ch18

Politics, Education, and Culture

Matt S. Meier

By the late seventies and early eighties the four principal Chicano leaders: Chávez, Gonzales, Tijerina, and Gutiérrez, had all declined in appeal and power, some more than others. Their weaker positions resulted in part from changes taking place in the Mexican-American community. Already by the mid-1970s the civil rights movement, the black movement, and the student movement had all become less militant or had all but disappeared from the American scene. Radical stances and confrontational styles diminished in effectiveness, and those who continued in that mode became less and less influential. A majority of Mexican-Americans rejected extreme militancy but still felt their civil rights should provide them a greater say in their own governance. In 1974 two politically moderate Mexican-Americans were elected state governors: Raúl Castro in Arizona and Jerry Apodaca in New Mexico. Subsequently the Chicano leadership mantle seemed to be falling upon the postwar generation in the persons of people like Toney Anaya, governor of New Mexico from 1982 to 1986, Mayor Henry Cisneros of San Antonio, and Mayor Federico Peña of Denver, the latter two following in the footsteps of Mayor Raymond Telles of El Paso (1957–1961) and working within the political system. A kind of milestone was marked in 1984 when Raúl González became the first Tejano elected by popular vote to a statewide office: Associate Justice of the Texas Supreme Court.

1. Chicano Powerlessness

Although the Mexican-American population has increased from about two million in 1930 to nearly six million in 1970 and to almost nine million in 1980, its members have obtained little decision-making power. Between 1976 and 1980 nearly 665,000 Chicanos were registered in the Southwest, and by 1984 another 443,689 Latino 1 voters, mostly Mexican-Americans, were added to the rolls. However, in the nonpresidential election of 1982 only 52 percent of eligible Latinos were registered and only 37 percent voted. In California the number of voting-age Latinos increased a dramatic 117 percent in the decade 1970 to 1980, and by mid-decade they formed twenty-one percent of the state’s population, yet they wield very limited political power.

Why do Chicanos have a lower level of participation in the political process than the general population? The answer lies in the many factors that sap their political potential. A few are cultural, but most arise out of their socioeconomic position in American life and out of discrimination practiced against them. To begin with, by far the most important factors in their political emasculation are gerrymandering their areas of population concentration, the device of at-large rather than single-district elections, other discriminatory election practices such as threats, as in Orange County, California, in the 1988 election, and, until fairly recently, poll taxes. Residency requirements have also militated against those who remain in the migrant stream. A relatively high level of non-citizenship further lessens the number of political participants; about thirty percent of Mexican-Americans are not citizens, compared to three percent for the total population. The fact that they form the most recent immigrant wave explains part of that difference in citizenship. Additional factors encouraging naturalization seem to be property ownership, marriage, and children, especially when born in the United States.²

In addition, there is a cluster of factors that further reduce Mexican-American political participation. It is a matter of statistical record that low levels of age, education, and income negatively affect voter registration and turnout. In all three categories Chicanos are at, or close to, the bottom in American society. In 1980 the median age of Chicanos was 22.1 years; for the whole population it was thirty-one years. Only about fifty percent of Chicanos complete high school, and median family income is only two-thirds of the national average. Another factor is the denial of the vote to convicted felons. For a number of reasons Chicanos are in that category in higher percentages than the general population. A final factor might be called cultural; it is a cynicism about politicians and the political process. This may come from their historical experience both in Mexico and in the United States.³

2. Government Response

At the national level government reaction to increased Chicano political power has led to some improvement. In response to Mexican-American demands, President Lyndon Johnson in June 1967 announced the formation of the Inter-Agency Committee on Mexican-American Affairs and appointed Vicente Ximenes to head the new office. Two years later it became a Cabinet Committee on Opportunities for Spanish Speaking People with a five year life. In its early days the Nixon administration announced a sixteen-point program to hire the Spanish-speaking in government. However, during his five-and-one-half years of tenure the President appointed fewer than ten Latinos to high-level positions, while his successor, Gerald Ford, made over twenty such appointments in two and one-half years. Between 1977 and 1981 President Jimmy Carter appointed about 200 Latino officials. Under his successor, Ronald Reagan, the total was down, but he did appoint the first Mexican-American to a Cabinet post. Lauro Cavazos, president of Texas Technological University, became Secretary of Education in September 1988 and in the next year was reappointed to that position by the new President, George Bush. President Bush also selected Nuevo Mexicano Manuel Luján as his Secretary of the Interior; he was approved by the Senate early in February 1989. By 1986 there were 183 Latino mayors, 117 state legislators, and over 1,000 members of city councils and other elected city officials, the majority of these Mexican-Americans, according to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO).4 At the end of the following year there were an estimated 3,000 elected Hispanic officials. While Mexican-Americans often seemed less than firmly committed to Latino unity, which might give them greater political power, they clearly had moved beyond brown-power rhetoric and sloganeering to a position of working for substantial political and social benefits.

3. The Chicano Student Movement

Over the years Mexican-American educational advancement, one of the routes to greater political power, has been held back by various factors: continuing heavy immigration from Mexico, demographic concentration in the Southwest and in urban barrios, low income, occupational and geographic transiency, language and cultural differences, and inferior schools and teachers. At the end of World War II rekindled demands for equality in America led in 1945 to the filing by LULAC of Mendez v. Westminster School District against segregation in Southern California schools. Two years later the Ninth Circuit Court upheld a lower court decision outlawing segregation, and the school district was forced to comply. In Texas a similar LULAC suit, Delgado v. Bastrop Independent School District led to a court decision in 1948 that segregation was prohibited by the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Some Texas schools responded to this outlawing of segregation by integrating black and Chicano schools, rather than Chicano and Anglo schools. Despite elimination of many exclusionary practices since World War II, Mexican-Americans have lacked sufficient political strength to win definitely their war for educational equality.

