The Chicano Moratorium, formally known as the National Chicano Moratorium Committee Against The Vietnam War, was a movement of Chicanoanti-war activists that built a broad-based coalition of Mexican-American groups to organize opposition to the Vietnam War. Led by activists from local colleges and members of the Brown Berets, a group with roots in the high school student movement that staged walkouts in 1968, the coalition peaked with an August 29, 1970 march in East Los Angeles that drew 30,000 demonstrators.[1][2] The march was described by scholar Lorena Oropeza as "one of the largest assemblages of Mexican Americans ever."[3] It was the largest anti-war action taken by any single ethnic group in the USA. It was second in size only to the massive U.S. immigration reform protests of 2006.
The event was reportedly watched by the Los Angeles FBI office, who later "refused to release the entire contents" of their documentation and activity.[4] The Chicano Moratorium march in East L.A. was organized by Chicano activists Ramsés Noriega and Rosalio Muñoz.[5] Muñoz was the leader of the Chicano Moratorium Committee until November 1970, when he was ousted by Eustacio (Frank) Martinez, a police informer and agent provocateur for the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Enforcement Division (ATF) of the U.S. Treasury Department, who committed illegal acts to allow the police to raid the headquarters of the committee and make arrests.[6] Muñoz had returned as co-chair of the Moratorium in February 1971.[7]
Background
The Chicano Moratorium was a movement of Chicano activists that organized anti-Vietnam War demonstrations and activities in Mexican American communities throughout the Southwest and elsewhere from November 1969 through August 1971. There was a common anti-war sentiment growing among the Mexican American community that was made evident by a multitude of demonstrators chanting, "Our struggle is not in Vietnam but in the movement for social justice at home," which was a key slogan of the movement. It was coordinated by the National Chicano Moratorium Committee (NCMC) and led largely by activists from the Chicano student movement (UMAS) with David Sanchez and the Brown Beret organization.[8]
Draft resistance was a prevalent form of protest for Chicano anti-war activists, as it was for many youth at the time. Rosalio Muñoz, Ernesto Vigil, and Salomon Baldengro were some of the notable Chicanos who actively refused induction for the draft.“ For refusing to cooperate they faced a felony charge that could incur a minimum of five years prison time, $10,000, or both.[9]
In a statement written by Rosalio Munoz called CHALE CON EL DRAFT he brings an awareness to Anti-war sentiments during his draft induction ceremony by stating, "Today, the sixteenth of September, the day of independence for all Mexican peoples, I declare my independence of the Selective Service System. I accuse the government of the United States of America of genocide against the Mexican people. Specifically, I accuse the draft, the entire social, political, and economical system of the United States of America, of Creating a funnel which shoots Mexican youth into Viet Nam to be killed and to kill innocent men, women, and children. . . and of drafting their laws so that many more Chicanos are sent to Vietnam, in proportion to the total population, then they send off their own white youth..."[10]
Corky Gonzales wrote in an address, "My feelings and emotions are aroused by the complete disregard of our present society for the rights, dignity and lives of not only people of other nations but of our own unfortunate young men who die for an abstract cause in a war that cannot be honestly justified by any of our present leaders".[11]
The Berets were opposed to the war because many Chicanos were being killed and wounded in disproportionate numbers in comparison to the population at an estimated rate of double the American population. War casualties with distinctive Spanish names were recorded at 19% compared with the 11.8% Spanish surname population of Southwestern America in 1960.[12] Many young Chicanos felt they had become trapped in the draft system because they could only escape the draft if they were enrolled in school. Unfortunately, Chicano students had high dropout rates and very few made it to college, rendering them ideal for the draft. The Vietnam War also diverted Federal funds away from social programs that aided poverty stricken barrios in the US.[13] In several visits to colleges in Claremont, CA, Rosalío Muñoz discovered that Draft Boards allegedly attempted to discourage Chicano students from attending college by falsely telling them that student deferments were not available.[14] During this time, many Chicano families opposed the war because they felt it fragmented their families.[15]
Mexican-American Marines in Vietnam, ca. 1970-1972 23.3% of all Southwestern Marine Corps casualties had distinctive Spanish surnames
The committee organized its first demonstration on December 20, 1969, in East Los Angeles, with over 1,000 participants. The groups won the early support of the Denver-based Crusade for Justice, led by Rodolfo Gonzales, also known as Corky Gonzales. A conference of anti-war and anti-draft Chicano and Latino activists from communities in the Southwest and the city of Chicago was held at the Crusade headquarters in early December 1969. They began developing plans for nationwide mobilizations to be presented to a national Chicano Youth Liberation Conference planned for late March 1970. On February 28, 1970, a second Chicano Moratorium demonstration was held again in East Los Angeles, with more than 3,000 demonstrators from throughout California participating, despite a driving rain. Las Adelitas de Aztlán, led by Gloria Arellanes, marched in the February march, which NCMC organizer Rosalío Muñoz sees as the first time a Chicana organization participated in its own right in a Chicano demonstration.[16][17] A Chicano program on the local public television station produced a documentary of that march, used nationally by the committee to popularize its efforts.[18] At the March Chicano Youth Conference, held in Denver, Rosalío Muñoz, the co-chair for the Los Angeles Chicano Moratorium, moved to hold a National Chicano Moratorium against the war on August 29, 1970. Local moratoriums were planned for cities throughout the Southwest and beyond, to build up for the national event on August 29.[19]
More than 20 local protests were held in cities such as Houston, Albuquerque, Chicago, Denver, Fresno, San Francisco, San Diego, Oakland, Oxnard, San Fernando, San Pedro Coachella Valley, and Douglas, Arizona. Most had 1,000 or more participants.
