Oscar Zeta Acosta The Uncollected Works

Oscar ñZetaî Acosta: The Uncollected Works gathers unpublished stories, essays, letters, poems and a teleplay written by Acosta (1935-1974), the legendary Chicano attorney, political activist and writer.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.

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.

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..

Alfredo Mirandé, a sociology professor, Stanford Law graduate, and part-time pro bono attorney, represents clients who are rascuache—a Spanish word for “poor” or even “wretched”—and on the margins of society. For Mirandé, however, rascuache means to be “down but not out,” an underdog who is still holding its ground. Rascuache Lawyer offers a unique perspective on providing legal services to poor, usually minority, folks who are often just one short step from jail. Not only a passionate argument for rascuache lawyering, it is also a thoughtful, practical attempt to apply and test critical race theory—particularly Latino critical race theory—in day-to-day legal practice. Every chapter presents an actual case from Mirandé’s experience (only the names and places have been changed). His clients have been charged with everything from carrying a concealed weapon, indecent exposure, and trespassing to attempted murder, domestic violence, and child abuse. Among them are recent Mexican immigrants, drug addicts, gang members, and the homeless. All of them are destitute, and many are victims of racial profiling. Some “pay” Mirandé with bartered services such as painting, home repairs, or mechanical work on his car. And Mirandé doesn’t always win their cases. But, as he recounts, he certainly works tirelessly to pursue all legal remedies. Each case is presented as a letter to a fascinating (fictional) “Super Chicana” named Fermina Gabriel, who we are told is an accomplished lawyer, author, and singer. This narrative device allows the author to present his cases as if he were recounting them to a friend, drawing in the reader as a friend as well. Bookending the individual cases, Mirandé’s introductions and conclusions offer a compelling vision of progressive legal practice grounded in rascuache lawyering.

Once relegated to the borders of literature—neither Mexican nor truly American—Chicana/o writers have always been in the vanguard of change, articulating the multicultural ethnicities, shifting identities, border realities, and even postmodern anxieties and hostilities that already characterize the twenty-first century. Indeed, it is Chicana/o writers' very in-between-ness that makes them authentic spokespersons for an America that is becoming increasingly Mexican/Latin American and for a Mexico that is ever more Americanized. In this pioneering study, Héctor Calderón looks at seven Chicana and Chicano writers whose narratives constitute what he terms an American Mexican literature. Drawing on the concept of "Greater Mexican" culture first articulated by Américo Paredes, Calderón explores how the works of Paredes, Rudolfo Anaya, Tomás Rivera, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Cherríe Moraga, Rolando Hinojosa, and Sandra Cisneros derive from Mexican literary traditions and genres that reach all the way back to the colonial era. His readings cover a wide span of time (1892-2001), from the invention of the Spanish Southwest in the nineteenth century to the América Mexicana that is currently emerging on both sides of the border. In addition to his own readings of the works, Calderón also includes the writers' perspectives on their place in American/Mexican literature through excerpts from their personal papers and interviews, correspondence, and e-mail exchanges he conducted with most of them.

"The Hispanic Malcolm X. Writer. Activist. Civil rights attorney. Contemporary of Hunter S. Thompson's. Man prone to excesses. Man of vision. All describe Oscar "Zeta" Acosta. A leading figure in the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, he seemed to be everywhere and have a profound influence on everyone in El Movimiento. In 1974, after a last phone call to his son, Acosta disappeared in the Mexican state of Mazatlan." "Bandido reconstructs - even reinvents - the man behind the myth. Part biographical appraisal, part reflection on the legacy of the civil rights era, Bandido is an opportunity to understand the challenges and pitfalls Latinos face in finding a place of their own in America." --Book Jacket.

Offers a comprehensive overview of the most important authors, movements, genres, and historical turning points in Latino literature. More than 60 million Latinos currently live in the United States. Yet contributions from writers who trace their heritage to the Caribbean, Central and South America, and Mexico have and continue to be overlooked by critics and general audiences alike. Latino Literature: An Encyclopedia for Students gathers the best from these authors and presents them to readers in an informed and accessible way. Intended to be a useful resource for students, this volume introduces the key figures and genres central to Latino literature. Entries are written by prominent and emerging scholars and are comprehensive in their coverage of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Different critical approaches inform and interpret the myriad complexities of Latino literary production over the last several hundred years. Finally, detailed historical and cultural accounts of Latino diasporas also enrich readers' understandings of the writings that have and continue to be influenced by changes in cultural geography, providing readers with the information they need to appreciate a body of work that will continue to flourish in and alongside Latino communities.