The Chicano Movement: A Fight for Civil Rights and Political Power

Funding

  • Major funding for the program was provided by: Ford Foundation, John D and Katherine T MacArthur Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, The Charles Stewart M Foundation, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and annual financial support from viewers, with additional funding from the Texas committee for the Humanities.

Origins of the Chicano Movement

  • In the 1960s, a new generation of Mexican-Americans launched a militant social movement in response to years of anger and frustration within their community.
  • Demands included humane treatment in the fields, land reclamation in New Mexico, and political power.

The Need for Political Power

  • Mexican-Americans realized that without political power, they would remain second-class citizens.
  • The emergence of a new political party in a small South Texas town aimed to challenge the existing political landscape.

Conditions in South Texas in the 1960s

  • Mexican-Americans were the majority in South Texas, primarily migrant farm workers with limited education.
  • They faced segregation and inequality similar to African-Americans in the Deep South.
  • Wealthy landowners and business owners were predominantly Anglo, with Mexican-Americans largely confined to a labor pool.

Lack of Political Representation

  • In Crystal City, where Jose Angel Gutierrez grew up, Mexican-Americans comprised 85% of the population but had no political representation.
  • Voting rights were suppressed through poll taxes, literacy tests, and gerrymandering.
  • Voters were sometimes denied the right to vote for not speaking English, or were forced to vote for a specific candidate.

Early Political Organizing: Loo

  • In 1963, Mexican-Americans in Crystal City ran their own candidates for office, challenging Anglo politicians.
  • They organized inventive fundraising events to register voters.
  • Five candidates, known as loo, won the election, defeating the Anglo mayor and city council.
  • The new officials faced resistance and were eventually ousted in the next election: salary cuts and attempts to indict council members.

Historical Oppression in Texas

  • Texas had a history of conflict, land grabbing, and physical oppression of the Mexican population.
  • The Texas Rangers, created in 1823, were known for their intimidation and violence toward Mexican-Americans.
  • Law enforcement was used for private purposes, acting as a private police force for some farmers and employers.

Lessons Learned

  • Jose Angel Gutierrez learned that taking power is not enough; it is crucial to hold power and govern effectively.

Early Activism and Mentorship

  • Gutierrez met Willie Velasquez at St. Mary's University, and they collaborated to bring change to Mexican-American politics.
  • They studied leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, Cesar Chavez, and Corky Gonzalez.
  • Gutierrez wrote his thesis on the conditions for revolution in South Texas, defining revolution as fundamental change in electoral, economic, and social contexts.

Early Attempts at Organizing

  • Early attempts to organize Mexican-Americans began in the 19th century.
  • In 1929, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) was formed and successfully broke down discriminatory barriers in education, employment and health services.

Post-World War II Activism

  • Mexican-American servicemen and women returning from World War II found continued discrimination.
  • This led to the creation of the American GI Forum.
  • An incident where a war hero, Felix Longoria, was denied burial in his hometown galvanized the organization.
  • Senator Lyndon Johnson intervened, arranging for Longoria to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Kennedy's Campaign and Mexican-American Voters

  • John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign recognized the potential power of groups like LULAC and the GI Forum.
  • Kennedy reached out to Mexican-American voters, capitalizing on his Catholicism.
  • Political activists formed Viva Kennedy clubs throughout the Southwest.
  • Kennedy won Texas by 20,000 votes, with Mexican Americans voting for him 10 to 1.

Disappointment and New Strategies

  • Despite Kennedy's election, Mexican-American activists were disappointed by the lack of substantial political change.
  • Chicano activists believed they had better strategies for gaining political power than the previous generation.

Dissatisfaction with Old-Line Organizations

  • Growing dissatisfaction within the community, especially among the youth, with older organizations like the GI Forum and LULAC, which were seen as being reduced to social clubs.

Formation of a Militant Alternative

  • In 1968, Gutierrez and other students from St. Mary's formed a more militant alternative.
  • They sought activists willing to risk everything and adopt confrontational tactics.
  • They aimed to regain control of the land in the Southwest, not through physical reclamation but by taking political control of institutions.

Targeting the Schools

  • Gutierrez began organizing the Mexican-Americans in Crystal City and targeted the schools, where young people were fed up with negative stereotypes.
  • Students were angered by the negative portrayal of Mexicans in history books.

Cheerleader Controversy

  • At Crystal City High School, where Mexican Americans outnumbered Anglos 8 to one, only one Mexican-American was allowed on the cheerleading squad.
  • When Diana palasio challenged this policy, she was rejected by the teachers committee.

Student Walkout

  • Students threatened to walk out unless given Mexican-American cheerleaders, teachers, and counselors.
  • They also demanded courses in Mexican-American history and the right to speak Spanish in school.
  • On December 9, 1969, 700 students walked out of Crystal City High School.
  • The school board eventually agreed to all of the demands, and Diana palasio was voted head cheerleader.

Formation of La Raza Unida Party

  • Building on this success, Mexican-Americans in Crystal City created their own political party, La Raza Unida (The United People).
  • The party aimed to empower Mexican-Americans and challenge the Democratic and Republican parties.

Women's Role in La Raza Unida

  • La Raza Unida found great support among women, who made up 95% of the voter registration efforts.
  • Women demanded to be part of the decision-making process, leading to a split within the party.
  • Despite the split, women played a strong role in organizing and recruiting, leveraging the context of political familism.

