Chicano Movements: A Geographic History

Chicano Movements: A Geographic History

The Chicano movement took shape in late 1960s and transformed the identity, the politics and community dynamics of Mexican Americans

1.      Movement had many dimensions, no single organization could represent the full range of agendas, objectives, tactics, approaches and ideologies that activist pursued.

2.      Largest/most notable organizations included United Farm Workers Union, Alianza Federal del Pueblos Libres, The Crusade for Justice and the Raza Unida Party (formerly the Mexican Youth Organization.

3.      Central to Chicano movements were student and youth organizations

a.      Eg. Brown Berets and the United Mexican American Students, the Mexican American Student Confederation, and the Mexican Student Association -eventually merged to form El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicno/a de Aztlan (MECHA) in 1969

4.      Chino rather than Mexican American in title of org. was intentional

a.      Chicano signaled rejection of Mexican American identity that accepted assimilation and shunned their cultural roots

b.      Instead MECHISTA’s opted to identify as Chicanos -reflecting commitment to new political consciousness, self-respect, and pride in their cultural background

5.      Scholars have looked at the geography of Chicano activism

a.      Starting with assumption that the movement was concentrated in Southwest where the Mexican American pop. Were largest

b.      While true, certain organizations and types of activism are limited to geographies

c.      Eg. Southern Texas where Mexican Americans comprised a significant portion of the population and had a history of electoral participation

d.      Raza Unida Party started in 1970 by Jose Angel Gutierrez hoped to win elections and mobilize the voting power of Chicanos

e.      RUP became the focus of considerable Chicano activism in Texas in the early 1970s.

6.      Movement in California took different shape, less concerned about elections

a.      Chicanos in Los Angeles formed alliances with other oppressed people who identified with the third World Left committed to toppling U.S. imperialism and fighting racism

b.      The Brown Berets, with links to the Black Panther Party, was one manifestation of the multiracial context in Los Angeles

c.      Chicano Moratorium antiwar protests of 1970 and 1971 reflected collaboration between African Americans, Japanese Americans, American Indians and white antiwar activists that developed in Southern California.

d.      Chicano student activism followed particular geographies

e.      MECHA established in Santa Barbara, Ca in 1969 united many university and college Mexican American groups under one umbrella became a multi-state organization but concentrated in California

7.      What was unique about California and why Chicano students in other states were less interested in organizing MEChA chapters

Mexican American Activism 1929-1967

1.      League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) -was most important Mexican most important Mexican American civil rights organization for most of 20^th century

2.      Founded in 1929, in Corpus Christi, Texas, modeled after the NAACP was largely created by activists Tejanos.

a.      Organization expanded quickly throughout south Texas but was not until mid-1930s chapter appeared outside of Texas and only in the mid-1940s did Mexican Americans in California began to form chapters

b.      In late 1950s and early 1960s chapters formed in Chicago and other Midwestern cities.

3.      LULAC’s founders were professionals and merchants committed tow working within American political and economic system

a.      Assisted Mexican Americans acquire voting rights and and greater equality especially in education and education

b.      Notable achievements financial support for successful federal lawsuit -Mendez v. Westminster which argued that segregation of Mexican Americans in public schools in Orange County, Ca. was unlawful -1947 appellate court ruling became a precursor to Brown v. Board Supreme Court ruling which declared that school segregation was unconstitutional nationwide in 1954.

c.      LULAC’s arguments for equal access in schools and employment rested on the notion that Mexican Americans were legally white and therefore deserved equal rights similar to white Americans.

d.      While they resisted European American domination they still used strategies of the era that focused on assimilation and anti-immigrant sentiments.

e.      This position was later criticized and condemned

4.      Similarly the American GI forum established in 1948 toi address discrimination faced by returning WWII Mexican American GI’s in employment, medical attention, housing, and education

a.      Main objectives were to aid needy and disabled veterans through nonviolent democratic means

b.      They expressed strong patriotic sentiment and swore to protect the constitution and defend against national enemies

c.      Shortly after founding GI Forum became key institution that galvanized state and national attention when white-owned mortuary refused to bury a Mexican war veteran -Private Felix Longoria -in a white cemetery.

