyes as I'm driving because in a short time I grew to love this individual. And I see that this could

Page: 48

happen to any of us, anyone of us. These are hot guys, days, hot times. I mean, it could happen to anyone. Already several of us are gone. The circle was getting smaller. And I come back home to Lubbock, quite sad and quite hurt, but I realized that we only, we can only do what we have to do and maybe that's, that's the way to celebrate life.

Dr. Gutierrez:

I've asked you if you could list the walkouts. I wonder if you would try that again? I want to move this closer to you because I, that's not going to stop, so the microphone is here by the camera.

Mr. De Leon:

There's one there. I....

Dr. Gutierrez:

No, no. The lighting is not a problem. It, it's the, ..

Mr. De Leon:

The sound?

Dr. Gutierrez:

...the hammering, yeah. The mike is right here.

Mr. De Leon:

A little break for me. I'm going to run.

Dr. Gutierrez:

All right. Thank you.

Mr. De Leon:

Ok. It's good seeing you. Take care.

Dr. Gutierrez:

We are back on. List the walkouts.

Mr. De Leon:

The marches, yeah. Oh yes.

Pues empese a decirles

(Well I began to tell you) there was a walkout in, in Lubbock at Lubbock High. There was a walkout out of Thompson Middle School,

tambien alli en Lubbock

(also, there in Lubbock) in Lubbock, walkout of Abilene School District in. Abilene, Texas, walkout in Amarillo, walkout in Tahoka, walkout in Muleshoe, walkout in Littlefield, walkout in Plainview, and probably there were more that, that I can't specifically remember because every little community and every larger town had their own walkouts.

Dr. Gutierrez:

I remember one that was....A woman named Jane de la Cerda.

Mr. De Leon:

Si

(Yes).

Dr. Gutierrez:

Where was that?

Mr. De Leon:

Yeah.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Rudy Acuna was there. I think was there.

Page: 49

Mr. De Leon:

Yeah, that may be the one in Abilene. There were some in Lubbock

tambien

(also).

Dr. Gutierrez:

Do you remember the names of people involved in these walkouts?

Mr. De Leon:

Well, you mentioned Rudy Acuna.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well he came in.

Mr. De Leon:

He came in.

Dr. Gutierrez:

He came in as a consultant with the government.

Mr. De Leon:

Exactly.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Rudy doesn't want to remember that part. that he was Community Relations Service.

Mr. De Leon:

That's true.

de la Cerda, como se llamaba?

(de la Cerda, what was her name?)

Dr. Gutierrez:

Janie, no?

Mr. De Leon:

No.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Anyway...

Mr. De Leon:

Johnny, Johnny Sanchez, out of Abilene... He's one of the young leaders out of Abilene, Texas. Unfortunately now he's, he's dead. He was killed as a matter of fact. He was thinking of going to Texas Tech and he, he graduated, he did very well, very smart individual, but he was killed.

Dr. Gutierrez:

How did that happen? Accident or?

Mr. De Leon:

Probably

barrio

warfare of some kind and I don't remember all the names. Father Hoffman was very much involved in it.

Dr. Gutierrez:

He's out of Lubbock?

Mr. De Leon:

Out of Lubbock. I remember the priest in Abilene. At, at this moment I don't recall his name, but what was interesting, the priest, you know, like our community is centered so much around the church. There are so many things going around the church, but very often it's very important that the church community be with you and that the church people be supporting you because then you have a greater base of support. But the priest in Abilene was reluctant. As a

Page: 50

matter of fact, he didn't want to be part of the march and, of the protest. And I noticed that he was Irish or had an Irish name. I said, "Father, you cannot break the fantastic tradition that you Irish people have." "What do you mean''" I said, "Well, don't you recall that it was the St. Patrick's Battalion who helped the Mexican people in Mexico in the war of invasion when the United States invaded Mexico? I mean, St. Patrick's Battalion, to a man, turned their backs on this powerful government because they saw the injustice of invading a smaller country. Your people are brave and bold." And as I was saying this, a large group of people are around, young people,

Mexicanos

, y older, and they were looking at the Father with awe and pride. And, and the priest would just get straighter and straighter and he'd be bolder. And he'd get bigger in his suit, in his cassock. And finally said, "Well yes, of course, you're right. Of course, I'm going to be in your march. I do want to he part of it." And then, we knew that we had the church. So, it helps to know a little bit of history.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Did you make A's in history in high school?

Mr. De Leon:

No.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, this is amazing. I mean. you must have read a lot because you said that that you didn't go beyond two weeks of college, so you must have been reading a lot of other things.

Mr. De Leon:

Very much so.

Dr. Gutierrez:

You must have been a good student in high school.

Mr. De Leon:

After...

Dr. Gutierrez:

Obviously a good writer.

Mr. De Leon:

Actually I was a mediocre student in high school. But mostly because I chose to be inattentive; I chose to be absent. I, I didn't really want to graduate from high school. My parents kept me there. I wanted to be out totally, totally, totally. But, you know, I, I come from the generation that you say, "Yes, father, Yes, mama." You kiss their hand and you obey whether you like it or not. you obey. So I obeyed.

Page: 51

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, that makes you remarkable and, and unique. I also remember... And this is me projecting my own bias, you were very outlandish in your dress. Did that start at that time?

Mr. De Leon:

I believe so. That, that's what they say.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, I mean, you must admit, you dressed differently and have for a long, long time. I remember you used to wear real bright colors and bandanas or I don't remember everything exactly, but you, you were a

persona

. You were a figure in the complete sense. Did that start then?

Mr. De Leon:

I believe so. When you say that, it strikes me as almost funny. Somebody, I think it was Jose Montoya or somebody out of Sacramento and one of the poets because Ricardo told me this. "

Oye

, " (Hey), he says, "the way he dresses and everything... Doesn't he live in a little town, a little nothing community?" I go, "Yes." "Well, why does he dress like that?" "I don't know." "He, he's, he's something else."

Dr. Gutierrez:

Except on, on Brown Beret days.

Mr. De Leon:

On Brown Beret days. Well, I guess so. Because after I almost didn't graduate from high school, I immediately took off to other places and in-between I took off, say to Mexico, to the Virgin Islands.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, talk about that. How old were you?

Mr. De Leon:

I think I was out there when I was about fifteen years old.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Fifteen?

Mr. De Leon:

Uh huh.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Did you drop out of school, and then, come back?

Mr. De Leon:

I dropped out of school and then I, I would come back and then shortly after I, I graduated from high school, I go back and stay much longer times. In places like

Vera Cruz

[city in Mexico] for instance, I was exposed to so many countries because it's the main port in Mexico. It’s the biggest, largest port in Mexico. It, it's what they call a free port. By a free port they don't charge taxes to, to the nation

Page: 52

boats that come in there. So I was exposed to so many lands and so many languages, so many people. I enjoyed that. I appreciated that.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Where did you get the money for this?

Mr. De Leon:

I never had any money. I would just

Dr. Gutierrez:

How did you live?

Mr. De Leon:

I would, I would do anything from washing dishes to carrying bananas, say like in the Virgin Islands, I would load banana boats with bananas. I would do whatever I had to do.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, who would hire a fifteen year old kid or, or a young eighteen year old kid.

Mr. De Leon:

I think people believed me when I began to be voluble, when I began to articulate. I think they believe that I had much more experience than I really had. And I think they began to confide in me and to believe that I could succeed at whatever I told them I was going to do. There were times when I would teach English in Mexico. There were times when I would teach French. I taught myself French. I've been published in Paris,

Francia

(France) by

Le Sorbonne

.

Dr. Gutierrez:

In French?

Mr. De Leon:

In French. Part of the anthology of

Mai son macbre, les fils du Soleil

.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, we're going to have trouble with this spelling. Maybe, maybe we need to get the book out and show it so we can spell it.

Mr. De Leon:

If I can find it. It's a very thick, wonderful book. As a matter of fact, it's probably the best book written about us to this very day. Ironically it's written by a French woman and not a Chicano, not a Mexican, not an Anglo, but a French woman named Marciee Cidnne Roccard. The reason she wrote it, it was for her doctoral dissertation out of

Le Sorbonne

. She became so engrossed and so fascinated by our community that her, what was supposed to be her dissertation grew and grew and grew. The book lasts almost six hundred pages long. It's a published book. It's about six hundred pages long. It exists, unfortunately, only in French.

Les Fils Dusoleil. (Los hijos del

Page: 53

sol) Les Fils, L-E-S. Fils, F-I-L-S. Dusoleil, D-U-S-O-L-E-I-L.

[The children of the sun.]

Dr. Gutierrez:

And her name?

Mr. De Leon:

Marciee Cidnne Roccard. Marciee, M-A-R-C-I-E-E, then C-I-D-N-N-E, Roccard, R-O-C-C-A-R-D. Marciee Cidnne Roccard. She takes almost every perspective that you can imagine to write about us, the economic perspective, the, the intellectual aspect of us, the poetic, the historical, the farm worker. She discusses so many of us in so many ways and so she asked me to be part of her anthology. And I sent her some of my material, both in French and in English. And, at one time, I told the people there in Mexico City, some kind of special institute, that I could teach Russian. I didn't know a word of Russian, but I needed to survive. So after about a week of them realizing I didn't know a word of Russian. I was back, back in the streets again. So I would have to use some astuteness to try to survive and, and it worked for a while. And the things that I knew worked obviously better than the ones I didn't know. So, that's how I survived and managed to travel and move. Rut again, you must remember that to me it was not unusual or different to move. I mean I had always done that all my life, to go from one place to another and, and just try to be at home wherever you are at.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Yeah, but traveling with family as a dependent is much different than, than traveling alone independent. There's no security blanket whatsoever.

Mr. De Leon:

That is different.

Dr. Gutierrez:

That's very bold. Again, your uniqueness is a trait, character trait that is manifested here.

