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The Rise of the Chicano Oscar “Zeta” Acosta was a Mexican-American, well after the 60’s Oscar “Zeta” Acosta would be given the identity of a Chicano. He was a Chicano who was an attorney, politician, novelist and activist in the Chicano Movement throughout the late sixties until his death in 1974. “Zeta was a man ahead of his time, a Chicano for the future” (Stavans 2003). Oscar “Zeta” Acosta often times is a Chicano activist that is forgotten about, with names like Cesar Chavez, Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales, Juan Felipe Herrera, Sylvia Mendez, and Gloria Anzaldúa overpowering his. Zeta was a man ahead of all these Chicano activists because even though he wasn’t on the front line of this battle, he was fighting legal battles, clashing with the judicial system, and doing all the dirty real work. In Mexico, there is a saying “Una persona con agallas” which translates to a person with guts, and it takes a person with guts to do the work he did, to pull off the stunts he did. Oscar “Zeta” Acosta showed and wrote about what is was to be a Mexican-American, the difficulties they went through, the confusion felt when it came to one’s identity, the hardship with the anglo community, and the feeling of looking like a “real” Mexican but being rejected by the motherland. Oscar “Zeta” Acosta, like any other man has flaws, but even with those flaws he did great things for Chicanos and helped the Chicano community move forward. Oscar “Zeta” Acosta had started his young life in a difficult position with his father being drafted during World War 2 and taking on the role as the man of the house, and helping to take care of the family (Acosta 1972). Oscar “Zeta” Acosta was born 1935 in El Paso, Texas but grew up in San Joaquin Valley, California. Following high school, Oscar “Zeta” Acosta enlisted in the
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Air Force and was distarched after serving for four years. During a tour of service in Latin America, Oscar served as a Baptist missionary in the colonies of Panama. Oscar “Zeta” Acosta took up creative writing in San Francisco State University which would speak to his two books: The Revolt of the Cockroach People and Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo. After his graduation he attended San Francisco Law School at night and passed the State Bar exam in 1966. He first worked as a lawyer for the East Oakland Legal Aid Society which was an antipoverty agency. He then moved to East Los Angeles where he joined the Chicano Movement and became a controversial activist attorney during the years 1968-1973. An influence in Oscar “Zeta” Acosta’s life was writer Hunter S. Thompson. They met each other in the summer of 1967 and not long after in 1971, Thompson wrote a piece about Zeta and the injustices the Chicanos faced daily for the Rolling Stones. As they both got closer, they took an infamous trip to Las Vegas. Thompson then wrote about this trip in his 1972 novel: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It was in this book where Thompson makes a fictional character of Acosta where we writes about the inner demons Zeta faced (Stavans 2003). The start of Oscar “Zeta” Acosta’s activism was when he became a missionary in the colonies of Panama during his deployment with the Air Force. That was when Acosta first started helping impoverished Latin Americans and then after passing the bar exam in 1966 Acosta began working locally as an antipoverty attorney for the East Oakland Legal Aid Society in 1967. Working with cases like that, he finally realized that his people were being treated unfairly which caused him to join the Chicano movement in 1968 (Sahagun 2018). Acosta moved to East Los Angeles where the Chicano Movement was situated and became an activist attorney, defending Chicano groups and activists. Oscar “Zeta” Acosta represented the Chicano
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13 of the East L.A. walkouts, Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, members of the Brown Berets, and other residents of the East L.A. neighborhoods. Oscar “Zeta” Acosta made controversial defenses throughout his work which gained him a bad reputation with the LAPD and the FBI. In 1972, Acosta published his first novel; Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, which is about a lawyer fighting for the rights of marginalized people. A year later in 1973, Oscar “Zeta” Acosta published his second book; The Revolt of the Cockroach People, which is about a fictionalized version of the 1970 Chicano Moratorium as well as an account of Ruben Salazar's death which was detrimental to the Chicano movement. Acosta’s books and work has impacted the way of life for Chicanos, he painted a real picture for the Chicanos, and fought for the rights Chicanos have today (Montoya 2016). Oscar “Zeta” Acosta believed in the uplifting of all which is one of Gandhi’s principles: Sarvodaya. Acosta’s job was to precisely defend his clients and those who couldn’t defend themselves. Another one of Gandhi’s principles is Swadeshi and the Swadeshi principle says that no one can