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Youth, Identity, Power - The Chicano Movement

A book by Carlos Munoz, Jr, Revised and Expanded Edition, published by Veros 2007."An essential record of the Chicano Movement and an independent addition to the history of American social protest." - San Francisco Chronicle. This book was originally published in 1989 as serves in important resource for understanding the study of the origins and development of Chicano radicalism in America. Written by a Leader of the Chicano Student Movement of the 1960’s, Carlos Munoz Jr does a great job outlining the Chicano Power Movement-student protests of the 1960’s as well as the political development of Mexicans and their descendants in the United States. Munoz Jr. does a great job with framing the historical perspective of Chicano student activists in the 1930’s who challenged the dominant white racial and class ideologies of the time. The book is a great resource for understanding the origins of the 1960s Chicano Rights Movement.

Preface

• The book was finished in the year of the 20^th anniversary of two significant political events in the experience of people of Mexican descent in the United States.

• 3/3/1968-Abraham Lincoln High School walkout – over 1k students walked the streets of East LA. Later in the day several thousand more walked out of 5 predominantly Mexican American high schools. By the end of the day 10k had joined the strike.
• First major mass protest ever undertaken by Mexican Americans which marked the entry of youth of Mexican descent into the history of the turbulent 60s
• Called the “Walkouts” or “Blow-outs” lasted a week and a half
• Purpose of the strike:
  • protest racist teachers and school policies
  • he lack of freedom on speech
  • the lack of teachers of Mexican descent
  • the absence of classes on Mexican and Mexican American culture and history

The Los Angeles 13

May 27, 1968-the Los Angeles 13 = 13 of the strike organizers, 10 of them student activists, were indicted by LA County Grand Jury for conspiracy to “wilfully disturb the peace and quiet” of the city of LA and disrupt the education process.

• The first time the Mexican American political activists were imprisoned on charges of conspiracy
• Added fuel to the fire of youth militancy generated by the LA high school strike
• Sparked other strikes within the year happening in the southwestern U.S.
• Marked a new militant and radical youth orgs identifying themselves as part of the Chicano Power Movement
  • March 1969-the first national Chicano Youth Liberation Conference – over 1k reps from organizations met in Denver, CO.

El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan, The Spiriual plan of Aztlan

• Manifesto advocating Chicano nationalism and a movement for Chicano self-determination
  • April 1969-founding of El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA) – largest student org made up the Chicano student movement

• Spread across collage and university campuses SW U.S.
• Played a major role in the building of the Chicano Power Movement
  • Munoz – one of the organizers of the LA student strike and one of the 13 men indicted for conspiracy. Played a leadership role in the development of the student and Chicano Power movements.

Biography of Carlos Munoz, Jr.

• Born in el Segundo barrio in El Paso, Texas
• 1968-served as President of the United Mexican American Students (UMAS) organization at LA State College.
• Was a Vietnam War-era veteran attending college on the G.I. Bill, 1^st semester grad student in PolySci, young father of 2 children Carlos and Marina
• After prison release, served as the first Chair of the first Chicano Studies department in the nation at Cal State University at LA.
• 1969 played a role in founding MEChA
• 1970-1972 organizer for La Raza Unida Party – the first independent Mexican American political party in the US history
• 1973 became cofounder of the National Assn for Chicano Studies

The Militant Challenge: The Chicano Generation ICbapter 2)

• by 1950 the Mexican and Mexican American population in US doubled in CA after WWII for labor from rural areas to the urban centers of the South and Midwest
• Upward social mobility was made possible by the economic prosperity after war for a small sector of the Mexican American working class
• Mexican Americans participated in trade union activity
• Urbanization contributed to Americanization.
• Children exposed to the dominant political institutions in the cities
  • Acceleration of the acculturation and assimilation process
  • Middle-class Mexican American organization such as the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) who won court victories in 1940s over de jure school segregation. De facto segregated schooling was a reality for most Mexican American youth

