The Brown Berets of Aztlan and Chicano Power in the Long Civil Rights Era

A particular feature of the Chicana/o Movement is that it exhibited a significant tension between agendas advocating for civil rights and those calling for revolution, based on circumstances related to self-perceptions of identity, class status and an evolving collective social, cultural and political consciousness. Thus, within the confines of the Chicana/o Movement, lines between Mexican American Civil Rights activists and leftist or radical elements were not always clearly drawn and varied regionally throughout the U.S. As an organization, the Brown Berets of Aztlan grappled with these tensions as exhibited by their push for a largely reformist agenda while as the same time propagating an increasingly radical rhetoric. In addition and contrary to the claims of many Chicana/o historians, Brown Beret members sought cross generational alliances with elder Mexican American activists who, while at times were harsh critics of younger Chicano activists, nonetheless often organized with and supported Brown Beret actions. Further, Brown Beret leaders were influenced by their elder Mexican American counterparts and more often than not, actions taken by the Brown Berets along with their transformative notions of Chicano identity operated in concert with and were part of a continuum of Mexican American activism and consciousness of previous generations. Thus, this paper will attempt to discuss the Chicano Movement and the Brown Beret organization as part of a longue durée of Mexican American political struggle thereby breaking with the notion that the Chicano Movement existed in the social, cultural and political vacuum of the Sixties and Seventies.