Editor,
Apparently freedom of speech is only reserved for white professors of the History Department at UNM. It does not amaze me that Professor Richard Berthold is still employed at UNM.
As a Chicano, I know about freedom of speech because I was fired a long time ago in Texas for making a speech about the Alamo. It was in April of 1969 when I criticized the "heroes of the Alamo" - David Crocket and James Bowie - as "scum trying to steal our land."
Although I made my speech on my own time on a Saturday at a protest march in San Antonio supporting Mexican-American city workers complaining of racial discrimination, I was fired the following Monday and told "not to even report to work." At the time, I was working for the city of San Antonio poverty programs as an organizer of neighborhood associations.
Even the mayor of San Antonio, John Gatti, asked for my resignation. At the time, I had five children to support. I was even black listed and as a teacher nobody would give me a job. I had a bachelor's degree in education with majors in history and sociology from the University of Albuquerque.
I had to return to my old life as a migrant farm worker in the sugar beet fields of Minnesota.
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But for Chicanos, there is no freedom of speech, and we are still fighting injustice of one kind or another.
I was master's degree candidate in the UNM History Department and a member of Phi Alpha Theta, the History Honor Society, in 1982. I was not given the financial support or assistance in completing my master's degree, so I had to drop out.
I was readmitted to the UNM History Department in 1998 and given no consideration for prior course work and was required to complete 30 credit hours all over again.
Maybe they did not like that I wanted to do my master's thesis on Lt. Col. Juan Nepomuceno Seguin, another Tejano, who also claimed injustices by white Texans and he had to flee for his life to Mexico. Something like what Reies Lopez Tijerina, leader of the land grant movement in New Mexico had to deal with.
The UNM History Department is a bastion of western frontier type mentality and only allows its professors to spout the heroics of David Crockett, Gen. Sam Houston and others. They do not mention that there were Tejanos, who at first believed in liberty and freedom, fought the battles of the Alamo and San Jacinto along side the Anglo-Saxons. Then, their land at San Antonio de Bejar and other Spanish-Mexican settlements were taken away from them beginning in 1838.
Let the history professors start teaching that too.
Carlos Espinoza Cansino
Daily Lobo reader
