Chicana
activist speaks at CSULB
By
Cristina Madrid
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
Students, faculty and staff gathered in the Karl Anatol conference room to hear
civil rights activist Elizabeth “Betita” Martinez speak on issues
of race and gender Wednesday night.
The meeting began with Chicano Latino Studies (CHLS) Associate Professor Anna
Sandoval conducting a warm-up exercise that had students read aloud cards which
had adjectives or adverbs describing Martinez.
Students ran up and down the aisles beginning with one student in the front shouting “justice” and
followed by “political theorist, internationalist, teacher, love, bilingual
education, organizer, anti-capitalist, living treasure, 500 years of Chicano
history.”
The exercise ended with a celebratory chant from CHLS professors saying “Que
vive la raza. Vive! Que vive la mujer. Vive!, Que vive Benita Martinez. Vive!” meaning “Long
live the [Latino] race. Live! Long live the woman. Live! Long live Benita Martinez.
Live!”
Martinez said the famous civil rights war cry brought her back to her origins
as a Chicago Chicana activist fighting for black social justice in the 1960s
and 1970s. A petition titled “Latinas say U.S. out of Iraq, Bring our troops
home now” was passed around for signatures while Martinez spoke.
Martinez began her speech with a tribute to Rosa Parks. Martinez said Parks was “a
woman to remember” for her impeccably clean reputation and her brave action
to go against the status quo.
Martinez told CHLS professors the topic of Chicanos on race and gender was not
so easy to summarize in one hour, but she would do her best to bring light to
the subject.
Martinez discussed various issues, but mainly focused on racism in today’s
world and how it has been instilled in the United States since the beginning.
Martinez said racism “is better called ‘white supremacy’ which
is defined as a power relation between whites and everybody else.”
“
The U.S. has based white supremacy on three key factors. The first one being
genocide, the second slavery and third on empire building,” Martinez
said.
Martinez, also an author of a book, “500 Years of Chicano History,” talked
about Mexican history, women’s rights and male supremacy and the roles
they play in the Chicano’s way of life in America.
As a last note, she said her attention now is being brought to the discrimination
of human rights.
“
I have not seen an era that has such a struggle with human rights,” she
said. Martinez added she knows through her work “another world is possible.”
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