Reaching maturity in the late sixties and early seventies, post–World War II Chicano youths were in the forefront of the student movements of that period. As more Chicano students began to enter the upper levels of the educational mainstream, a heightened stress on equality in education led increasingly to concern about secondary school and college curricula. On university, college, and high school campuses they developed student organizations that formed such a vital part of the movimiento. Among the most important of the groups they formed to address their concerns were the Mexican-American Youth Organization (MAYO) in Texas, United Mexican American Students (UMAS) and the Mexican-American Student Association (MASA) in southern California, the Mexican-American Student Confederation (MASC) in north central California, and the Chicano Associated Students Organization and Chicano Youth Association (CYA) in New Mexico. All of these groups came into being during the mid-sixties, sparked in part by the civil rights movement as well as concern for quality education. Thousands of Chicano students, by challenging the system and sometimes their more conservative and hesitant barrio elders, acted as a moral goad to school administrators and community leaders and thereby rendered a valuable service to the movement. The student groups and their demands for better educational treatment and opportunity were generally supported by Mexican-American communities.

With the example set by the four leaders in the movimiento, young urban Chicanos, who generally represented the more acculturated segment of la raza and many of whom had previously been identified with the ideology of LULAC and the G.I. Forum, began organizing their fellow students in high schools and colleges during the second half of the 1960s. The Mexican-American Student Association was founded in 1966 at East Los Angeles Community College, and United Mexican American Students, while having earlier antecedents, seems to have been organized directly as a result of a meeting held the following May at Loyola University in Los Angeles. UMAS was service-oriented, maintaining closer ties to the Mexican-American community than most student groups. In the San Francisco Bay area the Mexican-American Student Confederation, founded at this same time, stressed college educational programs and the need to bring more Chicanos into the college and university system, both as students and teachers. It tended to be more politically oriented and also more radical in its leadership than UMAS in the south.

In New Mexico the Chicano Associated Students Organization, at first named the Spanish American Students Organization, succeeded in obtaining innovative multicultural courses at Highlands University in Las Vegas and capped student efforts by getting the first Mexican-American university president in the United States: Dr. Frank Angel. The Chicano Youth Association in the state was primarily a high school organization and was mostly concerned with problems of discrimination in the schools, the limited number of Chicano teachers and counselors, and the fact that schools ignored the pressing educational needs of Chicanos at that level.

In Texas MAYO was officially organized in 1967 at St. Mary’s College (University) by José Angel Gutiérrez and other student leaders, although it had an informal existence since 1964 at Texas A & M College (University) in Kingsville. Widely active in community concerns, its principal goals were aggressively political. It quickly spread to other college and high school campuses in Texas. Early in 1969 it protested injustice and discrimination, issued a Del Rio Manifesto condemning racism and asserting Mexican-American cultural identity, and demanded reinstatement of a canceled community Vista program.

In California the rapid spread of student organizations led to a conference in 1969 at the University of California at Santa Barbara to unite the various university and college groups under the name Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA). The conference, made up of students, faculty, and community activists, also drew up the Plan de Santa Barbara, a comprehensive approach to the development of Chicano college programs. The plan included sample degree programs from several California universities and colleges, descriptions of courses, and a select bibliography, as well as an exposition of the ideology of the movement.5

In Mexican-American high schools, which tended to be overcrowded and poorly equipped in comparison to Anglo schools, student groups were primarily concerned with separate but unequal education. Guided in some instances by adults like Corky Gonzales in Denver and Sal Castro in Los Angeles, the often militant leaders of these organizations led walkouts, sometimes called “blowouts,” at the secondary school level all over the Southwest. Their demands included a wide range of clearly articulated academic goals which included more Chicano teachers with whom students could identify and use as role models, social science courses more relevant to Chicanos, and programs to encourage Chicano students to complete their high school education. In March 1968 nearly 10,000 students walked out of five Los Angeles high schools. As a result of this example, similar demands and walkouts took place at high schools in Denver, San Antonio, Albuquerque, Phoenix, and other cities in the Southwest and even some in the Midwest. Protesting students were in many cases treated by police with excessive roughness and sometimes with brutality.⁶

4. Student Movement Results

Directly as a result of these confrontations, the students obtained staff, policy, and curricular reforms in most schools. Their protests also caused other schools, not directly faced with walkouts, to accept many of the demands, including creation of ethnic studies courses, recruitment of minority teachers, and programs to educate school staffs about the educational needs and problems of Chicano students. At the college level, as the result of mass demonstrations, sit-ins, and other direct confrontation tactics, departments of Chicano or ethnic studies were created, and courses in Chicano history and sociology were added to the curriculum. In a few institutions degree programs in Chicano Studies were developed, and for the first time serious efforts were made to recruit minority faculty and students. One of the major weaknesses of the Chicano movement in education was the lack of an institutional academic base, such as blacks have had since the Civil War, for example, Howard University in Washington, D.C. During the 1970s efforts were made to develop a Chicano university base, but they were less successful than other educational efforts. In Austin, Texas, the Juárez-Lincoln University was organized, and in northwestern Oregon Mt. Angel College was converted into Colegio César Chávez. In California at the beginning of the seventies a former army base near Davis became Deganawidah-Quetzalcoatl University (DQU), shared by Chicanos and Native Americans. A decade later and fifty miles to the southwest the National Hispanic University was founded in Oakland. Among the many problems faced by these institutions were difficulties in securing accreditation and the external financial support that often depends on being accredited.

Although the walkouts and sit-ins drew national attention to the educational plight of Chicanos, in the long run improvement was limited. A recent study of high school students showed that the aspirations of Anglo, Chicano, and black students were very similar, but that expectations of Chicano students, conditioned by American society, were much lower. As a result, Mexican-American students still have an unacceptably high dropout rate. Nevertheless, the student movement had extraordinary importance, especially among middle-class urbanized Mexican-Americans. It provided invaluable leadership and support for off-campus as well as on-campus groups.

