chicano movement.pdf

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The Social Studies (2011) 102, 2532

Copyright C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 0037-7996 print / 2152-405X online

DOI: 10.1080/00377996.2011.533043

The Chicano Movement: Paths to Power

JOSE ANGEL GUTIERREZPolitical Science, University of Texas-Arlington, Arlington, Texas, USA

This article is a quick overview of the Chicano Movement (CM) with specific analyses of the five major strategies employed by itsadherents to effect social change. The CM was a social movement that occurred in the United States with increased activity in thesouthwest and midwest during a time frame: 1950s to 1980s. Persons of Mexican ancestry residing in the U.S. were its participantsand self-identified as Chicanos. The term Chicano stems from the ancient Nahuatl language of the Meshica (Meh Shee Ka) peoples,also known as the Aztecs. Shicano is a shortened version of Meshicano; later pronunciation changed to Chicano and, for some in

spelling, Xicano. As a social movement, the CM had as its ultimate goals the acquisition of political power with which to change thepower relations between them and the Euro-Americans, also known as the Anglos.

Keywords: alliances, coalitions, litigation, nonviolence, political power, power relations, protest and demonstrations, social movement

Brief History of Incorporation

On three occasions, two of which were violent encounters,the United States border moved toward Mexico and incor-porated not only land mass but also Mexican people. Thefirst movement of the border occurred with the Texas revoltof 1836. The second movement occurred with the U.S. in-vasion of Mexico in 1846. The final border movement came

about through a real estate deal, the Gadsden Purchase in1853. By the time of the U.S. Civil War, the continental mapface of the country looked much like it does today, stretchedfrom the Atlantic to the Pacific, Gulf Coast to Great Lakes,and with two national borders: Canada to the north andMexico to the south. When borders move, the people in-corporated become the powerless minorityforeigners intheir own lands. Often, they lose title to their lands andownership of businesses. They become the unwanted, sub-

ject to gross discrimination and harassment accompaniedby violence at the hands of state actors. The victors becomethe authority figuresthe powerful majority that createsa new political culture often imposing a new legal system,

language policy, religion, education and economic systems,and a racial hierarchy. The victors place themselves at thetop of the social pyramid as the dominant class. Those re-maining as the border moved and who were incorporatedare settled into varying layers of other classes. The bottomclass is composed of the least desirable of people.1 Texas

Address correspondence to Jose Angel Gutierrez, Political Sci-ence, University of Texas-Arlington, 400 S. Zang Blvd., Ste. 144,Dallas, TX 75208, USA. E-mail: jgutierrez@uta.edu

after independence and a brief stint as a nation became aU.S. state by 1845. In five years, the first U.S. Census tookplace in Texas and reported that 28 percent of the inhabi-tants were African slaves. Across the southwest, the censusfigures counted the Euro-Americans (Anglos) with littleconcern for an accurate count of Native Americans, Mex-icans, or freed slaves. Estimates by demographers and his-torians of the Mexican population remaining in the United

States in 1850 range from 88,000 to 100,000. The othershad repatriated to Mexico or were removed or killed dur-ing the battles for the land. Consequently, the remainingMexicans, Native Americans, and Africans have since timeimmemorial sought to gain leverage at the expense of theother groups to obtain ascendency within the social pyra-mid and become the second group with power behind theAnglos. A power relation between all groups has been a keyconcern for these inhabitants to the present time.

In 1910 revolution broke out in Mexico, and nearly amillion people returned to their ancient homelands in theUnited States for safety. This Back-to-Mexico Mananageneration believed the revolution would end shortly and

they would return. It did not. The few Mexicans who real-ized the United States was their home country once againformed the first civil rights organization, the League ofUnited Latin American Citizens (LULAC) in 1929. Theybegan to charter an incorporation strategy leading to as-similation into Anglo culture.

Normalcy in the Mexicos political culture, however, didnot come about until the 1930s.2 During the Great Depres-sion of the 1930s, millions of Mexicans were deported fromthe United States to Mexico. Within these two decades,however, another million-plus Mexican children were born

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in the United States: the first Mexican Americans. Thesebaby boomers became the World War II generation of re-turning veterans demanding civil rights.3 Returning Mex-ican American veterans formed the American GI Forum(AGIF) in 1948 to defend against discrimination and se-cure for themselves the rights of first-class citizens. A year

prior, in 1947, the United States and Mexico initiated anemergency war measure called the Bracero Program thatended in the early 1960s. Millions of Mexican men werecontracted to work in U.S. enterprisesprimarily agricul-ture, railroads, fisheries, and forestry. Ironically, during thefirst Eisenhower administration, Operation Wetback (1954)was instituted that once again resulted in the massive de-portation of Mexicans from U.S. soil. The U.S. addiction toofficial cheap Mexican labor began and introduced a newlabor arrangement between the countries: Mexico sendslaborers, who in turn send money (remittances) home; theUnited States allows them in with the left hand and deportssome of them with the right hand.

