​Let me be clear in this paper. I am not here to discuss whether or not the shift to online instruction is being assessed and/or evaluated or whether important workload policies are being followed; we can and should take those topics up elsewhere. I am here to discuss new ways of knowing the idea of a multi-university (“thinking university-system”) predicated on the idea of a university-system as an enterprise where all things in the enterprise are linked and connected at all times in real time. With such an EA design, rapid changes like pandemics can be managed in the most appropriate manner possible with or without leadership that can see this vision.
 
Evidence of what I am pointing to and experiencing in American society today is captured in a series of reports published by The Chronicle Store, for instance:

• How Will the Pandemic Change Higher Education? Professors, administrators, and staff on what the coronavirus will leave in its wake
• The Right Mix of Academic Programs: Making decisions to add, cut, grow or shrink departments and degrees
• The Innovation Imperative: The buzz, the barriers, and what real change looks like
• The Looming Enrollment Crisis: How colleges are responding to shifting demographics and new student needs

 
University Enterprise Transformation/IT Alignment
 
In this paper I propose the development of a capability for enterprise architecture (EA) for large-scale state university systems such as Texas A&M University, Auraria Higher Education Center, CUNY, SUNY, and the University of California, to name just a few. Small private colleges/universities will also be taken into account when suggesting new designs, such as the advent of a Colegio Xicano Virtual. Enterprise architecture enables enterprises (herein: university-enterprises) to fully align administrative planning strategies with the technological infrastructures that support all of them. It facilitates a university-system’s ability to communicate with all components that make up the entire system (academic departments, curricula, faculty, staff, students, and community partners, and much more) all at once in real time. At the same time, it will strategically align with whom it interacts allowing boundary-less information flow, more effective decision support and the alignment of administrative, application, data and instructional and university-enterprise transformation, effective communication structures and practices, multimodal communications and the effective management of disruptive technologies. One definition of EA is that it is the organizing logic for all university-systems processes and IT infrastructure reflecting the integration and standardization and/or customized requirements of the university’s operation model, again, while remaining aligned with the university’s vision statement.
 
As a recent case in point, let’s examine a recent missed opportunity to apply EA. Last year (2019) UC San Diego turned out its first strategic plan in the history of the university; it provides a conceptual blueprint that defines the structure, operation and goals of the university. It is an excellent plan for this vibrant (relatively young) university, however, it is stagnant in the sense that it is not linked to anything. By using EA as a planning tool, the Strategic Plan could be a document connected to its university-enterprise in real time, constantly sensing, interpreting, reinterpreting, adding to and asking “What if?” scenarios of the ever changing landscape from things like budgetary and financial perspectives to perspectives on core values from the vision statement.
 
What most university administrators don’t realize is that their strategic plans are in fact changing as they are producing the document; you might say “the document is obsolete even before it is completed.” It’s important to note that the same goes for all other planning that is stagnant (not linked to real-time data). This would have been an opportune time for UC San Diego to apply EA to its strategic planning.
 
My point is that once realized, EA will change the nature of their planning. A major intent of EA is to determine how a university-system-enterprise can most effectively achieve its current and future objectives—in real-time between the relations found in this model.

EA has advanced tremendously over the years to a point where I began applying it to the rapid build out of brand new universities. The relevance of EA to universities is that: ​

​Armando Arias is a professor and founding member in the division of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Global Studies at CSU Monterey Bay and a frequent contributor to this magazine in his column, Chicano Confidential. He is the author of Theorizing César Chávez New Ways of Knowing STEM, published recently by Somos en escrito Literary Foundation Press, Berkeley, 2020, in which he shares a critical analysis of STEM studies, portraying his views as César Chávez would have had he gone on to earn a doctorate in science. He has served as a start-up team member for more than a dozen new universities in the U.S. (mostly in Aztlán) and consulted on the founding of new universities in Japan, Mexico, Europe, and Africa.

​César Chávez always seems to be nearby, guiding my thoughts. I have after all inculcated his values and beliefs into my own; I’m keenly aware of the impact his values have on the manner in which I construct my reality in everyday life. César’s values are exuded in everything I do, especially in special projects like starting brand new colleges and universities.
 
Due to the COVID-19 virus I have been in lockdown in Salem, Oregon, just 18 miles from Mount Angel, Oregon, home of the former Colegio César Chávez as my son recently located here from inner-Portland. Because I want to save lives, I stay at home, think and rethink. There are endless reasons the lockdown has been problematic, for me, because I want to visit the physical plant of the former site of the Colegio César Chávez. I want to walk the halls, I want to touch the walls, I want to walk through the rooms where the Andrew Parodi Family lived at the Colegio in their capacity as groundskeepers. I have an affinity to this reality as my family served as the groundskeepers at Frances Parker School in San Diego where my sister and I were the only students of color and we spoke only Spanish. I want to feel César’s spirit as I know he left spiritual DNA behind on his visits to the college.
 
I feel like conducting an in-service workshop about the STEM movement (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) to the Benedictine sisters who run St. Joseph’s Shelter in the building where the Colegio once operated. They are innovators in education in their own right as they have long believed that our institutions of education are failing us, so they may find my new book Theorizing César Chávez: New Ways of Knowing (2020) interesting. I am quite willing to conduct such a workshop as I feel the need to make amends with Benedictine sisters (Sister Julissa in particular) given my rocky relationship with them as a youngster.
 
I’m reminded of how they are concerned about taking care of Mother Earth and that just like César Chávez they want to see her healthy once again. Similarly, in his latest book First Lady Pope, Pulitzer Prize winning author, Victor Villaseñor, was once invited to meet with retired sisters and priests to discuss his book and like me, he was hesitant for reasons related to corporal punishment, but he went anyway and was pleasantly surprised because he learned to forgive. Victor’s message is that “modern civilization has lost its connection to nature and the understanding of our natural, loving Feminine Energy which nurtures all life.” This is precisely how César Chávez felt and the precipitating factor why I founded the Big Sur Environmental Institute in writing a vision statement while infusing his values.
 
I feel an existential pull to discover the realities behind Colegio César Chávez. It’s like the time I climbed the Temple of the Sun at Teotihuacán; when I made it to the top, I was rendered speechless knowing that I am related to this wonderful civilization. I thought, “What an honor.” I experienced a true sense of place, as I do amidst the concrete spikes in Chicano Park that are driven into the heart of our community. How else can I explain it?
 
I feel both César and Diosito tugging at my coat tails, I can hear César now as he is speaking to me from above as he often does and his voice and message is clear, “Go take a look, Sonny Boy, go and see what you can learn, go talk to the founders and/or the graduates of the Colegio. You know how to start universities/colleges, Sonny Boy, you’ve been doing it your entire career; there is an opportunity to serve out there, started by the pandemic, there is opportunity to help educationally underserved people of Aztlan, go and check it out and get back to me, andale!” 
 
I am more than aware of the heroic efforts of founders of the Colegio César Chávez (1973 -1983) as they were an inspiration to me and my colleagues when we founded the InterAmerican College in National City (South San Diego), California, with a Chicano ideology and vision. I observed their efforts from afar, as I found the idea of a Chicano college quite fascinating, and it has remained as a grand value in my work. ​​

​When I observed the numbers of Chicano graduates from the Colegio César Chávez, comparatively speaking, I became aware of the numbers of Chicano graduates throughout the American Southwest at state supported institutions of higher education like the University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University and the New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The insight at the time was that in 1978 the Colegio granted more degrees to Chicano students than the sum total by the University of Oregon and Oregon State University.
 
Now just stop and think about that for a moment. Here is this small, relatively obscure institution in a rural German-American historic town outside of Salem, Oregon, and they were successful at garnering federal funds to build a campus and fund academic programs that led to full accreditation. Moreover, their statistics for graduating Chicanos/as were competitive with large state institutions; it didn’t make sense to be sure, but it did reveal the realities of this former Confederate State.
 
I can’t tell you how disappointing it was to hear that in the early 1980s the Colegio César Chávez was becoming more-and-more heavily scrutinized by the regional accreditation body to the point that even though they earned accreditation, they were simply not financially sustainable. Just prior to closing, the Chicano icon José Ángel Gutiérrez was being considered as President of the Colegio, but the timing was off.
 
Why is it that the Colegio came under such close scrutiny that they had to close their doors, compared to the scrutiny brought to bear, say, on the University of Oregon or Oregon State University or other any other state university for that matter? Let’s draw an analogy to the current state of play using the overnight adoption of online instruction in higher education. Within the impact of the current day pandemic universities/colleges across this nation (and world) transformed to online curricula literally overnight, yet their online curricula and faculty competencies were not evaluated nor assessed; they simply made the change.
 
The reality is that non-traditional institutions like the University of Phoenix, Walden University, National University, InterAmerican College and the Colegio César Chávez were and are held to a much higher standard when adopting online teaching and learning than state-supported institutions and it shouldn’t be that way; it’s simply not right! There remains in American society a stigma. In referring to small start-ups and/or Chicano-oriented schools such as the Colegio César Chávez, American society still attaches the stigma of being a “university without walls.”
 
When we earned full accreditation in the founding of the InterAmerican College (a Chicano college) much of the stigma of online learning had changed. The accreditation body was even inferring that we must incorporate online instruction, state our learning outcomes clearly, and demonstrate how we will reach them, so we hired the best leaders in online learning from the University of Phoenix.
 
I can say with confidence that the University of Phoenix has the best leaders for designing online instruction. I have spent my career researching online teaching and learning and I founded a highly successful international online consortia called BESTNET with senior engineers from ARPANET, a precursor to the Internet (I nearly created the Internet!), so I have a great deal of experience in assessing education delivery systems. Yet today, in a time of a global pandemic, thousands of public/private universities are forced to adopt online education (mostly 100%) and are not being required to meet the same standards as small private institutions and/or non-traditional institutions of higher education.
 
Moreover, just a few years ago a national campaign arose against “predatory colleges” that were seen as offering inferior online curricula and false promises like “Get in, get out, and get a job!” For instance, the 80 campuses of the Heald College system in California were defined as a “predatory college” and targeted due to a handful of complaints and subsequently forced to close its doors by the U.S. Department of Education.
 
What I directly observed in the region where I live was that for Latinos in Monterey County and the great Salinas Valley and 79 other regions where Heald had campuses, Latinos lost out. Heald was located in regions with a lot of Latinos and many attended to earn vocational and/or occupational health professions degrees.
 
Just look around and see who occupies many of the health professions positions, like medical/dental assistants, community clinic managers, hospital administrators, nurses and the like; the majority of people in these positions are Latino and trained at Heald College. To be sure, Heald’s tuition fees were higher than those at state colleges, but it’s only the case if you don’t figure in dorm life and food. Latino students at Heald were presented with student loan packages not any different than those presented to students at state colleges, so why then were they targeted as “predatory?” Couldn’t the same be said for any state university? Politically, once they started getting accredited to offer bachelor level degrees they became increasingly more and more under attack.
 
Even today, traditional institutions of higher education continue their stigmatizing attacks on non-traditional colleges/universities; Chicano-oriented efforts in higher education must still grapple with that stigma. For example, state colleges will not hire applicants for faculty positions from non-traditional universities, namely online PhD programs. There isn’t a rule, policy and/or law that keeps online degree holders out; it’s simply part of the high-brow culture found in the Academy, it’s the unspeakable truth, everybody knows but nobody will say, “We don’t hire those people.”
 
Having served on a number of hiring committees, when it comes to reviewing applicants (to include Latino applicants) from online graduate programs, I know for a fact that many highly qualified Latinos are being passed over purely out of stigma for non-traditional learning and perhaps for racist reasons as well. Yet, here we are in the middle of a pandemic that forces state institutions of higher education to teach and conduct administrative business in this modality and no one is assessing the pros and cons of online learning—that dialog has been temporarily put on hold. To be sure, we all understand the impacts of the pandemic and rapid social change, but again the unspeakable truth is that we (in the Academy) were forced to make the shift to online teaching and learning overnight, yet the stigmatizing attacks on small private start-ups continues as well as on online degree recipients.
 
The National Hispanic University (NHU) had similar beginnings as the InterAmerican College and the Colegio César Chávez. NHU became fully accredited, but regardless of a number of sizeable corporate donations from Silicon Valley funders, they could not establish long-term “hard funds” (secure ongoing perpetual funding) to underwrite the university as required by the accreditation body.
 
At the point where the accrediting agency, the Western Association of Colleges and Universities or WASC, threatened to take away their accreditation (in essence close the university), NHU sold their “accreditation medallion” to a Brazilian Corporation claiming to be “Hispanic” based in Baltimore, Maryland, in turn, stripping the Chicanismo right out of the university. This is one of the important lessons learned.
 
Conversely and to the point a number of online colleges/universities such as Walden University, Western Governors University, University of Phoenix, Grand Canyon University, United States University, and National University, all begun in non-traditional settings, are doing a better job at graduating Chicano/Latino students. Concurrently, the pandemic has caused and is causing a cognitive shift (perhaps even a paradigm shift) in how higher education is viewed and assessed by students and their parents in daily life. Students and parents alike are questioning the value and the content of higher education.
 
Moreover, the statistics for the number(s) of PhDs earned by people of color in aforementioned online graduate programs outweighs that of UCLA, Stanford and Harvard and all other universities for that matter. That being the case, why should Latinos continue believing and supporting traditional models, a la brava, as they are not serving us in the manner in which we support them? Financially speaking, if we were to take the case of California taxes and say take the state taxes Latinos contribute to the State’s budget and invest those funds in the non-traditional colleges/universities that are producing Latino degree holders, the meaning of a college education will radically change and this is where we could be headed.
 
