[title slide]
INTERVIEWER: Okay, thank you for coming Patricia. I'm just going to go over
some of the basic questions and then we are going to go more detail into your background and your identity.CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: Okay.
INTERVIEWER: So, if you can please state your name your birth date and your
birth place please?CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: My name is Patricia Castañeda Tucker, that's my married name
"Tucker". I was born in Racine, Wisconsin, 1958.INTERVIEWER: Okay, what are your parents' names, their birthdays and their birth places.
CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: Okay, my mom's name is Elena Castañeda, but her real name is
Maria Elena. But she's always gone by Elena or Helen. Most people call her Helen. She was born in Racine; I don't know they exact year. My mom's 00:01:00eighty-three right now. My dad, his name is James Placencia Castañeda. Placencia is his mother's maiden name. He was born in Pearsall, Texas. Anything else?INTERVIEWER: Do you have any brothers and sisters?
CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: Oh yeah, I have eight brothers and sisters.
INTERVIEWER: Oh wow! That's a lot. What were their birthplaces, if you remember?
CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: We were all born in Racine.
INTERVIEWER: Born and raised?
CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: Are any of your immediate family members also active in Latino
politics? Other than family but, also women in your family?CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: Well, are you speaking specifically like Latino politics or
does it matter?INTERVIEWER: Politics, community, involvement...
CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: Yeah. Well, my mother she used to- she's an educator. After
having nine kids she went to school. She got her degree in education. She became 00:02:00a bilingual teacher; an elementary teacher. And then she continued and got her master's. She also became the Wisconsin state bilingual coordinator. And before that she worked in the district. She was kind of like um, I forgot the title but she had- it was kind of like the- she over saw- she was like the bilingual coordinator for Racine public schools. This was like in the seventies. And - I can't remember her exact title but, in that respect she was involved. And her mother, my grandmother, her name is Qoultilde Juarez, her maiden name was Delgado. She's from Citicicuardo in Michoacán. And she come up with a couple of her sisters and I believe her cousin. They came in the 1920's. I know that she 00:03:00met up with my grandfather. She at the time wasn't married but they met in Mississippi and they were sharecroppers. And they then got married there and they came up to Wisconsin because of the industry and because of jobs up here. And before she left Mexico she was a teacher. It was kind of interesting that my grandmother was a teacher and now I'm a teacher.INTERVIEWER: And did your grandmother study in Mexico?
CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: Oh yeah, that's where she was a teacher.
INTERVIEWER: And your mother, she studied in which university here?
CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: First, uh, it doesn't exist anymore was Dominican College of
Racine. Then she went to Alverno College.INTERVIEWER: Oh in Milwaukee right?
CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: For yourself, how do you identify yourself, and how do the
descriptors of Latina or Chicana fit into the way you identify yourself? 00:04:00CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: I'm a Chicana. I identify myself with that.
INTERVIEWER: And did your identity effect the type of activism you started to
involve yourself in?CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: Actually it kind of happened the other way around.
INTERVIEWER: Okay...
CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: I grew up in like- my adolescence was in the early seventies.