Over the next two decades (19501970), the MexicanAmerican baby-boom generation became parents them-selves and gave birth to the Chicano generation.4 IgnacioM. Garcia (1997) in his book Chicanismo: The Forging ofa Militant Ethos among Mexican Americans, explains thatthis generation, unlike the prior two, rejected assimilationinto Anglo culture and forged a new ethnic identity neitherMexican nor Mexican American but as Chicanos. Theyset out on a nationalist strategy to become a little nationwithin the larger nation. They engaged in nation-building.It was Chicanos who fully explored the use of various pathsto power in pursuit of justice and equality for their group.The five major paths they took to acquire power were re-

volt, litigation, protest, electoral work, and building coali-tions/alliances. This is not to say that prior generations didnot employ such paths, only that this Chicano generationused and institutionalized these paths to power to a greaterextent even compared to this day.

Paths to Power: Revolt

Revolt, insurrection, and self-defense by Mexicans havebeen commonplace since the loss of land in Texas and thesouthwest. Any internet search engine will produce ampleresults for such violent events as the New Mexico activitiesof the Gorras Blancas and the Mano Negra, the LudlowMassacre of 1913 in Colorado, the Plan de San Diego in1915 (Texas), Pancho Villas raid of Columbus, New Mex-ico, in 1916, and the labor wars in Arizona during 19141917, also known as the Clifton-Morenci strikes. GregorioCortez was resurrected as a Chicano hero in defiance ofTexas Rangers by Americo Paredes; his experiences werelater made into a commercial movie, The Ballad of Grego-rio Cortez (Moctezuma Esparza Productions and Corpo-ration for Public Broad casting).5 During the 1930s and1940s, Mexican laborers resorted to revolt in the fields and

factories across the country: El Monte, California (berrypickers), San Joaquin Valley (cotton pickers), Fort Lup-ton, Greeley, and Fort Collins, Denver, Colorado (sugarbeet laborers), San Antonio, Texas (Finck cigar makersand pecan shellers), Chicago, Illinois (steel workers), andthe zoot suit battles (pachucos) with Los Angeles police

units and U.S. Navy sailors and Marines. The movie Saltof the Earth (1954, Independent Productions Company)depicts the long fight between Mexican families and theEmpire Zinc company in Silver City, New Mexico, from1950 to 1952.

The labor tradition of strikes and product boycotts werecontinued during the Chicano generation by the first Chi-cano leader, Cesar E. Chavez. He self-identified as Chicanoand led farm workers, primarily in California, to manyvictories that had eluded other labor groups previouslyand helped organize the United Farm Workers of Amer-ica. Texas, Ohio, Florida, Arizona, Washington, Oregon,and Wisconsin have also had local labor leaders engage in

similar successful labor fights with owners. Another Chi-cano leader of the era named Reies Lopez Tijerina led anarmed band and occupied the court house in Tierra Amar-illa, New Mexico. Tijerina and his followers continued touse the constitutional power of a citizens arrest to tar-get enemies of the people such as the scientists at LosAlamos Nuclear Laboratory, Chief Justice Warren Burger,and other officials. His group, La Alianza de Pueblos Li-bres, occupied several federal park lands and historic sites,reclaiming them as stolen land grants. Usually these activi-ties resulted in armed confrontations and ultimately arrestsand convictions for Tijerina and others.

Paths to Power: Protests and Demonstrations

Nonviolent protests and demonstrations do not mean non-action. On the contrary, nonviolence is a philosophy whilethe practice of nonviolent protests is a powerful actiontactic and strategy. The philosophy and the practice havebeen the foci of researchand studies since the birth of Chris-tianity by scholars and middle schoolers such as those atthe Rio Gallinas Public Charter School in Las Vegas, NewMexico.6 Chicanos, mainly youth, in the 1960s and intothe 1970s were the primary practitioners of this path topower. The main Chicano targets for reform in the 1960swere the public schools. The teachers, curriculum, cafete-ria food, textbooks, testing, student culture and life, schooladministration, and governance structure were all Anglo-centric. English was the only language allowed spoken inthe classroom and schoolyard. Severe punishment awaitedthe bold who uttered their native Spanish language withinearshot of school officials or Anglo students who also re-ported them. Despite their growing numbers, Chicano stu-dents, while physically present for purposes of enrollmentcounts and audits that led to more state funding, were ig-nored and bypassed in their academic needs. According to

