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Beginning in October 4, 1933, around 15,000 to 18,000 of the cotton workers, of which 95% were Mexican migrant workers, went on strike in Central California. Their pay have decreased by 75% even when the price of the cotton have increased by 150% and they demanded one dollar for per 100 pounds of cotton picked. On October 10, two people, Dolores Hernandez, and Delfino Davila were killed and eight others wounded by armed white ranchers. In another instance, Pedro Subia was killed and three other migrants were wounded in a confrontation of growers and the police. Through out the strike, the growers evicted the workers from the farms and asked others to not serve them food. The federal government would only provide aid to the migrants workers if they accepted the growers' demands. This led to the death of seven children due to malnutrition. The migrant workers that were killed did not receive any justice. The strike ended on October 26 when the growers agreed to pay the workers 75 cents per 100 pounds on cotton.

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Monographs Prepared for A Documentary History of Migratory Farm Labor in California, 1938

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Hispanics pecan shellers, mostly those of Mexican descent, went on strike in response to a wage decrease to protest against poor working conditions and low wage. It was a peaceful protest, but many strikers got arrested and got put into overcrowded cells. Strikers were finally able to from an agreement with the companies the board ordered high wagers for the strikers. They then formed a union. This event is important because it shows how many hispanic workers were working in poor conditions with low wages. They were able to protest and successfully get higher wages, including the formation of a union. Although they soon got replaced with machines, it shows that hispanic workers were able to lobby for better conditions.

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Research Guides: A Latinx Resource Guide: Civil Rights Cases and Events in the United States: 1938: Pecan Shellers Strike

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This research guide from the Hispanic Division focuses on 20th and 21st century American court cases, legislation, and events that had important impacts on civil rights in Chicana/o/x, Hispanic, Latina/o/x, Mexican-American and Puerto Rican communities.

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1940 -- The US Census reclassifies people of Mexican descent from the category of Mexican to “white.”

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1940 -- The US Census reclassifies people of Mexican descent from the category of Mexican to “white.”

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Until 1930, Mexicans has been counted as white. In the 1930 US census, a "Mexican" race category was added, which when chosen was connected with roced deportation of many Mexican Americans. With the help of the Mexican government, in 1940, the US census removed the Mexican category and recategorized Mexican Americans as white. This would provide Mexican Americans with more legal rights and privileges. This matters today because in 1970, the separate category of Hispanic origin was created to define the difference between race and ethnicity.

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1941-- The Fair Employment Practices Act is passed

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1941-- The Fair Employment Practices Act is passed

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On June 25th 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt signed executive order 8802, which legally put an end to racial discrimination by federal agencies and defense agencies. Many people were outraged that African Americans could go off to war and fight for their country but when they return home, they were faced with extreme racism. This Act stopped the defense industry and the government from barring people from jobs because of their "race, creed, color, or national origin". This was a big win for Civil Rights Activists such as A. Philip Randolph.

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The Bracero Program was an executive order that allowed workers (known as braceros) to come from Mexico on labor contracts. Its purpose was to address the shortage of farmers and agricultural workers at the time. The Bracero Program guaranteed certain protections for its workers, but often times these needs were not met and workers were paid very low wages, or sometimes not paid at all. The program ended in 1964, but it established the importance of migrant workers, as well as led to the rise of the United Farm Workers, a union that continued to fight the inequalities the migrant workers faced long after the end of the program. It also led to a rise of immigrants coming to the U.S. to seek work.

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Jose Diaz was murdered on August 2nd, 1942 in Los Angeles. Without any evidence or suspicion, twenty-two Mexican individuals were arrested and charged for the murder of Jose. Only 17 were convicted, and 12 sent to San Quentin Prison. The LA Sheriff, when testifying claimed that it was in their nature to be violent. This accusation was based on the false claim they were of native american descent, whom were stereotypes by Americans as being violent and practicers of human sacrafice. Two years after the trial, following public outrage and protests, 12 of the men were freed and their convictions overturned.

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The Zoot Suit riots were a series of violent classes between servicemen, off-duty officers and civilians fought against young Latinx youth and other minorities in Los Angeles. The conflict gets it's name from the type of baggy suit that young minorities would wear at the time, called Zoot suits. As the clothes were often worn by minority men, they got a racist stereotype surrounding it and would be used to scope out "gangsters" at the time. Before this attack, on May 31st, there was a clash between a sailor and a Mexican man, and the sailor had been beat up. In retaliation, 50 men carrying clubs and other weapons walked down the street looking for men in Zoots, aka racially profiling their clothing. Mobs of servicemen began attacking young minorities in Zoots. It could be called a mass lynching.

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Labeled some Mexicans ''White''

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Operation Bootstrap was a series of projects designed to turn Puerto Rico's existing agrarian economy into an industrial and more developed economy. The U.S. government teamed up with what is now known as the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company to set up economical projects to industrialize Puerto Rico. The original economy of Puerto Rico was based around their sugar plantations. The effect that this transition from an agrarian economy to a more industrialized one was that there were far less jobs in agriculture and far more in manufacturing, but overall there was more unemployment than before. Due to the switch, wages increased and thus so did the living standards.

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1945 -- Proyecto del Idioma (Law No. 51)

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1945 -- Proyecto del Idioma (Law No. 51)

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The Puerto Rican government passes this law which designates Spanish as the language of instruction in public schools, but it was vetoed by President Truman the next year. This particular policy made Spanish the medium of instruction and English as a subject until 3rd grade, where until 8th grade both languages were used as the medium of instruction varying by class. As the grade levels increase, English slowly becomes the main medium of instruction with Spanish being taught as a subject. (read pages 82 - 88 on the document attached).

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An American soldier Felix Longoria was killed in the Philippines during WWII, his remains were not returned to his family until 1949. Longoria's family attempted to have his buried at the local cemetery. The cemetery refused to bury his remains because it was segregated and reserved for whites. After Longoria was denied entrance to the cemetery for being Mexican- American US senator Lyndon B Johnson had Longoria's remains buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington DC.

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1946-- Mendez v Westminster School District

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1946-- Mendez v Westminster School District

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7 years before the notorious Brown vs Board of Education, there was Mendez vs Westminster School District in Orange County, CA. The cases are similar, as both are about the desegregation of schools and were both successful, but Mendez was about the segregation of Mexican American school children and Brown was about black children. Mexican Americans were considered white at the time, and were normally unaffected by the legal segregation that separated black students. The Puerto Rican Mendez family moved to Orange County and found that their children were forced into a language based “Mexican School”, because it was thought that Mexican students had special needs purely because Spanish was their first language. The Mendez case was crucial in helping to discover ideas and legal analysis that would later be used in arguing the Brown case, and  Thurgood Marshall, who was involved in the defense of Mendez, successfully argued for the Brown case before the Supreme Court and eventually became the first black Justice on the Supreme Court.

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In Texas in the 1940s Mexican and White children were segregated at schools due to the fact that Mexicans were categorized under Caucasian. In 1948 the League of United Latin American Citizens filed a court case against the Bastrop Independent School District. It was called Delgado because it was on behalf of Minerva Delgado and 20 other Mexican-American parents. The ruling was in favor of Delgado, that the California rule of segregation applied to Texas and that Mexican-American children could not be segregated from white children. This was significant due to the fact that it was one of the first successful cases that began challenging the racial segregation against Latinos. This matters now, because if not for this case, the desegregation with Mexican and white children would have continued, for who knows how long.

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1948- American G.I. Forum and Hector Garcia

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1948- American G.I. Forum and Hector Garcia

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Hector Garcia was a Mexican American surgeon and World War 2 veteran. He was a civil rights advocate, especially advocating for the rights of veterans and founded the G.I. forum. Garcia created the G.I. form by recruiting 700 Latino veterans to fight for the rights of Latino veterans. They fought for their rights in Corpus Christi, Texas and advocated how Latino veterans are not cared for and treated equally especially since they fought for America.

