Chicano pbs documentary fighting for political power

Chicano Culture Homework

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consider the ending of poverty a worthwhile goal. Euro-Americans increasingly wanted the poor to just go away. According to U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater, "The fact is that most people who have no skill have no edu- cation for the same reason-low intelligence or low ambition:'48

Bureaucratic conflict also weakened the War on Poverty. The Department of Labor refused to cooperate with OEO; social workers perceived it as a threat to the welfare bureaucracy and their hegemony among the poor. Local politicians claimed that OEO programs "fostered class struggle." Meanwhile, as government officials and others quickly gained control of the programs, the participation of the poor declined. By 1966, President Johnson began dismantling the OEO, with Head Start going to Health, Education, and Welfare, and the Job Corps, to the Department of Labor. He then substituted the "Model Cities" program for OEO. Johnson, faced with opposition within his own party over the war in Vietnam, announced that he would not seek reelection. The assassination of Robert Kennedy during the California primary also dealt a blow to Mexican American hope. The election of Richard Nixon in 1968 put the proverbial final nail in the coffin.

Impart of the War on Poverty The impact of the War on Poverty on Chicanos was huge. A study of 60 OEO advisory boards in East Los Angeles-Boyle Heights-South Lincoln Heights, for instance-showed that 1,520 individuals, 71 percent of whom lived in these communities, served on the boards; two-thirds were women. Many Chic;ano activists of the 1960s developed a sense of political consciousness as a result of poverty programs, which advertised the demands and grievances of the poor and created an ideology that legitimized protest. Many minorities came to learn that they had the right to work in government and to petition it. Legal aid programs and Head Start, a public preschool system, also proved invaluable to the poor. The number of poor fell dramatically between 1965 and 1970 as Social Security, health, and welfare payments more than doubled. When the federal govern- ment cut the last of the War on Poverty programs in the 1980s, poverty escalated.49

MAGNETIZATION OF THE BORDER

The termination of the bracero (guest worker) program in 1964 worsened Mexico's economic plight, drastically cutting remittances sent by the migrant workers to their families at home. Mexico's economy simply could not absorb its increasing population. Matters worsened with a decline of ruralism, caused in part by mechanization and the growing commercialization of Mexican farms, which displaced small farmers. Concurrently, the United States was going through good times, attracting underemployed and unemployed Mexican workers. The wartime economy, the Civil Rights movement, and the youth culture temporarily

the common Euro-American citizens so that the heavy migration of undocumented workers went largely unnoticed; and the nation's racist, nativist tendencies remained dormant.

In the United States, growers pressured the border patrol to keep the border porous, ensuring a contin- ual flood of workers. In this context the phenomenon known as the "runaway shop" took form. Simply said, Mexico became the destination for North American multinational businesses to enjoy special privileges and exploit loopholes provided by law in the United States. The Customs Simplification Act of 1956 allowed the processing abroad of metal goods, which would then be returned to the United States for finishing. Congress broadened this provision in 1963 to include items such as apparel and toys. These runaway shops located along the border cut down on transportation and labor costs. Understandably, U.S. labor opposed these loopholes, but it lacked sufficient power to stop the flow of jobs out of the United States.

Mexico agreed to the Border Industrialization Program (BIP), waiving duties and regulations on the import of raw materials and relaxing restrictions on foreign capital within 12.5 miles of the border (this area has

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continuously been expanded); 100 percent of the finished products were to be exported out of the country and 90 percent of the labor force was to consist of Mexicans. In 1966, 20 BIP plants operated along the border; this number increased to 120 in 1970 and to 476 in 1976. The so-called maquiladoras (assembly plants) did create jobs (20,327 in 1970) but did not relieve Mexico's unemployment problem. Owners paid the BIP workforce, more than 70 percent of whom were women, minimum Mexican wages. North American employers gave no job security, and the maquiladoras could move at the owners' whim. Furthermore, the BIP left relatively little capital in Mexico. Like the bracero program, the border program increased Mexican dependence on the United States. 50

The Immigration Ad of 1965 Journalist Theodore White said that the 1965 Amendment to the Immigration Act "was noble, revolutionary- and probably the most thoughtless of the many acts of the Great Society."51 The act changed immigration policy: basis for admitting immigrants shifted from national origin to family preference; those already having family in the United States would be given higher quota preferences. At the time, legislators expected Europeans to be the main applicants; thus, there was no problem.