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Emeritus Professor Frank Talamantes of the University ofCalifornia-Santa Cruz, Hispanic students represented 11percent of all K-12 public school enrollees in 1988, and by2008 they had increased to 21.7 percent. Chicano students,then, much like all Hispanic students today as a result ofthese practices, are the primary statistics of academic fail-

ure and school desertion.The nonviolent weapons used by Chicano students were

school boycotts, strikes, walkouts, and demonstrations. InTexas alone more than forty such school boycotts were heldin the late 1960s into the 1970s. In California during thesesame years, particularly in Los Angeles, school walkouts(blowouts, they called them) erupted as they did in Denver,Albuquerque, Lansing and East Kalamazoo, Chicago, andGlendale, Arizona, to name a few places. HBO has memo-rialized the Los Angeles blowouts in the movie Walkout(2006). The Texas school protests were the main agendaof the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO)(Navarro 1995a).

While students boycotted classes and walked out ofschool building en mass, their parents engaged in similarprotests. Farm workers in California, Texas, Ohio, Wis-consin, and Florida walked out of agricultural fields andmarched on grocery stores, food-processing plants, andcapital buildings. The Texas farm workers in the late 1970swalked from the Rio Grande Valley, across Texas and thesouth, then up to Washington, D.C., seeking redress totheir grievances which included safety, wages, health cov-erage, and legal protection. Farm laborers are not coveredby most labor laws, state or federal. In the southern states,the misnamed Right to Work Laws prohibit labor organiz-ing by farm workers, among others, and more important,

permit employers to fire anyone at will without cause orreason. Cesar E. Chavez reversed that policy in Californiavia boycotts of products, marches on Sacramento, strikesduring harvest times, and electoral activity.

During the Vietnam War years, Chicano youth joinedwhite and black students and others in protesting thewar on grounds that it cost too much in lives and money.Minority youth, then, because of compulsory militaryduty, were enlisted in disproportionate numbers thanAnglo youth who were able to obtain deferments andavoid military service. As a consequence, the numbersof casualtiesdead, wounded, and maimed for lifedisproportionately were minorities. Protests againstthe war erupted nationwide and caused an incumbentpresident Lyndon Johnson to forgo reelection in 1968.The August 29th movement in Los Angeles was a Chi-cano nonviolent protest of the war that resulted in apolice riot. Noted journalist Ruben Salazar was killed,among others, and many were hurt at the hands ofpolice during that day. No police officer was convictedof any charge of police brutality. MAYO members inTexas passed out flyers with information on the costof war at churches and in front of the Alamo in SanAntonio, Texas. The cost of war is always a crushing

problem for the politicians who vote for such expendituresand the public that pays taxes and needs governmentservices. The National Priorities Projects Internet sitewww.costofwar.comhttp://www.costofwar.com/http://www.costofwar.com/ provides comparable dollar figures forthe United States by state and city for the current conflicts

in Iraq and Afghanistan.The most dramatic and numerous public demonstrations

in the United States did not occur during the black civilrights movement. There have been massive demonstrationsat the nations capital typically named March on Washing-ton by their various sponsors during the black civil rightsera, Vietnam war, Farm Aid protests, womens suffragemovement, and the Nation of Islams Million Man March.The largest and most widespread public demonstrations inthis nation of immigrants have been held by Chicano im-migrants and those who supported them in 1976 and 1986.Again, in 2006 and 2010, millions took to the streets in Dal-las, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York while hundreds

of thousands marched in Denver, Albuquerque, Seattle,Omaha, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, and other majorcities during those years. They sought immigration reformleading to lawful permanent status, decriminalization ofthe immigration laws, unification of families, and accessto work permits, driver licenses, health benefits, and em-ployer sanctions. Immigrant youth currently seek passageof the Dream, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Actof 2001 (DREAM) to make lawful their presence and val-idate their college and university degrees so they can workas dentists, nurses, engineers, doctors, lawyers, and phar-macists on graduation. Two young Latino students and anIranian walked for months during 2010 from Miami to the

nations capital to dramatize their plight and push for pas-sage of the DREAM act. Currently, immigrants are deniedthe range of licenses issued by states for all purposes, fromdriving to working to hunting and boating. Immigrantscan only protest, march, boycott, picket, demonstrate, andrally; they are ineligible as noncitizens to vote. They can-not run for or hold public office, pass, or veto legislation inthe United States, or vote in their country of origin sincethey are not physically present there. During the time forthe draconian state law HB 1070 to be implemented in Ari-zona on July 27, 2010, prayer vigils and demonstrationswere held in Arizona and major cities in the United Statesas well as Mexico City. Once the law was enjoined by a fed-eral judge, more vigils and protest continued as the appealprocess began.