have ownership of things, that people are in a relationship with the things around you. Oscar practiced Swadeshi when it came to his culture because you don't own a culture, you inherit one. It is given you by birth and by your past so you have a relationship with it and because of that you have to take care of it and Acosta did a great job at protecting his culture. The third principle of Gandhi is Swaraj which means “self-rule” but the Swaraj principle continues into governmental levels which start with Self, then Family, Village Republic, District, State, Countries, and ends with World. Acosta was a man who was self-ruled, he did what he thought was best in the courtrooms when defending his clients and because of that he was able to reach ‘countries’ in the governmental levels. Acosta’s self-ruling allowed him to help
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Chicanos move forward from all over the United States and you see that in today’s society. The fourth principle of Gandhi is Satyagraha and Acosta practices this concept because he was always passive and non-violent when helping the Chicanos. Acosta’s work was to use words, to argue with those who wanted to see his people locked up. One starts practicing satyagraha in the interest for everyone's well being and Acosta did just that for the Chicanos. There were many things that the Chicanos would do to show their support for each other and to fight the injustices that were going down. There are 198 nonviolent methods to protest something and they’re called the “Sharp’s methods”. The Sharp’s methods were published during the 1970’s which was a time when people struggled for democratic rights (youthpolicy.org). During the Chicano movement many of these methods were used. Some examples that the Chicanos used were public speeches, mass petitions, slogans, group lobbying, picketing, walkouts, boycotting, consumers’ boycott, workmen’s boycott, and hunger strikes. These are just a few examples the Chicanos used during their movement. These were methods heavily used during the 1940’s to the 1970’s which caused for them to be used by other movements as well such as the Women’s Liberation movement, the Civil Rights movement, and anti-vietnam movements that were happening all across the nation. The Chicano movement believed that these movements would get them the press and nation cover they needed in order to be heard. Chicanos made up 20% of the population in the SouthWest of the United States (Garcia 2010). One of Sharp’s method is “economic shutdown” and the Chicanos could have really made a huge impact if they stopped purchasing food, clothing and other things. It is necessary to know what kinds of pressure the Chicanos could have used in order to get what they wanted and because there were a lot of Chicanos in this area an economic shutdown would have
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for sure happened. This would have gotten big press and would have gotten the government to listen because it would have dealt with their paychecks. This could have easily been a huge win in the books for Chicanos and it would have shown how much Chicanos contributed to these communities. Oscar “Zeta” Acosta was a man for his people. He was a Chicano that had a high education who can do real saving and he did just that. Acosta saved his people from the country that sent them to war and questioned their existence. “It seemed that twenty-five thousand Chicanos had marched down Whittier Boulevard. But what had started as a protest against the burning of peasants in Vietnam turned into a massive public declaration by fire of their own existence” (Acosta 1973). The work Acosta did was important to the Chicanos because he served as a resource they wouldn’t have had if not for him. Oscar “Zeta” Acosta was pronounced dead in 1974 which was towards the end of the Chicano Movement, but even now with the United States in a frenzy, his experience and knowledge would have been sought after to help Chicanos and immigrants. Still, Acosta’s past accomplishments with his people will always be shown when looking back at the Chicano movement, and those moments and cases that were won by Acosta will be looked at with “argullo” which translate to pride.
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Works Cited “198 Methods of Nonviolent Action.” Factsheets Youthpolicyorg, www.youthpolicy.org/library/documents/198-methods-of-nonviolent-action/. “Chicano Movement Walkouts Remind Us: We Must Fight for Issues like Gun Reform.” National Catholic Reporter, 5 Mar. 2018, www.ncronline.org/news/justice/ncr-today/chicano-movement-walkouts-remind-us-we-mu st-fight-issues-gun-reform. Montoya, Maceo, and Ilan Stavans. Chicano Movement for Beginners. For Beginners, 2016. Sahagun, Louis. “East L.A., 1968: 'Walkout!' The Day High School Students Helped Ignite the Chicano Power Movement.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 1 Mar. 2018, www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-1968-east-la-walkouts-20180301-htmlstory.html. Stavans, Ilan. Bandido: the Death and Resurrection of Oscar "Zeta" Acosta. Vidas/Northwestern University Press, 2003.