Rodolfo (Corky) González, RIP

Corky González was the first Colorado athlete who entered my child's consciousness. Upon graduating from Manual High School in Denver, González literally fought his way out of poverty, winning the 1946 National Amateur Athletic Union bantamweight title. Ring Magazine rated González third among lightweights in the world by the early 1950s and he never got a title shot. He was the first Chicano inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame. González was called Corky for his ring style: bobbing more than weaving. By the early 1970s, González was one of the Four Horsemen (along with César Chávez, Reis Lopez Tijerina, and José Angel Gutiérrez) of the Chicano Movement. If this is (fair & balanced) speaking truth to power, so be it.


[x LATimes]
Rodolfo 'Corky' Gonzales, 1928-2005

Former boxer became the voice of the barrio

Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales, 76, a former boxer whose political activism and strident advocacy of "Chicano power" made him a hero to Mexican American youths in the 1960s, died Tuesday at his Denver home, his family said.

As unofficial ideologist for the Chicano Movement, Gonzales led boycotts, student walkouts and demonstrations throughout the Southwest protesting police brutality, inadequate housing, the Vietnam War and what he called the educational neglect of Mexican Americans.

But he might have made his biggest impact as the foremost poet of la generacion de Aztlan, the generation of activists who invoked the mythical Aztec homeland as a symbol of Chicano self-determination and nationalism.

His best known poem, "I Am Joaquin" (Yo soy Joaquin), published in 1967 during a time of urban tumult and youthful idealism, called on Chicano youths to find strength and pride in their culture and history.

It opened with these lines: "I am Joaquin / Lost in a world of confusion,/ Caught up in a world of a gringo society, / Confused by the rule, Scorned by attitudes, / Suppressed by manipulations, And destroyed by modern society."

"Here, finally, was our collective song, and it arrived like thunder crashing down from the heavens," said Juan Felipe Herrera, who holds the Tomas Rivera chair in creative writing at the University of California, Riverside. "Every little barrio newspaper from Albuquerque to Berkeley published it. People slapped mimeographed copies up on walls and telephone poles."

Frustrated with mainstream politics, Gonzales founded the Crusade for Justice, a grass-roots civil rights organization that ran its own school in Denver, Escuela Tlatelolco, and handed out college scholarships to barrio youths.

Copyright © 2005 The Los Angeles Times