Paths to Power: Electoral Activity

Voting and other electoral activities produce results, partic-ularly at the local level, that can improve the quality of life.National elections are far removed, more complex, and dif-ficult to determine who contributed to victory; there is moresymbolic value in national elections than substance for the

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individual voter. What Chicanos, other Latinos often alsocalled Hispanics, and recent immigrants have in commonis their potential electoral power. Cubans started arrivingin large numbers after 1960, and they are fast-tracked to-ward citizenship. Cuban refugees have help learning thelanguage and culture and are validated in their educational

attainments from Cuba (Masud-Piloto 1996). This is notthe case with other Latino immigrants. Central Americansbegan arriving in the United States during the Reagan ad-ministration in the 1980s. They were extended temporaryprotected status (TPS), which is not citizenship but a formof limbo defining them as neither citizen nor unlawfullypresent but as just a temporary resident. The children andgrandchildren of those with TPS born in the United Statesover the course of the last three decades, however, are citi-zens. Puerto Ricans have held U.S. citizenship since 1917.Putting it bluntly, as I see it, Cubans are paid to come;Puerto Ricans have no interest in the immigration fight;Central Americans seldom join the immigration debate ex-

cept when their TPS deadline nears; and the United Stateshunts Mexicans who cross over in search of work.

Latinos are numerous and growing rapidly, 45 to 55 mil-lion are projected for 2011 or upward of 60 million if PuertoRicans on the island are added to the count. Latinos arethe youngest of all ethnic and racial groups in the UnitedStates. Those Hispanics under age eighteen are approxi-mately 48 percent of the total population. Those withoutcitizenship represent about 26 percent of adults. The re-maining Latinos, some 26 percent, are the few eligible toregister and vote. The major determinants of civic engage-ment are lacking among Latinos. Research consistently hasshown for decades that those with higher educational at-

tainment, greater age, and larger incomes participate moreoften and in all elections, not just the presidential one.Conversely, those with less of these three determinants par-ticipate at much lower percentages and numbers.

Latinos who are eligible do register to vote and vote, butthey are not enough to prevail at the ballot box, except forcertain historic geographic areas such as the borderlandswith Mexico and large urban centers: Los Angeles, El Paso,San Antonio, Chicago, New York, and the like.The numberof Latino elected officials as reported annually continuesto increase but is not a reflection of their percentages ofthe total population.7 Women generally are in the samepredicament; their numbers in the population do not reflecttheir numbers in elective office, but they are making gainsover time.

As early as 1948, the failed presidential campaign ofHenry Wallace sought out Mexican American voters.Richard Nixon turned down an ethnic component target-ing Mexican Americans in his 1960 presidential run, butJohn F. Kennedy, his Democratic Party rival, did not. VivaKennedy clubs were organized across the country, mainlyin the midwest and southwest, from the ranks of LULACand American GI Forum members. These organizationswere chartered as nonprofit organizations and, as such,

had to maintain themselves as nonpartisan and nonpo-litical on legislative issues and candidates. After Kennedywon the presidency, members of the Viva Kennedy clubswere rewarded with a few federal appointments in the ju-diciary, state department, and other minor cabinet posi-tions (Garcia 2000). More importantly, the Viva Kennedy

clubs morphed into political organizations in Texas andCalifornia: the Political Association of Spanish SpeakingOrganizations (PASO) and the Mexican American Polit-ical Association (MAPA), respectively. Only MAPA re-mains active in 2010. Mexican American voter influencehas grown in subsequent Democratic Party presidentialcampaigns as has the Cuban American influence in the Re-publican Party. PEW Hispanic, the National Associationof Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), andthe Willie Velasquez Southwest Voter Institute, to a lesserdegree, annually produce studies and reports on Hispanicvoter turnout and polls of opinion.

During the Chicano Movement, youth became disen-

chanted with Democratic Party politics. The Democratstook the Latino vote as well as that of other minoritiesfor granted, and the Republican Party ignored minorities.Consequently, the youth formed their own political entity,La Raza Unida Party (RUP) in 1970. By decades end, theRUP had spread to seventeen states plus the District ofColumbia. In Washington, DC, Frank Shafer Corona waselected to the Adams Morgan school district as an RUP-affiliated candidate even though local elections usually arenonpartisan. In the Winter Garden area of southwest Texasduring April 1970, the RUP fielded sixteen candidates andwon fifteen races; by the end of the decade, RUP candidateswere also elected to county government. By 1980 the RUP

had lost ballot status or never obtained it in many states.The Democrats targeted the RUP for destruction and, likemost third political parties in the United States, it ended asquickly as it had begun. The important changes the RUPbrought about, however, remain with us to this day, includ-ing the presence of Ciro Rodriguez from Texas and RaulGrijalva from Arizona, both former RUP militants in the1970s,in the Houseof Representatives in Washington,DC.8

The current mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaragosa,was a member of MEChA, a California student organiza-tion like MAYO of Texas. The current mayor of San An-tonio is Julian Castro. His mother Rosie Castro, a MAYOmember and later an RUP official, ran unsuccessfully forthat city council in 1969. Julians twin brother Joaquin isa state representative. The Chicano generation was veryengaged in civic affairs and deeply involved with electoralactivity. What they could not win with protests in the streetsor at the ballot box often were won at the court house.

Path to Power: Litigation

The race question in the United States is of extreme impor-tance. In 1790 the first Congress passed the Naturalization

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Act in which it limited U.S. citizenship to free white males;all others classified as not white and not male have beenfighting this gross chauvinist and racist exclusion ever since.Gunner Myrdal pointed out as early as 1944 in his study,An American Dilemma (New York: Harper and Bros.), thatthe presence of black people in the United States posed

a national problem for whites. Hispanics are perplexedby the race question on government forms. Are Hispan-ics white? Are Hispanics an ethnic group? Are Hispanicsmixed bloods of Spanish fathers and Native American andAfrican mothers? In 1977 the Office of Management andBudget mandated that Hispanics be counted as an identifi-able ethnic group regardless of race on government forms.9

Since then, Hispanics must choose one of four races andcheck the Hispanic origin box, particularlyon census forms.Then, if so inclined, a Hispanic person can enter a national-ity, one of twenty-two possible identifications, on the form.Attempting to indicate a person is of mixed race or na-tional origin is not an option. The U.S. Census personnel

will default that entry into one of the four racial categories.Before 1940, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and

the few Cubans in Florida had to check Other Race. In2010 and as long as OMB Directive 15 is in place, Hispanicswill be the only approved and identifiable ethnic minorityin the country. More importantly, for group cohesion andsolidarity, Hispanics are divided by race from without bythe government and from within by the government andtheir national origin. The pan-ethnic umbrella of the His-panic label has many leaks. By a large majority, Hispanicshave chosen the racial category white over black incensus forms. Hispanics understand the full impact of theracial hierarchy in the United States.

In 1953 a major case was decided by the U.S. SupremeCourt, Hernandez v. Texas. PBS television has available adocumentary on it, entitled A Class Apart (2010). Thecase was decided three weekspriorto thewell-known Brownv. Board of Education case. A Chicano murdered anotherChicano in a small Texas town in 1952; the jury convictedhim of the crime. The jury, however, had no Chicanos onthe panel. In the history of the county there had neverbeen a Chicano called, much less chosen, to sit on a jury.Lawyers forHernandez, the accused, argued discriminationand racial exclusion. The state countered that Hernandezand the jurors were white, so there was no discrimination:he was tried by a jury of his peers. On appeal to the highestcourt in the land, the justices noted that in the evidencesubmitted at the trial court and in argument by Chicanoattorney Gus Garcia, discrimination was rampant againstMexican Americans in Texas. The sign indicating separatetoilet facilities for Mexican Americans in the very court-house where the case was tried in Edna, Texas, read: Col-ored Men y Hombres Aqui. The U.S. Supreme Court heldthat Mexican Americans may be racially classified as whitebut their treatment was not like that of other whites, hencethey as a group needed the constitutional equal protectionof the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision gave Mexican

Americans their first civil rights (see Olivas and Tushnet2006; Garcia 2008). Many battles remained to be fought inthat arena, and the Chicano generation rose to the occa-sion. They continued their struggles for civil rights in thestreets, agricultural fields, schools, and at public buildings.They also engaged in building organizations that became

institutions: Chicano nation-building. In so doing they alsoformed the civil rights triumvirate: the Mexican AmericanLegal Defense Fund (1968), the National Council of LaRaza (1973), and the Southwest Voter Registration Educa-tion Project (1974).