d.      Garcia was able to secure Texas Senator Lyndon b. Johnson’s support and Private Longoria was buried in 1949 at Virginia’s Arlington National Cemetery

e.      The Longoria affair was catalyst for the expansion of the American GI Forum beyond Texas

f.        GI forum was rooted in Texas but spread slowly to other states

g.       Not until 1960s did it reach California, and councils founded in the Midwest along the East coasts in Connecticut, Maryland and Washington Dc

h.      Unlike LULAC -American GI Forum more willing to engage in oppositional politics with some wearing caps marched in solidarity with Chicanos protestors

5.      Between 1969 and 1979 GI Forum led national boycott against Adolf Coors Company -challenging corporations discriminatory employment affecting Chicanos

6.      GI forum never supported formally radical political activism of Chicano movement.

3) United Farm Workers Union

1.      Originated in California in 1965, a critical spark and integral part of Chicano movement

2.      UFW not merely a union but what Cesar Chevez called “El Movimiento” a crusade with broad goals and broad support

3.      Chevez Did not support Chicano cultural nationalism or consider himself a a Chicano leader

4.      But UFW inspired Chicano youth, radical activists, and civil rights organizations.

5.      Appealed to many Chicanos because it emphasized Mexanness -highlighted in Chavez’s Plan de Delano -spoke of sacrifices the Mexican race had made to seek bread and justice.

6.      UFW began concentrated in California -but it spread it offices to a few other states (Arizona, Texas, and Washington) where it opened offices and conducted strikes

7.      Embrace La Causa fought for justice in the fields and for justice everywhere for Mexican Americans.

8.      Its militancy set it apart from other middle-class Mexican organizations among young Chicanos.

9.      UFW locals and strikes mostly confined to California, but boycott campaigns were national and international

10.  Great grape boycott beginning in 1968 was successful and mobilized Chicanos and their allies across the country while generation worldwide attention.

a.      Elevated UFW and Chicano movement like no other movement

4) La Alianza

1.      La Alianza Federal del Pueblos Libres (La Alianza) influenced early Chicano movement and leaders

a.      It was formed in 1963 in New Mexico never expanded outside of the state

b.      Wanted to reclaim land and water rights lost to New Mexican Hispanos but guaranteed by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848

c.      Initially an accommodationist organization -later became radicalized, embraced cultural nationalism, and rejected middle-class tactics of redress

d.      Between 1967 and 1969 La Alianza occupied the Encho Amphitheater at Kit Carson National Park -raided the Tierro Amarillo Courthouse to make citizen’s arrest of Rio Arriba County District attorney

e.      Attempted to reoccupy Kit Carson National Park which caused the arrest of its leader Reis Tijerina and incarceration from 1969-1971

f.        Younger Chicanos such as Rudolfo Corky Gonzales of the Crusade for Justice and Jose Angel Gutierrez of the Mexican American Organization -Tijerina was a model to emulate as he fought for land and justice.

8.      Crusade for Justice -founded in 1966 by Rodolfo Corky Gonzolez in Denver Co.

a.      Sought to showcase virtues of Mexican American community through theater productions, dances, and fiestas to create unity and generate political dialogue of how La commundid could solve their own problems

b.      Gonzelez early preferred to keep the organization local, rather then make it a statewide or national organization

c.      Crusade for Justice provided the movement with powerful political ideology of Chicanismo.

d.      A term popularized by Gonzalez proclaiming an identity that rejected assimilationist goals and an alternative to label of Mexican American

e.      Gonzalez denounced  the history of cultural genocide at hands of Anglo-Americans and urged Chicanos to fight back

f.        An agenda from his poem I am Joaquin/Yo Soy Joaquin

9.      1969 crusade for justice organized First Annual Chicano Youth Liberation Conference where El Plan Espiritual de Atlanza drafted urging Chicanos to adhere to manifesto’s cuyltural nationalism and notion of Aztlan as both a real and symbolic homeland

10.  The conference was attended by thousands of students across the Southwest who returned to their own communities to build Chicano student/youth movement

11.  Fueled Chicanismo and conference became important turning point when term of Chicano took root in vernacular of Chicano movement

12.  In 1970 Crusade for Justice spearheaded the efforts of Raza Unida Party in Colorado and Midwest -while headquarters remained in Denver

13.  Organization came under siege by law enforcements agencies as Gonzalez was in power struggle with Jose Angel Gutierrez led to Crusade for Justice losing its political clout by 1974.