The national-origin system of immigration of the 1920s had shielded the United States against the fresh immigration of Poles, Italians, Slavs, and Eastern European Jews. From 1930 to 1960, about 80 percent of U.S. immigrants came from European countries or Canada. The 1965 act opened the country to other races and ethnic peoples, specifically Asians. (Improved conditions in Western Europe had made the United States less of an attraction to European peoples, and few applied.) During the first years of the act, not too many Euro- Americans were concerned, because those applying were highly educated Latin Americans and Asians. Liberals such as Senator Edward Kennedy had sponsored the legislation because they wanted to correct the past injustice of excluding Asians from legal entry. Before the act there had been no quota for Latin Americans; however, the trade-off for taking the exclusion of Asians off the books was the placing of Latin Americans and Canadians on a quota system. The law specified that 170,000 immigrants from the Eastern Hemisphere and 120,000 from the Western could enter annually. Until the act, Mexico had been the principal source of Latin American immigration; the new law put a cap of 40,000 from any one nation.52

Mexican American Readion to Nativism During the 1950s Mexican American organizations had supported restricting undocumented workers and had encouraged the government to exclude undocumented Mexicans. Organizations such as the American G.I. Forum and LULAC gave the federal government almost unconditional support. Trade unions support- ing this restrictionist policy rationalized that the exclusion of the Mexican national was necessary to cut unfair labor competition with Mexican American and other U.S.-based workers. Even so, Mexican American organizations had become distressed about the gross human rights abuses, and pro-foreign-born groups concerned with human rights flourished among Latinos. Immigration, however, was not a priority issue among Mexican Americans in 1965.

Yet, the cumulative experiences of old-time activists made some weary about the renewal of racist nativism. La Hermandad Mexicana Nacional (the Mexican National Brotherhood), based out of the San Diego area and established in 1951, reflected the tradition of the Committee for the Protection of the Foreign-Born. During the 1960s, Hermandad joined hands with Bert Corona, then the driving force behind MAPA. Corona correctly assumed that, with the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, there would be a recurrence of the nativism of the 1950s. With Soledad "Cole" Alatorre, an L.A. labor organizer, and Juan Mariscal and Estella Garcia, among others, Corona opened a Hermandad office in Los Angeles to protect the constitutional rights of workers without papers. Hermandad functioned like a mutualista of old, offering self-help services. It then opened additional centers known as Centro de Acci6n Social Aut6noma (CASA). At the height of its influence, CASA had 4,000 members. Both Corona and Alatorre were also very active in other aspects of the Chicano political life of the time, and their influence would be felt through the next three decades. In fact, CASA created the progressive template for the protection of the foreign-born.53

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The Road to Delano For many, Cesar Chavez began the Chicano Movement. Chavez and the farmworkers gave Chicanos a cause, symbols, and a national space to claim their presence in the country's Civil Rights movement.54 On September 8, 1965, the Filipinos in the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) struck the grape growers of the Delano area in the San Joaquin Valley. The Di Giorgio Corporation led the growers. On September 16, the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) voted to join the Filipino. The end of the bracero program in late 1964 had significantly strengthened the union's position. The strike itself dragged on for years, during which time its dramatic events and the brutality of many of the growers attracted millions of non-Chicano supporters. Chavez's strategy was to maintain the union's moral authority by employing civil disobedience and fasts to call attention to the causa (cause), following the example of Mohandas Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King. The strategy of civil disobedience was to actively refuse to obey unjust laws and injunctions. Cesar frequently went to jail and would fast in order to rally his supporters. 55

Born in Yuma,Arizona, in 1927, Cesar Chavez spent his childhood as a migrant worker. In the 1940s, he moved to San Jose, California, where he married Helen Fabela. In San Jose Chavez met Father Donald McDonnell, who tutored him in Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII's encyclical supporting labor unions and social justice. Chavez met Fred Ross of the CSO and became an organizer for the CSO, learning grassroots organizing methods. He went on to become the general director of the national CSO, but in 1962, he resigned and moved to Delano, where he organized the NFWA.56

Chavez carefully selected a loyal cadre of proven organizers, such as Dolores Huerta and Gil Padilla, whom he had met in the CSO. Huerta was born Dolores Fernandez in a mining town in New Mexico in 1930. She was a third-generation Mexican American, and her father was a miner and seasonal beet worker. When her parents divorced, Huerta's mother and siblings moved to Stockton, California, where her mother worked night shift in a cannery. Huerta was also a CSO organizer; it was there that she met Cesar Chavez, whom she joined in forming the NFWA.57

By the middle of 1964, the NFWA was self-supporting; a year later, the union had some 1,700 members. Volunteers, fresh from civil rights activities in the South, joined the NFWA at Delano. Protestant groups inspired by the Civil Rights movement championed the workers' cause. A minority of Catholic priests, influ- enced by the second Vatican Council, joined Chavez.58 Euro-American labor belatedly joined the cause. In Chavez's favor was the growing number of Chicano workers living in the United States. The changing times allowed Chavez to make the farmworkers' movement a crusade.

