Chicano Movement

From the late 1960s through the 1970s, the tendencies of utopian indigenismo, cultural nationalism, and Saul Alinsky–style civil rights activism seemingly spread. These spoke only partially to the more structurally oriented economic critiques of the Mexican-American reality being raised. These criticisms were condensed into a modestly growing Marxist current within the Mexican-American community containing many of the various Marxist tendencies found in the United States. For some Marxism remained an intellectual fad, and a few considered it a philosophical critique of the capitalist society and capitalist "hegemonic culture" in particular. For others Marxism became a conceptual framework for examining the Mexican experience in a more specific and extensive manner, particularly as related to labor and gender. And some took it as an ideology combining analysis and guidance in political action and organizational structure. In this renovation, members of the 1960s and 1970s generations joined Marxists from the 1940s and 1950s. Despite the Chicana/o left wing's ideological commonality, this sector's social makeup was varied. Moreover, a substantial part of the Mexican Left had no specific organizational allegiance. And the part that did drew a distinction between those groups stemming from the community, such as CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), and those outside of it.