Get Up, Stand Up: The Story of Pop and Protest

Program SOURCE: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/getupstandup/about.html

Last night, KPBS aired a documentary of pop’s protest music. They acknowledged many of the protest songs those of us remember from the 60s civil rights and anti-war movements.

The documentary failed to include Chicanos, Native Americans and Asians in the line up of Pop Artists. There was no mention of El Chicano, Malo, Tierra - all who wrote protests songs. Red Bone and Hiroshima were also excluded – they contributed protests songs in the 60s & 70s.

The documentary made it look as if only whites and blacks participated in the civil rights and anti-war movements. Once again, we have been ignored in the annals of US history.

In the US, Chicano music has not been accepted as pop and in my opinion is looked on as “Race Music”.

Songs like El Chicano’s Chicano Chant, Viva La Raza and their album Revolucion; Red Bone’s Alcatraz and Hiroshima’s 1984 were all movement songs. There were plenty of other protest songs written by Lalo Guerreo, Danny Valdez and Agustin Lira. Almost every teatro has written a protest song. None were mention in the documentary.

Please join us and write PBS to express your disdain over our continued exclusion from the US historical landscape here is their email: viewer@pbs.org


Gracias,

Pachuco


Letter by Serg Hernandez:

PBS has chosen to ignore the "Chicano" contribution to protest music. Since 1848 when Mexicans were decreed American citizens by The Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo we have been writing and singing, "protest songs."

The Mexican American population suffered great injustices at the hands of the American government and white settlers. Mexican Americans wrote and sung about these incidents in "Corridos."

During the sixties Mexican Americans contributed to the Civil rights/Anti-war Movements and the Chicano Student movement with a myriad of songs. The United Farm Workers were responsible for many of these songs. The Smithsonian Institute recognized this contribution and just released "Rolas de Aztlan: Songs of the Chicano Movement".

PBS has conveniently been struck with a case of historical amnesia by eliminating our contributions. I thought PBS was better than that.