In 1965, the Voting Rights Act (VRA) was passed guar-anteeing not only the right to vote but also to be votedfor in elections primarily for African Americans becausethe coverage of the VRA was limited to southern statesbut not Texas or the southwest. Finally, in 1975, the VRAwas extended to cover language minorities such as Spanishspeakers. The implementation of the VRA and its sub-sequent voluminous litigation archive has resulted in the

election of thousands of black and brown public officialsto local government and federal office. Literally hundredsof cases have been brought by Chicanos over the past threedecades, and the litigation continues as in the cases overredistricting to create Hispanic majority school board andcity council positions.

Bilingualeducation andteachingEnglish as a secondlan-guage (ESL) have been legally mandated across the countrysince 1968. Texas allowed bilingual education to be offeredby local school districts but maintained its English-onlylegislation on the books. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmedthese educational rights under the Fourteenth Amendmentin two major cases. The first was US vs. Texas (1971) stem-

ming from litigation in the San Felipe del Rio and DelRio Independent School Districts, both in Del Rio, Texas,a border town. The second case took place in California,Lau v. Nichols (1974), which provided for ESL. This issuewas fought by Chicanos in Texas in the late 1970s. Thestate legislated that school districts would be denied fund-ing if they enrolled and educated undocumented students.MAYO activists and others marched on the state capitalbuilding and occupied it, forcing the governor and legisla-tors to flee out the back door. Litigation ensued on behalfof students in Tyler, Texas, brought by Chicano lawyersfrom Houston. The case Plyler v. Doe (457 US 202) wasdecided in favor of the students in 1982 and became the lawof the land. Regrettably, the gains in Del Rio, Texas, andthe legal protections of Plyer v. Doe across the nation arebeing eroded and rolled back. School districts such as DelRio once again are denying enrollment to children withoutdocuments in 2010.

Litigation has secured for Latinos additional constitu-tional protections and rights and brought about reform inthe school finance arena and curriculum. Chicano studiesin the Tucson, unified school district (Arizona) was courtordered in 1998.10 With the passage of HB 2281, ethnicstudies have been legislatively prohibited in 2010 by the

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state legislature. The classic text on the history of Chicanos,Occupied America (6th ed., New York: Pearson 2010), hasbeen banned from use in the public schools under this law.HB 2281 will be difficult to be overturned by the courts fortwo legal reasons: there is no constitutional right to an edu-cation in the United States and there is no right to a specific

curriculum. Both of these rights are to be determined bystates and not the federal government. To be sure, the legalfights at the courthouses, state and federal, will continue:another path to power.

Path to Power: Coalition and Alliances

The key to forming a long-term relationship based on mu-tual interests among groups, a coalition, is the leadershipof the groups. Those willing will; those not willing nevercome together and often oppose the others initiatives. Analliance is simply a shorter-term relationship, usually with a

single focus or item of mutual interest. Booker T. Washing-ton in his famous Atlanta Address (1907), entitled Castdown Your Buckets, implored white Americans to not for-sake the Negro in favor of immigrants coming from Europe.In this context he positioned himself and followers to op-pose immigration policy favoring non-Negroes. Washing-tons plea was neither unfounded nor myopic. Immigrantsfrom the colonial era to the present time have continuouslyleap-frogged the African ancestry population in the UnitedStates in all socioeconomic indicators.

Shortly after the 2000 Census figures were released,Artellia Burch (2000) writing for the Charlotte Post, anAfrican Americanowned newspaper, reported severely

negative stereotypes held by African Americans of Lati-nos. A new phenomenon revealed by the census figureswas the spread of Latino immigration to the southeasternUnited States, the Deep South. Nicolas C. Vaca, a Chicanoactivist scholar and lawyer during the 1970s in Californiawas prompted to write a book, The Presumed Alliance: TheUnspoken Conflict Between Latinos and Blacks and What itMeans for America about it. Both Burch and Vacas pub-lications created a furor among those who agreed and dis-agreed with their findings and opinions. Both authors werethe talk of the nation as they made the lecture and mediacircuits. Burch revealed black racism toward Latinos. Vacaquestioned if blacks and Latinos ought to be in an alliance,much less a coalition. Not since Franklin Delano Rooseveltcrafted the grand coalition of minorities, labor, and liberalwhites into the foundation of the Democratic Party in the1940s had anyone questioned the legitimacy of a black-brown coalition. Which groups have common interests? Isit race or ethnicity that binds the coalition, or is it economicclass interests? Which ought it to be? Lani Guinier andGer-ald Torres (2002) in their book, The Miners Canary, positit is both. Just before Martin Luther King Jr. was assas-sinated he began articulating and emphasizing class issuesover black civil rights issues. He crafted a national cam-

paign of poor people to march and encamp in the nationscapital. He invitedNativeAmericans, poor whites, and Chi-canos to join his leadership circle. Reies Lopez Tijerina wasthe Chicano representative next to King in that effort. Ontwo occasions, Jesse Jackson in pursuit of the Democraticnomination for president in 1984 and again in 1988 had

Chicanos at his elbow as advisors and national cochairs ofhis campaigns. There was a perception of a black-browncoalition, but it did not translate into Chicano votes acrossthe primary states for Jackson.

