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La protesta ocurrió en marzo de 1968. La primera salida ocurrió el 6 de marzo de 1968 y continuó durante las días siguientes. Los estudiantes presentaron oficialmente sus demandas a la junta escolar el 28 de marzo. Orgainizaciones como MALDEF y PRLDF (explicadas de bajos) fueron fundadas en 1968 y 1972 respectivamente.

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Teachers at Garfield High School were winding down classes for the approaching lunch break when they heard the startling sound of people - they were not sure who - running through the halls, pounding on classroom doors. "Walkout!" they were shouting. "Walkout!"

They looked on in disbelief as hundreds of students streamed out of classrooms and assembled before the school entrance, their clenched fists held high. " Viva la revolución!" they called out. "Education, not eradication!" Soon, sheriff's deputies were rumbling in.

It was just past noon on a sunny Tuesday, March 5, 1968 - the day a Mexican American revolution began. Soon came walkouts at two more Eastside high schools, Roosevelt and Lincoln, in protest of run-down campuses, lack of college prep courses, and teachers who were poorly trained, indifferent or racist.

By the time the "blowouts" peaked about a week later, 22,000 students had stormed out of class, delivered impassioned speeches and clashed with police. Scenes of rebellion filled newspapers and television screens. School trustees held emergency meetings to try to quell the crisis; Mayor Sam Yorty suggested students had fallen under the influence of "communist agitators."

In the midst of the disruptions, Julian Nava, the only Mexican American on the Los Angeles Board of Education, turned to Superintendent of Schools Jack Crowther. "Jack," he said. "This is B.C. and AD. The schools will not be the same hereafter."

"Yes," said Crowther. "I know."

The East L.A. walkouts 50 years ago were the uniquely California embodiment of the fury and hope that marked much of 1968. The first act of mass militancy by Mexican Americans in modern California history set the tone for activism across the Southwest as America drifted into a year of social turmoil, assassinations, war and disillusionment.

RELATED | 1968: A timeline of anger, grief and change "

The walkouts focused national attention on a new force on the American political scene, the Chicano movement. Once a pejorative term, "Chicano" was adopted by a new generation of urbanized Mexican Americans as an emblem of ethnic pride, cultural awareness and a commitment to community.

"We caught the entire nation by surprise," said David Sanchez, founder of the militant Brown Berets, which had its seeds in the movement for educational reform and then took on farmworker rights, police brutality and the issue that managed to mobilize just about everyone who was protesting in 1968: the Vietnam War. "Before the walkouts, no one cared that substandard schools made it all but impossible for Chicano youths to find strength and pride in their culture, language and history - or to make the most of their lives," Sanchez said.

"After the walkouts," he added, "no one could deny that we were ready to go to prison if necessary for what we believed, which was this: With better education, the Chicano community could control its own destiny."

Pete Martinez, a former teacher at Lincoln, said students that year ignited a movement that would transform generations of Latinos in America. "In 1968, the kids kicked the doors open," he said.

With better education, the Chicano community could control its own destiny."

- David Sanchez, Brown Berets founder

In 1968, Mexican American students living east of downtown were funneled into high schools with some of the worst dropout rates in the nation - 57% at Garfield, 45% at Roosevelt, 39% at Lincoln.

Eastside schools were run-down and overcrowded, and the community had little political power. The Mexican American community was young - about half the population was under 20 - and there were no Mexican Americans on the City Council or Board of Supervisors.

At Eastside schools, Spanish speakers felt trapped in slower tracks that funneled them toward low-skilled jobs.

Harry Gamboa, now a celebrated photographer and performance artist, remembered the day in elementary school when the teacher led him to the front of the class and helped him fashion a hat made of construction paper as an art project. "She put it on my head and wrote the word 'Spanish' on it. She said I could take it off when I learned to speak English," he said. Years later, he would join the walkouts at Garfield.

Although the walkouts seemed spontaneous, they grew out of years of social activism. Since 1963, Camp Hess Kramer, a Jewish summer camp in Malibu, had hosted motivational programs for outstanding East L.A. students, who shared grievances about their underperforming high schools and neglected neighborhoods.

