PP&D 177 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Police Brutality, White Flight, Ruben Salazar
1 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
5/3/18
Lecture 5:
• Oscar Zeta Acosta - 1971: “only militant Chicano lawyer in the country, born in El Paso,
Texas”
• Family could not make a living in Texas in 1935, American fieldworkers
• Lived in Riverbank, in San Joaquin Valley -- railroad tracks
• Mexicans, Okies and Middle-class Americans (make up of their population)
• Father of Acosta → was very radical, encouraged Oscar to become very outspoken
• Involved in music, air force band
• After being stuck in air force, became dependent on drugs!
• Tried to become religious, went to church and influenced by a Baptist friend
• Held prayers in basements/barracks of the band
• Unbelievable that the first sergeant asked -- “if that I go easy on his Catholic boys”;
insulted him and was sent to Panama
• Then went to Law school, worked with UFW and Cesar Chavez, and became union
organizer
• Influenced by black civil rights movement
• SF law school graduated in 1965 (year of Watts Riots)
• Worked at SF examiner, thru college as coffee boy
• Took bar exam and flunked it
• Studied and took it again, passed it a couple months later
• Legal aid in half-black/half-Chicano area
• So many problems and issues, made him sick and depressed
The Rise and Fall of the Brown Buffalo
• Countercultural legend -- change racial structure of society
• Lawyer and spokesperson, challenged white authority in courtroom and streets
• Characters/People in his life:
• Hunter S. Thompson
• Jose Razo
• Betty Dowd - ex wife
• Neil Herring - attorney
• Ralph Moore
• Peach Picker
o Riverbank
o High school -- interested in being a writer, very involved in school, stopped
speaking Spanish, white-washed
o HS girlfriend - Alice (most popular girl, family did not like Oscar)
o Jail or air force? (after her parents called the cops)
o Joined air force band
o Joined first Baptist church in south minster to Sanlam’s Indians
o “Mexican Billy gram”
o Gave up on religion after a while
• 1956 - One of the masses
o Married betty and had child after Panama
o Life Story writing, but anxieties of youth
o Father was drafted to Japan at his age 8
o Father suffered from shell-shock, He was just an Indian from Morongo, 3rd grade
education
o Hung up on the bluejacket’s manual
o 6 different doctors showed Oscar ulcers in his stomach
o Ended up in psychiatry
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
