Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World Highlight

The idea of the revolutionary technician leached into the mainstream in unpredictable ways. Stephanie Rothman’s low-budget soft-core erotica The Student Nurses (1970) depicts a nursing student who falls for a Chicano militant and turns down a hospital job in order to bring medicine to the people. “Who’ve you been shacking up with, Chairman Mao?” her friends tease. “Where’s your gun?” “In the glovebox!” she answers. “Wanna see?” The girls walk away together, still laughing, but not joking. The film includes an extended anti-imperial street theater performance by El Teatro Popular, a real Valdez-inspired group from Los Angeles.