RELATED | Do you remember the East L.A. walkouts? Share your memories "

Others stopped in at the Social Action Training Center, an effort run out the Church of the Epiphany in Lincoln Heights by John Luce, an Episcopal priest who supported labor leader Cesar Chavez.

Four young activists opened the La Piranya Coffee Shop in 1967 at the corner of Olympic and Goodrich boulevards as headquarters for their organization, Chicano Youths for Community Action. They were led by Sanchez, then a clean-cut 18, who was president of Yorty's youth advisory commission, and Vickie Castro, a Cal State Los Angeles student who, years later, would become the second Latino ever elected to the Los Angeles Board of Education.

We were all products of Camp Kramer and Church of the Epiphany and, therefore, aspired to remake society."

- Vickie Castro

"We were all products of Camp Kramer and Church of the Epiphany and, therefore, aspired to remake society," Castro recalled. "At La Piranya, we organized strategies for doing just that, and shared outrage over things like a Time magazine article that described East L.A. as 'reeking of garbage and wine.'"

La Piranya's walls were covered with murals depicting scenes from Mexico's past, and a startling declaration in large black letters: "Por mi raza mato," or "For my race I kill."

Revolution was in the air. Black militant Stokely Carmichael swung by La Piranya. So did two figures known for their edgy and angry brand of activism - Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales of Colorado and Reies Tijerina of New Mexico.

One day in 1967, hours before a protest against police harassment, Sanchez ran by the garment district to buy a dozen berets - the headgear seen on countless posters of Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara. Back at La Piranya, he dealt them out like playing cards, saying, "Put these on, we're going to a demonstration."

The Chicano Youths for Community Action had became the Brown Berets.

The group operated under a manual written by Sanchez that included a passage members were required to memorize:

"For over 20 years, the Mexican American has suffered at the hands of the Anglo establishment. He is discriminated against in schooling, housing, in employment and in every other phase of life. Because of this situation, the Mexican American has become the lowest achiever of any minority group in the entire Southwest."

(Herald-Examiner Collection / Los Angeles Public Library)

What people were only beginning to realize was that - much as the students at a Florida high school this year have seized the debate over gun control from the adults - it was the high school students of East L.A. who would refuse to wait for the adults to act.

Sal Castro, then a social studies teacher at Lincoln and a charismatic guest speaker at La Piranya, said his students "wanted things changed at the school. They wanted to hold what they called a 'blowout' - a walkout."

His response: "Organize. What do you need?"

The original plan was to present a series of demands - and the threat of a walkout - to the school board in 1967. The plot fizzled.

But the next year, on Friday, March 1, the principal at Wilson High in El Sereno abruptly canceled the school play, "Barefoot in the Park," a romantic comedy deemed risque. Hundreds of students walked off campus in anger.

The organizers of the failed walkout plot saw their chance. Sal Castro, Brown Berets, college students and others, including students recruited from high schools, holed up at La Piranya and other hangouts over the weekend to prepare.

By Tuesday, March 5, they were ready to launch. Joseph Rodriguez, then a sophomore at Garfield High, recalled sitting in basic biology class when "someone banged on our wooden door yelling, 'Walkout! Walkout!' We heard commotion outside. Many of us, including the teacher, ran to the window to see what was going on.

"My teacher looked me in the eyes," Rodriguez recalled, "and said, 'I can see you're really interested in this stuff. You're free to go.'"

Rodriguez saw students hemorrhaging through the gates and onto surrounding sidewalks and streets. Sheriff's deputies in riot gear arrived and over bullhorns ordered them back to class. Most refused.

A Coca-Cola delivery truck happened to drive up, and students began grabbing bottles and hurling them at deputies. Wading into the fray were the Brown Berets, who had planned to offer students protection. Sanchez later boasted that he outran two deputies "chasing after me with batons waving."

The next day, it was Vickie Castro's mission to occupy the Lincoln principal while cohorts fanned out across campus and encouraged students to leave school. She pretended to be an applicant for a teacher's assistant position and peppered the principal with questions.

