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Great Wall Institute: The Process of the Great Wall of Los Angeles

Chicano Movement

Contents of this path:

When he 15, Dr. Sanchez started the Young Chicanos for Community Action in Monterey Park, California. He later changed the name to the Brown Berets, because he had actually purchased one, by chance, and wore it often. From then on, the grassroots group met at various locations, including the Boy’s and Girl’s Club and coffee shops, because they didn’t want police to know their whereabouts. Dr. Sanchez, along with Carlos Montes, another organizer with the Brown Berets, began to take up causes such as police brutality, better education, and discrimination against the Latinx community. Their first protest was in 1967, when they picketed the sheriff's office in East L.A. to protest the killing of Latino men.
“After leaving the Brown Berets, Arellanes — along with Jensen and her sister, Grace; Andrea and Esther Sánchez; Lorraine Escalante; Yolanda Solis; and Arlene Sánchez — founded Las Adelitas de Aztlán. The name referred to the soldaderas who fought alongside the men during the Mexican Revolution. They invited members of the community to join them and on Feb. 28, 1970, they made their public debut at the second anti-war moratorium in East Los Angeles.” Members of Las Adelitas de Aztlán at the second Chicano Moratorium protest against the Vietnam War on Feb. 28, 1970. At right is Hilda Reyes. They marched in the rain under a banner made by Gloria Arellanes and other members of the group. Las Adelitas dissolved later that year.
“Anyone who has worked a police beat as a reporter, as I have, knows that policemen tend to have difference attitudes toward enforcing the law depending on the social, financial and racial makeup of the people they deal with.” -Ruben Salazar Journalist Rubén Salazar and camera operator Guillermo Restrepo trailed after police who were chasing people east down Whittier Blvd. They eventually stopped at the Silver Dollar Bar and Café. That was where Los Angeles County deputy sheriff Tom Wilson said he fired the tear gas canister that struck Salazar in the head. Rubén Salazar was both the news director at Spanish language TV station KMEX and a columnist for the Los Angeles Times.
Raul Ruiz lays a Mexican flag atop the corpse of Gustav Montag, during a 1971 protest in East Los Angeles. Three people died on Aug. 29, 1970 Moratorium. They included: LA Times journalist and KMEX (Ch. 34) news director Rubén Salazar, Gilberto Diaz (Angel Gilbert Diaz) and Lyn Ward. During a 1971 protest, Gustav Montag was murdered by police. Identified as Jewish, Montag was the fourth casualty in East LA of the organized moratoriums. This moratorium was held on February 2, 1971.
Chicano Moratorium Committee anti-war demonstrators gather in East L.A. "The biggest, bloodiest disturbance in Los Angeles since Watts five years earlier lasted several hours. When it was over, Los Angeles Times columnist Ruben Salazar was dead and two others mortally wounded, about 200 people were under arrest, 75 law enforcement officers and untold numbers of demonstrators were injured, 95 county vehicles were destroyed or damaged, 44 buildings were pillaged and eight major fires had been set.” “After the Chicano Moratorium, I said no way am I going to put myself in jeopardy ever again,” Jensen says. “Because that’s how scared I was.” Jensen stopped organizing
“The National Chicano Moratorium Against the Vietnam War in East Los Angeles would become the biggest gathering of Mexican American demonstrators in U.S. history to that point, with about 20,000 people parading down Whittier Boulevard to what was then called Laguna Park — before widespread violence erupted when sheriff’s deputies stormed the park and skirmishes followed. Patrol cars and buildings were set on fire.”
Consuelo Flores Remembers, age 9 in 1970. She remembered smoke — tear gas, shot into the crowds. Untold numbers of protesters were injured by deputies or while fleeing. ‘I’m 9 years old, and I’m seeing the cop who’s supposed to protect me, whacking” a young man, she recalled. ‘My [red] shoes just fall off, and I just keep running, I’m running with my bare feet, so now my feet are burning too, and ... I’m just trying to get home.’