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1950s-1960s - Forced sterilization of Puerto Rican Women on the Island

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1950s-1960s - Forced sterilization of Puerto Rican Women on the Island

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In an attempt to curb population growth of the island population, the US government implemented policies and programs that sought to sterilize Puerto Rican women. In 1937 law 116 was passed which paved way for large funding to these programs. In the mid 1960s studies were done on the island and about 1/3 of all women said they had been sterilized. Doctors who administered the opertation often coherced women, preformed it unknowingly following childbirth, and gave false information that it was reversible.  Language barriers between some of the administers of the operation and women, gave room for doctors to force them to sign papers in English that they did not understand. "La operacion" as it was so commonly refered to, was promoted as a contraceptive method and promoted by Eugenics boards in the United States. https://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book-excerpts/health-article/forced-sterilization/

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On the January 19, 1953 episode of the CBS show “I Love Lucy”, the main character of the show, Lucy Ricardo gave birth to her child Little Ricky, and at the same time the actress Lucille Ball had her real child, Desi Arnaz Jr. The ratings for the show were through the roof for this episode, it even got more attention than the inauguration of Dwight D. Eisenhower. This was so significant for the Latinx/Hispanic community because Lucille Ball’s husband, Desi Arnaz, was a Cuban-American man. Their marriage and the pregnancy gave such good representation and it’s popularity made it even more significant.

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"What Price Wetbacks" by the American GI Forum is a pamphlet that portrays the totally wretched living and working conditions of undocumented Mexican workers in the Texas border areas. The pamphlet also Condemns the farmers who exploit them and talks about Mexican Americans citizens losing their jobs to the "wetbacks" and being forced to become migrant workers, sometimes travelling long distances to get work.

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In Hernandez v State of Texas, the court unanimously ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment applied to all racial and ethnic groups that experienced discrimination. Peter Hernandez, the defendant, was a Mexican agricultural laborer that had arrived in Texas following the end of WWII. He was convicted of killing a man in Jackson County in cold blood. His legal team, the majority of whom were from one of the oldest Latino civil rights groups in the U.S. (the League of United Latin American Citizens) appealed. They looked through records for Jackson County, a location with a predominantly Hispanic population, and found that for the past 25 years, there has been not 1 juror with a Hispanic last name. His lawyers argued that Hernandez was deprived of equal protection due to the discrimination that prevented him from being tried by his peers. This case went to the Supreme court and Chief Justice Earl Warren, on behalf of eight other justices, unanimously ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment protects minority groups beyond the classes of white and black. It was concluded that the Fourteenth was not directed solely against discrimination due to a ‘two-class theory’, in this case it covered those with Hispanic ancestry too. This case not only opened doors for the Hispanic community but also for other oppressed minorities within the U.S. to receive adequate protection under the law.

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Henry B. Gonzalez (b. 1916-2000) was a Democratic politician from Texas and the longest-serving Hispanic Congressman (1961-1999). In 1957, he and Senator Abraham Kazen held the longest filibuster in Texas history. This filibuster lasted 36 hours and tossed 8 of 10 proposed  pro-segregation bills that evaded the ruling of the Brown v. Board of Education case in Texas.

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West Side Story, a playwright following the conflicts between Puerto Rican gangs and white youth in New York City, was first shown on Broadway in 1958. It uses song and dance to convey a larger message about the importance of racial tolerance. After being a hit on Broadway, it reached the big screen in 1961 with the lead being Puerto Rican actress Rita Moreno, witch resulted in her winning an oscar.

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The "Capeman" was a Puerto Rican man named Salvador Agron who murdered two teenage boys, mistaking them for being in a gang called the Norsemen. He was sentenced to death at 16 years old which made him the youngest prisoner ever to be on death row. Many campaigned for leniency and in prison he got his high-school diploma, wrote poems, and earned his Bachelor's degree. His sentence was later reduced and he was released in 1979.

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The Bay of Pigs operation, taking place in 1961, involved a planned invasion by the US government (the CIA) into Cuba in order to overthrow Fidel Castro. Some 1,500 Cuban exiles who opposed Castro were sent on multiple attack missions into Cuba. This involved a bombing and a direct land invasion.  In the end, the Cuban exiles were no match for Castro's military force, and they were all wiped out or captured. This shows the mistreatment of immigrants by the US government and how they just threw immigrants at the enemy with no real plan for victory.

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1961 - The Assassination of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo

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1961 - The Assassination of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo

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Rafael Leonidas Trujillo’s rule as dictator is considered one of the most brutal periods of the Domincan Republic’s history. He took power in 1930 and had a strong hold over the country.

Those who opposed him were imprisoned, tortured, and murdered and their bodies often disappeared. In 1937, he ordered a massacre of thousands of Haitians living in the country. He favored white refugees over others, and Dominican troops were often ordered to dispel illegal “aliens.” On May 30, 1961, his car was ambushed outside of the Dominican capital. Among the men who planned it were General Juan Tomás Díaz, Pedro Livio Cedeño, Antonio de la Maza, Amado García Guerrero, and General Antonio Imbert Barrera. Hundreds of suspects were detained, and many were tortured. Almost all of the men directly involved were executed. Some have debated if the CIA played a role in the killing.

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Home The Dominican Republic Who was Rafael Leonidas The Rise to Presidency The Presidency The Haitian Massacre Oppression The Death of Trujillo Note from the Author References Contact

The Death of Trujillo

Even though many tried to overthrow the regime they all failed except one. The Evening of May 30th, 1961 a group of former officials and military men of the Trujillo government managed to kill him. The night that Trujillo was killed the Generalissimo was on his way to San Cristobal. Among the men that killed him were, Juan Tomas Diaz, Antonio de la Maza, Antonio Imbert Barreras and Luis Amiama Tio. The last attempt was victorious and this time Rafael Leonidas Trujillo was gone for good.

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Home The Dominican Republic Who was Rafael Leonidas The Rise to Presidency The Presidency The Haitian Massacre Oppression The Death of Trujillo Note from the Author References Contact The Death of Trujillo Even though many tried to overthrow the regime they all failed except one.

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1962--National Farm Workers Association was Founded

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1962--National Farm Workers Association was Founded

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Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta found the National Farm Workers Association, which became the largest and most important farmer worker union in the US. They created this association to combat the poor working conditions and low pay. They both led the group to join a strike by Filipino grape pickers and began a grape boycott that lasted 5 years. This boycott attracted a lot of attention especially since it was during the Civil Rights Movement. During the boycott, the union of farm workers won its first contract. The National Farm Workers Association turned into United Farm Workers of America.

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1964 -- Congress Passes the Civil Rights Act

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1964 -- Congress Passes the Civil Rights Act

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After the Civil War, many states, especially the South, took measures to keep African Americans disenfranchised, enforcing segregation and condoning violence from white supremacist groups. Kennedy decided to act and proposed the most detailed civil rights legislation to date. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It was met with strong opposition of many southern Congress members, but later signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson.

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Civil Rights Act of 1964 - Definition, Summary & Significance | HISTORY

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The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement.

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In 1965, a group of grape farmers in Delano, California began a multi-year protest against unfair working conditions for grape farmers, who were mostly Filipino-American and Mexican. Lead by the UFWOC, the large scale boycotts of non-union grapes led to the creation of a union for farm workers.

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1966--Cesar Chavez leads a 300 mile march for farm workers' rights

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1966--Cesar Chavez leads a 300 mile march for farm workers' rights

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On March 17, 1966 Cesar Chavez led a 300 mile march from Delano, California to Sacramento. It was part of a five year long strike, started by Filipino American farm workers of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, who were on strike against grape growers because of low wages and poor working conditions. They had asked Cesar Chavez, the director of the National Farm Workers Association, a mostly Latino union, to join their strike in 1965. The march brought national attention to the cause. It is known for its use of grassroots organizing to gain widespread support, as well as Chavez’s insistence on nonviolence and that the two groups work together, because growers had historically pitted races against each other. After the march, the two organizations merged together to form the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, which 26 Delano grape growers finally recognized in 1970.