"I held the principal hostage for 20 minutes while one worried staffer after another rushed into his office to whisper the worsening news in his ear," she recalled with a chuckle. "Finally, he said, 'Sorry, but I really have to go.' Then I drove to Roosevelt High for more action."

When Vickie Castro pulled up at her alma mater, an administrator recognized her. "Vickie, if you come on campus I'll have you arrested," she said. "Turn around. Now."

She drove off - for the other side of the campus, and joined other activists inciting students to walk. A brief clash with police resulted in several arrests. Students walked out at Belmont the next day. Protest plans there had spread not just by word of mouth, but by messages written in marker on the grout between tiles: "Walkout. Today. 12:30."

In years to come, the Eastside would be the site of protests decrying the Vietnam War and immigration policy. But these early walkouts were about education. Students carried American flags and signs reading, "We demand schools that teach," "School not prison" and "We are not 'dirty Mexicans.'"

During one day of protest, a heavy rain broke out. At Lincoln, a few of the demonstrators who braved the downpour noticed that the water streaming down Sal Castro's face was mixed with tears of pride.

The unrest continued for about a week, with protests erupting at a few other campuses - even two junior highs - not originally included in the walkout plans. At a raucous school board meeting 10 days into the protests, students presented 36 demands. Some seemed excessive: Only pass/fail grades. Student lounges with jukeboxes. Mexican dishes in the cafeteria prepared by local mothers.

Others were very basic: Smaller classes. New libraries. More bilingual counselors, teachers and principals. Improved testing to distinguish between a lack of English proficiency and lack of intelligence. More lessons on Mexican American culture, art and history. And no corporal punishment.

The school board agreed outright to two of the demands - more bilingual personnel and smaller classes. Generally, however, the district said it was already doing what the students asked, or wanted to comply but lacked funds.

In the walkouts' aftermath, the organizers basked in support from high-profile leaders, including Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, who made time to congratulate some students on the tarmac at Santa Monica Airport while in California to meet Cesar Chavez.

Some educators supported the students, but quietly. "We were secretly guided behind the scenes by sympathetic teachers and administrators who used us, in a way, as their own vehicles for change," Vickie Castro recalled. "They even helped me write speeches I gave after the blowouts during meetings with school officials."

We were secretly guided behind the scenes by sympathetic teachers and administrators who used us, in a way, as their own vehicles for change."

- Vickie Castro

But the walkouts also unleashed ugly emotions. As an example of the attitudes Mexican American students faced, community leaders cited an essay Richard C. Davis, a wood shop instructor at Lincoln, published that spring in the school's faculty publication.

Declaring that "most of the Mexican Americans have never had it so good," he wrote: "Before the Spanish came, he was an Indian grubbing in the soil and after the Spanish came, he was a slave. It seems to me that America must be a very desirable place, witness the number of 'wetbacks' and migrants both legal and illegal from Mexico...."

He went on: "When it comes to going to school - free and the best in the world - he (the Mexican-American) is passive. Absenteeism is his culture, his way of life - always manana maybe he will get an education - manana, when it comes to repairing his home, controlling childbirth, planning for tomorrow, he is passive."

Law enforcement responded with undercover operations, raids and arrests. In June, authorities rounded up 13 activists, who were indicted by a grand jury on charges including conspiracy in having planned the walkouts. Each faced 66 years in prison.

Among those indicted were Sanchez and Sal Castro, who was the only teacher to publicly participate and back students' complaints to news media and school district officials.

He lost his job but was eventually reinstated after months of protests by Eastside parents. Castro had employment, but was bounced around to different campuses and made a substitute before finally landing at Belmont as a teacher. The indictments against the "Eastside 13" were struck down by an appeals court in 1970.

A year after the walkouts, UCLA's enrollment of Mexican Americans soared from 100 to 1,900. Over the decades, college enrollment increased from 2% to 25% nationwide. Chicano studies programs were founded at colleges and universities across the nation. More Mexican Americans also entered the ranks of vice principals and principals in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

But perhaps the walkouts' greatest accomplishment was fostering in the Mexican American community a sense of possibility - the realization that a just cause sometimes requires speaking up.

