Oscar Z Acosta In Context

Oscar ñZetaî Acosta: The Uncollected Works gathers unpublished stories, essays, letters, poems and a teleplay written by Acosta (1935-1974), the legendary Chicano attorney, political activist and writer. All of these works were written between the early 1960s and shortly before his mysterious disappearance in Mazatalàn, Mexico, in 1974. Through these writings Acosta reveals a variety of personae: a leader troubled by issues of ethnic, linguistic, and cultural identity; a man who saw himself as a Robin Hood of Mexican Americans; an unstable yet genial wanderer who joined Hunter S. Thompson in a search for the American Dream. Acosta realized that democracy is about speaking out, about feeling uncomfortable, about defining others and oneself through the prism of race and history. With the publication of Oscar ñZetaî Acosta: The Uncollected Works, the complete picture of a crucial player in the Chicano Movement„described by others as ñour Thomas Aquinasî and by himself as ñthe Brown Buffaloî„finally emerges.

Before his mysterious disappearance and probable death in 1971, Oscar Zeta Acosta was famous as a Robin Hood Chicano lawyer and notorious as the real-life model for Hunter S. Thompson's "Dr. Gonzo," a fat, pugnacious attorney with a gargantuan appetite for food, drugs, and life on the edge. Written with uninhibited candor and manic energy, this book is Acosta's own account of coming of age as a Chicano in the psychedelic sixties, of taking on impossible cases while breaking all tile rules of courtroom conduct, and of scrambling headlong in search of a personal and cultural identity. It is a landmark of contemporary Hispanic-American literature, at once ribald, surreal, and unmistakably authentic.

This is a searching examination of the life, work, and mysterious disappearance of the charismatic civil rights activist Oscar Zeta Acostaa leading figure in the Chicano movement of the 1960s..

The further adventures of “Dr. Gonzo” as he defends the “cucarachas”— the Chicanos of East Los Angeles. One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Before his mysterious disappearance and probable death in 1971, Oscar Zeta Acosta was famous as a Robin Hood Chicano lawyer and notorious as the real-life model for Hunter S. Thompson's "Dr. Gonzo" a fat, pugnacious attorney with a gargantuan appetite for food, drugs, and life on the edge. In this exhilarating sequel to The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, Acosta takes us behind the front lines of the militant Chicano movement of the late sixties and early seventies, a movement he served both in the courtroom and on the barricades. Here are the brazen games of "chicken" Acosta played against the Anglo legal establishment; battles fought with bombs as well as writs; and a reluctant hero who faces danger not only from the police but from the vatos locos he champions. What emerges is at once an important political document of a genuine popular uprising and a revealing, hilarious, and moving personal saga.

‘We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like, “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive ...”’

Buffalo, as he was known in the barrios of Los Angeles among street people, at the height of the riots in in the late 1960's and 7O's, was the epitome of the Movimiento. He was smart, rebellious, unpredictable, occasionally high on drugs, but terrifyingly honest to himself and the world. This is the story of the rage and fury that swept LA during the gestation of the Movimiento Chicano and of the remarkable life of Oscar Zeta Acosta, a radical civil-rights lawyer who defended Chicano activists, won new rights for Latinos, and challenged the LA estab1ishment. Burton Moore, a journalist and writer who worked with Attorney Acosta, witnessed many of the events that swept Los Angeles into a new age. He recounts the famous school walk-outs, the confrontations with the Catholic Church, the arson at the Biltmore Hotel, the rebellion in the streets, the Chicano protest at UCLA, and the Moratorium Riot, which ended with the untimely death of Ruben Salazar. These events are pictured against a background of life in East Los Angeles a generation ago. It is written as a tribute to that generation and to the young men and women who were inspired by the Movimiento. The author covers the legal skirmishes orchestrated by Oscar Acosta following the riots of the late 1960's—to free vatos y carnales from incarceration and police brutality—and provides an intimate biography replete with little known facts of his life from his youth to his untimely and mysterious death. Acosta emerges as a towering leader capable of inspiring and rallying the community in the streets, mesmerizing the TV audiences, and defending effectively the rioters in court. A restless man who was in conflict with himself, and able in the end to endure his own nightmares. Burton Moore was a renowned journalist, and social critic on the tradition of Oscar Lewis and Michael Harrington. Upon nearing the completion of this hook, he, and his family, were unexpectedly informed of his impending death of cancer. Burton Moore bravely carried on this important testimony of social injustice in the barrios of LA. He had set to accomplish, most elegantly. A seemingly simple, but elusive and daunting task of explaining the events and historical roots at play on a series of riots in the Mexican American community in the decades of 1970s and 1980s through the tale of the life of one of the most tenacious leaders of those volatile times, Oscar Zeta Acosta. Burton Moore has legated to his family, friends, and the Latino community in general, and the Mexican American community, in particular, which he so much loved, a clear and invaluable insight that social justice is a conditio sine qua non for social peace. Undoubtedly, he embarked on warning America that disparities of wealth, education, and opportunities, and racism will inevitably lead to periodic social disruptions. Burton Moore shall not be a vox clamantis in desertus, a lonely voice in the desert, but an unequivocal J'accuse, a historical indictment to an unjust society. He regarded nothing which concerned man as alien to his interests: homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto. We shall keep his voice alive for years to come, and as new generations of Americans emerge, they shall learn of his message of social peace and justice. Burton Moore you shall be missed Resquiscat In Pacem, amicus noster.

Brown Buffalo, as he was known in the barrios of Los Angeles, at the height of the riots in the late 1960Us, was the epitome of the Movimiento. This is the story of the rage and fury that swept L.A. during the gestation of the Movimiento Chicano--the Chicano Movement--and of the remarkable life of Oscar Zeta Acosta, a radical civil-rights lawyer who defended Chicano activists.