LACMA

1969 Sacramento, California The Royal Chicano Air Force, a Northern California artist collective, forms. Along with inventing the hippest name in Aztlán, the RCAF brings a much-needed sense of humor to the Chicano arts movement. MARCH 1969 San Antonio, Texas Without permission, a Hollywood film crew raises a Mexican flag over the Alamo. An elderly man with a rifle, threatening to fire on anyone "desecrating the sacred shrine," is discovered by police. Viva Max!, the story of a Mexican general who retakes the Alamo (based on the satiric novel by Jim Lehrer, of PBS fame), is in its second week of production. The official custodians of the Alamo, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, have just lost a city council vote preventing the location shooting. Public opinion favors the movie crew. MARCH 1969 Denver, Colorado Alurista, the poet laureate of Aztlán, recites "El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán" to a rapt audience at the First National Chicano Liberation Youth Conference. Among the principles espoused in this seminal manifesto of Chicano nationalist ideology is that of "reclaiming the land of our birth." 1971 Dallas, Texas After four years of public pressure, the Frito-Lay company pulls their Frito Bandito ads. Drawn by legendary animator Tex Avery and featuring the voice of Mel Blanc singing "Ay, ay, ay, ay, I am the Frito Bandito" (sung to the tune of the classic Mexican folk song "Cielito Lindo"), the pudgy cartoon bandit with the habit of stealing bags of corn chips was deemed offensive by many. The National Mexican American Anti-Defamation Committee files a lawsuit in federal court asking for $610 million "for the malicious defamation of the character of the 6.1 million Mexican Americans in the United States"—$100 for each of them. Frito pies, a tasty concoction of chile con carne spooned into a slit-open bag of Fritos, are still a favorite at church festivals across the Southwest. 1972 San Jose, California Los Tigres del Norte record "Contrabando y Traición," a song written two years earlier by Angel Gonzales. This first narcocorrido tells the story of a drug trafficker and his partner, Camelia, a Chicana from Texas, as they smuggle marijuana from Tijuana to Los Angeles. After delivering the dope, the man says he's taking his money to visit his girlfriend in San Francisco. Camelia, in love with him, unwilling to share him with another, shoots him dead in a dark Hollywood alley and disappears with the cash. Although the story is supposed to be fictitious, the protagonist of the song, Camelia la Tejana, has been interviewed in several magazines and newspapers. 223

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