"Until that day, it never crossed my mind that Garfield High was run-down, overcrowded and lagging behind public schools in wealthier white neighborhoods," said Rodriguez, who later became a prize-winning columnist at the San Jose Mercury News. "All that changed after the blowouts."

Until that day, it never crossed my mind that Garfield High was ... lagging behind public schools in wealthier white neighborhoods. All that changed after the blowouts."

- Joseph Rodriguez

Mexican American parents who had never attended a school board meeting watched their children addressing the board. Rodriguez recalled that his father was initially appalled by the protests, then decided the students were right.

Vickie Castro recounted a dinner table confrontation with her own father. "My dad stared down at me," she said, "and announced, 'Mija, I never thought you'd grow up to be a communist.'

"I'm no communist, Dad!" she responded. "There's something terribly wrong with our schools. Our future is at stake."

She went on to become a teacher, principal and a Los Angeles school board member. But her role in the walkouts caused a rift in her family. One cousin, a sheriff's deputy, refused to speak to her for years.

As a middle school principal in East L.A. many years later, her radical past collided head on with the establishment world of education when three students walked out of class because they couldn't access their grades during a teacher's work stoppage. She suspended them.

"I never thought I'd be the other side of a walkout situation," she said with a laugh. "But that situation wasn't at all the same."

Later, she was approached by a group of Eastside high school students, many of them flanked by their parents, who were fed up because the campus cafeteria was serving too many burritos, and not enough variety.

"I had to turn around and stifle a chuckle," she said. "Once upon a time, I fought hard for those burritos!"

This year LAUSD is remembering the walkouts with seminars, instructional materials and an arts festival. The Plaza de Cultura y Artes in downtown will host a major exhibition on the walkouts' legacy. Many screenings are planned of "Walkout," a movie about those fiery days produced by Moctesuma Esparza, who was one of the Eastside 13.

The dropout rates at Eastside high schools have improved dramatically since 1968 - Garfield, 13%; Roosevelt, 28%; and Lincoln, 21%. But they remain far higher than those at affluent Westside campuses, such as Malibu High, where it hovers at about 5%.

"We've come a long way," Vickie Castro said, "but there's still a lot of work to do."

Some of that work is being carried out at a campus just west of downtown. It used to be Belmont Middle School. In 2010 it got a new name: Salvador B. Castro Middle School.
Louis.Sahagun@latimes.com @LouisSahagun
Produced by Sean Greene
UPDATES: FOR THE RECORD
8:45 a.m.: An earlier version of this article referred to the La Piranha Coffee Shop. It was the La Piranya Coffee Shop.

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East L.A., 1968: 'Walkout!' The day high school students helped ignite the Chicano power movement

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In March 1968, thousands of students walked out of four Los Angeles high schools. Most were of Mexican descent; they marched for better teachers, better facilities and college prep courses. The walkouts spread to include 22,000 students across L.A. and ignited a generation of Chicano activism.

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We help the dreamers, doers, and givers of Greater L.A. accomplish more together than they could alone.

We are a platform for good, helping to scale donations, hard work, and community power into real and lasting change for marginalized people and families. We believe Greater L.A. can be a better version of what we cherish: a place rich with diversity, where families flourish in affordable homes, and the next generation can own its future.

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Blog - United Way of Greater Los Angeles

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This essay explores the struggles for equal educational opportunities for American Latino children in the 19th and 20th centuries. Topics include desegregation, struggles in higher education, and parents' advocacy for educational equality."

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On June 15, LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes opened ¡Ya Basta! The East L.A. Walkouts and the Power of Protest. Through posters, documents, photography, music, film footage and art, the exhibit explores issues of education inequality in California both past and present, and the actions taken by Mexican and Mexican American students of East Los Angeles to advocate for their rights. With over 200 attendees on opening night, including some of the students who walked out, the exhibit is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the historic era, which kicked off on March 1, 1968.

"We really want to call attention to what the walkouts accomplished and want people to walk away from this being able to draw parallels between what students in that time [faced] and the problems that are still with us today, but also to be inspired," senior curator, Erin M. Curtis, told Latino USA.

The exhibit draws connections between movements happening then and today. ¡Ya Basta! was erected with student activists in mind and a hope to inspire them to rise to the occasion.