The most effective strategy was the boycott. The NFWA urged supporters not to buy Schenley products or Di Giorgio grapes. The first breakthrough came in 1966 when the Schenley Corporation signed a contract with the union. The next opponent was the Di Giorgio Corporation, one of the largest grape growers in the central valley. In April 1966, owner Robert Di Giorgio unexpectedly announced that he would allow his workers at Sierra Vista to vote on whether the farmworkers wanted a union. However, Di Giorgio did not act in good faith, and his agents set out to intimidate the workers.

Di Giorgio invited the Teamsters to compete with and thus break the NFWA. Di Giorgio held a series of fraudulent elections certifying the Teamsters as the bargaining agent. The NFWA pressured Governor Edmund G. Brown, Sr., to investigate the elections. Brown needed the Chicano vote, as well as that of liberals who were committed to the farmworkers. The governor's investigator recommended a new election, and the date was set for August 30, 1966. Di Giorgio red-baited the union and carried on an active campaign that drained the union's financial resources. This forced Chavez to reluctantly apply for affiliation in the American Federation of Labor and form the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), which won the election-573 votes to the Teamsters' 425. Field workers voted 530 to 331 in favor of the UFWOC.

In 1967, the UFWOC targeted the Giumarra Vineyards Corporation (the largest producer of table grapes in the United States), boycotting all California table grapes. The result was a significant decline in grape sales. In June 1970, when the strike was approaching its fifth year, a group of Coachella Valley growers agreed to sign contracts. Victories in the San Joaquin Valley and other areas followed.

After the victory in grape industry, the union turned to the lettuce fields of the Salinas Valley; growers of the area were among the most powerful in the state. During July 1970, the Growers-Shippers Association and

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29 of the largest growers in the valley entered into negotiations with the Teamsters. Agreements signed with the truckers' union in Salinas were worse than sweetheart contracts. (A sweetheart contract is one made through collusion between management and labor representatives containing terms beneficial to management and detrimental to union workers.) The contracts provided no job security, no seniority rights, no hiring hall, and no protection against pesticides.

By August 1970, many workers refused to abide by the Teamster contracts, and 5,000 workers walked off the lettuce fields. The growers launched a campaign of violence. Thugs beat Jerry Cohen, a farmworker lawyer, into unconsciousness. On December 4, 1970, Judge Gordon Campbell of Monterey County jailed Chavez for refusing to obey an injunction and held him without bail. This arbitrary action gave the boycott the needed publicity; dignitaries visited Chavez in jail. On the face of mounting pressure, authorities released him on Christmas Eve. By the spring of 1971, Chavez and the Teamsters had signed an agreement that gave the UFWOC sole jurisdiction. 59

La Casita Farms Corporation Strike of 1966 and the Aftershocks Texas remained a union organizer's nightmare. South Texas's long border ensured growers' access to a constant and abundant supply of cheap labor. The Texas Rangers, the local courts, and right-to-work laws gave growers almost an insurmountable advantage. However, the Chavez movement in California and the growing militancy after the 1963 Crystal City takeover influenced the Texas farmworkers, resulting in the 1966--1967 strikes. Eugene Nelson (who had been with Chavez in California), Margil Sanchez, and Lucio Galvan formed the Independent Workers Association (IWA) in May 1966. In June, IWA members voted to affiliate with the NFWA and the UFWOC. More than 400 workers voted to strike the melon growers of Starr County on June 1, 1966. From the beginning, it was a violent strike, with the Texas Rangers under Captain A. Y. Allee Jr. spreading a reign of terror. 60

In the concluding days of June 1967, strikers took out on a march from Rio Grande City to Austin, which ended on Labor Day. Over 15,000 people joined the march in its final days, with thousands more greeting the marchers as they made their way to Corpus Christi, to San Antonio, and then to Austin, the capitol of Texas. Not wanting to meet the marchers in the state capitol, Governor John Connally, Speaker of the House Ben Barnes, and Attorney General Waggoner Carr had met the marchers in New Braunfels in August. Connally, who favored agribusiness, tried unsuccessfully to dissuade them from entering the capitol. Tens of thousands of supporters converged on the Texas state capitol. Cesar Chavez and U.S. Senator Ralph Yarborough participated. 61

After this action, the marchers wound their way through Starr and Hidalgo Counties. At the Roma Bridge in Starr County, they tried to take control of the bridge to stop the recruitment of undocumented workers to break the strike. Texas Rangers then made mass arrests. On September 30, 1967, a hurricane destroyed the citrus crop, depressing labor conditions and ending all hope of success. Chavez pulled back, saying that the strike had been premature in Texas. Chavez did not have the hberal support that the farmworkers had had in Califomia.62

Moreover, Texas growers were not as vulnerable to a secondary boycott. Chavez left Antonio Orendain, 37, in charge of membership and placement services in Texas. The strike was supported by Archbishop Robert Lucey of San Antonio, and the Congressional Hearings drew attention to the Third World-like conditions in the Valley. Throughout the strike, the Rangers and the state bureaucratic establishment favored the growers.

Inspired by the campesino (farmworker) movement in California, and more directly by the events in Texas such as the takeover of Crystal City in 1963, Chicano activism increased in the Midwest during the second half of the 1960s. Twenty-two-year-old Jesus Salas, a native of Crystal City, Texas, led Texas-Mexican cucumber workers in Wisconsin. In January 1967, Salas orgacized an independent farmworkers' union called Obreros Unidos (United Workers) of Wisconsin. The organization remained active throughout that year and the next and published La Voz del Pueblo. Financial difficulties and the loss of support of the AFL-CIO led to the end of Obreros Unidos in 1970.63

Michigan used more migrant workers than any other northern state. Led by Ruben Alfaro-a barber from Lansing--migrants, labor, and students from Michigan State marched on to Governor George Romney, hoping to get a commitment from him to support their crusade and veto any legislation that would "take away J

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the human dignity of the migrant workers ... " Michigan attracted more than 100,000 migrants during the harvest season. Romney refused to take a stand. The migrants were supported by the AFL-CIO "in their crusade for better pay, housing, medical care and education for the migrants' children:' Alfaro garnered the support of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW), and of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who sent a telegram that ended with the words "Viva La Causal" They marched from Saginaw to Lansing, announc- ing, "Governor, our feet are sore ... Some of us have walked more than 70 miles to tell you about our problems," and handed the Lt. Governor their petition. A news reporter described the scene:

They held American and Mexican flags, and banners depicting the Virgin of Guadalupe-revered saint of Mexico. Hand-lettered signs carried such slogans as "Viva La Causa," "Human Dignity for Migrant Workers" and "Chicken Coops are for the Bird.'>64

In 1967 in Ohio, Mexican farmworkers demanded better wages and enforcement of health and housing codes. Some 18,000-20,000 Mexicans worked in Wallace County, Ohio, and throughout the tomato belt that encircled northwest Ohio, southern Michigan, and northern Indiana. Hunt, Campbell Soup, Libby, McNeil, Vlasic, and Heinz controlled production. Baldemar Velasquez, 21, and his father organized a march in 1968 from Leipsic, Ohio, to the Libby tomato plant and a later march to the Campbell Soup plant. They established a newspaper, Nuestra Lucha (Our Struggle), and a weekly radio program. In 1968, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FWC) signed 22 contracts with small growers.65

Meanwhile, in the Pacific Northwest La Raza was mobilizing against economic injustices. During the peak of the harvesting season, as many as 25,000 migrant Mexicans resided in the state of Washington. Migrant children attended only 21 weeks of school, and the Washington Citizens for Migrant Affairs pointed out that the migrant family had a median of five years of education. The heart of the migrant community was in the agriculturally rich Yakima Valley, where in 1965 the Yakima Valley Council for Community Action (YVCCA) was organized to coordinate War on Poverty programs. The next year, Tomas Villanueva and Guadalupe Gamboa from Yakima Valley College, traveled to California where they met with Cesar Chavez. Subsequently, in 1967 Villanueva helped organize the first Chicano activist organization in Washington. The Mexican American Federation was organized that year in Yakima, to advocate for community development and political empowerment in the Yakima Valley. In May 1967, Big Bend Community College raised expecta- tions by receiving a $500,000 grant for the basic education of 200 migrants. 66

The Road to Brown Power In 1968, 91 percent of the students enrolled in institutions of higher learning in the United States were white, 6 percent were African American, and just less than 2 percent were Latinos; probably less than half that number were of Mexican origin. Chicanos did not begin to enroll in college in significant numbers until after 1968 following the school walkouts in California and Texas. What set them apart from other students was that most, if not all, were from working-class families and first-generation college students. The Chicano student revolt beginning in that year challenged and rattled the tactics of middle-class Mexican American organizations.

