Cultural Studies

Volume 4, Issue 3

Lawrence Grossberg, Janice Radway, Lawrence Grossberg, Janice Radway

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 1990
• ISBN:
  9781134939992
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Kunst
• Subtopic: Volkskultur in der Kunst

Cultural Studies 4.2 is a Special issue: Chicana/o Cultural Representations: Reframing Alternative Critical Discourses

ARTICLES

THE EMERGENCE OF NEOCONSERVATISM IN CHICANO/LATINO DISCOURSES

RICHARD CHABRAN

This article explores the manner in which various apparently dissimilar discourses on Chicanos/Latinos can be seen as part of the same hegemonic process of incorporation. In order to understand this dynamic as responding to complex relations, it is necessary to examine the specific traditions, institutions and organizations in which these apparently diverse discourses flourish. By focusing on the manner in which they are linked and respond to dominant social formations, we can identify how these discourses function to support one another rather than seeing them as spontaneous occurrences or unidimensional postmodern phenomena.

The early work of groups such as the Quinto Sol Club (later Quinto Sol Publications) both critiqued existing discourses on Chicanos and put out a call (El Grito) for an alternative discourse which would recognize Chicanos as historical actors. In reviewing the literature produced on Chicanos, it can be argued that many of the conceptual paradigms and discourses which were being objected to by early critiques of Chicano intellectuals have been adopted by a good number of those writing about Chicanos today. One Chicano intellectual recently suggested that the scholarship on Chicanos has become more sophisticated, noting that historical work no longer dwells on ‘oppression’ or poses binary constructions such as the ‘they’ and the ‘us’ (Saragoza, 1987). In contrast, one movement poet, heir to the cultural dynamics of resistance, noted that ‘Los they are us’ (Montoya, 1979/80). Montoya's observation, although suffering from overgeneralization, thematizes the problematic nature of early movement constructions which oftentimes posited simplistic homogenous subjects of political articulation in scholarship without attention to competing notions of ‘Chicano’ intellectual production, which were in open contradiction. In all fairness to the Chicano movement, it must be acknowledged that many movement efforts were directed against the impending possibility of incorporation. Almost three decades later incorporation has occurred in unforseen ways, both within the alternative and mainstream sector. It is the objective of the author to explore some of the conditions and practices which made this incorporation possible.

Garza's work on Chicano intellectuals suggests that this convergence with conservative discourses occurred as a result of the intense nationalism of the early years which prevented us from critically exploring other discourses (Garza, 1984). With hindsight, my own analysis is that while many of us thought we were articulating our ‘own’ positions, we were often internalizing and imposing the discourses of our various disciplinary formations, although this was not equally prominent in the work of all Chicano intellectuals. In another article, Rocco and I point out that what was seen as a unified ‘Chicano’ position during the movement years actually had many distinct class fractions. With the decline of intense nationalism after 1975, many of the competing notions of Chicano studies began to emerge. The most progressive focused on the relationship between race, class, and, more recently, gender (Barreda, 1979; Cordova, 1983). Alongside these were more traditional scholarly discourses which were rooted in a variety of empirical and formalist approaches to Chicano reality. However, it is important to note that even the more progressive Chicano/Latino discourses, such as those based on race, class, and gender, tended to preoccupy themselves with the formal and empirical basis of their work. This is most evident in the absence of history in many of these texts.

The emerging area of cultural studies provides us with useful insights into the development of Chicano studies. The work of Raymond Williams in particular allows us to explore the selective tradition which frames our representation within various discourses. As Williams points out, this tradition does not recognize historical actors (Williams, 1977)—actors capable of constituting their own discourse. Williams’ own work explores the historical use of ‘keywords’ which have contained or limited the possibilities available for empowering a community (Williams, 1983).

This essay explores why right-wing conservative think tanks have put Chicanos/Latinos on their agenda at this particular time. How has the discourse of public policy facilitated this process? And finally, how has Chicano/Latino discourse been appropriated into this process and selective Hispanic tradition? I will explore these issues by reviewing the book Hispanics in the United States.

Institutions: the rise of conservative think tanks

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, Chicano/a and Puerto Rican research centers and institutes had been established. These centers played a dominant role in promoting and facilitating research on Chicanos/as and Latinos/as. They also served as vehicles for the publication of monographs, journals, and newsletters. Several sponsored postdoctoral fellows, although none were (or is) very well funded. Most of the research agendas of these centers were liberal, while a few were progressive.

