SINGING OUR WAY TO FREEDOM
Produced, Written & Directed by Paul Espinosa

SUPER subtitle for Spanish words
The people united, will never be defeated.

SUPER ID
Immigration Rights Rally
San Diego

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
The scourge of history are on my face, and in the veins of my body that aches.
Lloro sangre, grito libertad.  I do not ask for freedom. We are freedom.

SUPER subtitles for Spanish words
I weep blood
I shout freedom

SUPER ID
Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez

CHUNKY SANCHEZ VO
A lot of people didn’t understand, what is Chicano? Well to me, Chicano is not necessarily someone that was born in a certain place but rather a state of mind and a state of heart

VIRGINIA ZARP VO
And I look back on pictures then, and I thought oh my God, we were poor, but I didn't feel poor at the time.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ VO
Things were very simple. It’s like the Wizard of Oz says, “there’s no place like home.”

CARLOS LEGERRETTE VO
You’re talking about Chunky Sanchez from this little small California rural town, Blythe, where it's like a blip on a radar screen, you know.    

NARRATION
Growing up, Chunky and his siblings were virtually invisible to the larger society.  
Chunky would escape these rural beginnings and discover a special gift that would change the future of his community forever.

His journey is a remarkable lens on a time when young Mexican Americans became Chicanos.  

CARLOS LEGERRETTE VO
He was absolutely César Chavez’s favorite musician.  

NARRATION
They were ordinary young people who found the courage to fight for self-determination and justice.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
We went in there and did two or three songs and everybody was ready to go out and challenge the world. It was powerful, it was penetrating to the soul.

NARRATION
How did this young kid from a small rural town in the middle of nowhere become one of the leading musicians of the Chicano civil rights movement and go on to receive one of his nation’s highest musical honors?
How did he and his generation find the courage to fight for social justice in the face of racism and discrimination?
How did he learn to use music and imagination to take us on a journey, a journey towards freedom?

FADE TO BLACK

SUPER TITLE  
Singing Our Way to Freedom

SUPER TITLE CARDS
Produced, Directed and Written by
Paul Espinosa

Producers
Mark Day
Michael Bovee

Editor
Maria Zeiss
Cinematography
Vicente Franco
Simone Hogan

Narrator
Alma Martinez
Original Score
Quetzal Flores

NARRATION
Chunky’s journey began in Blythe, California. It’s a small rural community about 90 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.  It was a world, with two languages and two cultures existing side by side, often in an uneasy relationship.  

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
When my mother took me to kindergarten, I was scared. I didn’t know where I was going. I walked in the classroom. She took me in the classroom, everybody was speaking English. I didn’t speak any English at the time, even though I was born here. I was scared. My teacher looked at me.  I looked at her.  My mother left me there, and I thought I was like in a foreign country or something.  I started crying. I ran out after her. This went on like for two weeks, I went in and out and finally I got used to it.

NARRATION
Like many of his Chicano classmates, Chunky spoke only Spanish when he started elementary school.  Many schools had little respect for the language and culture that young Chicanos brought to school with them.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ (Singing)       
“Pocho”, my name was Ramon when I started kindergarten but by the third grade everybody called me Raymond.

SUPER ID
Facundo the Great
Presented on PBS’s StoryCorps

CHUNKY SANCHEZ VO
Raymond, Raymond, Raymond, hey, I was trying to adjust to this, you know what I mean, and if there was a girl named Maria, her name became Mary and Juanita became Jane.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ VO
Until one day we got a new student by the name of Facundo Gonzales, Facundo Gonzales. When he came to school, we noticed they called an emergency administrative meeting. We could kind of hear them talking through the door.  What are we going to do with this guy? Man, you know what I mean. How are we going to change his name, you know. One teacher goes, well, you know what, why don’t we try to shorten the name a little bit. And they go, yeah, but how do you spell it? F-A-C-U-N-D-O. Why don’t we just spell it FAC? Well one of the teacher says, that means his name would be “Fac” and the other teacher looked at him and said, “No that sounds too much like a dirty word. You can’t be saying, “Fac, where’s your homework? Where’s Fac at?” you know what I mean. But that was a trip that we always remembered going through elementary school because Facundo was the only guy who never got his name changed.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
In changing your name you lose identity, you lose who you really are, who your parents named you.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
We became ashamed of ourselves of who we were. You know, like I said I was still bringing burritos but even so I was kind of ashamed, you know, to bring the burrito out for lunch. I would go hide behind the building to eat my burrito man, you know.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
But all that ashamedness, you know, came into play there and it molded you as a person and it wasn’t good, it wasn’t healthy for you, because you were trying to be something you weren’t.

VIRGINIA ZARP
My mother was a housewife, stay at home. My dad was a foreman for one of the farming companies here in the valley.

SUPER ID
Virginia Zarp
Chunky’s Sister

VIRGINIA ZARP
Our home was situated on a piece of land with a bunch of agricultural fields behind us and to the side.

SUPER ID
Sanchez Family Film - 1954

RICARDO SANCHEZ
My mom and father came across that border with no papers back in the ‘30s.  Back then, immigration really wasn’t a big deal you know.  And eventually, they got naturalized here in Blythe.  

SUPER ID
Ricardo Sanchez
Chunky’s Brother

VIRGINIA ZARP
I believe my mother came through Sonora and into Mexicali.  They gathered enough money to, one by one immigrate my grandmother and the rest of the siblings from Mexico. And then they were all together as a family again.

VIRGINIA ZARP    
I personally never felt deprived because my parents always had a roof over our head, and it was a house they were able to buy. We were never hungry. So for me I was like, “Hey, I’m living the American dream. What's the problem here?”