5. Other Chicano Organizations

Important to the entire movement, and especially to the high school walkouts, was a community organization called the Brown Berets. Originally known in 1967 in East Los Angeles as the Young Citizens for Community Action, made up mostly of high school youths, over the months it moved to a more active stance in confrontation with the authorities. An apolitical, paramilitary group active principally in California and Texas, the Berets took upon themselves the function of defending the community against police harassment and other forms of the majority society’s repression. In 1969 in response to the Vietnam War they formed the National Chicano Moratorium Committee, and on the following August 29 a national moratorium march was held in Los Angeles. In the course of police monitoring of the event, which attracted between 20,000 to 30,000 participants, Rubén Salazar, a prominent Los Angeles news and television reporter, was killed by a direct hit from a high-velocity tear-gas projectile. The subsequent coroner’s inquest failed to indict the officer responsible for Salazar’s death and he was never tried. Most Chicanos and many Anglos felt that the inquest was seriously flawed.7

The Brown Berets exhibited varying degrees of suspicion toward Chicano professionals and university students and appealed strongly to less-educated barrio youths. By the beginning of the seventies the group had forged a program of concerns about barrio issues, especially unemployment, housing, and civil rights. However, internal factionalism and weakness in organizational discipline which led to negative publicity, plus intense police intimidation, caused the group to lose some barrio support. A part of its leadership became more radicalized and split off to form a rival group, La Junta. In 1972 David Sánchez, founder of the Brown Berets, announced the disbanding of its ninety chapters to avoid factional violence. The organization had a valuable function in arousing and politicizing many moderate members of the community. It also led to some spin-offs, imitators, and rivals in the community.⁸

Among other important community groups were the Community Action Patrol of San Jose, California, and Latinos Unidos por la Justicia, a reformist and somewhat paramilitary organization in the greater Los Angeles area. Also in Southern California the Congress of Mexican American Unity, founded in 1968, served as a conduit for the concerns of about 200 local community groups. In Texas the Mexican-American Unity Council and the Community Organized for Public Service (COPS) worked successfully for the economic and political interests of the raza community.

Among the institutions that felt the rising pressure of Chicano militancy was the Catholic Church. Until the 1945 organizing of the Bishops Committee for the Spanish-Speaking under the leadership of San Antonio’s archbishop Robert E. Lucy, the Church hierarchy had generally kept clear of Mexican-American social problems. During the Delano Grape Strike some clerics and nuns participated in UFW activities, while others feared to alienate grower parishioners. However, in 1970 the Bishops Committee on Farm Labor played a paramount role in bringing the strike to a successful conclusion. At this same time in the Los Angeles area an activist Chicano group, Católicos por la Raza, assailed the hierarchy for ignoring Mexican-American Catholics and demanded reforms. Undoubtedly because of the movimiento, during the 1970s the Vatican appointed about ten Mexican-American bishops, and greater efforts were made to recruit Latino priests. A group of Chicano priests, in the meantime, had begun their own organization named PADRES (Padres Asociados Para Derechos Religiosos, Educativos, y Sociales). PADRES, with about 300 members, worked for greater Church concern for Mexican-Americans and sought to arouse in their parishioners more awareness of their own power to bring about social and economic change. By 1989 there were two dozen Latino bishops who could articulate Chicano concerns in hierarchical circles.9

6. National Organizations

Despite the failure of activists to develop a nationwide political umbrella organization, there were some successes at the national level. In 1964 the National Organization of Mexican-American Services (NOMAS) was instituted to coordinate the efforts of Chicano groups nationwide. It was useful in that function for a few years until undercut by the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, which bypassed it in dealing with Chicanos. However, in 1968 a more successful and enduring agency was created. With the help of a $2.2 million grant from the Ford Foundation, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) was established to protect the legal rights of Chicanos and to help raza youth gain entrance into the legal profession. Five years after its founding, the financial basis and the areas of concern for MALDEF were broadened by the presidency of Vilma Martínez, a dynamic Chicana lawyer and civil rights leader. MALDEF has concerned itself primarily with educational segregation, job discrimination, jury exclusion, and other civil rights and consumer issues. Since the passage of the Simpson-Rodino Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IR&CA), investigating and litigating complaints of discrimination resulting from the law has become one of its priorities. It has headquarters in San Francisco and offices in Los Angeles, Denver, Albuquerque, San Antonio, and Washington, D.C. A somewhat similar organization was the Southwest Council of La Raza, a coalition of some two dozen groups, also begun with a Ford Foundation grant in 1968. When the grant money ran out in 1970 the Council moved to Washington, D.C., and three years later was metamorphosed into the National Council of La Raza as it widened the scope of its activities. During the seventies the Council developed ties with more than 100 community organizations as it sought to strengthen community-based groups by supplying them with advice, know-how, and technical assistance in program development, fund-raising, and day-to-day operation. Similar to the Council and MALDEF in its concerns is the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project (SVREP), founded in the mid-1970s, which works with community groups to register Mexican-American voters. It not only has filed suits challenging denial of civil rights to Chicano voters; but with the help of Voting Rights Act amendments in 1975 and 1982, it has more than doubled the number of registered Mexican-American voters.

7. Chicanas

The many efforts to organize Chicano interest and pressure groups that made up the movimiento had one aspect that was a change in degree rather than a completely new facet. This was the increasing participation and leadership of Chicanas, especially in student and community organizations. Long before the 1960s Mexican-American women were politically active in auxiliaries to male organizations and in a handful of more militant or radical groups. A few were able to achieve leadership roles. As far back as the latter part of the nineteenth century, Lucia González Parsons had been active in radical labor movements and was one of the founders of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1905. A decade later the Liga Mexicanista Femenil and the radical Club Liberal de San Antonio were founded by women and in the 1920s María L. Hernández and her husband Pedro founded La Orden Caballeros de América. This San Antonio offshoot from La Orden Hijos de América had an important part in establishing LULAC at the end of the decade. María Hernández herself remained active in politics, seeking civil rights and justice for Mexican-Americans and even taking part in the Chicano movimiento during the late sixties despite her age.

In the 1930s, when Chicanas made up a sizable segment of workers in the border garment industry, pecan shelling, and other sweatshop industries, a new generation of Chicana leadership appeared. Isabel Malagrán, educated at New Mexico A & M College (now New Mexico State University), led a harvest strike by pea-pickers in the mid-thirties; after moving to Colorado she became active in politics and in the next decade ran for the Denver city council—unsuccessfully. In San Antonio Chicana Emma Tenayuca began a lifetime of concern for the working class while still in high school. She is best known for her leadership role in the 1938 pecan-shellers strike in that city. Also prominent in that same strike was Luisa Moreno who went on to play an active role during the forties in labor organizing in Southern California until she was deported to Mexico during the McCarthy anticommunism of the 1950s.

