During the civil rights movement, African Americans fought for equality. In the 20th century African Americans were segregated and had less rights. Similarly, Latinos fought for change due to wanting better working conditions and opportunities. Both Latinos and African Americans had concerns with economic and social issues. However, during the 20th century, the Latinos goals were different from the African Americans civil rights movement. But, the methods were similar by using leadership and legal challenges in order for economic and social change. In the 1960s, the Latino population lived mostly in the Southwest and California. They lived in barrios which were Hispanic neighborhoods. Similarly, thousands of workers became employed in the …show more content…
She decided to create the Community Service Organizations that helped end segregation and discrimination for farmers and Latinos. However, using no violence helped her earn freedom for Latinos. For example, in her Proclamation at the International Boycott Day, she said, “we mean to have our peace and to win it without violence for it is violence we would overcome the subtle spiritual and mental violence of oppression, the violence subhuman toil does to the body.” Huerta decided to use this method for better pay and benefits for the farmers. As shown in the Boycott Lettuce and Grapes photographs, farmers were having a peaceful protest. They believed that using Huertas strategy would give them recognition and respect. Eventually, this method helped create higher wages and better benefits. Similar to Huerta, Martin Luther King, Jr believed in peaceful protests in order to show that they’re tired for fighting for freedom. King came from a middle class background who was educated and religious. After Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat for a white man, King led the Montgomery Improvement Association. …show more content…
For example, Mexican Americans started to call themselves Chicanos that gave them hope for their heritage. However, in 1967, the Mexican community began to have the highest high school dropout rate. There were many reasons why this happened. For example, students were prohibited from speaking Spanish and administrators suggested unskilled labor rather than college. Students at East Los Angeles noticed the academic prejudice and wanted change. In March 1968, students organized a walk-out. Five high school classes in L.A., and fifteen other schools, helped support the boycott. The article, East L.A. Student Walkout, said, “blow outs were stages by Chicano students in the East Los Angeles High Schools protesting the lack of action on the part of the LA School Board.” In the picture, many students were protesting peacefully. However, police injured several students with the use of riot gear. After several days of the walk-out, more Hispanic teachers were hired and educational inequality got more attention. Similar to the L.A. walk-out, African Americans had a social issue as well. For example, the United States spent more money on white students education rather than an African American student. After this incident, Thurgood Marshall became involved. He was a lawyer who was not accepted into the University of Maryland Law School because of his race. Marshall became involved with the education system. For example, the
In the mid-1960s thousands of Chicanos, people of Mexican descent, walked off the California grape fields in which they worked in protest of exploitation and poor working conditions. They wanted fair wages, better working conditions, and education for their children. They wanted all the opportunities that were extended to other Americans. Among the disgruntled employees was the soft-spoken César Chávez, who believed that his people’s plight could be resolved through the mechanism of non-violent protests. Chief among these mechanisms were his firm belief in fasting and non-violent strikes. These beliefs were the combined result of his childhood experiences, significant
The 1968 Chicano Blowouts set forth to make public, the concerns of the students and their parents, of the quality of their education. They had goals for bilingual and bicultural educations, more Latino teachers and administrators hired into the school systems, smaller class sizes, better facilities, and a revision of the textbooks to include the history of Mexican Americans. This began with the outrage towards Mexican Americans having the greatest number of high school dropout rates, and lowest number of college attendance out of all the ethnic groups. The poor facilities and constant undermining of the Mexican American students in the classroom environments by teachers, created an atmosphere that was hostile to learning. These oppressive conditions, along with the inability to create changes to better the students' conditions, compelled students, activists and teachers to collaborate in an effort to attain an equal footing in the world of education. Utilizing examples from the African American Civil Rights Movement, such as boycotts and walkouts, these people decided the fastest method to making better conditions was to first make the dilemma public in order to pressure the school board into complying with their terms for educational reform. When their needs were not met, the students took part in walkouts which were referred to as "Blowouts."
One of the many similarities about the Mexican American Civil Rights movements and the Chicano Movement in the 60s- 70s is that they fought for what they believed they had a right to have. Many in the 1940’s and in the 1960’s stepped up to show their loyalty to the United States by joining the military and sadly manly lost their lives during World War II and the Vietnam War. They were many Mexican Americans who were stationed in infantry and many dangerous areas during the war. They all fought with courage and fought with heart to accomplish the same goal each soldier had. Even though both the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement and the Chicano Movement seemed to have many similarities, they had many differences. I argue that The Chicano Movement and The Civil Rights Movement are different in many ways because they fought for different motives and wanted a better life for themselves as Mexican Americans in America. They of course had many similarities but took different extremes.
