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Mesoamerican imagery of the Aztec and the Maya was adopted by the Chicano movement and is still used as a symbol for Mexican American identity to this day.
Harvard Mesoamerica scholar and historian, Davíd Carrasco, has spent much of his career exploring the connections between these ancient cultures and modern-day Mexican American identity.
He talks to TPR about this and about a film project about his father, David Carrasco, who integrated a university basketball team in 1956.
Filmmaker and musician Abel Sanchez joins us for that portion of the conversation.
Carrasco presents the talk "The Artists of Aztlan del Norte: Sharing the Mexican American World," Fri. Nov. 14, at 6 p.m., at the UT San San Antonio Downtown Campus, Buena Vista Theater.
It will highlight the work of three artists: painter George Yepes, writer Cherríe Moraga, and writer John Phillip Santos, who will join in conversation with Carrasco.
The legacy of Carrasco's father, David L. Carrasco, will be discussed Saturday at 10 a.m., at the Mexican American Civil Rights Institute Visitor Center, 2123 Buena Vista St. Hosted by MACRI executive director Sarah Zenaida Gould, writer Elaine Ayala, and Patricia Mejía of Spurs Sports & Entertainment. Davíd Carrasco and filmmaker Abel Sanchez (A Song for Cesar) will discuss the film project Coach Carrasco: Pasó por Aquí.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
CARRASCO: When I was 13 years old, I went to live in Mexico City with my parents. My father, who was from El Paso, also (named) David Carrasco, was invited by the Confederación Deportiva Mexicana to train Mexican coaches in preparation for the Olympic Games.
So, I went to live there, and I had an aunt there named Milena Sófaro, and one day she took me to the Museum of Anthropology, which at that time was right down on the Zócalo. And when I went into that museum, I had a kind of religious experience, almost in the sense that when I saw the Aztec objects and the feather work, the statues, the pottery, this very powerful feeling came over me — and this feeling that I had had two contrary dimensions.
On the one hand, what rose to the surface was an awareness of the shame I had been taught to have in the schools about a Mexican heritage. At that time in the schools, and I was going to school in Silver Spring Maryland, the idea was that civilization was a Roman or a Greek convention, maybe China, but Mesoamerica, Mexicans were not valued for their civilizational abilities.
And so, this sense of shame rose to the surface, but very soon another feeling rose to the surface, which was one of pride and great curiosity in the people whose objects and whose created creations I was seeing.
And growing up as I did as a Mexican American and becoming a part of the Chicano movement in the late `60s, I realized that my studies of Mesoamerica could make a contribution to the Chicano movement and to Mexican Americans who are interested in really knowing what was on the other side of the border that related to them.
So, this also represents who I am, who my father is, and that is, I see myself as a kind of bridge between Mexico and the US, between the Chicanada and the Mexicanada and also the African Americans.
I see myself as somebody who wants to add that kind of plus and integration in my life and in my work.
MARTINEZ: Well, speaking of your father and speaking of integration, I think that's a great transition to what I want to talk to you about next, which is a film that is in the works about your father, who's also named David Carrasco. He made history by integrating a college basketball team in Washington, DC, at American University.
He was the first Mexican American head coach there at a major U.S. university, and there's a film in the works.
Tell us a little bit more about your dad before we bring in Abel Sanchez. He’s working on that film with you about your father. We're going to talk to Abel here shortly, but first, give us a little bit of background about who your father was and the important role that he played in helping to develop your interests.
CARRASCO: Sure. So, my father was from El Paso, from the Segundo Barrio, and so he grew up in the streets there in the tough part of El Paso, and he grew up as a basketball player and a boxer. And as a result of that, when he went into the Navy in World War II, he was fortunate to be accepted into officers training. And at this base he oversaw the physical education of a number of companies.
And so, when the war ended, he went back to El Paso and was not able to get a coaching job there because they weren't allowing Mexican Americans to be coaches at the time. So, we moved back to Maryland, and he began to teach in elementary school, then junior high school and coaching in high school, and he was a tremendous success.
He won three state championships in Maryland -- the only Mexican American to be a coach in the whole area. And as a result of that, he was hired by American University to be the head basketball coach at a time when that whole area did not allow African Americans to play. Can you imagine?
And so, what happened was, last year, American University had a big event about the desegregation of basketball, and it was in honor of my father and his team. And at that there were several very prominent basketball people from The New York Times and from the NBA who, in learning about him, said, “This has to be made into a documentary film. This story is too significant. This is too powerful. This is such a breakthrough idea.”
So as a result, I decided that I would reach out to Abel Sanchez and to Andres Agria, who had made this wonderful film called A Song for Cesar: The Music and the Movement. And together, along with my daughter Liana Carrasco and several others, we have formed a production team to make a film that we're coming to talk about in San Antonio called Coach Carrasco: Pasó Por Aqui.
MARTINEZ: Well, Abel, tell us a little bit about your interest in this topic and the direction that you are going for in this particular film.
SANCHEZ: Well, I'm just honored to be part of this film and this project.
And my purpose for being on board with this film is the heroes of Mexican heritage and culture. I relate (it) to my own family.
Just listening to David today, I tell you what — many of my roots, they weave into the same history of growing up as a Chicano here in United States, but my parents also — my dad was in the Navy in World War Two, and he was on the USS Colorado, and he was so proud of that.
Hearing David this morning, it reaffirms my commitment offering to do whatever I can to create this film with Andres Alegria, who's a major, major talented person in putting together A Song for Cesar and I believe we're going to do the same. It's our same goal here — to do the same thing with the Coach Carrazco film.
If you have a story to share about Coach David L. Carrasco that could enrich the current film project, contact Davíd Carrasco dcarrasco@hds.harvard.edu.
A longer version of this conversation will air on a future episode of Fronteras.
View a trailer below:
