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

Las Patronas’ Kitchen: A documentary about the women who give food – and hope- to migrants travelling northbound on “La Bestia”

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3. 1960s Health fair at Castelar Elementary School The Movement suffered from misogyny and homophobia. Though perhaps less so than other Third World left groups (e.g. there were fewer instances of physical abuse and assault), women and queer-identified people fought for presence, voice, and their issues. At the same time, the analysis of a “triple oppression” of class, race, and gender for women, and the creation of a multiracial LGBT identity, opened a profound reworking of patriarchal and heterosexual norms. These movements within the Movement are crucial not only to appraising the Asian American Movement, but offer vital case studies for our intersectional present.
4. 1960s Welfare Activism Activists marching under the NWRO banner in the Poor People’s Campaign, Washington, D.C., May–June 1968. 1960s/70s Welfare activists were mostly working-class black and some white mothers, and the majority of them were themselves welfare recipients. As welfare recipients, women of color, and working-class people, they faced a wave of policies and ideologies that stigmatized them, policed their behavior, and made receiving benefits increasingly difficult. These policies were but one element of a larger political crisis, wherein the California government stoked racialized and gendered fears in order to shrink the welfare state. Rather than simply acquiesce to this reality, welfare-rights groups in California refused to accept it. In 1963, Johnnie Tillmon—a black single mother on welfare—decided to get in touch with fellow welfare recipients in Los Angeles. She was tired of enduring the stigma that came with being on welfare—and she did not want to endure it alone. She envisioned a group of welfare recipients that would support one another, exchange advice, and even pressure the California government for policy changes. In putting this group together, the first step was to find out who else was on welfare, or Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). “That was a hard job”, said Tillmon, “because that kind of information was not made public. We were in the housing project manager’s office one day when he was called to the phone. Instead of taking the call in his office, he took it from outside. While he was out, we started looking through the papers on his desk.” Among those papers was a list of neighborhood welfare recipients, and Tillmon “copied the names”. Soon after, she went door-to-door, spoke with neighbors in her housing project, and a group of welfare recipients began to form. This group came to be called Aid to Needy Children-Mothers Anonymous ([1], p. 18), or ANC-MA: one of many local welfare-rights groups across the country.
5. 1960s/1970s GIDRA sisters
6. 1963 The Feminine Mystique Published
7. 1960s/1970s Health Fair at Castelar Elementary The Movement suffered from misogyny and homophobia. Though perhaps less so than other Third World left groups (e.g. there were fewer instances of physical abuse and assault), women and queer-identified people fought for presence, voice, and their issues. At the same time, the analysis of a “triple oppression” of class, race, and gender for women, and the creation of a multiracial LGBT identity, opened a profound reworking of patriarchal and heterosexual norms. These movements within the Movement are crucial not only to appraising the Asian American Movement, but offer vital case studies for our intersectional present.
8. 1968 National Welfare Rights Organization Marchers, 1968. This photograph and these pins highlight the welfare rights movement, which emerged in the 1960s at the intersection of the black freedom movement, women’s liberation, and anti-poverty activism. Many participants were single women of color, and they fought against punitive social policies that prioritized paid labor over caregiving responsibilities and tied the receipt of public benefits to increased surveillance of their families. Fighting for the means to provide for their families and juggling the demands of work, childcare, and activism, these women offered an expansive vision of citizenship that remains unfulfilled to this day. ( Jeanne Gardner Gutierrez, Curatorial Scholar in Women’s History )Jack Rottier Photograph Collection, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University
9. 1970 Asian American Women's Movement Activists Although not widely known outside the Asian community or among feminist activists and scholars outside of the Los Angeles area, there was a thriving, militant Asian American women's movement in southern California starting in the late 1960s/early 1970s. Like other movements among feminists of color, it both grew out of and remained tied to the larger national/ethnic movement and the anti-war movement. Asian American consciousness and activism most often developed on college campuses and, ultimately, often led to the development of Asian American studies. The core women activists in the Los Angeles area, however, focused most of their political work and organizing in grass roots community programs, and looked to Chinese and Vietnamese women revolutionaries for their inspiration. Many of them were members of the Community Workers Collective, which engaged in studying political liberation movements in other countries as a basis for their community organizing. Based on their study and organizing experience, the Asian Women's Group developed one of the first multi-media interactive presentations on the Asian women's movement which was performed at venues along the West Coast. They also founded the first Asian Women's Center in the US, establishing principles of unity to guide their programs; and collectivized their salaries to generate more staff and programs. They collaborated in anti-Vietnam War activities, and used their resources to support other struggles such as Wounded Knee. Despite ongoing struggles with the men in the larger Asian American movement, these women activists remained committed to and involved in the broader movement and eschewed separatism. The Asian American activists included in this series include: May Ying Chen, Miya Iwataki and Evelyn Yoshimura. An additional interview with long-time Asian American male activist, Alan Nishio, sheds further light both on the activities of the women and on the relationship between them and the broader Asian American movement in Los Angeles.
10. Chicana Feminists Chicana feminists in Southern California engaged in a range of groups and activities, both on college campuses and in their communities - often both. Regardless of the specifics of their politics or focus, most were initially politicized in the Chicano movement of the late 1960s; and most developed their feminist consciousness as a result of their direct experience with sexism in that movement. The six individual narrators in this series reflect this common background. The four activists in Hijas de Cuauhtemoc (Anna NietoGomez, Corinne Sanchez, Leticia Hernandez and Sylvia Castillo) cut their political eye teeth in the Chicano student group, UMAS/MEChA, at CSULB. In fact, it was their experiences in MEChA that motivated them to form the Hijas group (which published a newspaper by the same name). They were also involved in community groups and continued this activism after they left college, particularly in the Chicana Service Action Center. Yolanda Nava , who was one of the founding members of Comision Femenil Mexicana (CFM) and later served a term as president, was also introduced to the Chicano movement through MEChA. Although more than a decade older than these activists, Consuelo Nieto had similar experiences with sexism. Her introduction to the Chicano movement came while she was teaching in the schools in ELA, where high school students had organized to demand better education. A word about language in this series: While the term Anglo came to be used later, during the heyday of the Chicana feminist movement - and particularly in the debate and conflict with those who excoriated the feminists - White was the term most often used. In their interviews, the women themselves used the term White. It should also be noted that Cuauhtemoc is sometimes spelled "Cuahtemoc." NOTE: The interviews with the founders and former members of Hijas de Cuauhtemoc were conducted by Maylei Blackwell for what became her larger research project. As a courtesy to her, the audio recordings of these interviews will not be available until 2006. Until then, they can be used on-site at CSULB with her permission. See also her essay, "Contested histories: las hijas de Cuauhtâemoc, Chicana feminisms, and print culture in the Chicano movement, 1968-1973" in Gabriela Arredondo et al., Chicana Feminisms: A Critical Reader (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003) and the response by Anna NietoGomez. See also the writings of Anna NietoGomez, and other femenista pioneers in Alma Garcia, ed., Chicana Feminist Thought: Basic Historical Writings. New York: Routledge, 1997.
11. Feminist Health Movement From its earliest days in the 1960s, the women's liberation movement focused on abortion and women's right to control their bodies. Some of the more radical groups engaged in underground abortion clinics, most notably in Chicago; others, like the Boston's Women's Health Collective began writing/publishing projects; and organizations like NOW formed Task Forces to work on the issue of reproductive rights. In fact, it was in NOW that leaders of the feminist health movement, Carol Downer and Lorraine Rothman, first became active and initially demonstrated gynecological self-examination. And while Downer and Rothman went on to open the first Feminist Women's Health Center at the Crenshaw Women's Center, other women, like Vi Verreaux worked at and opened more conventionally structured, service-oriented clinics for women. This series is comprised of interviews with these three women. The long interviews with Downer and Rothman document the evolution and expansion of their work, and although the much shorter interview with Verreaux barely touches on her clinic work, it does provides a glimpse into a service-oriented, community-based clinic.
12. 1960 Birth Control Pill tested on Puerto Rican Women
14. 1960 - 1980 Women's Liberation Movement While some 1960s/1970s women's movements in Los Angeles were inextricably linked to ethnic or national communities and movements, many White Anglo women from different communities came together to participate in groups that, taken together, was often referred to as "the women's liberation movement." These groups ranged from chapters of a national organization like NOW - usually characterized as a liberal feminist group - to smaller radical groups of anarcha-feminists, lesbian feminists and radical feminists. In Los Angeles, many of these groups were spawned at the Crenshaw Women's Center (CWC), where NOW also participated initially. After the center closed in 1972, many of these groups operated out of the Westside Women's Center (WWC), where Sister monthly newspaper continued to be published. This series is by no means comprehensive or inclusive, but rather includes interviews with a few of the women who were key players in some of these Los Angeles feminist groups and/or institutions. Toni Carabillo was the force behind Los Angeles NOW during its infancy and later became a national leader in the organization as well. Joan Robins was one of the main forces behind the founding of the Crenshaw Women's Center, and Nancy (aka Dara) Robinson became active at the Center from the start. With Robins, Robinson began the Center Newsletter, which eventually became Sister newspaper. She was also instrumental in the formation of Lesbian Feminists. Originally active in the Lesbian Feminists at the Crenshaw Women's Center, Jeanne Cordova went on to start the monthly magazine, Lesbian Tide. Sherna Gluck, on the other hand, became active at the Westside Women's Center, where she also initiated the Feminist History Research Project. Carabillo, Gluck, Robins and Robinson were first interviewed in 1984 as part of a project initiated by Women Rising, a group to which the latter three belonged. Four years later, all of them except Robinson, were interviewed in conjunction with an Honors Thesis project of Michelle Moravec at UCLA. Cordova was also interviewed by her. In addition to these generally longer, life history interviews, this series includes both shorter interviews and other audio materials, including an interview with Lilyan Frank about her experience at the UN Conference in Mexico City; interviews with Bernadette Carmier, Consuelo Nieto, and Priscilla Oaks, taken at or shortly after the 1977 Houston IWY Conference; and a panel discussion by Los Angeles women who attended the conference. Although the audio quality of the 1983 Women's History Day speak-out organized by the Women Rising Collective is poor, it has also been incorporated into the series because it provides a glimpse of the range of activities of the Los Angeles women's movement dating back to the late 1960s/early 1970s.
15. “Más Bebés?”: An Investigation of the Sterilization of Mexican-American Women at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center during the 1960s and 70s
16. Panel Discussion of "No Más Bebés" Documentary No Más Bebés tells the story of a little-known but landmark event in reproductive justice, when a small group of Mexican immigrant women sued county doctors, the state, and the U.S. government after they were sterilized while giving birth at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Marginalized and fearful, many of these mothers spoke no English, and charged that they had been coerced into tubal ligation — having their tubes tied — by doctors during the late stages of labor. Often the procedure was performed after asking the mothers under duress.
