Oscar “Zeta” Acosta Essay

Abstract The paper that I wrote talks about Oscar â€Å"Zeta† Acosta and his impact on the Chicano community. In the leaders contribution I talk about how Acosta was an attorney for the Chicano movement and generated controversy. In the leaders contribution section I talk how Acosta addressed political, social, and educational injustices against Chicanos. Acosta used his time and profession to help the Chicano movement. He contributed through two of his books that are a major part of the Chicano literacy renaissance. He also clashed with the Judicial system a lot of times for reasons that he thought were right. In the section others perspectives I talked about how he was scrutinized by many people but was still recognized through his significance in the Chicano movement. Leaders Context Oscar â€Å"Zeta† Acosta was born in El Paso, Texas on April 8, 1935. A little after he turned five he and his family moved to California’s San Joaquin Valley because his family couldn’t make a living during the Depression. His parents started working as migrant field workers. Acosta’s father was different from other people. He had a passion for competition he had to compete with people more then anything. When Acosta was little his father would always make him argue with him. As he said in his book Oscar â€Å"Zeta† Acosta: The Uncollected Works † I guess that is where I became as nasty as I am.† (5). When Acosta went to high school he wasn’t one of the average Chicanos going to school. He became involved in sports and music he was also president of his class. He got a scholarship for music at the University of Southern California. But he decided not to go. After finishing high school, Acosta joined the U.S. Air Force. Acosta then worked his way through college, becoming the first member of his family to graduate. Acosta attended night classes at San Francisco Law School and passed the California Bar exam in 1966 on his second try. (Oscar â€Å"Zeta† Acosta: The Uncollected works) In 1967, Acosta began working as an antipoverty attorney for the East Legal Aid Society in Oakland, California. Then he moved to East Los Angeles, where he joined the Chicano Movement and generated controversy as an activist attorney during the years 1968-1973. But his activities began in Oakland but it was in East Los Angeles where he gained notoriety. He defended various Chicano protest groups and activists such as the Saint Basil 21 and Rodolfo â€Å"Corky† Gonzalez. As an attorney, he figured prominently in legal cases which addressed political, social, and educational injustices against Chicanos. Acosta is also a well known author of two most important novels of the Chicano Protest Movement. An Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), and The Revolt of the Cockroach People (1973) . Acosta’s characteristics involve him being savage, nasty, not giving up nor letting anyone out him down as he said in his novel The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo â€Å"I don’t give a shit what other people have to say about me†(130). I believe that all of these characteristics has made him, become who he was. Because he didn’t care what others thought about him, he kept on going when things got hard . Acosta’s father had to do a lot with him becoming like this, because Acosta’s father would push Acosta to become better then anyone else made him become the nasty interior person he was. He would never show his emotions and never really found his true identity because Acosta’s father would always push him to do extracurricular activities, and he didn’t have that extra time to spend it with the other Chicanos out on the block. It was until later on working as a Legal Aid and saw the Chicanos rioting and walking out for causes he didn’t know existed. Leaders Contribution Oscar â€Å"Zeta† Acosta contributed to the Chicano community through two novels that he wrote. Those two novels were a literary contribution to the Chicano community and movement. He used his profession as an attorney to defend Mexican/ Chicano walk outs for better education. Acosta demonstrated his contribution through joining the Chicano movement. He used his profession as an attorney to defend various Chicano protest groups and activists such as the Saint Basil 21 which was â€Å"The Catholics for la Raza† the coalition in an ill-fated protest at St. Basil’s on Christmas Eve, 1969 and also the Rodolfo â€Å"Corky† Gonzalez where he led a Chicano contingent to the Poor People’s March on Washington D.C and issued a â€Å"plan of the Barrio† which demanded better housing, education and restitution of pueblo lands. Acosta figured prominently in legal cases which addressed political, social, and educational injustices against Chicanos. He frequently clashed with the judicial system, winning ardent supporters as well as making political enemies. He also contributed two novels that he wrote called Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), and The Revolt of the Cockroach People (1973) . Those were two novels that were highly acclaimed as major contributions to the Chicano literary renaissance. Acosta was a catalyst for change because he contributed his time and profession to the Chicano Movement. Acosta defended his community and race and he also took cases that defended Chicano education, and Chicano rights. He contributed to the Chicano literary renaissance. He is someone that may not be well known to everyone because no one talks about him now but during the Chicano movement he was a catalyst for change because he helped the Chicano community be what it is today by not attaining the injustices they had in the education and in the living of the Chicano community. Other Perspectives Oscar â€Å"Zeta† Acosta is a controversial Chicano author, activist and attorney whose work focuses on ethnicity and ways that people of Mexican ancestry in the United States forge an awareness of themselves and how they get treated by other people. Even though Acosta sometime contradicts himself he is still considered by a few a very great person and activist. The website  ¡Para Justicia y Libertad! said that Acosta was † A gifted writer and storyteller, an activist, a civil rights attorney, and is considered the Malcolm X of the Chicano/a community†. Also in the article called Oscar Zeta Acosta: One of God’s own prototypes he said † Oscar was a legendary, compelling figure in Chicano history his remains in the shadows of the general American culture† ( p.1) . There is one thing was for sure that â€Å"most Chicana would say that he was a feminist and grouse! † (Bandido 115) . Some Chicanas even dislike the way he talks about women in his book. He talks about women as if they were objects and he also talks about them in a vulgar way in the books by calling them â€Å"bitches† of â€Å"hoers†. He also talks in a very feminist way, when you read his books you can notice how he mentions or try’s to lower the feminine perspective and the mentality of a women. Conclusion Based on the research I have conducted it is my view that Oscar â€Å"Zeta† Acosta was a key component in the Chicano movement because of the role he took by defending the Chicano community when no one would defend them, and especially because Acosta took his profession and his time to defend them. His work affected my life because it showed me that in life you have to pursue your goals to achieve them. Even though it might be tough there reachable. What surprised me about Acosta was his language in his books because I thought an attorney would not talk or especially write a book with vulgar and derogatory language. Another thing that also surprised me about Acosta was that he was a feminist I believed that someone that would defend people like the Chicano community because of the injustices they are facing in society would discriminate other people. Acosta’s importance during his lifetime was that he was an essential part in fixing the Chicano education and living in the Anglo world. Reflection Leader Selection.I am pleased with my catalyst for change choice Oscar â€Å"Zeta† Acosta. I learned more about the Chicano education injustices and also about the Chicano movement. Even tough there where parts that I wasn’t pleased about hearing like on how he was a feminist and how vulgar he talked about women in his books and how he just thought they were objects. I still found my catalyst for change interesting like on how he wasn’t like the rest of the Chicano’s while he was growing up, he was like an outsider to his own race. Methodology. At first it was difficult to find books that Acosta has written or books that talk about him, because every book store I went to said they did not have them but they could always order them but it would take about to two weeks and when I would say no thank you ill try some where else they would look at me if I was crazy. At the end I ended up going to the downtown public library and I was luck there was only one copy of the books. Maybe next time what I would do differently is choose a person that has sources that are available everywhere. I believe that I did pace my self with reading the books and writing the paper. My time management was effective at times, because there was times I go carried away doing other things but I would still do my paper even though at times I would have to sleep late. Critical Reading. Reading the sources was some what difficult because of the language and sometimes the metaphors he used. What I learned about the whole reading concept is that it is going to be very useful in college and that you have to learn how to pace yourself when you read also that you have to skim the book, also having a dictionary in hand would be very useful to. Note taking did become easier as I worked along. I found note taking very useful since the books I was reading were not mine so I couldn’t highlight the important information that I would be using for my research paper. I found the note taking system very useful, probably the other useful thing that would of helped me would have been if the books were mine because I wouldn’t have speed threw the books to get them in by their due date. Writing. In writing my research paper the difficulty I faced was not knowing how to get my point across I found that difficult to do because everyone that read my research paper did not know who Oscar â€Å"Zeta† Acosta was. Probably the one thing that would of been useful was choosing a person that people knew at least the name to. The paper we got with the prompt and the instructions on what we had to answer helped a lot because while I was writing my paper I was looking back to see if I answered the prompt and followed the instructions and criteria. The skills that I believe that I need to work on is on my writing and how I try to get my point across because I found that hard to do. The skill that I believe that I was getting better at was knowing how to paraphrase. Experience. I did enjoy working on this project alone because I worked on it at my own pace, but I do enjoy working with others. I believe this research paper would have been better in group because you don’t have top rush threw books because everyone can read a book, also because everyone has their own style of writing and looks at the prompts differently so it would have been easier because everyone could have contributed through their opinions and ideas and could have answered the prompt more efficiently. I believe that the most interesting part of this research paper was getting to know everything that your catalyst for change did, because I just knew a couple of thins that Acosta did like being a lawyer and defending the Chicano community, but I didn’t know or have a clue everything else he did and how he acted and how he was a feminist. I believe that the most difficult thing about the research paper was the paper itself, because everything was just new to me because I have ever used MLA format before.