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David Sanchez found the Brown Berets, a social justice organization for Latin Americans. He decided to create the organization based on his run-ins with the LAPD in 1966. The organization was part of different Latinx social justice organizations that gave way to the Chicano Movement of 1968. Latin Americans faced much discrimination from the police and faced police brutality. The organization moved around to hide their location from the police. In 1967, they had their first protest in East L.A. for the killing of Latino men.The organization also fight for the school conditions, the educational system, and illegal occupation of Mexican land.

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The Brown Berets are a Chicanx community organization that advocated for equal opportunity for individuals of Mexican descent in East Los Angeles. While the group still exists today, they were most active in the 1960s and '70s and eventually established chapters through the southwest and in cities with large Chicanx communities.

The Berets emphasized equal treatment from government agencies, including school boards, draft boards, health and welfare programs, and law enforcement agencies. Their actions are often described as militant and, in a time of burgeoning social protest in the United States, even revolutionary. Their shift in tactics can be attributed in many ways to the victimization of Chicanx communities at the hands of law enforcement.

The Berets' membership boasted both male and female members, including students, making it a diverse organization in its time. At their headquarters on East 4th Street, they organized various protest marches to make their presence more visible to civic and business leaders and to empower residents of the East Los Angeles barrio, a historically neglected area. Their self-published magazine La Causa achieved a significant following.

Among the Brown Beret's most pressing campaigns were the organization's protests of the deployment of Mexican American soldiers during the Vietnam War and unequal access to quality education and healthcare.

Youth participation was crucial to the success of the Brown Berets. Local high school students organized some of the earliest protests in East Los Angeles of the Chicano Movement, in a series of coordinated walkouts in 1966. As the war in Vietnam escalated, young Chicano men like Rosalio Muñoz, burned their draft cards in solidarity with the Berets.

Student members eventually assumed leadership roles that moved away from violent protest and toward an education organization. With connections throughout the southwest, student members pushed to recognize the Chicanx identity on a national level. A lasting impact of their efforts can be observed in intuitions of higher education hosting a curriculum in Chicanx Studies.

Women also played a key role in the organization. Female member oversaw a catalytic social welfare program that grew into a free clinic on Whittier Boulevard in 1969. The Berets' mission here was to overcome limited access to healthcare and health education. East Los Angeles in particular experienced high mortality rates among women and children relative to the rest of the country. This community service agency was managed by Gloria Arellanes.

In addition, Brown Berets were widely recognized throughout the Southwest for their participation in anti-war demonstration, including the December 1969 march ( Los Cinco Puntos to Obregon Park) and the 1970s Chicano Moratorium March ( Belvedere Park to Laguna/Salazar Park).

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The Brown Berets are a Chicanx community organization that advocated for equal opportunity for individuals of Mexican descent in East Los Angeles. While the group still exists today, they were most active in the 1960s and '70s and eventually established chapters through the southwest and in cities with large Chicanx communities.

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1967-- Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales' Activism for Mexican Americans

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1967-- Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales' Activism for Mexican Americans

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He founded and lead the group called "Crusade for Justice" with the purpose of promoting Chicano culture and identity. He became a key figure in the Chicano movement. Many who were inspired by Gonzales took to the streets to protest many injustices, as well as a more just appreciation for Chicano culture. Gonzales' activism and leadership shows how members of a underappreciated culture can peacefully seek to protest against their unjust treatment.

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Mr. Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales (1928-2005), poet, activist and amateur boxer, was one of the national leaders of the Chicano movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Gonzales and his wife, Geraldine Gonzales, created the Denver-based "Crusade for Justice." During the 1960s, they worked with Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers of America and with SCLC's Poor People's Campaign, constantly developing linkages among various movements for social justice. The Gonzales family also founded Escuela Tlatelolco, an independent school for Chicano and Native American youth in Denver, which is currently directed by a daughter, Nita Gonzales.

To many people, justice is no more than an abstract concept. For others, it becomes a passionate commitment. And for a very few, it becomes a life-long crusade. Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales belongs to that rare third group, and as the leader of the Crusade for Justice, that ignited the Chicano community in Denver and across the nation in the 1960s, his life and legacy embody the essence of that rare dedication.

Gonzales' long career of fighting for justice began with fighting of a different sort as a young man. He was born in Denver in 1928, the son of migrant sugar beet farmers, and lost his mother at age two. He worked in the sugar beet fields throughout his schooling but still graduated from high school and enrolled in the University of Denver with plans to become an engineer. The financial costs soon became too high and he left college to begin what would become a very successful boxing career. He became an amateur national champion, and was eventually considered one of the best featherweight champions in the world.

By the late 1950s, Gonzales had hung up his gloves and entered a different arena - that of civil rights work. Inspired by stories from his Mexican-born father of the Mexican revolution, Mexican history, and the proud culture from which he came, Gonzales worked as a Democratic party organizer and precinct captain, and by the mid 1960s was appointed to become Denver's director of the War on Poverty program. He focused much of his energy and attention on youth, ensuring that they understood the traditions of their past and the possibilities of their future.

In 1966, Gonzales wrote his epic poem "I am Joaquin/Yo soy Joaquin," in which he expressed the tension many Chicanos felt in seeing their once-proud culture "disappear behind the shroud of mediocrity" in the hands of unjust social institutions. In that same year, the Crusade for Justice was born as a means of tearing down that shroud, and as a major catalyst in the launch of the Chicano movement. Gonzales became a central figure in that movement, organizing student walkouts in schools to protest the low expectations set for Chicano students and the lack of cultural appreciation reflected in the curriculum. The Crusade also took to the streets to protest a wide range of injustices, including police brutality and the Vietnam War, and convened national youth conferences to promote a stronger Chicano cultural identity. In 1970, as a result of the second such conference, the Colorado Raza Unida Party was born.

Gonzales' leadership helped launch efforts around the country, including a successful Chicano student movement on college campuses. But he continued to work for justice on the local level as well, and, with his family, founded an independent Chicano school in Denver - Escuela Tlatelolco - that is still in operation today. His legacy lives on through his children, who currently serve as directors and teachers in the school, as well as through several generations of educators, students, artists, writers, and community organizers who are inspired by his life and work. His passionate dedication to justice still serves as a model of hope for all who are working to make our society more responsive to and respectful of the rich and diverse ethnic heritage of our nation's people.

William Fulton
Staff Writer, The Veterans of Hope Project

Web links

Escuela Tlatelolco Centro de Estudios (Denver, CO)
Escuela Tlatelolco developed from a "freedom school" organized in the summer of 1969 for Chicano and Mexicano youth in Denver. Founded by Corky Gonzales and the Crusade for Justice, the independent K-12 school seeks to liberate the mind, heart, and spirit of students, through the knowledge of their cultural expression, moral courage, and honorable behavior. link

Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales branch of the Denver Public Library. In 2015, a new branch of the Denver Public Library was built for the benefit of residents of West Denver and dedicated in honor of Gonzales. Read about the grand opening here. link

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Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales - Veterans of Hope

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Mr. Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales (1928-2005), poet, activist and amateur boxer, was one of the national leaders of the Chicano movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Gonzales and his wife, Geraldine Gonzales, created the Denver-based "Crusade for Justice."

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1968 -- East LA School Walkouts (Blowouts)

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1968 -- East LA School Walkouts (Blowouts)

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In March 1968, thousands of Latinx students walked out of their East Los Angeles high schools and middle schools to protest decades of inferior and discriminatory education in the so-called "Mexican Schools." The students were led by Sal Castro, a Mexican American teacher who encouraged the students to protest against how their schools did not offer equal educational opportunities to Mexican American students and did not respect the students’ cultures. This lead to the beginning of the urban Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the largest and most widespread civil rights protests by Mexican Americans in U.S. history.