When designing the exhibit, interactive installations were included with the intention to open dialogue. These interactive portions ask visitors to write down an action he or she plans to take towards tackling injustice. Pledges range anywhere from planting a garden to speaking out against injustice to making classrooms more welcoming for Latinx students.

The History of the Walkouts

During the 1960s and 70s, a widespread fight for civil rights and equality was consuming the nation one protest at a time. The movement included several East Los Angeles high schools, such as Abraham Lincoln Senior High School, James A. Garfield Senior High School, Belmont Senior High School and others. While most of the spotlight of the era has been on the national grievances of the time, like the Vietnam War and the African-American Civil Rights movement , East Los Angeles' school district gained notoriety for local student-led protests and walkouts.

Chicano and Chicana students walked out to challenge the inequalities in the school system. The curriculum lacked in cultural diversity and, to students like Margarita Cuarón, it seemed to be set up to limit students to a vocational career while guiding them away from a collegiate track.

Cuarón, one of the brave students who walked out, has a piece on display. In the 1960s, Cuarón thought of herself as a regular high school student at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. That quickly changed when she noticed that her school was different than others because it had "no expectations."

Walking out was a decision that Cuarón says she never had second thoughts or doubts about. Reflecting on this time in her life, Cuarón believes it has been, "the most important thing outside of giving childbirth."

Educator Sal Castro was one of the trailblazers who ignited the movement in 1963 when he held the first Chicano Youth Leadership Conference in celebration of Chicano heritage and pride. This conference laid down the foundation for the 1968 walkouts.

After several demonstrations, the movement achieved its first success on March 28, 1968 when community members were able to vocalize their to the school board.

However, these demands were not immediately accepted and answered with backlash. Thirteen of the walkout organizers were arrested, including Castro. The protest found its way to the Hall of Justice in downtown L.A., until protesters were .

To Cuarón, who was also arrested, the East L.A. Walkouts are tied to what is happening today.

"The turn of events and issues that kids are having to deal with in their very lives is something unimaginable," Cuarón told Latino USA about the struggles youth face now. "These kids today, I bow down and honor them. I give them so much encouragement and validate what they are doing. America is a microcosm of different cultures, people, and languages. Unfortunately, right now, the Statue of Liberty is being desecrated by the Trump administration."

Inspiring a New Generation

At the heart of ¡Ya Basta! is a hope to inspire youth today.

"The goal of the exhibit is to demonstrate that change begins by ordinary people deciding that they are not going to put up with injustice any longer and choosing to take action. Everything about the show is really designed to inspire you to take action in the spirit of the walkouts in your own community and to make positive change," Curtis said.

The exhibit has also allowed artists to draw parallels between the issues of then and now. One of the artists, Nery Gabriel Lemus, dedicated a piece to the ongoing case for DACA in correlation to the school shooting this year.

For Lemus, the issue of immigration hits home. Having immigrant parents from Guatemala and a family of his own, seeing families being torn apart is unimaginable to him.

Lemus' thought that no human being should be looked at as "other" motivated him to create his piece. In trying to further the conversation and inspire others, Lemus' artwork promotes the equality many in this country are currently fighting for.

"I grew up in a low-income, predominantly immigrant community and have my master's, my bachelor's," Lemus told Latino USA. "A lot of times you don't have those resources, a lot of people don't have those opportunities, so I think it's important for us to empower them and say you can do it. It is possible to be successful."

The exhibit will remain open until January 14, 2019.

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¡Ya Basta! Exhibit Commemorates East LA High School Walkouts and Today's Student-Led Protests

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On June 15, LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes opened ¡Ya Basta! The East L.A. Walkouts and the Power of Protest. Through posters, documents, photography, music, film footage and art, the exhibit explores issues of education inequality in California both past and present, and the actions taken by Mexican and Mexican American students of East Los Angeles to advocate for their rights.

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Richard Vogel/AP

Fifty years ago, 17-year-old Paula Crisostomo helped organize a multi-school walkout that galvanized the Mexican-American community in Los Angeles.

Yesterday was not the first time that high schoolers walked out the door of a classroom, calling for a revolution.