VIRGINIA ZARP
My mother liked a lot of Louis Armstrong songs. And she liked the trumpet, so she decided Chunky was going to get music lessons, and he was going to play the trumpet. So she rented a trumpet from one of, the only music store in Blythe at the time.

VIRGINIA ZARP
Even though he was okay, he was never fantastic on the trumpet, but he would basically use the trumpet to torment us as kids, because, I remember, oh we might have been about 9, 10 years old, and every morning Chunky would wake up in the morning and play “Revelry”

VIRGINIA ZARP
And he'd wake up the whole neighborhood. And I was never a morning person, so I really resented that. My mother would teach Chunky how to harmonize. And then of course he took an interest in the guitar because of my uncles

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
They had the musical background. They played guitars, they sang, my mother and her brothers. They did a lot of old classical stuff like from Los Trios, from the thirties. That influenced us as we were growing up.  

VIRGINIA ZARP
My dad was old school and had a very clear definition of sexual roles. Girls were with their mothers. They were in the house. They did housework. They cooked. They did your laundry. That's where they functioned. Men and boys went out to the fields and worked. And so, Chunky being the oldest son he had, my dad would take Chunky with him at a very early age. And he taught Chunky how to drive a pickup truck when Chunky was 10 years old.  He taught Chunky how to plant, so Chunky had that fieldwork experience very early on in life.

NARRATION
Chunky’s father and mother were like a lot of Mexican workers who had been crossing the border for generations. There was always a huge demand for their labor in the mines, on the railroads and in the booming agricultural fields of the southwest. Some were actively brought here by U.S. labor recruiters. By the 1960s, a young community organizer named Cesar Chavez had been remarkably successful in organizing our country’s poorest and most forgotten workers – the farmworkers who were responsible for the food on our tables. Chavez preached a philosophy of non-violence and imagined a better world for these workers.

CESAR CHAVEZ
Tactically, nonviolence is extremely effective.  But we say even more, we say that as a philosophy, as a way of life, perhaps, it’s even more important.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
Cesar Chavez came to Blythe I remember one time because there was a field office that was set up right there in Blythe right on main street. I remember it created a lot of controversy.  He wasn’t there that long but he came and gave a speech about organizing and he stirred up the town, let me tell you.

NARRATION
Chavez and Dolores Huerta co-founded the United Farmworkers Union.  Before that, farmworkers had been virtually abandoned by organized labor. Chavez and Huerta began the difficult task of organizing them, emphasizing the importance of self-determination and the dignity of their work. They seized upon a novel approach against the growers in order to improve the wages of farmworkers – a nationwide boycott against eating grapes. In a surprising victory beyond anyone’s expectations, the boycott garnered the attention of Robert F Kennedy and captured the imagination of many Americans who knew very little about how our food got on to our tables. When Chunky first saw Cesar Chavez, his horizons began to expand far beyond Blythe.  

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
He was very dynamic, he was calm, but yet he was powerful. The way that he delivered the things that he was talking about, everything made sense.  It was like he was opening your eyes, you know, about very simple things that we always took for granted, you know. Yeah, you know he’s right, we never had drinking water on the fields. We always had to bring our own water. You know, we never had toilet facilities out there, we always had to go into the bushes, you know, and the ladies that worked out there had to do the same thing, you know, and that wasn’t right.  And maybe a little higher wage wouldn’t be too bad either.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
One day I was working during the weekends at a ranch right there in Blythe for a rancher. And the rancher was down there watching along with my dad.  And he told my father, he said “You know, Ramon, some day when you’re not here anymore, your son is going to make a very good foreman on this ranch.” So I said this guy has already got plans for me, man.  You know what I mean?  He’s already got my whole life planned out.  And I said I need to get out of here.

FADE TO BLACK

NARRATION
The world around Chunky was changing dramatically. Fidel Castro had consolidated the Cuban revolution. The Vietnam War provoked anti-war protests around the country.  An expanding civil rights movement spurred waves of demonstrations.  African Americans and others without access to power and privilege demanded a place at the table.

Mexican Americans were marching and demonstrating in cities across the southwest. The movimiento, as it came to be called, put us on the national stage for the first time.

RODOLFO “CORKY” GONZALES 
We came here to build the new Chicano movement, that’s what we came here for.

SUPER ID
Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales

DOLORES HUERTA 
You cannot close your eyes and your ears to us any longer. You cannot pretend that we do not exist.

SUPER ID
Dolores Huerta

CESAR CHAVEZ 
They announced that they will not recognize the association and they will not bargain with us so, que siga la huelga.

SUPER ID
Cesar Chavez

SUPER subtitle for Spanish words
Let the strike continue

NARRATION
In our nation’s capitol, President Lyndon Johnson backed landmark legislation aimed at securing and guaranteeing the civil rights and voting rights of powerless communities. In order to level the playing field, the federal government created affirmative action - a national program to help historically excluded and disadvantaged students attend college. Chunky was a perfect candidate for the program. A local activist and friend of the family, Miguel Figueroa, was instrumental in helping Chunky apply to college.

MIGUEL FIGUEROA
Chunky wasn’t very impressive back in those days.  He wasn’t a great football player, or basketball player or anything like that.  He was just Chunky, and he wanted to go to college.

SUPER ID
Miguel Figueroa
Community Organizer

MIGUEL FIGUEROA
The original plan through the Mexican American Political Association was that we were going to educate our youth, and they were going to come back to their respective communities and build community there.  They were going to become the chief of police, the postmasters, the superintendent of schools, the principals.  They were going to build our community and enjoy the American dream. They were going to be like everybody else, only when they became the leaders, we thought, we would end discrimination

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
Not too long after that I went to check the mail right there in front of my house in Blythe and there was a letter there from San Diego State College.  It had my name on it, so I opened it up.  And it said “Congratulations; you have been accepted to San Diego State.”  You know I didn’t know whether to jump for joy or, you know or get scared.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
It was a culture shock.  The town I came from had like 9,000 people. And then we came to San Diego State and come to find that San Diego State had a population of 20,000 at that time. The school was twice as big as the town I came from.

HERMAN BACA
There was 68 Spanish surnames, not necessarily Mexicans. It could have been Filipinos. It could have been persons from South America. It could have been people from Mexico, but 68 out of a student enrollment of 20,000.

SUPER ID
Herman Baca
Community Activist

PEPE VILLARINO
He was wandering around campus. A little short, well rounded kid.  He’s still well rounded, as a matter of fact. But it seemed like he was lost.

SUPER ID
Jose “Pepe” Villarino
Retired Professor, San Diego State

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
Had it not been for the Chicano Studies Department and a professor by the name of Jose Villarino who kind of took me under his wing, you know, and kept me focused.  Because you can get frightened to a certain extent, where you just say, well, forget all this.  I’m going back home and be a farmer all my life you know.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
The teachers show up you know with ties and white shirts, and you know long sleeved shirts and teach a class.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
We took a class called Aztec thought and culture.  And here comes Alurista, a little short guy, small, beads around his neck and talking slang, and broken English, and Spanish, and slang, and everything else.  But lo and behold, man, the guy, he opened our eyes to a lot of things that we were not aware of, growing up as Chicanos that put a lot of the puzzle together for us.  And in putting that puzzle together, we also put our, we put our conscience together, our minds together, our souls, our spirits.  

NARRATION
As Chunky’s eyes were opened, he learned more about our community’s history. He connected more directly with his indigenous background. His mother’s family was Yaqui Indian from Sonora and he found strength in his indigenous identity.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
I think we learned from the indigenous brothers and sisters.  We don’t own anything.  When we die, we don’t take nothing with us.  This land is here for everybody.

NARRATION
Many cities around the country were undergoing a redevelopment process called urban renewal.  It sounded positive but it devastated many inner city communities. In San Diego, under the guise of urban renewal, a new interstate highway divided the Chicano community in two. To make amends, the state of California promised to build a community park in the barrio.  Instead, without warning, the city abandoned that plan and began building a highway patrol station on the land designated for the community park.

OLIVIA PUENTES REYNOLDS
I remember we got a call, and so they asked for help. We talked about it, and I remember him saying "Are you going to go?" And I said "Absolutely." And a lot of students went.

SUPER ID
Olivia Puentes-Reynolds
Fellow Student

PEPE VILLARINO
He was in a Chicano Studies class and they alerted us and we all stopped our classes and marched over to the park.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
I said to myself, you know, I want to be part of this. I want to be part of this whole - I didn’t call it a movement at the time - but whatever it was, I wanted to be a part of it.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
You know being on strike is very boring because all you do is walk in circles.   So one day we thought, “What can we do to liven it up. Hey, bring your guitar or something.” So we brought a guitar.  And then we realize, “hey there’s things happening, let’s write a verse about this.” So we began to write verses about things that were happening, next thing you know we got two verses, then we got three, then we got four, hey we got a song now, La Guitara Campesina.

SUPER ID
La Guitara Campesina
Music and Lyrics by Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez

SUPER subtitles for Spanish lyrics from La Guitarra Campesina
My campesino brothers
I have come here to sing
In this country which is so rich
We are learning how to fight
In this country which is so rich
We are learning how to fight
I come from the Imperial Valley
From Coachella and San Joaquin
To fight against the growers
And to finally defeat them.
To fight against the growers
And to finally defeat them.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
When I was there, I looked around and I saw the seriousness of the people, you know. It’s something I had never really seen in people struggling, you know, the kids digging the ground, the grandmothers yelling at people and telling them, “Hey, do this, do that.” And yet at the same time, they were making food for everybody.  It was unbelievable. I said, “Wow, these people are for real! What they’re doing here is for real.” And I began to see the power there was in music.

SUPER ID
“Chicano Park Samba”
Music & Lyrics by Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez

CHUNKY SANCHEZ Singing
In the year 1970, in the city of San Diego
Under the Coronado Bridge lied a little piece of land
A little piece of land that
The Chicano community of Logan Heights
Wanted to make into a park
A park where all the chavalitos could come and play in
So they wouldn't have to play in the street
And get run over by a car.
A park, where all the viejitos could come en la tarde
And just sit down and watch the sun go down.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
We think of a park as a park, but when you really stop and look at it, a park is a very sacred part of our community.  A park is where you take your children to go play.  A park is where you go talk to people and exchange ideas, you know.  It’s a sacred place.  It’s almost like going to church. You’re going to go there to interact with the community.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
Chicano Park was very important because it taught us that if you want something in life, you have to work for it. You have to struggle for it. Nothing is going to be handed to you on a silver platter

CHUNKY SANCHEZ Singing
Under the bridge, under the bridge,

FADE TO BLACK

NARRATION
Chunky had arrived in San Diego at a crucial moment.  The city’s Chicano community was fighting for self-determination on many fronts.  The takeover of Chicano Park led the park to become a permanent artistic and cultural monument for the community.  

SUPER ID
“La Rondalla Amerindia de Aztlan”

ESTEVAN AZCONA
In San Diego you had, groups like La Rondalla Amerindia de Aztlan, formed as a group of students at San Diego State University in the Chicano Studies department, who were coming together, learning songs under the direction of one of the professors, Jose Villarino. And they would go out to marches and rallies, here locally and up and down the state.