Another contemporary and friend of Tenayuca was fellow Tejana Manuela Solís who helped organize workers in agriculture and the garment industry. Although successful in organizing for the South Texas Agricultural Workers Union, she was unable to achieve any gains for union members because of strong grower opposition and aggressive antiunion tactics. In 1938 Solís joined Tenayuca in organizing San Antonio pecan-shellers in their strike against the industry. In the post–World War II years she continued to be involved in causes of special concern to Mexican-Americans, including the Chicana movement and the rights of undocumented immigrants. Many Chicanas from this earlier period helped to form the cadres of groups organized by the movimiento during the late 1960s and to give them the benefit of their experience.10

8. Chicana Liberation

The 1960s viewed the liberation of women as an important part of the civil rights movement of that decade. Although most Chicanas tended to view Anglo women’s liberation groups with some suspicion, they were influenced by the feminist movement and did greatly increase their own public activities. During this decade María Hernández became a frequent spokeswoman for young Mexican-Americans at rallies in Texas and was especially important in La Raza Unida party, stumping widely in support of its candidates. Virginia Musquiz, one of the founders of the LRU, took an active role at Crystal City, Texas, throughout the sixties in organizing the Mexican-American community for political action. In Colorado Helen Gonzales, wife of Corky Gonzales, played an energetic role in the Crusade for Justice, which was centered on family involvement from its beginnings. In the San Joaquin Valley of California, Dolores Huerta, after a stint in the CSO, became deeply involved in the UFW, in which she served as an organizer, contract negotiator, lobbyist, and union vice president. Soon she had become César Chávez’s prominent second-in-command and was widely recognized as an articulate and effective labor leader. She has received numerous honors, including having a corrido (ballad) written about her.

To the south Julia Mount took an active part in a local MAPA chapter and in 1967 tried unsuccessfully to win a seat on the Los Angeles school board. Another Southern California Chicana, Francisca Flores, played a major role in politics and Chicana affairs; for a while at the end of the sixties she published a journal that addressed Chicana feminist issues, at first titled Carta Editorial and then in 1970 Regeneración, retitled after the earlier publication of Mexican revolutionary Ricardo Flores Magón. In the field of welfare rights, another active Los Angeles feminist leader in the late sixties was Alicia Escalante who was closely involved with the Chicano National Welfare Rights Organization and the militant Católicos por la Raza.¹¹

As the movimiento progressed, active participation by Chicanas led them to become increasingly aware of the limitations on their roles. Within the movement they found that they were often victims of sexist discrimination, just as they were victims of racist and ethnic discrimination outside the movement. In 1969 the rejection of Chicana rights by the first Chicano Youth Conference in Denver served to dramatize their situation and acted as a further catalyst to the Chicana movement. Their new awareness sometimes led to heated debate with the male leadership of various movimiento groups and ultimately led them to establish a number of their own organizations with varied constituencies and agendas.

9. Chicana Organizations

Although male-dominated organizations had provided Chicanas with little opportunity for leadership experience, by the beginning of the eighties they had developed over forty regional and national groups aimed at freeing them from cultural and sexist role restrictions. The most important of these were La Comisión Femenil Nacional, the first strictly Chicana organization, founded in California in 1970; Chicana Service Action Center, also in California; Mexican-American Women’s National Association (MANA), founded in 1976 and headquartered in Washington, D.C.; Mexican-American Women’s Political Caucus, established in Texas; Mexican-American Business and Professional Women, also in Texas; and Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS), a predominantly academic group founded in California in 1981. Another expression of the new Chicana liberation was the publication of a number of journals and periodicals with a Chicana interest or viewpoint. In 1973 the first of these, Encuentro Femenil, appeared and was soon followed by Hijas de Cuauhtémoc, La Comadre, and Hembra, among others. Also, by means of conferences and workshops, as well as by social and political pressure, these groups strove to raise Chicana consciousness, to advance their rights, to increase educational and professional opportunities, and to provide counseling and support for self-improvement. During the National Chicano Political Conference in San Jose, California, in 1972 the Chicana Caucus, despite some opposition, was able to push through a position paper on the concerns of Chicanas, and later that year the Raza Unida party convention at El Paso made a promise to support Chicana issues.

10. Chicanas in Business and Government

It was not only in organizations and social activism that Chicanas began to assert their rightful place; they also improved their status and position in business and government. Even before the second World War, Mexican-American women had begun to enter the labor market in increasing numbers. During the 1930s about one-third of border garment industry workers were Chicanas, and in the pecan-shelling industry they formed over three-fourths of the workforce. In agriculture a large number of wives and daughters worked in the harvest fields alongside the men. During the war years many more of them entered the labor market outside the home, working in war production factories, in shipyards, and on the railroads. By 1950 twenty percent of Chicanas were officially in the workforce, and by 1980 the percentage had risen to forty-four percent, comparing favorably with the forty-eight percent for all women in the United States.

Chicanas are most heavily represented in lower-paying jobs in sales, service, and clerical work; relatively few are in higher-paying executive and administrative positions. The 1980 census indicated that, although Chicana employment had brought about some improvement, Chicano family income averaged only about seventy-five percent of Anglo family income. About twenty-five percent of Chicano families had incomes below the poverty level and fully fifty percent of female-headed Latino families remain below the poverty level. Chicanas from rural and small-town families, especially, had totally inadequate opportunities and income. Whereas Chicanos may encounter discrimination, as a group Chicanas suffer from a triple oppression because of their gender, race, and social class.

In the business world only a handful of Chicanas have been able to achieve leadership roles. One of them, Romana Acosta Bañuelos of Los Angeles, developed a food-processing business in the 1950s, and she later moved into banking as well. In 1969 she was named Outstanding Businesswoman of the Year in Los Angeles and two years later was appointed Treasurer of the United States by President Richard Nixon. A decade later Katherine Ortega, the Nuevo Mexicana founder of a successful firm of accountants and a banker, became the second Chicana to be appointed Treasurer, by Ronald Reagan. Also in New Mexico Nina Otero Warren became a prominent leader in real estate and insurance in Santa Fe, although primarily an educator for most of her life. In Arizona María Elba Molina, an immigrant from Mexico, attained a high position in Tucson banking circles and then organized her own company, the J. Elba Corporation. Tejana Cathi Villalpando achieved distinction in communications and in the oil business, and in California actress Lynda Córdoba Carter has her own production company and is also associated with the cosmetics business. Another actress in California, Carmen Zapata, organized a bilingual theater company in Los Angeles in the early 1970s, and a decade earlier Hope Mendoza Schechter established a successful stenographic business. Nearly all these Chicanas also took active roles in community or political affairs.