17. 1960s Reproductive Justice for Latinas: Coerced, Forced, and Involuntary Sterilization By 1934, there were 67 birth control clinics operating under federal funding through Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Puerto Rican Relief Administration; in 1936, the Maternal and Childcare Health Association, a private entity, opened 23 more. A law passed the following year—Law 116—made sterilization legal and free for Puerto Rican women. Family planning clinics offering free sterilization were installed in the new factories of the industrial wave; women were encouraged to work in needlework and textile industries there, and were shown favoritism for sterilization compliance. Health officials campaigned door-to-door for sterilization throughout rural communities, too. In a dire economic situation and with few affordable alternative contraceptive methods available, the operation—or la operacion, as it was referred to locally—became commonplace. By the 1960s, about one-third of the female population had been sterilized—and many of those women hadn’t been educated about the permanency of tubal ligation.
18. 1967 President Johnson amended Executive Order 11246, which dealt with affirmative action, to include sex discrimination on the list of prohibited employment discrimination. The Origin of Affirmative Action Programs Former U.S. President John F. Kennedy used the phrase “affirmative action” in 1961. In an executive order, President Kennedy required federal contractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed…without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson issued an order that used the same language to call for nondiscrimination in government employment. FEATURED VIDEO Hate Your Job? 5 Problems That Are in Every Workplace It was not until 1967 that President Johnson addressed sex discrimination. He issued another executive order on October 13, 1967. It expanded his previous order and required the government’s equal opportunity programs to “expressly embrace discrimination on account of sex” as they worked toward equality. The Need for Affirmative Action The legislation of the 1960s was part of a larger climate of seeking equality and justice for all members of society. Segregation had been legal for decades after the end of enslavement. President Johnson argued for affirmative action: if two men were running a race, he said, but one had his legs bound together in shackles, they could not achieve a fair result by simply removing the shackles. Instead, the man who had been in chains should be allowed to make up the missing yards from the time he was bound. If striking down segregation laws could not instantly solve the problem, then positive steps of affirmative action could be used to achieve what President Johnson called “equality of result.” Some opponents of affirmative action saw it as a “quota” system that unfairly demanded a certain number of minority candidates be hired no matter how qualified the competing White male candidate was. Affirmative action brought up different issues concerning women in the workplace. There was little protest of women in traditional “women’s jobs”—secretaries, nurses, elementary school teachers, etc. As more women began to work in jobs that had not been traditional women’s jobs, there was an outcry that giving a job to a woman over a qualified male candidate would be “taking” the job from the man. The men needed the job, was the argument, but the women did not need to work. In her 1979 essay “The Importance of Work,” Gloria Steinem rejected the notion that women should not work if they do not “have to." She pointed out the double standard that employers never ask men with children at home if they need the job for which they are applying. She also argued that many women do, in fact, “need” their jobs. Work is a human right, not a male right, she wrote, and she criticized the false argument that independence for women is a luxury.
19. 1960s - 1970s Uninformed Consent to Sterilization - Latina Women in targeted in East LA
20. 1960s Puerto Rican Women Sterilized as a "solution to poverty"
21. 1966 The National Organization for Women, known as NOW, was founded. On October 29, 1966, the Nation Organization for Women officially adopted their Statement of Purpose. The statement, written by Betty Friedan and Pauli Murray, expressed the organization’s main goals in addressing and fighting the unequal treatment of women in society. This 1966 document is a seminal part of the modern women’s rights movement and played an important role in inspiring more Americans to fight for gender equality. Although their Statement of Purpose was adopted in October, the feminist organization was officially founded on June 30, 1966. The statement described NOW’s purpose as “To take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men.” NOW was created when its founders recognized that women needed a pressure group to combat gender discrimination, as the government agencies and recent laws to address this problem had proven ineffective. A prime example of this was the failure of the Equality Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (Title VII is a federal law that prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion.) Employers were still discriminating against women in hiring practices and there was unequal pay for women. Secondly, NOW was also influenced by the failure of John F. Kennedy’s 1961 President’s Commission on the Status of Women, headed by Eleanor Roosevelt, to end discrimination against females in education, the workforce and Social Security. The movement was also inspired by Friedan’s 1963 book “The Feminine Mystique,” where she famously expresses her stultifying experiences as a housewife lacking other options in society beyond that domestic role. The founders of NOW hoped that their organization would help women combat discrimination in all aspects of society by lobbying and holding rallies, marches and conferences. NOW broke with previous trends for women’s organizations by including the concerns of black women in their mission. NOW has advocated for many issues they see as necessary for ensuring equality for women, including maternity leave rights in employment, child day care centers, equal job training opportunities, reproductive rights, and the prohibition of sex discrimination in the workplace.