5) Raza Unida Party

1.      Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) was also a cultural nationalist and militant organization but focused on education and political empowerment

2.      In 1967 -Jose Angel Gutierrez and five other undergraduates and graduates in San Antonia Texis established MAYO

a.      Expanded into Texis, and organized some 39 high school walkouts from 1968-1969 in places such as Ednoch-elsa, Kingsville, and Crystal City

3.      Politically MAYO became known as the Chicano takeover in Crystal City’s school board and city council in 1970

a.      This established the Raza Unida Party in Texas and by 1972 it had absorbed MAYO in

4.      Raza Unida Parety (RUP) founded in 1970 -sought to achieve elector political power by creating alternative to nation’s two party system

5.      Theyu believed the 2 party system was unresponsive, unrepresentative, and indifferent to needs of people of Mexican descent.

a.      Spread to Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and California

b.      But accomplishment on the southside of Texas was limited

c.      But in Crystal City, Texas they were able to elect party candidates to both school board and city council

6.      Although there were 93 chapters established from 1971 to 1973, only the one in Texas was RUP an official party in 1972

a.      Their candidate for Texas Governor, Ramnsey Muniz, received nearly 220 votes -not enough to win but impressive.

b.      By 1973 the support for RUP faded

c.      Only in Texas did new chapters emerge, but outside of Texas activities declined significantly

d.      Internal power struggles between Gutierrez and Gonzalez hurt the movement, party members fought over ideological issues, becoming divided between Marxist-Leninist and cultural nationalist.

Brown Berets

1.      Founded in the barrios of Los Angeles in 1967 -modeled after the Black Panther party

2.      By 1969 had 29 chapters mostly in California, but with  a few in Alburquerque, Denver, Detroit, San Antonio, St. Paul, and Seatle

3.      Wore paramilitary attire and some even trained in guerrilla warfare and use of weapons

4.      Primary goals were to protect Chicano community against police brutality.

5.      Demanded equality in employment, housing and education, advocated for bilingual education, pressed for voting rights, and the right to bear and use arms against racially motivated attacks

6.      Involved in marches, anti-war protests, student walkouts, and gained media attention as they staged an invasion of the Catalina Islands near Los Angeles in August of 1972.

7.      They also mobilized the East Los Angeles blowouts in 1968 where they acted as sec urity forces for thousands of protesting youth.

8.      High visibility and paramilitary stance made them key targets for infiltration, attacks and harassment by local police and the FBI

9.      When they were disbanded by Prime Minister David Sanchez in 1972 a total of 36 chapters primarily near colleges and university campuses.

MEChA.

1.      Formed shortly after Chicano Youth Liberation Conference with intent to further Chicanismo and committed to ideas of “El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan”

a.      Manifesto provided strategy to establish Chicano Studies Departments within colleges and universities

b.      Called for unification of all student organizations into one umbrella organization -Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlan became known as MECha.

c.      As of 2012 it had over 500 chapters.

d.      They became a national organization with chapters in jr middle schools, high schools and community colleges and universities

e.      Rapidly spread to major campuses in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Diego and Riverside.

f.        Many ivy league schools such as Harvard, Yale, and Brown. 

g.       Did not catch on in Texas

2.      Slow growth in 1990s but surge in the 200s.  with over 100 high wschool chapters, and contributed to anti-iummigration legislation proposed in the mid 200sa.

Chicano Press:

Over 399 spanish language newspapers

But many ceased publishing within a year or two..or merged into larger publications.