The Chicano Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and 1970s

Title

The Chicano Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and 1970s

Description

During the 1930s and 1940s the African American and Mexican American Civil Rights Movements had worked closely together on legal strategies. Several decades later the African American Civil Rights Movements fight for equality in the South during the 1950s and 1960s inspired the Chicano Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and 1970s. While The Chicano Civil Rights Movement worked on many societal injustices, it focused on key issues of land ownership, rural and urban workers' rights, artistic expression, and educational and political equality. The Chicano Movement sought to combat institutional racism, promote cultural autonomy, and work to guarantee equal labor and political rights. This movement would spark a national conversation about the political and social autonomy of Mexican American/Latino groups everywhere in the United States.

The term Hispanic was popularized in the 1970s as a bureaucratic convenience to categorize all Spanish-speaking people in the United States. This term ignores the fact that there are many different cultural groups within the “Hispanic” label, each with their own history and experiences. Though the impact of the Chicano Movement was felt across the country, each region could have a different focus because of historical and cultural variations. In the Southwest, particularly in Texas, New Mexico and Colorado, the majority of Spanish-speaking communities identified with a Spanish colonial past, rather than a Mexican immigrant history.

California, even with its origins as a Spanish and Mexican territory, was relatively isolated from the center of Mexican culture and government due to its geographically inaccessible deserts and mountains. During the California Gold Rush, the small population of Spanish New World colonists and their descendants were overwhelmed by immigrants from every nation, along with the Americans who soon dominated the state’s power structure and economy. It was not until after the Mexican Revolution, World War II’s Bracero Program, and the post-War period that California saw large numbers of newly documented and undocumented immigrants residing in the state.

As a result, the Chicano Movement in California, established by the children and grandchildren of these pre-1960s Mexican immigrants, forged a new identity and increased their political influence by the use of the new, more confrontational tactics of the 1960s and 1970s. In the Santa Clara Valley, the original group of Spanish-speaking settlers has been continually renewed and enlarged over the last 150 years by immigrants from Mexico and Latin America and migrants from throughout the Southwest. The largest group of Spanish-speaking immigrants has historically come from Mexico.

Additional Online Information

Midcentury Migrations - FoundSF

How the Chicano Movement Championed Mexican-American Identity and Fought for Change | HISTORY

“Mexican Immigrants in the San Francisco Bay Area: A Summary of Current Knowledge, 1982”

From Servants To Engineers: Mexican Immigration And Labor Markets In The San Francisco Bay Area

Background on the Chicano Movement | Facing History & Ourselves

Making History: The Chicano Movement

El Movimiento: The Chicano Movement and Hispanic Identity in the United States – Pieces of History

The Chicano Rights Movement | Season 2018 | Episode 1 | PBS

The Chicano Movement: A Short Overview · South Texas Stories · Bell Library Exhibits

Chicano Oral History Project

WOMEN IN THE CHICANO MOVEMENT: Grassroots Activism in San José

Chicano Movements: A Geographic History

Identifier

B4SV Exhibit Topic Six: Slide 003