Answers to building a coalition, however, are more aptto be found locally. Moreover, researchers who want tofind support for a coalition can find anecdotal evidence ofsuccess. Others who doom to failure any effort at coalition-building can find as many also. Local efforts have resultedin success and failure. For example, Los Angeles mayorTom Bradley won his office for five successive terms from1973 to 1983 by building a coalition with whites, Jews, andsome Chicanos. When he sought the governorship of Cali-

fornia in 1982 and again in 1986 he lost to the Republicancandidate despite leading in the polls. The term BradleyEffect was coined during these elections because voters inpollsbroken down by age, gender, race, and ethnicityreported favoring him, but the vote totals reflected thatthey voted otherwise on election day. Latinos were amongthose who did not vote at all or who did not vote for him.In Chicago, Harold Washington in coalition with Latinoswon the mayoralty. A gain for Latinos from this coalitionwas the creation of a congressional seat since held by LuisGutierrez, a Puerto Rican. The Washington-Latino coali-tion disintegrated with Washingtons untimely death. InHouston, Mickey Leland, a former black activist turned

elected official, became a congressman with help from theLatino vote. His coalition partners were Lionel Castilloand Ben Reyes. Leland also died prematurely; Castillomoved up into President Jimmy Carters administration,and Ben Reyes was convicted in an FBI sting operationand left office. The coalition died. In Dallas, during theera of at-large elections prior to single-member districts,the Progressive Voter League (African Americans) and theMexican American Democrats (former RUPers and otherChicano Democrats) were in a coalition particularly at theballot box and in some educational issues. With the adventof single-member districts, more African Americans wereelected to the city council and school board along withthe first Chicanos as state representative, constables, and

justice of the peace. The coalition died; too many leadersand not enough voters. More importantly, local leaders inboth communities see redistricting differently. Blacks be-lieved that redistricting efforts by Hispanics will lead toloss of black political power. Latinos counter that redis-tricting ought to be at the expense of white political powerand politicians, not blacks. Neither believes the other.

To be sure, the 2011 Census figures will reveal increasedHispanic population across America. Texas is poised togain four new congressional seats. Where will they be

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created, and who will benefit? Both Dallas and Houstonhave African American members of Congress, one and two,respectively; Hispanics have none. Hispanic congressionalrepresentation begins in San Antonio, then south and westalong the borderlands. Redistricting will have to address thegrowing Hispanic population. Someone has to lose power

and someone will have to gain it.In the major cities of the country, the population of

the core city is approximately one-third each: black, white,brown. Voting age population is not so evenly divided butfavors the Hispanic population over time. Meanwhile, from2000 to 2040, coalition-building is necessary to gain polit-ical power. Some twenty years ago, the white populationdid not need partners at the ballot box; a white voted forwhites and that was all needed for victory. Minority vot-ers need not vote. In the early part of this century, whitesneed partners to win elections, as do blacks and browns.No one group is enough to win elections held citywide,countywide, or statewide outright. Whites must join with

blacks; blacks must join with browns; or browns must joinwith whites in coalition to win or face losing electionsto the others in the triangular population pie. So whichgroups will coalesce? Once elected to governing bodieswith other officials sitting at the same table, which lead-ers will join in coalition to govern? In Houston and Dallasin the past few years the nine member school boards havehad three seats each: black, white, and brown. With fivevotes needed to pass any policy, recommendation, hiring,or budget, who among the three-seat group will join theother? Talk of let us all work together; I have neverdiscriminated or I do not see color; and why cant we

just get along as people? now has to be the actual walk.

Talking and walking in the shoes of others is the new po-litical stage. How Hispanics are treated between now and2040 when they will not need partners at the ballot box isthe major determinant to how the nuevos Americans willreciprocate.

Meanwhile, the Asian American population continuesto grow at a rapid rate similar to the Hispanics. By mid-century, they could outnumber blacks in the country whocontinue to decline in numbers of the total population.Whites have had and will continue to have the greatestdecline in population numbers; there are fewer white babiescompared to babies of color. According to the Texas StateData Center, Asians in Texas are growing rapidly, and theU.S. Census projections for post-2010 numbers of Asiansindicate that this is true across the nation, particularly ontheeast andwest coasts.11 It could be that theidealcoalitionpartner for Hispanics is Asian Americans. Time will tell.