The school walkouts across the country yesterday were, in part, a 17-minute protest in memory of those who died during the shooting last month at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. They also serve as a clear demand. Students, both in Parkland and nationally, are speaking out-on Twitter, in town hall meetings, at rallies-for stricter gun control laws.

They did much of their mobilizing online. And a good deal of attention has been paid to the way social media has allowed the teenagers to organize. But activism didn't begin with the internet, and the current movement echoes a series of school walkouts in East Los Angeles 50 years ago. Then, as now, high school students were angry and frustrated about the way their lives were being harmed within the walls of an institution that was supposed to support and protect them.

On March 6, 1968, students at four high schools marched out the doors to protest the school district's treatment of students of Mexican-American heritage, pushing back against norms that included corporal punishments for speaking Spanish. The high schools-all of which had populations of more than 75 percent Latino students-were overcrowded and in a state of disrepair. Furthermore, the punitive measures, lack of college prep courses, and sometimes outright racism from teachers and administrators painted a damning rationale for why the dropout rate in the district was approximately 60 percent for Mexican-Americans. And with no Mexican-Americans on the district's Board of Supervisors, the families of L.A.'s East side felt they had no advocates.

Knowing that their public schools would lose money for each student not attending class, the organizers decided to plan a walkout. The original plan-to threaten the walkout after presenting a list of demands to the school board-was conceived in 1967 but never came to fruition. A year later, when the principal at Wilson High School cancelled its school play with no warning, frustrated students walked out of the campus. The organizers of the walkout movement realized their protest had new life. On March 6, 1968, a new round of walkouts began in earnest, and by the end of that week the protest had spread across the city: more than 15,000 students in Los Angeles had marched out of their classrooms.

The students had clear proposals for reform, including an end to corporal punishment, the inclusion of Mexican-American history in the curriculum, and the removal of administrators and teachers who showed prejudice towards Mexican or Mexican-American students. They also had more immediate practical demands, such as the addition of covered dining halls: At one school, students had only an outdoor dining area and were forced to eat in the rain during poor weather. Eventually, the walkouts led to the school district hiring more Hispanic teachers, the end of paddle beatings for speaking Spanish, and the introduction of bilingual classes and ethnic studies. The walkouts also changed the students, and their belief in what they could do: The Los Angeles Times reports that the year after the walkouts, the number of Mexican-American students enrolling at UCLA rose 1800 percent.

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Paula Crisostomo was a 17-year-old high school student at the time, and one of the walkout's organizers. CityLab spoke with her on the day of the Parkland walkouts.
What was your role in the walkout movement?
I was one of the organizers and leaders. We planned and organized for at least a year-remember, this was before social media and computers and all that. We had to build a movement by raising consciousness and awareness with not only our peers, but the community: educating everyone about the conditions of our schools and racist treatment. That entailed lots of meetings [and] free community newspapers we wrote for. We were also guided and mentored by one teacher, Sal Castro, and a cadre of Chicano college students who knew more about this stuff that we did.
What motivated you to plan and take part in the movement?
I had the privilege of having Sal Castro as a teacher, and he was an out-of-the-box sort of guy, especially for those times. One time, Mr. Castro took us for a 15-20 minute ride down the freeway to another school. I was amazed at the condition of that school: It was new, it had green space, it had this beautiful lobby in the administration building, the libraries were full of books, and the restrooms were open. All of ours were closed, because we weren't allowed to use them before school, during lunch, or after school. We had to get a special hall pass: We had to respect them. They were bathrooms, they weren't church!

When Mr. Castro said [this school] is part of the school district you're in, I had to wonder "What the hell?" seeing the inequality of the whole situation. We were, of course, in a lower-income working class community; the school he took us to was higher-income and predominately white.
Was it difficult to convince the larger community to get behind the movement?
We didn't get much support till after the actual walkout, and it was very difficult to convince other students, because their parents were opposed to it. At that time, we were an obedient and conservative community. But some of the principals called in the LAPD for what they called crowd control. The police started using their batons and beating students. So when the parents and community saw that-and again, it was a peaceful protest, we were not violent but we were met with violence-when the parents heard about or saw that, they knew that it was more serious than they had imagined.

