Originally Published September 3, 2013 | Revised April 3, 2020
Dr. Alvaro Huerta authored the newest title to our SDSU Press collection, Reframing the Latino Immigration Debate: Toward a Humanistic Paradigm. Dr. Huerta holds a B.A. (history) and M.A. (urban planning) from UCLA. Also, he holds a Ph.D. (city and regional planning) from UC Berkeley. He is currently conducting interdisciplinary work in the UCLA Chicano Chicana Studies program for top scholarly journals through the studies of urban planning / community development, civic engagement / community organizing, immigration, Chicana/o--Latina/o studies / history, social network analysis; the informal economy. This interview took place over email on the anniversary of the "Chicano Moratorium," August 29, and was preceded by a phone interview.
SDSU Press:
When did you start writing? Why?
Dr. Alvaro Huerta
I first started writing this book while
completing my dissertation at UC Berkeley’s City and Regional Planning program.
It was actually not my intention to write or conduct research on the politics
of immigration while at Berkeley. I was more interested, at the time, on the
history of cities in the U.S. and the people who occupy them, particularly
Chicana/os and other Latina/o groups. I was and continue to be interested in
scholarly issues, such as labor, social movements and the informal environment.
However, while immersed in completing my
dissertation I felt morally compelled to say something about the rise of
xenophobia in the last several years with the draconian immigration laws in
Arizona and other states. As a son of Mexican immigrants and public
intellectual, I couldn’t bury my head in the sand any longer while elected
officials, primarily Republicans and other conservatives, perpetuated lies and
contradictions against the mostly honest, hardworking Latina/o immigrants in
this country. Instead of blaming Wall Street and deregulations of the banks
during the height of the Great Recession, many local, state and national
elected officials blamed low-wage Latinas/os for America’s social and economic
woes.
To complicate matters, Latina/o leaders
and elected officials mostly stayed quite during this time period (and to the
present). Given that my job is to be a critical thinker and to question the
status quo, I started to write social commentaries based on my scholarly research
and family history to reframe the Latina/o immigration debate from a negative
story to a positive narrative. My aim remains to provide my expertise
commentary based on empirical research, rejecting the pejorative and popular
views against Latina/o immigrants that only benefit elected officials and their
desire to find convenient scapegoats during America’s uneasy economic and
political climate. Also, in order to appeal to the white, working class vote
and their economic anxieties, Republican leaders and other conservatives
conveniently blame low-wage immigrants for the bleak plight of the former.
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| Photograph by Antonio Turok, click to enlarge |
Interviewer
Why should we write from experience,
especially when students are told not too?
Dr. Alvaro Huerta
As someone who has taught at UCLA and UC
Berkeley, I always tell my students to base their arguments on facts and not
personal opinions. While I never judge my students for the political views, I
challenge all of them to support their claims with solid evidence. It’s not
enough to say that “immigrants represent social burdens,” for example, you can
give evidence to back up that statement. Although my first question towards
that claim would be do immigrants receive government aid (welfare), social
security, Medicare, etc., especially since these programs represent major federal
expenditures? If not, what would be the the basis of that claim?
That said, as part of my efforts to
humanize the Latina/o immigration debate, I started to write about my own
history, as a son of Mexican immigrants. My late mother, for example, worked as
a domestic worker for over forty years. Meanwhile, my late father worked as a
farmworker during the Bracero Program and later a factory worker for an auto
rim factory where he toiled as a janitor for the minimum wage ($3.25 at the
time) for over a decade. By telling their stories, I want to give concrete examples
of Latina/o immigrants working hard and making sacrifices in this country with
little financial compensation. They do so not for themselves, mainly, but for
children and families back home via remittances. They do not represent social
burdens; they are mostly honest, hardworking individuals who only want to
improve their status and that of their family members. It is for them that I
write. It is for them that I spent countless hours in the library. It is, in
short, for los de abajo /those on the
bottom that motivated me to write my first book.
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| Photograph by Antonio Turok, click to enlarge |
Interviewer
"Chicanos say that if you have to
ask you'll never understand much less become, a Chicano...the word Chicano is
as difficult to define as 'soul.'"
In the spirit of Ruben Salazar, what does Chicano mean to you?
I embrace the words Chicana and Chicano.
I first heard of the term “Chicano” in high school and it made sense to me at
the time. I did not fully understand it, even after reading many of Ruben
Salazar’s articles. It was not until I entered UCLA as a freshman that I better
understood the term and the importance of any ethnic group to self-identify how
they desire. I love the phrase “black is beautiful,” for example, and find the
word “Chicano” to have similar connotations, mainly that “brown is also
beautiful.”
I honestly find it tiring to be the only
brown person or Chicano in the room. Sometimes I wished that I did not have to
deal with race or the burden that those of us who entered privileged
universities, like UCLA and UC Berkeley, must carry on a daily basis. I would
actually prefer to be treated with other labels or characteristics, such as a
caring or compassionate person, but I know that when I go to the library at UC
Berkeley or walk into a Starbucks in the suburbs, I am a “Mexican.” Thus, even
for those that reject the labels “Mexican” or “Chicana/o,” at the end of the
day, mainstream society will always remind them, or us, that we represent “the
Other.” That being the case, I embrace being different; I embrace my brown
color; and, most importantly, as a social scientist, I am embrace the ethical
responsibility of producing research that serves the public good.