Mr. De Leon:

Yeah, they, it was sometimes occasionally hard and difficult. I remember kind of freezing on occasions in Mexico City or deep winter. Not a soul there or not knowing anybody, but I would always run into somebody who was sympathetic to a poet, to an artist, to a

Page: 54

painter. And I could always write things for them. I would, I would, occasionally I would teach. I would. actually teach in a legitimate place. By legitimate I mean I would actually use texts in either language, Spanish, English, French, and it would work. So that was how I was able to survive there.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Then again, I forgot where we were. Walkouts. You listed them all.

Mr. De Leon:

Walkouts. That's what we were talking about. Well, what, what's interesting tambien es de que...(is that it also...)

Dr. Gutierrez:

Your travels and lack of finances.

Mr. De Leon:

en todo esto, como sucede. (in all of this how it happens.) There were problems in Texas, problems in California, problems in so many states, but in particular [Antonio] Orendian is already creating

la organisation de campesinos de Texas

, the United Farm Workers of Texas. And that there is a problem with Cesar Chavez. Cesar Chavez

la organization de campesinos en

(the farmworker organization in) California. And then, in nay naivete, in my youth I’m a friend to both. I'm supporting both. By this time I've already corresponded and met Caesar Chaves and I've helped to support Antonio Orendian. And I think I'm a friend of both. Like I mentioned earlier, my book had come out, I had already quoted some of Cesar Chaves' letters to me in my book, and so on and so on. So. I thought I had an in with them. I said, "Well, surely we can get along," you know. Surely there does need to be dichotomy between the Texas and, and farm workers of

de Califas

(of California) [slang]. So I make a pilgrimage to Keene, California with the specific intent of mending broken fences between Orendain and Cesar Chavez.

Dr. Gutierrez:

What year was this?

Mr. De Leon:

What could it be? '77? Give or take. No, maybe more like '75, '76, give or take. Somewhere around there. And to my surprise, Casar is very combative. He says

"No hombre, si quieres yo tambien saco mi

Page: 55

pistola.”

("No man, if you want I can also get out my gun." So I realized that there are some real deep problems.

Dr. Gutierrez:

So much for the non-violent saint.

Mr. De Leon:

So much for the non-violent saint. I always thought that's how he's going to be, you know. So I'm... And I came back to Antonio [Orendian] and

No se, guy, y la chingada...

" ("I don't know guy and fuck...") I said, "Oh, ok. Wait a minute." And so, I realized that I got to regroup. I got to realize that you can't be naive forever and that sometimes there are problems. And you have to work with both sides regardless of the problems. So, then I continued what I had always done before, you know, going to

trabajar con Orendian

(work with Orendian) and his organization, march with Cesar Chavez and his organization, march with Antonio Orendian.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Now this is in...?

Mr. De Leon:

De...

Por ejemplo desde

(Front.. For example from) Muleshoe

una marcha de

(a march from)

Muleshoe hasta el capitolio de Texas

(to the capitol of Texas) in Austin. I am marching with other

campesinos

(farm workers) along with a group. By this time I've written a poem, "Drops Of Rain Are On It" because we'd been marching in the rain. And here I'm reading a piece of paper almost soggy and wet in front of the capital building about what we thought was a great march and I'm celebrating all the marches.

"Yo vi mas de mil gitanos con aretes y sombreros..."

("I saw more than a thousand gypsies with earrings and hats....") And so on; how they were marching. Then, I go back to sometime late years, a few years later I go back and march with Cesar Chavez, say in San Francisco, in Oak...

Como se llama el otro... y alli andaba el

(What is the name of the other... and there was) Martin Sheen. So it was Martin, Martin Sheen, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta knocking on doors, encouraging the people to be supportive of this, supportive of that. It's almost like a, like in a

apopeya

(apogee) or, or like something that continues to happen over

Page: 56

and over like a great epic of our community necessary because

Jesus Moya tambien teniendo problemas con Antonio Orendian

, (Jesus Moya was also have problems with Antonio Orendian,) but also being a very wonderful supporter and friend.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, that's what I was going to ask you when I started off a minute ago to, to differentiate who was doing what. Now, Orendian was working in Hereford and in Muleshoe. Jesus came later and took over Hereford. Or can you sort it out as to what the factions were and...?

Mr. De Leon:

Well, my understanding is say in Hereford and Muleshoe, there were people like Daniel, the farm workers from Muleshoe, for instance, Daniel Bustamante. I don't remember the name of the other individual, but very good, good friends of mine who are both supporting both Jesus Moya who did come a little later than, than Antonio. But then Jesus Moya actually worked very well with Antonio Orendian. They may have had their differences, but, but I don't know that they lasted that long because I saw them work together very well and I became a friend to both, both of them. Throughout all these years, you know, I realized that you have to sort out personality differences, see through the individual idiosyncrasies of each one of us. And I, of particular- interest, the obvious thing is that everybody who has been a leader, everybody who has been an important person in our community, generally because they are very strong personalities, has a got a, a very strong bias, have sometimes a very egoistic perceptions of themselves; but I do not fault them for this. On the contrary, this is what makes them do what they do. This is part of the makeup of that human being. Very few people get along with Ricardo Sanchez. I thought he was a wonderful guy. He did change some. He was quite wild. He was quite heavy handed, but it's almost like say Esteban Jordan [accordion player] who thinks he is a genius and that's.... And wants you to know it. But he is. So, why shouldn't he want you to know it? Esteban Jordan is so

Page: 57

incredible, the wizard in music. The man with the eye patch. He would talk forever about himself about he was, about how wonderful he is and some people find it hard to, to digest. I don't.

Como dice el "Si no digo yo que me aviento, entonces quien to dice?

(Like he says, "If I don't say I am really good, then who will say it?) Hey, why shouldn't I?" Said, "Of course you should." He's a very close friend of mine. I admire him tremendously. I admire Ricardo Sanchez a lot. We became very, very close. Very few people could, could stand him in a sense. But those that learned of his greatness could indeed deal with him and tolerate him and, and befriend him and, and love him, as a matter of fact. And as he matured, as he grew older, he became much more kinder, much more tolerant. and quite a, quite a lovely, quite a kind, lovely, supportive, loving person. And that's really how I knew, how I have known most people. I can see through, through the fronts that sometimes they put and see the, the greatness in there and, and tell other people. And, and in a sense, I, I do want to be a bridge. I do want to be a, a person who helps other people understand our own community. I am probably tainted that way too, tainted that way too. By that I mean, I, I probably have certain feelings about myself that other people may not find that, that cool. But we are all individuals.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, tell, tell me more about the greatness of Moya and, and Orendian and Chavez.

Mr. De Leon:

Well, there's sacrifice, there is sacrifice, first and foremost.

Dr. Gutierrez:

But what were they doing?

Mr. De Leon:

They were organizing

los trabajadores de las labores

(the workers in the fields), the farm workers to get better wages, to get considerations for their safety, to ban some of the carcinogenics that murder and killed our people. My own daughter died of leukemia at the age of twelve. I think this country poisoned her.

Page: 58

Dr. Gutierrez:

We haven't talked about that. Maybe this is a good moment. When we covered your biography we just got up to your birth and your brothers and sisters. Why don't you tell me about then your family so we can get that out of the way? You know, your, your children, your, your wife, wives, whatever.

Mr. De Leon:

I have two daughters by two different

companeras

(companions). One of them passed away at the age of twelve, Aide De Leon. My other daughter is Maya De Leon. She lives in New York now. My own, my younger daughter, Aide De Leon, traveled and lived with us. And she was the beneficiary of great, wonderful people, all in the movement people, extremely intelligent people. She got to the degree where she could recite poetry with me on the stage by then. She grew up around the likes of Ricardo Sanchez, Raul Salinas, Jose Montoya, Tigre [Perez], Abelardo [Valdez], sometimes around yourself But she would hear about you or be around you occasionally at some of the gatherings and meetings. So, she grew up really among the best of our community in so many ways. But then, she contracted or she developed leukemia. She endured it for five years. We took her to Seattle for a bone marrow transplant which did not work. But she had been drinking a lot of the water of the Rio Grande River for quite a number of years, and there's a, a disproportionate case of incidences of cancer from that particular area of South Texas. Here in our own hospital here, the Santa Rosa Hospital here, there are heavy, ugly statistics from many of the children that they are treating for leukemia and cancer comes from South Texas after having drunk that water of the Rio Grande.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, this river, is this a specific geographic area that you are talking about?

Mr. De Leon:

Yes. Rio Grande, McAllen, Harlingen, San Juan, Edinburg, Brownsville.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, then you've covered all the, all the border.

Page: 59

Mr. De Leon:

All the border.

Dr. Gutierrez:

I don't see any failure. I think they established very good avenues for presenting the unkindness toward our community. I think what's, what's happening is what happens to everything else. There are stages of activity, that there are moments of events. Very few of them have failed. I don't know that anything in our community has ever really failed in that if indeed it had failed, there wouldn't be a legacy. There would be a legacy of, of negativism. there would be a legacy of things that didn't work, of disruptions rather than a movement forward rather than some kind of advancement. And I, in that sense, although I don't agree with many of the institutions or organizations that exist about our community, LULAC, G. I. Forum, and, and others. I think they are succeeding in that they have kept a sense of identity in that when there is nobody else there to say, "Stop," or to say, "Look at this issue," they have done it. So, I guess I. must also mature in that I realize no that all these elements are important and necessary. Every moment of protest is a sign, it's a statement that we are not happy with the situation and that we want change. So, in that sense, I see it all as very positive, very good.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Did, did your parents agree with your politics?

Mr. De Leon:

Yes. My mother in particular. My father died too young.

Dr. Gutierrez:

You were too young?

Mr. De Leon:

When I was too young. My father died when I was too young to realize what I was doing. He did not particularly agree with my apparent becoming of a poet or an artist or a writer. He didn't think that was a way to make a living.

Dr. Gutierrez:

How about being Chicano? Was he Mexican or was he Chicano?