I graduated high school in 1976. In high school there are a lot of things going on. Well in reference to that, the Vietnam War. I remember when Nixon, I was in the tenth grade, Nixon resigned because they impeached him- there was the Watergate Scandal. As a young person at the time, you know, not just me...but, I felt like in a way, that whole Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement prior to that, all of those things influenced a lot of us. Because we experienced it- we 00:05:00witnessed it on the news and in our neighborhoods and stuff. So, in that respect, that was the politicizing, you know, that's what- in terms of who we are, I mean...at the time I always knew I was Mexican American. I always felt proud of that, and that had a lot to do with my father because his family were migrant workers, and they came up to Wisconsin in the forties. He stayed with his father because they got jobs in the industry and foundry, and they later moved the family out there. So he had a different experience. My father, my parents were always involved like in the- whenever they elections came around. I remember my dad was involved in LULAC. They were involved with the- it's now called the Spanish center of Racine but, I'm not sure if it still exists. He was 00:06:00always involved with the community politics with the Mexican-American community.INTERVIEWER: So when was the first time your heard "Chicano", or "Chicana", and
when did that, as an identifying factor fit in?CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: Oh, that didn't happen till much later, till um, my own sort
of reeducation. I would have to say I was a Junior or Senior in high school and I was starting to like find out more about it. Of course, in Wisconsin, okay, it wasn't the epic center of the Chicano civil rights movement, although there was a lot of things going on in Chicago. So we would kind of hear that way but, since we didn't have a lot of connections in Chicago. Most of my relatives lived in the Racine/Milwaukee area. So that's like who I associated with in that respect. But, it wasn't until later when I came out- I moved out to California, 00:07:00I went out there on my own. In about '79 or '80.INTERVIEWER: So a couple years after high school?
CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: Yeah. I was in the Bay area. There wasn't that much going on
at the time. Visually there weren't a lot of demonstrations or people. I wasn't really aware who was out there at the time. It wasn't till later when I found out through later reading or studying that I found out I could have connected with these people because they were out there. I didn't know certain people that were involved, especially artists. I've always been an artist. So my main interest in going out to the Bay area was for that to study art. And I wasn't 00:08:00thinking about, in that respect, politics. But, it was out there that I actually got involved in politics.INTERVIEWER: And so how did that start?
CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: It started by getting involved with- I became a socialist. I
got involved with a group called "Workers League", which was a Trotsky movement. And, uh, they had a youth group called the young socialist. I met some people there and I was like reading the paper; and they were Marxist. And I started looking into that and I really agreed with a lot of their statements. Their main campaign was to organize a third political party which was centered on the working class, and it was grounded in socialist politics to establish socialism in the United States, which was like pretty revolutionary in that respect 00:09:00because, of course, we live in a two party system which really isn't a two party system, even at that time. So I was like, yeah third party. [I had] very little knowledge about previous labor history, and that's when I really started to read on my own independently.INTERVIEWER: Do you think your grandparents experience as migrant workers, or
sharecroppers, did influence that a little bit or not at all?CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: No because I wasn't really cognizant of that. Do you
understand? I mean like, of course I was of my father because he's like my family. But, it was more of- how do you say? My dad had an expression: "if you can't do anybody any good then you don't do them any harm". So it's sort of like always helping people out if you can and always being a part of something that 00:10:00you believe in. And my father also went through a few things, he took a leave of absence. He was a machinist, I should kind of back track. He started in a jurymen's thing and he became a machinist, a skilled tradesmen and got a job with American Motors, which then got bought out by Chrysler. That's where my dad retired from. He took a leave of absence to venture and start his own business, it was a machine shop, and he got a grant. At the time- I forgot the grant- but, it had to do with the south side revitalization program in Racine that was establishing and trying to generate small businesses and work. And so my father did this for five years or what not. He went so far, then he went back to 00:11:00American Motors and they weren't going to honor his seniority. He fought them but, he was real quiet about it. In other words, we all kind of knew about it but, he didn't sit there and discuss it with us or anything like that but he stuck to his guns and he fought it. He was always the kind of person that stood up for what was right. Whenever anything happened to one of us at school, or we were out in public and people were rude to us, you know- facing discrimination, he was always the one to approach and to take care of it, and always in a diplomatic way. He was always very correct in how he defended, not just us, but himself. So that was always an influence, not just for me, I know it was for a lot of my siblings. I've always respected that aspect of my dad. In a way, you know, I grew up with a sense of what's good and what's wrong. I didn't agree 00:12:00with politics; I started paying attention when I was in high school especially with the Nixon administration and all the things they did back then. So it was kind of like, "what the heck this is really messed up".INTERVIEWER: So with your politicization experience in California, do you think
