What They're Saying

Carlos Guerra on 'Chicano Power'

Carlos Guerra, 1974

"'Chicano Power' is a magnificent tour de force and masterpiece of contemporary American history -- as close to a Chicano 'Iliad' as we will ever have. As a founder of MAYO (Mexican American Youth Organization) and La Raza Unida political movements, I personally knew Tony Castro during that period and spent days and sometimes weeks traveling with him -- and often subjected to his relentless but charming inquisitiveness. It gained him unprecedented access for a journalist to all of us who were central to the Chicano civil rights developments of in the 1960s and 1970s, making him a unique eyewitness to much of what unfolded not only in Texas but throughout the Southwest. His reporting was always accurate, fair and incisive, even when some of us might have wished at times that he had not been so omnipresent. With 'Chicano Power,' he has established himself as the leading historian of a remarkable period of American Latino social, political and cultural change."

Excerpt from Carlos Guerra's introduction to the upcoming 40th anniversary re-publication of Chicano Power: The Emergence of Mexican America. Guerra, a youth activist in the 1960s and 1970s, founded the Chicano movement periodical Caracol. He became a free-lance journalist and later a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News. Guerra, a close friend of Tony Castro whom he credited for influencing him to get into mainstream journalism, died in 2010.





From L.A. Observed, Nov. 11, 2010:

War coming over Valley seat in Congress

The Daily News' Tony Castro says that despite Alex Padilla's talk of running for mayor, the state Senator from Pacoima really wants to be in Congress. That, in turn, sets up a renewal of the fight over the drawing of a so-called Latino House seat in the San Fernando Valley. From Castro's personal blog:

Four quotes from the blog entry are cited.

The hope among Padilla's supporters is that Councilman Richard Alarcon will gracefully give up his own ambitions for Congress, Castro writes.

Add Castro blog: He calls journalist Tina Daunt's personal fashion and style blog The English Muse "the most elegant blog around."