Mr. De Leon:

He, he was Mexican, but he was tolerant and aware that we had a different identity and he supported it, in a sense. He wasn't very vocal about it, but he certainly was not against it. And. my mother is a Chicano, and she identifies herself as one.

Page: 60

Dr. Gutierrez:

I remember that at many events you and your mother would be present. And that was unusual because I think she was one of the few mothers that, that would join us. Usually the parents supported us, but not joined us.

Mr. De Leon:

Yeah. Not joined us, that's right. That. that's true. There's a difference in generations and ages.

Dr. Gutierrez:

You mentioned the Brown Berets, and then, at the end of this other conversation you said that what, what appeared to be with disdain, some older organizations, did you ever join any of the other youth groups like MAYO or the Raza Unida or any of the other groups that were, that were protest groups at that time?

Mr. De Leon:

Oh, very much so.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, tell me about all this.

Mr. De Leon:

Yes, definitely. In Lubbock, shortly after you guys had created MAYO here, at the university here, it began to spread throughout the state of Texas. And people like Carlos Quirino, Bidal Aguero, and others, quite a few others, they introduced MAYO at the college level, university level. And I was peripherally a part of it. But, but by peripherally I mean that I was already so busy with the newspaper. And I was there to support it At, at this time, at that time I saw myself as a supporter of several things that were going on. So I found it rather difficult to stay in one city and, and continue to be a, a dependable, in presence, part of whatever was going on because I would be here for a few days and then be somewhere else for another few days. And there was most tremendous mobility, if you recall in those times, and we, we would move on the spur of the moment. Somebody said, "Somebody wants you here," and we'd be there. I don't know how we found the means, but we did, and we were there. You were there, you were also there at so many places just because from one moment to the next... So, that's what I was doing. I was more involved with Raza Unida when it became an organization and a

Page: 61

party in Lubbock and in other, some of the other cities there. And, of course, I enjoyed coming over to Crystal and other cities and, and being part of what was there. I always lamented the fact that few of our artists, poets, painters, creators, etc., were an integral, continuous part of a political movement.

Dr. Gutierrez:

That were not?

Mr. De Leon:

That were not. That they were not. That I, I would look around and I would say, "Where's all my friends? Where are my poet friends? Where are the artists''" And I would be the only one or one of the few ones. Hello.

Dr. Gutierrez:

All right. We are hack on now. Very few of your friends were there.

Mr. De Leon:

Very few friends. But then there were the others who were very, very political like Tigre, like Raul Salinas, like Ricardo. Even though every one of them had their own agenda and...

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, Tigre did come out of those ranks. Not the other two gentlemen, no. Tigre did conic out of those ranks and so did Amado Pena and Carmen Lomas and Chista, and there were a lot of other people like that. I, I, I guess I could say you also. but that's not what the way you said it. You said that Quirino and others started it. And I guess you, you then, joined your protégés.

Mr. De Leon:

Yes. Precisely. Precisely.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok. Ok.

Mr. De Leon:

And that is, that is the way it happened.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok.

Mr. De Leon:

That is the way it happened.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ah. Well, on a, on a, on an intellectual basis or a philosophical basis, what's the link between art and politics? How do you see it? Because right behind you is, is, it's not on the screen, but if you just move a bit it will be. That's

the Virgen de Guadalupe

Mr. De Leon:

Now becomes

la virgen de Guardaliberty

.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Is, is that what that is?

Page: 62

Mr. De Leon:

La virgen de guardaliberty

has a name.

Dr. Gutierrez:

No, no, no. Don't move it, don't more it. It's right there. I, I, I...

Mr. De Leon:

I want to show, I want to show it has a name.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Oh, ok. Just lift it up higher.

Mr. De Leon:

La virgen de guardaliberty.

Dr. Gutierrez:

A little higher.

Mr. De Leon:

La virgen de guardaliberty.

Dr. Gutierrez:

That's ok.

Mr. De Leon:

La virgen de guardaliberty.

Dr. Gutierrez:

I see. Ok.

Mr. De Leon:

That's the name because obviously it's a synthesis of

la tradition

(the tradition) and the Statue of Liberty.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Uh huh.

Mr. De Leon:

The one that promises and gives love,

carino

(affection), protection and nurturing which is

a virgen

(the virgen), and the other one that promises, but rarely delivers liberty. So maybe we can have something good happen if they join hands and become one person.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Oh, are you reading the thing...

Mr. De Leon:

No, no.

Dr. Gutierrez:

...the verses in the corner? Is that what you are reading?

Mr. De Leon:

No. What I'm saying, I'm just saying.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Oh, you're just talking?

Mr. De Leon:

No, but what it says over here is kind of poetic.

Dr. Gutierrez:

It sounded poetic.

Mr. De Leon:

La virgen de guardaliberty

says, it's a synthesis of two cultures, the traditional version who loves, cares, and protects and the Statue of Liberty, a radical departure from past and concern into a more affirmative love. That's basically what it says.

Dr. Gutierrez:

And this was the symbol used the last October 12th, the march in Austin, no? 1997?

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Mr. De Leon:

That was a new banner that was used, which I painted for, for Coordinadora 2000, for the march in Austin, October the 12th.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, there's a lot of things hanging here, but, but one of them is these books. Would you hold them in front of...

Mr. De Leon:

Sure. Well...

Dr. Gutierrez:

...at your face level so we can.

Mr. De Leon:

This is one of them.

Chicanos, Our Background and Our Pride

.

Dr. Gutierrez:

This is the first one you wrote?

Mr. De Leon:

That's the first boot:.

Dr. Gutierrez:

How did you publish this? How did you get it into print?

Mr. De Leon:

This is part of Trucha Publications. This. And then it was picked up by another publisher out of Denver, Colorado, Cresida Salazar. I think this is probably the version itself. Well, no. This is the Trucha Publications. They had a, a different publishing house out of Denver who picked it up and republished this book.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok.

Mr. De Leon:

It is the first one that I wrote and the first one that was published. Then of course, I would write for children such as

I Color My Garden.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok.

Mr. De Leon:

It's a book, it's a kind of enjoyable, whimsical book about different vegetables that speak in Spanish and English. It's for children obviously. And again, it directly reflects my background as a migrant worker, all these vegetables, all these things that I picked literally with my hands. But you asked me an important question. What's the connection between art and politics or art and activism? And for quite a while and, and basically for many of us Chicano artists, Chicano art became something totally radical and different in that it took a departure from traditional art and from the way people see art. While art, throughout the ages, has been something for the realm of the well to do, of the wealthy, of a privileged class. Those were the

Page: 64

only people that could either afford to give a commission or afford to buy a piece of art. Well, for us art took a different form and, and a different responsibility, which was that art would become and is a tool. It is an extension of our political beliefs, of our activity. We see art as a tool of education as well as a tool of liberation. It is no longer something like the decorative fluff. It's not something just to hang in the pretty, although it should, we certainly want the aesthetics in art, but Chicano art is there to be a little more useful to the community, serve a purpose be\ and making something pretty, beyond putting aesthetics into our lire. Rather to be an agent of change, that's how we see art. That is our definition of Chicano art. And that's the direct tie between the activism and the aesthetics of creating something.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Is that personified in that

guardaliberty

because on the one hand some people could say that it's blasphemous; and on the other hand some could say that. you know, that is sacrilegious to, to the

virgen de Guadalupe

or to the Statue of Liberty. Take your, your pick because you've got two icons there that it could... is that what you mean or am I putting words into your mouth? Why don't you tell me what it means?

Mr. De Leon:

No, no. I think very few people, very rare has anyone stated that hey, this is blasphemy, but it has occurred on, on very strange, rare occasions. Like ninety-nine percent of the people who have viewed it found it very appealing. As a matter of fact, people explain it to me this way. They say, "Now I understand what it means to be a Mexican American. When I saw your image, Nephtali, now I know what I am and who I am, and, and why I believe the way I believe." They say, "When I see this that's us, that's me." And even at a previous march, people have told me, "Nephtali, we wish we had your image." "Why?" "Well, because on the one hand we had

la virgen de Guadalupe

, a banner of her, and then, on the other hand somebody else was carrying the Statue of Liberty to say that we want liberty,

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and we need liberty. And with this other one because it's a tradition for us to carry the loveliness and care and concern and protection of

la virgen de Guadalupe

." They said, "Now you've put them together. Now we can always carry one banner that speaks from both perspectives and addresses both sides of us." So people find it rather, rather good. People find it, like it reflects us as a Raza. as a hybrid people.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok. What is the, the. the, I'm talking about loose ends, what is the, the affiliation? You said you got involved with the Raza Unida party. What did you end up doing? What kind of electoral work did you end up doing and what are your views about a third party and the efficacy of such a thing?

Mr. De Leon:

Well, we, I in particular, joined the party. I was part of it obviously. It was a natural reaction and reflection of our needs to have a Raza Unida party as everybody saw it. Although many found it challenging, they found it disturbing. In, across the segments of society, in all sectors of society, some found it challenging and disturbing, but we found it natural. Among other things obviously we tried to educate communities saying, "Let's vote for us, let's have our own party, let's support ourselves," and so on and so on. Before that though, I had already run for city council in Lubbock, Texas.

Dr. Gutierrez:

When was that?

Mr. De Leon:

That must have been around '67, I967, give or take. Very young.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Were you among the first or the first?

Mr. De Leon:

One of the first. Probably not the first, but one of the first. I came out third in a field of seven candidates. I, I came out third, which to me, I, I, I didn't think it was had then, but of course you, you either win or lose. But it still was a, a good education for all of us. Later on we would run Pauline Jacobo for county commissioner.

Dr. Gutierrez:

She ran as a Democrat?

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Mr. De Leon:

As a Democrat. which really frightened the incumbent and the whole community was mobilized. She almost won. But again, it was another moment of education for our community.

Dr. Gutierrez:

What year was that?