The first challenge to the old guard by Chicano students came from Texas, where students organized in Kingsville at Texas A&I University in 1964. Jose Angel Gutierrez, Ambriocio Melendez, and Gabriel Tafoya, among others, formed the A&I student group, focusing on the usual issues of admission discrimination, segregated dorms, and poor housing. Organizers emphasized forging a Mexican student community in order to develop broader political power among the Mexican student community as a whole. In 1964, A&I Mexican students attended the PASO state convention, where they met Mexican students from Austin who had similar goals. The students successfully lowered the eligibility age for PASO membership from 21 to 18.67

Tejano students formed MAYO at St. Mary's College in San Antonio in 1967. They had been energized by PASO's 1963 Crystal City takeover. It was PASO's involvement in La Casita Farms Corporation strike of 1966 in the Rio Grande Valley that Tejano historian David Montejano calls the catalyst for the Chicano Movement in Texas--especially for Mexican American students from Texas A&I and future MAYO leaders throughout the state. It was in the heat of the Casitas strike in the spring of 1967 that MAYO was formed in San Antonio. The

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organizers included Jose Angel Gutierrez, Nacho Perez, Mario Compean, and Willie Velasquez. Most of the founders were graduate students at St. Mary's they were well aware of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), strategies of its leader Stokely Carmichael, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and the Port Huron statement. MAYO played an pivotal role in bringing about civil rights for Mexican Americans and developed a master plan to takeover boards of education and city councils throughout South Texas. Soon after its formation, other university and high school students started MAYO chapters mostly as a result of planned high school walkouts beginning in the spring of 1968 and extending into the 1970s. The strat- · egy was to build a cadre of organizers using charismatic leaders from the various school districts and establish beachheads in the campaign to seize political control. As the more than three dozen school walkouts rocked Texas, MAYO formed local chapters, which attracted Chicanas such as Choco Meza, Rosie Castro, Juanita Bustamante, Vrviana Santiago, and Luz Bazan Gutierrez who played leadership roles and helped build consensus in MAYO and later in La Raza Unida (the United Race) Party,68

MAYO differed from Mexican American student organizations in California. For example, in the mid-1960s there were few Chicano college students in California and elsewhere in the Southwest, whereas Texas, comparatively speaking, had a larger number of second-, third- and fourth-generation students attending college. In 1964, there were about 1,030 Chicano students, or 25 percent of the total student body, at Texas A&I-not a significant number, but in relation to California or Colorado, for example, substantial. By contrast, San Fernando Valley State (now California State University at Northridge) had less than a dozen Chicanos. Rampant discrimination and enforced social constraints unified Chicanos at Texas A&l. Though not ideologically united, they socialized together, eventually forming informal networks. This pattern was also evident at other universities, where racism encouraged group organizing. By marked contrast, California institutions favored a dispersion of Mexican students until about 1967.69

The next challenge came from California, where Mexican American youth were the most urbanized in the Southwest and thus were subject to fewer institutional and social constraints. When California youth entered the Chicano Movement, they did not have to deal with large entrenched organizations such as the American G.I. Forum or LULAC. However, the black and white radical student movements as well as the farmworkers movements around them politicized California students. They listened to radio broadcasts teeming with music of social protest. By the mid-1960s, youth in California had become more politically aware--partly because of the national youth revolution and partly because the Mexican American movement itself had pushed educational issues to the forefront.

By 1967, more students of Mexican-origin began filtering into the colleges. That year, students at East Los· Angeles Community College formed the Mexican American Student Association (MASA) and on May 13, 1967, Chicano students met at Loyola University (Los Angeles) and founded the United Mexican American Students (UMAS). Most were first-generation college students; most were the children of immigrants.70 On December 16-17, 1%7, the second general UMAS conference was held at the University of Southern California campus.

Majority of Chicano students identified with the UFW; its successes and tnbulations became their own. On campus, they joined with the black student movement and the SDS. By the spring of 1969, Chicano college student organizations were beginning to spread throughout California. Priority issues included public educa- tion, access to universities, Mexican American studies programs, and the Vietnam War. Speakers such as Corky Gonzales71 and Reies L6pez Tijerina72 added to the momentum.