Notes

1. De Leon 1983 and Montejano 1986 provide a com-prehensive overview from a historical perspective ofpower relations, race relations, violence, and Anglo

racism toward persons of Mexican ancestry in Texas.The information in these books could easily be repli-cated in any other southwestern state during the earlyperiod of conquest toward statehood to the presenttime.

2. A historical account of power relations between Ang-

los and Mexicans in Texas is presented in Montejano1987. The history of Chicanos in the United States isdocumented by Acuna 2007.

3. Griswold del Castillo 2008 is a revisionist history ofthat era building on the previous work of others.

4. For a local history of the Chicano Movement in Texas,see Montejano 2010 and an earlier work by Munoz1989. For information specifically on the MexicanAmerican Youth Organization (MAYO), see Navarro1995b.

5. Paredes, Americo. With His Pistol in His Hand, TheBallad of Gregorio Cortez, Austin: University of TexasPress, 1958. The film produced by Moctesuma Es-

paraza and Michael Hausman in 1983 is titled TheBallad of Gregorio Cortez

6. See Schock n.d. and http://nonviolentweapons.com/?page id=140, which lists 198 methods of nonviolentaction compiled by 7th and 8th grade students (down-loaded 27 July 2010). See, also, Sharp 1973.

7. Go to www.naleo.org for statistical data on the numberby state and office category. The report is called theDirectory of Latino Elected Officials (by year)

8. See Garcia 1989 for an early study of the RUP andNavarro 2000.

9. Federal Register 43, no. 87 (May 4, 1978): 19269-70for what is now commonly referred to as OMB Direc-

tive 15, and for a history of this mandate, see FederalRegister 59, no. 110 (June 9, 1994): 29831-35.

10. I was the lead attorney in the case that brought aboutthe settlementand program. Rosalie Lopez wasthe leadplaintiff of parents and students. She was later electedto the TUSB board of trustees with oversight of theprogram and overall school district.

11. Good sources of statistical demographic data arehttp://txsdc.utsa.edu and www.factfinder.gov for na-tional population figures. See, also, Murdock et al. 2003for population projections to 2040.

References

Acuna,R. 2007. OccupiedAmerica. 6thed. NewYork:Pearson Longman.

Burch, A. 2000. When worlds collide: Blacks have reservations aboutinflux of Hispanic immigrants. Charlotte Post.

De Leon, A. 1983. They called them greasers: Anglo attitudes towardMexicans in Texas, 18211900. Austin, TX: University of Texas

Press.Garcia, I. M. 1989. United we win: The rise and fall of the Raza Unida

Party. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.

. 1997. Chicanismo: The forgingof a militant ethos among MexicanAmericans. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.

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of Camelot. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University

Press.. 2008. White but not equal. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona

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civil rights. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Guinier, L., and G. Torres. 2002. The miners canary. Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press.

Masud-Piloto, F. 1996. From welcomed exiles to illegal immigrants: Cubanmigration to the U.S., 19591995. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Lit-

tlefield.Montejano, D. 1987. Anglos and Mexicans in the making of Texas, 1836

1986, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

. 2010. Quixotes soldiers. Austin, TX: University of TexasPress.

Munoz, C. 1989. Youth, identity, power: The Chicano movement. NewYork: Verso Press.

Murdock, S. H., N. Hogue, M. Micheal, S. White, and B. Pecolte. 2003.The new Texas challenge: Population change and the future of Texas.College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press.

Myrdal, G. 1944. An American dilemma: The negro problem and modern

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Navarro, A. 1995a. Mexican American youth organization: Avant-gardeof the Chicano movement in Texas. Austin, TX: University of Texas

Press.. 1995b. Youth, identity, power: The Chicano Movement. Austin,

TX: University of Texas Press.

. 2000. La Raza Unida Party: A Chicano challenge to the U.S.two-party dictatorship. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Olivas, M. A., and M. Tushnet. 2006. Colored men y hombres aqui. Hous-ton, TX: Arte Publico Press.

Schock, K. n.d. Nonviolent action and its misconceptions: Insights forsocial scientists. PSOnline. www.apsanet.org (accessed November18, 2010).

Sharp, G. 1973. The politics of non-violent action, volume 2: The methodsof nonviolent action. Boston: Porter Sargent.

Vaca, N. C. 2004. The presumed alliance: The unspoken conflict betweenLatinos and Blacks and what it means for America. New York:

Rayo/Harper Collins.Washington, B. T. 1907. Up from slavery: An autobiography. New York:

Doubleday, Page & Co.

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