22. 1966 The National Welfare Rights Organization “I’m a woman. I’m a Black woman. I’m a poor woman. I’m a fat woman. I’m a middle-aged woman. And I’m on welfare,” Tillmon writes in her landmark 1972 essay, “Welfare is a Women’s Issue,” published in Ms. magazine. “In this country, if you’re any of those things you count less as a human being. If you’re all of those things, you don’t count at all.” In 1966—three years after ANC-MA’s founding—welfare recipients built a national group: the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO). The NWRO used lobbying and direct action to pursue a three-pronged agenda: a “guaranteed annual income”, an increase in “availability of welfare benefits and services”, and improved “access to consumer credit ([3], p. 301).” Johnnie Tillmon was selected to serve as the NWRO’s chair, bringing with her the knowledge and experience she had gained in California. Across California, welfare-rights activism grew organically: in living rooms and churches. It organized in direct opposition to the language and policies of Governor Ronald Reagan, the California legislature, bigoted social workers, and even middle-class black and feminist communities. It formed local organizations, including Tillmon’s ANC-MA, the California Welfare Rights Organization (CWRO), and many others. I
23. 1969 Redstockings Abortion Speakout n 1969, the members of the radical feminist group Redstockings were furious that legislative hearings about abortion featured male speakers discussing such a crucial women's issue. They, therefore, staged their hearing, the Redstockings abortion speak-out, in New York City on March 21, 1969. The Fight to Make Abortion Legal The abortion speak-out took place during the pre-Roe v. Wade era when abortion was illegal in the United States. Each state had its own laws about reproductive matters. It was rare if not unheard of to hear any woman speak publicly about her experience with illegal abortion. FEATURED VIDEO Roe v. Wade Supported By 70% Of Americans Before the radical feminists' fight, the movement to change U.S. abortion laws was more focused on reforming existing laws than repealing them. Legislative hearings on the issue featured medical experts and others who wanted to finesse the exceptions to abortion prohibitions. These "experts" talked about cases of rape and incest or a threat to the life or health of a mother. Feminists shifted the debate to a discussion of a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body. Disruption In February of 1969, Redstockings members disrupted a New York legislative hearing about abortion. The New York Joint Legislature Committee on the Problems of Public Health had called the hearing to consider reforms to the New York law, then 86 years old, on abortion. They roundly condemned the hearing because the "experts" were a dozen men and a Catholic nun. Of all women to speak, they thought a nun would be the least likely to have contended with the abortion issue, other than from her possible religious bias. The Redstockings members shouted and called for the legislators to hear from women who had had abortions, instead. Eventually, that hearing had to be moved to another room behind closed doors. Women Raising Their Voices The members of Redstockings had previously participated in consciousness-raising discussions. They had also drawn attention to women's issues with protests and demonstrations. Several hundred people attended their abortion speak-out in the West Village on March 21, 1969. Some women spoke about what they suffered during illegal “back-alley abortions.” Other women spoke about being unable to get an abortion and having to carry a baby to term, then have the child taken away when it was adopted. Legacy After the Demonstration More abortion speak-outs followed in other U.S. cities, as well as speak-outs on other issues in the subsequent decade. Four years after the 1969 abortion speak-out, the Roe v. Wade decision altered the landscape by repealing most abortion laws then in effect and striking down restrictions on abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. Susan Brownmiller attended the original 1969 abortion speak-out. Brownmiller then wrote about the event in an article for the "Village Voice", "Everywoman's Abortions: 'The Oppressor Is Man.'" The original Redstockings collective broke up in 1970, though other groups with that name continued to work on feminist issues. On March 3, 1989, another abortion speakout was held in New York City on the 20th anniversary of the first. Florynce Kennedy attended, saying "I crawled off my death bed to come down here" as she called for the struggle to continue.
24. The Crenshaw Women’s Center The CRENSHAW WOMEN’S CENTER was the first women’s center in Los Angeles and was a ground-breaking facility serving women in a variety of capacities. It housed the nation’s first women’s clinic, Women’s Self-Help One, and was the site of The Great Yogurt Conspiracy. In three action-packed years, the Crenshaw Women’s Center generated an enormous amount of energy, pivotal change, and several firsts for the Women’s Rights Movement and second-wave feminism in Los Angeles and the nation. A Historic-Cultural Monument (HCM) application was prepared and submitted to the city of Los Angeles by Kate Eggert and Krisy Gosney.
26. September 7, 1968: The "Miss America Protest" by New York Radical Women at the Miss America pageant brought widespread media attention to women's liberation. Fifty years ago—on September 7, 1968—more than 100 women launched a protest at the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City. The action made national headlines, announcing the arrival of a militant and creative new wave of feminist organizing. More than merely denouncing a single televised event, the protesters connected the pageant with the systemic problems of consumerism, racism, and war—as well as with the routine abuses and humiliations of patriarchy, to which nearly every women in the country could say, “Me too.” “Every day in a woman’s life,” one organizer argued shortly after the protest, “is a walking Miss America contest.”
27. The Mothers Who Fought To Radically Reimagine Welfare At its height, the National Welfare Rights Organization had more than 25,000 dues-paying members. Some people have called it "the largest black feminist organization in American history." Jack Rottier Collection/George Mason University Libraries “I'm a black woman. I'm a poor woman. I'm a fat woman. I'm a middle-aged woman. And I'm on welfare. In this country, if you're any one of those things you count less as a human being. If you're all those things, you don't count at all.” - Johnnie Tillmon
28. La Operación - The Subversion and Portrayal of Female Agency in Latinx Reproductive Rights Widespread sterilization operation led by the United States during the 1950s and 60s in Puerto Rico. La Operación is a documentary from 1982 that shows the widespread sterilization operation led by the United States during the 1950s and 60s in Puerto Rico. Ana María García directed the film which highlights how the United States pushed for increased female sterilization in Puerto Rico. She mixes in the documentary a blend of interviews with women from different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds but the interviews are not the only focus of her work; she also incorporates scenes showing a sterilization procedure in addition to other historical and contextual parts. account from the documentary displays the same message as the propaganda above, that there are prosperity and good living associated with sterilization, based on the belief that too many kids lead to a perpetual state of destitution. These false beliefs led many women to give up their agency over their bodies and cave into getting sterilized—except they did not know all the time what they were signing up for.
