Chican@s: Our Background and Our Pride

When Nephtali de Leon's Chicanos: Our Background and Our Pride was first published in 1972, it was banned by the Dallas (Texas) Public Library System and its author was 'escorted out' of the school he attended (Lubbock High) by armed police. At the time, the word 'terrorist' was not used, but he was accused of being a 'revolutionary'. This work appeared as an action and reaction against the particularly institutionalised white supremacist security agencies. This book constituted - and still constitutes - a pioneering contribution to a new transcendental birth: a new aesthetics of a resurrected people. In the United States there is a declared war against the ten million Chicanos, and this book is a testimony to the enduring spirit of survival in an ongoing struggle.