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In San Antonio and several nearby cities, school boards refused to listen to the complaints of Chicano students. There was inequality in their schools such as segregation and a lack of a diverse cheerleading team. There were also bad conditions in the school buildings and the curriculum failed to recognize Mexican American culture. The school board denied their claims and ended the meeting. The Walkouts lasted 3 days and around 3,000 students left their classes and some marched to the school district offices. This event was important because it led to the city's first Latino superintendent.

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1968-- The Mexican American Legal Defense And Education Fund

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1968-- The Mexican American Legal Defense And Education Fund

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In 1968 a group of Mexican American lawyers in San Antonio Texas founded the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), which aimed to train Mexican American lawyers, provide scholarships, advocate for immigrants, and push for legislation. It was founded as a response to the discrimination that Mexican Americans faced in the legal system and it hoped to provide some protection and encourage more Mexican Americans to take up law. They also began to focus more on legislation and immigrants' rights. MALDEF is still active today and it continues to fight for rights and protections for the immigrant community and for the Latinx community.

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After Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appeared before a Congressional Subcommittee to be questioned about his false claim that the Dept. of Justice requested the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, MALDEF president and general counsel Thomas A.

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1968 - Cesar Chavez begins a 25 day fast

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1968 - Cesar Chavez begins a 25 day fast

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The leader of the  National Farm Workers Association went on a 25 day fast in February of 1968 to display his commitment to nonviolent in his work. He drew inspiration from Ghandi's fast and he wanted to take responsibility as a leader of a large movement. At the end of his fast, he was too weak to give a speech but it was read by someone else on his behalf and it ended with, "  truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness, is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally nonviolent struggle for justice". His fast was successful and the protests against farmer exploitation continued entirely nonviolently, as well as the strike/boycott against grapes.

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First Latino to defy the military draft in public

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This Mexican activist and reporter was covering the National Chicano Moratorium March (in East Los Angeles) when he was shot and killed by the police. The Chicano Moratorium was an anti-Vietnam War movement. One of their main messages was that they did not need to have affairs in Vietnam since their struggle was in the social justice movement in the US. The War was believed to have a disproportionate amount of Latinos serving and getting killed. During the march, a riot was started when a liquor store called in a complaint about people stealing (the owners later denied contacting the police). When deputies responded, a fight broke out and soon turned into a riot, and then Salazar, who just came to drink, was shot by a tear gas projectile and died instantly. It is to be noted that this type of tear gas was not intended to shoot people but rather pierce 10-inch walls (in situations of barricades). His death caught the eyes of many activists since it happened due to whom they felt was a large cause to the marginalization of Chicano communities.

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In death, he's been made more radical than in life.

On Sept. 16, 1970, during a celebration of the 160th anniversary of Mexico's independence from Spain, a group of young Chicanos lifted above their heads a massive, 70-pound plywood board of a smiling man in a suit and tie.

The marchers in East Los Angeles surrounded the painted image - clapping, cheering and chanting "Viva Ruben!" and "Ruben presente!" "Ruben" was the esteemed Mexican American journalist Ruben Salazar, who weeks earlier had been killed by an L.A. County Sheriff's tear gas projectile while covering the Vietnam War protests known as the National Chicano Moratorium. His death on Aug. 29, 1970, was still an open wound.

It was "as if they were carrying an Inca god or Moctezuma," says Salazar's friend Alberto Juarez, who marched alongside the tens of thousands of other demonstrators on that hot September afternoon.

Sergio Hernandez was the artist behind the spray-painted Salazar portrait. He and other members of the Chicano group Con Safos carried the plywood panel for some 30 minutes before it started moving through the crowd. "Everybody wanted to march with it," he recalls, "and it suddenly disappeared."

The Times is taking a look back at the legacy of the Chicano Moratorium in 1970. See more stories

What was the Chicano Moratorium?+

Years later the portrait was found in a storage shed in East Los Angeles College and is now on display at Cal State Channel Islands with Salazar firmly established as a beloved figure. But that September day in 1970 was the first time Juarez, then 28 years old, had seen his friend iconized. "Ruben," he says, "became a battle cry."

"It was a traumatic event," Frank Cruz, a pioneering TV journalist at KABC and KNBC and co-creator of Telemundo, says of the killing of Salazar - on a day that also led to the deaths of two others, Angel Diaz and Lynn Ward.

In 1970, Cruz was chair and professor at Cal State Long Beach's Chicano Studies department when he took to the streets to march with his students at the National Chicano Moratorium.

"You had all the activists and demonstrations on the streets, but of all the people who could've died that day, having Salazar pass away conjures up the question: Did somebody really want to wipe him out?" says Cruz, now 80. "It created sinister thoughts."

It didn't help that days before his slaying, Salazar, an L.A. Times reporter who rose through the ranks to become a columnist for the paper and news director of the Spanish-language TV news station KMEX, revealed to close confidants that he believed he was in danger; he suspected that he was being followed by police.

On the day of the march, he had a premonition that something would happen. "The last thing he said to me was, 'Be careful.'... He kind of saw what was coming," says Bob Navarro, a television reporter for KNXT (now KCBS), who was covering the march. Salazar gave his last televised interview on Navarro's show, "The Siesta Is Over," three months before his death.

On that show, Navarro asked Salazar whether he was becoming more of an advocate than an objective journalist with his columns. "I'm only advocating the Mexican American community ... which by the way," Salazar told Navarro, "the general community has totally ignored."

After his death, the Mexican American community - many of whom were suspicious of the Sheriff's Department account of the killing - elevated Salazar to martyrdom, with a high school in Pico Rivera, an elementary school in Chicago, a library at Sonoma State, a building at Cal State L.A., an annual journalism prize, scholarships and a collection of papers at USC named in his honor. East L.A's Laguna Park, where thousands gathered for the Aug. 29 Chicano Moratorium, is now known as Ruben Salazar Park.

Across the country, paintings, murals and images of Salazar color buildings' walls and hang in galleries and museums, including the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery and the Natural History Museum of L.A. County. The U.S Postal Service honored him with a commemorative stamp in 2008. And he has inspired documentaries and dissertations and songs. The late Lalo Guerrero, called "the father of Chicano music," wrote two songs about Salazar: "Homenaje a Ruben Salazar" and "La Tragedia del 29 de Agosto," which expresses the rage of the Moratorium protesters at the disproportionate deaths of "young Mexican men" in Vietnam and ends with a call for peace so that Salazar won't have died in vain.

His death even captured the attention of Hunter S. Thompson, whose now-classic new journalism tale, "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," brought the story of Salazar and the Chicano movement to a young, largely white nationwide audience. Published in the April 1971 issue of Rolling Stone, it's also the story that introduced readers to lawyer Oscar "Zeta" Acosta, who was fictionalized as the "Samoan" attorney Dr. Gonzo in Thompson's book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."

Songwriter and poet Jerry Giddens first learned about Salazar from Thompson's Rolling Stone story. Influenced by L.A.'s activism at the time, he often wove politics into his music. "It was a very heavy time, and we were playing and writing music to speak to it," says Giddens, now 67. His song "Remember Ruben Salazar," which honors the fallen journalist and criticizes the injustices Salazar wrote about, includes the line, "He still walks in East L.A., I thought I saw him yesterday."

Yet even with songs, murals, paintings, schools, parks or postage stamps created or named in his honor, Salazar remains "more iconic than realized," says Giddens.

"He was like a Virgen de Guadalupe."

Man behind the martyr

Lisa Salazar Johnson was 9 when her father was killed. Within days of his death, she realized that the devastation extended beyond her family.