Mexican American racism

• Some promoted the image as a white ethnic group who had little in common with African Americans, ignoring their Native American racial background, for fear of being labeled as “people of color” and then suffering the same discrimination as African Americans.
• Minimizing the existence of racism could “deflect” anti-Mexican sentiment in society
• Others promoted a “Spanish” or “Latin American” identity
  • Ralph Guzman – critical attitude toward US democracy
• WWII Vet who attended college on GI Bill
• As a journalist for Eastside Sun community newspaper he first  spoke out against injustices suffered by Mexicans and Mexican Americans
• Director of the Civil Rights department in Alianza Hispano-Americana, engaged in litigation against the segregation of Mexican American children in schools
• First Mexican American to be appointed to the Board of Directors for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

Edward Roybal

o  WWI Vet

o  First Mexican American to be elected to the LA City Council

o  Defended the rights of free speech and publicly criticized the use of “red scare” tactics against those who defended Mexican Americans against racial attacks

o  CoFounder of CSO and MAPA

o  First Mexican American congressman from CA

John F. Kennedy

o  Called upon leaders of Mexican American middle-class and professional organizations for help

o  Entry of leadership into national politics

o  Viva Kennedy Clubs organized in the southwestern states

• Recruited Mexican American college student activists
• New era of politics that was to eventually produce the Chicano Generation: Mexican American student activists who quest for identity and power characterized by a militant and radical politics
• Successfully mobilized the Mexican American vote for Kennedy

1960s Politics

o  Civil rights movement generated reform in education and politics

o  Benefitted Mexican American working-class youth giving them more access to institutions of higher education due to federal education programs implemented during the Johnson administration

o  1964-Armando Valdez organized the Student Initiative (SI) at San Jose State College to bring specific attention the needs of Mexican Americans and youth. The objective: pressuring the campus administration to create programs to recruit Mexican American students and tutorial programs to help them survive once they entered college

o  1965-Luis Valdez founded the Teatro Campesino- cultural work to define  chicano identity and the development of chicano generation

o  09/16/1965 – Anniversary of Mexican independence from Spain in 1810, the National Farm Workers Assn (NFWA) met at a Catholic church in Delano, CA and voted to join the striking Filipino grape pickets.  Members of NFWA led by Cesar Chavez joined the Filipino grape picket lines and shouted “Viva La Causa!” Luis Valdez wrote the “Plan de Delano” proclaiming the beginning of the social movement and defined the farmworker struggle as a nonviolent revolution for social justice led by the Mexican Revolution calling for the unity of all poor farmworkers across the nation

o  1963 Crystal City, TX – defeat of all white candidates and victory of Mexican American candidates who took complete control of the city government in the Southwest. Lasted only 2 years but had a profound impact on student activists in Texas.

o  04/08/1966-Conference of the federal EEOC in Albuquerque, NW attacked the commission for not having a Mexican American leader. All 50 Mexican American leaders walked out in protest. First act of collective middle-class leadership protest against government.

o  1965-Crusade for Justice – 1^st Mexican American civil rights organization in the nation founded by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales of Denver, CO.

o  06/05/1967 – Reies Lopez Tijerina – Tierra Amarilla, NM – lead a struggle to recapture lands that had been stolen from the Hispano people

Student organizations formed in the Fall of 1967:

§ Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) started at St. Mary’s College in San Antonio, TX.

§ United Mexican American Students (UMAS) formed at UCLA, Cal State College LA, Loyola Univ, NSC, Cal State LB and San Fernando State College. 

§ Mexican American Student Assn (MASA) organized at East LA Community College

§ Mexican American Student Confederation (MASC) at San Jose State College in Northern CA (formerly the Student Initiative org)

Student organizations formed in 1968:

§ UMAS at Univ of Colorado at Boulder

§ MASC chapter at UC Berkeley

1969 UMAS chapters all parts of the Southwest

§ UMAS first chapter in Midwest at Univ of Notre Dame by Gilbert Cardenas, former member at UMAS in CA

New student Orgs had objectives similar to those of the Mexican Youth Conferences of the 1930s and the Mexican-American Movement of the 1940s

§ Progress through education

§ Concentrated on recruitment of Mexican American students to help them stay in college

§ Worked with Mexican American professionals to raise scholarship funds for needy students

§ Committed to generating a new generation of professionals to play a leading role in betterment of Mexican American community within the context of middle-class politics

Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales

Founder and head of the Crusade for Justice, a civil rights org in Denver, CO, product of an urban barrio, issues facing youth, wrote the epic poem “I am Joaquin” in 1967 and distributed to UMAS, MASC and MAYO student leadership in SW. Was published in book form in 1972

§ Provided a critical framework for developing student movement through its portrayal of the quest for identity and it’s critique of racism.