Mr. De Leon:

It had to be around '70, '71. But then through Raza Unida we organized a lot. man.) in our community. We were great supporters of Ramsey and who was quite fantastic, he, he did a fantastic job. And of course, then locally when I moved here, I support Mario Compean when he runs for governor, And, and then, Ramsey Muniz when he ran for governor. So we were quite mobilized to be supportive of the

partido

[Raza Unida Party]. At that time, I thought it was wonderful. I thought it was great to have it. On retrospect, I believe that for us to continue to play by the system's rules and games is for us to be suckered into it. For us to continue colonizing ourselves. My thoughts today are that we need to strike at, again, entirely upon our own sovereignty, entirely upon our particular needs as a particular people. For us to continue to play all the political games; even Ross Perot didn't have a chance, with all his millions. But even if he were to win, what would he win? I mean, what would his party mean? It would mean that there is another third party of colonialists. It would mean that there is another third party of perhaps even richer people with some poor ones believing that they... [End of first tape.]

Dr. Gutierrez:

Nephtali De Leon. Is that your birth name?

Mr. De Leon:

That's my birth name.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok. You were telling me about some of the first things you did. You, you were a fellow traveler; you had contacts all over; you had a, you ran a newspaper, what happened to all your other projects? Your

teatro

(theatre), your publishing house. Did you close that down or did you bring it with you or did it just end?

Mr. De Leon:

The newspaper stayed alive through Bidal Aguero, because I left it in his hands. The

teatro

just, everybody went their own way

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. Remember we were all young people going to school usually, some, and when I left the city, the

teatro

ended there. Of course, the good thing is that in this community we've already seen such events as possible. And so, today there are several groups in Lubbock that occasionally do

teatro

. Much of it is cultural dancing, the dance routines of which are very, they are very pretty, but persons like say Bidal Aguero and Olga,

su esposa

, (his wife), and so many others, they are, have kept alive the tradition of having

teatro, política, ondas

(theatre, politics, ideas). In fact, to this day, I would say that the most Chicano city in the state of Texas is Lubbock. Texas. By that I mean, political awareness, a political consciousness. Lubbock is probably the most Chicano politicized community in the state of Texas, which to me is quite remarkable. And that is because, to me, I explained it as it's being so isolated, so far from everything and everyone that they had to create their own sense of, their own reality. And they have very few negative influences that conic from others somewhere, so therefore, because of that isolation they retain that strength, of an autonomy of self thinking. of self awareness. And I have in those sense, I really seriously mean that to me, it is the most Chicano city in the state of Texas.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, so is Amarillo. so is Abilene, so is Midland, so is. you know, they are all isolated out there.

Mr. De Leon:

Exactly. But no one. I've been in all those communities and even recently there is no tradition of a Chicano mindset. In Lubbock there is and they practice it. Year in and year out they practice their Chicanismo. How do they practice it? With events that always talk about the politics of who they are, identity, celebration through song, poetry, music, theatre, and, and local community activities.

Dr. Gutierrez:

In, in describing those activities, you seem to talk about involvement from Lubbock to the north and northeast, not to the south and not to

Page: 68

Midland, not to San Angelo or was that just simply an omission? Did you do work in the southern part?

Mr. De Leon:

No. But I would be in Midland or say San Angelo. but mostly by this time as a, as a guest poet, the times that I would be there. There were times in the early Seventies, late Sixties when there were activities such as walkouts outside of Midland. I don't believe that I was present at anything in San Angelo, by the way up from a march or walking or something. but at times l have been there. I've been also as a poet which, you know, there's an interesting kind of thing that occurs. Way back in the early Chicano movements, poets sprang left and right. Everybody had a poem, everybody had something to say about the movement, everybody was a poet.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, and published in the many newspapers.

Mr. De Leon:

In many newspapers that there were. Remember

El Coraje

(The Rage) and

El Cuchillo

.

La Navaja

(The Knife, The Blade) and

La Hormiga

(The Ant) and

La Mecha

(The Match)? You name it. There were all kinds of wonderful names. And in reality, in those newspapers which were, which were marvelous. But then, as the movement began to slow down, so did the poets. And I began to observe that if you were not a real writer or a real poet or a real anything, the movement, if' the movement ended, that poetry ended because I saw many of my friends just not writing anymore. And I believed in them, I believed they had abilities and I believed they could do it. But see. there were no, no longer that constant activity. The poetry also waned and, and finally just was lost and their desire to write, I guess. And I remember one time, I, I was concerned about myself. Am I going to stop writing if our movement, if our this or that ends, our theatre or whatever? And I go wait a minute. No. You, you have a particular desire to write. So, up to this day I continue to write. I was writing just a little white ago. There is so much to write, but there's so many things that need to be written

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about which I played against and with my painting. There for quite a time I stopped painting and doing art, visual art, all together for about twelve years and, and I had a particular precise reason for it which were the early days of our movement. We needed the clarity of the word, we needed the analytical power of the word. We needed the expressiveness of language to project all our issues, to discuss what we were all about. So I, in full conscience, left my art altogether, my painting, my brushes. my paints, everything. And I wrote real good. Because I felt that's what we needed. As time went on,

salieron mas poetas, mas escritores, mas todo

(more poets came out, more writer, more everything), and I felt real good about it. I said now I can paint. Now I can go back to painting. We have other writers. I'm not needed as bad anymore. I thought to myself, right. And, and sure enough, many good writers came up and developed, and so I was able to... I felt real good about painting again. And so, I am now painting huge murals. And want to keep on painting and writing.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, some people would take exception to you and say that a painting is worth a thousand words. In fact. somebody has said that. Maybe not, not as ugly as I or as crude as l. but how does that square with what you just said about the words being more important than, than visual images?

Mr. De Leon:

There is a big difference. A picture is certainly worth a thousand words, but what kind of words? Abstract words, abstract interpretations, abstract, peculiar to the individual who is looking at it, interpretations. The word is almost, almost, not quite, but it's almost unequivocal. That's the major difference and, and that's why I, I do make that distinction. I, I love painting. I think it's powerful. I think it's very, very meaningful. But it doesn't have that conceptualization that words have, that ability to, to project a complete thought and it's not as mobile as the word is. And that's what I think it's so important. We are, we are made up of words, but not of paintings.

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We see images, we can reflect upon them and, and love them, but we are made up of words. We communicate with each other, not with an image, but with, with a sound and what the word, what the sound means and symbolize it. So, it's a totally different system of communication which is awesome in itself. I mean, I, I don't comprehend the total wonder and beauty of words. I do love them and use them.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Are you as disciplined as other writers? If so, how does that manifest itself? Some writers say I write ten pages a day, other writers say I reserve Wednesdays for my writing, others say I spend Tuesdays reading or nay nights reading and then I write every morning before breakfast. How, how do you maintain yourself discipline to this passion.?

Mr. De Leon:

It's real easy because it's a way of life. It, it's no longer like I've got to go this, but rather I find myself doing it without any effort, without any, any desire to be there, to do that. Like I remember one time Ricardo and I, Ricardo Sanchez and I were in a

little cantinita

(bar) downtown, what used to be Mario's Restaurant,

y viene y entra este individo

(and comes and in comes this individual) kind of rough looking, tough, big, big incredible hands. And he kind of ambles toward us. And he points... We were having a just... We were by the bar, having a beer, having a drink, and he pointed at us. "You." Uh oh, Ricardo and I... Although we, we've been around so many cities... He looks at us, "You." "Yeah, yeah. What? How are you doing?" "I know you." "Well, good.

Que bueno. Como esta senor?

" (That's good. How are you, sir?"79) That type of thing. "

Ustedes son los poetas

. " ("You are the poets.") "Yeah,

si

" ("yes") OK. Here we embrace each other. It’s very beautiful when a community acknowledges you and recognizes you without any effort on your part. And it's incredible when, like you. people know you, people know you, what you've done. Your presence alone explains a

Page: 71

thousand things or, or addresses them. And so, that's what happens. You do something long enough it becomes second nature. It just becomes you. So it is with me. I have colors always around me, pencils, pens. I always have to have a typewriter, but even if I don't, pens, I mean I write by hand as well on computer. I'm self-taught. I, I, I just picked it up on nay own.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Do you make a living off of this?

Mr. De Leon:

Yes.

Dr. Gutierrez:

How long have you been making a living off of your creativity, your intellectual work?

Mr. De Leon:

Some forty years or more.

Dr. Gutierrez:

This is going to sound ugly, but so you've never had a regular job? Eight to five paycheck where you work for someone?

Mr. De Leon:

Well yes. In a sense. yes. When I've been an artist in residence or

Dr. Gutierrez:

The teacher part?

Mr. De Leon:

the teacher part for die state of Texas, for the state of Utah, for the state of California, for the state of Colorado. I've been a poet in residence at the University of Colorado, in Boulder, in Colorado Springs, one of the richest areas in the world, where the sons of the Shah, the daughters of the Queen of England go to ski, and be there and live there. Colorado Springs, in particular. I've been put in incredible mansions as, as a guest poet in there and other, so many other places. So, so in a sense, yes. You have to be seriously responsible to your craft and make a living off of it and not give up on it. It's not always peachy, as it were. It's not always that remunerative, but by the same token, it, it still is and you can make a living if you don't give up and you believe in yourself and, and keep doing it.

Dr. Gutierrez:

So that's what you mean when you say real artists, real poet? You, you mean a passion...

Mr. De Leon:

A passion.

Page: 72

Dr. Gutierrez:

...that goes beyond convenience. And you mean dedication and trust that you can make a living off of it on your own merits, and a discipline to keep doing it for the love of it.