"We'd been at my grandmother's house, and the day after he was killed, she brought us home. That's when we saw reporters and cameramen on our front lawn," she recalls. "Our house was filled with people and it became apparent that this was a big thing."

The funeral days later further solidified that feeling. "We could just see ... that a lot of people cared about him," Salazar Johnson, the eldest of Salazar's three children, says. "Right away it became very apparent that he was a big symbol."

As one of the few prominent Latino journalists in a mainstream publication at the time, Salazar wrote about systemic issues affecting Mexicans, including racial profiling and police brutality.

"As much as anything he wrote, the circumstances of Salazar's death made him a martyr to the Chicano movimiento, a role no one would have found more ironic than Salazar himself," wrote the late Frank del Olmo, the first Latino masthead-level editor at the L.A. Times and a friend of Salazar's, in a 1995 piece. "For above all, he was a principled journalist who saw his job as reporting the news, not making it."

Those who knew him or studied his life believed that the mythology obscured the man.

One example is a lithograph from Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros titled "Heroic Voice," which depicts Salazar as pious and angelic. A religious symbol. It's a mythos that unsettled Del Olmo.

"The likeness of Ruben that Siqueiros painted is saintlike, with a distant, long-suffering look to the eyes. It is not the earthly man I knew," wrote Del Olmo in 1980.

Phillip Rodriguez tried to shatter that mythology with his 2014 documentary "Ruben Salazar: Man in the Middle."

"The mythology of Salazar, I was tired of it," says Rodriguez, 61. He sought to make a documentary "the right way ... with facts" in an effort to "try to dig out a real man, not just a symbol of a vanquished mini revolution."

But that proved to be harder than anticipated. For "the OG Chicano generation ... Ruben had been a symbol of their suffering and broken-heartedness, quite understandably," Rodriguez says. "He was the only prominent person who got killed ... so they used him as their bloody flag."

Yet few people knew who Salazar actually was. "He always wanted to be considered a journalist who was interested in this particular community," says José Luis Valenzuela, artistic director of the Latino Theater Company, which produced "August 29," a historical fiction play about the day of the Chicano Moratorium. "And I think having been killed by deputies, the community made him into a hero, into a martyr, into an example of what was happening in the community."

Others were killed in the community, but Salazar "was more visual than anybody ... people knew of him much more."

Salazar always wore a suit and tie, Valenzuela says, which painted an impressive and positive portrait to the poor and working-class Latinos he covered. "For the community, the idea that there is an intellectual human being in their community - which always existed but they had no face because nobody knew who they were - that was very important to them."

So was the fact that Salazar, who was born in Mexico, was "working inside main institutions and was still progressive." Salazar showed that it was possible to speak and write about your community in a truthful way within a major outlet.

Yvette Cabrera first learned about Ruben Salazar in the halls of the L.A. Times.

Now an environmental justice journalist for Grist, Cabrera was a young reporter in The Times' Metpro fellowship in 1994 when she began reading Salazar's columns and stories. But she was disheartened to realize that many of the same issues of unequal treatment that Salazar had written about decades before were still affecting the community. "It inspired me to dig deeper and work harder," says Cabrera, who became active in the California Chicano News Media Assn. (now CCNMA: Latino Journalists of California), founded in 1972 in part to honor Salazar's legacy.

Cabrera says that every park, school or postage stamp, anything named in his honor creates more dialogue about him and the work he did.

That includes the annual Ruben Salazar Journalism Awards from CCNMA. It's one of dozens of cultural markers that reminds people of how far we've come and how far we have left to go, says Cabrera, who is CCNMA's vice president. "Especially now in this moment of reckoning around racial justice issues for Black and brown communities across the country, as we ask ourselves, 'How do we move forward? Who set the example?'"

The Latino community's fascination with Salazar also stems from his dual lives: In 1960 he married Sally Robare, who was white and worked in The Times' classified ads department when they met. They lived in a middle-class neighborhood in Orange County with their three children and liked to host pool and dinner parties. But as a journalist and columnist, he challenged the status quo and was deeply embedded in Latino issues.

"People assumed that our home life was a Spanish-speaking, Mexican, culturally traditional upbringing," says Salazar Johnson. "I think people just assumed because he was 'Salazar' and Mexican American, that we were."

"He led a completely Anglo life," his daughter Stephanie Salazar Cook says in "Man in the Middle." His wife, Sally, who died in 1993, never adapted to Latino culture, according to friends.

"That was just our life. That was the way we were brought up, and that was fine," says Salazar Johnson. "But how the household might've been in the next few years or as we got older? Things could have changed."

The Times is dedicated to covering everything about our city, whether taking a hard look at its past or at what's going on today. Get unlimited digital access. Already a subscriber? Your contribution helps us make projects like this possible. Thank you.

Indeed Salazar's absence has affected even family members who weren't yet born at the time of his death. In 2006, Salazar's grandson Christopher Johnson wrote a letter to then-L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca for a high school assignment that began, "Dear Sheriff Baca: I have lived my whole life dealing with the pain and anguish your department has caused my family. It was an absurd act that has still gone unanswered for more than 30 years. There seemed to be no reason to kill him other than getting rid of a great voice in the Mexican community."

What the public did get right about her father, says Salazar Johnson, was his evolution - "this understanding that he was changing himself" the more he dove into issues affecting the Mexican American community."

Salazar's ability to straddle two worlds helped him find success as a journalist.

"He was the bridge we had between the Chicano and the Mexican American community and the whiter community," says Felix Gutierrez, 77, emeritus professor of journalism at USC who came to know Salazar professionally in the late 1960s.

"He was the one person who could communicate with both audiences."

The Times hosted a virtual forum on the Chicano Moratorium that featured authors of the series, including Daniel Hernandez, Carolina A. Miranda and Robert J. Lopez. Watch recordings via The Times Facebook page, YouTube or Twitter.

Lead photo shows a procession bearing a large portrait of Ruben Salazar. (Jose Galvez / Los Angeles Times)

In death, he's been made more radical than in life.

On Sept. 16, 1970, during a celebration of the 160th anniversary of Mexico's independence from Spain, a group of young Chicanos lifted above their heads a massive, 70-pound plywood board of a smiling man in a suit and tie.

The marchers in East Los Angeles surrounded the painted image - clapping, cheering and chanting "Viva Ruben!" and "Ruben presente!" "Ruben" was the esteemed Mexican American journalist Ruben Salazar, who weeks earlier had been killed by an L.A. County Sheriff's tear gas projectile while covering the Vietnam War protests known as the National Chicano Moratorium. His death on Aug. 29, 1970, was still an open wound.

It was "as if they were carrying an Inca god or Moctezuma," says Salazar's friend Alberto Juarez, who marched alongside the tens of thousands of other demonstrators on that hot September afternoon.

Sergio Hernandez was the artist behind the spray-painted Salazar portrait. He and other members of the Chicano group Con Safos carried the plywood panel for some 30 minutes before it started moving through the crowd. "Everybody wanted to march with it," he recalls, "and it suddenly disappeared."

The Times is taking a look back at the legacy of the Chicano Moratorium in 1970. See more stories

What was the Chicano Moratorium?+

On Aug. 29, 1970, at least 20,000 demonstrators marched through East Los Angeles to protest the disproportionate number of Mexican American service members dying in the Vietnam War.

The National Chicano Moratorium Against the Vietnam War started out peacefully, but that afternoon a minor disturbance touched off skirmishes between demonstrators and law enforcement. By day's end, hundreds were arrested and trailblazing Latino journalist Ruben Salazar was dead.

In the Mexican American community, Salazar would be held up as a martyr, his death likened to the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

In many ways, the ugly events of that day hobbled the Chicano Power movement, leaving demonstrators feeling disillusioned, angry and powerless. And yet. Demonstrators who became leaders in politics, business and the arts recall how that chaotic day 50 years ago reinforced their commitment to advancing civil rights. The Chicano Moratorium, one former marcher said, "was a catalytic moment."