I find it ironic that during a pandemic lockdown, Mt. Angel, Oregon, is calling out to me in this way, a small German-American town with a grand annual Ocktober Fest, we’ll have to add Corona, Modelo and Dos Equis beer to the festival. In 1973 Mt. Angel and the physical site of the Colegio César Chávez became the basis for an ABC television series about a town that becomes the nucleus for a post-apocalyptic community that returns to Medieval ways of technological applications.
 
I am so moved by new paths of discovery about the efforts of early pioneers that planted Chicanismo in Mt. Angel that I am taking all I know about technological applications (far beyond online teaching and learning), and in reflecting on the experiences and lessons learned from the founding of the Colegio César Chávez, and drafting a new pandemic driven paradigm for restructuring higher education.
 
The spirit of Chicanismo that once captured this obscure historic small rural setting demonstrates the power of an idea, the idea of a Chicano college, will not die; it simply provides a wretched experience to learn from. César’s favorite saying about education was a quote from Alberto Einstein, “Imagination is more important than knowledge!” and that is certainly at work here. What you need to know is that another Chicano college is on the horizon, one whose premise is to move Chicano students from dependence to interdependence to independence as community activists based on service and service-learning.
 
Once accreditation was realized and as part of the sale of the InterAmerican College, we agreed with WASC (the accreditation body) on two points. The first point is that we would keep the Chicano vision statement intact, and the second point was that we would not start another college in the region for at least seven years. Well, the time is up. The InterAmerican College has already submitted a new application to the Bureau of Higher Education.

Armando Arias is a professor and founding member in the division of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Global Studies at CSU Monterey Bay and a frequent contributor to this magazine in his column, Chicano Confidential. He is the author of Theorizing César Chávez New Ways of Knowing STEM, published recently by Somos en escrito Literary Foundation Press, Berkeley, 2020, in which he shares a critical analysis of STEM studies, portraying his views as César Chávez would have had he gone on to earn a doctorate in science. He has served as a start-up team member for more than a dozen new universities in the U.S. (mostly in Aztlán) and consulted on the founding of new universities in Japan, Mexico, Europe, and Africa.

​This essay is the first in a three-part series in which the author, who has consulted in the founding of universities in the U.S. (mostly in Aztlán), Japan, Mexico, Europe, and Africa, argues for higher education to re-think and re-structure the old way of teaching, learning and administrating by post-secondary institutions. He recommends the use of evolving means of instruction, made highly feasible and necessary by the onslaught of a world pandemic: evolving technology by which young people can be taught anywhere in the world and new ideas in organizing the “enterprise,” a broad term for any complexity of disparate parts whether in the building of a passenger jet or in the sharing of knowledge. The driving principle, he says, must be the student and as a child born of Chicano activist parents, he insists that Mexican American and Latino youth must be given full measure of attention and opportunity. The traditional university is on the way out and learning wherever one lives will be the new model.

​It’s curious how Chicano art causes me to experience new revelations about an endless variety of topics of social inquiry. Take this painting by a Chicana artist who early on contracted the Covid-19 virus and during lockdown painted a series of portrayals of her lungs, both capturing her illness and sick lungs in one artwork and her lungs cleared of the virus.
 
The artist continued to paint during her illness and says it helped her heal to do so. 

​When I look at the sick lungs, the B/W drawing, I see a systemic design: everything in the human body is strategically linked to the lungs for the purpose of breathing as well as sustaining life in the body. In the field of sociology that would be referred to as “structural functionalism.” Enter an unknown and unexpected integer, the C-19 virus, and the lungs become sick, the immune system starts working on overdrive and searches for solutions but to no avail, at least not for now, and the future is not looking too bright at the moment.
 
This is the analogy to higher education, much like religion as Karl Marx observed, we as a global society have come to believe in higher education to such a degree that we forgot to design an antidote, a viable solution in case anything ever went wrong. As we in the Academy search for solutions to the problematics caused by the pandemic, we must come to the realization that in order to find a solution to developing an antidote, we must first search, define, and prioritize new values and beliefs to drive the research necessary to envision viable and sustainable solutions for how henceforth higher education will “get done.” We must turn all existing beliefs about higher education on their heads–in essence, the pandemic has done this for us.
 
Currently, the veil of objectivity has provided a paradigm for looking and believing in higher education such that we do not question the values and meaning of those values. We don’t question the bench work of professors and we don’t question decisions administrators with no experience in out-of-the-box thinking make, yet this is what we (people of color) need to watch closely as we take the hand coming in out of the fog and develop new ways of knowing higher education, new ways that provide solutions centered on serving ALL people in more equitable ways.
 
Face it, just look around. We are void of leadership with the type of skills necessary to address the issues the pandemic has caused in higher education that will lead to new meanings and values in higher education. There is no real paradigm in sight, nor are there leaders in higher education on the horizon with the insight necessary to lead us into the type of change necessary. We need a present-day Jorge Klor de Alba, former president of the University of Phoenix and The Apollo Group, maybe we can pull him out of retirement and pull him out of Brazil. Or, maybe we can locate an honorary Chicano like John Sperling, founder of the University of Phoenix, to provide us with a new paradigm for looking for solutions to the problematics that the pandemic has created for higher education.
 
It was not that long ago when John Sperling presented a vision about the future of higher education and it moved beyond the technology from the start. He had Latinos in mind. Sperling’s vision was to level the playing field and serve ALL people….little did he know that today his non-traditional university would end up serving educationally underrepresented people in a manner much better than traditional institutions of higher education (IHE).
 
Even after the U.S. Department of Education’s efforts to close down the university due to nothing more than political pressure from traditional large-scale IHEs, today the University of Phoenix should be moved to the front of the line for their paradigm for looking at and applying teaching and learning. Let’s just say that the pandemic is shedding new light on non-traditional ways. Briefly stated, the University of Phoenix is the best at what they do, namely online education, and they should be recognized for it. Plus, they serve people of color at both the undergraduate and graduate levels in respectable ways; this is due in part to the early leadership and vision of Klor de Alba.
 
Even as large-scale traditional systems of higher education (California State University and University of California) were suddenly forced into the arena with the real experts in online education (University of Phoenix), the traditionalists afford them no credence, no kudos, nada; this has now become the unspeakable truth. This is why our societal values must change, and they must change now in giving non-traditional IHEs the recognition they deserve.
​
We can start by no longer stigmatizing people of color who earn degrees at non-traditional colleges that are fully accredited and by-and-large produce more PhDs of color than all other IHEs combined.
 
The analogy to art, the image of sick lungs, for example, represents the stark reality that we can build systems, large-scale systems of institutions of higher education and they have the appearance of truth but the reality is that these systems are in many ways “sick” in a manner similar to institutional racism, by design, you might say. The point is that as societal values change, traditional IHEs will become obsolete at a faster pace. It should be noted that this can be exacerbated by further infusion of technology by administrators not fully aware of this possibility.
 
Beyond that is simply ignorance on the part of individuals who make decisions about technology and do not understand the impact their decision-making has on people of color, for example, on such concepts as access and equity. Moreover, traditional IHEs offer slow and/or never-changing degrees that poor students pay big bucks for, yet they are not taught how to leverage their degrees and navigate through the rest of their lives, unlike well-to-do White students. The following is a case in point.
 
I once attended graduation ceremonies at UCLA’s School of Business in honor of a friend’s son earning his bachelor’s degree. At the end of the ceremony, he stood with his best friend to take pictures. When we finished my friend (a starving Chicana artist) handed her son an envelope containing a crisp one hundred-dollar bill. She was so proud. In the same moment, her son’s best friend (a White male student) was handed an envelope by his father, a highly successful businessman who had earned a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degree from UCLA–it contained a check for one million dollars. All at once, this caused a visceral response in me that was all too familiar: it reminded me more than ever of the GAP–the gap we are all too familiar with in American society.
 
For many Latinos, earning a degree from UCLA’s School of Business is like a miracle. More than likely, they have been first-generation college students, maybe a Dreamer, and with parents who had never set foot on a college campus and were poor, like my parents. We were so poor that we used to pile through cow dung at the “hides” where my grandfather worked, a slaughter-house meat packing plant in National City (San Diego) in search of beans. Yeah, frijoles! A cow, even with its system of stomachs can’t digest beans, so we would pick them out, boil them up and have fresh frijoles borrachos.
 
This is but one example of why Latinos within the realm of the pandemic are not freaking out. We know how to survive, but it’s this type of thinking that needs further transformation. We also need to learn how to thrive in a world made of structures designed by people who rule our society. Navigating life in a White man’s world takes skill, know-how, persistence, and fortitude, ganas, as we say. This represents a huge gap. Having a mentor, whether it be a parent, uncle or friend, places a student at a huge advantage over “mentors” who have never set foot on a college/university campus.

​Now, take the colorful painting of the lungs by artist Alejandra Oseguera. They represent good health. Healthy lungs taking in air are bright and beautiful. They have the appearance of truth because they are the Truth–la verdad. De Colores!
 
Take a closer look. These lungs are not an illusion; they are not fake; they came from the heart and soul of a sincere and trusting Chicana artist. This is a beautiful self-reflection of an immune system that overcame a terrible and horrific virus. The beauty of the lungs at the same time represents the great fear the artist endured.
 
When Latinos graduate from college, it is a beautiful experience for many, but making their way through the university experience they often do not have the type of support that is supportive of their journey. My father, for example, was supportive because he kept saying, “mi’jo, you have to go to college,” even though he did not go to college.
 
The online teaching experience causes new realities for how to support educationally underserved students and we need to focus on addressing a “pedagogy of the oppressed,” a la Pablo Freire for online teaching and learning. Again, here, too, is an institutionalized insensitivity gap, a tragic overarching gap, between the ongoing rhetoric, almost all of it repetitive in various language constructs over the last 100 years, if not more, and the reality that our society is experiencing a widening gap between rhetoric and reality in American life and politics.
 
Now, at a time when the Covid-19 virus has caused a major cognitive shift in the manner in which we construct our reality in everyday life, would be an especially good time to look around in higher education and identify a diverse group of genuine bridge builders, because the more extreme the divide, the harder it will be to construct viable bridges so needed in times of crisis. An integral factor in the widening divisions within our communities of color and American society at large lies in the world of higher education.
 
The pandemic has exposed one of the most profound gaps in higher education, that between the rhetoric and reality of our educational enterprise, the aspirations of our system versus its current results (outcomes). Even as we weave hopeful narratives about the role of higher education in the world that is unfolding, we must acknowledge and, more importantly, attempt to bridge the gulf between where we are, and where we would like to be. This is important, because I believe that for better or for worse higher education played a role in bringing us to this place, and higher education must play a role in moving us forward.
 
My question is, does all of education have what it takes in ability, character, and dedication to meet the demands of this next and crucial phase of the development of all of education, including our colleges and universities, and at the same time remain mindful of educationally under-served communities? 
 
We have reached a point where talk will no longer do. Plans and various kinds of tinkering are all good in their place, but there comes a time when performance–genuine, solid, work-produced outcomes–is required and that time is now to focus on closing these gaps. As César Chávez would say, “Si se puede!”

Alejandra Oseguera has an extensive career providing academic, personal and career counseling services in schools of higher education throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, where she lives. She holds a Masters in Counselor Education and a Pupils Personnel Services Credential from San Jose State University. 
​
website: https://hijadelsolart.blogspot.com

Armando Arias is a professor and founding member in the division of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Global Studies at CSU Monterey Bay and a frequent contributor to this magazine in his column, Chicano Confidential. He is the author of Theorizing César Chávez New Ways of Knowing STEM, published recently by Somos en escrito Literary Foundation Press, Berkeley, 2020, in which he shares a critical analysis of STEM studies, portraying his views as César Chávez would have had he gone on to earn a doctorate in science. He has served as a start-up team member for more than a dozen new universities in the U.S. (mostly in Aztlán) and consulted on the founding of new universities in Japan, Mexico, Europe, and Africa.

​By Sonny Boy Arias
 
Some 40 plus years ago I earned a Ph.D. in sociology (with an emphasis in social psychology) at the University of California, San Diego. Now, I wonder why? Not for myself but for younger generations of Chicanos/as [herein: Chicanos] and others I’ve met and known across my years since earning the doctorate.
 
While preparing my notes for a keynote speech to be delivered at an annual alumni conference at a major university I was asked to reflect on the question, “What would I advise today’s students about whether or not to earn a doctorate?” The essay that follows is an offshoot of the keynote prepared for a general audience. Later, I was also asked to deliver a keynote at a Hispanic serving institution (HSI) and I decided to add a Latino twist to the question. I have to tell you, it goes without saying that I had many reflections about the Latino Ph.D. graduate experience while writing the keynote for the general audience. How could I not?
 
The Great Advice to Chicano Students Seeking a Ph.D. Degree
 
When a Chicano student asks me that question, I ask myself: “Does this student really have what it takes to earn a Ph.D. and go on to become a university professor or career researcher? Does this student have the stamina to survive the many hoops of fire that will form them into an intellectual?”
 
Over the years, my kneejerk response has grown more and more perplexing, both from practical and emotional perspectives. I want my response to be as honest as possible while at the same time taking into account personal life situations. I say to these students “Why do you ask?” and the most common response is most often “Because I have a passion for the subject matter.”
 
I know what they mean, as this has been my response to others for many years, still is. What I really mean to say (but never do) is “Why on earth in this day and age would you want to earn a Ph.D. in any other fields outside of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) where for the time being the jobs are plentiful and in high demand?”
 
One way to vet one’s ability for earning a Ph.D. is through their performance in a graduate school preparation program. It is an absolute must that young Chicanos majoring in the social and behavioral sciences thinking about attending graduate school, participate in a preparation and funding advisement program, one of the most comprehensive being the nationally recognized Ronald E. McNair, popularly known as the “McNair Scholars Program.” At the same time, students enroll into a unit-based senior level set of courses through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center (UROC) that addresses a variety of topics that will prepare them for graduate studies.
 