In government the most highly placed Chicana was Marí-Luci Jaramillo of New Mexico who, after a distinguished career in education, was appointed U.S. ambassador to Honduras in 1977. Many other Chicanas have held high positions in state and national government. Texas-born Belinda Cárdenas Ramírez in 1980 became the first woman to be appointed to the Civil Rights Commission, by President Jimmy Carter. In 1978 Polly Baca-Barragan, an active Democrat, became the first Chicana to be elected to the Colorado state senate; Linda Chávez, an equally active Republican from Colorado, was appointed a U.S. Civil Rights commissioner by Ronald Reagan and in 1985 was appointed deputy assistant to the President, thus becoming the highest-ranking woman in the White House. Her subsequent bid for a senate seat from Maryland in 1986 failed. In California Gloria Molina, after government service in both Sacramento and Washington, in November 1982 became the first Chicana to be elected to the state assembly. Some of the women mentioned above and other Chicanas, like Cecilia Preciado de Burciaga of Stanford University, have played prominent leadership roles in education; while others, like Vilma Martínez and Graciela Olivárez, have become important leaders in national and community organizations and have had considerable impact far beyond the Mexican-American community.12

11. Chicano Culture: Alive and Well

The objectives of the movimiento, while generally aiding Chicanas in their struggle for liberation and Chicanos in their search for civil rights, were not only political, economic, and social; they were also, and perhaps most importantly, cultural. Like their leaders, a majority of Chicanos saw themselves separated from, or deprived of, their cultural roots in American society. As a result, an important current in the movement was an emphasis on Mexican-American culture, especially in literature and the arts. Novels, short stories, essays, poetry, and plays flowed in ever-increasing volume from the typewriters of Chicano writers. Suffering from a deep sense of alienation from U.S. society, Chicano intellectuals saw a need to define their identity, to construct their history, and to explore and elaborate their culture. From the beginning Chicano leaders in the movimiento viewed literature as the primary way of achieving these objectives. The concern for defining rather than stereotyping the Mexican-American was paramount and is perhaps best illustrated by Corky Gonzales’s poem “I Am Joaquín” (1967). Another important aspect of this auto-definition is seen in the proud emphasis by writers during the 1960s of their Indian heritage; they gave their journals names like Aztlán and El Azteca and frequently used Aztec and Mayan drawings and symbols to illustrate and decorate their writings. Clearly the Chicano literary renaissance both nourished the movement and was nourished by it as writers explored the themes of discrimination, prejudice, exploitation, and the pains of cultural adaptation.

12. Literature

The first significant Chicano novel was Pocho, the semiautobiographical story of a Chicano growing up in California’s Santa Clara Valley, by José Antonio Villarreal, published in 1959. Unfortunately it was a decade ahead of its time, and not until the movimiento gathered impetus did it achieve widespread renown. In 1965 a more critical view of socioeconomic injustices in American society appeared with the publication of The Plum Plum Pickers, a portrait of contemporary migrant life by a Californian by adoption, Raymond Barrio. By the late sixties and early seventies greater interest in Chicano literature had developed, and a number of anthologies became available to Chicano readers. In 1970 Richard Vásquez came out with Chicano, a novel of the immigrant Mexican experience in the United States.

The publication in 1971 of the late Tomás Rivera’s award-winning … y no se tragó la tierra set high standards for a new generation of Chicano novels. In that same year the manuscript novel Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya received the Premio Quinto Sol award and was published in the following year. It was followed by Rolando Hinojosa-Smith’s prize-winning Estampas del valle y otras obras in 1973 and three years later by his Klail City y sus alrededores, which won the prestigious Casa de las Americas award. Among other notable Mexican-American authors are novelists Nash Candelaria, best known for his Memories of the Alhambra (1977); Ron Arias with his social commentary, The Road to Tamasunchale (1975); and John Rechy, author of City of Night (1963) and six subsequent novels dealing with homosexual life in large U.S. urban centers. These and the novels of other Chicano authors arose out of the Chicano experience and helped to conceptualize that experience as well as to make Anglos more aware of its essential meaning. However, the best of Chicano writing has had a universal application as well.

Along with the novel, the short story has been a favorite Chicano literary genre, with a number of outstanding practitioners like Sabine Ulibarrí, Ron Arias, Miguel Méndez, Rosaura Sánchez, Sergio Elizondo, Estela Portillo Trambly, and Francisco Jiménez. Everywhere the signs indicate that Chicano literature is alive and flourishing and is increasingly being recognized by mainstream readers, students, and critics as an intrinsic part of American literature.

In the field of drama the plays of Carlos Morton, Estela Portillo Trambly, and Luis Valdez have excited widespread interest. Valdez, important as well for his creation of the Teatro Campesino during “la Huelga,” is also outstanding as a producer of plays and film. In many ways he set the pattern for other Chicano dramatists. His Teatro Campesino inspired the formation of numerous other teatro companies in colleges, universities, and barrios all over the United States; in 1970 they joined together to form TENAZ (Teatros Nacionales de Aztlán) which has held annual drama festivals. However, the recent trend has been away from popular theater toward more diverse forms of drama. This move is illustrated by Luis Valdez’s 1978 production of Zoot Suit and his 1986 I Don’t Have to Show You No Stinking Badges. In films two other independent Chicano producers of note are Moctezuma Esparza and Richard “Cheech” Marín. Excellent television films like The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez and Seguín as well as the musical video Born in East L.A. have helped make their names widely known to the American public along with that of Valdez.

Poetry has always been a literary form of great attraction for Chicano writers, most of whom draw their inspiration as well as their metaphors from the social conditions in which they find themselves. Corky Gonzales is the best known poet of the movement because of his “I Am Joaquín.” Unquestionably the most widely known piece of Chicano literature, “I Am Joaquín” skillfully weaves together Aztec myth, Mexican history, and Chicano anguish. Poets Alurista, Abelardo Delgado, Lorna Dee Cervantes, José Montoya, Gary Soto, Omar Salinas, and Bernice Zamora are among those who follow closely behind Gonzales in stature. These and many other Mexican-American poets frequently bring together a hard realism with mysticism and great lyricism. Their poetry is often bilingual, sometimes combining Spanish and English powerfully in a single poem.13