that's when you encountered the Chicanismo, or was it when you came back?CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: I actually forgot about something, after high school I came
here for a year. I took- I was mostly taking art classes, and I took a Latin American history class. And it was like, okay, very generic. Latin American history, so you learn about the histories in North and South America, and you're talking about the indigenous groups so it was only the Mayans, the Incans and 00:13:00the Aztecs. Of course, we know today there's so many different peoples that originated from this part of the world. So I wrote a letter to my maternal grandmother to ask her- I said this is what we are looking at and I just wanted to know if you knew any of the history. The response that she sent me changed my life because she said, "Oh no, we are Tarascan". And then she just proceeded to tell me in this letter about who our people were. They were very creative people, artisans, and we have our own language. I was just blown away. I had no idea. My mother never ever- did she even know?! So that's actually when I started to really investigate. It wasn't so much about being a Chicana. It was 00:14:00more about a sense of self and awareness of identity. Where do I come from? What is this all about. I started doing that kind of investigation. So really looking into researching the history of these people. Finding out that they, in fact, are not Tarascan, they are Pulypecha. They were called the Tarascans by the Spaniards. Because turaskey means "son in law". And so that interpreted of course many of our names and what not, got changed, transferred to the Spanish language because that's who conquered us. So, I mean, that's really where I became more cognizant of my own identity. And then yes, a year in a half later when I moved out of California, then I was more into what the history was and finding out more about it. Not just on my mother's side but, my dad's as well. 00:15:00INTERVIEWER: So I guess, how did this discovery, or this new information
trigger, or did it trigger, any involvement in the community or was it in a different way?CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: No it was more on a personal level at first.
INTERVIEWER: So how did you get to be involved in the community?
CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: Well, like I said when I was out in the Bay area and I got
involved, I started getting involved in organizing because they were in socialist politics because they were organizing in communities. I lived in the Mission district, which is primarily Latino. I just started going around- We had a youth newspaper, selling paper, setting up meetings, we organized a basketball team, and we held tournaments against the kids in the Fillmore district, which is primarily African American. We do things like that. It was always a lot of fun but, it was always based on talking about the politics of the day, what was 00:16:00going on, what were the conditions for the youth in that area. At the time there was a teacher's strike. I remember going into the Mission high school. At the time I was pretty young, so I looked kind of young. I was like twenty, twenty-one. So I just walked into the school and no one said anything to me, it's not like today, you can't do that. I knew a couple of students that went there. They were kind of upset because they were going to school and they had scabs and they were just like not learning, and teachers were striking. I was like, "Well you know you can support your teachers". "How we gonna do that, we do support them?". I was like, "Well you know, if you got the students to walk out of the school, and show your support- you know, based on the reasons why you want to do this because you want the strike to end, you want your teachers back..." There were about three students that said yeah. So I helped them, they 00:17:00made up some leaflets, and they passed them out and announced a certain time. It was kind of surprising, they actually solicited them during school one day. I can't remember what time it was, I think maybe it was around one o'clock or something, all the kids came out. It was really great! It was kind of cool, you know. But, stuff like that- but it was always a struggle because, of course, socialism, and the ideas of socialism, people don't just pick it up and say, "Oh yeah, that's great!". You know, you have to really argue the politics of it. It's a struggle to organize, especially amongst young people, you know [because they may say] "What do I want to get involved in that for?".INTERVIEWER: In that organization, as a woman, what were the struggles that you
faced, if you faced any? 00:18:00CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: I think it wasn't until a couple years later after I really