Almost simultaneously, Chicano student associations formed throughout the country-in places like Tucson, Phoenix, Seattle and the Midwest-in large part motivated by the UFW boycott and the alienation on campus.73 In 1968,Alfredo Gutierrez, who had been with the grape boycott since 1%5 and a student at Arizona State University at Tempe, along with graduate student Miguel Montiel, led the Mexican American Student Organization (MASO). Early members included Maria Rose Garrido and Christine Marin. MASO developed strong ties with Gustavo Gutierrez and the Arizona Farm. In 1967, in Tucson, Arizona, Salom6n Baldenegro, a student with a strong sense of justice and identification with the Civil Rights, antiwar, and labor movements, organized the Mexican American Liberation Committee at the University of Arizona, where he recruited RaUl Grijalva, Isabel Garcia, and Guadalupe Castillo, who were high school students; the committee advocated bilingual and Mexican culture classes. This organization evolved into the Mexican American Student Association (MASA).74

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In New Mexico, students at Highlands University organized to demand the end of the suppression of Spanish, history classes that reflected the Mexican American experience, more Mexican American teachers, and school counseling programs. By 1968 the protests were taking place against the schools at Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Espanola, Portales Rosewell, and Santa Fe. That year the Brown Berets and the Black Berets began operating in Albuquerque. The same year in the northern part of the state, El Grito del Norte began publica- tion.75 Also MAYA (later the Chicano Youth Association) began to appear on campuses. Meanwhile, small numbers of Chicano students began filtering into the colleges of the Pacific Northwest and Midwest.

The Making of a Movement In California and elsewhere the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) gave Chicanas and Chicanos a tremendous boost; as mentioned, before 1968 colleges could count the number of Chicano students in the dozens. For the first time, many received financial aid and were recruited to go to college--much the same way as athletes were. The added presence of Chicano youth on campuses nurtured the considerable discontent festering in the barrios themselves. On the campuses and in the barrios, the injustice of the Vietnam War took on an added air of urgency. As mentioned, many white and black students were from middle-class backgrounds and thus were very much involved with the Civil Rights and antiwar movements. Many of the white student rad- icals were red diaper babies, that is their parents had been involved in radical politics; many African-American .students had been involved through their churches. The political involvement of Chicano students was new.

The Vietnam War split many Mexican American organizations with those opposing the war being accu5ed of unpatriotic motives and even cowardliness. In California in 1966, largely through the work of peace activists, the MAPA executive board passed a resolution condemning the war in Vietnam. In Texas, Chicano public leaders such as Commissioner Albert Pena Jr., State Senator Joe Bernal, Representative Henry B. Gonzalez, and Archbishop Robert Lucey opposed the war by 1967, although Hector Garcia of the G.I. Forum continued to support I.BJ, sending representatives to the airport to greet the coffins of dead Mexican Americans.

As with the movement as a whole, the 1960s' veteranos/veteranas worked alongside recent converts and aided the socialization process. Dolores Huerta became vice president of the UFW, while East Los Angeles Chicana activists like Julia Luna Mount and her sister Celia Luna de Rodriguez, active since the 1930s, continued working for social change. Luna de Rodriguez, a key organizer in the Barrio Defense Committee, spoke out against police abuse. Julia Luna Mount, active in the 40th Assembly District chapter of MAPA, often criticized MAPA leadership. Julia was a driving force in the antiwar movement even before the mid-1960s. She unsuccess- fully ran for the Los Angeles School Board in 1967, and was a founding member of the Peace and Freedom Party. Her daughter Tania was a leader in the 1968 East L.A. school walkouts.76

The Formation of Core Groups Beginning in 1963, the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission-staffed by Richard Villalobos, Mike Duran, and others-sponsored annual Chicano junior high and high school student conferences, which pushed identity politics. The commission conducted seminars and invited speakers to motivate student leaders. At these sessions, students not only discussed identity but also compared the grievances they had against their schools. For example, Chicanos had an over 50 percent high school dropout rate: 53.8 percent of Chicanos dropped out at Garfield and 47.5 at Roosevelt. Many of the seminar participants went on to become leaders in the 1968 student walkouts. High school students such as Vicki Castro, Jorge Lic6n, John Ortiz, David Sanchez, Rachel Ochoa, and Moctesuma Esparza attended the 1966 conference at Camp Hess Kramer, sponsored by the County Human Relations Commission. These students formed the Young Citizens for Community Action (YCCA) in May 1966. In 1967, the Young Citizens worked for the election of Julian Nava to the Los Angeles School Board.