13. Journals and Magazines

Along with a rapid expansion in the field of literature the movement brought an explosion of new Chicano journals and periodicals, both academic and popular. Among the former the most important were El Grito, Aztlán, and La Red/The Net. El Grito: A Journal of Contemporary Mexican-American Thought was first published in late 1967 at Berkeley, California, by Quinto Sol Publications headed by Professor Octavio Romano-V as a forum from which Chicanos could articulate their concerns. Aztlán: International Journal of Chicano Studies and Research, now more simply subtitled A Journal of Chicano Studies, began in 1970 as a quarterly published by the Chicano Studies Center at the University of California, Los Angeles under the guidance of Juan Gómez Quiñones. La Red/The Net: The Hispanic Journal of Education, Commentary, and Reviews is a quarterly which focuses on educational issues of importance to Chicanos. It developed out of an earlier monthly newsletter of the National Chicano Research Network. These journals and others of more irregular issue like Campo Libre, Atisbos, Caracol, Con Safos, De Colores, Tejidos, Chismearte, and La Cucaracha carried poetry, short stories, and scholarly as well as popular articles on topics in the social sciences and arts, and made it possible for many young Chicano writers to break into print. In addition to these publications there were a handful of more specialized journals like the Chicano Law Review, which discusses legal issues affecting Mexican-Americans; Bilingual Review/Revista Bilingüe, primarily a bibliographic and research journal; and Revista Chicano-Riqueña, now called The Americas Review, specializing in creative literature and literary criticism.

14. Chicano Music and Art

In music also the movimiento challenged Chicanos to express themselves creatively. Pushing aside society’s view that Mexican-American music had no place in the American mainstream, it stimulated and redirected earlier musical forms, kindling a Chicano musical renaissance. There was a surge of Mexican-American songs, especially in support of la Causa and in criticism of aspects of Anglo society’s treatment of Chicanos. The Delano grape strike led to a record album titled “Viva la Causa—Songs and Sounds from the Delano Strike.” Corridos, often a form of oral history, were composed and sung on the topics of migrant labor, mistreatment of Chicanos and Mexicans, the deaths of John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert, and the Vietnam War. In the entire border region so-called Tex-Mex music from south Texas developed wide popularity among Anglos as well as Mexican-Americans. Outstanding Mexican-American singers like Joan Báez, Linda Ronstadt, Vikki Carr, Trini López, Freddy Fender (Baldemar Huerta), and, most recently, Los Lobos have helped make Spanish language music more widely known and popular among Anglos and Chicanos. The 1987 success of Luis Valdez’s film La Bamba, on the life of Chicano vocalist Richie Valens (Ricardo Valenzuela), and in 1989 of Linda Ronstadt’s exhilarating and highly successful stage presentation and album, Canciones de mi Padre, are examples of the increased popularity of Mexican music.

One of the most interesting results of the movimiento has been the considerable expansion in Chicano art, especially mural art. Based on the traditions of muralists of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, particularly Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, and Rufino Tamayo, Chicano mural artists have painted their works on walls in nearly every city and town of size in the Southwest. Using pre-Columbian Toltec, Aztec, and Maya figures and symbols, the Virgin of Guadalupe, the Mexican Revolution, and the Chicano experience as their themes, they painted their beliefs and feelings on walls, overpasses, and buildings in a variety of styles from harsh social realism to abstract expressionism. In addition to these general expressions of social protest, some of their mural art shows specific concerns as indicated by the incorporation of the “Huelga” black eagle and phrases such as “Viva La Raza” in their works.

Other Mexican-American art is less overtly focused on ethnic themes. For example, Alfredo Arreguín, the outstanding Seattle artist, paints colorful scenes that are finely executed complex drawings, often with lush backgrounds reminiscent of tropical Mexico. Porfirio Salinas, a favorite of President Lyndon Johnson, who had many of his paintings hung in the White House, is famed for his more traditional “bluebonnet” Texas landscapes. The artist Luis Jiménez, while also a muralist of note, is perhaps best known for his glossy fiberglass and epoxy “Machine man” sculptures; and Consuelo González Amezcua is unique in her intricate multicolored ballpoint pen drawings. Although Mexican-American artists have been active in all fields of fine arts, including sculpture and wood carving, unquestionably the mural was the most distinctive and important, combining, as it did, historic roots and contemporary objectives. The Chicano Park murals of Barrio Logan in San Diego are perhaps the outstanding example of this combination.14

Some Chicano art historians also consider graffiti a form of popular art; indeed, at times there has been a melding of Chicano graffiti, often carefully organized sets of symbols, with mural paintings. In addition to graffiti, low-rider automobiles, usually remodeled and meticulously redecorated both inside and out, have been seen as proud expressions of popular art among Chicano youths. There are low-rider clubs which hold regular meets and there is even a magazine, appropriately named Low Rider, a Southern California publication with a circulation of over 100,000, mostly among young Chicanos.

15. Spanish Language Use

As another result of the movimiento (and of the great increase in Spanish-speaking population) there was in the 1960s and 1970s a rapid expansion of Spanish language newspapers as well as radio and television stations. By the beginning of the eighties over one hundred such newspapers were being published, mostly weeklies but some dailies. Local papers, for the most part weeklies, arise and wither away with discouraging regularity; but among the dailies La Opinion of Los Angeles and La Prensa of San Antonio have shown greater vitality and some claim to wider circulation. In addition, over two hundred radio stations and seventy television stations broadcast in Spanish either partially or solely. There was even a Mexican-owned network of Spanish-language television stations and cable companies—the Spanish International Network. However, while there has been a great upsurge in Spanish language television, it remains largely under Anglo management and control.

Spanish broadcasting is most common in the large cities of the Southwest, and in New York, Miami, and Chicago. One of the basic causes and results of this media expansion has been the equally rapid expansion of advertising directed specifically at the Mexican-American market both through language and various ethnic preferences. As the number of Chicanos in clerical, technical, professional, managerial, and other skilled and semiskilled occupations increased, so did incomes; and more moved up into the middle classes. Manufacturers and retailers saw the increasing possibilities in the raza market and responded. One result of the expansion of Spanish-language media has been the development of an even greater cultural cohesiveness and retention of raza consciousness. The increase in Spanish language advertising also served to revivify and expand interest in the language.