Mr. De Leon:

That, that you have to continue doing it precisely. And like you said, not use the convention of an occurrence to be a something, but you do it today and tomorrow whether the situations may be right or not. You continue to do that. It's not a fad. It's not a passing fad, but a way of life. And it's something you have to want to do

porque

(because) it's not easy either. Or as a matter of fact, you can imagine yourself, for instance. if I were to give you this example. Is a poem necessary for anyone'' Poetry is the last thing anybody needs to, to live. You need a pair of shoes before you need a poem. A

tortilla

before you need a poem. In fact, we are the least needed. Poets are. We are almost

passe

. I mean, poetry is just a, we're iconoclasts. We are the last remnants of some other society, of some other times. But I believe that poetry will always be here, that poetry will always be necessary for humanity. For human kind. And that as long as we have dreams and loves and desires and, and passions and sadness, there will be a need for poetry. And I happen to, to be touched by this infinite, wonderful madness to want to be a poet and hopefully I will. I just read poetries last night at the, what used to be the Cadillac bar. And now it's called Jesse's or Jessie owns it, but it's still the Cadillac bar here on Flores Street downtown. And people acknowledge me, recognize me. Of course, I’m very grateful for that and very happy, but I'm continuously asked to read, to be a poet here, to be a poet there. And I continuously move across the country when I'm invited and go read my poetry. So. sometimes I get very well paid, sometime I don't get paid at all, and sometimes I get ahh, so so pay. But it all works out and balances out.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, how much do you ask for, for a reading?

Mr. De Leon:

Well, it all depends on who's doing the asking.

Page: 73

Dr. Gutierrez:

All right. Well, let's talk about the least and the most. I know the least is zero, but what is the most you've ever charged and what's basically the average fee that you get?

Mr. De Leon:

Probably on an average I get maybe five hundred dollars a reading. The most, I'd say, an institution, maybe fifteen hundred dollars. UTSA or University of Colorado or Berkeley or Stanford. I, I want the best money they have. And I tell them immediately, you know, I let them know immediately or I don't go.

Dr. Gutierrez:

What happened to Trucha Publications?

Mr. De Leon:

It grew too fast to he unique. It became a business that I didn't want because it's a full time .job. I mean, since I established it, I created it, I was the, the janitor, I was. I, I wrote the bills. I collected, I sent,.. I packaged it. I did everything, right? So, I said.. "Hey, this is not what I wanted. And this is not what I want." So basically I just let it, let it have a nice rest.

Dr. Gutierrez:

So you didn't sell it? You just let it die off? A slow death?

Mr. De Leon:

No. It's just, it's just there. It's like a storefront, but it's, it's not functional anymore. You know, I may resuscitate it someday. I don't know.

Dr. Gutierrez:

You mean there is a building that exists?

Mr. De Leon:

A what?

Dr. Gutierrez:

A building that exists?

Mr. De Leon:

No, no, no.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well you said there is a storefront, so.

Mr. De Leon:

Well, in that sense, you know. I said my, in that it has existed and it is not there and it is still there. It can publish at any time it wants to, but again, it, it grew too fast, too much for me. And something that I didn’t want to, I'm not a, I don't want to be a businessman in that sense. It's enough for me to, to deal with myself as one individual, as a businessman. After all. it is a business to he a poet, to he a writer, a painter and I'm my own businessman. I'm nay own agent. And, of

Page: 74

course, there's a lot of goodwill. A lot of people talk about me, represent me here and there. Some of my art is in some of the downtown stores. in T-shirt form, ties, books, other things. Even my art is now even on

chones

(underwear), on his and her chines.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Do you have any of those products here?

Mr. De Leon:

Not here. Maybe. I don't know. I may have a T-shirt. but not a chone.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Or a tie?

Mr. De Leon:

I, no, no. Not on me here. Now this is one of the t-shirts.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Oh, that's the poster.

Mr. De Leon:

That's the poster, but I have many, many images like this one.

Dr. Gutierrez:

There you go. Ok.

Mr. De Leon:

I have so many, many images on t-shirts, on tics...

Dr. Gutierrez:

Yeah.

Mr. De Leon:

Pancho Villa on a tie. Zapata on a tie.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, if you can find a double, a double X I will buy you one.

Mr. De Leon:

Ok. Yeah. I have it. I don't think I have one here, but they have some at the store. l, I can get one. One time I was doing a reading in Dallas, one of the big hotels, plush hotels, I was doing poetry. I'm invited to all kinds of places, strange places, and all that. I read from

cantinas

(bars) to

las calles

(the streets) to the universities to local anything. You name it, I've been out there somewhere. But at this time I was putting out some of my material. People ask bring some of your art, other art. We want to buy it. We want to get it.

So estoy sacando unos chones

(So I am pulling out some underwear...) and I'm about to put it on the table. And the man goes by, "Are, are you, are those for sale?" I said, "Yeah." And he said, "Are they what I think they are?" I said, "Yes."

Y luego llega la mujer

. (And then the wife arrives.) "Oh, that's perfect for my wife. I have, it's her birthday. I haven't bought her anything yet." "Oh. well good. Ok.

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So here." Sometimes I don't even get to put my wares down as it were,

y me las compran

.. (and they buy them.)

Dr. Gutierrez:

What do the

chones

(underwear) say?

Mr. De Leon:

Well, they can be anything from...

Dr. Gutierrez:

De quine chon?

( Whose are they?)

Mr. De Leon:

...an Indian dance, the...

De quien chop?

Say a Mayan dancer on a... You know, smaller, of course. His and hers. So there's no, no bias. Or it can be a Mayan super Chicana woman.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Is that a comic book or....'

Mr. De Leon:

No, this is just a. a creation that I did. I did a series of her. Eventually I want to do a. which I've started, a film script for her. So, we're going to have a film script for her. So these arc all on, on t-shirts or

lo que sea

...(whatever...)

Dr. Gutierrez:

You know, the, there's a, a musical group that, that throws out underwear.

Mr. De Leon:

Si

(Yes).

Dr. Gutierrez:

Tierra.

Mr. De Leon:

Tierra.

Dr. Gutierrez:

That, that's their trademark. And I, I, I'll find out for you and let you know. Maybe you can work

Mr. De Leon:

Why not?

Seguro

. ( Sure.)

Dr. Gutierrez:

They buy them some place.

Mr. De Leon:

Yeah. Yeah. So, I think there is still so many more things that, that I, that would probably be marketed in the works. Say for instance,

calendarios

(calendars), some sample

calendarios

with some of my art work.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok.

Mr. De Leon:

These are just samples. They are not the real thing.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok.

Mr. De Leon:

These are just roughs. Kind of dummies. So

tengo muchos, muchos imagines

. (I have many, many images.) I have so much art

de toda

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clase

(of all kinds). And, of course, I paint anything people pay me to paint, but my own particular love to paint is Meso American things. The big grandeur of our past. But, you know, I'll paint anything modern.

Dr. Gutierrez:

And you showed me your current project before the interview that you want to do this massive mural. What's the largest mural you've ever done and where is it?

Mr. De Leon:

There's a couple here in town. One of them is twenty-five feet high by forty-four feet long, in the north side of town beyond the airport at a restaurant named Lo Nuestro. It's... I call it

El molcajete cosmico

. (The cosmic molcajete.) [spice grinding stone]. It's two grand, beautiful, precious goddesses holding

el moleajete

) between them like making a...

Dr. Gutierrez:

Offering?

Mr. De Leon:

...an offering,

un brindis

(a toast) like a toast to life itself. Like they have dipped it in the primordial sea which is underneath them. And there's four worlds floating,

como los cuatro medios

. (like the four mediums.) And they are kind of leaning on the worlds, kind of engulfed, and the, holding the

molcajete, estan incadas.

(the molcajete, they are kneeling). The water is still dripping from the sea.. On the side of it.

esto un jalapeno, tomate r cebolla

( there is a jalapeno, tomato, and onion.) [ jalapenos is a variety of hot pepper]. So there's the flag,

blanco, rojo, y verde.

(white, red, and green.) So, it's a very political painting, a political statement, but I'm using the politics of Mexico that nurture. And it's still Mexico,

verde, rojo, y blanco

. (green, red, and white.) Had I used the Mexican flag

verde, rojo y blanco

it would have been the politics

que joden

(that hurt), the politics that eat the people alive. These are the politics that nurture, the true heart of the Mexican soul, the,

que nutre

. (that nutures.) A Mexicano is a very noble person by and large.

Dr. Gutierrez:

What are the four worlds?

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Mr. De Leon:

Well, the four worlds are the four ages, the first stages of creation. Water, fire, wind, of, of the mythic creation of the Aztec world. And then,

tambien del molcajete

(also from the molcajete) that they are facing is... Down.... A great corn,

un elote

. And it's blowing, the whole thing is blowing like that's the Fifth sun,

en forma de un elote

(in the form of an ear of corn) It’s a very... It's gotten a lot of attention. In fact, people from

Ocurrio Asi

, the program out of Florida, came over and filmed it. And they show it all across the Americas from end to end. And then, I have another one on West Martin and Zarzamora [streets in San Antonio]. it's seventy feet long, it's outside. The, the former one is inside the restaurant. It's a very big restaurant. This next one is seventy feet long by about seventeen feet high. Half of it or say, thirty-five feet is the

cultura Maya

(Mayan culture) and the other thirty-five feet is

cultura Azteca

(Aztec culture). So I have a Mayan lord and lady doing a ritual and, and stellae's around them in. in a waterfall. It's kind of complex on the Mayan side and a great

maguey

(cactus plant)... But on the Inca side, there is a lord and lady Inca, by Macchu Pichu and

Vira Cocha

, the sun, sun god of the Incas and incredibly detailed, incredible complexity that they created. I just reinterpreted in color and but it's really their creation. I'm just reinterpreting it. A lot of whimsical little faces, the

llamas, alpaca

(animals from Peru) and the condor wings, but they're not, they don't look like the condor wings. They're stylized. So, it's a very stylized god, representation of the sun god,

Vira Cocha

. And then, there's other things. Great big palaces of the Inca Lord and lady up in the mountaintops. I t is complex

Dr. Gutierrez:

And your next project is?