In so doing, the experience transforms students, provides insight into the life of a earning a Ph.D., and helps them develop a focused mindset. In short, once realized, the program places students at an advantage in preparing their applications to Ph.D. programs, Eligibility includes a strong academic record and that they be “either a first-generation and low-income college student or belong to a group traditionally underrepresented in higher education.”
 
A key part of the program is that students are matched with faculty mentors and as a result often publish in peer-reviewed journals prior to graduation. What Chicanos majoring in the social sciences need to know is that while this program has a reputation for primarily recruiting students from the hard sciences, social and behavioral science students are supported in the same fashion; the problem is that the program is not widely recognized in this way. In short, this is a wonderful opportunity for social science undergraduates.
 
Deep down inside my Self (in a social psychological sense), my truest response is directly related to my passion. I love ideas and I am keenly aware that the process of earning a Ph.D. causes a permanent cognitive shift in one’s paradigm for looking at everyday life; it literally transforms you and everything you interpret through an intellectual lens. Simply stated, due to the manner in which Chicanos experience the world, and as well as the way we socially construct our reality in everyday life, during the process of achieving the Ph.D., Chicanos develop a different consciousness, in this case an intellectual consciousness to be sure. During the transformation to becoming an intellectual your values and beliefs about most everything you know are transformed, held in abeyance in a new way, hence, you can’t help but also develop a Chicano consciousness. Franz Fanon recognized this duality and called it a “dual consciousness.”

My knowledge about the transformation of the Chicano consciousness as well as the process of earning a Ph.D. from the Chicano perspective comes from direct observations made while serving on dozens of hiring committees, not only in all the fields found in the social and behavioral sciences, but also in other fields (e.g., mathematics, life and natural sciences). And, in cases when there are not enough tenured faculty in a given academic area to assess faculty portfolios for hiring, retention, tenure and/or promotion I have been called to review faculty portfolios in my capacity as a full tenured professor.

I have also done the same as a university administrator. I would like to share the following general observations about the nature of university faculty hires in the social and behavioral sciences, and to some extent in the humanities. These statements are general, but at the same time represent what I continue to observe across academic fields, especially when it comes to providing advice to prospective Chicano Ph.D.s.

• Most positions require the Ph.D. in-hand prior to starting a new position. Don’t fake it until you make it or you will be labelled as such. And you must collaborate with a known editor to review your dissertation prior to submission; don’t take this point lightly as your dissertation will stay with you for your lifetime.
• There are an average of over 200 applications for each faculty position at major universities. Get used to steep odds; you must say to yourself that you will “never give up, never,” nunca darse por vencido, nunca, nunca digas nunca! Nunca te rindas!
• Place your machismo in a match box and be open to tips about how to improve your academic portfolio.
• You will be competing with applicants from other countries. You may be interested to know that there are a growing number of “Chicanos” applying from Japan, Germany, Mexico and Canada, no kidding, as they find the Chicano culture a fascinating topic for social inquiry.
• The applications that stand out are those with one-to-two year post-doc fellowships. Note: Post-docs provide opportunities to establish rapport with people that can help you find a faculty position.
• Publications are a must as the world you are entering is predicated on a “publish or perish” model. Publish your dissertation as a book. Publish both in and out of Latino Journals. Shy away from lesser journals until you have proved your abilities in known journals.

​Now let’s look at some important social factors found in the Academy and in American Society. These three social factors seem to appear across all disciplines and institutions of higher education:

• A Ph.D. from a reputable institution
• Political acumen
• Mobility

 
These three social factors (general as they are) are realities that cannot be taken lightly, that is, if one wants to be gainfully employed, so let’s take a closer look at what they mean to Chicanos. A Ph.D. from a reputable institution is important as a recognized credential for a lot of reasons I am not prepared to discuss in this essay. Back in the day the majority of those Chicanos that were breaking the glass ceiling in academe came from just a handful of reputable universities like the University of Texas, Austin or from New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas (New Mexico) and the University of New Mexico, located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Today, Chicanos are found earning doctorate degrees at any number of major universities.
​
Earning a Ph.D. from a reputable institution seems straight forward enough but the fact that more and more millennial Chicanos are earning degrees through one hundred percent online instruction such as the University of Phoenix and others causes search committees to rethink assumptions. For instance, statistically speaking, per capita, more Chicanos earn Ph.D.’s from Walden University (a fully accredited institution) than any other university in the U.S. I’ve also known and assisted students earning Ph.D.’s in online programs at the University of Phoenix and the Arizona State University and I would match what they learned against other reputable institutions. The problem is the lingering stigma against online education by traditionally minded universities of which there are many.

It wasn’t long ago that there was a great deal of stigma towards online degrees, and online Ph.D.’s were certainly not even considered possible. Today, when you earn a Ph.D. from say the Arizona State University’s online graduate degree program, it causes faculty search committees some pause about the quality of the program, plus, it is not self-evident that the individual in question was in an online Ph.D. program. Said differently, there is no distinguishable difference in the degree you receive and hang on the wall. Whereas in the recent past, many Chicanos felt they should earn doctorates from wherever possible, I return to the idea that at least in the foreseeable future, if you want to compete for a position at a major university and earn tenure, Chicanos should stick with traditional graduate programs at reputable universities.
​
The second social factor is the development of one’s political acumen. Just as the philosopher Aristotle encourages us to become political animals, he promotes the idea because politically aware people learn important bits of information on a daily basis that can increase one’s life chances. Simply stated, “Hang around the watering hole,” establish rapport with others, gain trust and create long-lasting relationships.

Historically, Chicanos don’t have this sort of political acumen outside of Chicano studies or ethnic studies programs, and so this has been an obstacle, but it’s importance should not be taken lightly. Academic departments are often in search of potential future heads/chairs of their departments, thus, presenting yourself as one who may fill this vision will work in your favor, Chicano or not. Few people want to take this position.

Mobility is a factor that doesn’t really strike new Ph.D.’s, until it does. One becomes so submersed in one’s studies, it’s difficult to get your head above water to see the practical realities. One of my advisors used to say, “You have to go where the gold is!” implying that if you want to increase your chances of landing a faculty position, you can do so by applying to positions in other states or countries. Bilingual and bicultural Ph.D.s are sought after and that is a good thing.
 
Think realistically about your job prospects. Many Ph.D. students hope to find a tenure-track position at a good college or research university after graduating (although others do pursue satisfying careers outside of academia). The reality is that academic positions are increasingly difficult to come by. Many Ph.D.s have to settle for temporary or non-tenure-track teaching positions, which can be just as demanding as full-time work but without the salary. Be prepared to follow jobs to colleges on the other side of the country or to adjust your career expectations.
 
With so many good Ph.D.s on the job market, many make altruistic moves by self-sacrificing their dreams of serving at a top 20 university and taking positions at lesser institutions. Many times Ph.D.s take teaching positions at community colleges and find that although their workload is greater than at a state college they are paid considerably more, and the reality is that it won’t be long before community colleges start requiring faculty to possess a Ph.D.

If you are like me, I made an altruistic career move (self-sacrificing), for the welfare of my family. I moved from a well-known top-20 Ph.D. granting university, to a lower-level (non-Ph.D. granting) university. I made this move in order to move my family to a highly desirable historic and culturally rich area with a university on the ocean and a high percentage of Latino students to include an agricultural area that stirred my sociological imagination for endless community-based projects that include service-learning opportunities.
If we view these social factors as measureable trends, we make other observations, like:

• In the next 5 to 6 years 38% of the California State University faculty and 32% of the faculty from the University of California, baby-boomers. will be retiring. This is also the trend across the nation. This means that many Chicano professors will be retiring.
• The number of faculty retiring under early retirement programs is growing.
• More Ph.D. programs are offering up to 5 years of full support because their endowments are experiencing high financial return rates.
• The normative time to earn the Ph.D. in the social and behavioral sciences and humanities is 6-7 years; 9 to 10 years is common.
• Post-doc programs are expanding, do research on a program that fits you.
• Many Ph.D. programs do not meet their “quota” in admitting Ph.D. candidates so take a second look at programs that may have initially turned you down and reconnect with them, go visit them face to face and make your case for admittance. Just do it!
• If we look in the pipeline there are far fewer Latino males seeking Ph.D. s then females, Stanford psychologist Phil Zimbardo (The Prison Study) refers to this phenomenon as the “demise of guys” stating “Guys simply don’t see the pay-off.” This is certainly the case for male Chicanos.
• A growing number of Chicano professors are moving into administration and out of the professoriate in turn making room for new faculty lines. Think before you go for the big bucks as you were not trained to become an administrator.
• Keep an eye-out for the trends in higher education, Chicanos are not as in vogue as they were just a decade ago.

 
Trends or not, the Ph.D. is not for everyone due to a myriad of factors, some of which I have enumerated in this essay. Traditionally, the Ph.D. degree was viewed and valued as high level training in performing research in one’s chosen scholarly field. Said differently, going into research as an aspiration for some may not be realistic, but there are programs that offer alternative kinds of Ph.D. opportunities. Of course if a student sees his or herself wishing to be a college or university professor, and has the skill set and capabilities to actually become one, than a Ph.D. is typically a pre-requisite at least for the foreseeable future. Bottom line – it depends.
 
And, before addressing the question “Should I Earn a Ph.D.?” any further, let me offer a philosophical and highly important perspective, depending on the age and interests of the student. I suggest that students take off a year after graduation and perform some self-analysis while being employed and reflect on Socratic like questions: Who am I, really? Why am I here? How then should I live?

​Why I should enter a Ph.D. program
 
A Ph.D. is perhaps the most important degree in the world. Ph.D. level research skills will help to improve your abilities to understand and solve problems, increase your confidence, make yourself a better communicator and gain skills that may lead to a better job, even in many fields apart from academics; plus, you learn to teach yourself (most anything) for the rest of your life.
 
Working on a Ph.D. is an indication that you are taking ownership of your professional life and at the same time taking responsibility for the development of your academic career and life. It is more important for you than for the institution you work for or go to obtain the degree. The Ph.D. institution may not be the purpose of even the passion of your life; it is merely a vehicle in which we travel on one part of our life’s journey.
 
What is most important, as Abraham Maslow has pointed out, is self-fulfillment. That is the most worthy goal of all. Money may be tight while you're studying, but this is one area where a Ph.D. really is worth the investment, especially in fields such as law, pharmaceutical sciences, biomedical sciences, and finance. Getting your doctorate will make you more likely to earn a higher salary over someone with only a master's degree.

• You’ll have unique career options open to you that you won’t get with just a Master’s and you can lead a non-profit that serves your community.
• You’ll have the self-confidence that comes with knowing you stuck with your degree, instead of quitting.
• Your writing skills will improve tremendously.
• You’ll have better interpersonal skills.
• Intellectual curiosity.
• It is a myth that a Ph.D. degree only prepares you to succeed in academia. Since a doctoral program helps you develop a field specialty, it is not hard to imagine people who use their Ph.D. training to sharpen their skills in order to work in industry.

 
 Why I shouldn't enter a Ph.D. program?

• No true passion
• “I just want to be called ‘doctor’”
• No rapport with an academic advisor
• Too much of a financial burden
• Too much time and energy
• Unforeseen Consequences
• “I thought I had a passion for this stuff, but I don’t.”
• “I didn’t know it would be this much work.”
• “I can’t find a supportive advisor.”
• “My spouse can’t take it any longer.”               
• There is no real “transfer” between universities, like moving from one university to another and holding the same academic standing or credit earned.
• What do I do if I never earn tenure?

 
What is your motive for getting a Ph.D.? 
 
Examine your true motivation for wanting to earn a Ph.D., and how the degree makes sense or not within your larger plan. Despite the obstacles, people stay in doctorate programs because they enjoy learning for learning's sake. They relish the opportunity to tackle intellectual problems and explore new areas of knowledge. For some there is the added appeal of taking time out from the traditional job market as you pursue what you love. But if it's your ambition to become a professor, you should be aware that the Ph.D. track is no guarantee of a life in academia.
 
Can you live frugally? 
 
Getting a doctorate is intellectually rewarding. Unfortunately, it doesn't tend to be financially rewarding, at least not in the short term. Most Ph.D. students live on their earnings from teaching and research assistantships or other low-paying employment. So, your starving student days may not be behind you.
 
Are you ready for the workload? 
 
Graduate courses are far more rigorous than those you took as an undergrad, and first-year Ph.D. students usually take around three classes. Many graduate students also serve as teaching assistants (TAs) and must learn how to juggle their needs along with their students’. Chicano students who serve as TAs soon find out that students of color will seek them out as mentors, role-models thus adding to their workload – this phenomenon will not change through the course of one’s career. And, of course, in the final years of the Ph.D. program, you'll mainly focus on writing the dissertation and preparing for oral exams.
 
How do you handle pressure? 
 
Each year, some Ph.D. candidates do not meet the requirements of their graduate programs and are asked to leave. Others choose to leave because they are burnt-out, or their interests have changed. Some students who don't complete the Ph.D. leave with a master's degree; others leave with no degree at all. You should be prepared for these scenarios by making a back-up plan.
 
Successful Ph.D. students thrive in a highly intellectual environment, are willing to work very hard with only a possible payoff, love their field of study, and don't mind forgoing impressive paychecks. If this sounds like you, forge ahead!
 
The Art and Science and Benefits of Grant Writing
 
If you really want to set yourself apart and if you want to generate data to write and publish about, write a grant. There is nothing like writing a grant and receiving funding for your ideas. One of the most intriguing thing to me is that most people will never write a grant, nor will they ever have the experience of being critically examined for ideas they propose. Go for it. Just like everything else, it takes a little practice. Start by reading the first 30 pages of Writing Grants for Dummies; it is a good and practical guide. It’s like my mama always says, “What are you asking for now, Sonny Boy? You should always be asking for something!”
 