And a lot of them felt guilty, because the walkout was not our first step: It was our absolute last. We had a list of demands and had started by going through the protocol to get our grievances heard and met. And that included meeting with parents, and community people, and members of our school board, but no one listened to us. They never thought we were going to do anything about it. So once the walkouts began, the so-called grownups realized we had taken on issues and actions that they should have been dealing with all along.
Do you wish you'd had social media to help with the organization process?
It sure would have been a lot easier, of course. However, actually talking to people face-to-face-seeing their expressions or being able to argue with or convince them, actually hearing their misgivings and answering questions-I think was really important to sustaining the building of the movement. There were about 15 other [schools] across the city that walked out also in our support, and that was part of the meetings and face-to-face educating and raising awareness.

What did this mean for you as a 17-year old? Did you feel like you had any real power?
Not at the time. Because we weren't getting any support, and because things moved so slowly-especially when you're 17 you want things to happen overnight-I didn't feel really empowered, that took a little while: Maybe when I started receiving accolades about my so-called bravery, and when I started to see some specific school site changes. We had a long list of demands, and some of them required a vote by our board of education, or state legislature, but a few of them were things the principals could decide to do if they wanted. When I saw the principals were making those changes the following semester, I started to feel like "Hey, we may have done something here." And when the statistics came out of how many students from our community had applied to colleges and were going to go to college, that was really encouraging.
How did your family react to your involvement in the walkouts? Did most of the other students have familial support?
My mother was very supportive, and my father was not. I know that caused a huge friction in their relationship, and it did affect the relationship I had with my father. He was mostly concerned about my safety, and he thought I would not be able to graduate because of it. That was one of the threats, early on, but that became one of our first demands: that any student who participated would not be punished.

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Where do you think the strength of student activism comes from?
[Students] have no real ties to anything or anyone yet. They certainly have fresher ideas, and more time to devote to these causes. I think our strength came from each other, and from knowing that we weren't asking for anything crazy. We were asking for a better education: for teachers to treat us like we had human intellectual potential. I felt like I didn't have any other choice.

I had a geometry teacher-we were supposed to be working quietly at our desks, and I got up to ask him a question. He, very loudly, because he wanted the rest of the class to hear it, said, "Oh Paula, why are you wasting your time? You're not going to go to college, you and your girlfriends are going to be pregnant by the end of the summer. Go back to your seat." It's horrible to hear that today, but we had heard that throughout our entire school career: teachers who called us lazy Mexicans and stupid wetbacks and thought nothing of it. When you hear this over and over again, you internalize it, it became normal. But we started feeling like "wait a minute, this isn't right."
How do you see the legacy of that movement reflected in the current walkouts and activism of high school students?
I'm very proud that they've chosen the strategy of walkouts, because we certainly proved that it helped us. So I'm really, really awed by these students. By standing up when the adults did not, just as we did. But I have to question why the Black Lives Matter organization, who also was also building a movement, and also was concerned about their lives and their safety, was so vilified. We received the same sort of racist treatment by everyone else. While what they're doing is awesome, by standing up when grownups would not, I just, again, have to wonder why when people of color, when our movements stand up, we're vilified for it.
Why do you think administrators ultimately gave in to some of the proposals?
It was a long process, because some of them did need some laws changed. We were politically unsophisticated-we were high school kids, what did we know?

But over the course of several years things changed, and parts of the larger demands that we made have been implemented because of the walkouts, for sure. A lot of our parents and community members [pressured the administration] to meet our demands.
Do you think the reason the administration gave in instead of forcing more punitive measures against students was because they knew the movement was not going to back down?
Yes.

About the Author

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Walkout: In 1960s L.A., Mexican-American High School Students Took Charge

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Yesterday was not the first time that high schoolers walked out the door of a classroom, calling for a revolution. The school walkouts across the country yesterday were, in part, a 17-minute protest in memory of those who died during the shooting last month at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

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¿Qué pasó como resultado de las protestas?

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¿Qué pasó como resultado de las protestas?

