Sisyphus Chicano
Style
Abandonment or
Struggle
By
Rodolfo F. Acuña
 |
Tepetlaca IzkalotecaAccording to the solar theory, King Sisyphus is the disk of the sun that rises every day in the east and then sinks into the west.[7] Other scholars regard him as a personification of waves rising and falling, or of the treacherous sea.[7] |
When
asked what I have learned from writing about
Arizona and what is going to happen in the future, I feel like
the legendary king
of Corinth immortalized by Albert Camus’ essay “The Myth of
Sisyphus.” You
remember the guy who was condemned for eternity to roll a rock
up a hill. Every time
he felt that he was making progress,
the giant rock rolled back to where he started.
The
moral of the story, according to Camus, is the absurdity
of thinking we can learn the meaning of life. This absurdity compels us
to turn to religion
for answers -- religious faith supposedly tells us the meaning
of life without us
having to find the answer for ourselves. It gives us faith
that we can roll the
rock up the hill even though it keeps rolling back.
For
over forty-three years I have been pushing a rock
called Chicana/o Studies, obsessed with the notion that we as
a community can push
the rock to the top of the hill. Chicana/o Studies would give
a greater number
of us access to knowledge that would free and enable us to
solve the
contradictions of American society.
But,
some of us cannot leave the rock behind and getting
to the top of the hill without the rock has no meaning. How long can you live
solely on memories of
those you left behind?
Is
the obsession of reaching the top collectively an
absurdity? Will those of us who are pushing the rock suffer
the fate of Sisyphus
– reducing our efforts to the absurd? Isn’t having faith in
Chicana/o Studies’ ability
to push the rock to the top in fact having faith in the
system?
The
failure to make progress in pushing the rock to
the top has nothing to do with Chicana/o Studies, Mexican
Americans or our
failure to push the rock up the hill. It is possible to make
it to the top alone
but impossible to make it as a community.
From
my point of view, what gives life meaning is the
struggle to make it up the hill collectively. This is how all
progress has been
made. As long as there has been humanity, people have
struggled for the truth.
The answer to the meaning in life is hope for a better and a
just world.
Without struggle life has no meaning.
This
brings us to Sisyphus’ dilemma in Arizona. Many understand
the absurdity of believing that the system will protect the
rights of Mexican
Americans within the state. But they also believe in the
Constitution and in
the myth of “equal protection.”
In
Arizona, the rock is heavier because it is a state
without laws and bought public officials. The absurdity of the
struggle struck
me as I learned more about the interests behind the
anti-immigrant hysteria and
why it is important to the Kochs, ALEC (American Legislative
Exchange Council),
the prison industry, the gun lobby and other special interests
to erase the
memory of Mexican Americans left behind.
The
few who have fought back are paying the price.
The teachers of the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican
American Studies
program have been fire, not because they were not doing a good
job teaching
students, but because they were too effective.
Making
the rock even heavier -- a million dollar civil
suit has been filed by the Tea Party with the support of
Arizona Attorney
General Tom Horn for defamation against TUSD Mexican American
Studies Sean Arce
and José González.
Meanwhile,
Arizona lawmakers are attempting to
nullify the U.S. Constitution. This is so even though Arizona
receives back
$1.30 for every dollar it sends to Washington –contrast this
to California that
gets back 79 cents.
The
rock gets even heavier when the weight of the
Democratic Party is added. The so-called Party is too timid to
fight back and
the Blue Dog Democrats cringe in fear of the Tea Party, the
Minutemen and their
corporate “sponsors.”
Worse
of all “the system” has bought off many of
those who had pushed the rock in previous struggles. Tired of struggling they
abandoned the village.
I
was once told that I could make it by changing my
last name. I was light enough that I could pass. My first
thought was, what
about my sister? My cousin? They had the nopal plastered on
their faces.
Besides I loved who I was and that meant pushing the rock up
the mountain.
Please click on to the
link and support
Sisyphus
Sean Arce and José
González Under Attack
###
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