Student leader David Sanchez was recruited to go to Father John B. Luce's Social Action Training Center at the Church of the Epiphany (Episcopal) in Lincoln Heights. The center associated with the CSO. Luce introduced Sanchez to Richard Alatorre, a staff member of the Los Angeles Community Services Program, who helped him get an appointment to the Mayor's Youth Council. Mpctesuma Esparza, another veteran of the Hess Kramer conference, was also a member. Meanwhile,

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politicized by the Training Center, and by meeting people like Cesar Chavez. This transition is reflected in the name change of their organization to the for Community Action.

Also emerging from the Church of the Epiphany's' advocacy efforts was the La Raza (The Race, or The People) newspaper, founded by Eleazar Risco, a Cuban national. Risco had helped publish El Malcriado, the farmworker newspaper. Risco arrived in Los Angeles in 1967 to help organize a grape boycott and soon after- ward formed the Barrio Communications Project. Although it had a populist flavor, La Raza had a clear focus on barrio issues. 77 Father Luce's Social Action Training Center attracted other activists, such as Lincoln Heights Teen Post director Carlos Montes.

The East L.A. Walkouts By the 1968-1969 academic year, Latino students in East Los Angeles made up 96 percent of Garfield High School, 83 percent of Roosevelt, 89 percent of Lincoln, 76 percent of Wilson, and 59 percent of Belmont. Sal Castro, a teacher at Lincoln High School, was well known among students, helped them articulate their discontent. As early as September 1967, Castro spoke to students at the Piranya Coffee House (which the YCCA had established in October 1967), about the failure of the schools to provide quality education, access to the latest college prep courses, and counseling. By early 1968, the group formed the Brown Berets, led by David Sanchez. Their goal was to put an end to the discrimination and other injustices suffered by Chicano students. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles sheriffs department harassed them; consequently, the Berets led demonstrations against the police. Sanchez was arrested at a February 20, 1968 demonstration, following which he spent 60 days at Wayside Maximum-Security facility.

Meanwhile, high school and college students held strategy sessions and discussions on the blowout (walk- out). As a result of Castro's involvement, the students articulated clear demands. Castro, during the planning stages of the blowouts, worked very closely with UMAS students who were a bridge to the high school students.

Castro had been in trouble at Belmont High in 1963, when he encouraged Mexican-origin students to form a slate and run for student government. When the slate won, administrators accused Castro of being divisive for telling the students to say a couple of words in Spanish-as John F. Kennedy had done at Olvera Street during his presidential campaign. The transfer of Castro from Belmont to Lincoln High had caused community uproar. School officials thought that Castro and not the schools were the problem.

In March 1968, nearly 10,000 Chicano students walked out of five Los Angeles high schools-Lincoln, Roosevelt, Garfield, Wilson, and Belmont-following their example, students at Jefferson, a predominately black school, also walked out. Although high school students formed the core of the walkouts, Chicana college students like Vicki Castro from California State University, Los Angeles, and Rosalinda Mendez (later Gonzalez) from Occidental College, as well as the leadership of UMAS chapters also provided leadership. Tanya Luna Mount, a student organizer at Roosevelt High School and a junior, encouraged her fellow students to boycott; she witnessed and wrote about the senseless overreaction of police. Paula Crist6stomo, a senior at Lincoln High, who had previously attended the Camp Hess Kramer Youth Conference, and Margarita Mita Cuar6n, a sophomore at Garfield High School urged students to walk out. Police targeted the Brown Berets, who were present only for security, using them as a pretext to brutally suppress the walkout participants. (One of the leaders, Moctesuma Esparza, produced a film, Walkout (2006), memorializing the events.)78

Prior to the walkout, the school system had pushed out more than 50 percent of the Chicano high school students, through either expulsion or transfers to other schools. Eastside schools were overcrowded and run- down compared with Euro-American and black schools. The students demanded racist teachers to be removed, charging that school authorities had implemented a curriculum that purposely obscured the Chicanos' culture and programed students to be content with low-skilled jobs. In 1967, only 3 percent of the teachers and 1.3 per- cent of administrators had Spanish surnames, and many of these were white women married to Latinos. Whites made up 78 percent of the teachers, 91.4 percent of the administrators, and 54 percent of the students-more than 20 percent of the students were Latinos. Chicano community leaders and supporters formed the Educational Issues Coordinating Committee (EICC) to defend the students and to follow up on their demands.

