Tuesday, November 25, 1997
Rebirth of Aztlan
FACULTY Faculty editor of academic journal studies historical views through the eyes of Chicano culture
By Emi Kojima
Daily Bruin Contributor
As a little boy, Chon Noriega would go out on weekends with his family, posting homemade flyers that read "Boycott grapes." Only later did the child realize that posting flyers was a protest of the Mexican worker's exploited labor and a part of the larger Chicano movement.
At that time, Cesar Chavez was a household name, and the young Noriega associated the Chicano civil rights leader with his father's work as an Associated Press reporter.
"You know, I never realized that Cesar Chavez was a movement leader. I thought he was an associate of my dad's from the office," Noriega said, laughing.
"Growing up, I wasn't really aware of the Chicano movement," Noriega said. "I identified myself as Mexican, and yet we did these things that, years later, I realized were part of the Chicano movement."
Last fall the UCLA assistant professor of film and television was appointed the faculty editor of the Chicano academic journal, "Aztlan."
First published in 1970, it played a central role in the Chicano movement because it was the first academic journal to address Chicano issues.
After a hiatus in its publication, Noriega now is spreading the word that "Aztlan" is back from the dead and is accepting open submissions. His job is to determine a new direction for the journal and to ensure that it comes out regularly.
Under its new editor, the journal's focus has expanded. Noriega will include different academic disciplines involved in "Aztlan."
Now, he is looking for a geneticist to write about the concept of race in the hard sciences, and how it is different from the concept of race in the social sciences.
Noriega also has given "Aztlan" a hipper image to appeal to a broader base of readers, said the journal's managing editor. "Artist's Communique" is a new section in which an artist addresses the academic community.
Short articles on main issues from different, and sometimes opposing, perspectives are considered in the new "Dossier" section. This section gives young scholars and Latino authors a voice to express new ideas. The topic of the current issue covers Chicano identity.
The format changes aim to attract a wider audience, Noriega said. Though he wryly asserted the journal "is very unlikely to be a Sunday supplement with the weekly paper," Noriega said that "Aztlan" should address both academia and related areas, such as museums, libraries and Latino rights groups.
"We're trying to walk a tightrope in allowing a very specific discipline to develop," Noriega said.
The discipline of Chicano studies was still developing while Noriega was a child. His bilingual father was a journalist stationed in Miami and he covered events in Cuba.
Though Noriega, as a Chicano, was conscious of his family's identity, he recalled his childhood as being isolated because most of his friends were Cubans of Anglo descent.
"Later in life, I came to understand a lot that had been part of my childhood," Noriega said. "But as a kid, growing up in a place that was fairly isolated, where I felt fairly isolated - that was just part of my family upbringing."
Only at Stanford when Noriega was getting ready to drop out of graduate school did his heritage and his academic studies connect.
He "stumbled upon a project that was looking at how the press had reviewed a series of Chicano films." In this project, Noriega found a mentor. He began to work with Chicano issues and film and published one of his earliest pieces in "Aztlan."
"I came into the academy," Noriega said, "precisely because I was working on issues that related to Chicano studies and the study of film, which was very important and hadn't been done."
In Noriega's work, he examines the traditional view of history in the context of minority culture.
"What's been missing in many of the traditional genres is more comparative work," Noriega said, waving his hand for emphasis.
"It's only when you do that that you can rethink the history of the object of study."
In his class on the Western films, Noriega examines the role of Mexican Americans and Chicana women in the film genre to supplement textbooks.
Sometimes, his interdisciplinary approach leads to conflict. Some students accustomed to a mainstream view are upset by the minority coverage in Noriega's courses.
"We unfairly place a certain set of expectations when the topic matter tends to be gender or race or sexuality," Noriega said.
He does not see negative reactions to class material as a problem, but rather topic matter for a discussion that might help students understand the roots of conflict.
"(Discussion) is one of the better things that can happen in a class because people will voice the fact that something has upset them. We can then talk about it and find out what's beneath it," Noriega said. "It's the only way we can understand the true nature of any conflict," he said.
In the same way, providing conflicting perspectives in "Aztlan" challenges existing institutions.
"With 'Aztlan,'" Noriega said, "the idea is not to represent a particular agenda or a particular school of thought, but in fact, to open up the journal to as many voices as we can."
HANNAH SADY
Professor Chon Noriega is the faculty editor of the Chicano academic journal, "Aztlan."