I always had innovative projects to propose to be sure, so I often sought out and established rapport with foundation representatives on designing fundable projects. I did the same with foundation representatives in private corporations often linking them to others performing public service. I caused wonderful interdisciplinary marriages and always brought attention to those involved. Así, pues, nunca debemos abandonar la esperanza aunque parece imposible de mantenerla.
 
Diversify Your Skill Set and Bench Work: Remain Interesting to Others as Well as to Your Self
 
I have a colleague who spent 38 years as an English professor at a major university; 25 years ago, he earned a Master’s degree in marriage and family counseling (MFC) and simultaneously built a psychotherapy practice. Interestingly to note is that he has a Ph.D. in English and a MFC degree in counseling and the title on his counseling practice reads, “Dr.” He retired as an English professor but has since kept his counseling practice. Interesting to note is that his practice is located directly across the street from a major university and ninety percent of his clients are young tenure-track professors with tremendous amounts of anxiety – now that’s interesting!
 
Final Points

• Getting a Ph.D. isn’t enough to get you an industry job.
• A Ph.D. means very little unless the individual has the right mindset.
• Collaborate with authors of your letters of recommendation so that they describe you as the best thing since sliced bread and not sell you out.
• View your CV as a presentation of Self (in a social psychological sense).
• You may end up with an academic advisor who treats you poorly; try to turn that around. If not, deal with it, earn your Ph.D., and move on.
• Establish rapport with your advisor as well as other scholars.
• Cast a wide net – work at expanding your social network, la red.
• Devise methods (like publishing or co-authoring articles) to deal with the publish or perish fear mongering.
• No matter how out of line they may appear, propose ideas, write grants and collaborate with others on your ideas.
• Work hard, work very hard. Get up early every day to get to your bench work.
• Remain aware that the truth about discrimination is that it is alive in American society. Latinos are discriminated against for a variety of reasons ranging from their accent, skin color (phenotypic discrimination) and/or political views (especially activist views). In this day and age, it is not recommended that one refer to themselves as “Chicano/a” as it is viewed as politically incorrect, even old school.
• Diversify your skill sets (earn a certificate in an outside field). For example, if you earn a Ph.D. in sociology, go out and earn a certificate in Enterprise Architecture or Systems Engineering as Silicon Valley corporations are in need of social scientists who can “speak” engineering.
• Earn a Ph.D. from a reputable institution. Consider studying back East or attending an Ivy League university.
• Be a political animal.
• Develop coping skills for navigating with a Ph.D. in a peculiar and curious world. The only way to cope with and/or transition out of this system is head-on, question it intelligently, take risks, and adopt a strong mental state
• Be mobile. As a Chicano, consider moving out of Aztlan (out of your comfort zone) as you can always return, but know, when you do, people will see you differently, and that’s a good thing.
• Go where the gold is! Id donde está el oro!

​Sonny Boy Arias is a stone-cold, very self-aware (in a social psychological sense) Chicano and a dedicated contributor to Somos en escrito via his column, Chicano Confidential. Copyright © Arts and Sciences World Press, 2019.

​By Sonny Boy Arias (2018)
Recently, someone turned to me and said, “You’ve got a lot going on in your life right now, don’t you?” and in a micro-second of reflection I thought, “Not any more than normal,” and then the reality of my situatedness of daily life sunk in. “Yes,” I thought, “I guess I do have a lot going on.” By this coming June, I will have 8 grandchildren (including a set of twins), as everyone is pregnant (we currently have 4 male grandchildren).
I am currently searching for solutions to place my father in long-term rehab care in San Diego and my mother’s dementia is progressing so rapidly that I can hand her something and she will place it immediately in the proverbial Black Hole. I am leading a major policy shift at my university, while acting as lead academic planner for our University’s 25th anniversary, and I have made arrangements to take our entire family to Maui for the greater part of the summer, oy vey!
I’ve even reached a point where I conducted the preliminary math demonstrating that I may be retiring as early as this summer. These events were for the most part not unexpected as I am an old scuba diver and I always “plan my dive and dive my plan,” but I have to confess: no matter how prepared one is, Father Time has a way of sneaking up on you and tapping you on the shoulder. It seems that time, numbers and my personal philosophy make up the mainstay of how I construct my reality in daily life at least for the onset of this coming year.
I didn’t think my goings-on were observable, nobody ever really does, that is, until somebody does make the observation, “You really have a lot going on right now, don’t you?” We all believe that most people don’t really care about who we are or what we stand for, not really, for emotional and practical purposes.
Daily life is way too complex for one to keep up with the energy it takes to truly care for others. I mean, doesn’t everybody always have a lot going on? It’s simply too much to keep track of what people are doing, thinking or facing. Why should my situatedness stand out, why now? Conversely, this is why I find most everyone quite interesting, everyone has a story, and every story is unique and in turn interesting. Said differently, everything may in fact be observable but what is interesting for the day or even for the moment is a topic of social inquiry all on its own; it is phenomenological in this way.
It’s as though my Self (in a social psychological sense) is evolving with every social interaction; how can it be perceived any other way? While I am keenly aware of such evolution, I’ve never felt the evolution of Self the way I do now. What better way to measure one’s situatedness than to compare your time (like, your time left on this earth) against the backdrop of the endless situations that come up in everyday life? Everything is quantifiable such as the number of strokes of genius, impulses, how many grandchildren, even the number of heartbeats in one’s life, you can count them all.
Again, the statement directed to me can be directed to you: “You’ve got a lot going on in your life right now, don’t you?” At first, it can only be examined existentially because it evokes feelings, often deep feelings depending on the situation at hand. I will say there are markers along the way, some outright signs along the way you might say that are not only directive, but, all at once full of symbolic meanings. Much like the radical empiricist William James, my tendencies are to ground what I say theoretically in observable examples, including those found in my own life.
At the onset of this past summer, I observed  two massive (I mean massive) chunks of glacier each the size of five football fields slip into Glacier Bay, and this occurred within 12 minutes of each other.  I video-taped the second slide, but haven’t mustered up the courage to view it again as it really rocked my world. Having been taken by surprise, I was all at once mortified to the core of my being, my brute being that is, I honestly still can’t seem to shake the feeling.
I wasn’t fearful of a tidal wave effect or anything of that sort, frankly I didn’t know what it was I was feeling. It wasn’t until weeks later that I came to the realization that I was in shock and this triggered my sensibilities beyond my control all at once, changing my human condition, forever. Likened to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “white sheet flashes” to massive sheets of sliding ice were simply too much to handle all at once.
How else can I say it except that “It scared the hell out of me!” I wasn’t aware of the full impact it had on my psyche until much later. It was as though I was completely caught off guard by a sensation so overwhelming my sensibilities were shut down by natural defense mechanisms and as a result, I switched to autopilot, not allowing myself to feel the sensations that were so overwhelming. It was one of the greatest contradictions of my life.
While I have always enjoyed living and dwelling in contradictions, suspended existentially so, enjoying being at the helm of a sailboat with a broken rudder in a full gale storm, this was a test of the tempest, “nor'easter” you might say. I imagined the sky ripped open by a giant Russian god-like philosopher, yelling down to all of humanity:
“You all have ruined the earth; look at her now look, at Gaia (Mother Earth). The massive sheets of ice slipping into Glacier Bay are her tears crying to let her loose, to let her heal herself the way only she can do. You (humanity) need to step aside and let nature (Mother Earth) take over and heal herself, she has taken care of herself for billions of years, well before humans arrived, for Christ’s sake step aside!”
This was it! This was the penultimate contradiction of my life and it caught me off guard, I’ve been sensing this ever since witnessing Gaia cry; it was like Mary, Mother of God, crying for her son and for our sins.
Last month, in my capacity as the keynote speaker and a Distinguished Alum at UC San Diego’s 50th year celebration of its graduate division, I presented myself as a well-trained scientist that had tried on various rationales that might help me mask the realities we are facing in American society today – one is global warming. I argued that during current times it is quite difficult to perform critical objective scientific analysis because the average person on the street does not understand science and their thoughts are based on what they gather from quip-like political remarks they hear on television, on the radio or read in pop-ups that are not scientifically based.
The physical condition of Mother Earth is in the back of my mind, even more so than is the fate of humanity, she needs real help beyond what I have to offer and I have offered more valiant efforts than most as evidenced by my work in convening world-class scientists in Big Sur. At the core of my being, I’m keenly aware that everyone tacitly knows but doesn’t want to say out loud the unspeakable truth:
“We [humanity] have systematically ruined the earth due to greed and to self-preservation beyond the type designed for us by nature. We somehow got off track and at the cost of forsaking others or even contributing to the social good have designed distractions into our realities so great that we consume much more than we can play out in useful ways in one lifetime. This behavior has driven humanity far beyond the tipping point for any possibility of ecological reconstruction. There is no going back; the massive chunks of ice falling by the minute in Glacier Bay don’t suddenly re-attach themselves, they don’t grow anew like frozen crystals, they simply melt away like islands of meaning that only few can understand, because people don’t take the time or have the time to save them or Mother Earth.”
People remain distracted seeking refuge in the Google-god thinking they have an understanding of every situation, every problem and every subject matter. From a scientific perspective, it’s simply annoying to constantly hear interpretations of a Google sort from those who have little understanding of deep levels of predication. “Just Google it,” they say, with no understanding that the rhythm of their personal algorithm shines only a subjective light that cannot (will not) allow for objective truths.

​We live in a world where perception is everything and scientific truths no longer ring of truth. We are experiencing the advent of new curious concepts like “fake news” or “fake truths” and so what we find is small children questioning thousands of years of scientific truths the scientific method, models and paradigms based on knowledges that were built on each other, not that we suddenly postulated as a tweet or felt sense and nothing more.
The philosopher Aristotle believed that “seeing is believing” although he didn’t live in a world of social media in the same manner as we do today. He did not take into account that for political reasons people would begin purposefully altering video and pictures for political reasons. This was not part of his awareness. Said differently, whether you believe in global warming or not, whether you practice science or fake science or fake news, I know what I saw and experienced in watching Gaia cry sheets of ice.
This truth cannot be denied, I heard it, I saw it, I even smelt it. It’s like listening to your aged mother who is hard of hearing trying to order her prescriptions over the phone: “Can you please speak up,” she says. “I can’t hear you, please speak up.” It’s a truth you can’t deny, it’s not “fake,” just as in the gym, the barbells don’t lie—they are in fact heavy. Sir Issac Newton observed a basic truth “What goes up must come down.” Watch video replays of when you were young as they capture a picturesque younger Self about the way things once were and sometimes these are difficult to watch because they capture a truism: “You are [today] what you once were [yesteryear]. The unforgettable sound of cracking ice is so memorable; it is in fact plaguing to my senses, I will never forget the sound and yet this phenomenon becomes the mainstay marker for the rest of my life, placing me on a hermeneutic spiral to enjoy in a rather disturbing way.
For me the sound or old reflections are evocative, poignant even melancholy; they linger and contribute to the way I construct my reality in daily life – how else can I say it, except to say it the way it feels, this becomes my situatedness, this becomes the foundational springboard for the evolution of my Self (in a social psychological sense).
So in this way, yes, I am just like you, I do have a lot going on in my life, for many it appears I am preoccupied with the end of the end of things: objects, relationships, even perspectives or paradigms for looking at scientific discoveries. Things change, science changes the way we view realities through scientific discovery not through “fake news” or “fake truths.”
It’s the eve of yet another year to come and a year gone by even at a more precipitous pace than the previous one. Yes, I sound like my parents and uncles who constantly remind me, “Life is short.” Yet I remain baffled at what is inevitably to come, this year, unknown yet seemingly felt in my soul. What new vulgar circumstances (even rollicking vulgarity or playful exuberance) will give birth to my story writing for example?
As I grow older, words, it seems, sit on ideas with uncanny ease and make more stories seem inevitable, I never know what is coming out of my imagination next. I do however remain convinced that as Einstein puts it, “Imagination is more important than knowledge,” which, by the way, is the trick for scoring at the highest levels of IQ tests and college entrance exams. “Teach your children well.” Now headed for quasi-retirement, the fictional stories I started writing in the form of “science friction” afford me a separate life, a “separate reality” as my old friend Carlos Castaneda used to put it, and new relations.
I’m aware of my lack of formal training in creative writing, yet it actually becomes the very reason whenever I go to contemplate a “creative” work for pleasure. I’m fine with the fact that my stories will surely not be on the Best Seller’s List nor a Pulitzer Prize winner for these authors always lack soul and only write for the prize. They are in fact creatively boring, what one might typify as “tragicomic solipsism.” Frankly, I’m always fascinated at how boring prize-winning authors can be in real-life. Even so, there is almost no one I can call for honest advice, “Your stories are great” they say, with no proof or affirmation. It’s not difficult to realize how I cause a new deviance disavowal because I know they didn’t read my writings, yet feel the need to tell me they did, hey, no problem.
I firmly believe people trained in creative writing practice linguistic calisthenics; a lot of words, without soul. I understand how the book writing world works, people simply prefer living the illusion, and again, perception becomes everything; therein lies the organic disconnect. In this spirit, I have even come to believe in the “fish stories” I have to some extent imagined and I see this as a good thing inasmuch as I have continued mindful activities and exercises that contribute to the evolution of my prodigious memory that allows me to recite my finished stories verbatim. I became aware of this ability many years ago when seated in a hot-tub next to a distant relative at a family reunion held at the Rosarito Beach Hotel. I told her the story of how I was once attacked by a wild-boar on Catalina Island and she did not believe me until the next day when we were joined by her husband whom I shared the story with as well and she observed, “Sonny Boy (my nickname), I didn’t believe you yesterday but I do believe you today because you told the story in the same way word-for-word.”
It is the case that I practice the art and science of writing like I talk and talking like I write, plus I want to defer atrophy of my brain as long as possible. Most people don’t see the insight my stories can bring as they say, “his silly little stories;” they are all psychoanalytic and often viewed as “irritatingly clever.” I think more about the future and the future I am already starting to miss. I remain eager to see how my personal buoyancy plays out in a hopefully different economic and emotional climate as I reach my later years. The way I see it, psychologically I should be happy, financially I should be set. Don’t forget, a scuba diver “plans his dive and dives his plan,” so I have a plan.
But will an unexpected “four-alarm fire” surprise me, will I find it exhilarating (like being shot at), will I have the capacity to turn a nightmare into an insidious experience, at the very least a cheap thrill. If anything, my trained anticipation of the unexpected has always turned to a mission of good times. I expect to look back at any “urgency” and think “courage, after all, wants to laugh.” You can’t take life too seriously as it wasn’t meant to be that way, yet so many of us cannot see it any other way as evidenced by people who take themselves too seriously.
It is for this reason I continue to amuse myself to death. I’m having a hell of a good time, by design. Life is for me an intellectual game. The allusion and/or insinuation endorses my serious refusal to be serious. I see every idea as inescapable from the link to the evolution of SELF, not vain, not self-defeating, not even a linguistic construct, but artistic. It is through this paradigm for looking at storytelling that I simply want to show those who indulge in my stories how to live a fulfilled and meaningful life and to become less alone inside in a world with inescapable ways of contributing to alienation, Karl Marx’s greatest fear.
Said differently, through my stories I want to help people feel life, and remain more than arm’s distance from being-bored-of-being-bored. Hence, if you are going to mistake your wife for something mistake her for a hat, a nice black hat (a la Oliver Sacks) and enjoy it, don’t get freaked out by the experience. It’s like taking LSD. Timothy Leary use to say, “Never have a bad trip, learn from it, enjoy it as you will never forget what you learned.” What I believe is that there can be optimism within one’s personal despair, elation of a curious sort in its anomie. More than ever I feel like a paradoxical character with an outsized passion, repression and expression: twin causes of complication, harmony and disharmony with significant others who think:
“He is such a nice person, a good father and great grandfather, yet there is something in him that keeps him from being completely decent.”
I have to ask, “Do people not understand my aesthetic?” Years ago I wrote a book on fear and it wasn’t until now that I came to the realization that I write stories because I am afraid that the last thing I will write will be the last thing that I write. This is not paranoia as that would be fear of the unreal; my fear is based not only on real fear as evidenced by the stories I keep producing, but also by the body of original scientific knowledge I have contributed over time. I find in life amusing peculiarities that trigger epiphanies, continually!
Maybe deep down inside there is the possibility that telling a story could lead to redemption of a sort, for what reason, I am searching, but perhaps it may be found in spirituality and values. So, this is what is on my mind on the eve of a new year.