§ Attempted to dramatize the key events and personalities from important moments of Mexican and Mexican American history beginning with the indigenous ancestors prior to the Spanish conquest.

§ Adamant assertion that people of Mexican descent and their culture would continue to endure

§ The first publication to link Mexican American history with Mexican history

§ Captured both the agony and jubilation of permeating the identity crisis faced by Mexican American youth in the process of assimilation

§ The search for identity and the dilemmas it posed are key to understanding the Chicano student movement of the 1960s

§ Effort to recapture what had been lost through the socialization process imposed by US schools, churches, and other institutions

Luis Valdez

First gave concrete direction to the development of a distinct Chicano identity

§ Emphasized nonwhite legacy of the Mexican American people

§ Only one identity appropriate to the oppressed Mexican American which was rooted in the nonwhite indigenous past and in the

El Grito

A Journal of Contemporary Mexican-American Thought, The first issue published in 1967 by a handful of student activists in Northern California under the guidance of Professor Octavio Romano-V. (anthropologist at UC Berkeley)

§ Purpose to challenge the racist stereotypes of Mexican Americans that developed in the social sciences discipline

§ Meant to be a forum for “Mexican American self definition” to deal with the questions of identity in less political and more academic terms

§ This exposed the historic role of schools in the undermining of Mexican American culture

Abraham Lincoln High School “Blow Out” in East LA, March 3, 1968

§ shake up school administration

§ call public attention to the educational problems of Mexican American Youth

§ 1^st major mass protest explicitly against racism undertaken by Mexican Americans in the history of the US

§ generated increased political awareness along with visible efforts to mobilze the community

§ youth playing a significant role in community political organization

§ questioned authority and the status quo

§ Sal Castro – the teacher at Lincoln High School who conceived the strike and walked out with the students. Prepared to sacrifice his career as a teacher in the interest of educational change for Mexican American children.

§ It was the first loud cry for Chicano Power and self-determination

La Raza Unida Party (Chapter 4)

Major outcome of the 1969 National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference in Denver, CO was the call for the creation of an independent, local, regional and national political party

The focus was on gaining control over community institutions. The target of the movement was the school system of Crystal City, TX and building the independent Chicano political party. The name of the party La Raza Unida was chosen by MAYO activists who participated in the national convention fo the Alianza de Pueblos Libres in Albuquerque, NM, Oct.67. MAYO organized a La Raza Unida conference in El Paso, TX. Jose Angel Gutierrez was selected as chief coordinator of the Winter Garden Project in a community of 10K with 80% Mexican. This marked a Chicano takeover of the town in Crystal City where a strong anti-white orientation was developing. Gringo as enemy became the key theme to build the LRU party. It was built on strategy, tactics and organization combined with strong commitment to cultural nationalism.

Texas Raza Unida Party platform had 4 objectives:

o  To replace the existing system with a humanistic alternative with shall maintain equal representation of all people

o  To create a government which serves the needs of individual communities, yet is beneficial to the general populace

o  Creation of a political movement dedicated to ending the causes of poverty, misery and injustice so that future generations can live a life free from exploitation

o  Abolish racist practices within the existing social, educational, economic and political system so that physical and cultural genocidal practices against minorities will be discontinued

Lack of quality education due to the unequal distribution of revenues, politics, system of justice, platform was male centered, immigration, selective service system was the focus of the California chapter of LRU which formed in Northern California. The vowed not to support any candidate of the democratic or republican party or any individual who supports these parties. The group was devoted to political work especially the registration of voters. In 1972 a state and national conferences held. The party had three separate regional networks: northern, central, southern

Student Role in LRU

o  Mostly students or former student activists working class

o  Most no family responsibilities, more consistent members

o  After elections, non-student participation

Decline of LRU

o  After 1973 declined rapidly

o  Thirst parties in US difficult with 2 party system

o  Inability to achieve ideological unity

Reference

• Muñoz, Carlos. Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement. London and New York: Verso, 1989.