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Beyond
Aztlán: Chicanos in the Ivy League
By
Sergio Troncoso
'Chicanos in the Ivy League' often means 'Chicanos in exile.' When we go
beyond Aztlán, beyond our communities in Texas or
California or New Mexico or Colorado, we cross our own frontera,
in a way, and we have to find how to survive and even thrive. Sometimes we
can't go back 'home' in just the same way as we came. Like Odysseus, we set
ourselves adrift, our curiosity pushes us a bit further from home, and when we
finally make it back, if we make it back, we find the world has changed. We
have changed. After our geographical and cultural travels and travails, we may
also be the ones with the most questions about who we are.
Not all Chicanos go
through the cultural adjustment trauma that I experienced. But some still do,
and probably some always will. When I went to Harvard, I wasn't a sophisticated
Chicano from LA. I certainly wasn't a sophisticated Mexican-American from
Houston or San Antonio. I wasn't even a sophisticated Mexicano
from El Paso. I was from Ysleta, a colonia on the
rural outskirts of El Paso. At one time, my family had an outhouse in the
backyard, and instead of electricity, we had kerosene lamps and stoves. When I
arrived at Harvard Square, which I thought was a public park instead of the
center of the university, I was hungry, but for ideas. I was wild with passion,
but for reading. I was a dangerous, don't-even-think-about-messin'-with-me savage. That's why I majored in Political
Science.
Being away from
home meant I thought about home more often. From this new, sometimes painful,
sometimes illuminating perspective, I began to understand the 'home' I had
taken for granted, its history, its unique bilingual culture. I saw la frontera more as an object since I wasn't immersed in it
anymore. This reflection, of course, also turned inward, toward my own self,
since la frontera was, and always will be, a part of
my blood. More than anything else, I also simply missed my family.
I know that many of you have experienced this selfsame reflection about
'home' and also about who you are now, and who you are becoming. You may
struggle with your sense of self-worth and identity just as I did. But then
again, you may not. I sometimes run into the Chicanas
and Chicanos at Columbia and Barnard, and let me tell you, they have their act
together. Maybe it's New York City. But they are truly much more sophisticated
than I ever was in college.
But if you do find
yourself asking tough questions about where you came from and who you really
are, then you have a duty to answer these questions. This is not just a
personal duty, but also a duty to your community. When you go 'beyond Aztlán,' to the Ivy League or wherever the songs of the
siren tempt you, find your own way back. I tried to find a new relationship to
El Paso by writing about it in The Last Tortilla and Other Stories, by
trying to bring out the moral character of la gente decente. Others, instead of writing about home, will
actually go back home and work in the community where they were born. Some will
go back to this home, and after a few years, leave again, for other adventures.
And still others will never go back, but instead form new communities in New
York or Boston or Washington, D.C. The trick, I think, is to engage Aztlán again, in your own way, to develop a continual
dialogue with your heritage, and to remake this proud heritage --with your
unique contribution-- into something new, something modern, something
vigorously and passionately alive. The tragedy would be if you simply turned
away from who you are.
For Chicanos in the
Ivy League, and for our community in general, we also
have one specific challenge. We must make the Ivy League, and any place that
reflects the apex of success in America, we must make this place a home for Chicanos.
And that will be done not only by fighting for our place in the Ivy League,
through focus, hard work, and sacrifice, but also by accepting that we belong
there. Our parents send us to the Ivy League to succeed, and I am talking about
not only financial, but also intellectual success. They send us here to have
better lives than they did. My father always told me that he would succeed as a
parent if his children did better than he did. And of course, that doesn't mean
we shouldn't value the harsh sacrifices de nuestros
padres. On the contrary, the more steps I take toward my goals, the more I
appreciate the incredibly difficult life my parents conquered. Arriving in a foreign country without knowing the language. Having nothing, no money, no land, no house, no job. Facing discrimination and even outright abuse by those too eager to
dismiss the power of your mind, your heart, your character. Would I have
done so well in my parents' shoes? Would I have been such a good parent at home
while I fought tooth and nail to get a foothold in America? Would all my
children have finished college and achieved good careers? Could I have
succeeded in staying deeply in love with my spouse for over forty years? I am
not so sure. One thing I am sure about is that I have great parents. And I will
never forget that.
But my struggles as a Chicano are in many ways different from their
struggles, and that is another way in which new generations go 'beyond Aztlán.' We should not somehow put down these new struggles
as merely intellectual or not really political or somehow irrelevant to those
who don't have meat on the table. We cannot be saying that if you are a
successful Chicano, then you are not a Chicano at all. How absurd can that be?
So we need to accept that the new struggles of Chicanos, as we fight to advance
in America, will not always be the same as the struggles of the past. This is
in part the price of success. The next generation needs to venture out and
conquer these news worlds. In my case, this world is more about intellectual
combat and finding my place in the literature of America. But I do not forget
where I came from and where my home is. I do not forget that many Mexicanos are just beginning the hard life in America that
my own parents began years ago. They are undoubtedly mi familia
too. So there is this duty for successful Chicanos, too. We must remember where
we belong and help those who are just beginning the treacherous journey to find
a basic foothold in a new world. I just hope that I do not lose my own self in
this turmoil between the past and the future.
The Odyssey,
as you have probably guessed by now, is one of my favorite books. Why doesn't
this Odysseus Martínez just forget about finding his
way back home? And when he does make it back, his family has nearly forgotten
him and has moved on without him. They have changed, and he has changed. But
Odysseus goes about repairing the trauma of his original separation from home
with new bridges into his family's heart, with new ways of connecting with them.
And that's what you must do. You must find that new and evolving self from
Columbia and Barnard, and you must bring it back home. And maybe your father,
like my father, will surprise you at the dinner table one day, as you eat your
enchiladas, and whip out his Spanish translation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Just remember what I told
you tonight, and you won't be as shocked as I was and snort the chile through your nose. You will be ready to be the
'sophisticated' Chicano from the Ivy League. Thank you.
"Beyond Aztlán:
Chicanos in the Ivy League" was a speech given to the Chicano Caucus at
Columbia University in the fall of 2000. The speech followed the
Other essays: A Day Without Ideas and Why Should Latinos
Write Their Own Stories?
Short stories: Angie Luna, The Snake, A Rock Trying to be a
Stone, and Espíritu Santo.
See discussion
questions for The Last Tortilla and Other Stories. "Angie Luna," "Espíritu Santo," "A Rock Trying to be a
Stone," and "The Snake" are included in that book of short
stories.