SUPER ID
Estevan Azcona
Ethnomusicologist

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
We began to follow Cesar through the State of California on his campaign you know and just opening up the rallies for him.  And this was very enlightening as well, because you learned a lot.

GUS CHAVEZ
When Chunky came into the picture and applied the guitar and the music, you know, it just changed the -- all of the -- the dynamics of, of the, of the student movement.  

SUPER ID
Gus Chavez
Equal Opportunity Program, San Diego State

GUS CHAVEZ VO
Because they were it!  In addition to that, it was the anti-war movement at the same time.  And he started incorporating -- some of the language of the anti-war into his songs, and pushing for education over, over war. And again, it just kind of captured the spirit of what the whole struggle was about.

MIGUEL VAZQUEZ
We’d be out in the back of a pickup truck and the strikes. And we’d be, we’d be with the picketers in front of the fields, out there like in the Bakersfield area, out in the country. And a lot of esquiroles were there.

SUPER subtitle for Spanish word
Esquiroles – scabs/strike breakers

SUPER ID
Miguel Vazquez
Member, La Rondalla

MIGUEL VAZQUEZ
So we’d be singing to them. We’d be holding a couple of, people would be holding a couple of the loud speakers. And we’d be jamming and singing to them. And then I’d start talking to them.  I’d say, “OK, Quieren otra cancion, tiran una durazno?”  

SUPER subtitle for Spanish words
If you want another song, throw a peach

MIGUEL VAZQUEZ
So they’d throw a peach up you know. They wanted another song. Almost all Mexicanos, right? So we knew they would love the music. So we’d sing them another song and that we just, that was kind of the catch that that we, the members of La Rondalla, were helping pull “esquiroles” out of the fields. Pretty soon we’d ask them to come out and join the other brothers and the union. Pretty soon, you’d see them coming out of the fields. It was pretty cool, the music you know carries a heavy message.

MIGUEL VAZQUEZ
Music was a…was very big tool for Cesar. He wouldn’t let people talk for too long without bringing in somebody to sing a song.

MARCO ANTONIO RODRIGUEZ VO
There was always a possibility of violence. And we knew about, about what had happened to, to farm workers before you know, that were beaten up in that same type of demonstration.

MIGUEL VAZQUEZ
We had eggs thrown at us. We had tomatoes thrown at us. People would even spit on us sometimes. I had people that would actually shove me, push me, tear my, and the first thing I thought, you know I was like twenty two, twenty three years old,  I wanted to crack their heads, but I knew that wasn’t the best way to do it. So we would walk. We would, we would just walk away and go set up somewhere else and start playing somewhere else. It was just very inspiring to see grown men turning the other cheek and walking away, because they knew that was a strong thing to do.  

LINDA LEGERRETTE
Whenever there was anything, any kind of an event that the farmworkers were having, Cesar would always call or he’d have someone call and say, “Can you get Chunky to come up and play for us?”  I mean, he just loved Chunky.
 
SUPER ID
Linda LeGerrete
Community Activist

CARLOS LEGERRETTE VO
Chunky was absolutely César Chavez’s favorite musician.  He starts to become an icon in the southwest.

SUPER ID
Carlos LeGerrete
Community Activist

CHUNKY SANCHEZ VO
Touring up and down with this group, playing everywhere, broadened my views and my visions on life itself, on people, on dealing with people, you know.  Coming from the small farm town, I began to realize that there was a lot more to life and to the world than what was back in that small town.  

MARCO ANTONIO RODRIGUEZ VO
We started to go to places like UCLA, Santa Barbara, Berkeley, San Francisco State.
We met Joan Baez at the Farm Workers conventions in Fresno, because she was also invited to play for the farm workers at the convention, at least on four occasions that I can remember.  

MARCO ANTONIO RODRIGUEZ VO
And she heard us play at the convention and then invited us to participate in recording a song, No Nos Moveran, a record that she was producing at the time in Spanish.

SUPER subtitles for Spanish lyrics
We shall not be moved
We shall not be moved
Just like a tree standing by the river
We shall not be moved

FADE TO BLACK

SUPER IDs
Madrid, Tokyo, London, Paris, Berlin, Mexico

NARRATION
Young people all over the world were demonstrating and demanding change. In Mexico and Latin America, artists and musicians were taking up the call for social revolution. In 1973, Chunky decided to visit Mexico City for the first time to learn more about the country where his parents were born. He was joining many Chicanos who were traveling to Mexico with the same curiosity, eager to visit their homeland.  It was like a pilgrimage.  

CHUNKY SANCHEZ VO
I was flabbergasted by the Pyramids, the mercados.  Everything was Mexican. This was my roots. Where have you been all my life, you know what I mean. You climb the Pyramid of the Sun and you stand up there, open your arms up to the gods, man. It was like a whole reincarnation of you as a person.  

NARRATION
Throughout Latin America, musicians were putting their lives at risk, protesting oppressive and abusive actions on the part of their political leaders. It was during these turbulent times that Chunky arrived in Mexico.

ESTEVAN AZCONA
During this visit he had the opportunity to attend a festival of protest songs -- of Latin American protest song. There was a big concert being held. It was a great opportunity to take the Chicano struggle to an international stage.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
And lo and behold I got there on the day that they were having this big musical festival in Mexico City. The protest music of Latin America.  And there was all these people. The whole place was packed.  It was a political, musical event.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ VO
Everybody and anybody that was anything in protest music at the time was there.