It was clear that sheriffs' deputies and police had overreacted and treated the protests as insurrections. Police authorities wanted to make an example of Mexican Americans and control and subjugate them. Many

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activists were caught by surprise; however, moderates began to question the fairness of the justice system and were radicalized by the events. They were moved by Sal Castro, who said he had walked out with his students, because in good conscience he could not remain inside the school, because the demands of his students were legitimate. 79

On June 2, 1968, a Los Angeles grand jury indicted Castro and other activists on charges that included conspiracy to commit misdemeanors. (After two years of appeals, the courts found the counts unconstitu- tional).80 The California Department of Education attempted to revoke Castro's credentials, and he was subject to frequent and arbitrary administrative transfers. Meanwhile, on September 1968, several thousand protesters, led by the EICC, marched in front of Lincoln High School, demanding Castro's reinstatement to Lincoln. During these confrontations, unexpected help came from the presidential campaign of Robert Kennedy, who met with Chicano leaders. Kennedy had enlightened Chicanas such as Lupe Anguiano and Polly Baca on his campaign staff, and he was one of the few politicos of any race to reach out to youth.81

Chicana/o Student Militancy Spreads The Los Angeles walkouts, because of the size of the blowouts and the location, called national attention to the Chicanos' plight in education, and encouraged other walkouts throughout the Southwest and the Midwest. On March 20, 1968, students walked out of classes at Denver's West Side High School. They made demands for Mexican teachers, counselors, and courses, as well as for better facilities. Twenty-five people were arrested, including Corky Gonzales.

The perfect storm hit Texas as more than 39 separate walkouts of students hit Texas. As mentioned, MAYO agitated throughout Texas from the spring of 1968 through the early 1970s. The first walkout in Texas occurred at Lanier High School in San Antonio on April 9, 1968. The student council elections triggered the strike when teachers did not approve the nominees and suspended student council member Elida Aguilar for insubordination. Willie Velasquez of MAYO, persuaded the students to form a coordinating committee and to incorporate larger concerns into their demands. Seven hundred students walked out demanding more academic courses, the right to speak Spanish and more democracy. More pungent was the students' demand for Mexican American history and culture classes. The importance of the walkouts was that it generated considerable com- munity support. Among early supporters were the Neighborhood Youth Corp, the Bishops Committee for Spanish Speaking, State Senator Joe Bernal, County Commissioner Alberto Pefia, and Councilman Felix Trevifio.82 Pefia received a standing ovation when he said "We're handicapped because we have an educational system that doesn't understand bilingual students:>S3

On May 16, students rose once again against racist administrators. A young Willie Velasquez-then a graduate student at St. Mary's University, and later an activist who would earn a national reputation- exhorted the students:

With the education you get at Edgewood, most of you are going to wind up either in Vietnam or as a ditchdigger ... At Jefferson, Alamo Heights or Lee, there is a chance that you'll go to college. But 85 per cent of you will not go-$80 a week is the most you will earn the rest of your life ... Tell Stemhauser this is the problem.»84

The walkout was 80 percent effective. The students ended the boycott on Sunday, May 19, to show that they were not walking out on education. 85 Fundamental to the strike was the district's inability to attract qualified teachers. The all-Mexican Edgewood high spent $356 per student annually versus $594 at Alamo Heights which was predominately white. On June 30, Demetro Rodriguez, Martin CantU, Reynaldo Castafiono, and Alberta Snid tiled a suit against San Antonio in the Federal District Court citing the inequality in funding. 86

Meanwhile, MAYO based its campaign on a brand of Tejano nationalism calculated to take political control of South Texas. Tejano nationalism was based on the Texas experience: a blend of Mexican history, fam- ily values, Tejano music, and the Spanish language.87 The next stepping stone was at Edouch-Elsa High (and middle) school in Hidalgo County. This was the first strike in the rural Iqo Grande Valley.Chicano students there suffered numerous indignities. By mid-October 1968, students and parents had pegun informal meet- ings, with a few MAYO members, VISTA volunteers, and PASO members in att,endance. The chair was Jesus

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Ramirez, a MAYO member. It was supported by State Senator Joe Bernal, and Dr. Hector Garcia, the founder of the G.I. Forum, was present. On November 13, the students rose from their desks and walked out. The school officials bypassed the local police and reported the walkout to county sheriffs, who arrested the walkout lead- ers. Meanwhile, the superintendent suspended 168 students for three days.ss Here again students objected to the "No Spanish" rule and wanted classes on Mexican American contributions to Texas history. The students demanded courses and counseling that would prepare them for college. They demanded an end to discrimina- tion. s9 When the students were expelled, the recently organized Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) filed a suit, and board policy was ruled unconstitutional.90