If these centers took up the banner and causes of the civil rights movements and added to the legitimacy crisis which the dominant society was experiencing, the new right wing responded with creating new think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation. Ira Shor in his book, Culture Wars: School and Society in the Conservative Restoration, 1969–1984, documents the strategies and tactics of the right-wing educational agenda.

Conservative think tanks are, of course, not new. The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace was established by the late Herbert Hoover in 1919 ‘to demonstrate the evils of the doctrine of Karl Marx’ (Saloma, 1984). Ronald Reagan not only donated his gubernatorial papers to the Hoover but was considering donating his presidential papers there also. He wanted not only a place for his papers but an expanded think tank (Saloma, 1984:20). This initiative caused a stir at Stanford, where the legitimacy of Hoover scholarship was being raised. It was pointed out that the Hoover scholars were not part of the academic senate and that their work was not subject to peer review. Concerns were also raised about Stanford's reputation if it were to become too closely associated with the Reagan platform. By 1984, the Hoover already had an endowment of $40 million (Saloma, 1984:10).

During the late 1970s, the Stanford Center for Chicano Research was also established. At the same time, Hoover received grants from the Earhart and Weingart foundations for the publication of Hispanics in the United States (Gann and Duignan, 1986:xv).

The Hoover and the Heritage are only two of the more prominent conservative think tanks. Before his untimely death, liberal republican John Saloma did an excellent job of documenting the rise of conservative think tanks, discussing the high level of funding these efforts receive and identifying the close ties between these think tanks and ABC, CBS, and NBC, not to mention the scores of publications they produce and to which they contribute (Saloma, 1984:9). In 1980, the San Francisco-based Institute for Contemporary Studies had placed ethnicity on their agenda. They sponsored The Fairmont Papers which were proceedings of a conference of conservative blacks headed by Thomas Sowell, a fellow of the Hoover Institute at Stanford (Saloma, 1984:12–13). The most controversial of these think tanks has been the Heritage Foundation, which was initially funded by Joseph Coors during the Chicano boycott of Coors. Sidney Blumenthal says of the Heritage Foundation: ‘It wants not only to manufacture beliefs, but also to dominante government’ (Saloma, 1984:14).

Gann and Duignan: agents of the Right

Edward Said reminds us that we do not write or speak in a vacuum, but that all discourse is either for or against a particular position (Said, 1976:36ff.). It is therefore important to identify Gann and Duignan as generators of texts representative of a particular discourse. Lewis H.Gann is a first-generation German, born during the rise of Nazism. He received his doctorate from Oxford. Both his and Duignan's work primarily focuses on Africa. He has held positions in Rhodesia and in the US Department of State. In 1979, he testified before the 95th Congress, where he argued for the lifting of an arms embargo against South Africa. According to Gann:

yet South Africa is not a persecuting society. More than a million Africans have voted with their feet to live within the borders of South Africa. South Africa does not expel ethnic minorities, it attracts immigrants, white and black. (US Congress Committee on International Relations Subcommittee on Africa, 1978)

We should thank the author for being so clear in his position, although it is no comfort to us that those who seek to defend apartheid are now writing public policy about Latinos. In 1981, Gann, with Alvin Rabushka, authored an article entitled ‘Racial classification: Politics of the future?’. The article appeared in Policy Review, an arm of the Heritage Foundation and argues against racial classification asserting that it is divisive yet failing to address that this classification allows us to document discrimination. Ironically, Gann's article was presented as evidence in two congressional committees on affirmative action and bussing. Needless to say, it was not much of a jump for Gann to leap from examining the ethnic majority in South Africa to ethnic minorities in the United States. Amazingly enough, Gann's article appears almost verbatim in Hispanics in the United States. Gann's other credentials for writing this book are his editorial work on the Yearbook on International Communist Affairs. It is ironic that he feels qualified to write on Latinos. The same goes for Duignan who shares equally illustrious credentials.

The text: in defense of capitalism and racism

THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Duignan and Gann's basic framework is assimilationist. However their particular version of assimilationist ideology is tied to a neoconservative paradigm of ethnicity, a paradigm which has it's roots in modernization theory. In Racial Formation in the United States, Omi and Winant survey various paradigms of race such as those based on ethnicity, class, and nation (Omi and Winant, 1986:12). They point out that the assumptions concerning race and ethnicity have been ‘as much political and ideological as they are theoretical’ (Omi and Winant, 1986:10). They further comment on how ‘[r]acial paradigms serve as guides for research and have implicit and explicit policy and political implications’ (Omi and Winant, 1986:11).

