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The Latinx Civil Rights Movement (redirected from The Latino Civil Rights Movement)

Page history last edited by Robert W. Maloy 11 months, 3 weeks ago

 

Topics on the Page

 

Latinx History

 

Sylvia Mendez and the Mendez v. Westminster (1947) Court Case

 

Hernandez v. Texas (1954) Supreme Court Case 

 

Latinos and Civil Rights History

 

 

1938 Pecan Shellers Strike and Emma Tenayuca

 

Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta

 

  • Movement to Create a Cesar Chavez National Holiday

 

Delano Grape Strike and Boycott, 1965-1970

 

East LA School Walkouts/Chicano Blowouts, 1968

 

The Brown Berets- A Chicano Civil Rights Group 

 

The Chicano moratorium (1968-1970)

 

 Cross-Links

 

 

 

 

 

 eBook Connections

 

Due Process and Equal Protection: Mendez v. Westminster

 

Liberty in Conflict with Equality or Authority

 

PAGE SUMMARY

This page covers Latinos in history in America from Sylvia Mendez to the Mendez versus Westminster court case. This case center is around Sylvia Mendez, who in third grade was denied administration to a white only elementary school in Los Angeles. This court case eventually desegregated schools in California years before Brown versus the Board of Education. 1938 Pecan Shellers Strike was when 20,000 pecan shellers, who are mostly Mexican American women, start a three-month strike to protest the abominable working conditions. The wiki page also discusses the Delano Grape Strike and Boycott of 1955 to 1970. It finishes by talking about the Chicano movement of the late 1960s. (Shai Bocarsly, April 2022) 

 

 

Overview of Latinx History in the U.S.

 

Latinos have been fighting for their rights in the United States for a long time.

 

Latino Civil Rights Timeline, 1903 to 2006 shows how Latinos fought through the entire 20th century for rights, and continue to do so into the 21st century due to prejudice and discrimination that had been established in years prior.

 

A Latino History of the U.S


Invisible No More: The Latino Struggle for Civil Rights, National Education Association

 

A case study on the Chicano movement, and its impacts on Mexican-Americans, and the civil rights movement. 

 

Personal stories allow people to more deeply connect with subject matter. 

 

Mendez v. Westminster (1947)

 

 

Dramatic Event page: Mendez v. Westminster


In third grade, Sylvia Mendez was denied admission to a White-only elementary school in Los Angeles.

Her family brought suit and the eventual Mendez v. Westminster court decisions desegregated schools in California, years before the Brown v. Board of Education case.

NPR Audio about Mendez v. Westminster



Background: Mendez v. Westminster Re-Enactment

Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation. Duncan Tonatinuh, Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2014

 

        • A picture book history of the famous Mendez v. Westminster case

Hernandez v. Texas Supreme Court Case 

 

The question of the fourteenth amendment in relation to Mexican Americans was brought back to the United States Supreme Court in 1954 with the case Hernandez v. Texas.

 

  • On January 11, 1954, agricultural worker Pete (Pedro) Hernandez, who was indicted for murder by an all-white jury in Texas, argued that Mexican- Americans were barred from the jury commissions. The basis for this discrimination was argued to be the ruling of the Texas Court of Appeals that US citizens of Mexican ancestry were placed within the white race and distinguished from Black Americans under the “two class theory”.

 

  • The SCOTUS provided an answer to the question “Is it a denial of the Fourteenth Amendment equal protection clause to try a defendant of a particular race or ethnicity before a jury where all persons of his race or ancestry have, because of that race or ethnicity, been excluded by the state?” by ruling that the fourteenth amendment protects those beyond “the two classes” to other racial groups.

 

  • Therefore, the  purposeful exclusion of Mexican-Americans from juries was ruled as unconstitutional. The distinction between white and Mexican-Ancestry was clearly established; Mexican Americans were defined as a “special class” or “a class apart” (outside of the legal structure that recognized only black and white Americans), that was protected by the equal protection clause.

 

  • This case simultaneously broadened civil rights to include all other non-white races while focusing the legal battle on distinct racial groups. 

Source: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/347us475  

 

 Watch the video, read the website for an overview of the PBS documentary “A Class Apart, and watch the documentary trailer to learn about this milestone Supreme Court Case in Latin American civil rights. 

Hernandez v. Texas

Watch A Class Apart | American Experience | Official Site | PBS

A Class Apart - PBS Trailer

 

 

Latinos and Civil Rights

 

 



Hispanics: The Forgotten Class in Civil Rights History from LBJ Presidential Library

 

Emma Tenayuca


1938 Pecan Shellers Strike

 
In 1938, 12,000 pecan shellers (mostly Mexican- American women) in San Antonio Texas started a three-month strike to protest horrible working conditions and low wages. The strike was led by Emma Tenayuca.