Mr. De Leon:

I would like to do one before the year 2000 or by the year 2000 that I'm already calling

el encuentro de las razas.

(The encounter of the races.) I want to be able to depict the evolution and change of our community from the horrible bloody encounters of Spain and Aztec

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Mexico and Mayan and by extension, all the other tribes to create us as a Mestizo race. How we....We are the product of a violent encounter, of incredible races. incredible people. the Spaniards, the ones who taught the rest of the world how to navigate and, and... I mean how to explore. They were the first ones to discover other sides of the world,

los Espanoles.

(the Spaniards.) The first. And so, they taught the English and the French and everybody, then came everybody else. So see, it was the Spanish, an undaunted people, as well as, the strong incredible Aztec strain. And all the other strains that were there. So, we conic from awesome people on both sides. This is why we are the people we are, and why Chicanos cannot and should not be anybody else but Chicanos. Our identity should never be confused with anybody else. So I would like to be able to, to depict, on some wall, in some city, whichever city could support it or wherever conditions are right. Maybe right now. I'm thinking of say a hundred feet long by thirty, forty feet high. lint I would be happy with seventy, eighty feet long by twenty feet high. In any city. Some cities have shown interest. Albuquerque, Harlingen, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio. Be! none of these have money because it’s going to take quite a bit of support of, of economics to get it there. First of all, a lot of incredible scaffolding, a lot of wall preparations so the paint won't peel later. So it, it's an involved process of gallons and gallons and gallons of paint.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Where did you learn this?

Mr. De Leon:

I learned it by myself. Self-taught. I, I have never taken a single course of art in my entire life, but you've got to remember. I grew up among artist brothers. So, I. I, I observed and I was, I never did it, when I was, when we were growing up, I would doodle a little, but I, I never perceived myself or saw myself as an artist who practiced paint or art, etc. Ok, sure, do a little cartoon, hut that was about it. But I saw... And the reason I, I was not attracted to become an artist or go

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to art school or anything, I saw the long hours, the labor on little projects here and there, they were just incredible demands put upon them to get that degree in art. And, ahora no, (now, no.) I don't even want to consider it and I never did. But something must have, I must have gotten something from observing them and then I seriously began to do it. And people liked what I was doing and pretty soon they were buying my work. I said, "Hey, there's something here. I better do it some more." So,

gracias a Dios

(thanks to God) that's why I'm able to survive. I see the hardship of my fellow creators. If a painter is a painter, that's it. They don't invite him and to pay him to go do poetry. I f a poet is a poet or a writer is a writer. he doesn't have a painting to sell. That's been my blessing. That if somebody doesn't pay me for a poem, they might pay me for a piece of art and vice versa. So I play one against the other. That's probably why I'm able to make a living. I, I think I would have it real hard if I were just a painter or a poet or a writer because it's hard. I'm the !first one to acknowledge it. It’s very, very hard. But not impossible. But here's something for our community all across, to all of us. the. the white, brown, pink, black, any community need to be economically supportive of our- rare, strange individuals who become poets or painters or writers Because if they don't see that support, then I or we could not go to the rest of our young people and say, "You can be a poet or you should be a painter. Keep on going." We could be lying to them and saying be this, and then, they are not going to find a living at it. So why encourage our...? In other words. we are in danger of being decimated. If we don't receive that economic support, we will be. there won't be any more of us and we cannot pass that tradition on to a, a younger generation. Porque no (Because they won't) they won't be able to make a living. And, and that's really the tough, the tough situation. tough question.

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Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, that's not very different than telling them to go to school and get a degree and, and they are living in Laredo or they are living in the Valley or they are living in...

Mr. De Leon:

That's true.

Dr. Gutierrez:

...the west side of San Antonio and they see it's a lie.

Mr. De Leon:

Right. That's. than s really true. The, the major difference, and there is a big one, is they hay e a skill that can translate into some, into a way of making a !wing. [hey can move or go or do something about that, with that skill. a training and a degree. If you are a great poet, if a person needs to pay their light bill, forget you. If you are a great painter and a person needs to pay for the car or buy another tire, they're not going to think about a painter. It is like I tell people, "Have you ever seen or heard of anyone who says..." Wakes up in the morning and says. you know. "What I'm going... I feel like going to buy a book of poems today." I think that's inconceivable. It is just a very strange event for anyone throughout the entire year or ten years, decades or, or millenniums to wake up and say, "l think I’m going to go buy me a boo: of poems today." So, so that's why it's really rough on, on us v1 ricers and poets.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Let, let me ask you. Who are our most effective leaders at the moment for, I'm going to say Mexican Americans, but you, you can use your own words or if you want to say Chicanos`? Just identify it. Who are our most effective leaders?

Mr. De Leon:

I don't know about effective. I think we still have important activists such as the legacy left by Cesar Chavez through his son-in-law. I forget his name right now.

Pero

(But)...

Dr. Gutierrez:

Arturo Rodriguez.

Mr. De Leon:

Arturo Rodriguez. I think that's important. I think people in our unions and through the other organizations such as

Coordinadora 2000

.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, I am going to ask you about organizations, so if, if...

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Mr. De Leon:

Probably talking about.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Tell me. Who an. the most effective organizations and/or leaders for our community today?

Mr. De Leon:

I don't, I, I, I have to say that I think we need to redevelop or recreate our leaders. I see a dirth, a vacuity, an emptiness in that respect. I don't think this means that they are not there. I think it means that the things that these people have to respond to are taking their time. I, I think, it's almost like we. we have not had the space to breathe. Our leaders who have seen out there never had a moment to breathe or, or take stock of themselves or their families or their individual concerns or agendas. I think that's where we're at. I think we are. we are at that stage where it's almost like we are awaiting for a new dawn, a, a new moment to create a presence once again. So, I don't think these leaders are doing !hat right now. I don't think they are creating that strong of a presence in our community. And this is why we don't see them or why I don't see them. It could also be that I may be out of touch with what' out there, that I need to be travelling out some more, I need to be observing, observing some more. I guess what I'm saying is that if we were in a different time than say in the Seventies, when our leaders are very salient, very observable, very immediately recognizable and immediately present. We are in a different stage. The same is not occurring in this time.

Dr. Gutierrez:

What are the most salient issues or the most critical issues facing our community today?

Mr. De Leon:

From my perspective, which may be different from a lot of other peoples. Identity. I think we are being watered down with a lot of other people that have a different sense of identity for themselves. An identity transcends the moment of identity, just like language transcends the moment of language, just like an appellation, a name calling of ourselves, a perception of ourselves transcends that perception. For instance, I think there's a real attempt to erase the

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presence of a Chicano people, of a Chicano identity, a Chicano community for the reasons that I mentioned earlier. If we become Hispanic, that erases our native roots, our Indian roots, our struggling roots, our affirmative roots. If we become Latin, the same occurs. Meaning that Latin, obviously. immediately, it, it ties something to Latin, some ancient past from Europe. Rome in particular

los Latinos

. (the Latin’s.) Nobody speaks Latin anymore. but for some, for some reason people persist in being Latin. Hispanic, obviously that's from Spain, from Europe, and what occurs there, again, the importance of and power of language, we become European who must have arrived here. So that means that we are no longer the native Indian people that were already here if we take another identity, if we allow another label to be put upon us. Which would make us, ironically, the colonizer and, and victim at the same time. So it would be like we are, we have begun to colonize ourselves again by becoming Hispanic :'r Latin. And that's why it's so important. That, to me, is the, the most crucial matter of of issues. Obviously, then the list from there goes on. Housing, jobs, economics, health, environment, education. I mean, every, every meaningful event in a human person's life is critical to us. I, I think again we, we are in a moment of crisis. And as a matter of fact continue to be for the, for the last however many hundreds of years literally. And we could easily be mellowed into another people by believe, by making us believe that we have been included. But I don't want inclusion. I don't think we need to be included into anything. l, I would rather that we find a, a specific exclusion of loveliness so that we can be ourselves and, and have something to share that is different from what America has. Only that can bring us a, a wonderful richness to all humanity, specifically our immediate humanity. It is so easy to, to have McDonald's everywhere--Monterrey, San Antonio, Amarillo. And we're all becoming a McDonald consumer. It is easy to have

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H.E.B.s everywhere and so on and so on. Have everything everywhere, Barbie dolls everywhere and then we will become a Barbie doll culture. We will become that because that's all the things around us. That's the only thing that's around there. But about

Tia Chucha

doll? Anything, anything that's different that reflects us.

Maria Bonita

doll. I mean hey, something that, that's us and we don't have that. And. and I think that's what's so dangerous. that's what is in danger.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ok. Cleaning up some more items. You said you had your papers at Texas Tech. You meant your newspapers or is it an actual deposit of writings and other things? is that your archive there?

Mr. De Leon:

It's mostly newspapers, but there's other writings of mine, other pieces of mine, other, other expressions of mine, editorials and so on, and other things that have been published elsewhere. Some of my early books are there also. Stanford University has shown tremendous interest in my present papers.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, that's what I was going to ask you. Why would you put it at the Lubbock, at Texas Tech with the legacy and the history and the continuing exclusion of, of....What's their current argument about standards that...''

Mr. De Leon:

Well, specifically because I spent so many years there. Although I already had a political awareness of a certain destiny that I believe that we have and we need to fulfill. It was in Lubbock that it congealed. In Lubbock, through my youth and my adolescence, that is where I became whatever I, I am now. And I owe a great debt to Lubbock. I feel wonderful about having lived there as well as down in the Valley in my early years. And obviously, too, I feel very proud and honored to have my own community accept my material even though it was a certain part of the community that didn't really want me at all. But they must have changed their minds. They must have decided that maybe I did have something to contribute and so they

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acquired and, and got my, many of my archives. After that, both Austin and Stan, University of Texas at Austin made a query, an interest, they showed an interest in purchasing my, my papers. But I was not pleased with both the way they, they approached me and specifically the amount of money they, they offered me. So, I said, "No, no. l, I don't need to do that at this time." And I, I, I, hopefully I, I still have open options both with other universities and other places.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Did you participate in the Del Rio march, Palm Sunday march?