Demonstrators arrived hot and exhausted, but excited to Laguna Park after the 3 mile march. Laguna Park, founded in 1940, became the Moratorium focal point as 20-30,000 exhausted antiwar demonstrators sat on park grass to hear speeches from 13 speakers, including Dolores Huerta, “Corky” Gonzales, César Chávez, activist lawyer Oscar Zeta Acosta, and Rosalío Muñoz. Besides opposing the Vietnam War and police brutality, speakers aimed to promoted Mexican American cultural pride, but few of them had the chance to deliver their remarks.
Smoke rises above Whittier Blvd. from multiple fires points to the chaotic aftermath of the Chicano Moratorium march on Aug. 29, 1970. On Aug. 29, 1970, more than 20,000 demonstrators marched through East Los Angeles for the National Chicano Moratorium Against the Vietnam War. But the protest for peace devolved into conflict between demonstrators and sheriff’s deputies. By day’s end, hundreds were arrested and trailblazing Latino journalist Ruben Salazar was dead. Ultimately 3 died in the protests. What started as a peaceful demonstration, and what some folks felt was going to be a celebratory moment demanding peace, turned into violence & chaos.
Gronk: We decided that it was time that we would take action and actually use the streets once again. We would take over a street or a neighborhood and activate it in some way. Pattsi Valdez: These performances usually happened really quickly. An idea would be sparked and then we'd gather all our stuff and Harry would pick us all up, and we'd put everything in the car, and then we'd zoom off into the city and find the location.I think it was a combination of performance art and protest. For me, it was very important to try to get noticed because I had things to say. I felt like I had to do it in a big way, so that the viewer would pay attention. The look, the make-up: I needed for you to pay attention, because I had a message. Gronk: During the performance, people either honked their horns or cheered us on. But also in the back of our minds…at the time a phone call was ten cents, so we all had ten cents in our pocket just in case we had to make that phone call from jail.
Trauma from the fallout of the 3rd Chicano Moratorium. “After the Chicano Moratorium, I said no way am I going to put myself in jeopardy ever again,” Jensen says. “Because that’s how scared I was.” Jensen stopped organizing. Arellanes: “To see all that tragedy and that violence and get tear gassed, to see people screaming and running for their lives. It destroys something in you when you see that much pain.” Later, when Arellanes raised her two sons, she wouldn’t even let them have water guns.
Stations of the Cross was a walking “ritual of resistance” against what the performance group Asco considered the “useless deaths” taking place in Vietnam. The male members of the group (which originally comprised Harry Gamboa Jr., Gronk, Willie Herrón III, and Patssi Valdez) paraded down Whittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles, with Herrón as a Christ/death figure bearing a large cardboard cross. The quasi-Passion Play ended with the trio blocking a U.S. Marines recruiting office with the cross, symbolically halting military recruitment from their Mexican American neighborhood.
Harry Gamboa Jr.: LA County sheriffs open fired on innocent students and protestors, and wounded and killed many people who were protesting against the war in Vietnam, and were also protesting against police violence, which was followed by a two to three-and-a-half year crackdown on young people gathering on the streets of East Los Angeles. At the time that we shot [First Supper After a Major Riot], we felt that it had been long enough. It was time for it to be extinguished. And so, we declared it to be a celebration. Willie Herrón: At the time of the Moratorium, I was in high school. I remember the procession originating at Belvedere Park, protesting the Vietnam War and all the Chicanos that lost their lives. The police brutality was incredible. It affected me quite a bit and I think it affected all of us. So that's why Whittier Boulevard became such an important street, and a place for us to conduct our performances and connect them to our community and the way society viewed us at the time.