31. 1962 "Operation Weekend" - investigators launched surprise visits to the homes or welfare recipients - to ensure their behavior merited public aid. Beginning in 1962, Kern County of California, like many other counties across the nation, adopted a practice known as “Operation Weekend”: investigators, hired by social workers, would enter welfare recipients’ homes unexpectedly and at unusual hours to ensure their behavior merited public aid. After Kern took up Operation Weekend, other counties followed ([4], p. 29), and soon the practice of late-night raids became nearly statewide. Social workers claimed that the purpose of these raids was to ensure compliance with state and federal regulations. Such regulations, however, were simultaneously racialized, gendered, and classed. With each visit, recipients were forced to verify “their Humanities 2017, 6, 14 5 of 12 destitution, and, increasingly, their willingness but inability to work ([6], pp. 12–13)”. Unlike their white counterparts, women of color had long been pressured to work outside the home: only under extreme circumstances could they be exempted. Recipients were also forced to verify their single status. The raids all tended to take the same format: “One [investigator] was at the back door and one was at the front door. The knock came from the front door. You opened it and were supposed to let this party in from the back. They were looking for a man in your house in that time of night ([1], p. 17)!” In fact, social workers would often go to extreme lengths to ensure men were absent from the household. Tillmon explains that they would even “pull things out of the washing machine [19]” to check for men’s clothes. In this way, aid was intended as a placeholder for a male breadwinner. If a woman had both a male partner and a welfare contract, this compromised her legitimacy as a welfare recipient. Operation Weekend and so-called “man-in-the-house rules” reinforced the common political trope of the absent black father—and in the process, they cast single motherhood as deviant.
32. 1963 Welfare Mother's Movement The welfare mothers movement in Los Angeles can be traced to 1963 and the founding of the ANC Mothers Anonymous of Watts. Initially it had little connection with the larger women's movement, and its members did not view themselves as part of that movement. Later, after the formation of the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), and especially after Johnnie Tillmon took the helm of the national organization, this changed. The turning point might well have been the publication of her 1972 Ms Magazine article, "Welfare is a Woman's Issue." By 1979 and the International Women's Conference in Houston, women of color and poor women had become a visible presence in the larger women's movement (which ranged from reformist groups like NOW to radical feminists) and were making their voices heard and their issues public. At the present time, there is only one interview included in the "Welfare Mothers" series: the oral history of Johnnie Tillmon, one of the founders and leaders of the ANC Mothers Anonymous of Watts. Hopefully, an oral history of Ardelphia Hickey, another key person in the ANC mothers group, might be conducted eventually. It should also be noted that Alicia Escalante, the founder of the ELA Welfare Rights group (later named Chicana Welfare Rights Organization) was interviewed for a Ph.D. dissertation at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

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3. 1970 2nd Chicano Moratorium: Protestors in the rain
9. 1970 2nd Chicano Moratorium: Las Adelitas de Aztlán join protest “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.
17. 1990 Justice for Janitors Article: https://www.kcet.org/shows/departures/justice-for-janitors-day-marks-25th-anniversary-in-l-a -A critical chapter in U.S. labor history - On this day, back in 1990, over 400 striking janitors, primarily Central American immigrants, members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 399, demonstrated peacefully in an effort to improve the living standards for their families by unionizing their employer International Service System (ISS), the contractor responsible for servicing most of L.A.'s office buildings at the time. The demonstration followed two weeks of intense organizing efforts by janitors and took place in Century City, a region in west Los Angeles that houses corporate office towers of the wealthiest businesses in the country. At first, the rally appeared to be another event in line with the organizing efforts of the strike, yet, this particular rally propelled the janitors' struggle to the national spotlight when members were confronted and injured by fifty police officers who were equipped with batons. In total, 38 janitors were injured during the incident, and many were arrested during the altercation. The violent images quickly began circulating across media outlets across the country and led to an increased public support for the janitors cause. Rather than back down after the confrontation, janitors remained on the streets and were eventually joined by over 2,500 supporters and prominent leaders, including Jesse Jackson, who publicly decried the meager wages janitors were earning at the time -- some as little at $4.50 per hour. The janitors' dedicated efforts, coupled with the widespread community support and the public outrage over the police brutality, resulted in janitors receiving an increase of wages over $2 per hour, full family health coverage, and the ratification of a union contract with ISS. "Our efforts that day and all of the efforts leading up to that action, represented a fight for dignity and respect," explained Jose Garcia, a janitor who was present at the march on June 15, 1990, and still services the industry today. "On this day we finally had a voice on the job and we were able to show the nation and the world that we were on the side of justice." Garcia further explained that prior to this victory, janitors in Los Angeles did not have any control over working conditions, low wages, and were subjected to numerous abuses by employers. Since then, unionized L.A. janitors earn between $12-$14 per hour, and form part of SEIU-United Service Workers West (USWW).
19. 1989 Maria Elena became elected President of Local 11 In the 1970s and 1980s, the predominantly Spanish-speaking membership of Local 11 fought for fuller participation in their union against a largely Anglo leadership. In 1989, María Elena Durazo became the first Latina to lead a major Los Angeles union. She began reorienting the local towards greater membership participation and a more assertive stance with employers. Since then, Local 11 merged with locals in Santa Monica, Long Beach, and Orange County, and in 2016, with Local 631 in Arizona.
20. 1970 3rd Chicano Moratorium: Group of protestors move down Whittier Blvd. “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.”
