The University of Arizona Press
Revolutionary Currents
Chicano Movement Cultural Workers and Solidarity with Chile
On September 11, 1973, General Augusto Pinochet led a bloody military coup in Chile that overthrew Salvador Allende’s democratically elected socialist government. The coup ushered in a cruelly repressive dictatorship that would govern the country for the next seventeen years, constituting a watershed moment in Cold War history.
This book recounts the untold story of how Chicano Movement poets, artists, musicians, and theater groups in the United States used their work to express solidarity with the international campaign to restore democracy in Chile. Such expressions of solidarity were especially prominent in the San Francisco Bay Area, where hundreds of Chilean exiles settled following the coup. Upon arrival, they joined a diverse Latinx population that was home to a Chicanx arts community whose members’ political orientations primed them to lend their talents to anti-imperialist causes. These Chicanxs were also drawn to the campaign against the dictatorship through friendship and acquaintance with members of the Chilean exile community.
David Spener shows how the Bay Area’s unique cosmopolitan social context offered Chicanxs and Chileans meaningful opportunities for dialogue and collaboration with each other as well as with Latinxs of other national origins. Chicanxs often adopted a pan-ethnic raza identity that they could share with Chilean, Nicaraguan, Puerto Rican, Salvadoran, and other Latinx activists. This did not mean, however, that they abandoned the political identities that they had gained from the Chicano Movement. Instead, many came to see themselves as uniting with other Latinxs, first Chileans and then Nicaraguans and Salvadorans, in a struggle against U.S. imperialism throughout the Americas.
“This book is a wonderfully rich account of the untold story of how Chicanx cultural workers utilized art to express solidarity with the Chilean Left during and after the overthrow of Salvador Allende. Spener’s nuanced exploration of internationalism is a timely reminder of the power of artistic expression—of poetry, music, and theater—for confronting authoritarianism. A truly stimulating interpretation of how to think about cultural production and international solidarity.”—Steve Striffler, author of Solidarity: Latin America and the US Left in the Era of Human Rights
“In Revolutionary Currents, David Spener shows why he is one of the foremost scholars on transnational solidarities. In tracing the poetics and politics of Chicanx cultural workers in their sympathies with the Chilean cause, Spener makes clear that imaginative interconnections became crucial for political and ideological commitments to creating a more just world. Revolutionary Currents is essential in understanding the global dimensions of the Chicano Movement.”—Aaron E. Sánchez, author of Homeland: Ethnic Mexican Belonging Since 1900