got involved in [inaudible] I moved to Detroit. And that was kind of like an epic center, there was a lot of things going on in the early eighties in Detroit, a lot of factories closing, and neighborhoods just completely devastated. Some of it were issues of- there's not so much sexism within that group. But then again there were certain things that were relegated to women, like cooking. I don't know, not everything. I got more into a conflict with the group because I felt like, in terms of sticking to the idea of organizing people on the idea of socialism and organizing a socialist movement in this country- I 00:19:00don't want to say compromises because there was always this hardcore thing of not compromising- with ideas, do you understand? Or principles I should say. But, there were things like - in terms of religion and faith- and some people are very steadfast with their faith. So Marxism is nonreligious, okay. So there were people, a lot of workers, that agreed with our policies what we wanted to do but, yet, had the issue of religion and that was a conflict. And I always felt like, "Well, so what?". Let's just- if they're agreeing on our ideas of organizing a political party that socialism, wanting to nationalize the industry and the banks, you know, going full ideals of Marxism then, why not? In terms of 00:20:00their faith, some people come to faith differently, I understand faith differently because of my own experiences. I grew up Catholic, I grew up with the Catholic church but, there's also this other sense of spiritualism in the Latino community that conflicts with sort of the, mainstream Catholic faith and practices, if you know what I mean. We had a church called Crystal Ray, I mean you go to their services and they're a lot more uplifting than going to like a regular Anglo-Catholic church where you just fall asleep. Do you know what I mean? There's something to be said about that, that I respected, I have always respected. That goes the same for the Black churches and what not. They have a history of that connection to that type of spirituality that you really shouldn't discount. Even though you understand how the church was used as an 00:21:00oppressor of the masses by capitalism, by the conquerors. The conquistadores used the church, in the name of God they murdered and massacred millions of our people, and what not. So there's that conflict with that faith but, at the same time there's that history of how that faith was used as part of our survival mechanism. For me, I always had the conflict with not being able to recruit people because they were religious or something. You know, there's always also an issue of sexuality. One of the people, some of the on the top level of the organization were homophobic, I just thought that was strange. It's totally not conducive to what I really believe in and how I saw the ideas of socialism and Marxism. 00:22:00INTERVIEWER: I was going to go into your community involvement in Racine and
Madison but, you've mentioned you did more things nationally and internationally. So I was wondering if you could talk more about that.CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: There was very little Racine involvement. I met some women
that were a part of a labor movement. I went to some meetings with them. It was like right before I left Racine. I mean I kind of got involved because I went to these meetings. And I remember one of the women was a Latina woman. It was like a labor movement organization; I can't remember what they call themselves. They had set up this meeting with members of N.O.W., and it was the Racine/Kenosha chapter of NOW, which is National Organization of Women. I like to call it 00:23:00N.O.W.W., National Organization of White Women because that's what it was pretty much. I remember we went to that session, and it was just like- I don't even know why we- they were trying to organize something together, like a woman's kind of group thing. I don't know. It was kind of interesting. I didn't feel very welcome in the sense that I didn't feel comfortable. I felt like the N.O.W. people have their own agenda, and they were just sort of listening to us like, "Oh yeah, that's very interesting, and maybe we can do something". I didn't get the sense of community from them like they were willing to be open and do more coalition. Okay, yeah, and then I just left. I had it in my head already that I was leaving.INTERVIEWER: Other than in California and in Detroit, were there any other experiences?
CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: And that was a big deal because I didn't just sort of do it
00:24:00on the side I was like full-fledged into it. I was pretty heavy into doing youth meetings, and activities, and going to things like- we sold newspapers. It was mostly like organization, trying to organize, trying to organize and get new members and recruit, and try to build a political third party that was socialist. So that's what I did most of the time. I just worked and did that. I recruited on the campus of the San Francisco community college. After I left I moved to Detroit and that's what I did all the time. So I had a job in a printing factory. It was a printing shop that actually printed our political newspapers, while we printed other ones. But that's what I did. When I wasn't there I was organizing; going to demonstrations, organizing, going to union 00:25:00meetings, selling the newspapers at grocery stores and in front of factories when people were going to work: setting up and organizing in different communities and neighborhoods to build that political party. I did that for three and a half years.INTERVIEWER: In California or combined?
CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: Both. Mostly in Detroit. When I was in Detroit I actually was
invited to go to Europe to participate in the Karl Marx march which was commemorating 100 years since the death of Karl Marx. This was in 1984. I went with two other people from the U.S.; we invited as guests. The Karl Marx march was organized by the international youth committee of the fourth international, 00:26:00which is a socialist movement. Actually it was a march; we marched from Trier in Germany, which is where Karl Marx was born to, we marched all the way to London. What we did was we marched from Tier to Saarbrucken. Which is an area in the south. We took the train from Saarland up to Northern Germany to Bong. We marched from Bong to Colon, we went into Belgium, we went into the northern part of France and we took the ferry across to England. And we spent the last week marching around the different burrows, or whatever they call them in England. Then we had this big international conference there. It was six weeks total that 00:27:00I was there. It was really great because what we did, marching from town to town, there were advance teams, and I was on one advance team in Germany. What we did we went to the trade unions and we went to the political organizations. In Europe, they have socialist parties and they have the labor parties. So they have multiple political parties that are actually part of the government. So we approached them in supporting us, and we'd get them to either set up a place to stay, or provide food, or meals and whatnot. It was kind of interesting because there were over 125 youth there, ages of like 15 to 23. They were people from Australia and New Zealand, Spain, not just Britain, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, 00:28:00France. It was cool.INTERVIEWER: How did these transnational connections impact you?
CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: Well, I was already involved. For me, it was more of an
inspiration. Personally, I [believed] more that it was possible, you actually could have socialism. I really appreciated that. It was kind of cool-we would pick people up- because when we were marching from town to town, there were people, especially young people, that would come and march with us. I remember in Belgium, in Brussels there was a big demonstration, a labor demonstration and we marched along with them. But they also had the militia there on guard because 00:29:00there was a labor strike going on. I never witnessed anything like that in the United States. In that respect, I gained, I guess for me, I always say that stayed with me. I have always maintained an internationalist perspective. I know and understand that it's impossible to have socialism in one country alone. It has never happened or succeeded. You have pockets and you have countries that are struggling for that and trying to maintain autonomy. Like in South America now- in Venezuela, and Ecuador now, and all these other countries that are paying off their debts, wanting to become more sovereign and independent, which is a really good thing. And in many ways they are following socialist ideals. 00:30:00Yet, it has to grow in order to really succeed. And that's what I truly, truly believe in, I understand that. Having that experience there, and seeing that and witnessing that- that was a long time ago- was good for me as a person. And hopefully gave me hope sort of like "Aw yeah!". "Cause, then you come back to the United States, and it's so overwhelming because the United States is huge. You know what I'm saying, compared to Europe [where] you can travel from one country to another in a couple hours. You know, you go from one state to another here. Our history here is so different.INTERVIEWER: Talking a little bit about the Chicano and Latino community, for
today what do you think are more of the imperative issues that the Chicano and 00:31:00Latino community are facing, in your opinion.CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: Well, it's like there's this renewed sense of, not amongst
our communities, a renewed sense of bigotry and racial hatred that is on the rise in this country. And I know where it comes from, it comes from the ignorance of our nation and the failure to educate. And I feel like this is happening because, as has always happened whenever we have problems within our economy, you know, there's always these strifes that happen, conflicts between 00:32:00different groups. The Latino population in the United States is growing, it's changing, the demographics are very different. We have a growing, new immigrant population from Mexico and from other Latin American countries but, mostly from Mexico. And they're not the same as Mexican Americans. We know they're not, and it's like their resistance, their determination- for me- the things that they have endured and continue to is inspirational. I feel like wow, you know that's what the Chicanos should be really continuing because it seems as though the Chicano movement had this fire and then all of a sudden it- I don't wanna say drizzled out or dispersed but expanded in the sense that many of these people 00:33:00that were involved within