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Describes in lesson one the quest for a homeland, lesson two reclaiming back the education in the school and lesson three fighting for political empowerment.
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The Chicana and Chicano Civil Rights Movement, sometimes called the Chicano Movement or El Movimiento , Spanish for The Movement, was essentially a political, educational, and social justice journey with the purpose of achieving social liberation and empowerment for the ethnic community of Mexican-Americans in the United States. By the 1960’s, at the height of the Civil Rights era, strife had become apparent between the dominant oppressor of white mainstream society and the discriminated ethnic communities all across the nation. Inequalities and injustices in societal issues became the final push factor for these ethnic communities to become socially and politically conscious of their rights as citizens of the United States, and so it led to them uprising against an unequal society.
These communities included Mexican-Americans, African- Americans, Asian- Americans, Puerto Rican-Americans, and more; all that composed the. Mexican-Americans demanded better education, working conditions, political
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War of 1846; a war where the United States annexed more than 6 present day Southwest States, a phenomenon that has been known to become as the Mexican Cession of 1848 under the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. In any case, the origin of the Chicana/o Movement is at best ambiguous, but nevertheless, it represents an ethnic struggle that has been fought for many decades now, and continues today…
To learn and understand their quest of regaining their once place of origin known as Aztlan, a mystical land that was annexed by the United States during the U.S.-Mexico War and Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848; for the purpose of establishing their own Chicana and Chicano society.
-Aztlan
-U.S.-Mexico War 1846-
-Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 1848
-Mexican Cession
-Plan Espiritual de Aztlan
-La Raza
-Radicalism
-Nationalism
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The quest for their homeland was introduced by Chicano independence activists during the height of the Movement during the 1960’s and 1970’s. They used the symbolic term of Aztlan to refer to their mystical land of origin, located in what was Northern Mexico, now the U.S. Southwest. The reason why they desperately wanted to socially and culturally reclaim these lands were for the sheer purpose of establishing their own Chicana and Chicano society; a Society that would be in their direct control, apart from the influence of white mainstream society.
In 1969, the First National Chicano Liberation Youth Conference in March 1969 held in Denver, Colorado gave birth to the Chicano nationalist manifesto known as “El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan.” Probably the most significant political and cultural aspect of the Chicana and Chicano Movement was their manifesto known as the Plan Espiritual de Aztlan which advocated for Chicano nationalism and self determination for Mexican-Americans. Fundamentally what this Chicano
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liberation. These are all fundamental dynamics of a nation; the only important characteristic left out by the Plan was land and territory. Without territory, it became a bit more complex to establish their ideologies and have a safe haven to call their homeland. In any case, people might have wondered where did the Plan Espiritual de Aztlan fell under in regards to the political spectrum. There is no doubt this manifesto was a Left radical nationalistic Movement. Radicalism is a political orientation that favors fundamental, drastic, revolutionary changes in society, literally meaning "changes at the roots." Furthermore, another Plan was also developed as an intellectual social movement within the Chicana and Chicano Movement. This was El Plan de Santa Barbara; a manifesto that would change the educational world for Chicano students forever.
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To comprehend and analyze the inequality in education, Mexican-American/Chicana/o students were receiving in schools and universities across the nation. This is by far, without a doubt, arguably the most crucial aspect of the Chicana/o Movement, for it changed and reformed education while restructuring the school system and curriculum for a more in depth history of Mexican- Americans/Chicanas/os in the United States; covering their social, political, and ethnic issues in society.
-El Plan de Santa Barbara
-1968 Chicano Blowouts
-First National Chicano Liberation Youth Conference, March 1969
-MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, "Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán")
-1969 UC Berkeley Third World Strike
-University Restructuring and Educational Reform
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boycotts orchestrated mainly by the students and one Chicano educator, Salvador Castro, against the educational inequalities they were experiencing in those schools during that period. Prior to these events, both college and high students had been developing a method to get the school board’s attention, and they felt that walking out was the best form of activism to express their beliefs and concerns about “the inequitable conditions, inadequate resources, and unjust education they received in the city’s public schools” in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Based on the article “Examining Transformational Resistance” by Daniel Solórzano and Dolores Delgado, “In 1968, people witnessed a worldwide rise in student movements in countries such as France, Italy, Mexico, and the United States. In March of that year, more than 10, students walked out…” This was so massive and known that it made headline news across various countries of Latin origin. It gave proof to the world that a new group of young students was conscious of their ethnic background, and they knew themselves they were on the rise, in great numbers too.
