LACMA

1957 Tijuana, Mexico Mexican writer José Revueltas publishes his short novel Los Motivos de Cain, a story about Jack Mendoza, a Mexican American sergeant who deserts the U.S. Army during the Korean War. In his introduction Revueltas tells how he based the character on a man he met in a Tijuana cantina, and simply transcribed his confessions: "He had that same air of having lost everything and of being on the other side of any limit, with a terror filled with trepida- tion at the idea that someone may discover him under his human disguise." It's an early articulation of the Chicano condition. 1967 Las Vegas, Nevada Oscar Zeta Acosta, Chicano lawyer, writer, and self- described Brown Buffalo, rides shotgun with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Thompson's subsequent recounting of the duo's drug-filled adventures, the Mexican American Acosta is described as Samoan and the book's publisher insists Acosta's picture be removed from all editions. Acosta refuses. A phantom sighting partly averted. In 1974 Acosta took a trip to the motherland and has never been seen or heard from since. 1967 Vasquez Rocks, California Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise fights a duel to the death with a reptilian creature known as a Gorn, in episode 18 of the original Star Trek TV series. The scene is filmed at Vasquez Rocks, just north of Los Angeles. A century and a quarter earlier, the picturesque sandstone outcropping served as the secret hideout for legendary Mexican bandit Tiburcio Vasquez, the inspiration for the legend of El Zorro and a hero to his native Californios for fighting the gringo invaders. Vasquez was hanged in 1875, in the last public execution in California history. 1965–66 West Dallas, Texas, and Flint, Michigan For two years running, a Chicano song makes pop music history—but no one knows it. Sam the Sham's "Wooly Bully" is voted Billboard's Record of the Year in 1965, and ? (Question Mark) and the Mysterians' "96 Tears" hits number one in 1966. Sam the Sham's real name was Domingo Samudio; Question Mark legally changed his from Rudy Martinez. The Mysterians took a short hiatus when two of their members were sent to Vietnam. 1957 Los Angeles, California Little Julian Herrera, from the influential Chicano doo-wop group Little Julian Herrera and the Tigers, turns out to be Ron Gregory. Gregory was apparently a Hungarian Jew who had run away from home at the age of eleven, hitch- hiking from Massachusetts to Los Angeles. Taken in by a Mexican American family, he later adopted their family name. 222

• Cover