Campaign and Platform

  • La Raza Unida campaigned to take back control of the Crystal City government.
  • The party's platform included bilingual education, regulation of public utilities, farm subsidies, and an equitable tax structure.

Election Victory and Opposition

  • In April 1970, La Raza Unida won 15 out of 16 possible seats in the school board and city council elections.
  • The business community denounced the party, and the local newspaper accused it of bringing hate, distrust, turmoil, and financial irresponsibility.
  • The Anglo population reacted with horror, feeling that the levers of political power had been taken from them.

Ramsey Muniz and the 1972 Gubernatorial Campaign

  • In 1972, Ramsey Muniz, a former football star and attorney, announced his candidacy for governor under the La Raza Unida banner.
  • Muniz was seen as an attractive candidate who made Mexican-Americans proud.
  • The Democratic party did not initially take the party seriously.

National Expansion of La Raza Unida

  • The Ramsey Muniz campaign brought widespread attention to La Raza Unida, and chapters appeared in multiple states.
  • The party crystallized a sense of nationalism and inspired artistic expression.

Division in Los Angeles

  • In Los Angeles, La Raza Unida produced division in the Mexican-American community.
  • The idea of leaving the Democratic party was too radical for many Mexican-American voters.
  • Raul Ruiz's campaign against incumbent Richard alator took votes from the Democratic party, leading to a Republican victory.

Lack of Representation in California

  • Mexican-Americans argued that the Democratic party had not done enough for them.
  • There was a lack of representation on the city council, County Board of Supervisors, and state legislature.

Growing Militancy

  • Back in Texas, Jose Angel Gutierrez and La Raza Unida grew increasingly militant.
  • Gutierrez stated that the "Gringo" was the barrier to Mexican-American progress and must be removed.
  • An Anglo group, the citizens committee, denounced Gutierrez, accusing him of advocating the killing of Gringos.

Internal Conflict and Moderation

  • Gutierrez's friend, Willie Velasquez, left La Raza Unida to pursue a more moderate strategy of voter registration within existing parties.
  • Velásquez believed that an ethnic party violated the sense of integration and building a pluralistic society.

Fundamental Question

  • The very existence of La Raza Unida party raised the fundamental question: is it better to work within the existing political system or to be totally independent of it?

Corky Gonzalez's Perspective

  • Corky Gonzalez believed that Mexican-Americans needed their own party to serve their people, not politicians.
  • He argued that civil rights legislation had been weakened by amendments.

Gutierrez's Perspective

  • Jose Angel Gutierrez saw value in the possibility of forcing concessions from the Democrats and Republicans by leveraging La Raza Unida votes.

First National Convention

  • In 1972, members of La Raza Unida met in El Paso, Texas, for their party's First National Convention.
  • Delegates debated issues such as supporting or not supporting any of the presidential candidates.

Surveillance and Threats

  • The party was under surveillance by the CIA and the FBI, who feared a separatist movement.
  • Members faced threats and intimidation.

Key Issues at Convention:

  • Gun Control. The Texas delegation directly supported immediate withdrawal from Vietnam.
  • Land Honor Original Mexican Spanish land grants cease taxation of the land.
  • Delegates voted on whether La Raza Unida should back one of the presidential candidates.

Voting

  • The national position of the party from the First National Convention support none of the two major candidates for president of the United States.

Election of Party Leader

  • The convention faced the job of electing a party leader.
  • Corky Gonzalez and Jose Angel Gutierrez both ran for the position.
  • The debate centered around whether to vote by delegation or individually.
  • Jose Angel Gutierrez was elected as the new chairman.

Lasting Impact and Political Awakening

  • La Raza Unida changed the nature of politics, especially for Mexican-Americans.
  • The idea of taking power and controlling one's destiny became more accepted.

Gubernatorial Election Results

  • Two months later, Ramsey Muniz lost the governor's race in Texas to Democrat Dolph Brisco.
  • However, he collected a quarter of a million votes in 1972, by receiving more than 200,000 votes denied the Democratic party a majority for the first time in the 20th century.

Government Surveillance and Repression

  • Six months after the convention, an FBI memo called for tighter surveillance of Corky Gonzalez's Crusade for Justice.
  • In March 1973, Denver police officers surrounded The Crusade for justice headquarters.
  • A confrontation erupted, lasting for over an hour and a half, with police killing a 20-year-old Crusade member.

Decline of La Raza Unida

  • The Crusade for justice would never fully recover and La Raza Unida continued to field candidates with little success.

Legacy of La Raza Unida

  • Despite its short life, La Raza Unida brought inspiration to a generation of political activists who went on to organize within the Democratic and Republican parties.
  • It destroyed the stereotype of Mexican-Americans as apathetic and passive.

Influence on Voter Registration

  • Among those influenced by La Raza Unida was Willie Velasquez, who created the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project in 1974.
  • Velásquez worked to challenge voting laws and policies that kept Mexican-Americans from political power.

Increased Latino Political Representation

  • During the next two decades, more than 2 million new Latino voters were registered.
  • Within 20 years, there would be almost 5,000 Latino elected officials in the United States, half coming from Texas.

Lasting Legacy of the Chicano Movement

  • The victories of the Chicano movement became the lasting Legacy of Decades of Mexican-American activism.
  • The United Farm Workers made Americans aware of the plight of workers.
  • The walkouts challenged Educators to respond to community needs and served as a catalyst for bilingual instruction and Cho studies programs.
  • A generation of Mexican-American artists, writers, poets, and musicians reclaimed their Heritage and gave new definition to American culture.