I’m curious to know what’s on your mind.

Sonny Boy Arias, a dedicated contributor to Somos en escrito via his column, Chicano Confidential, is a stone-cold Chicano, who writes under the general rubric of historias verdaderas mentiras auténticas–true stories and authentic lies. He has found this the most effective manner to convey his stories about Chicano life. Copyright © Arts and Sciences World Press, 2018.
​

​​By Sonny Boy Arias

Okay, okay, okay, I just have to tell you bato, this global warming crap is getting personal and by that I mean, it’s affecting my Chicanismo. Now, I have to ask myself, my Chicano SELF (in a social psychological sense), “Self, how can that be? It’s like bato what are you talking about, man?”
I can hear my favorite uncle now, my uncle Enrique; we call him “Hank” for short, maybe it is because he is short. Hank isn’t really my blood uncle, but we pay him respect because he has been around forever, does not judge us, and received three Purple Hearts in Vietnam and is a stone-cold Chicano, I mean who could not respect a person like that? I can hear him now, “Hey, bato, don’t try to out-Chicano me or tell me what it’s like being Chicano and experience global warming. I put my ass on the line so that you can be Chicano and that’s that!”
If my uncle Hank heard me talking right now about climate change, global warming, and chunks of ice the size of Barrio Logan falling into the bay, he would be sure to say something about, “Aztlan melting away!” He would most certainly add a question as to what extent global warming is having a direct impact on my Chicanismo. If he were still alive, he would sit back in his “comfy” chair, you know the one with burn holes from leaving lit-joints sitting on the wood handles for the past five decades, that one.
And he would lean back so as to purposefully position himself so you could see his Yaqui profile with his tanned skin and perhaps catch a whiff of his Tres Flores old-school hair balm in anticipation that things would inevitably heat up—and all at once, there he was transformed into his stone-cold Chicano Self. If he were alive, Hank would respond with something like,
“Sonny Boy, I would love to hear what you have to say about how global warming and climate change are getting personal and how it is having an impact on your Chicanismo; tell me all about it, Sonny, tell me all about it!” Hank in his own way would give you his undivided attention, no iPhone, no music in the background, no nada, he loved to talk and engage people in a sparkling interchange of ideas as often as he could and he’d look you straight in the eye.
Now. let me just take a moment and share with you that my uncle Hank was a cool bato; he was first generation Chicano at the fringe of the pachuco movement. He was like my old friend, the author-anthropologist Carlos Castaneda (famous writer and honorary Chicano from Brazil). He could present himself like a businessperson, then turn to the side, and look like a Yaqui shaman at a glance.
This was part of the mysticism that surrounded him and he knew it. I do not know how they do it, but people like Hank and Carlos are rare like that. Another thing they had in common was the ability to focus, a characteristic harder and harder to find in people stuck to their iPhones these days.
Carlos was a little like Victor Villaseñor, except Victor will tell you he spent hours crying at his keyboard writing all his stories. Carlos believed that before you talk to people you need their undivided attention. As Villaseñor puts it, “First, you have to hit the burro in the head, and get his attention, then, you can start talking to him.” (Burro Genius: A Memoir, 2004) So in order to get your undivided attention, Carlos (like Hank) would sit directly in front of you so that your knees were touching. One time Carlos actually grabbed both my ears as he adjusted our chairs and gazed into my eyes, and as he gazed, he all at once gazed even deeper, it was like, I could suddenly see his soul, much like the depiction below.

My sense is that there was not anything mystical about looking into someone’s eyes (Carlos never claimed there was) and getting their undivided attention is just something we never take the time to do. The truth is that part of our human condition is having the innate ability to connect to another individual by gazing into one another’s eyes; my nanita would see it this way, “Maybe this is the answer to reversing global warming or stemming-off alienation in humanity, people need to connect; Latinos know how to connect.”
My nanita, who lives in Barrio Logan (Chicano Park) recently said the other day that her sweet tamales didn’t turn out quite right due to the heat outside. “Must be global warming!” she blurted out. I thought, “What the …...” I decided not to take issue with my nanita and I suggest you do the same, as she is one tough cookie.
Speaking of cookies the other day I reached into her “Kuki” jar, pronounced “coo-key”, you know the way my nanita speaks with her lovely Chicana accent.  It was as they say “unseasonably hot” in San Diego to be sure and the Kuki jar was for the very first time in my life, warm, not caliente, but warm as if I had never felt it before. When I took a bite of a warm “Kuki” I saw myself grimace in a reflection off her Frida Kahlo picture hanging in the kitchen and she saw me and said, “Global warming, the ‘kukis’ are getting old fast because of global warming, mijo!”
She added that “….even the extraterrestrial aliens wandering over from ComicCon to Chicano Park have costumes that don’t leave much to the imagination because of climate change.” She observed, “Did you see Wonder Woman down at the café? Did you see her short-shorts and those red boots, her body must stay cool but her feet must get really hot. Climate change is like social change, who would have ever thought Chicano Park would be swarming with extraterrestrial aliens and Wonder Woman to boot, red boots!”
Anyway, I provide these examples because Chicanos in daily life (much like my nanita) are making more and more claims about the impact climate change is having on themselves and others, que global warming this y que global warming that. I am not here to argue whether it is true or not, I am just saying, that whatever is going on with the climate, it is having an impact on how Chicanos view themselves and how they socially construct their reality in everyday life.
Every time I sit with my uncle Hank and watch “box” (boxing), he tells me that the Mexican boxer known as “Canelo” is tough because he is a red head, implying that all red heads are tough. Hank said that due to global warming, the world is running short on red heads, especially Chicano red heads. Similarly, I actually heard a U.S. Navy Seal recruiter say that he actively seeks out red heads because they are tougher than most people; the problem is that “due to global warming there are fewer and fewer red heads to pick from.” What the f..…?
You can say whatever you want about global warming, but let me tell you, I mean, how else can I say it, bato? This past summer I saw a huge chunk of ice-mass break off and slide into Glacier Bay, Alaska; it was larger than Barrio Logan, Logan Heights, Chicano Park, Califas, all in one. It was a big piece of ice and boom right there, bato, it broke off right before my eyes, it didn’t cause a tidal wave like I thought it would, instead it was like when I slide into the bathtub, all the water rises. Watching the glacier fall apart rendered me speechless; that in itself is a rare moment.
The music on the ship went off at the moment the ice-mass slipped into Glacier Bay. Seeing the massive ice-mass slide into the bay sent me into shock. There was an eerie feeling in the air, the mind of the crowd had taken over the mind of the individual; to be sure, we were suddenly alienated from ourselves, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Then, suddenly there was a god-awful cracking sound, like giant blocks of ice rubbing against each other against their will. It reminded me that when I was a child I ate so much chile one day my tongue was burning so bad I ran to the freezer and pulled out a tray of ice cubes (you know the aluminum ice tray with the long handle). I placed the frozen tray on my tongue and it cooled down for about half a minute, but I suddenly realized my tongue was stuck to the tray. I know you have heard about people who do this; well, bato, it actually happened to me.
The point is that while my tongue was stuck to the bottom of the ice tray, my sister ran over and pulled on the handle; this in turn caused the tiny ice cubes to rub against each other. Well, the self-same sound the tiny ice cubes made I also heard in the ice-mass. I don’t know why, but, I call it “blocking.” Now magnify that sound by one million times and that’s the sound I heard when the ice-mass broke off the glacier and slid into Glacier Bay. Holy shit! Dios mio!
And then, as if that wasn’t enough shock for the day it started up again, crack, crack, crack; it was like the Cucuy decided to return after causing great mayhem and he didn’t give a shit, now what? More “blocking”—crack, crack, crack, another huge ice-mass was breaking off right before my eyes. The people surrounding me had no time to respond from being freaked-out by watching the first piece break off, Like me, it had rendered them speechless. Again crack, crack, crack, all I could think of was god bless us all, this is it, this could be the end of my life and the end of humanity. The sound was organic, causing a visceral shimmer in me like never before; it shook me to the core.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
This time I grabbed my video-camera and sure enough I zoomed in with my Sony Handycam with a German lens (54X clear image zoom) and I could see white powder flying high into the sky a few miles into the glacier. Now just like before I could hear that eerie “blocking” sound so loud I could barely hear myself think and then again crack, crack, crack: another piece of ice twenty times the size of Chicano Park slid into Glacier Bay. I was once again, rendered speechless. Technically I hadn’t come out of my state of shock from witnessing the first sheet of ice falling.
Think about it. We had been there less than five minutes and two huge ice-masses had broken away from the hundreds of miles of blue-white ice as far as the eye could see. This was unprecedented. You know, every time this happens that’s what people say, “This was unprecedented.”
In the most unexpected way possible, you might say I had just witnessed history at least that is what the park ranger who suddenly boarded the ship said. Later, I found out that she boarded the ship for safety purposes because she felt threatened by the ice-mass slides.
I’ve been stabbed in the park (twice), beat-up by seven batos all at once, hit in the head by a baseball bat as a kid raiding a piñata, fallen off a cliff and even blown up inside a tank in Iraq, but man, watching the ice-mass break off like that, man, that was really something, I’m still not over it. When it happened the second time I felt for humanity, I felt for Aztlan. I felt the weight of all Chicanismo somehow, in some way, melting away, breaking off, breaking down, all I could think of was, “How could this be? Aztlan is melting, just say it ain’t so! No mas!!!
I could see my friend Carlos Castaneda’s face forming in the bright white clouds above and he was saying:

Man, you guys [humanity], you guys really messed up. The ice only flows one-way; it is never coming back, humanity is done for and so, too, are Chicanos. What happened? This is not the kind of movement we envisioned? Fighting social injustices is one thing, fighting the environment is another ballgame. We have passed the tipping point on that one. People need to know that humanity has passed the tipping point and that’s that, so now Aztlan is melting.

And then the music on the ship started up, da, da, da, da, da, da, daaaa da, da da, da, da da, da, daaaa da:

Oye como va
Mi ritmo
Bueno pa' gozar
Mulata

I thought, damn it, they are playing my death song, this is it, we are going down like the damn Titanic! All at once my life was flashing before me, how cliché. I recall how many years ago I responded to a call for extras for the movie Titanic as they were filming off the coast near the Rosarito Beach Hotel in Baja and we were having our family reunion. It didn’t take me long to figure out that the director of casting was not picking brown people like me, I mean, think about it, and can you imagine a bunch of Chicanos/as in the movie going down with the Titanic?
Well, we were not picked then, but we certainly were picked today. Glacier Bay, thefamoso frikking Glacier Bay that was not on my bucket list, was rapidly becoming my deathbed. Moreover, the music played on causing my wife’s curvy hips to sway effortlessly.

Oye como va
Mi ritmo
Bueno pa' gozar
Mulata

I looked over at my wife, my Patricia, my Mulata and just before kissing her goodbye for life, I peered over her shoulder and there it was, the original flag of Aztlan on the side of the glacier. Was I seeing things? 