The dominant racial paradigm in the United States has been that of ethnicity. A key assumption of this theoretical position is that all racial groups are similar to European ethnic groups and that with time they will assimilate (Blauner, 1972:2). Omi and Winant have identified three phases of ethnicity theory: a pre-1930s stage which challenged the biologistic view of race; a second stage from the 1930s to 1965 which emphasized assimilation and/or cultural pluralism; and a third post-1965 stage in which conservative egalitarianism is developed as a backlash against ‘group rights’ (Omi and Winant, 1986:14). Duignan and Gann belong to this last stage. By rejecting any arguments against group rights, the authors only address individuals, not structural and political variables. It was these later variables which were promoted by progressive scholars who wrote about race, class, and gender.

OVERVIEW

Hispanics begins with two sections which attempt to provide the historical context for the public policy positions the authors wish to address. The initial section provides an overview of Latino groups as a whole, while the second section covers individual groups: Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Central Americans. Part three begins to address issues of international relations, specifically immigration. It is at this point where the authors shift to discussing Latinos in the United States. Significantly, the first chapter within this section concerns an assessment of the various discourses which Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans have developed. Having dismissed Latino discourses and re-articulated their object the authors explore such issues as politics, bilingual education, affirmative action, the church and, as they put it, ‘perils of addiction’ and ‘crime and punishment’.

STRATEGIES OF CONTAINMENT

What makes Hispanics interesting, in contrast to many other mainstream texts of the past, is its use of Chicano/Latino discourses. In fact, the authors are among the first neoconservatives to acknowledge these discourses. Early conservatives dealt with Chicanos/Latinos by omission. The authors employ other, perhaps more successful, ‘strategies of containment’. The objective of their strategies is to dislodge, decenter, and disarticulate Chicano/Latino discourses which are not neoconservative.

The major strategy of containment revolves around the question of authority. This is crucial since the authors have no expertise in Chicano/ Latino studies. This is accomplished by the authors’ claim ‘to be closer to the views of immigrants than liberal or ethnic interpreters’ (Griswold del Castillo, 1988:782). While the authors charge that ‘radical’ ethnic scholarship was/is polemical, the lack of scholarship in their own work is glaring. Their strategy clears the ground for them to articulate their own discourse, a discourse which speaks for and about us, while casting us into an incorrect category of immigrants and not as the victims of conquest and diaspora. They return to the assimilationist literature which views Chicano culture as static and the United States as the land of opportunity. They cogently state their position:

We are not unaware of the ills that beset American society. We are, however, disinclined to idealize the preindustrial past, nor do we romanticize ethnic roots. We recognize the value of ethnic diversity. But we also value the dynamic qualities inherent in American society that enables it to assimilate foreigners, and we think more highly of capitalism's capacity for self-regeneration, it's opportunities for social mobility, and it's commitment to civil liberties than do it's critics. We sympathize with those who—to use Lenin's phrase—have voted with their feet to come to the United States; this sentiment comes easily because one of us is himself an immigrant [German], and the other of immigrant stock. We are not unfamiliar with the evils of racial and ethnic prejudice…. On the whole we regard the American immigrant experience in a positive light. (Gann and Duignan, 1986: xiv).

In other words, Duignan and Gann foment the ideology of assimilation and the American Dream. While claiming they are not unaware of ills of American society, they are unwilling to address them, especially the structural ones. While they suggest an unwillingness to idealize the preindustrial past, they clearly idealize the capitalist/industrial present. While they claim that America has been successful in assimilating ‘foreigners’, they offer no evidence to back up their assertion. The fact that prejudice exists in another society is no basis for excusing its capitalist and racist roots in America.

Later the authors try to discredit Chicano scholarship by calling into question the motivations of Chicano intellectuals. Gann and Duignan boldly state that:

Chicano theoreticians called for cultural succession from what they regarded as the Anglo establishment. But, with a striking lack of consistency, many worked through the institutions they proposed to despise. They accepted university posts, a strange choice for those revolutionaries who denounced others for permitting themselves to be co-opted by the powers that be. Chicano militants also looked to ‘Anglo’ courts and the Anglo bureaucracy to defend their rights. Chicano writers reached the public through acceptable houses such as Prentice Hall or Macmillan…. The Chicano movement thus overwhelmingly benefited professors, teachers, ethnic politicians, and other professional men and women more than the masses. (Gann and Duignan, 1986:187)

While it is true that some Chicano discourses called for succession, the authors do not identify that this was done through a nationalist prism. Thus, they slide into a position which...