Let's give this a Shot...

So this will be another attempt at working with the title of "Green Chicanismo", which is synergizing of Chicanismo with environmental issues. It will be a place to share thoughts and ideas, to communicate. I will not ignorantly claim to always be in the right or correct all the time, but it's important to to keep discussions going.

So feel free to always provide constructive comments and join the blog if you are interested.

First off, the issue of brown faces and the environment is not new. Mind you, I will not share a long history of it here, but I suggest you begin by reading the work of Devon G. Peña. In particular the book Tierra Y Vida.

Some stuff I'm sure will be preaching to the choir, so to speak, but I'll be attentive some terms and issues that may seem obvious or not clear at all. For example, I am going with the term "Green Chicano" because I think it captures what I'm trying to say about how "brown" people interact and engage with environmental issues. They are issues of social justice and environmental justice, so again, these are not new things I am touching on, because environmental justice has a meaningful history as much as it is still developing.

But again, I use "Green Chicanismo" because I use the term Chicano in the broad and inclusive use of the term, not as a strict ethnocentric term. And I realize that Green Chicanismo is a term that is not commonly used, as a quick Google search indicated. So I will be using it and claiming it for my purposes to expand on issues that link "Latinos", "Hispanics", "people of color", "brown people", and environmental issues here in the US(more on why I use quotation marks with those terms later. Also international issues are just as important but I may not focus on them as much).

This matters not just for its own sake, but because the "green movement" is becoming more mainstream, it has obviously been recognized that Latinos matter and that they may engage differently with environmental issues. Just as "green" is becoming more commercialized and part of general public policy, it has important cultural aspects as well and it is important and interesting to see how it interacts with different cultures and perspectives.

So this blog will serve to discuss new polls, news stories, thoughts, culture, the artes, and so forth.

I am not a writer, so my thoughts may ramble a good deal of the the time. But again, jump right in and let's have a discussion where we learn from each other, especially when we may not agree.