No, I do not think so as others were commenting on the appearance of the flag as well.
The French couple next to us said, “Regardez ce drapeau!”
The German couple exclaimed, “Sieh dir diese Flagge an!”
And the Afrikaans behind me yelled out, “Kyk na aardie vlag!” causing me to reflect all at once of my years in the bush with descendants of Che Guevara and his men who spread their seed throughout Marripodi Compound just outside of Lusaka, Zambia.
The music seemed to get louder because the frozen ice from thousands of miles of glacier acted like a giant acoustic theatre with the best sound possible, better than the Red Rocks theatre just outside of Denver where Tito Puente did his thing with La Fea.

Oye como va
Mi ritmo
Bueno pa' gozar
Mulata
​

​Sonny Boy Arias, a dedicated contributor to Somos en escrito via his column, Chicano Confidential, and a stone-cold Chicano, writes under the general rubric of historias verdaderas mentiras auténticas–true stories and authentic lies. He has found this the most effective manner to convey his stories about Chicano life. Copyright © Arts and Sciences World Press, 2018.

Comments:
​ Refugio I. Rochin said...Well done. FYI 
I’ve known Victor Villasenor since we were kids.
Our parents compadres.
Victor does not use computer. He writes all with pencils on writing pads. His sister or friends type all for him.

Reference:
Carlos was a little like Victor Villaseñor, except Victor will tell you he spent hours crying at his keyboard writing all his stories. Carlos believed that before you talk to people you need their undivided attention. As Villaseñor puts it, “First, you have to hit the burro in the head, and get his attention, then, you can start talking to him.” (Burro Genius: A Memoir, 2004) So in order to get your undivided attention, Carlos (like Hank) would sit directly in front of you so that your knees were touching. One time Carlos actually grabbed both my ears as he adjusted our chairs and gazed into my eyes, and as he gazed, he all at once gazed even deeper, it was like, I could suddenly see his soul, much like the depiction below.
September 19, 2018 at 11:17 PM

The Night La Virgen Crashed Corky’s Party for César


By Sonny Boy Arias
​
Federico Peña, Denver’s first Chicano Mayor once hosted a reception for César Chavez at his home. In attendance were a Chicano congressman, Chicano State Senator, Chicana Assemblywomen, a Chicano member of the State Board of Education, several Chicano community activists like the directors of Brother’s Redevelopment Corporation and the Community Action Program and a half dozen Chicano professors (including myself), now how Chicano is that?
I never felt so Chicano in my life. We used to meet weekly at El Metro, a local bar located in the barrio on Santa Fe Boulevard downtown Denver across the street from the Metropolitan State College of Denver to strategize who was going to run for which political office next. We saw this as our official meeting place, the “space for change” we called it. We used to test-out community planning ideas with influential Denver politicos prior to going public; it’s the place we planned to bring César when he came to town but were only able to get him to Federico Peña’s house located in an up-scale part of Denver known as Cherry Creek not far from the Tattered Book Store and Lyle Alzado’s Bar (former professional football player for the Denver Broncos who was drafted to the Oakland Raiders).
My wife, Patricia, and Federico’s first wife Ellen were jogging buddies so I heard first-hand that she encouraged him to invite just a handful of people for the reception, but it turned out to be more of a Chicano-style pachanga. Prior to César’s arrival I estimated some two hundred and fifty people in-and-around Peña’s house, and once the students arrived it swelled easily to over four hundred. Important to note is that given a number of recent clashes with the police it was obvious that there were no police in sight; another of Mayor Peña’s strategies as his message to the Denver Police Department and to the dismay of the Chief of Police (an outspoken officer who always spoke in defense of his junior officers for having shot and killed a number of Chicanitos) was, “We can take care of our own!”
I noticed a beautifully remodeled 1960ish low-rider Chevy with a picturesque spray painting of César Chávez on the trunk reflecting off a well-placed black-light projecting a purple ray of light from the dashboard approaching the house at a Chicano speed of one mile per hour; it was travelling low-and-slow, not just because the crowd was thick but to also give people time to place their hands on the spray-paintings of César on the trunk and/or La Virgen de Guadalupe (The Virgin Mary) on the hood. People rubbed the images as if they were touching the shroud of Jesus. Both were dimly lit yet quite visible giving the low-rider a heavenly luminescent look amidst cold fog-breathing onlookers with a Rocky Mountain background and La Luna (The Moon) watching over.
At least a couple hundred students walked behind the vehicle–it was like a cross between a spiritual and social movement all at once–Chicano style to be sure. The young students from the Escuela Tlatelolco (who were not invited to the reception but defined Mayor Peña’s house as a newly found part of their community) led the chant “Que viva César Chávez!” and the crowd would respond with “Que viva!” Prior to the long walk from Five Points (a place where five main interconnecting streets converged stretching out from each of Denver’s barrios), César had met with the students: his message to them was that there were two types of effective social change: slow and fast and that it is highly important to first lay the foundation for any change to occur and they must always take action on both depending on the signs (albeit, needs) of the times and that public social protest was the best way to bring attention to social problems; many Chicano students reported their lives’ were forever changed by this encounter. 

Upon César’s arrival, Rodolfo Corky Gonzalez immediately stepped out of the low-rider wearing a black silk jet fighter pilot-like coat with bright-red heavily threaded letters with his prize winning name on the back “Corky the Champ!” along with an intense look on his face just as he looked before entering the ring for a boxing match as he had done so many times before.  César followed, wearing his prize winning smile. As they made their way out of the car and up to the front-porch the stark contrast between César and Corky was peculiar yet positive, César was never so Chicano and for this event Corky was not the main event, not even in his own town as the real Champ had arrived. Realizing he was in the presence of grandeur, Corky took his place directly behind César with his arms extended and at the same time holding onto César’s shoulders in precisely the same manner in which a prize fighter enters the ring.
As the chants grew to almost deafening pitches, “Que viva César Chávez!” – there appeared an image of La Virgen de Guadalupe on the large bay window of the living room for all to see. It was clear-as-day, floating as if suspended about four feet off the ground. Neither César nor Corky knew what to think or say. As it turns out the image was actually a reflection from the dimly lit image of La Virgen reflecting off the low-rider and accentuated by the light of the silvery moon –the bay window acted like a bright reflection off a giant movie screen.
La Luna shown beautifully and bright that night as if she were looking over us and providing the light for taking back the night in this Rocky Mountain town with a cowboy past and a Chicano future, with so much political turmoil during those tumultuous times. Chicanos and Chicanas were ripe for this moment, simply stated, “It just had to be!”
With several hundred people standing in the yard and because the low-rider was riding low-and-slow most people could not see the image of La Virgen reflecting off the car but word spread quickly so they were immediately convinced the Virgin Mary had made an appearance, after-all seeing is believing! The large and colorful image of La Virgen stunned the crowd. I cannot stress the impact it had momentarily on us all. The fact that the bay window was also reflecting the shadows of the people standing nearest the window as they moved about brought more life to the image. In just a matter of seconds following her appearance, the crowd let out a subtle moan as dozens of people repeated “Oh my God! Oh my God!” All at once people began making the Sign-of-the-Cross the way Catholics do and for many they kept making it over-and-over again like the way Latino professional baseball players do when they go up to bat. People produced Rosaries from their pockets and began praying the Lord’s Prayer; you could hear them praying in both Spanish and in English yet in unison as if it were orchestrated from heaven above:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Amen. 


One elderly woman near the bay window cried out that a bed of “velvety-red roses” had also appeared beneath the window just like the roses Juan Diego, a Nahua peasant, had shared in a cloak upon her apparition back in 1531. When she said this hundreds of heads turned back to the window, some with skepticism but sure enough there was a beautiful bed of “velvety-red roses.” It was in fact Mayor Peña’s rose bed; even he was astounded, however, at both the appearance and beauty of the roses as he had just trimmed each rose bush down to three conjoining stems as he was taught by his grandfather; even his wife Ellen commented that she had just taken the garbage out including all the trimmings from the rose bushes leaving no trace of roses for the season. It wasn’t hard to see the wonder in everyone’s faces.
Over-and-over again for a good ten minutes people repeated the Lord’s Prayer. I noticed that none of the children from the Escuela Tlatelolco joined in on the recitation as they were taught to question authority through a critical lens and they were not enchanted with the Catholic Church. Nearly all of the children from the escuela were trilingual speaking, Spanish, English and Nahuatl, a language indigenous to regions in and around the Aztec Empire and used by Chicanos so as not to be understood by others. Several dozen prayers had gone by when it started to feel a little too Catholic; even with the image on the bay window, things started to feel odd, especially to Chicanos who had not had positive experiences with priests and/or nuns in Catholic school.
Tacitly, it goes without saying, “No one dared to stop the people from praying!” In all his wisdom, however, derived from his experiences as a prize fighter who often during bouts would start praying at a point when he thought he didn’t have the strength to win until he saw a vision of La Virgen, Corky decided to include a good dose of ascetic mysticism: he spoke loudly into a portable microphone system he always seemed to have by his side and broke the cadence of the prayers:
​“People! People! My brothers and my sisters, as you are a witness today, La Virgen de Guadalupe is with us in support of our causa; she is ‘Guadalupe’ named for the one who can ‘crush the serpent’ [a reference to the Aztec serpent-god Quetzalcoatl]. With her support we can achieve anything; it is good to have a friend in heaven! Because we are Chicanos, we are Quetzalcoatl, so together with Our Lady we will overcome injustices in our community and any conflicts in our hearts. Que viva La Virgen y que viva César Chávez!”

And the crowd responded with, “Que viva!” César’s smile was bigger than ever.

As they stood on the porch only three feet off the ground much like César does while standing on Andy Boy wooden crates in the fields when speaking to farmworkers, Corky held the portable microphone up for César (in the same way Luis Valdez used to hold it for César) and proceeded to reach into the right-side back pocket of his khaki pants and retrieve a well-worn paperback copy of Herbert Marcuse’s One Dimensional Man (1964), the same one given  him by Marcuse when he visited with him at the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute in La Jolla, Califas. While pointing to the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the bay window quoted Marcuse by stating loud enough for everyone present to hear:

“It is only for the sake of those without hope that hope is given to us!”

The response from the crowd was dozens of chants:

“Que viva César Chávez! Que viva César Chávez! Que viva César Chávez! Que viva César Chávez! Que viva César Chávez! Que viva César Chávez!”

As the chants grew deafening, the children of the Escuela Tlatelolco lined up along the porch, two dozen of them dressed in china poblana dresses (a traditional style worn by Mexican women) and then as if apparitions themselves, two Denver police officers showed up to report a disturbing the peace complaint and the children of the escuela began chanting as if on cue:

“Fuck the pigs get them out of our community! Fuck the pigs get them out of our community! Fuck the pigs get them out of our community!”

As the White and Mexican American police officers approached Mayor Peña, he looked at Corky and Corky looked at César andCésar glanced over to the beautiful brown children and they were giving the police officers mal ojo (evil eye) while at the same time continuing to chant “Fuck the pigs get them out of our community!”I heard Corky, say to the children “Okay, great; ten more times!” As the children were winding down the Mayor excused the police officers and the crowd went wild. [Following the event, I heard through my wife that the Mayor told the police officers to stay away from his home and that “We are Chicanos; we can police our own community.”] César held up the youngest of the Chicanitas who in turn led the crowd with a traditional Chicano hand clap; as everyone clapped César kissed each and every one of “Quixote’s soldiers” on the cheek and everyone broke out into a grand version of De Colores, a traditional Mexican song which became an anthem of the farmworker movement.
It didn’t matter from which of the five Denver barrios you were from, I could sense that everyone in attendance felt an affinity that evening as the Chicano community knew who they were and where they stood; they had shared meanings, common values and beliefs and they had La Virgen and César Chávez in their midst. The only thing missing was the Chicano National Anthem “Low-Rider” or is it “Sabor a Mi?” Anyway the car clubs were all at peace that night. 
After only an hour-and-a-half, César was suddenly whisked away as rumor had it that there had been an attempt on his life in the dining room. In reality what had happened was that César was in a rather intense conversation with Mayor Peña’s wife Ellen surrounding issues of health and nutrition (after all she was in training for long distance running for the Olympics) when a woman weighing over four-hundred pounds fell from her bamboo bar stool (the chair appeared to have exploded right under her wide bottom) and toppled over onto the Mayor, who was rather small in stature and squirmed like a smashed bug beneath her.
I know as I was sitting next to him; it took several seconds for anyone to take action. We were so aghast with what had just happened we simply could not believe our eyes and besides La Virgen de Guadalupe was still on the bay window. It was a difficult cognitive shift from hearing the bamboo all at once crackling as well as the sound of the woman hitting the floor, just as it was a surprise hearing the Mayor moan like someone who had just been knocked out in a prize fight.
Psychologically all that registered in our minds for the several seconds that ensued were the sounds of the sudden commotion. To say the least, we were stunned, rendered speechless, paralyzed with new found emotions, how else can I put it? All we could see was the Mayor’s preppy glasses, a few strands of his cold-black hair and his right hand pounding on the floor as if tapping out from a professional wrestling match. In a knee-jerk reaction, Corky went into a prize fighting stance as he had been trained to do for so many years and a few Brown Berets pulled out their guns as if out of nowhere. Guns?
People close to César say that evening was definitely a game-changer for him because Ellen was powerfully convincing and she got him thinking about becoming a vegetarian and to become more disciplined about what he put into his body; she even encouraged him to practice yoga. He remained in occasional contact with her talking for long hours (as evidenced by phone bills brought to his attention by Fred Ross, an ardent UFW organizer and volunteer accountant) about nutrition and health as he knew she was a well-disciplined individual and he respected this about her.