22. 1970 3rd Chicano Moratorium: Rosalio Munoz speaks at Laguna Park
24. 1970 Later Chicano Moratoriums: Raul Ruiz and the corpse of Gustav Montag 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.
25. 1960s A group of men reading La Raza newspaper
27. 1966 Breaking Bread Ending his 23-day fast in support of the Union’s strike against grape growers, United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez (R) breaks bread with Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in this 1966 photo. Chavez said that Kennedy legitimized his union’s cause by lending his support. On 19th February, 1968, Cesar Chavez, the trade union leader, began a hunger strike in protest against the violence being used against his members in California. Robert F. Kennedy went to the San Joaquin Valley to give Chavez his support and told waiting reporters: “I am here out of respect for one of the heroic figures of our time – Cesar Chavez. I congratulate all of you who are locked with Cesar in the struggle for justice for the farm worker and in the struggle for justice for Spanish-speaking Americans.” On March 10 Robert F. Kennedy flew to California to help Chavez end a 25-day fast, offered as public penance for the violence that had resulted from his union's strike tactics. Chavez, who had lost 35 pounds in 25 days, was too weak to speak at the Mass of Thanksgiving in his honor. But someone read his speech, which included the following words: "It is how we use our lives that determines what kind of men we are... I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness, is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally
28. 1978 The Bakke Decision In Regents of University of California v. Bakke (1978), the Supreme Court ruled that a university's use of racial "quotas". Bakke decision, formally Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, ruling in which, on June 28, 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court declared affirmative action constitutional but invalidated the use of racial quotas. The medical school at the University of California, Davis, as part of the university’s affirmative action program, had reserved 16 percent of its admission places for minority applicants. Allan Bakke, a white California man who had twice unsuccessfully applied for admission to the medical school, filed suit against the university. Citing evidence that his grades and test scores surpassed those of many minority students who had been accepted for admission, Bakke charged that he had suffered unfair “reverse discrimination” on the basis of race, which he argued was contrary to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court, in a highly fractured ruling (six separate opinions were issued), agreed that the university’s use of strict racial quotas was unconstitutional and ordered that the medical school admit Bakke, but it also contended that race could be used as one criterion in the admissions decisions of institutions of higher education. Although the ruling legalized the use of affirmative action, in subsequent decisions during the next several decades the court limited the scope of such programs, and several U.S. states prohibited affirmative action programs based on race. in its admissions process was unconstitutional, but a school's use of "affirmative action" to accept more minority applicants was constitutional in some circumstances. The case involved the admissions practices of the Medical School of the University of California at Davis. The medical school reserved 16 out of 100 seats in its entering class for minorities, including "Blacks," "Chicanos," "Asians," and "American Indians." The rigid admissions quota was administered by a special school committee. Allan Bakke, a white applicant, was twice denied admission to the medical school even though his MCAT scores, GPA, and benchmark scores were "significantly higher" than those of some minority applicants recently admitted. Bakke sued the University of California in a state court, alleging that the medical school's admission policy violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. The California Supreme Court agreed, finding that the quota system explicitly discriminated against racial groups and holding that "no applicant may be rejected because of his race, in favor of another who is less qualified, as measured by standards applied without regard to race." The medical school, ordered to shut down its quota system, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reviewed the case in 1978.
29. 1970 After Chicano Moratoriums: After moratorium demonstration 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
30. 1960 JFK Campaign in San Jose Sen. John Kennedy gestures as he emphasizes a point during his address to more than 12,000 people in San Jose, California, November 2, 1960. Big signs greeted the Democratic standard bearer. “While Kennedy acknowledged that Mexican-American votes in Texas were critical to his win over Nixon, he largely neglected the promises made to Viva Kennedy campaigners—particularly Mexican Americans—once in the White House. Without the unifying force of the campaign and its celebrity candidate, the alliance of Latinos that Viva Kennedy represented collapsed. Nevertheless, the Kennedy campaign of 1960 established the broad outlines of Latino politics in the years to come. It encouraged leaders in various Latino communities to see the presidential election as the foundation of a nationwide Latino political community, even as it appealed to members of those communities in different ways.”
31. 1968 RFK and Cesar Chavez Ending his 23-day fast in support of the Union’s strike against grape growers, United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez (R) breaks bread with Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in this 1966 photo. Chavez said that Kennedy legitimized his union’s cause by lending his support. On 19th February, 1968, Cesar Chavez, the trade union leader, began a hunger strike in protest against the violence being used against his members in California. Robert F. Kennedy went to the San Joaquin Valley to give Chavez his support and told waiting reporters: “I am here out of respect for one of the heroic figures of our time – Cesar Chavez. I congratulate all of you who are locked with Cesar in the struggle for justice for the farm worker and in the struggle for justice for Spanish-speaking Americans.” On March 10 Robert F. Kennedy flew to California to help Chavez end a 25-day fast, offered as public penance for the violence that had resulted from his union's strike tactics. Chavez, who had lost 35 pounds in 25 days, was too weak to speak at the Mass of Thanksgiving in his honor. But someone read his speech, which included the following words: "It is how we use our lives that determines what kind of men we are... I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness, is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally nonviolent struggle for justice. To be a man is to suffer for others. God help us be men." Note: sources have conflicting start and ending dates of this either 25 or 27 day fast on water only. (UPI Photo/Files)
32. 1969 1st Chicano Moratorium: Outside recruiting center
34. 1971 Student and barrio youth lead protest march in Belvedere Park.