Years later the portrait was found in a storage shed in East Los Angeles College and is now on display at Cal State Channel Islands with Salazar firmly established as a beloved figure. But that September day in 1970 was the first time Juarez, then 28 years old, had seen his friend iconized. "Ruben," he says, "became a battle cry."

"It was a traumatic event," Frank Cruz, a pioneering TV journalist at KABC and KNBC and co-creator of Telemundo, says of the killing of Salazar - on a day that also led to the deaths of two others, Angel Diaz and Lynn Ward.

In 1970, Cruz was chair and professor at Cal State Long Beach's Chicano Studies department when he took to the streets to march with his students at the National Chicano Moratorium.

"You had all the activists and demonstrations on the streets, but of all the people who could've died that day, having Salazar pass away conjures up the question: Did somebody really want to wipe him out?" says Cruz, now 80. "It created sinister thoughts."

It didn't help that days before his slaying, Salazar, an L.A. Times reporter who rose through the ranks to become a columnist for the paper and news director of the Spanish-language TV news station KMEX, revealed to close confidants that he believed he was in danger; he suspected that he was being followed by police.

On the day of the march, he had a premonition that something would happen. "The last thing he said to me was, 'Be careful.'... He kind of saw what was coming," says Bob Navarro, a television reporter for KNXT (now KCBS), who was covering the march. Salazar gave his last televised interview on Navarro's show, "The Siesta Is Over," three months before his death.

On that show, Navarro asked Salazar whether he was becoming more of an advocate than an objective journalist with his columns. "I'm only advocating the Mexican American community ... which by the way," Salazar told Navarro, "the general community has totally ignored."

After his death, the Mexican American community - many of whom were suspicious of the Sheriff's Department account of the killing - elevated Salazar to martyrdom, with a high school in Pico Rivera, an elementary school in Chicago, a library at Sonoma State, a building at Cal State L.A., an annual journalism prize, scholarships and a collection of papers at USC named in his honor. East L.A's Laguna Park, where thousands gathered for the Aug. 29 Chicano Moratorium, is now known as Ruben Salazar Park.

Across the country, paintings, murals and images of Salazar color buildings' walls and hang in galleries and museums, including the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery and the Natural History Museum of L.A. County. The U.S Postal Service honored him with a commemorative stamp in 2008. And he has inspired documentaries and dissertations and songs. The late Lalo Guerrero, called "the father of Chicano music," wrote two songs about Salazar: "Homenaje a Ruben Salazar" and "La Tragedia del 29 de Agosto," which expresses the rage of the Moratorium protesters at the disproportionate deaths of "young Mexican men" in Vietnam and ends with a call for peace so that Salazar won't have died in vain.

His death even captured the attention of Hunter S. Thompson, whose now-classic new journalism tale, "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," brought the story of Salazar and the Chicano movement to a young, largely white nationwide audience. Published in the April 1971 issue of Rolling Stone, it's also the story that introduced readers to lawyer Oscar "Zeta" Acosta, who was fictionalized as the "Samoan" attorney Dr. Gonzo in Thompson's book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."

Songwriter and poet Jerry Giddens first learned about Salazar from Thompson's Rolling Stone story. Influenced by L.A.'s activism at the time, he often wove politics into his music. "It was a very heavy time, and we were playing and writing music to speak to it," says Giddens, now 67. His song "Remember Ruben Salazar," which honors the fallen journalist and criticizes the injustices Salazar wrote about, includes the line, "He still walks in East L.A., I thought I saw him yesterday."

Yet even with songs, murals, paintings, schools, parks or postage stamps created or named in his honor, Salazar remains "more iconic than realized," says Giddens.

"He was like a Virgen de Guadalupe."

Man behind the martyr

Lisa Salazar Johnson was 9 when her father was killed. Within days of his death, she realized that the devastation extended beyond her family.

"We'd been at my grandmother's house, and the day after he was killed, she brought us home. That's when we saw reporters and cameramen on our front lawn," she recalls. "Our house was filled with people and it became apparent that this was a big thing."

The funeral days later further solidified that feeling. "We could just see ... that a lot of people cared about him," Salazar Johnson, the eldest of Salazar's three children, says. "Right away it became very apparent that he was a big symbol."

As one of the few prominent Latino journalists in a mainstream publication at the time, Salazar wrote about systemic issues affecting Mexicans, including racial profiling and police brutality.

"As much as anything he wrote, the circumstances of Salazar's death made him a martyr to the Chicano movimiento, a role no one would have found more ironic than Salazar himself," wrote the late Frank del Olmo, the first Latino masthead-level editor at the L.A. Times and a friend of Salazar's, in a 1995 piece. "For above all, he was a principled journalist who saw his job as reporting the news, not making it."

Those who knew him or studied his life believed that the mythology obscured the man.

One example is a lithograph from Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros titled "Heroic Voice," which depicts Salazar as pious and angelic. A religious symbol. It's a mythos that unsettled Del Olmo.

"The likeness of Ruben that Siqueiros painted is saintlike, with a distant, long-suffering look to the eyes. It is not the earthly man I knew," wrote Del Olmo in 1980.

Phillip Rodriguez tried to shatter that mythology with his 2014 documentary "Ruben Salazar: Man in the Middle."

"The mythology of Salazar, I was tired of it," says Rodriguez, 61. He sought to make a documentary "the right way ... with facts" in an effort to "try to dig out a real man, not just a symbol of a vanquished mini revolution."

But that proved to be harder than anticipated. For "the OG Chicano generation ... Ruben had been a symbol of their suffering and broken-heartedness, quite understandably," Rodriguez says. "He was the only prominent person who got killed ... so they used him as their bloody flag."

Yet few people knew who Salazar actually was. "He always wanted to be considered a journalist who was interested in this particular community," says José Luis Valenzuela, artistic director of the Latino Theater Company, which produced "August 29," a historical fiction play about the day of the Chicano Moratorium. "And I think having been killed by deputies, the community made him into a hero, into a martyr, into an example of what was happening in the community."

Others were killed in the community, but Salazar "was more visual than anybody ... people knew of him much more."

Salazar always wore a suit and tie, Valenzuela says, which painted an impressive and positive portrait to the poor and working-class Latinos he covered. "For the community, the idea that there is an intellectual human being in their community - which always existed but they had no face because nobody knew who they were - that was very important to them."

So was the fact that Salazar, who was born in Mexico, was "working inside main institutions and was still progressive." Salazar showed that it was possible to speak and write about your community in a truthful way within a major outlet.

Yvette Cabrera first learned about Ruben Salazar in the halls of the L.A. Times.

Now an environmental justice journalist for Grist, Cabrera was a young reporter in The Times' Metpro fellowship in 1994 when she began reading Salazar's columns and stories. But she was disheartened to realize that many of the same issues of unequal treatment that Salazar had written about decades before were still affecting the community. "It inspired me to dig deeper and work harder," says Cabrera, who became active in the California Chicano News Media Assn. (now CCNMA: Latino Journalists of California), founded in 1972 in part to honor Salazar's legacy.

Cabrera says that every park, school or postage stamp, anything named in his honor creates more dialogue about him and the work he did.

That includes the annual Ruben Salazar Journalism Awards from CCNMA. It's one of dozens of cultural markers that reminds people of how far we've come and how far we have left to go, says Cabrera, who is CCNMA's vice president. "Especially now in this moment of reckoning around racial justice issues for Black and brown communities across the country, as we ask ourselves, 'How do we move forward? Who set the example?'"

The Latino community's fascination with Salazar also stems from his dual lives: In 1960 he married Sally Robare, who was white and worked in The Times' classified ads department when they met. They lived in a middle-class neighborhood in Orange County with their three children and liked to host pool and dinner parties. But as a journalist and columnist, he challenged the status quo and was deeply embedded in Latino issues.