The article called, “Walkout: The True Story of the Hispanic 1968 Chicano Student Walkout in East L.A.” by the independent Global News, was an interview for Moctesuma Esparza an award winning film producer and community activist, he is the producer of “Walkout”, a true story in the 1968 in Los Angeles in which he had the privilege to help organize during that time as one of the students, and later on found his passion as a reporter in his successful career. As a consequence of organizing the act of walkouts, he with another 12 other people were under arrested and incarcelated for disturbing the peace. Esparza was an active person in the social civil rights movement of Chicanos by making this movie; he feels blessed to rebirth this social movement
The reason why there were so many Mexican was because after the Mexican-American War, when the United States (US) took two-thirds of Mexican land, part of this land became California. Many Mexicans who lived in that land were still allowed to stay, but they were stripped of their property.3 Thus, most Mexican Americans became poor. One of the few jobs that would allow Mexicans to work in were in cannery farms. These jobs, however, did not pay enough for the Mexicans to afford their living expenses.4 Many Mexican families needed to live with other families in small houses to keep up with the rent.5 Since these Mexican families were living in such poor conditions, they felt they needed to negotiate with the companies and get better wages. There is also the possibility that the effects of American culture on Mexican women swayed them to unionize. Women were becoming more independent, and teenage girls, including Mexicans, wanted to be able to go on dates without chaperones. These teenagers needed to argue with their parents or get around them to succeed in doing this.6 It is possible that these rebellious attitudes toward their parents would create that mindset needed to “rebel” against companies by forming
African American worked together during this boycott by walking miles to work or other destinations, this lasted a year. It ended when a lawsuit was filed against bus segregation, and federal district court declared segregated seating on buses to be unconstitutional. Another action that was taken by an individual to help overcome segregation was the Brown v. Board of Education/Little Rock Nine. Little Rock Nine was a group of African American high schoolers who challenged Jim Crow/ segregation in the public schools. To fight against segregation in education, a lawsuit called Brown v. Board of Education was brought to the Supreme Court.
During the 1970’s, Mexican Americans were involved in a large social movement called the "Chicano movement." Corresponding with the great development of the black civil rights movement, Mexican Americans began to take part in a series of different social protests in which they demanded equal rights for themselves. Composed mainly of Mexican American students and youth, these activists focused on maintaining a pride for their culture as well as their ethnicity to fuel their political campaign. Left out of this campaign initially though were Mexican immigrants.
However, tensions arose in many different schools, including Little Rock’s Central High School. In 1957, “nine black students” (Source 8) were enrolled into Central High School. Previously an all-white school, the blacks faced persecution from whites and the police. After six more years of continuous revolts, and gaining support from millions more, the Civil Rights Movement had its climax, the March on Washington on August 28, 1963 (Source 9). With a crowd of over 200,000 people, many speakers, including Martin Luther King Jr. (Source 10) called an end to racism via speeches and posters.
For decades, immigrants have surrounded the United States with culture and diversity. In these states filled with Latinos, we see a lot of rich culture with food, music, fashion, and achievements. Latinos have a huge impact on movements and policies that happened in the United States for years. Starting with marches, protests, walkouts, laws, and policies. The most salient factor for migrant empowerment and migrant rights is the advancement of the policies and movements that the United States unlatched.
Hispanics have been immigrating to America since the beginning of the Spanish Colonial era. Up until the 1920’s Mexican Americans have boomed in rural places in america. The 1920’s was meeting the beginning of a renaissance, a better promised life for both native americans as well as immigrants. Businesses were booming, wages were higher, and the industry was creating a bright future for America. However, Mexican Americans continued to face hardships as well as few successes leading up to the 1920’s. Whether these were Native born Americans with a Hispanic background or newly immigrated Mexicans, Mexican Americans faced the hardship of poverty, discrimination, segregation, and struggles during the 1920’s.
Since I began participating in History Day, I have wanted to reasearch Mexican-American history. Therefore, when I began searching for topics, the most obvious choice for “Conflict and Compromise” seemed to be Caesar Chavez and labor equality. However, I found myself discontent with researching such a well-known topic. I continued my research by looking into conflicts in L.A.. That is how I discovered the 1968 Student Walkouts, which were compatible with the theme.
Members of such groups had walkouts from schools in Denver and Los Angeles in 1968 to protest Eurocentric curriculums, high dropout rates among Chicano students, a ban on speaking Spanish and related issues.
The African American Civil Rights Movement was intened by many of its leaders to include all Americans of color struggling for equality, regardless of their origins. In response to the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King, among others, Hispanic Americans of various backgrounds began organizing their own struggle for civil equality and fairness. In Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York, Puerto Ricans held marches to protest unequal treatment. Among Mexican Americans in the Southwest, this struggle came to be known as the Chicano Civil Rights Movement. While each of these groups had similar goals, some of the particular issues they faced were different. Puerto Ricans could only be regarded as Americans, at least officially, while Mexican Americans faced suspicion that they were not, regardless how many generations of their families had lived in the United States. Many Puerto Ricans had moved to the cities, and faced problems of urban slums, while this was true for only part of the Mexican American population, many of whom were rural farmers and migrant workers. Many of the issues of Hispanic American rights are as familiar to us today as they were in the
Mexican Americans also shared problems of poverty and discrimination with African Americans. According to Healy, Mexican Americans, like African Americans, have been viewed as cheap, unskilled agricultural labor that has been methodically excluded from mainstream America. Unlike most immigrants from Europe, who lived in urban areas, Mexican Americans and African Americans were prone to live and work in rural parts of the United States. Because both groups lived in less urban areas they had limited resources for education, skill development and economic opportunities. At the same time, however, Mexican Americans
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Believed in achieving equality through peaceful demonstrations: “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred” (King, pg.3 ¶.1). He felt that equality had to be gained through honorable, civil ways otherwise those fighting for equality were no better than the slave owners. We can see this best when he says, “We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protests to degenerate into physical violence” (King, pg.3 ¶.2). MLK felt that it was in the best interests of all parties for black to integrate into society. A couple of his quotes that show this best are, “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood” (King, pg.4 ¶.6). and “I have a dream that one day in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers” (King, pg.5 ¶.2).