​Sonny Boy Arias, a dedicated contributor to Somos en escrito via his column, Chicano Confidential and a stone-cold Chicano, has returned on hiatus while on a world tour of Europe and the Subcontinent telling stories or mentiras as the spirit struck him (several times). He writes under the general rubric of historias verdaderas mentiras auténticas–true stories and authentic lies. He has found this the most effective manner to convey his stories about Chicano life. Copyright © Arts and Sciences World Press, 2018.

​By Sonny Boy Arias

I was attending a professional academic conference on the topic of the “psychology of the Self” that was interdisciplinary in nature, being held at the Marriot Hotel in Orange, California, not far from John Wayne International Airport.
Upon arrival at the Marriott, I noticed that the hotel service workers were all very busy attending to multiple activities, a business conference, an afternoon meeting of the Lions’ Club, our academic conference, and, to my pleasant surprise they were setting up for an evening of pugilism, you know, good old-fashioned fighting, punching, hitting and, if we’re lucky, maybe some head butting.
It was going to be an evening full of professional boxing and guess what? The “card” included women’s boxing! Yahoo! To say the least, the hotel was “buzzing.”As I entered the front door of the hotel I was not yet into the lobby when I was greeted by a large aquarium-like water dispenser stock full of fresh lemons located in the vestibule, the interstitial zone, the area between the front door and the lobby, the “in between,” a place where symbolically, I love to be and that most people find uncomfortable.
So looking up to the morning sunlight, I closed my eyes and took a drink of the lemon water only to be disrupted by a pair of academics (you know the snooty types) speaking poorly of the age-old sport of boxing as well as those who attend boxing matches.
“Can you imagine entering a ring with the objective to beat each other’s brains out?” one said, and the other replied, “What sort of people would attend such an event?” And then it occurred to me, these chaps were in attendance at the conference I came to attend. I also realized that I would much rather be at the boxing match.
I was reminded of how many years I tried to develop of my academic colleagues as boxing buffs, but to no avail as they all looked down their noses at the sport I so well loved. As a result my enthusiasm was driven underground and I had to watch boxing events at home by my lonesome.
I have to admit that the reason I like hanging out in the vestibule (interstitial zone) is because others always hurry through so I felt like I had the specially made water all to myself, it was a space where I could temporarily seek refuge from the morning hustle-and-bustle I experienced at two airports and a quick taxicab ride.
As I drank the cool water I was reminded of a going away gift a friend once gave me the day prior to departing Texas for California: a water dispenser just as large as the one I was presently faced with and filled with several rows of pineapple and, need I say, vodka, seven times distilled. Thing is, because we were leaving the next day we had to drink the whole thing.
There too rests a dichotomy as my academic colleagues were either non-consumers of alcohol or alcoholics. The unspeakable truth is that many of them stashed bottles of whisky in their university office files alongside their winter breath mouthwash to disguise the smell of alcohol.
University professors are a “walking contradiction” in this way, always preaching one thing and doing something else. Concomitantly, we are trained to search for the truth in our subject matter and we always land-up masking our findings with illusions of the truth. In the “interstitial zone of life” you might say, you are neither here nor there but you are always discovering something new.
As I looked around the hotel I noticed to my right, a sign-up table for my conference; it looked drab, and the people staffing the table looked just as drab, just like the stuffed shirts academics I knew I would meet up with later in the afternoon, so rather than sign-up for the conference I decided that it could wait so I immediately went to the left to the hotel registration desk, signed into my room and proceeded to the gym for a quick workout.
The gym was average in size (not bad) and had some of the best equipment I had ever seen at a hotel gym, complete with treadmills with fans, widescreen television sets and what looked like an “aquarium” filled with fresh cut lemons and cool drinking water just like the one located in the vestibule near the front door of the hotel.
I mounted the treadmill, set the fans on high and rapidly worked up to a good self-paced jog for twenty-minutes. I was set to leave and started pouring lemon water when as if out of nowhere a female boxer walked into the gym. She had a long black pony tail, was very fit, and had the appearance of a Chicana Hilary Swank in the fight movie “Million Dollar Baby” produced by Clint Eastwood.  
She wore a bright red robe with matching red Everlast boxing gloves and there were large silver letters across her back that read, “Tap Out, San Antonio.” I later learned that this was the name of her boxing gym. In a very nervous manner, she looked me straight in the eye and asked me how my workout was going. As I drank the cool lemon water she began to nervously shadow box all about the gym.
I asked her if she was from San Antonio and let her know that I was living in Kingsville, Texas (just south of San Antonio). At this, she made direct eye contact and in a heavy Chicano accent told me about how this was her first time in “Loz Angeles.”
She went on to say that she had come a long way to fight a well-known boxer (undefeated) from Los Angeles and that this was the biggest fight of her career with 8 wins, 1 knockout and 0 losses. She said that she was nervous and “a little afraid.” I told her that I loved boxing, had boxed as a young man for the Boy’s Club of San Diego, undefeated for two years and that I had often reflected upon my feelings of fear (when first entering the ring) but had come to a point of enjoying the feelings of fear; especially once I demonstrated some boxing competency to myself. Besides a good dose of adrenaline does the body good!
I added that I had employed this strategy throughout my life and that today in my capacity as a social psychologist had come to inculcate this behavior in everyday life. In other words, I overcome fear by “diving straight into it,” the phenomenon that is causing the fear in the first place, that is, and always find that by doing so this method can assist with the fear factor.
She caught my eye again and said she had earned a degree in psychology and business at the downtown San Antonio satellite campus of the University of Texas; I had once consulted there for start-up development. She did not work out long as it appeared that she had some nervous energy to keep in check. As she worked the stair-stepper, she jabbed into the air as professional boxers often do.
After ten minutes or so her manager came by, knocked on the window and just before exiting the gym, she turned and invited me to the fight. I told her I would be there “in her corner.” Now that I think about it, I noticed that she had a quick conversation with her manager, pointed to me, and left the hallway.
After my workout, I took a shower and tried to psyche-up for conference mode. I walked through the “buzz” generated by hotel personnel and signed-up for my conference at the conference desk with a rather bored looking woman who afforded me a mountain of materials along with a sizeable name tag and one-hundred percent cotton bag made by some poor kid working out of a sweatshop in Bangladesh.
Now that I was all “labeled” up, I could identify myself with several hundred other colleagues all walking around the hotel aimlessly or talking on their cell phones acting as if what they were talking about was somehow important. As I sat through the conference workshops that morning I made it a point to get up and walk the hallways of the hotel about every forty minutes. Frankly, I did so mostly out of boredom (I just have to be honest with you), to get some exercise and also to pee as I was on “pee pills” as part of my kidney stone regimen. 
Our conference was being held on the furthest side opposite the front door of the hotel, maybe some fifty yards away. In between our conference room and the front door was a very large hall where the evening fights were going to be held that looked like it could fit up to 2,000 people; it actually looked like a ballroom. There were any number of vendors, service and lighting people, and professional boxing types everywhere. I must say this certainly made my trips to the restroom quite interesting.
As I walked the hallways of the hotel I kept asking people where I might purchase a ticket for the fights. Well, it soon became common knowledge that the fight was sold out. I understood this but I kept asking anyway and felt that the $28 dollar investment would be well worth it and at the same time give me an excuse not to hang-out with the stuff-shirt academics who only wanted to talk about their boring work.
In search of tickets I happened to meet the promoter of the fights near the giant Tecate beer bottles being set up near the main bar. He acted busy so I was surprised he gave me a few minutes of his time as I asked him a number of questions, like how many fights were there going to be, who was fighting and the like. After this conversation I noticed a guy who looked like a “ticket scalper” and asked him if he had tickets; he did not, but he did encourage me to keep checking with him and I heard him on his cell phone trying to locate a ticket for me, these were all good signs and at the same time reified in me my tenacious behavior.
Later that day, on another trip to the restroom I noticed some people wearing “Tap Out” shirts setting up a booth with pictures of what looked like the female boxer I had met in the gym. A young woman (that looked like the boxer’s sister) said I had to go to the fight to watch “Norma kick some ass.”
I found her confidence contagious and even a little intimidating and agreed. Just as she directed me to purchase a $9 picture with “Norma Cha Boom Boom” she (Norma) came around the corner out of the staging room, how could I refuse to purchase a picture?
The camera was not yet set-up, but the “sister” gave me the “look” as if to say “Why not just purchase one of these pictures asshole we need the money” so I placed the $9 in the plastic jar, said a few encouraging words to Norma and decided to walk through the “staging room” where both male and female boxers were hanging their garments, taping-up their hands and getting ready to mostly kill time by shadow boxing and of course to “talk shit” about their opponents.
I could tell that “Norma Cha Boom Boom” was real tough, a street fighter who rest assured could take a lot of pain and give some, too. My sense is that she is probably a better fighter with her gloves off and out of the ring on the street some fighters are just that way, hence, they might lose in the ring, but they will always win a fight on the street. The paradox is simply there are far too many rules to follow in the ring it’s not like back in the day. 
Each boxer had a very small area in this large room where they would prepare themselves for the fight, there were both male and female boxers, their managers and their “handlers” just like the ones I had just met selling pictures. I was now an official “Norma Cha Boom Boom fan” and was determined to go to the fights that evening.
I returned to my academic conference and found a speaker, a professor of rhetoric from the University of Pennsylvania, preparing to give his lecture. I also noticed a number of copies of a very thick book (over 500 pages) placed at every table. It was a book written by the speaker (“good old what’s his name) and the subject matter was “self-development for adult learners.”
Anyway I sat about three tables down from the podium where he was addressing over 300 academics from a variety of disciplines. At one point he conducted an exercise asking every table in the room to meet for a few minutes and come up with a definition of the word “plisky.”
Beyond working in collaboration with others, I am not sure what the point of the exercise was, but the speaker made it a point to tell the audience that he had spent two hours trying to identify a word that “this group” (Ph.D.’s) might not know the definition, so each table came up with a definition, presented it to the greater group, and by a show of hands, each respective definition was either accepted or rejected by the entire group of 300. It didn’t take long to reject a number of excellent definitions.
At our table, like all of the other tables, no one was forthcoming with a “true” definition. As a group we lacked vibrancy and imagination, the exercise was suddenly boring and uneventful. Even though I was not feeling it and didn’t really care to collaborate with others at my table (as I was busy trying to figure out how to get a ticket to the fights), I shared my knowledge of a “plisky” and told them how I knew what it was. This is what I shared.
While serving as a Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas AandM University, I told them, I once proposed to the Chancellor’s Office that we fund a Center of Excellence every two years. The Chancellor thought this was a “great idea,” funded our university, and as a result we competed for the prize within our own university. I reflected upon the “excellence” I found in each of my 18 departments and ascertained a need for a grand Steinway piano in the Music Department.
I was convinced that the only way we would attract top artists was if we had a Steinway, as artists will often not provide a concert without a Steinway or Kawai piano. So I met with the chair of the Music Department with the idea of writing a proposal for this purpose. He told me that he loved the idea but had never written a proposal.
At this, I told him I would write the proposal on his behalf as long as he didn’t tell the other chairs that I had done so; since I could not focus in my Dean’s Office I set up a time to visit the Music Department to find a place to write. The chair took me into a piano room with no windows but with a few hundred boxes of old sheet music that smelled like musty paper and a very old Bösendorfer grand piano (a unique prototype made in Vienna) stacked high with even more sheets of music. Suddenly, without warning he stretched his arm out across the top of the piano and moved it rapidly from one end to the other, clearing everything atop the piano to the floor; “now you have work space,” he blurted, smiled, and walked away. It took me about three hours to write the proposal that was subsequently funded for around $700,000. Again, it was the first award in the Texas AandM University System of its kind. I had proposed it, and I was proud of the fact that it was awarded to our Music Department.
With a sizeable check in hand I immediately made contact with the Steinway Piano Corporation in New York City and they in turn placed me in contact with their representative in their Houston corporate office. I was invited to the “Steinway showroom” in Houston. 
I must say that all of the Steinway people I had met were very professional. They began our meeting with champagne and a brief history of the Steinway piano. I learned that only a particular kind of wood from the Black Forest in Germany was used to make their pianos because it was that particular forest where the Steinway Family was having a picnic one afternoon when lightning struck, killing the entire family with the exception of one man who (at the time lightning struck) heard a significant tone (a reverberation of a sort) in the trees. It was that sound and that event that changed the life of young Steinway.

​At the same time, Steinway pianos are known not to utilize wood glue to hold the pieces inside the piano together. Rather, the wood is placed in such a manner so as to hold itself together, using wooden doles and support design. At the same time, each piano key stretches from the front side of the piano (ivory key side) into the inside of the piano through an extended wooden arm, and at the end of the arm is a “hammer head” made of hardened felt – that is the “plisky.”
A professor in the room (someone I had never met) reified my definition by adding that once he had worked for the Hammond Organ Company and that my definition was true. I think he was simply full of himself and wanted others to know that he had a life outside of academe.
I successfully argued that the “plisky” was the part of the hammer made of hardened cotton that struck the piano string. The “plisky” is located beneath the black hammers in this picture, but of course my point is that it was not true, I was dreadfully bored and was looking for a cheap thrill, plus, I just wanted to be powerfully convincing and I was. Read on.
The entire group of 300 cheered at my story and voted mine as the best definition of the word “plisky.” Fact is, when the speaker read the real definition of the word, “plisky,” no one believed him. He said that according to Webster’s Dictionary a “plisky” was a joke, something made up as when someone “kids around.” When I told the group that I had made up the definition they did not believe me! It took some re-explaining to undo as several of them became adamant and few were on to my boredom and trickery.
Following the “plisky exercise,” I took a break and sought refuge in the hallways only to run into Norma, the female boxer. She said that the fighter she was originally matched-up with was a “no show” and that she would now be matched-up with “that girl over there,” a young woman dressed in “Irish greens” with red hair, big freckles, and bright green eyes who looked like she possessed a thick Irish accent and could hold her own in the ring, Norma sensed that the young woman was a “push over” and said as she shook her head, “Look at her, now what a plisky that is!”