35. 1970 3rd Chicano Moratorium: Consuelo Flores recounts as violence broke out 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.’
36. 1970 3rd Chicano Moratorium: Policeman with shotgun
38. 1970 3rd Chicano Moratorium: Injured policeman dragged out of Laguna Park
39. 1970 3rd Chicano Moratorium: Ruben Salazar 2 “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.
40. 1970 After Chicano Moratoriums: 1971 ASCO Stations of the Cross 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.
41. 1966 March from to Sacramento organized by the National Farmworkers Association (NFWA)
42. 1965 Delano Grape Strike/Boycott is started by Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOL)
43. 1960s Brown Berets members 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.
44. 1960s Brown Beret member Gloria Arellenas and others Undated photo strips show Gloria Arellanes, at left, and at center, with fellow Brown Beret members including, from clockwise: Lorraine Escalante, Hilda Reyes and Arlene Sánchez. (Special Collections & Archives, John F. Kennedy Memorial Library, Cal State LA, Gloria Arellanes Papers) Arrellanes became the minister of Finance & Correspondence after being apoitned by David Sánchez, the group’s founder. She was the only woman on the leadership team.
46. 1970 After Chicano Moratoriums: 1974 ASCO First Supper After a Major Riot 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.
50. Estrada Courts Witnesses to LA History: Estrada Courts Witnesses to Los Angeles History: Estrada Courts came about in 1997 when the Los Angeles Public Housing Authority enlisted SPARC and Professor Baca’s UCLA class for the production of a permanent public art piece for the Estrada Public Housing Project. Estrad Courts, one East Los Angeles’ oldest housing projects, is internationally recognized and respected for its collection of Chicano murals painted in the 1970’s. Students conducted oral history interviews with 25 Estrada Courts families, researched U.S. Public Housing policy and archives, studies of sociological factors affecting the projects including economics, crime, gang warfare, urban planning, demographics and collaborated to define the issues that are represented in the imagery. Photos collected from families’ photo albums were used to depict the complex stories of immigration, teenage pregnancy, poverty, and violence that embody the neighborhood’s collective consciousness. This process resulted in the production of six 8’x 9′ digital murals that were permanently installed within the resident initiated community center by the UCLA students and their community collaborators.
51. 1960 “Democratic Representative Adam Clayton Powell introducing Democratic Party presidential candidate JFK in front of the Hotel Theresa in Harlem during campaign
52. 1960 Kennedy v. Nixon Latin opinion piece
53. 1968: The Young Lord's Organization/Party In 1968, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez established the Young Lords Organization (YLO) at Lincoln Park, one of the most impoverished barrios of Chicago, Illinois. Modeled and inspired after the Black Panther Party (BPP), the YLO emerged from a Puerto Rican street gang to a community-based organization involved in advocating for minority access to healthcare, education, housing, and employment. The YLO was multiethnic and inclusive to African American, Latino/x, women, and LGBTQ membership, self-identified as “revolutionist nationalists” who rallied for Puerto Rico’s independence and power to the people, and adopted a 13 Point Program and Platform—a set of policies, responsibilities, and principles the organization lived by. The YLO expanded to other cities, including New York City, where a group of college students established a YLO chapter and renamed it the Young Lords Party (YLP). After World War II ended, thousands of Puerto Ricans migrated from the island to the U.S. mainland, particularly to New York and Chicago, where they established neighborhoods at Lincoln Park and East Harlem. Within these barrios, Puerto Ricans became vulnerable to discrimination, police brutality, lack of employment and education, and gentrification. Throughout the late 60s and early 70s, the Young Lords of Chicago rebranded from a street gang into a community-based organization. Similar to the BPP, the YLO’s structure of leadership consisted of various ministers who were responsible for specific committees, including education, health, and finance. The YLO of Chicago became more active after James Lamb, an off-duty officer, received no repercussions for killing Manuel Ramos, a YLO member, during a party. Under Jiménez, the YLO formed coalitions with other groups and expanded to New York’s East Harlem, where a group of first generation college students headed an independent chapter. The New York City chapter aroused national headlines during their Garbage Offensive. In retaliation to the city’s poor sanitation services, YLO members led a week-long neighborhood cleanup and burned a garbage pile in the middle of a street intersection, causing the arrival of the police and fire department at the scene. In New York and in Chicago, YLO members led a series of protests and building occupations, held free breakfast programs for children, which helped standardize the current federal children’s nutrition program, established free medical clinics, and created Puerto Rican cultural centers, celebrating the history and heritage of all Puertorriqueño/as. In addition, both chapters published a monthly newspaper to promote community services and events. By the late 1970s, the Young Lords Organization and Party retreated from their activities. In 1995, Cha-Cha Jiménez collaborated with DePaul University’s Center for Latino Research to create the Lincoln Park Project, which archives and documents the legacy of the YLO.
54. 1962 UFW (United Farm Workers) Formed 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.
