Sal Castro speaks to CSUSB
By Robert Rogers
Staff Writer
SAN BERNARDINO -- When Sal Castro looks back on the 40 years since he led historic walkouts with Chicano students in Los Angeles, he sees a mixed bag.
On the one hand, more Mexican-Americans are graduating college, earning better wages and attaining democratic power.
On the other hand, Chicano culture and history remain underplayed in media and educational texts, he said.
And war still sends men and women home in flag-draped coffins.
"Many of our kids from the barrio were coming home in flag-draped coffins (during Vietnam)" Castro told a rapt crowd of mostly students. "Sad to say, many are coming home the same way from Iraq 40 years later."
Below is a picture of Castro chatting with students after his speech Tuesday
photo by r. rogers
Castro, a former East Los Angeles teacher who was arrested and later exonerated for his role in spearheading a series of student protests known as the "Chicano Blowouts" in 1968, headlined a symposium-style event Tuesday at Cal State San Bernardino.
Titled "Brown and Proud: 40 years of Chicano activism," the afternoon event drew a student-dominated, multiethnic crowd of nearly 400 with Castro as the headline speaker. The event was put together by the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences in part to raise the relatively low profile of the school's ethnic studies program.
Castro, a retired Los Angeles teacher and U.S. military veteran, drove dual themes, one focused on the Mexican-American contribution to United States history and another focused on multiethnic togetherness.
Below, Castro is pictured on stage
photo by r. rogers
Soldiers of Mexican heritage helped Gen. George Washington in his guerrila-style assaults on Imperial Britain, Castro said, and "Mexican blood" is in the ground of every U.S. war cemetery.
But Castro occasionally went beyond ethnic identities, telling the crowd that Mexican-Americans came from an Asian racial stock, and were mixed with Anglo-Saxon, African and Arab blood as well.
"We are one beautiful people," Castro said. "Who can we be racist against?"
Castro, 74, took questions from a handful of students. Toward the end of his roughly one-hour on stage at the Santos Manuel Student Union Events Center, Castro emphasized educational attainment as the great ethnic equalizer.
One student asked Castro whether he felt Latinos were a "sleeping giant" that has been awakened.
"Look around you," Castro said, gesturing with his hands at the crowd. "Here's the protest ... any kid with a book under his arm ... that's the only way we can move forward, through education."
During the question and answer session, Castro also espoused non-ethnic centered left-leaning policies, calling for living wage laws and public financing of presidential elections.
He said lucrative CEO salaries were unjustified and symptomatic of the widening chasm between rich and poor.
But his ethnic-centered comments drew the strongest applause. He said the drug trade was financed and fueled by the "white people who have the money." He said Mexican-Americans needed to further their educations in part to fight for the rights of "our undocumented bretheren."
He added that the U.S. "loves cheap labor," yet is looking to enforce "stupid" border policies.
The crowd thinned to about half its initial size after Castro's remarks. Later programs included a discussion of ethnic stereotypes in the media led by Cal State San Bernardino sociology professor Elsa Valdez and a panel discussion focused on Latinos in the educational system.
Students seemed nearly universally impressed with the aging, but still fiery, civil rights leader.
"I liked best when he focused on all human beings coming together as one community, one human race looking to work together," said Wendy Perez, a junior majoring in social sciences.
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He's claims not to a racist, yet he blames "White people with money" for creating the drug problem? Mr. Castro, you are indeed a racist!
Sal Castro is a racist? I guess you think Cesar Chavez is also a racist. What about Martin Luther King? It's interesting how quickly caucasians claim racism.
Well said Gustavo, Caucasians are all a bunch of racists who live in a world of race based biases.
Knowing and acknowledging who is to blame for certain injustices is not racism. Denying them and blaming the victims is. But the again who can blame the white people? They have blamed everyone else for all things they do since day one. I am not racist, "just the facts, mam, just the facts"
Can anyone identify Caucasians for me? Caucasian is a term that includes peoples from India, the Middle East, North Africa, Central/Western Asia, to Europe and North/Central/South America. The majority of Latinos are Caucasian yet people like Mr. Castro continue to perpetuate the myth that they are 'mixed' while everyone else is 'pure'. This is a lie that continues to be fueled by Latino activists who seek to gain more political, social, and economic power through blaming others, notably 'white' people, for all the problems that have befallen the Earth, yet refuse to take into account that they, primarily Caucasians of Spanish descent, are responsible for the destruction of the various Amerindian cultures and peoples in the Americas.
It is confusing as to why Mr. Castro chose to describe Latinos as made up of every ethnic group on Earth. Perhaps he does not understand human evolution or he is choosing to ignore it in favor of his own mytho-historical conclusions of humankind. I would like to inform Mr. Castro and others that all human beings on Earth are 'mixed' (99.9% genetically identical to one another). As long as Latinos continue to espouse misguided and prejudicially slanted versions of history, painting themselves as victims and blaming others for the sins of their forefathers, while hiding behind the myth that they are mixed while others are not, there will continue to be misguided views of race and history. This appears to be especially true at CSUSB which seems bent on fomenting such views.
Instead of Mr. Castro blaming his fellow Caucasians for all of the problems of the world, he (and others) should first understand that Latinos are not victims but perpetrators of New World atrocities along with every other group on Earth who also underwent persecution - many at the hands of so-called Latinos.
It is disappointing to see that Cal State San Bernardino continues its racist agenda while denying an accurate portrayal of history.
I think being a civil rights activist is some how supporting the ethical and racial divisions already given. They are not encouraging the barriers but are blaming other for injustices. Although, this IS true, we need to find a more innovative way to voice our opinions and not dehumanize the aggressor. Since, by doing this we then fall under the aggressor’s unethical traits.
Does anybody know how to get in touch with Sal Castro?