Mr. De Leon:

Just recently?

Dr. Gutierrez:

No, no.

Mr. De Leon:

Sometime back?

Dr. Gutierrez:

1968.

Mr. De Leon:

Oh, no.

Dr. Gutierrez:

No. Did you attend the Raza Unida convention in El Paso?

Mr. De Leon:

Si

(Yes).

Dr. Gutierrez:

What are your recollections about that or your perspectives? And were you a delegate, or were you an observer, were you an office holder?

Mr. De Leon:

If you recall...

Dr. Gutierrez:

I don't.

Mr. De Leon:

Ok. Well, what I was going to say is that at that time it was the at the White Level Conference, the White House Level Conference, do you remember that?

Dr. Gutierrez:

Yeah. Well, that was, that was a, an earlier protest. That was also called La Raza Unida as a rump convention, but I'm talking about the political party. But if you were at the other one, tell me about the other one.

Mr. De Leon:

Well, the, the one that I remember, and well, the reason I asked about that is I, well, there's some, some kind of confusion in my mind. I tell you one, of course, you and Reies Lopez Tijerina, Corky Gonzalez...

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Dr. Gutierrez:

That's the poli, that's the political party.

Mr. De Leon:

...putting together seven communities.

Dr. Gutierrez:

72.

Mr. De Leon:

Ok. Now that's, I attended that and then I tell you the one before that.

Dr. Gutierrez:

That was earlier.

Mr. De Leon:

Yeah, the White House level.

Dr. Gutierrez:

That's right.

Mr. De Leon:

Ok.

Dr. Gutierrez:

That was '68.

Mr. De Leon:

'68. That's right. That was, that was '68. Now the one that, the '68 one, I went, well, that was only by invitation only. That's what I wanted to say. That, that not just anyone could be there or, or go to that conference at the White House Level in '68 in El Paso. I was able to go there because I played the role of an Irish priest. Father Mc, I was Father McGuire. I dressed like a priest and took his credentials. He, he gave them to me. Out of Lubbock, he said "Nephtali, you can just be me." "What do you mean, Father? Look at me. How am I going to be a, an Irish priest?" "Well, you just come. There's dark haired Irish people in Ireland." "All right. I will."

Dr. Gutierrez:

And you actually dressed up with a collar?

Mr. De Leon:

I actually dressed with a collar ....

Dr. Gutierrez:

Did he loan it to you?

Mr. De Leon:

Yeah. He lent me the whole works. And I went dressed as a priest, with a white collar

y todo

(and everything), black, the whole works. I went the whole nine yards. They looked at me, they looked at me strange.

Dr. Gutierrez:

You must have been about twenty-one, twenty-two?

Mr. De Leon:

Yeah. Yeah. It, yeah, I was probably twenty, give or take. But they looked at me like, "Hey, this guy is pretty young, but oh, we'll let him in." But, you know, then some did question me, wanted to question me. I said, "Father McGuire. Here's my credentials. I, I was invited

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by the White House." And sure enough, they let me in so I was able to participate.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, there was a walkout.

Mr. De Leon:

Yes.

Dr. Gutierrez:

I mean, this is very unique. I didn't realize this. Tell me as much as you can about that now.

Mr. De Leon:

Well basically...

Dr. Gutierrez:

Or your own role.

Mr. De Leon:

...at that time they were trying to discuss the Raza Unida, the Mexican American problem, that we were a problem. And what, what they were going to do about us and with us. And, obviously they had invited what they believed to be the spokes people of large segments of different communities throughout the country. What I remember more than anything else is a lot of talk, no plan to do anything about anything. But I think it was more an attempt to calm down the barrios. To say, "See, we gave you a White House Level conference and you guys didn't accomplish anything." Or it was because they were, there was no recognized leadership of people that could put anything together, any coalition of, of serious responsible people. Although there were serious responsible people, but not with a community base. There, there was a, the real true linkages with the community were not there. Not in the delegates that were there.

Dr. Gutierrez:

They were outside protesting.

Mr. De Leon:

Exactly.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Calling for people to walk out.

Mr. De Leon:

Yes. Exactly.

Dr. Gutierrez:

How, how, how did, how did that translate into getting inside? I mean, did people hear that inside; was there hubbub discussions between you all saying they want us to walk out? I mean, did you hear any of that?

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Mr. De Leon:

I heard a little bit of it, but frankly I was more inside listening to what was going on. I wanted to find out what they were going to do or say about us. I was aware of the walkout, I was aware of the march. I was in and out. I was walking in and out. Not, not very much was accomplished. Nothing was, as a matter of fact, nothing was accomplished other than, I believe at that time they did create an office of...

Como se llamaba?

(What was the name?) Civil rights... Office of Civil Rights. And then, they began to put out a publication named Agenda.

So por un poquito de todo

. (for a little bit of everything.)

Dr. Gutierrez:

I believe

Agenda

was a publication of the National Council of La Raza, not the government, I don't believe.

Mr. De Leon:

Yeah, you're right. You're right. That's right.

Dr. Gutierrez:

But it might have coincided in time. Well, but people did walk out. Did you walk out? Did you walk out finally with Ernesto Galarza....

Mr. De Leon:

Si, si, si...

(Yes, yes, yes...)

Dr. Gutierrez:

...all those people?

Mr. De Leon:

...because Ernesto Galarza and I had been friends already because he had been out...His

mini-libros

(mini-books) out of San Francisco.

Dr. Gutierrez:

The children's books?

Mr. De Leon:

The children's books, the

mini-libros

. As a matter of fact, the same distributor, Juan Ramirez, began to distribute my books.

Dr. Gutierrez:

In El Dorado Publishers?

Mr. De Leon:

In El Dorado Publishers.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Is he still alive?

Mr. De Leon:

Yeah. I talked to him, believe it or not, about a month ago. Juan Ramirez.

Pero se oia muy apenas

. (But, I could barely hear him.) In fact, he....

Dr. Gutierrez:

His sister let you talk to him?

Mr. De Leon:

Yeah. He cut the, the talk short. And his sister said, "Let me see if he will talk to you," or "if he can talk to you. A" And, and I gather that

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he could hardly really keep up the conversation. Almost anything I would say, he'd say, "Ok,

que bueno, que bueno

. (that's good, that's good.) But I could tell there was a strain like he wanted it to end because he was probably, you know, having a difficult time even just to communicate, converse. Of course, I was very saddened by that. And I really love Juan dearly.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Did you go to any of the Denver youth conferences?

Mr. De Leon:

A few.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Tell us about those.

Mr. De Leon:

I got to, well first of all, early on I, I met Corky and I was an invited guest.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Were you the first one?

Mr. De Leon:

No. It was probably the second one that I went to. At the time I was an invited guest my book had come out and I had mentioned

La Cruzada

(The Crusade), The Crusade for Justice. I had talked about

Partido Raza Unida

(Raza Unida Political Party) and several other things. And so, it was a very popular book. Specifically in Denver, in the Cruzada. They used it tremendously, they used to order oh, a couple of hundred books at a time, a hundred books at a time. So they participated... One of the main reasons,

no habia otra literature

. (there was no other literature.) There was almost nothing out there for, for our Raza to read of ourselves. So then this is why this book was a particularly popular one. It went into third printing almost immediately. Yeah, I, I got a sense that they had similar concerns to ours, but they certainly had a different view of themselves in terms of the way they projected

por ejemplo, salieron con las tres caras de Aztlan

. (for example, they came out with the three faces of

Aztlan

.) We didn't have that here. And then, I began to realize there were sectional differences. California, Arizona, or

Nuevo Mexico, los manitos de Nuevo Mexico, Tomas Atencio

(New Mexico, the brothers of New Mexico, Tomas Atencio) and all those people out there.

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Chicago.

Marche con Carlos Compean

. (I marched with Carlos Compean). And so, I realized there were all kinds of differences among us, but that there was hope that we might be able to work together.

Dr. Gutierrez:

What did you think of Alurista's

Yo Soy Joaquin

, although Corky's name is on it?

Mr. De Leon:

Well, there's different versions of that. Some people say that Abelardo wrote it.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Abelardo?

Mr. De Leon:

Abelardo Delgado.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Delgado.

Mr. De Leon:

Abelardo Delgado, and, and that a Jewish lady translated it into English. I don't know the truth of it. I don't know where it came from. Maybe Corky wrote it and maybe he didn't. I know he didn't write very much beyond that if he did.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, what do you think of it? What is your view as, as a colleague?

Mr. De Leon:

I think it's a great party piece. I think it's a great masterpiece along with

Stupid America

by Abelardo Delgado, along with a few other jewels of Alurista. I think there, there have been created some wonderful classics of our time like Stupid America. "See the Chicano with the big knife and a steady hand. He doesn't want to knife you. He wants to carve Christ figures, but you won't let him." I think Abelardo did wonderful pieces of literature there. And, and I think the same of

Yo Soy Joaquin

. I mean, whoever wrote it or wherever it came from, I think it's a wonderful piece of literature, very appropriate for that time and still probably will always be appropriate at any time. Great stuff will remain great no matter when, how it came to be. The question of who wrote it is, is a very interesting one, but I, I take the attitude that that's academic. I don't care. I don't care who wrote it. If, if whoever claims it, you know, fine, you know. It's a wonderful piece of literature. I remember one time that Ricardo

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Sanchez was telling me how do you feel about so and so that wrote this thing? It's some, some situation. I don't even remember the particular, but, but the, my answer was saying to him in that I said, "I don't care whether he did it or didn't do it or who did it. It's something that happened a couple of centuries..." And I said, "You weren't around and I wasn't around, so how can we ascertain who did it or what happened." I said, "It doesn't matter. That's academic." I, I've never taken an academic position or perspective on anything. I mean, I, I'm, I got told recently here, just a couple of weeks ago, Our Lady of the Lake, I was a speaker there, I said, "What you hear from me is something that you will rarely hear or never hear because I am what the academy does not know. I am what the universities do not know and I never have been around them and maybe never will have." I said, "I, I bring a statement from, from the streets, from me, from our community, something that is not anti-academic, but it's certainly a-academic." And, and that's really how I've always felt on life. And that's why I don't really have the best connections into the world of literature, into the world of publishing, into the world of commerce of art, commerce of books. I don't have good connections there because I don't look for them. Maybe I should. And because I didn't cultivate academia or academics or academicians, some, I'm kind of out in left field, you know. And I have been most of these years. But, I'm in great company. Like Efrain Gutierrez and like so many others.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, I have just about run through all the things that I wanted to run now. There were one or two other things that I forgot what they were to clean up, some things we left hanging. One obvious question is since we started the interview with the, with the educational experience a disaster, you have worked with children’s books and, and obviously you are great a teacher. Charter schools, vouchers,

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what do you feel about those? What's your opinions of these possibilities?

