Chicano! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement

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Chicano!History of the Mexican American Civil
Rights Movement

• Quest for the Homeland

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Reies Lopez Tijerina

• Major New Mexican land grant activist
• Traced land loss to violations of the Treaty of
  Guadalupe Hidalgo
• Affirmed Indo-Hispano/Chicano land rights
• Affirmed rights to cultural integrity through
  land base

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Rodolfo Corky Gonzalez

• Chicano activist that founded the Crusade for
  Justice
• Principal organizer of the National Chicano Youth
  Conference, March, 1969, in Denver
• Supported alternative institutions for Chicanos
• One of the principal organizers of La Raza Unida
  Party
• Established La Escuela Tlatelolco, a bilingual,
  bicultural alternative school for Chicano
  children
• Supporter of concept of Aztlan

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National Chicano Youth Conference

• Organized for March, 1969, Denver, Colo
• National gathering of Chicano activists
• El Plan de Aztlan drafted 15 point program to
  create alternative institutions, schools,
  political party, institutions and cultural
  affirmation
• La Raza Unida proposed

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Alurista

• Alberto Baltazar Urista
• Chicano poet that rediscovered the notion of
  Aztlan
• Aztlan as the link to the indigenous past
• Aztlan as the mythical Chicano homeland
• Our ancestral lands the Chicano place

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The Chicano Moratorium August 29, 1970

• Largest minority anti-Viet Nam war protest in the
  United States
• Attended by up to 50,000 protesters in E.L.A.
• Chicanos question the rationale for war, high
  fatality rates for Latinos, draft deferments,
  lack of educational opportunities
• Considered the apex of the Chicano Movement
• Laguna Park rallydeteriorates into a police riot

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Ruben Salazar

• Reporter for The Los Angeles Times
• News director of KMEX-TV
• Preparing an expose on law enforcement in Los
  Angeles
• Killed at the Silver Dollar Café by a tear-gas
  projectile
• His death aroused instant suspicion of a
  conspiracy to silence Salazar