1938 Pecan Shellers Strike Link to article and photos

 

 

 

 

 Link to Document Based Question for the Pecan Sheller Strike (includes many primary source documents, photos and interview excerpts)

 

 

 

Cesar Chavez, June 1972

Cesar Chavez and the Cesar Chavez National Holiday

 

 An American Hero: Biography of Cesar E. Chavez, California Department of Education

Go here to learn about the movement to Create a Cesar E. Chavez National Holiday

  • It is a state holiday in California
  • Optional holiday in Colorado and Texas
  • Celebrations in Arizona, Michigan, Nebraska and New Mexico


Senator Barack Obama Statement for a Cesar Chavez National Holiday (March 2008)

Dolores Huerta, 1975
Dolores Huerta, 1975

 

Dolores Huerta


Biography from the National Women's History Museum

 

Image from United Farm Workers

 

Delano Grape Strike and Boycott, 1965-1970


The Grape Strike and Boycott, from United Farm Workers



Legacy of the Delano Grape Strike, 50 Years Later, San Francisco Chronicle (September 16, 2015)

 

 

Against All Odds: Cesar Chavez & the Delano Grape Strike, Cesar Chavez Foundation

    • A video on Cesar Chavez and what he did for his people.

 


Delano Grape Strike and Boycott, 1965 from Records of Rights, National Archives

 

 

 

 

 

Sal Castro and the East LA Walkouts

East LA School Walkouts/Chicano Blowouts, 1968

 

 

Historic Photos from the 1968 East LA School Walkouts

 

 

In 1968, East LA Students Led a Movement

 

 Sal Castro and the East LA Walkouts

 

LA Walkouts from PBS Learning Media 

 

Chicano Student News and La Raza Print Newspapers 

La Raza

https://ucla.app.box.com/s/wd9ky15r8dyahw1ccwatv8icx0vohrs4

 

Chicano Student News 

https://achieve.lausd.net/cms/lib/CA01000043/Centricity/Domain/922/Chicano%20Student%20Movement%20Newspaper.vol1.march68.pdf


Thes primary sources are from the Chicano community during the times of the East LA  Walkouts. La Raza outlines the reasons for the walkouts along with the Chicano parent perspective, interviews with the Brown Berets, reports on recent civil rights activist actions, and a critique of the American education system for failing Latin American students. Political artwork and poems reveal the Chicano perspective on Latin Civil. The Chicano Student News is similar to La Raza however it comes exclusively from the student perspective. It focuses on the walkouts, the student leadership Chicano Pride, and the unjust police presence at the schools.

 

 

The Brown Berets- A Chicano Civil Rights Group

Brown Berets: Chicano Revolutionaries

Brown Berets chapters map - Mapping American Social Movements

How female Brown Berets created their own Chicana movement - Los Angeles Times (Article and video)

 

.                    

Source: LA Times- Gloria Arellanes’ former beret,             Source: Brown Berets - Students | Britannica Kids | Homework Help

which is now part of a collection at Cal State LA.

 

 

Alongside the Mexican American legal fight for desegregation and educational equality, various community groups formed to aid in the organized fight. Two groups of note are the militarily influenced Brown Berets, and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).

  • The Brown Berets, also known as the Young Chicanos for Community Action (YCCA), formed initially as the Young Citizens for Community Action in 1967 and started the Piranya Coffee House in Los Angeles. This was a site for young Chicano people to gather, drink coffee, and have intellectual and political conversations.
  • In his book Blowout!: Sal Astro and the Chicano Struggle for Educational Justice, Sal Castro explained that Police officers did not like the image of Chicano students congregating and “pretending to be white”, so they began to harass the students before they entered the coffeeshop. This harassment, rather than keeping the students away from the coffee shop, had the effects of making these students more political, radical, and militant. This is when the group transformed into the Brown Berets.
  • Modeled after the Black Panther Party, Chicano activists dressed in military style clothing joined to hear political speakers such as labor leader César Chávez and to fight discrimination and defend Chicano civil rights. 

Source:  Sal Castro and Mario T. Garcia, Blowout!: Sal Astro and the Chicano Struggle for Educational Justice, (University of North Carolina Press, 2011), pg. 136. 

 

 

 What was the The Chicano Moratorium?

 

The Chicano Moratorium was an anti-Vietnam war protest led by Mexican American groups and student organizations towards the end of the 1960s. Mexican-Americans were being sent to the front lines and dying in the war at a disproportional rate. Rosalio Munoz and other Mexican-American activists let a walk out of over 30,000 students over the course of 1968 to 1970.

 

The 2006 film Walkout also portrays these events.

 

For a timeline and short picture gallery, click here.

 

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