As with other immigrant groups and their native languages, some decline in the use of Spanish among American-born Mexican-Americans has been noted. The movement out of the barrios and out of the Southwest, higher levels of education, and an increase in acculturation have all contributed to this decline. Another factor has been the negative American attitude toward the use of Spanish; until recently in many schools of the Southwest, speaking Spanish was severely discouraged or even expressly prohibited, sometimes under penalty of physical punishment. On the other hand, segregation, continuing high levels of immigration from Mexico, and the relative ease of crossing the border for business and tourism have constantly reinforced its use. In addition, there was to some extent a sort of “Spanish is beautiful” sentiment, language being the one common denominator among Latinos, as skin color was among blacks. The movimiento with its emphasis on literature and ethnic pride also contributed to greater concern for the study of Spanish, as the bilingual heritage of Mexican-Americans was stressed.

16. Bilingualism

Bilingualism became a household word in 1974 when the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Lau v. Nichols, unanimously held that the failure of schools to provide programs tailored to meet the special language needs of minority children violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution as well. Special programs for Spanish-speaking (and other) children had already begun a few years before with the 1968 Bilingual Education Act, but the Lau decision greatly and rapidly expanded bilingual classes as federal funding rose from $7.5 million in 1969 to $107 million in 1980 and as bilingual education laws were passed in many states. However, the Lau case and state legislation also led to a strong reaction from conservative Anglos who felt that bilingual programs challenged basic American assumptions regarding cultural assimilation and might eventually lead to a separatist movement akin to that in Quebec, Canada. Letters to the editor and press interviews with anti-bilingual education leaders spoke of the “menace” of Spanish and even referred to it as “subversive.” The members of the Mexican-American community reacted to these emotional nativistic views with some bewilderment. An overwhelming majority of them recognized the need to speak English in order to function in U.S. society and to improve their economic and social position, but they rejected any implied inferiority of the Spanish language. They also saw bilingual programs as a way for their children to learn English more rapidly as well as a means of focusing public attention on the educational plight of Mexican-American children, particularly the significant number who entered school speaking little or no English. Some viewed bilingual programs as a way of fighting discrimination and increasing respect for their language and culture.

Although funding for bilingual education was never more than a tiny fraction of the federal education budget, in the rising swell of xenophobia spreading over the country it became highly controversial. Under the Reagan administration in the 1980s funding for bilingual education was regularly reduced. One positive result of the programs was that many Mexican-American parents were stimulated to take a more active role in the schools in support of bilingual education. Some of the adult education programs also provided older Mexican-Americans with a way to greater economic security and mobility through an improved command of English. An important negative result was the rise of nativistic groups like U.S. English which added to a racist backlash seemingly on the rise in the United States.

Angered by her inability to find an English-speaking clerk in a Dade County, Florida, government office, one Emmy Shafer founded English Only in 1978. Because of the xenophobic mood in the United States the movement quickly took off. A private national organization named U.S. English, having gotten an English-only amendment introduced into the U.S. Senate, by its honorary chairman, S. I. Hayakawa (but not passed), has since conducted regular, well-financed campaigns to get legislation passed at the state level. By the end of 1988 seventeen states had approved legislation making English their official language, and over forty towns, including tiny Los Altos, California, had followed suit.

U.S. English urges a written English-proficiency test for naturalization. Shrill and hostile in tone, U.S. English aims overwhelmingly at Spanish-speakers and talks about “defending” English, as if it were under attack. Illustrating the movement’s bias were racist remarks in October 1988 by its cofounder John Tanton that caused the president of U.S. English, Linda Chavez, and others to resign from the organization. Surveys of Chicanos have indicated that even in Los Angeles and San Antonio eighty-nine percent are either bilingual or monolingual English-speakers. Nearly all Mexican-Americans think that America should have only one public language.15

17. The Movimiento: Radical or Reformist?

Like the Mexican-American population, the movimiento was not homogeneous. It was a complex of groups and individuals with various agendas and strategies to achieve them. Its aims ran from reformist to revolutionary, from traditional forms of economic and social protest to violence, separatism, and cultural nationalism. It started as a reaction to Anglo racism and discrimination, and later, as it evolved, it began to espouse cultural nationalism. On the left it included anticapitalist tendencies and ideas of separatism. From the beginning it demanded civil rights and equality of opportunity in a more pluralistic American society. As it became more politicized, it radicalized even the usually staid Mexican-American middle class, and it developed what many referred to as the concept of Chicanismo.

Chicanismo, like the movimiento, meant different things to different people. It cut across the usual boundaries of sex, class, region, and generation. Generally it rejected the idea of assimilation or acculturation. It viewed la raza as united on the basis of a common life experience and pride in heritage and culture, rather than on a basis of economic status, education, or class. It argued that, as an alternative to assimilation, Chicanos had a right to cultural self-determination and autonomy. In the furtherance of these ideas it agonized over identity and felt it was necessary to develop Chicanos’ self-identity, their culture, and their history, thereby constructing a new self-image. It saw Mexican-Americans cut off from their roots and dehumanized, as they became transformed into an economic commodity.

As the foregoing indicates, the movimiento included within its mainstream widely differing programs and goals. Not all Mexican-Americans were enthusiastic supporters of the movimiento and of Chicanismo. Many older members of la raza found the aggressive stance of youthful activists distasteful, and some even found it threatening. Some had doubts that militant ethnic solidarity was the most effective tactic to achieve the economic and social advancement of la raza. Others abjured the word Chicano itself as connoting radicalism. United States Congressman Henry B. González (Democrat, Texas) not only rejected the movimiento, but also denounced both the Mexican American Unity Council of Texas and MAYO and their programs as reverse racism. On the floor of the House of Representatives he criticized the Ford Foundation for its funding of activist groups like MALDEF and MAYO.

Made up of varied economic, regional, and social groups with greatly differing life experiences, the Mexican-American population was and is extremely diverse. While a majority belongs to the working class, it includes atomic scientists, doctors, university professors, and administrators as well as barrio youths. There still is lacking an easily identifiable common goal or target around which all Chicanos can rally. In the early stages of the movement the leadership tended to stress emotional and rhetorical appeal combined with strong advocacy of cultural nationalism. The sometimes verbally belligerent posturing was especially attractive to the more alienated barrio youths of large urban centers. However, the revolutionary rhetoric of the militants was just that, and they never fused action with rhetoric.