SUPER subtitles for Spanish lyrics
This is the era of the sun
the Fifth Sun
It brought Spanish settlers
with friars and all
It brought Jesus Christ
and Richard Nixon
It brought smallpox
and even syphilis
And now instead of Nahuatl,
I speak Spanish

SUPER ID
El Quinto Sol
Performed by Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez

CHUNKY SANCHEZ OC
I got there and one of the organizers said “You know what, we have all kinds of representation here but we don’t have anybody representing Chicanos. Would you like to represent Chicanos?” I said “OK.”  And I did some huelga songs and talked about Cesar Chavez and how that was all related to everything that was happening there.

SUPER subtitles for Spanish lyrics
Chicano brothers,
let us not weaken
look inside yourself
for the Indian of the past
Only his nobility
and his humanity
Will give you the strength
to gain your freedom
But this sun is finished
the light is dimming
The gringo oppressor
is now trembling
All the world’s poor
are now marching
Sing my brothers and sisters
to a new era
Sing my brothers and sisters
to a new era

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
When I came back to San Diego after that I was fired up. I produced a cancionero, a song book of protest songs called Cantos Rebeldes de las Americas

SUPER ID for Spanish words
Rebel Songs of the Americas

CHUNKY SANCHEZ VO
and if you looked at the guitar, as it goes out, it transforms into a rifle barrel.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
I began to realize the songs could be used not just to entertain people and get them drunk and get them happy and hung over, but rather also to educate them and put a consciousness in their minds, in their hearts, in their souls, that they are worth something, that they do have value in this life that they can struggle for something better, and they don’t have to be put down all the time.  And that’s why I came back with all that energy

CHUNKY SANCHEZ VO
That’s when I began to realize…that…I couldn’t really go back to the Rondalla and implement that…it would be better for me to begin to develop another group and the only guy that was really listening to me and learning the songs with me was my brother Rick…so hey there’s two of us.

SUPER subtitles for Spanish lyrics
Through my mother I’m Mexican
But by destiny I’m an American
I’m of the bronze race
I’m a Mexican American
I understand English, yes sir
I also speak Spanish, yes sir
I am proud of who I am
because that’s what God wants

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
I was influenced by a variety of different things, my mother’s music, Los Trios, the sixties music, it was just like a whole capirotada, a whole mixture of different things that began to influence me.  

NARRATION
Chunky was joining a larger artistic movement of singers and artists emerging out of the movimiento of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement. This included Los Lobos, Luis Valdez and El Teatro Campesino along with talented singers like Daniel Valdez, Agustin Lira, Delia Moreno, Jesus "Chuy" Negrete, and Veto Ruiz. They sang about Aztlan and the ancestral rights that Chicanos had to this legendary homeland.  Musical groups included Flor del Pueblo, Conjunto Aztlan, Los Perros del Pueblo and Los Peludos.

SUPER subtitles for Spanish lyrics
Sitting in the canyon
Sitting in the canyon
There was Maria Chuchena
With her dress on her legs
picking white flowers
there was Maria Chuchena
Sitting in the canyon

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
You know things that we went through kind of led up to this corrido right here that we’re going to do for you called the Trilingual Corrido because it’s in English, Spanish and barrio dialect.

SUPER ID
“Trilingual Corrido”
Music & Lyrics by Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez

SUPER subtitles for Spanish lyrics
I was born here in Aztlan
And my barrio was California
Although you are from the other side
The customs are all the same.
I was raised picking grapes,
beets and melons.
All the bosses looked the same
They were fat and bald.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
I began to realize that we had no borders, that there were no borders to, to wanting to appreciate and to play different types of music and later on, as I began to develop, I realized that you could take from both sides of the border, and combine them and come up with a new style of music - Bilingualism, biculturalism.

SUPER subtitles for Spanish lyrics
They forced me in school
to learn English.
Now they all call me a pocho
because of the way I speak.    

MIGUEL VAZQUEZ
Mexican, Spanish and Spanglish, the whole song goes back and forth. Even though you speak Spanglish, you understand what’s happening. And it was funny, it was entertaining but it was very heavy.

SUPER subtitles for Spanish lyrics
It’s beautiful to be Chicano
fighting for the entire cause
Looking for your freedom
in whatever form it takes

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
Somebody called us to go do a peña in LA we didn’t have a name yet.  They asked him the name of the group. We’re the Los Alacranes Mojados,” being silly and they took it for real and they put that on the chart over there in concert you know in La Pena in LA in the Haymarket, “Los Alacranes Mojados.”

SUPER ID
Los Alacranes Mojados
The Wetback Scorpions

RICARDO SANCHEZ
They asked Chunky, “why the scorpion?  You know why not a dog, or a, I don’t know a cat, or,” and he said, “well, at that time like our music was kind of like relevant to what the scorpion does, where with his tail, the scorpion injects his venom into its prey.  And with our music, we inject consciousness into the audience with the songs.”

CHUNKY SANCHEZ VO
People would say why do you use mojados? Because we took a negative word that’s always used in our neighborhood, even by our own people, you know like, like against our own people.

RICARDO SANCHEZ VO
You know the undocumented worker you know, el mojado, you know the “illegal alien”

RICARDO SANCHEZ VO
We wanted to take that word mojado  

CHUNKY SANCHEZ VO
…to give it a positive connotation and to give it some pride.

SUPER subtitles for Spanish lyrics
It’s my fate to go
to the fields in the valley

MARIO AGUILAR VO
In San Diego there really wasn’t a group like Los  HYPERLINK "http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/alacrán" Alacranes Mojados…because at that time, many groups didn’t create music, Chicano music.  