​Sonny Boy Arias, a dedicated contributor to Somos en escrito via his column, Chicano Confidential and a stone-cold Chicano, has been on hiatus while on a world tour of Europe and the Subcontinent telling stories. He writes under the general rubric of historias verdaderas mentiras auténticas–true stories and authentic lies. He has found this the most effective manner to convey his stories about Chicano life. Copyright © Arts and Sciences World Press, 2018.

​My nephews have a rock-and-roll band (Chicano ska) and recently they invited me to hear their new song, “I Don’t Speak No Spanish," that they sang completely in Spanish. I was immediately reminded of my cousin Avelino who years ago (while we were children) used to sing every single Beatle song in English; thing is, he didn’t speak English. Concomitantly in my capacity as the founder of the Salinas Valley Mariachi Conference and Festival, I brought a mariachi from Japan that wowed the primarily Mexican audience when the curtain opened. The Japanese Mariachis could not speak Spanish or English, but sang beautifully from the heart in Spanish.
These are but a few concrete examples that cause us to temporarily do what Carlos Castañeda used to call, “Stopping the world!” Castañeda’s paradigm for looking out at the world was to “bracket” situations, “stop them,” and provide detailed analysis to the situation at hand (see Journey to Ixtlan: A Yaqui Way of Knowing).
When we are caught off-guard by such experiences, when we temporarily “Stop the world!” as Carlos puts it, and examine social situations at the micro level, we experience a cognitive shift in our assumptions. Even so, I have to ask “What is the real message behind my nephew’s song?” or “What is it about the contradictions in their mixed message?” And why did they make it a point to bring it to my attention?
These are young boys whose grandfather was a radical Chicano activist and whose father was a Mexican-American turned Hispanic. They are more than aware of their would-be Chicanismo yet prefer to refer to themselves as “multiracial millennials” and are quite comfortable with that label, just as they are comfortable with the results their father received from FamilyTreeDNA.com, which places his DNA mostly in Western Europe far from Aztlan.
For the purposes of this discussion, we will use the term “Latino” to refer to individuals who refer to themselves as Hispanics, Mexican-Americans, Chicanos and/or Spanish.
What makes a Latino a Latino (genetically speaking)?" has been recently complicated by the growth of the consumer genetic ancestry testing industry, such as FamilyTreeDNA.com, Ancestry.com, etc. When one is even more specific and asks “What makes a Mexican a Mexican?” or “What makes a Spaniard a Spaniard?” again, genetically speaking the realities of any response is even more complex.
For many years, scientists, social and behavioral scientists, and anthropologists have known that the short answer to this question is that, "Being Mexican or Spanish means being multiracial." But that is also true for the majority of humans (whether they personally believe so or not). Humans have always migrated and intermarried. By the end of the first Human Genome Project (2003) and as a result of the popularity of the genetic ancestry testing these as well as other related tests have influenced many DNA test consumers to reassess their identity.
How individuals interpret and use genetic test results to affirm or reconstruct their identities varies widely and is an excellent topic of social inquiry. Genome sequencing allows scientists to isolate the DNA of an individual person and identify different codes. A byproduct of this research is the ability to match the physical DNA (materials or the stuff one is actually made up of) to a geographic place—this is what gave birth to the thinking surrounding the consumer ancestry and genetic research industries.
My theory is that the widespread use of such tests is in fact changing how the general public views race (genetically determined) and/or how individuals socially construct their self (social psychologically speaking) in everyday life. In short, both of these issues deserve more large-scale study and analysis, most especially as they may contribute to alienation, detachment, self-isolation and the curtailment of the evolving self.
Take Dolores as an example: a stone-cold Chicana from the East Side Barrio in San Jose, Califas. Her sisters purchased a genetic ancestry test and the results documented their family's 50% Apache ancestry. Since Dolores became aware of that, she has all but dropped her Chicana identity and become active within the local Native Advisory Council.
Now let’s be clear I am not pitting Chicanos against Native Americans; this is not my point at all. My point is focused on how it is that in the evolution of the self (in a social psychological sense), people who take the genetic ancestry test suddenly find themselves presented with new information about their genetic make-up and are immediately impacted by the new information; they “stop the world” and begin to question common assumptions about who they really are and what they stand for. Consumer recipients of new ancestry information like Dolores are often transformed on the spot, experiencing a cognitive shift about common assumptions, what Nietzsche calls a “transvaluation of values,” adopting a new set of values predicated on a new vision for one’s future self-development and evolution of self.
Prior to the test results, Dolores identified with her Chicana/Mexican heritage; she was generally aware of her Native heritage through conversations with relatives in California and in New Mexico. The genetic test results have enabled her to rethink/expand/alter her personal and social identities; the results are the fall of one identity (Chicana) and the rise of a new identity (Apache, Native-American Chicana), a more empowered self.
From a social psychological perspective, with new information about her ancestry, Dolores transformed from a softer identity to a much stronger one and she is a lot clearer and stronger, empowered if you will, about whom she is and what she stands for as she looks out into the future. Fact is, people with these experiences often look out at the rest of their lives with a new found purpose not yet clearly defined but certainly impacted by a truer self-esteem.
Now take the case of Juan in his own words:
“My self-development has been problematic since birth and I guess not yet fully realized because I have always lived with the question, “What makes a Mexican a Mexican?” Born in Querétaro, raised and elevated to full teenage-hood as a chilango in Mexico City, I am the grandchild of Asturian immigrants to Mexico. Half of my brothers, bless their hearts, stick to their Spanish heritage and way of speaking. I always suspected they “cling” to it as a form of distinction from the rest of the ‘natives.’ This is indeed a widespread belief among Mexicans of any European descent in Mexico, so there you have it.”
You may be interested to know that I know a family of five in South Texas, each with a different Texas accent. Much like Dr. Doolittle, I have observed that accents are tied to values and ideological beliefs.
As Juan grew in consciousness in early developmental years,  
“I started feeling uncomfortable with such consideration that at best cherished my Spanish ancestral side as a source of pride and identity–nothing wrong with that–and at worst accepted the long held belief that the Mexican middle and upper-classes, that in order to be better, you have to be the more European and whiter. Hey, not their fault that it was an official policy of Mr. Porfirio Díaz during the late 19th Century to whiten the nation, blanquear la raza, to improve la patria. While Díaz was ousted at the onset of the Mexican Revolution, the country never quite got rid of the idea of the blanqueo:  ¡Ay! comadre, mire nomás que chulo niño tan blanquito y con sus ojitos azules…”
Juan continues: “I have always remained proud of my ancestral roots (ironically the poor and dispossessed peasantry of Northern Spain), but I also came to the realization that having been born in Mexico, I was a Mexican, with a Mexican self. And despite being güerito, or a light-skinned Mexican, I would not let anyone question my Mexicanidad.”  Having lived in California for the better part of the last 20 years, he has continued consciously to embrace the Mexican identity.
Conversely, Juan’s son took the DNA test, and as suspected, he had a 99% European background, with–to Juan’s delight and surprise–a 1% Native American marker. Perhaps a mischievous ancestor traveled in colonial times to Mexico to come back with a regalito. Juan refuses the concept that Mexican-ness ought to be defined solely in terms of genetic ties to ancestral peoples of Mesoamerica, and he salutes and celebrates the profound relationship between the current identities present in Mexico and the United States regarding being Mexican and those cultures and peoples. Brown, the color, bronce, if you prefer, like Vasconcelos once did, is to be celebrated, admired and unequivocally acknowledged as a marker of identity.
A Mexican can claim to be Spaniard, indeed, but unfortunately it will carry with it a colonial legacy of a caste-like system that so much determined the development of a society where privilege and injustice has so much hindered the equitable distribution of the wealth of the nation. Juan has chosen to distance himself from such insidious perception.
Let me be clear: scientifically speaking there is no common gene pool for "Spaniards" or any other grouping for that matter.  In other words, there is great genetic, linguistic, and cultural variation among all Spaniards, past and present. First off, the Spaniards from south of Madrid (the largest geographic area) were all the product of mating with " North Africans," as they were conquered, colonized, and ruled by the Moors (Moros) for over 900 years. This makes them "mestizos" or people who are the product of two distinct peoples.
And, nearly all "Spaniards" who came in the early years of the Conquest of the Americas (when Mexico was settled) and who came in search of wealth and to explore the new world are from the province of Andalucía in Southern Spain, and for sure all the "Great Conquistadores," Cortés, Alvarado, Pizarro, etc., the great oppressors, came from the same area in Southern Moorish Spain, specifically the towns of Trujillo and Badajoz, this last one itself a Moorish name, in the province of Extremadura.
So that, for example, in beginning any line of inquiry about, “What makes a Mexican a Mexican?” if your parents and their parents are born in Jalisco, Mexico, with a lineage of ancestors in both Mexico and in that region of Spain, anyone claiming to be “Spaniard” must also take into account whether or not their ancestors come from northern or southern Spain, for that divides many of the gene pools of Spain since the 13th century. Again, generalized "tests of genetic inheritance" (like the human genome project, FamilyTreeDNA.com, or Ancestry.com, etc.) do not account for these fine points.
This is another way of saying that Mexicans from Jalisco, Mexico, (with traces of Western European DNA) are likely closer descendants of North Africans, for example. Claiming to be Spaniard also stakes a claim to the likelihood that one is of Moorish descent (nearly 1000 years of intimate social interactions); however, this does make them at least partially “Spaniard.” But again, let’s not forget that DNA testing of Spaniards is providing proof that people from Spain are really from everywhere else, just like all other groupings of peoples, how else can I put it?
From a social psychological perspective, I’m beginning to get the sense that the genetic testing industry (groups that gather DNA samples from people as seen on television) is causing a shift in the identity of individuals in American society, for those who remain perplexed about who they are or what they stand for; you might even say the project is causing a breakdown in social identity. As a direct result in what the project is reporting to individuals you are hearing more and more people in daily life break down their DNA when asked, “What is your ethnic background?” “I am 20% this and 35% that, etc. just as in the commercial for FamilyTreeDNA.com as seen on TV.
It’s a very peculiar time we live in. Alongside alienation caused by modern day social media, we now have this to contribute to the loss of identity. You might say that when a Mexican American born of Mexican parents in Jalisco with a long lineage of Mexican ancestors says he is “Spaniard” projects such as Ancestry.com gives them a way out of not having to identify with being Mexican. Would be “Spaniards” who find the experience of being labelled as “Mexican” stigmatic prefer this logic, whereas Latinos who call themselves Mexican Americans or Chicanos will correct people who refer to them as “Spaniards” by stating “These are not my people!”
The process of gathering DNA from people across the globe is at present at least raising many more questions than it can answer at this time. In addition they argue that the more DNA samples they acquire the better the accuracy of their information. But the reality is that just like many other things that have occurred with scientific discoveries, people find an angle for profiting by keeping science ambiguous; with the advent of Teflon for example, marketers sold the public a bill of goods; in pitching the non-stick pan they simply failed to report that over time it will cause stomach cancer.
The unspeakable truth about all of the matching from far off relatives and ancestors is that once you have your DNA tested and recorded in the big data archives of FamilyTreeDNA.com you will undoubtedly locate and/or be discovered by close and distant relatives because the system works! You will receive emails like, “New Relatives Found! We found 111 new mtDNA HVR1 match(es) for Sonny Boy Arias (kit N10134299988)” do I dare click on “View My Matches”? Madre mia! It’s like FamilyTreeDNA.com says “Your mtDNA HVR1 test results can help you find new ancestors and relatives on your direct maternal line (your mother’s mother’s mother and so forth).
You will want to look at their family tree and email them to find your possible common relatives and ancestors.” I have to ask myself, “Why on earth would I want to connect with relatives I have never known or have not had any contact with, ever? I moved a good distance away from my tightly knit, well organized huge family for the very reason of not making the “cut off” to family wedding, baptismals, birthdays and sometimes even funerals. Good god, that’s all I need right now is to find out I’m related to a serial killer or cannibal serving 3 life sentences in a nearby high security prison and he is eager to “meat” me.
Whether it be human genome research, family or ancestor trees or gathering DNA materials what they are finding is that we are all human, but it serves well those who continue separating the world in a Spencerian way in higher and lower specimens of the species. It contributes little to the discussion on identity that is fundamentally a cultural phenomenon where phenotypical elements are at play. 
Genetically speaking, the Mexican gene pool is as diverse as it gets: from the Mayan, to the Paipai, to the Nahuatl and to the descendants of European immigrants, all of them culturally defined and genetically diverse.  In other words, I might not be the descendant of Netzahualcoyotl, but I am darned proud of his insight and sophistication.

Below the break are some relevant sources that  may be helpful and interesting in performing a search for Mexican identity.


DTC Genetic Testing Companies Compared
https://wiki.uiowa.edu/display/2360159/DTC+Genetic+Testing+Companies+Compared

Shifting Winds: Using Ancestry DNA to Explore Multiracial Individuals’ Patterns of Articulating Racial Identity, 2017
http://www.wcupa.edu/DNADiscussion/documents/identityInteracial.pdf

The Genetic Ancestry of African Americans, Latinos, and European Americans across the United States, 2015
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4289685/

The Genetics of Mexico Recapitulates Native American Substructure and Affects Biomedical Traits, 2014
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4156478/

Genetic Ancestry Testing and the Meaning of Race, 2016 (12:21 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQlmX7gvYRA

Latinos Get Their DNA Tested, 2016 (4:59 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCc1N52zSLg

New Mexico Hispanics discovering and embracing their indigenous roots, 2016
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/life/features/new-mexico-hispanics-discovering-and-embracing-their-indigenous-roots/article_b951edd4-8002-5d15-876e-83730b71adcb.html
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