"People assumed that our home life was a Spanish-speaking, Mexican, culturally traditional upbringing," says Salazar Johnson. "I think people just assumed because he was 'Salazar' and Mexican American, that we were."

"He led a completely Anglo life," his daughter Stephanie Salazar Cook says in "Man in the Middle." His wife, Sally, who died in 1993, never adapted to Latino culture, according to friends.

"That was just our life. That was the way we were brought up, and that was fine," says Salazar Johnson. "But how the household might've been in the next few years or as we got older? Things could have changed."

The Times is dedicated to covering everything about our city, whether taking a hard look at its past or at what's going on today. Get unlimited digital access. Already a subscriber? Your contribution helps us make projects like this possible. Thank you.

Indeed Salazar's absence has affected even family members who weren't yet born at the time of his death. In 2006, Salazar's grandson Christopher Johnson wrote a letter to then-L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca for a high school assignment that began, "Dear Sheriff Baca: I have lived my whole life dealing with the pain and anguish your department has caused my family. It was an absurd act that has still gone unanswered for more than 30 years. There seemed to be no reason to kill him other than getting rid of a great voice in the Mexican community."

What the public did get right about her father, says Salazar Johnson, was his evolution - "this understanding that he was changing himself" the more he dove into issues affecting the Mexican American community."

Salazar's ability to straddle two worlds helped him find success as a journalist.

"He was the bridge we had between the Chicano and the Mexican American community and the whiter community," says Felix Gutierrez, 77, emeritus professor of journalism at USC who came to know Salazar professionally in the late 1960s.

"He was the one person who could communicate with both audiences."

The Times hosted a virtual forum on the Chicano Moratorium that featured authors of the series, including Daniel Hernandez, Carolina A. Miranda and Robert J. Lopez. Watch recordings via The Times Facebook page, YouTube or Twitter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How the late Ruben Salazar changed news and Chicano culture

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
After L.A. Times reporter Ruben Salazar was killed during the 1970 Chicano Moratorium, the news industry was forever changed. His journalism legacy endures.

# data[].attributes.body
In Texas of 1970, José Angel Gutierrez formed a new political party, called, "La Raza Unida." This poltical party was created in response to the lack of power held by Chicano-Raza people. Their goal is to have complete power over their lives as people or as a nation, as in self-determination. This political party fights for the interests of the Chicano-Raza people and workers, and works for the liberation of people and land, as seen in their official website. The political party is still active today. About LRUP | La Raza Unida Party (that is their website)

# data[].attributes.headline
1970 -- Cisneros v Corpus School District

# data[].attributes.subject
1970 -- Cisneros v Corpus School District

# data[].attributes.body
This court case in 1970 was on the subject of having Mexican-Americans be recognized as their own race for the first time. After the Civil War, racial categories only included two options: "Caucasian" or "Negro." During this time, Mexicans were classified as white or "other whites." The Cisneros v Corpus School District case fought to recognize Mexican Americans as their own minority group that was often discriminated against. It was started by José Cisneros and a small group of other parents in 1968 when they filed a lawsuit against the Corpus Christi ISD. In 1975 this case caused there to be an entirely new school system made for Mexican-American and Black children in Corpus Christi.

# data[].attributes.body
ose Diaz was murdered on August 2nd, 1942 in Los Angeles. Without any evidence or suspicion, twenty-two Mexican individuals were arrested and charged for the murder of Jose. Only 17 were convicted, and 12 sent to San Quentin Prison. The LA Sheriff, when testifying claimed that it was in their nature to be violent. This accusation was based on the false claim they were of native american descent, whom were stereotypes by Americans as being violent and practicers of human sacrafice. Two years after the trial, following public outrage and protests, 12 of the men were freed and their convictions overturned.

# data[].attributes.body
ose Diaz was murdered on August 2nd, 1942 in Los Angeles. Without any evidence or suspicion, twenty-two Mexican individuals were arrested and charged for the murder of Jose. Only 17 were convicted, and 12 sent to San Quentin Prison. The LA Sheriff, when testifying claimed that it was in their nature to be violent. This accusation was based on the false claim they were of native american descent, whom were stereotypes by Americans as being violent and practicers of human sacrafice. Two years after the trial, following public outrage and protests, 12 of the men were freed and their convictions overturned.

# data[].attributes.body
ose Diaz was murdered on August 2nd, 1942 in Los Angeles. Without any evidence or suspicion, twenty-two Mexican individuals were arrested and charged for the murder of Jose. Only 17 were convicted, and 12 sent to San Quentin Prison. The LA Sheriff, when testifying claimed that it was in their nature to be violent. This accusation was based on the false claim they were of native american descent, whom were stereotypes by Americans as being violent and practicers of human sacrafice. Two years after the trial, following public outrage and protests, 12 of the men were freed and their convictions overturned.

# data[].attributes.body
Escuela de la Raza Unida in Blythe, CA was opened in 1972 as a private k-12. The school was opened as a progressive place for Chicano students to better their education. After many incidents of racism and discrimination in the towns public schools students picketed for change in the school system. Students asking for change waned more diverse and inclusive lesson plans that acknowledged the contributions of Native Americans and Mexican Americans. Escuela de la Raza Unida was founded with the mission of inclusive education and is still going strong today.

# data[].attributes.headline
1973-- Spanish Becomes Miami's Official Second Language

# data[].attributes.subject
1973-- Spanish Becomes Miami's Official Second Language

# data[].attributes.body
Miami officially became bilingual following a popular vote by its growing Cuban community. Following Liberty City riots, almost 60,000 Cuban refugees came to Miami which led to a divide in Dade county between languages, Spanish vs. English. Dade county, which includes Miami, became officially bilingual and was the first city of such a large size and population to become Bilingual. It was rivaled with many petitions to eliminate the second language from Miami, in order to keep Miami “pure” from Hispanic culture.

# data[].attributes.headline
1974-  Equal Educational Opportunity Act

# data[].attributes.subject
1974-  Equal Educational Opportunity Act

# data[].attributes.body
The Equal Education Opportunity Act of 1974 made it so that bilingual education was available in Public Schools in a wider range. This made it more possible for Latinx students to learn better, and even today there are programs like ESL for bilingual students.

# data[].attributes.headline
1975 -- The 1965 Voting Rights Act extended

# data[].attributes.subject
1975 -- The 1965 Voting Rights Act extended

# data[].attributes.body
The 1965 Voting Rights Act outlawed practices that were discriminatory in regards to voting, such as requiring literacy tests in order to vote. In 1975, when the act was set to expire, congress, under President Gerald Ford, approved the amendments to the Act which extended it for 7 more years. Added to the Act was section 203, which allowed for bilingual ballots in parts of the country, stating that “it shall provide them in the language of the applicable minority group as well as in the English language." This was of major significance due to its inclusivity of Spanish speaking US citizens.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The United States is a diverse land with a government selected by the votes of its citizens. Federal law recognizes that many Americans rely heavily on languages other than English, and that they require information in minority languages in order to be informed voters and participate effectively in our representative democracy. Many provisions of federal law protect the voting rights of language minority Americans. Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act is the keystone. Congress has mandated language minority ballots in some jurisdictions since 1975, with the most recent changes in the method of determining which jurisdictions must provide language minority materials and information becoming law in 1992
Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act
When Congress amended the Voting Rights Act in 1975 by adding Section 203, it found that "through the use of various practices and procedures, citizens of language minorities have been effectively excluded from participation in the electoral process....The Congress declares that, in order to enforce the guarantees of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, it is necessary to eliminate such discrimination by prohibiting these practices."