SUPER ID
Mario Aguilar
Member, Los Alacranes Mojados

MARIO AGUILAR
Music you can dance to, you can sing to, you can drink to, but it had a lot of profound meaning behind the melodies and the words because it talked about our reality as Chicanos

SUPER subtitles for Spanish lyrics
Many thanks to Cesar Chavez
we don’t have the short hoe anymore

SUPER ID
Josie Talamantez
Arts Administrator

JOSIE TALAMANTEZ
Chicanos created their own space, our own identity.  And the third space, as it’s referred to, is primarily because we didn’t fit anywhere.  You know you don’t quite fit in Mexico, you don’t quite fit over here.  

MARIO AGUILAR
We go to Mexico, we’re pochos or gringos.  In the United States, we can be here ten generations, we’re still Mexicans, you know, go back from where you came from

JOSIE TALAMANTEZ VO
So we said OK what do we do now?  We create our own space.  So that’s where Chunky fits, you know.

NARRATION
Chicanos were experiencing discrimination on many fronts. Besides being denied basic human rights in the United States, some Mexicans saw us as traitors to their country. We found ourselves caught in the middle between two societies that simultaneously rejected us. Because some of us no longer spoke fluent Spanish, some Mexicans saw us as “not Mexican enough.” They called us “pochos”.

SUPER ID
“Pocho”
Music & Lyrics by Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
“Pocho”, I knew I was Mexican, I looked Mexican, but why did I have trouble speaking Spanish
“Pocho”, all the confusion aroused the curiosity in me. I began to question the implications of the word.
“Pocho”, does the label really fit me?  Maybe it does.  And if it does, is it my fault?

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
Pochismo, the culture of pochismo was very prevalent in you.  I remember my mother correcting me many times, “No hables asi,” you know, “Estas hablando como pachuco, you know.  

SUPER subtitles for Spanish words
Don’t talk like that
You’re talking like a gang member

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
When I would say the word “ese, orale” or something. You were always being corrected about the way speak, you weren’t speaking properly, you weren’t speaking right. What the hell, but what is the right language man, you know what I mean?

CHUNKY SANCHEZ (Singing)       
“Pocho”, I began to realize that I had absorbed the strengths of two cultures and lifestyles. Was that good or bad?
“Pocho”, good, que no?  I have an innovative way of expressing myself that relates to both sides of the border.  
“Pocho”, what’ll it be today?  Tacos or hamburgers?  Pedro Infante or the Rolling Stones?  

MIGUEL VAZQUEZ VO
I got tears in my eyes the first time that I heard that it was tough. I didn’t speak English until I started school and I didn’t realize that anybody else understood what I went through as much as, obviously, Chunky did and a whole shit load of us did. But that song brings it out.

SUPER ID
Miguel Vazquez
Musician

MARIO AGUILAR
And in our third space, right here in the middle, we are Chicanos, and here’s a place where we’re safe, where we know who we are, we know where we come from, we know where we want to go, and it doesn’t matter what the other two spaces think of us because this is our place, this is our land.  

CHUNKY SANCHEZ (Singing)       
“Pocho”, you know what?  I am a pocho. A proud pocho.  Proud because I have survived cultural denials and attacks on my soul.
“Pocho”, si mon que yes, soy Ramon Sanchez, but better known as Chunky, a little bit of that and a little bit of this, that’s who I am, one bad ass pocho. Quitate before I get mad, ese.

SUPER subtitles for Spanish lyrics
I’m Chicano, I’m brown,
Pure Chicano, a brother with honor
When I’m told there’s a revolution
I defend my people with great courage
I am proud, I have my faith
I’m different, I’m brown
I have culture, I have heart
And no bastard will take that from me.

FADE TO BLACK

MARIO AGUILAR
Chunky told me, you know, we’re going to record an album.  We wanted to see if you would play violin on a couple of tracks. And I said sure, that’d be awesome, you know.
    
CHUNKY SANCHEZ
We did our first album as a group here in San Diego called Rolas de Aztlan. We were thinking about what are we going to put in the front cover. We didn’t want to be just standing there, you know, holding our guitars, you know, looking pretty.  So what we said you know what would be a good picture, is Los Alacranes Mojados, is jumping a fence, right.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ VO
So we start thinking, so where’s a good fence around the neighborhood here, you know, and we thought you know what, that’s not right because we’d be lying to the people, if we just jumped over a fence right here in the neighborhood, if we’re going to jump a fence let’s jump the real fence.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ VO
So here we go the next day with our instruments and stuff and we found the fence and we saw an area that didn’t have a whole lot of barb wires

MARIO AGUILAR VO
It’s on that road that goes right by the border.  So people are driving by, they’re slowing down, like what are these locos doing?  They’re crossing the border into Mexico this way?  That’s crazy.  

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
Back then I could still climb a fence, man, so here I go up the fence I’m on top and I throw one leg over and I’m holding myself up and then my arms start getting tired and I start going down the fence against the little jagged thing. So I asked them they gave me a towel then they handed me one instrument and the other two posed on the bottom like we were handing them the instruments as we were coming over.

MARIO AGUILAR VO
And so before we know it, there’s a bunch of people on the Mexican side, watching us.  

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
Right in the middle of doing all this we see the immigration helicopter, the migra coming. There’s a jeep hauling ass right towards us too, immigration. A Patrol Officer jumps out in his green uniform with a radio in his hand, and he says, “Chunky is that you?” It was a friend of mine from Blythe, California that I went to school with named Romero Garcia.