In the 1970s, a procession of floats traveled from Evergreen Cemetery to Self-Help Graphics in Boyle Heights on Día de los Muertos. The first public Día de los Muertos celebration in LA was held nearly 50 years ago at Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights. Up until then, observance was a largely private tradition with Indigenous roots in Mexico. Ofrendas, or altars, were constructed inside the home. Public participation in the holiday largely stems from the art and activism ignited by the 1970 Chicano Moratorium and movement for civil rights
David Sandoval Papers, Special Collections, John F. Kennedy Memorial Library, California Sate University, LA - Sheriff's deputies outside the Silver Dollar, August 29, 1970. Salazar was born in Juarez, Mexico but emigrated to the U.S. with his family when he was an infant. As an immigrant living in Texas during the Great Depression, he had much to overcome. He would later recall that it was common to see signs that read "No Dogs, Negroes, and Mexicans" on public establishments. Still, he enlisted in the Armed Forces and went to college on the GI Bill. He become the managing editor of his college newspaper and used his regular column to speak out against racism and McCarthyism. An accomplished journalist, Salazar earned his credentials reporting from the trenches. He used his bilingual skill and knowledge of the barrio to do in depth reporting in El Paso, Texas, and later in California where he was hired by the Los Angeles Times, where he covered political, social and other news, with a special focus on major developments in the Mexican American community. As The Times' first Mexican American foreign correspondent, Salazar would report on the Vietnam War, Central America and the Olympics in Mexico City. In 1969 The Times brought him back to Los Angeles, where he would cover the growing Chicano movement, fast becoming national news. Salazar would go on to write about the changing attitudes, lives and activities of people living in Los Angeles' barrios during those turbulent times. In 1970, as a Times columnist and Spanish language news editor, he advocated on behalf of the community and welcomed the Chicano movement. To Salazar, journalism was more than just a career; it was a vehicle for democracy. He saw journalism as a way to influence public opinion and create change. On the flipside, however, it meant he would constantly be under the critical eye of those interested in maintaining the status quo, and would have to learn how to subtly and gradually break down stereotypes in order to push the social justice movement forward. He covered a wide variety of events and topics, which enabled him to find ways to get barrio realities recognized as news. That in turn helped the Mexican American community see itself as newsmakers, and history makers. Ruben Salazar was becoming an activist journalist when his life was cut short, killed by a sheriff's tear gas canister while covering the Chicano Moratorium on August 29, 1970. According to the coroner's report he was wearing the demonstrations' green, white and red button: "CHICANO MORATORIUM 8,000 Dead ¡YA BASTA! L.A. Aug. 29." He was just 42 years old. This article was originally published on EGPNews.com.
Established in the wake of the 1970 Chicano Moratorium, Self Help Graphics & Art (1973–present), quickly became an invaluable community art center and site for the production and promotion of Chicanx and Latinx art. Founded by Sister Karen Boccalero, a Franciscan nun and student of Sister Corita Kent, along with artists Carlos Bueno, Antonio Ibáñez, and Frank Hernández in an East LA garage, Self Help Graphics understood art production as a social practice, and sought to fortify the local community through arts education and art-making that celebrated Chicanx identities and experiences.
“He was one of the co-founders of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), a labor union that later joined the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) to become what is known today as the United Farm Workers (UFW). During his years with AWOC, Philip and the other leaders made the decision to start Delano Grape Strike which was one of the most significant and well known strikes in the history of farmworker struggle in California. This strike is what eventually made the UFW. Philip Vera Cruz was the long standing second Vice President of the UFW until he retired in in 1997.”
“In the words of Philip Vera Cruz: ‘On September 8, 1965, at the Filipino Hall at 1457 Glenwood St. in Delano, the Filipino members of AWOC held a mass meeting to discuss and decide whether to strike or to accept the reduced wages proposed by the growers. The decision was "to strike" and it became one of the most significant and famous decisions ever made in the entire history of the farmworker struggles in California. It was like an incendiary bomb, exploding out the strike message to the workers in the vineyards, telling them to have sit-ins in the labor camps, and set up picket lines at every grower's ranch... It was this strike that eventually made the UFW, the farmworkers movement, and Cesar Chavez famous worldwide.’”