Section 203 provides: "Whenever any State or political subdivision [covered by the section] provides registration or voting notices, forms, instructions, assistance, or other materials or information relating to the electoral process, including ballots, it shall provide them in the language of the applicable minority group as well as in the English language."
What jurisdictions are covered under Section 203?
The law covers those localities where there are more than 10,000 or over 5 percent of the total voting age citizens in a single political subdivision (usually a county, but a township or municipality in some states) who are members of a single language minority group, have depressed literacy rates, and do not speak English very well. Political subdivisions also may be covered through a separate determination for Indian Reservations.

Determinations are based on data from the most recent Census, and the determinations are made by the Director of the Census. The list of jurisdictions covered under Section 203 can be found at the web site of the Voting Section of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.
What languages are covered under Section 203?
Section 203 targets those language minorities that have suffered a history of exclusion from the political process: Spanish, Asian, Native American, and Alaskan Native. The Census Bureau identifies specific language groups for specific jurisdictions. In some jurisdictions, two or more language minority groups are present in numbers sufficient to trigger the Section 203 requirements.
What elections are covered?
Section 203 requirements apply to all elections conducted within the bounds of the jurisdiction identified as covered by Section 203 by the Census Bureau. The law applies to primary and general elections, bond elections and referenda, and to elections of each municipality, school district or special purpose district within the designated jurisdiction.
What information must be provided in the minority language?
All information that is provided in English also must be provided in the minority language as well. This covers not only the ballot, but all election information - voter registration, candidate qualifying, polling place notices, sample ballots, instructional forms, voter information pamphlets, and absentee and regular ballots - from details about voter registration through the actual casting of the ballot, and the questions that regularly come up in the polling place. Written materials must be translated accurately, of course. Assistance also must be provided orally. Most Native American languages historically are unwritten, so that all information must be transmitted orally. Oral communications are especially important in any situation where literacy is depressed. Bilingual poll workers will be essential in at least some precincts on election day, and there should be trained personnel in the courthouse or city hall who can answer questions in the minority language, just as they do for English-speaking voters.
What are the keys to a successful program? 1. Outreach
The cornerstone of every successful program is a vigorous outreach program to identify the needs and communication channels of the minority community. Citizens who do not speak English very well, often rely on communication channels that differ from those used by English-speakers. Each community is different. The best-informed sources of information are people who are in the minority community and those who work with it regularly. Election officials should talk to them. Minority leaders are an important starting point, but election officials should not stop there. By talking to a broad range of people in the minority community - educators, business groups, labor groups, ESL programs, parent-teacher organizations, senior citizen groups, church groups, social and fraternal organizations, veterans groups, and the like - election officials will be able to identify the most effective and most efficient program possible: where to post notices, what media to use, where to have bilingual poll officials. These same persons can help identify and recruit bilingual poll officials and some of them may be able to provide important feedback on proposed translations.

Minority community members and those who work with them can play a significant role in developing and maintaining an effective bilingual election program and need not wait to be contacted by election officials. Language minority citizens should promptly respond to requests for advice and feedback from local election officials, who often are faced with severe time constraints. They also should reach out to city and county election officials to make suggestions on the program, offer to serve as poll officials, and otherwise participate actively in the language minority program that is adopted. They should report any compliance problems to local election officials and, should those officials fail to adequately address the problems, they should notify the Justice Department. Contact information is included at the end of this brochure.
2. Bilingual election personnel
Voters ask questions at the polls on election day. They have trouble with the voting machines. They are not sure of their precinct. They may not be able to read the ballot. Failure to employ bilingual poll officials at all precincts where they are needed can deprive citizens of their right to vote.

New poll workers - and indeed many veteran poll officials - need effective training in matters beyond the operation of the polls, including the broader election process so that they can answer questions accurately. Experienced poll officials at times need training on the rights of language minority voters.
3. Accurately Translated and Effectively Distributed Materials
Materials for all stages of the election process must be translated. Care should be taken to provide an accurate translation that meets the needs of the minority community. Poor translations can be misleading for voters and embarrassing for local officials. Beyond quality control, there can be significant differences in dialect within a given language group, and it is the responsibility of local officials to provide a translation that local voters actually can use. Local officials should reach out to the local minority community to help produce or check translations.
4. Timing
Time before the next election is limited - extremely limited for some jurisdictions - and there is much to do to adjust something as complex as an election process. Outreach to the minority community should begin immediately to help establish an effective and efficient language minority election program, so that priorities can be set for the many tasks that must be completed.
5. Contingency Planning
Things go wrong. Poll officials get sick and don't show up. Materials wind up at the wrong place, or get lost completely. Language minority voters appear in unexpected polling places. An effective language minority program includes plans for addressing problems, such as training for poll officials in how to deal with surprise situations, back-up communication between the polling places and the central election office, and extra material and bilingual personnel to plug gaps.

Again, close communication with the minority community will help minimize the fallout from those inevitable problems that will occur.
6. Assess, Analyze and Improve
An effective language minority program is an ongoing exercise. Language minority citizens will move into some new areas and create a need for new communications and new bilingual poll officials. The need in other areas may disappear with time. Such changes are reflected in a number of ways, such as changes in school enrollment. Like a business enterprise, an elections office must meet the needs of a changing clientele. Continuing consultation with minority leaders and groups will remain a part of an effective program.

It also can help to make a record of consultations and other outreach activities. This helps identify both successes and gaps, and builds institutional memory.
THE ROLE OF THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
- Inform - The Department of Justice notifies each jurisdiction that it is covered under Section 203, and also reaches out to minority communities to make them aware of the law.

- Assist - We provide information to jurisdictions and answer questions about compliance plans.

- Enforce - We investigate and pursue allegations of violations of federal law, and take appropriate enforcement action.
Where do I go for more information?
Information about Section 203, including its text, a list of covered jurisdictions, and the Attorney General's Language Minority Guidelines, is on the Voting Section web site here.

You also may contact

Voting Section
Civil Rights Division
4 Constitution Square
Room 8.923
150 M Street, NE
Washington, DC 20530

PHONE - 202-307-2767; 1-800-253-3931
FAX - 202-307-3961
Go to main page on language minority provisions

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The United States is a diverse land with a government selected by the votes of its citizens. Federal law recognizes that many Americans rely heavily on languages other than English, and that they require information in minority languages in order to be informed voters and participate effectively in our representative democracy.

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1953-1958-- US Immigration Services Mass Arrest and Deportation of Latin Americans

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1953-1958-- US Immigration Services Mass Arrest and Deportation of Latin Americans

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In the 1940s and 1960s, millions of Latin AMericans entered the United States legally through work programs. Others did not enter legally and also sought work. States soon became dependent on their work. In the 1950s, some states refused to participate in these work programs and many people already residing in the United States were becoming angry with the arrival of the immigrants. In 1953, the United States government introduced and enforced “Operation 🤬”, which led to the arrest and deportation of millions of Latin Americans. They were shoved into boats, buses, and planes and dropped in unfamiliar parts of Mexico. Many died while in custody.

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 1978- A Russian Immigrant Leads a Campaign to End Bilingualism

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 1978- A Russian Immigrant Leads a Campaign to End Bilingualism

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Emmy Shafer was a Russian-born immigrant residing in Miami, Florida. She led a campaign to make English the official language in Miami and end bilingualism. This was approved in a vote by the residents of Miami in 1980. The ordinance prevented Spanish from being used in emergency 911 calls, public signs, hurricane warnings, and many other public statements. Its general intention was to curb the use of Spanish. It prohibited the spending of Dade County funds for the use of anything that was not in English or  “for promotion of ‘any culture other than that of the United States.’" Emmy Shafer stated “How come the Cubans get everything?". The Washington Post reports that “She immigrated to the United States after World War II and said she wants to return Miami to the ‘way it used to be.’”  This was a significant event for Spanish speakers and really anyone who might have valued a culture considered “any culture other than that of the United States” because it was forcing assimilation and sending the message that not only was their culture and identity not valued, it was not acceptable and discriminated against. 