MARIO AGUILAR
So before we know it, the immigration guy’s there drinking beers with us, and the people in Mexico are sitting there applauding, and we’re singing, and then when we’re done we look at our ice chest and all our beers are gone.  So, it was, quite a, like I said, a once in a lifetime experience, to be there for the  HYPERLINK "http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/alacrán" Alacránes first international concert.

NARRATION
On the national stage, the civil rights movements of African Americans, women, and Chicanos led to many victories for these historically excluded communities. Many Americans celebrated these achievements but not everyone did.  After Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980, he and his supporters passed legislation which scaled back federal civil rights protections, weakened the social-safety net and redistributed wealth from the bottom to the top. As Chicanos and other communities of color experienced ongoing discrimination, Chunky looked for ways to continue getting his message across.  

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
We had people that were against Huelga songs, you know.  They didn’t want to hear anything that had to do with Cesar Chavez.  Some of the schools didn’t want us to do anything to do with Chavez. So we said, “Okay we won’t do El Picket Sign, but we’ll do De Colores.”

SUPER subtitles for Spanish lyrics
Of colors
the fields dress themselves in colors
in the Spring time
Of colors
The little birds are colorful
that come from far away

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
De Colores speaks of many colors, many colors put together to make one beautiful thing, like a sarape, you know, and the Union was comprise of many different people, you know, Arab farm workers, Filipino farm workers, Mexican farm workers, Anglo farm workers. So that was like the sarape that we were talking about.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
Well, we began to experience a whole bunch of things, man. Number one was that a lot of people were not really ready to, to listen to a whole lot of protest music man. So we began to realize that we had to have a balance somewhere in there if we didn’t want to lose our crowds and our audiences, because people didn’t want to come to hear you lecture, they wanted to hear some music. So we had to make them laugh in between the songs because we found that when people are laughing they will swallow things a lot better, you know.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
To a lot of us, in the history books in this country, Pancho Villa is just another fat Mexican with a mustache. Man, there’s a whole bunch of those, verdad? que no?  They always stereotype us as looking that way. But we know that we’re not that way, man.

OLIVIA PUENTES-REYNOLDS
I believe that Chunky, in choosing this path for his life, I'm sure that there was sacrifice and has been sacrifice for him. Because it's not a career that provides -- provides well.

SUPER ID
Olivia Puentes-Reynolds
Community Activist

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
Sometimes I wonder, you know, why I didn’t do something else. Where I could be right now pretty well off, real rich, you know, basking in the sun somewhere. I’m not dirt poor. I could be better off financially, but something just kept me going in the things that I was doing, in the cultural work that I was doing, that later on I realized, you know what, because there were times when I doubted myself.  What am I doing wrong? Am I doing the wrong thing?

NARRATION
Chunky was still wondering if he had made the right choice in committing to a life of service to his community.

NARRATION
Like many artists inspired by the Chicano movement, Chunky struggled to find a balance between his professional career and his personal life.  He married Isabel Enrique and within 10 years, the family had grown to six children.

NARRATION
As Chunky struggled to provide for his family, he took a variety of jobs - assisting every year with the annual celebration of Chicano Park as a member of the Steering Committee, being a community liaison with the schools, working on gang prevention, teaching music and coaching little league.  Through it all he used art to build community.  Many local schools invited Chunky to come and perform.  There he saw young people struggling with many of the same issues of identity and racism which he had confronted a generation earlier.  

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
And, you know, all of this is based on one thing, man. Orgullo. Pride. What everybody here in this room has right here, man. Pride. Orgullo. You know, a lot of times you're down and out, you're on the streets, you got no money, your girlfriend left you, your boyfriend left you, whatever, you know – all ahuitado, you want to cry, you know, feel sorry for yourself, you know. Chale. But you know what? Something keeps you hanging on, man. Something pulls you through it. And what's that? Pride, ¿que no? Orgullo. Orgullo.

SUPER subtitles for Spanish word
ahuitado = bummed out

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
They asked me to go do a presentation at Hoover High and I figured I’m gonna talk to these Mexican American kids.  I just don’t want to walk in there and start singing a whole bunch of ranchera songs, boracho songs, just like another mariachi.  What can I go in there and talk to them about and perform to them that will motivate them to find themselves.

RUDY GUEVARRA
He was just this, this presence of energy, right, that just was amazing.  And you know he would come with his guitar, and you know as soon as he walked in, everybody was going you know wild.

SUPER ID
Rudy Guevarra
Former Student/Now Professor

MARIA FIGUEROA
I remember hearing them and thinking wow.  Wow, this is great…great music, because part of the, again, academic experience was learning… learning some, you know, literature around history of…of oppressed peoples in the U.S.  

SUPER ID
Maria Figueroa
Former Student/Now Professor

MARIA FIGUEROA
That was the magic, the moment that I saw him and the group as a 17-year-old you know young woman.

RUDY GUEVARRA
I think one of the earliest influences and one of the greatest because it was so early on, was how he imparted that example to me as a student watching him perform, and impart this, this history, and this culture, and this pride, and feeling that, you know, our people did something, that we do matter.  

MARIA FIGUEROA
It’s party music. It’s festive music, celebratory.  But it’s also consciousness raising music.  And so I think it really stuck with me for, forever.  

FADE TO BLACK

SUPER lower third
Immigration Rights Rally
San Diego

CHUNKY SANCHEZ ON STAGE
The scourge of history are on my face, and in the veins of my body that aches. Lloro sangre, grito libertad.  I do not ask for freedom. We are freedom.