55. 1962 United Farm Workers For more than a century farmworkers had been denied a decent life in the fields and communities of California’s agricultural valleys. Essential to the state’s biggest industry, but only so long as they remained exploited and submissive farmworkers had tried but failed so many times to organize the giant agribusiness farms that most observers considered it a hopeless task. And yet by the early 1960’s things were beginning to change beneath the surface. Within another fifteen years more than 50,000 farmworkers were protected by union contracts. The Bracero program, an informal arrangement between the United States and Mexican governments, became Public Law 78 in 1951. Started during World War II as a program to provide Mexican agricultural workers to growers, it continued after the war. Public Law 78 stated that no bracero-a temporary worker imported from Mexico-could replace a domestic worker. In reality this provision was rarely enforced. In fact the growers had wanted the Bracero program to continue after the war precisely in order to replace domestic workers. The small but energetic National Farm Labor Union, led by dynamic organizer Ernesto Galarza, found its efforts to create a lasting California farmworkers union in the 1940’s and 50’s stymied again and again by the growers’ manipulation of braceros. Over time, however, farmworkers, led by Cesar Chavez, were able to call upon allies in other unions, in churches and in community groups affiliated with the growing civil rights movement, to put enough pressure on politicians to end the Bracero Program by 1964
56. March 1968 Sal Castro with walkout students at Lincoln High School Image courtesy of LA Times Photographic Archive, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA. Set the Night on Fire: "Castro, a high school teacher long active in liberal and Mexican-American causes, was a key force in organizing student walkouts to protest school conditions in East L.A. The "Blowouts", as they were soon called, were genesis events in the emergence of a new, militant "Chicano" identity.
58. 1968 Brown Berets provide security for Memorial Procession the day after RFK was killed “Gloria Arellanes (left, second row) marches in a Robert Kennedy Requiem Memorial Procession the day after he was killed, from Belvedere Park to East Los Angeles College Stadium for a Catholic Mass. Brown Berets were security. (George Rodriguez)”. “At its peak, the Brown Berets had as many as 55 chapters throughout the country, including the Southwest but also in states such as Kansas and Minnesota. By 1970, however, the founding chapter was tearing at the seams. As the group planned demonstrations against the Vietnam War, female members began to question why they were largely excluded from leadership positions and relegated to behind-the-scenes, menial work.”
61. 2010 Judy Baca, “Seeing Through Others’ Eyes” Each petal represents one of the issues facing society that Robert F. Kennedy deemed most important: Environment, Intolerance, Poverty, Education, Health, and War. We see these things through different eyes; the eyes of a soldier, a woman and her ailing mother, a poverty stricken child. At the center of the blossom sit two enlightened men: Kennedy breaking bread with César Chávez after Chávez’s 26-Day Fast for Life. Juan Romero, the busboy who cradled Kennedy after he was shot, is depicted to the left of Kennedy. While one million people march in the background lead by Dolores Huertas, a legendary figure in the labor movement in this country. She co-founded the United Farmworkers of America, which plays a major role in organizing opposition to proposed immigration reform legislation.
64. 1973 Side with the Farmworker: Boycott Gallo Untitled (Side with the Farmworker), ca. 1973, screenprint on computer tractor paper During the civil rights era, artists often used whatever materials they had at hand to craft public messages about pressing concerns. Here an unidentified artist emblazons a pro-labor message on recycled computer paper, calling for the boycott of Gallo Wines. Activists on college campuses were especially known for using this unconventional paper for their printmaking. The artist depicts a revolting rat, a symbol of nonunion workers who cross the picket line
67. 1968 Wilson High School student protester Peter Rodriguez at LAUSD Board of Education meeting Wilson High School student protester Peter Rodriguez at LAUSD Board of Education meeting. Photo by Los Angeles Public Library. In 1967, Mexican American students throughout the Southwest held a 60% high school dropout rate. If they did graduate, they averaged an 8th-grade reading level. Due to Anglo-centric internal school policies many Chicano students were fielded to vocational training or classes for the mentally disabled. Prejudice from teachers and administrators instigated stereotypes of Mexican Americans that discouraged the students from higher learning. These inequalities in education led to the 1968 East Los Angeles Walkouts, also known as the "Blowouts," which displayed the largest mobilization of Chicano youth leaders in Los Angeles history.
70. 1968 Walkouts at Venice High School
71. 1968 Female student being arrested at Venice High School Walkout LOS ANGELES, CA - MARCH 12: Image originally published on March 13, 1968--Police struggle to arrest a female student at Venice High School during a clash with 1,000 students. She was accused of using obscene and abusive language. Eight people were arrested. March 1, 1968: Over 15,000 Chicanos, students, faculty, and community members, walk out of seven East L.A. high schools. Those schools included: Garfield, Roosevelt, Lincoln, Belmont, Wilson, Venice, and Jefferson High School. Some students from East L.A. junior high schools join the protests, as well
73. 1968 Brown Beret's El Barrio Free Clinic
77. 1969 Portrait of Brown Beret member Hilda Jensen Rodriguez took this portrait of a Chicana demonstrator in the neighborhood of Lincoln Heights in 1969 Hilda’s Jenson’s photos has graced the covers of books, films etc, but often the names of her and her fellow women organizers have often gone unrecognized. In 2003 she wrote to filmmaker Jesús Salvador Treviño who had included her image in his memoir to identify her by name and include her maiden name: Hilda Reyes.
78. 1970 Official Resignation of all women in the Brown Berets LA chapter
83. 1970 Pamphlet for Delano Grape Strike and Boycott
84. 1965 Protesting apart of the Delano Grape strike “The Delano Grape Strike began on September 8, 1965, in protest to substandard wages being paid to predominantly Filipino farm workers of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee. A week later, they were joined by the Mexican-American National Farmworkers Association, led by prominent labor leader Cesar Chavez, his elder brother Richard, and Dolores Huerta. Less than a year later, the two organizations merged to form the United Farm Workers – and more than 2,000 workers had joined the fight. Ultimately, the strike spread across North America and even Western Europe as consumers supported the workers by boycotting non-union grapes”