In 1962, the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), a predecessor of the United Farm Workers (UFW), was founded in Delano, California. Cesar Chávez, alongside Dolores Huerta and other Chicano activists within this organization, defended the rights of farmworkers by employing nonviolent organizing tactics rooted in Catholic social teaching, Chicano identity, and civil rights rhetoric. Through a series of marches, national consumer boycotts, and fasts, the United Farm Workers union attracted national headlines, gained labor contracts with higher wages and improved working conditions, galvanizing the Chicano movement. California’s agribusiness depended on a corporatized system of farm production supported by political allies that hired low-wage workers from Asian, Native, and/or Mexican populations. Farmworkers worked in dire conditions, including exposure to deadly chemicals, inadequate food and shelter, and sexual harassment, while receiving meager wages. Those who protested were replaced by Mexican braceros under the Bracero Program. The Bracero Program’s termination in 1964 led to labor union mobilization among farmworkers. The United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) was formed in 1966 as a collaboration between the Filipino Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee and the National Farm Workers Association. The union built partnerships with religious organizations, student and civil rights activists, and politicians, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. From 1966 to 1970, the UFWOC carried out a successful international consumer boycott on grapes by picketing outside of grocery stores across the U.S. and Canada and spreading awareness about the movement in Europe. Subsequent boycotts and strikes against lettuce and strawberry growers occurred during the following years. Strikes often led to law enforcement intervention, where farmworkers were beaten, jailed, or replaced by non-citizen laborers. Dolores Huerta is credited with negotiating thousands of labor contracts providing farmworkers with improved wages and working conditions. In 1972, the UFWOC renamed itself the United Farm Workers. By then, communities of farmworkers had been established across the U.S. In California, the UFW’s newspaper El Malcriado (“The Unruly One”) informed the community and provided them with job openings, and Luis Valdes’ El Teatro Campesino (“The Farmer’s Theatre”) offered short comedic skits performed by farmworkers. The UFW also established a federal credit union and union centers with medical care, pension, and voter registration services to its union members. Although the UFW is still operating, internal union strife, short-term labor contracts, and lack of federal legislation concerning farmworker rights have affected the progress of the union.
Larry Itliong & other Filipino leaders of Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) approached NFWA to participate in strike against major grape growers of the Central Valley. Filipino farmwohe Delano Grape Strike. Born in the Philippines, Itliong immigrated to the U.S in 1929, hoping to become a lawyer. Instead, he ended up working in the Alaskan fish canneries and along the West Coast as a farm laborer. During that time, he experienced how badly laborers were treated and saw the power they could gain by working together. He became an activist and organizer. Following his service in the U.S. Army during World War II, Itliong became a U.S citizen and in 1954 moved to Stockton’s Little Manila, where he organized for the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). He was so good at recruiting new members that union leaders asked him to move to Delano to organize Filipino grape workers. It was there that he helped change the history of farm labor. On Sept. 8, 1965, he led AWOC members in walking off the grape vineyards to demand wages equal to federal minimum wage and better working conditions. But Itliong knew that for the strike to succeed, they needed members of the National Farm Workers Association to join. He approached NFWA’s leader, César Chávez, with the proposal. On Sept. 16, the AWOC and NFWA joined forces beginning the Delano Grape Strike and Boycott. It lasted five years and was one of the most important social justice and labor movements in American history, ending with victory for the farmworkers. In the meantime, the AWOC and NFWA merged in 1966 to become the United Farm Workers (UFW), with Chávez as director and Itliong as assistant director. In 1971, Itliong left the UFW but continued to work for Filipino Americans until his death in 1977 at age 63. One of his major successes was securing funding for the construction of the Paulo Agbayani Retirement Village in Delano, which has provided housing and support for retired Filipino farmworkers since 1974.