Roberto Flores
Roberto Flores was a member of League of Revolutionary Struggle.[1] He has taught at Cal State LA in Chicanx-Latinx Studies for 10 years.
Background
Roberto Flores currently lives in South Pasadena, California with his wife Cynthia Mata-Flores who is an academic advisor at USC. Beto, has 5 daughters, 2 sons and 15 grandchildren. Roberto is a life-long community scholar and activist for human rights, especially the right of people of color to self-determination. Dr. Flores is currently part of the coordinating committee of the Eastside Cafe in El Sereno, a collective of collectives, whose goal is the study and facilitation of local autonomy. The Eastside Cafe defines Autonomy as the community’s natural tendency towards independence, interdependence, and self-determination. The ultimate goal of Autonomy is local self-sustenance and self-governance as part of networks of autonomous communities.
Beto was born and raised in La Colonia, on the eastside of Oxnard, which consisted of mainly migrant farmworkers and working class blacks. Roberto’s mother and father initially worked as farmworkers then packing house workers. In 1959, the family set up a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, where Beto and where of his 13 siblings, at one point in its 45 year existence, helped. Beto worked at the restaurant while he went to school and also continued to work in the fields.
Beto’s interest in education began early. While a junior at Santa Clara High School, Beto co-founded several local tutorials in Colonia. Initially he felt the Chicanx and Black children of Oxnard needed help adjusting to the US school system. By the time he graduated from high school, he was convinced that it was the school system that failed poor children of color. His observations were that the system’s main pedagogical goal was assimilation better known today as ethnic cleansing. The school system failed because assimilation is in total antagonistic dissonance with the interests, values, life and cultures of Black and Chicanx families.
In 1966, Beto was admitted to UCLA. It was lonely at UCLA since Beto was one of 19 Chicanx students out of 35,000 students. Beto was active helping to establish UMAS 1967, then MEChA In 1969. In 1967, Beto co-founded the Oxnard Brown Berets, that mainly focused on educational issues and on police brutality. In 1969 Beto helped found Colegio Quetzalcoatl, an educational and Art & Culture collective that set up cultural dance and music classes for the Colonia community. On August 29, 1970, a contingent of Oxnard Beret participated in the August 29 Moratorium Against the War. On September 19, 1970, the Oxnard Brown Berets, in coalition with other Ventura County community based organizations, participated in carrying out Ventura County’s September 19 Moratorium Against the War in Vietnam.
In 1971, Beto received a BA in Anthropology (UCLA), briefly (71-72) taught at CSUN and was an EOPS counselor at CSUF (72-73). In the Fall of 73, Beto joined Teacher Core and spend 2 years in Salinas were he was involved with the community and because of that was dismissed from the Salinas School District then reinstated after community pressure. It was there that he became active with the Eastbay Labor Collective, a Marxist-Leninist collective and was part of the establishment of August 29th Movement, a Marxist Leninist organization. In 1979 Beto was part of the merger between ATM-ML and IWK-ML (a Chinese American based in SF and NY) then for the next 10 years was a member of the League of Revolutionary Struggle. During that period, Beto worked in machine shops and was a member, a shop steward and eventually Vice President of OCAW local 1-895 in Oxnard where he worked and organized with his brothers JoeFlores and Carlos Flores. Then in 1977 Beto moved to Los Angeles and worked at Angelus Can, a United Steelworkers Union shop, where he became a shop steward.
In 1990 Beto made a switch back to education and worked at Loyola Marymount University as Assistant Director of Chicanx-Latinx Student Services. At LMU Beto, along with students, co-founded the Westside Café, a traveling venue that set up cultural/educational events with up and coming artist. All the funds raised from Westside Café events went to Leticia A undocumented students which later became AB 540 students.[2]
Zapatistas
On January 1, 1994 Roberto watched images of the Zapatista uprising with amazement and inspiration. Five days later, Beto joined a mainly Chicanx Peace Observation team and went to San Cristobal, Chiapas and Ocotzingo, two of the municipalities that were taken over by the Zapatistas. This was the beginning of now a 22 year study and interest in Local Autonomy.
In 1990, Beto was invited to be an assistant editor of inmotionmagazin.com where you can find some of Beto’s writing on autonomy. In 1996, Roberto was granted a Fulbright Fellowship, which allowed him to be an observing participant (in contrast to a participating observer) with Zapatista civilian bases and continue to relate to the EZLN (Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional) and the Zapatista base communities and their process. During that year, Beto also worked closely with Big Frente Zapatista from Los Angeles in the effort to set up the historic 1997 Encuentro Chicanx-Zapatista; a seven-day gathering with workshops and collective performances between 120 mostly LA based Chicanx community artists and Zapatista artists. Our colega, Omar Ramirez was one of those Chicano artists.
In 2001, Beto was part of a Sandia Sunday; a process of discussions and reflections from which came the notions to set up the Eastside Café as a community space in El Sereno that would help facilitate local community autonomy.
In 2006, Beto received a doctorate from the University of Southern California in International and Intercultural Education. His dissertation is titled “Chicanxs and Zapatistas Walking and Learning Together: A Case Study of Informal Education”. Today, Dr. Beto Flores continues to be interested in Anti-systemic Movements and the Development Non-Statist Democracies, Community Self Research and Self-Determination,vChicanx History in a Pluri-ethnic and Pluri-cultural context, Horizontal Autonomy and the Localization of Self-Determination, and Local Autonomy within Local Trade Unions.[3]
August 29th Movement founders
Bill Gallegos first met Yvonne De Los Santos in 1974, when a "bunch of pretty raggedy Chicanos and Chicanas formed the August 29th Movement (Marxist-Leninist), the first revolutionary socialist organization to emerge from the Chican@ Liberation Struggle". The little town of Oxnard produced a whole district of ATM members including Yvonne, Connie Valdez, Beto Flores, and Jenaro Valdez.[4]
LRS
In 1989 Roberto Flores, was a contributor to League of Revolutionary Struggles' Unity.
"A call to build an organization for the 1990s and beyond"
Unity, January 28 1991, issued a statement "A call to build an organization for the 1990s and beyond" on pages 4 to 6.
This group was a split in the League of Revolutionary Struggle which soon became the Unity Organizing Committee.
Those listed as supporters of the call included Roberto Flores, Asst Director of Chicano Student Services, Marymount Loyola University Los Angeles.
Jennaro Valdez connection
Jenaro Valdez with Roberto Flores, April 2017.
Chicano movement
The 40th Anniversary Commemoration Committee of the Chicano Moratoriums was formed in the summer 2009 by the Chair of the National Chicano Moratorium Committee of August 29, 1970 along with two independent Chicano Movement historians whom although not of the baby boomer generation, have become inspired by the Movimiento.
The organization posted a list of significant “Chicano movement” activists on its website which included Roberto Flores, a member of the Oxnard Brown Berets.[5]
References
- ↑ [Making of Chicano Studies By Rodolfo Acuña page 116]
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ [2]
- ↑ website A Fragile and Amazing Trail: The Generous Life of Yvonne De Los Santos By Bill Gallegos
- ↑ Chicano Moratorium website: Moratorium Participants (accessed on April 16, 2010)