In the late 1960’s a group of Xicano youth, natives of Los Angeles, formed the group Young Chicanos For Community Action to combat local issues faced by the Mexican American community. Later, coined for the military style hats they wore, they called themselves the Brown Berets. The newly named organization continued its fight towards ending police brutality, creating a better education for underprivileged youth, and many more issues concerning civil rights. In San Jose, decades later, we found as much need for organizing a Brown Beret unit as ever. As a response to the escalating injustices against the marginalized community here in San Jose, a group of us came together, strangers at the time, with nothing but like minds and the shared desire and vision for justice and revolution. Since the group started in early March of 2017 we’ve gathered every Thursday evening to discuss an action plan for combatting oppression and injustices within our community.
On Friday August 11th, the Brown Berets de San Jose posted our petition to have the statue of Christopher Columbus relocated from our city hall. About a month leading up to the release of this petition we shared a meal around our table during a meeting, now as a family, when the topic of this statue was presented. Eyes lit up, there was an excitement, a passion, an energy building in the room, and the decision was unanimous. We would be taking on the challenge of taking down the statue.
Recently, taking down statues and tearing through the bondage that links this country to white supremacy and oppression has become a movement through the United States. When we began our campaign to remove the statue from city hall we did not foresee the riots in Virginia, the obvious white supremacist uprising, or the many Alt-right rallies that have recently been planned throughout California. Still, we refuse to let that deter us, only to drive us harder towards the victory we seek, a broader reason to fight for what is right. We stand proudly with all other communities and organizations who have worked to do the same, they are also the motivation behind our journey to move the commemoration of the man who is responsible for the genocide of our people and nearly of our culture.
Our mission is not to erase history, but to rectify it. As children, we were fed false narratives, and taught in classrooms to praise the man responsible for the genocide of our ancestors, and it is time to take a stand. It is criminal that many Xicanos cannot name the tribe to which our ancestors belonged but can recite by memory the words “in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” Many of us with Native lineage will never grow up knowing the songs of our people or the steps of our Native dances, but as early as four years old will be force fed teachings immortalizing the man responsible for stripping us of these things as a hero. In the Mercury News Pierluigi Oliverio, former San Jose city councilmember who is currently running for county supervisor was quoted saying, “No person in history is perfect — everybody has some flaw. But ultimately it’s the history of how the civilized world expanded.” This representation of our ancestry as savages, untamed and uncivilized and praise to the genocide of a race, as minute as Oliverio paints it, is exactly what we fight to extinguish.
So, how do we ensure that our youth gets the correct history? It’s all in the process of decolonization – of our people, of our minds. Due to our school curriculums preaching a tale of Christopher Columbus as a hero it is up to us as a community to distinguish otherwise, the removal of the statue is only a stepping-stone on the red road we hope to lead our youth along. The elders in the Native community demonstrate their resilience in their fight to keep history alive in youth who look to them as their only exposure to the culture that existed before colonization, now it is time we repay them in doing our part.
The statue of Columbus currently stands enshrined inside of San Jose city Hall. In 2001 a statue depicting the same Christopher Columbus was met with force. Upset at the sight of the man responsible for the genocide of the indigenous peoples a Native descendant James Conser took a sledgehammer to the figure. The man was then jailed and severely fined for his actions, but not all of the community felt it was deserved. In fact, a response came from much of the community about what the statue represented to them – it was not seen as a founding hero, but in fact a murderous pillaging rapist whose figure had no place in our city halls. Still, years later another statue stands despite the offense to the community’s people of color, and I for one have had enough of the city looking the other way to the communities voiced concerns.
As a group who prides itself on being contributing members to our community and active participants in city council meetings, we find it incomprehensible that upon entering city hall we must be greeted by the face of our oppressor. This is not just our way of giving back to our Native elders in our community, the individuals who have a close connection with their roots, this is about giving back to ourselves as well as the generation after us who’ve been robbed of something so precious as their Native identity. This is about renaming the history that erases the atrocities committed and highlights fiction written by the same hand that wrote stories like ‘The legend of sleepy hollow.’
As individuals, much of our lineage was erased from our records, much of our culture stolen from us, but as a whole our history can still be corrected, in textbooks, in lectures, in classrooms, and it begins with the statue.
We the people of the City of San Jose, we the descendants of the Indigenous peoples who inhabited this land long before any settler set their feet on this soil, we the community of color and of diversity and progress, ask that we be represented properly. The statue must be moved to a location that better suits the community it represents.
Mayor Liccardo, who is of Italian decedent, has gone on the record saying that he does not “spend a lot of time thinking about where statues should go.” The lack of concern and overall respect for the suffering of Indigenous peoples is unsettling. We stand to support the descendants of those who were here before genocide, rape, and disease descended onto the land that is now modern-day San Jose, the city and people Liccardo is meant to represent and paid to serve. We urge Mayor Sam Liccardo to take the time to understand our perspective, where he sees a hero who shares the same Italian heritage, we see a rapist who only shares DNA with us as a result of assimilation.
It is our hope that the Native community will recognize our efforts and stand with us in our fight to relocate the statue, along with the rest of the city of San Jose. Seeing the response from the community has only increased our excitement, in less than two weeks we’ve received over 1,000 signatures on the petition and counting and many more people are reaching out to support. We would like to thank the individuals who stand by us in our fight to have the statue relocated.
-c/s Boxer Gonzalez
Co-Chair of Autonomous Brown Berets de San Jose
The autonomous Brown Berets aim to cultivate the educational development of the youth in the community and to empower la raza. We aim to inspire all people to better their bodies, minds and spirit. We’re committed to nonviolence in order to stand in Solidarity and promote self-determination for those who are being marginalized.
Mexica Tiahui Si Se Puede!
The Brown Berets of San Jose can be contacted via email at [email protected] or by visiting facebook.com/sanjoBB/
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