SUPER subtitles for Spanish lyrics
I weep blood
I shout freedom

CHUNKY SANCHEZ singing
We are not afraid

NARRATION
In 2006, Chunky participated in the biggest public demonstration in San Diego history.  As the Latino community became the largest ethnic minority group in the country, shrill voices fanned the flames of bigotry and discrimination.  We saw a growing chorus of anti-immigrant rhetoric across the nation, afraid of the increasingly diverse country we had become. Chunky joined over 2 million people around the United States protesting a bill in Congress which would make felons out of all undocumented immigrants.

VIRGINIA ZARP
Some people can say, you know, that “Some of this music that has social justice lyrics, and social justice meaning. It’s so passé. It's so ‘60s, it’s so ‘70s.” I would say that's kind of a cynical attitude. A lot of these social justice songs are just as meaningful today as they were, 20, 30 years ago. It's never going to go out of style. Unfortunately, injustice will always be around, and it will always be in style in different ways.

SUPER ID
Virginia Zarp
Chunky’s Sister

QUINO MCWHINNEY
The reason I call myself a “Chunkista” is because I want to be an artist like Chunky that stays active and in the movement over the course of their lifetimes.

SUPER ID
Quino McWhinney
Musician

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
When you bring the people out to the streets, like today, people get a visual idea of -- of how many people are really upset with what's going on. And that's great.  If we could mobilize people like this all the time, we could change the world.

FADE TO BLACK

VIRGINIA ZARP
He’s always had three, four, five balls up in the air, and he's been tossing ‘em around and he’s been juggling them. That, in and of itself, takes a toll on people's body.  I haven’t figured out to what extent but I do think there is a certain amount of denial in his health

VIRGINIA ZARP VO
Because of his sense of social justice I think he has a tendency to say “Hey, it doesn't matter. This is important enough for me to make a personal sacrifice with my body regardless of how tired I am or if my voice is going. I'll go where I can do the most good.”

CONRAD LOZANO
Basically when the band started, when Los Lobos started, we…we decided to put all our electric instruments away and concentrate on learning how to play Mexican folk music.  

SUPER ID
Conrad Lozano
Member, Los Lobos

CONRAD LOZANO VO
And we thought wow, we’re the first Chicanos to do this you know. And then, all along we didn’t realize that there was a band in San Diego doing the same thing you know.  

SUPER ID
Louie Perez
Member, Los Lobos

LOUIE PEREZ VO
You know I was watching him when he was singing today and there was that look in his eyes.  You know when he’s singing it, he’s believing every word he’s saying.  You know he’s just incredible.

CONRAD LOZANO VO
The community really loves him, and they really cherish what he does. You know, I’m proud of the guy.  I’m proud of him.  I mean we don’t have that kind of a connection with our community like he does.  That’s really special.

FADE TO BLACK

NARRATION
In the fall of 2013, Chunky was invited to be recognized at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. Every year the National Endowment for the Arts honors our nation’s folk and traditional artists for their efforts to conserve America’s culture for future generations.

When he first received the invitation, it didn’t look like he would be able to travel. But at the last moment, his doctors gave him the okay to come.  

JOAN SHIGEKAWA
So from San Diego, California, an artist committed to both community and conscience, a teacher who mentors local youth and educates students through a rich mix of storytelling, humor and song. For his contributions to the excellence of Chicano music and culture, the National Endowment for the Arts honors Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez.

SUPER ID
Joan Shigekawa
National Endowment for the Arts
 
CHUNKY SANCHEZ VO
I want to thank my wife is here, Isabel.  I have two sons that are here, Mauricio and Ramon, two daughters, Izcalli, Esmi, and my grandson Trey, right there.   

CHUNKY SANCHEZ VO
A lot of people didn’t understand, what is Chicano? Well to me, Chicano is not necessarily someone that was born in a certain place but rather a state of mind and a state of heart and understanding.

SUPER TITLE
National Heritage Concert
Washington, DC 2013

NICK SPITZER
Will you be alright if I put the guitar in Chunky’s hands?  Here we go.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ
Ready?

NICK SPITZER  
Vamos

CHUNKY SANCHEZ Singing
Well it’s time to shine the light
On the young souls of the Earth
Let it shine and illuminate
The beauty of their worth

SUPER ID
“Rising Souls”
Music & Lyrics by Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez

CHUNKY SANCHEZ Singing
I said it’s time to shine the light
On the young souls of the Earth
Let it shine and illuminate
The beauty of their worth
We got to educate, yeah
Not incarcerate
So the humanity will shine
Educate not incarcerate

CHUNKY SANCHEZ VO
This was my mission.  If God put me on earth to do something, this is what he put me here to do, and I have no other obligation but to fulfill this mission, to the end of my time. My mission was not to work in Hollywood. My mission was to work in the barrios, in the fields, in the prisons, in the schools.  Anywhere there was people that needed to hear something inspirational, that’s where my mission was, and still is.  And that’s the way I look at it. It’s been a mission, continues to be a mission, and I’m still on duty as you say…still on duty.

SUPER ID
King Chavez School, San Diego

SUPER ID
Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez
1951-2016

NARRATION
We lost Chunky on October 28, 2016.  He is survived by his wife and five children and 16 grandchildren.  Hundreds of friends and family attended his services in San Diego, celebrating his life and work through three days of ceremonies. Chunky was a master storyteller whose battle for dignity and justice is more relevant than ever. He showed us the healing power of music.  His songs demand that we stand up and be counted in the journey towards freedom.

CHUNKY SANCHEZ Singing
No need to kill another
Over a neighborhood
Vamos mis amigos
Let’s try some brotherhood

[Start credits here]

No need to kill another
Over a neighborhood
We got to educate, not incarcerate,
So the humanity will shine
Educate, not incarcerate,
So the humanity will shine

© Espinosa Productions