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At the the First National Chicano Liberation Youth Conference in the March 1969 convention held in Denver, Colorado El Plan de Santa Barbara was written, a manifesto that would change the educational world for Chicano students forever. This document/manifesto was created in April 1969 at the University of California, Santa Barbara for the institutionalization and implementation of Chicana/o Studies educational programs on all campuses. “El Plan de Santa Barbara” was was written by the Chicano Coordinating Council on Higher Education, and has been the basis for the Chicana/o Studies educational departmental program in California. In the next couple of years society took notice of the effects that the Chicano Blowouts of 1968 and the Chicano Plan for Higher Education proposal in 1969 had on academia. Evidently their passion paid off, for it indirectly led into the establishment of the Chicana/o Studies Program at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1973 (Departmentalized in 2005); similar to the development of the Ethnic Studies Program initiated at the University of California, Berkeley essentially due to the 1969 Third World Strike.
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movement. This transpired in youth organizations as well as the creation of the Raza Unida Party. Most of these political organizations were established to combat the political side of the Chicana/o Movement; issues that required political attention. These included concerns in education, warfare, lack of political representation in U.S. politics, and more. The Plan de Santa Barbara and Plan Espiritual de Aztlan aided in the forming of various youth organizations that promoted political awareness.
Furthermore, what this Plan brought forth were organizations based on culture, sociohistorical, political consciousness, mobilization, and social recognition such as UMAS, MAYA, MASC, M.E.Ch.A., and more. As Max Elbaum describes in his “1968- 1973 A New Generation of Revolutionaries,” how the system became the target for educational boycotting, political attack, and social change. Heightened political awareness provoked the question “what needs to be done?”
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To comprehend and understand the history behind the struggle in the agricultural and labor part of the Chicana/o Movement, the working fields, as they fought for better wages and better working conditions.
-United Farm Workers
-Cesar Chavez
It was in this labor sector of the Chicana/o Movement where a true Chicano national leader emerged by the name of Cesar Chavez. He was a Mexican-American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the
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To understand that the Chicana/o Movement continues on in today’s contemporary society. With new issues in education, immigration, and political changes, the struggle continues…
-HR 4437
-2006 Immigration Reform Student Walkouts
-1993 UCLA Chicano Hunger Strikes
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Charles Young meet with community leaders and establish the program at UCLA. When Chancellor Young refused to established the program, a new form of student activism surfaced to the eyes of society.
In the book “De Colores Means All of Us” the author Elizabeth Martinez states how “It soon became clear that if a new movement were to emerge, it would need an agenda that would also be new…an agenda had to move beyond narrow cultural nationalism and recognize the need for serious, nonsectarian coalitions with other progressive students of color…” (220). This was no longer a high school matter but rather a world class university battling for the departmentalization of a concentrated study. However, Chancellor Young kept giving them the go around, and finally on the eve of Cesar Chavez’s wake, he announced his refusal to establish a Chicana/o Studies Department. His decision motivated students to take a stand against his controversial beliefs.
On May 11, 1993 an off-campus group known as the Conscious Students of Color organized a sit-in at the Faculty Center, which led UCLA official to summon UCPD and LAPD officers in riot gear to take control of the situation. Martinez proclaims “they arrested 99 students, grabbing their heads, necks and ears, dragging them…Charged with felony (vandalism), not just the usual
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so the departmentalization of Chicana/o Studies was finally initiated. Finally, in the year 2005, after many decades of struggle, their great effort was recognized by evident of both the department and the interdisciplinary studies at UCLA were combined to become the official Cesar E. Chavez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies.
In contrast, several political and social issues have also emerged in the past few years that have yet once again inspired and motivated young Chicana/o students to protest on behalf of their societal beliefs and values. When legislation came out with such immigration policies and laws in 2006, it led to Los Angeles county high school students to once again walkout in protest. However, this movement was different, it became national, for it motivated hundreds of thousands of students to walkout all across the United States, as they showed their passion and struggle for not only political impartiality, but rather social equalities.
These federal policies, Proposition 187 and HR 4437 sparked some of the largest youth movements in all of Southern California and the United States for it was a multiethnic movement. According to Los Angeles Times article “Massive Student Walkout Spreads Across Southland” by Anna Gorman and Cynthia Cho, “The protests
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are believed to eclipse in size the demonstrations that occurred during the anti-Proposition 187 campaign in 1994 and even a famous student walkout for Chicano rights in 1968.” In addition, they assert in their article that these protests consisted of middle school students as well, in more than 50 Los Angeles Unified campuses, causing great attention, for these new Chicana/o activists were as young as 13 years old. The article also states how L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa argues that this legislation popularly known as the “Sensenbrenner Bill” would “criminalize 12 million people.” The true power of political activism was evident and undeniable when immigration legislation HR 4437 was denied.
These amazing students paved the way for future generations to succeed in school and be motivated to help out their community. Even though the time periods and level of higher education were different, the struggle showed a common purpose and goal. It showed that Chicana/o students have powerful political voices and capabilities to respond to inequalities in the higher educational system, and actually alter certain aspects in the world of academia that students experience and take advantage everyday at these schools today. Because there is still a lot of work to be done for the betterment of the Chicana/o community, new forms of activism will emerge one day and change the quality of education once more.
