The King of Adobe: Reies López Tijerina, Lost Prophet of the Chicano Movement

by Lorena Oropeza

Overview

In 1967, Reies Lopez Tijerina led an armed takeover of a New Mexico courthouse in the name of land rights for disenfranchised Spanish-speaking locals. The small-scale raid surprisingly thrust Tijerina and his cause into the national spotlight, catalyzing an entire generation of activists. The actions of Tijerina and his group, the Alianza Federal de Mercedes (the Federal Alliance of Land Grants), demanded that Americans attend to an overlooked part of the country's history: the United States was an aggressive empire that had conquered and colonized the Southwest and subsequently wrenched land away from border people—Mexicans and Native Americans alike. To many young Mexican American activists at the time, Tijerina and the Alianza offered a compelling and militant alternative to the nonviolence of Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr. Tijerina's place at the table among the nation's leading civil rights activists was short-lived, but his analysis of land dispossession and his prophetic zeal for the rights of his people was essential to the creation of the Chicano movement.

This fascinating full biography of Tijerina (1926–2015) offers a fresh and unvarnished look at one of the most controversial, criticized, and misunderstood activists of the civil rights era. Basing her work on painstaking archival research and new interviews with key participants in Tijerina's life and career, Lorena Oropeza traces the origins of Tijerina's revelatory historical analysis to the years he spent as a Pentecostal preacher and his hidden past as a self-proclaimed prophet of God. Confronting allegations of anti-Semitism and accusations of sexual abuse, as well as evidence of extreme religiosity and possible mental illness, Oropeza's narrative captures the life of a man—alternately mesmerizing and repellant—who changed our understanding of the American West and the place of Latinos in the fabric of American struggles for equality and self-determination.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469653297
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	09/09/2019
Pages:	392
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Lorena Oropeza is professor of history at the University of California, Davis, and author of ¡Raza Si! ¡Guerra No! Chicano Protest and Patriotism during the Viet Nam War Era.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

A long-overdue and much-needed biography. Oropeza captures the complexities of a man central to the Chicano movement and Chicano history."—Matt Garcia, author of From the Jaws of Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement

A deeply compelling biography of a consequential figure in modern U.S. history. Oropeza reveals Tijerina not only as a protest leader and organizer but also as a tragically flawed human being and an intellectual whose ideas about settler colonialism are today in wide circulation. Mandatory reading for anybody who wants to understand the history of race in America or the West after World War II."—Benjamin H. Johnson, author of Escaping the Dark, Gray City: Fear and Hope in Progressive-Era Conservation

While the 'Great Man' theory of history was a nineteenth-century phenomenon, its remnants linger today. We still sanctify certain historic figures; our sin is being unable to blend the saint and the sinner into their complete personhood. We, our children, and the discipline of history are the poorer for it. Lorena Oropeza mined an enormous amount of primary and secondary material to give context to Reies Lopez Tijerina's contributions to Chicano history and the price paid by those who traveled his path with him. When teaching the history of the Chicano movement, it is important to me that my students emerge with an empathetic relationship to the collective Tijerina: the man, his family, his followers, and those who schooled him. The King of Adobe is a major step in that direction."—Maria Varela

Editorial Reviews

A timely biography written with conscientious depth and detail, covering the full extent of [Tijerina's] life with an objective clarity. A great read for anyone interested in New Mexican history or civil rights."—Taos News

Oropeza's work is meticulous in detail, incisive in analysis, and provides another facet of the rich history of Mexican people on the American side of the border. . . . This welcome biography significantly contributes to our understanding of the Chicano movement and of the Mexican American struggle for liberation."—Southwestern Historical Quarterly

A book that should be of abiding interest to New Mexicans."—Albuquerque Journal

Oropeza's in-depth research delves into the personal life and motivations behind this civil rights legend to present a portrait of a complicated man with a background of religious separatism. . . . Oropeza's biography also offers a valuable lesson on what it took to form a resistance that evolved into a national movement during a critical struggle for racial and social justice."—NBC News

This scholarship challenges other writings and books on how Tijerina impacted the construction of the Chicano/a movement generation as Oropeza incorporates historical accounts, oral interviews, and primary materials to provide a strong, in-depth review and analysis of the prominent activist's life. . . . Every library should obtain a copy of this book for those studying the Chicano/a movement in particular or social movements more broadly."—CHOICE

From the Publisher

07/19/2019

Oropeza (history, Univ. of California; ¡Raza Si! ¡Guerra No!) presents a study of Reies Lopez Tijerina (1926–2015), an underappreciated figure in the Chicano civil rights movement. According to Oropeza, although Tijerina is often equated with other leaders of the movement, such as Cesar Chavez and Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales, his achievements seem thus far wrapped up in one day in 1967: the events of the courthouse raid over land grant rights in New Mexico. Oropeza traces Tijerina's life through a series of stages of reinvention, from preacher to prophet, American to Chicano, successfully removing his subject from the shadow of that single event. Oropeza also does a fantastic job of placing Tijerina's activities in the broader context of the shifting views of the American West, from one of destiny to conquest, with Tijerina's story front and center. VERDICT With access to newly opened archives and extensive interviews with those close to Tijerina, Oropeza delivers a well-researched, nuanced, and balanced look at this somewhat forgotten figure. Highly recommended.—Michael C. Miller, Austin P.L. & Austin History Ctr., TX

Library Journal