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Una de las mayores mejoras fue el reconocimiento del gobierno de los mexicano-estadounidenses como un grupo étnico identificable. Otro resultado fue la creación de centros de estudio e investigación chicanos en campus universitarios, que extendieron la investigación de la historia y la cultura latina. Los administradores de la escuela también cieron a la mayoría de las demandas que tenían los estudiantes. El número de estudiantes mexicano-estadounidenses que se inscribieron en UCLA también aumentó 1800 por ciento al año siguiente. Con el tiempo, la inscripción mexicano-estadounidense en la universidad ha pasado de 2 por ciento a 25 por ciento en todo el país. Las tasas de deserción en esas escuelas secundarias bajaban. Los latinos también iban a recibir el poder político más fácilmente. Orgainizations como el Mexican American Legal Defense Education Fund (MALDEF) y el Puerto Rican Legal Defense Education Fund (PRLDF) se vieron para proporcionar recursos para contratar abogados para presentar demandas contra escuelas que discriminan a los latinos. La protesta tuvo éxito en conseguir más igualdad de derechos para los chicanos no sólo en Los Angeles, sino en todo el país.

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La protesta ocurrió en varias escuelas secundarias en el este de Los Angeles, incluyendo Abraham Lincoln Senior High School, James A. Garfield Senior High School, Belmont Senior High School, y otros.

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La protesta ocurrió en marzo de 1968. La primera salida ocurrió el 6 de marzo de 1968 y continuó durante las días siguientes. Los estudiantes presentaron oficialmente sus demandas a la junta escolar el 28 de marzo. Orgainizaciones como MALDEF y PRLDF (explicadas de bajos) fueron fundadas en 1968 y 1972 respectivamente.

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Un movimiento para los derechos de los chicanos en las escuelas. Chicanos también querían clases de historia mexicana americana, clases bilingues, clases más pequeñas en general, maestros latinos, consejeros mejores para la universidad, y consejos asesores de padres. Pero lo más importante, los estudiantes querían poner fin al racismo que les ha hecho daño. Antes, fueron tratados mal, y fueron forzados a hablar inglés, aunque los enseñaron cómo nunca. Los estudiantes protestaron aunque los administradores de la escuela bloquearon las puertas, y la policía usó la violencia. Algunos estudiantes también fueron encarcelados. Las autoridades afirmaron que las protestas fueron fundadas a partir del concepto de comunismo, era una manera de cambiar la percepción pública de las protestas. Sin embargo, eso no funcionó, y el público apoyó a los estudiantes. Los estudiantes  recibieron apoyo de algunas figuras populares, incluyendo Rob Kennedy y Lyndon Johnson.

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Estudiantes de escuelas secundarias varias en el este de Los Angeles son responsables para la protesta. Los estudiantes abandonaron la escuela y protestaron por los derechos de los chicanos. Sal Castro, un maestro, fue uno de los fundadores de la protesta. Fundó la conferencia de liderazago juvenil chicano, que ayudó a organizar la protesta. Moctesuma Esparza también fue uno de los principales organizadores, asistió a la conferencia, y recientemente produjo una película de HBO de las protestas. También estaban las Brown Berets, un grupo chicano que luchó por los derechos mexicano-estadounidenses, que ayudó a proteger a los estudiantes durante las protestas. Fueron fundadas por David Sánchez. La protesta tuve hasta 22000 estudiantes.

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Porque antes del movimiento, en las escuelas, Chicanos fueron tratados mal, y ellos no podían recibir un educación igualitaria. Muchos de los maestros eran racistas y prejuiciado contra los Chicanos. Es importante para que los chicanos pueden aprender en la escuela como los otros estudiantes. Las protestas escolares tuvieron un gran efecto en cómo los chicanos fueron tratados no sólo en las escuelas, sino en general de la policía y el gobierno. Las protestas escolares también ayudaron a los chicanos en la política.

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¿Por qué es importante en el movimiento chicano?

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¿Por qué es importante en el movimiento chicano?

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¿Cuándo pasaron los eventos principales?

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¿Cuándo pasaron los eventos principales?

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Discriminación en las Escuelas/Las Huelgas Estudiantes

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Discriminación en las Escuelas/Las Huelgas Estudiantes