Mr. De Leon:

Charter schools. I...

Dr. Gutierrez:

Or you don't know what they are?

Mr. De Leon:

No.

Dr. Gutierrez:

The state of Texas permits a group of people to incorporate a school and receive the state subsidy. There is a group out of here, Eduardo, Ed Gutierrez.

Mr. De Leon:

I know him.

Dr. Gutierrez:

That's what he does. Except he does it mostly with the children who are at risk, but, but that doesn't have to be that. Vouchers is, is a program, a proposal to give parents a voucher, just like food stamps, an, an educational voucher where you go cash it in anywhere in a private school, not a public school. But if you've never heard of them, there's no point in asking your opinion or, or views on it.

Mr. De Leon:

Well, on the contrary I've been at one of them in, in Edinburg, Texas.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, that's Gutierrez.

Mr. De Leon:

Through, through Ed Gutierrez. Not through me, rather but out of his school through him. It was through this other friend out of San Benito. He's your friend, you know him too.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Rogelio Nunez.

Mr. De Leon:

Rogelio Nunez. It was through Rogelio who took me out there. He had, he invited me to something else.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Ah, to his cultural center, Narciso Martinez.

Mr. De Leon:

Narciso Martinez and, and then, to other regular institutions, a regular school system there. He had asked me to that. And but like he usually does, he may take me...

Dr. Gutierrez:

That's the financing mechanism....

Mr. De Leon:

He takes you everywhere else he can.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Do that over there for money so you can come here for, for community.

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Mr. De Leon:

Yeah. Exactly. So I was there at one of the charter schools. And I think any attempt to educate a community is, is good and positive. And I think we all deserve a break or a chance, an alternative approach when the traditional approach doesn't work. And the traditional approach often does not work because there is little or nothing to nurture the young minds in a way that they can identify with the things that they are hearing, with the things that they are there to find out. Basically, what I shared with, in this charter school in Edinburg was something to the effect that, "I feel for you kids." And by kids, they were high school kids. They were high school young people. I said, "I feel for you because I hated school. And I was very bored to death in English and in all my classes in high school," I said. And which was true. I said, "I even hated to come to, to the classroom or to the school itself." I said, "But there's almost no alternative. There is nowhere else you can go usually for most of us to get an education." And, and, and that is the same feeling I have about universities. Where do you get to be an engineer, an attorney, a doctor? I mean, there is really not much, not much else unless you are some kind of unusual individual who can somehow pick up the skills on your own, obviously through some other process with somebody that knows those processes already. So I said, "Specifically what you need to find out about yourself, you will have to be your own archeologist, your own digger about your own past, your own history like I have attempted all my life and still continue to do so." I said, "You have to be your own Indiana Jones and go with the adventure and find out about your past and your background so you can have a perspective about yourself. So you can have an idea of where you come from. If you don't have that ideal background, you can be made into a victim overnight. People will fill your mind and brain with all kinds of things they want you to believe. And you will believe them because you have no alternative. You have nothing else

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to fill that void, that emptiness that we are all born with, the tabla rosa that we are all born with other than with the ancestral memory that we are also born with. So you have to rekindle that," I said to them. And they seemed to be pleased to hear that. I mean, first of all, I went like this. As a matter of fact, I have films. Say here, Lanier High [school in San Antonio]. I'll go into the classroom as a speaker, they are throwing papers at each other and bored to death. And they are sick and tired of being there, and then, I start talking to them. Hey, hey.

Mira

. (Look.) The kids going, and then, they are like this. And not, but by the end they are going like this, and cheering and real happy and joyful. And I say, "Wow, thank God," you know. Because it's not easy either to penetrate minds that have been bored for twelve years.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, basic question. That's why I asked you about the schools. I mean, you obviously have components of a curriculum; you feel very strongly about maintaining and promoting Chicanismo. Products are necessary. Curriculum is necessary, no?

Mr. De Leon:

Definitely.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Are you collaborating with other people or are you just doing the best you can?

Mr. De Leon:

At one time, oh yes.

O mira, que bueno.

(Oh look, how good.) Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Thank you, Josie.

Josie:

Well, that's why I didn't want to go.

Mr. De Leon:

That's cool. I like it. Thank you, Josie.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Thank you.

Mr. De Leon:

Go ahead and take a seat.

Dr. Gutierrez:

I was, I was going to do the, the waitressing job

Mr. De Leon:

Ok. That's wonderful.

Pues si, fijate que si. Que te hiba a decir...

? (Well yes, as a matter of fact, yes. What was I going to say ...?) As a matter of fact, at one time or another, well which is very, almost

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contradictory and contrasting. I hate the educational system. I think it's very damaging to our community totally. Thank you. But by the same token, I have often made my living off of it and with it and because of it and have always, for the last thirty years at least, been a part of academia in that sense or of pedagogical approaches and systems and what have you. But again, I always carry my own. I always carry my own, in a sense, curriculum, my own projections and definitions of what I feel pedagogy should be and so on. And for instance, the idea IDRA here in town.

Dr. Gutierrez:

I-D-R-A, IDRA?.

Mr. De Leon:

Yeah. IDRA. They have.... I've been...

Dr. Gutierrez:

No. I just wanted to make sure that you didn't confuse it with the hydra.

Mr. De Leon:

Hydra head? No. Intercultural Development, Research, and Associates (IDRA) here in town.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Jose Cardenas?

Mr. De Leon:

Jose Cardenas. Precisely. I've been a consultant for and with them, both inside, particularly in the present books put out by Dallas school system, the public school system in Dallas, Prism books.

Dr. Gutierrez:

The triangle, not the penitentiary?

Mr. De Leon:

Right. No, exactly. I, I consulted with them and helped them to recreate some of their short stories for children as well as some of the images and, and depictions in the books for young people. I've been anthologized in textbooks that are used by the classrooms through the public school systems. Take for instance,

Patterns, Patterns in Literature

, but for the book,

Patterns in Literature....

Dr. Gutierrez:

Yes.

Mr. De Leon:

Public school system book. And you still write it throughout the country. Say for instance, here they've alluded to me as a legacy which of course I, I feel very honored by that. By

Legacies

. 158. In the poetry section of

Legacies

I have some of my poetry here. And so

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, a lot of people use my book, I mean, this book

alli esta mi poesia

, (my poetry is there.) In the Plaza We Walk. This is a regular textbook in the public school system. And of course, at one time or another I've been anthologized pretty good in many different publications. I have been published around, as well as,

Fondo de Cultura Economica

(Fund for Economical Culture) which is the biggest publisher in Mexico. In Anthologies. So, at one time or another my, my literature and then of course, my two children's books titled

I Will Catch the Sun and I Color My Garden

. They have been adopted for classroom use by the state of California, by the entire educational board of the state of California as optional readers for the whole state of California. So, and that was done way back, so many years hack. So at one time or another, I, I have been included, if peripherally sometimes, in the classroom, curriculum and classroom material.

Dr. Gutierrez:

I don't know how this happened, but it got....

Mr. De Leon:

It's, it's something that, that I don't have a problem with really. I find it real easy and

facil

(facile) to go into a classroom or into an institution or university or college, a school at any level, elementary, middle school. I can work real easily with any age people. I, I find it easy to do. And which I'm very thankful for because that gives me many options. By the way, I've continued to make a living off my craft.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Is there anything else that you want to talk about? I have asked what I wanted to ask.

Mr. De Leon:

Well basically, I would only say that I feel very good, very positive about our possibilities as a people, as a nation. I see great hope in the young students in the universities, say particularly the MEChA students. Ironically, they are the only ones who have survived that call themselves Chicanos in, in the public sector. And I think the reason that they have been able to do it is because they are MEChAs and the word Chicano is hidden in the middle of MEChA,

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Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan

. So, nobody hears the word Chicano when they hear MEChA. But like a friend was telling me just earlier, he said, "

pos fijate que es bueno.

" (well, look and see that's good.") Any time that Latinos get together, any time Hispanics get together, it's to talk about Chicano things and Chicano issues. Said, "Wow, that's right." So I think we are still alive and well and probably will continue to be. And I think our leaders are not dormant. I think they are responding to other things and I think we, we are going to see definitely a resurgence. We are definitely going to see a presence of many of our wonderful leaders that we've had throughout our years.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Well, thank you very much for the generous amount of time that you've given us. This will be an archive at the University of Texas at Arlington. Feel free to put anything that you want there, that you would want to be augmenting this. You'll get a copy of, of the tape, unedited, and a transcribed copy about a year from now because this is low budget, no budget.

Mr. De Leon:

Ok.

Dr. Gutierrez:

Solo operation.

Mr. De Leon:

Can I do a cheer?

Dr. Gutierrez:

Salud.

(To your health.)

Mr. De Leon:

Salud.

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