the Chicano movement in the sixties, they did spread out, they moved around. And this happened even within the African American Civil Rights movement. I don't mean to disjoin them but, in a way- even though they happened they culminated and inspired each other - I know the Chicano Civil Rights Movement was inspired by the African American Civil Rights Movement. And it's inspired a lot of the American Indian Movement as well, and the communities got support. And at the same time we did and we didn't. We didn't really come together; you know there's still the separation of the groups. I think that's a 00:34:00shame, you know what I mean. I believe that if we would have united more in those struggles that we probably- it's hard to go back and say "if we would have done this, it would have happened". Really it's unfair to say that because what has happened has happened and so we have to deal with what we have today. So I feel like a lot of the struggles that the Mexican immigrants are dealing with now are inspirational to, not just Mexican Americans but, to other peoples who have faced discrimination in the United States. But I also worry that we are too quiet, that we don't pay attention to it and join it, that perhaps we have become to content, and just dealing with our everyday lives of survival. Just 00:35:00paying bills month to month, and you get lost in that, caught up in that. Before you know it, the years have gone by. So it's a struggle to keep yourself active because you have all these other things that you have to do. That's why they always say that the revolution is really forged by the youth because you have that luxury of time, more so than somebody like me. When I was younger, your age, that's what my time was spent doing. I could do it, so I did, not that I am giving up or anything but, it's harder for me now.INTERVIEWER: I know you mentioned before that you're an artist. How do you think
00:36:00that art is a tool of resistance? For example, in the Immigrant Rights Movement, and also before when you were organizing in Detroit and then California.CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: Well, art has historically always been, I think, within the
Civil Rights Movements a way, an expression in voice of opposition. I used to teach a class here a long time ago on Chicano Art History. And I covered that, I talked about that. How the art- it's a visual inspiration. You just look at this, it's a mural here, and you look at it and see all the symbolism in it. You 00:37:00recognize these symbols and what they mean. Here you get two icons here you got Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta, you know, these powerful images in our history and who have, throughout their whole lives were active. Their lives were examples of that, and so that's the inspiration. Artists in depicting them, that's a reminder, a message. It lives on that way; do you understand? They are able to continue that expression of resistance of whatever it is. Even if it isn't resistance, maybe it's just a picture of a woman and her child but, it's something that lives on because it's put out there in the public. And I think that's one of the things about artists that are active, they are creating work 00:38:00that is put out there for that purpose. Things that I created when I went back to school to get my degree- I was creating things that weren't just pictures. I created videos and did things. I spoke about issues and things that were going on, identity. Even when artists create things that talk about race and identity, that is something that speaks to everybody.INTERVIEWER: Going back to 2011, I know there were some protests at the capital
here in Madison, I wanted to know if you had any involvement, or your opinions.CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: I was teaching at the time, both here and at- we kind of
00:39:00skipped a thing. Because after I left Detroit and came back I started going back to school. I decided to become a teacher because I really believe that teaching is the key. Education is the key to set your mind free. It really is. And that starts from having children, you know and thinking about what they were going to face when they hit school. That was a real big concern for me. My husband is an educator as well so, that's where that energy began to become an effective 00:40:00educator. You aren't just teaching about art, you are teaching about life, responsibility. I taught middle school for ten years. It's not about teaching drawing and painting, it's about how do you treat each other. You know, here you are in a social setting, kids are talking to each other, acting up and whatnot. It's not just about "Hey sit down and be quiet". It's about how you treat and respect each other. That's an important thing to understand, how one communicates with another. How do we communicate? How do we treat each other? Do we teach each other? Do we treat each other with respect? Where does respect come from in the first place, and then you have room to respect each other 00:41:00across the board culturally, spiritually. Education is really powerful, and it's been under attack.INTERVIEWER: Especially with the attacks on ethnic studies recently.
CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: Well, 9/11 kind of set that off. I was teaching my class
here; it was the first semester that I started teaching. It was just Chicano Studies at the time. It was Chicano Art History, introduction, it was actually from the CAR movement which was Chicano Art Resistance and Affirmation. So I focused on that, and those artists who were very active. But it was really bizarre because that happened and I was like okay, I wasn't going to be silent about it. I just came from my high school and some of the students were really 00:42:00emotionally upset and freaking out. I came here and there was no emotion or nothing. I was like okay I should at least address it. It was interesting to me how the response of most my students was indifferent. I thought, "oh that is kind of different" because it was such a political act. I felt very strongly that it wasn't an accident and sort of this fluke thing. I believe that the administration knew there was something that was going to happen. What it did was stir up a lot of fear of invisible force, some negative ugly force of 00:43:00terrorism. You know the terrorists had no face. And it was a justification for war. A justification to discriminate against hundreds of American citizens who were mostly Arab dissent. But, a lot of people who, because their skin was brown, were suspect. The fear of the unknown and culture of fear really came about strong after that. Unfortunately, people fell into that idea. It's not a good thing. 00:44:00INTERVIEWER: How did that manifest into the ethnic studies attack, or how do you
feel it has?CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: Well I'm really worried about the Chicano Latino Studies
Program right now because I feel like when this program came into existence it wasn't Chicano Studies the idea was to have a department. There was very strong support. We had African American students as well who were organizing and supporting this movement. They got their department. The Chicano Studies got a program, and it was very strong for a long time. I think that because Wisconsin 00:45:00doesn't have a lot of Mexican American students in the UW system. And I'm speaking specifically Mexican American. Chicano is a political term; it politicizes Mexican Americans. Not all Mexican Americans name themselves as Chicano or Chicana because they don't. It depends on where they come from, their background, and what they are exposed to. So you don't have a lot of numbers of Mexican American students that attend UW Madison. I know they do recruiting and whatnot. We have other Latino students. I can't remember exactly when they started to merge and become Chicano Latino Studies. I think that was a good thing though because of the number thing. Then we are open to have broader and open class topics and courses. And the possibilities are numerous in terms of 00:46:00development. Also opening up to professors that can teach in the program. I think that's really where the problem has been, we haven't reached out to a lot of Latino professors here that are on campus to get them to support the program and participate. I'm really worried about the current standing of the program. I'm worried for its survival because of that.INTERVIEWER: Do you think the attacks on the Arizona ethnic studies has
influenced a little bit of that.CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: I'm not so sure if it has influence, you mean like the people
that are in charge of Letters and Science, like the Bascom Hill professors? I don't believe so. That's because the history of this university does still have a more liberal, you know it's pretty much run by Anglo-Euro Americans pretty much but, I don't really see that. I just see it's more of a fiscal thing. We aren't getting funding like they used to so it's "how much money do we have for this, how much money do we have for that. Which programs are more successful that others?" It's about who's bringing in money, who's bringing in resources. In that respect, that's why I worry about that. I know that what's been happening in Arizona has politicized a lot of universities around the country to be more cognizant of that possibility. I think that's a good thing, that we shouldn't just sit back in our own worlds. But that is more the concern for me. I see that as part of that concern to get the program strong and supported.INTERVIEWER: I have another question that is more personal. What legacy, or
influence do you hope that your involvement would have. I know you work with youth so maybe in particular to youth.CASTAÑEDA TUCKER: I don't know that I would say that I had like a legacy. I
never got involved with that idea. Do you know what I mean? That's not why I ever got involved. I got involved because I really believed in what I was doing and believed that well, something has to be done. I really do believe strongly that we need socialism; I don't know how that's going to happen? I became a teacher because I was getting older and how was I going to continue? So I really believe in that. I really am very dedicated to education. I love teaching and that to me is really important. I want to continue to do that. In the classes that I have, in terms of developing my curriculum and what not, I'm always thinking about what readings do I have that I want them to be critical. I want my students to be challenged intellectually about ideas. The courses I'm teaching always deal with identity, race, class, you know...And so it's important to me. The way I design my curriculum, I keep that in mind. I'm not just going to take a text book, and here's a text book now...I'm always thinking about if I am giving them enough information for them to think a little bit past that, to think critically. I think it's really important. It's all about that; think for yourself.INTERVIEWER: Thank you for your time.