On the other hand, César Chávez with his emphasis on social justice and nonviolence appealed both to harvest agricultural workers and to urban middle classes. His selfless commitment to la causa attracted large numbers of people of good will both among Chicanos and in the Anglo community. However, not even César Chávez was acceptable to all. Mexican-Americans were not able to agree on the course that la raza should follow. Most felt that they should be accepted as Americans without reservation and without having to give up completely their distinctive cultural heritage. Most seemed to feel more comfortable working within the system, trying to bring it in conformity with its own democratic ideals and using it to achieve their objectives.

With the decline of the movimiento after 1975, Mexican-Americans continued to look, in vain, for direction, guidance, and united leadership. The movimiento developed no single ideology or leader. The absence of a unifying ideology led to divided leadership, fragmented followers, and therefore a lack of political clout. Today differences of opinion concerning means and tactics for obtaining civil and political rights continue to divide Chicanos. However, conflict within the leadership usually arises over tactics rather than goals. César Chávez, the only Mexican-American who might possibly have successfully assumed the role of the leader, consistently refused to put on that mantle, limiting his leadership largely to agricultural workers.

18. The Movimiento: Success or Failure?

How successful has the Chicano movimiento been? Clearly it has led to some improvement for Chicanos in many areas of American life. From the conflictual sixties and early seventies have come increases in civil rights and economic opportunities. It helped accelerate the dismantling of some of the more repressive aspects of the social order. It did contribute to a reduction in the political influence of conservative rural interests, the expansion of the Voting Rights Act in 1975. It promoted a considerable increase in the size of the Mexican-American middle class and a smaller but significant movement into professional ranks. It was important in the founding of a wide spectrum of raza professional organizations such as the Mexican-American Engineering Society, La Raza National Lawyers Association, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and Mexican-American Educators. In the area of political power it has had limited but significant success. Most important it reawakened among many Chicanos a new consciousness of cultural identity and community. It aroused a dormant pride in their Mexican roots and in the Spanish language, and it brought to them an awareness of their potential as it renewed and expanded their hopes. However, some of the successes have been turned around in the eighties and many of the principal issues that faced Chicanos in the 1960s still face them today.

In a few areas of the country Mexican-Americans have become a political power to be reckoned with as a result of the movimiento and the development of their own leadership. Blatant racism, strict social segregation, and crude machine politics no longer rule, and openly exploitive economic scenarios have diminished. Improvement in social and economic conditions has occurred. Chicanos have gained entry into industries and better-paying jobs that were formerly closed to them. Between 1930 and 1987 Mexican-Americans in professional, technical, managerial, and skilled categories increased from less than one percent to nearly nine percent. Despite this increase, Mexican-Americans fall far short of their fair share of better jobs and continue to experience lower levels of income and of upward mobility. Within almost all occupations they tend to hold entrance-level, low-pay positions and still experience varying degrees of economic, social, and political discrimination.

In education there has been improvement, but not nearly enough. Mexican-American children continue to find themselves handicapped by inferior schooling and unequal educational opportunity. Census reports from 1988 indicate that Hispanics, of whom Chicanos form over sixty percent, finish high school in greater, but still disappointing, numbers. About fifty-one percent of Hispanics over twenty-four have completed high school, compared to thirty-two percent in 1970, but compared to seventy-eight percent of the rest of the population. Of Chicanos graduating from secondary school, ten percent have gone on to complete college, compared to about five percent in 1970. A disappointing imbalance exists in the teacher population. In 1970 only four percent of primary and secondary teachers in the Southwest were Chicanos, while Mexican-Americans made up seventeen percent of the student body. There seems little prospect of an extensive breakthrough in educational opportunity for Chicanos in the near future.

According to the Bureau of the Census, in March 1987 there were 11.8 million Americans of Mexican descent or origin. Since the 1960s Chicanos have voted in larger numbers and more of them have run for public office. Nevertheless, they are underrepresented at all levels of elective office, on juries, and among judges and law-enforcement officers. For a variety of historical reasons Chicanos have low levels of participation in the U.S. electoral process. In the 1980 Presidential elections only thirty-six percent of eligible Hispanics registered and only thirty percent voted, compared to sixty-nine and sixty-one percent for non-Hispanics. This lack of interest in registration and election participation seems to be directly related to educational and economic levels as well as to racist discrimination, among many factors.

By the mid-1970s the decline of the movimiento’s first phase was clearly evident. Militancy among Chicano organizations was manifestly languishing, as they moved from the politicization and activism of the 1960s to the conservatism of the 1980s. Reies Tijerina, subdued by his prison term and by rejection from the other principal leaders, had returned to his northern New Mexico interests. Corky Gonzales was isolated in Denver, and José Angel Gutiérrez had split the LRU by making a pilgrimage to Havana. César Chávez was losing hard-fought gains in union contracts and strengthening his ties to the California Democratic leadership. Disagreement and bitter controversy among second-level leaders in the LRU and UFW, as well as older tensions between activists of middle class and working class backgrounds, further weakened the movement. American society was also less concerned about Mexican-Americans and other minorities as well as their problems. The civil rights crusade in the Southwest had been seriously weakened by a combination of gains, accommodation, external pressures from the authorities, and internal friction. Affirmative action seemed less important, and even many Chicanos seemed more concerned about their economic improvement than about government help to improve quality of life for the poor. By the latter years of the 1980s the heralded “Decade of the Hispanic” had clearly failed to deliver its promises.

At any event, the movimiento was an exciting and impressive ferment and force for change, whatever its ultimate impact may turn out to be. The change was not absolute, of course. However, the movimiento had provided useful training and experience for a new generation of young leaders. Many applied their skills and ideas to local political groups and to organizations like MALDEF and SVREP, which were more acceptable to mainstream America and which had as their concerns equality of educational opportunity, affirmative action hiring, bilingual education programs, and social justice for all—including Mexican-Americans and undocumented immigrants.

19. Undocumented Immigrants

Discussions and resolutions at the 1972 Raza Unida convention indicated the weakening of the movimiento. The delegates moved away from earlier preoccupation with self-identification and the issue of ethnic nationalism. The new issue of the late seventies and early eighties, as indicated by the convention, was immigration and particularly undocumented immigration. By the late 1970s the era of cultural nationalism and its ideology had passed, and Chicanos were moving from a doctrinaire ethnic consciousness to broader and more pragmatic viewpoints. After 1975, as emphasis on civil and human rights was more widely held, the issue of the undocumented worker began moving to a central position in the movement and the community.16