March in Los Angeles
The NCMC's largest march took place on August 29, 1970, at Laguna Park (now Ruben F. Salazar Park).[19][2] Between 20,000 and 30,000 participants,[20] drawn from around the nation, marched down Whittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles.[21] The rally was broken up by local police, who said that they had gotten reports that a nearby liquor store was being robbed. They chased the "suspects" into the park, and declared the gathering of thousands to be an illegal assembly.[22]
Aerial view of the August riots
Monitors and activists resisted the attack, but eventually people were herded back to the march route of Whittier Boulevard. As protest organizer Rosalinda Montez Palacios recounts,
"I was sitting on the lawn directly in front of the stage resting after a long and peaceful march when out of nowhere appeared a helicopter overhead and started dropping canisters of tear gas on the marchers as we were enjoying the program. We began to run for safety and as we breathed in the teargas, were blinded by it. Some of us made it to nearby homes where people started flushing their faces with water from garden hoses. Our eyes were burning and tearing and we choked as we tried to breath[sic?]. The peaceful marchers could not believe what was happening and once we controlled the burning from our eyes, many decided to fight back."
Noriega, however, never saw helicopters on August 29 event, and he says none dropped tear gas. Nor do other reliable accounts mention helicopters. Noriega thinks there might be confusion with other demonstrations, at which helicopters were used.[2]
The LA protests also featured around one hundred members and affiliates from Denver, Colorado who wanted to take part in a larger protest. Though the bus was stopped by San Bernardino police, the group dodged further confrontation and continued to the protest by telling them they were headed to the beach. Many of their delegation were subject to police violence during the protest and the number of arrests made this protest the largest LAPD group arrest during a riot. In addition, this was cited as the "largest urban uprising in California by people of color since the Watts uprising of 1965".[23]
Stores went up in smoke, scores were injured, and more than 150 were arrested. Three people were killed: Lyn Ward (a Brown Beret medic), Angel Gilberto Díaz (a Brown Beret from Pico Rivera Ca.), and Rubén Salazar, an award-winning journalist, news director of the local Spanish-language television station, and columnist for the Los Angeles Times.[2] As the Chicano poet Alurista put it: "The police called it a people's riot; the people called it a police riot."[24]
Accounts of the deaths differ. According to police, Díaz ran a barricade in his car, which caused police to shoot him, and he subsequently crashed into a telephone pole. Journalist and professor Raúl Ruiz says Díaz was sitting in the passenger seat when he was shot in the back of the head.[2]
Police attribute Ward's death to a bomb planted by protesters. Witnesses thought it was caused by an exploding gas canister. Noting the multiple contusions on Ward's head, Ruiz suspects a police beating as the cause of death.[2]
The Moratorium became notable for the death of Ruben Salazar, a prominent investigative reporter known for his writings on civil rights and police brutality. Deputy Thomas Wilson of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department fired a tear gas canister into the Silver Dollar Café at the conclusion of the August 29 rally, killing Salazar. Wilson was never punished for his actions. Many regarded the killing of Salazar as an assassination, since Salazar was the most prominent Chicano voice. Moreover, he was actively investigating police malfeasance and he very actively called for police accountability.[2] Salazar also told close confidants prior to his death that he had a suspicion of being followed by the police.[2][25] The Sheriff's Department files claim Wilson's action was accidental, and this conclusion was reaffirmed by authorities.[26] But many questions remain about his actions that caused the death of Salazar.[2]
Gustav Montag Jr., a 24-year-old native of Sternowitz, Austria, is sometimes listed as a fatality on August 29, one who allegedly died fighting police.[27] But he was killed at the final moratorium demonstration, when nineteen others were wounded. Montag, according to his sister-in-law, went to the January 31 demonstration hoping to witness a riot, where a ricocheted buckshot pellet fired by police stuck him in the heart and killed him.[2]
The continuous clashes with the police made mass mobilizations problematic, but the commitment to social change lasted. Many community leaders, politicians, clergy, businessmen, judges, teachers, and trade unionists participated in the many Chicano Moratoria.
There is evidence that the National Chicano Moratorium Committee was infiltrated by an agent from The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), which led to the ousting of leader Rosalio Muñoz. Eustancio Martinez revealed in a Los Angeles Press Club press release that he had worked as a police informer among Chicano activists for two years. Martinez told the press that he had been an informer and agent provocateur for the ATF under instructions from his supervisors so they would be able to make arrests and raid NCMC headquarters.[28]
La Marcha de la Reconquista
In 1971, the Moratorium Committee underwent a shift in their organizational focus from protesting the Vietnam War and police brutality against Chicanos to building support for La Raza Unida Party. This shift in support of RUP came after then California Governor Reagan's "right-wing attacks on minorities and working people".[29] The Moratorium Committee, along with activist groups from the Coachella and Imperial Valleys as well as members from the East L.A. Brown Berets, began organizing a march that would span over 800 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border to Sacramento. The march primarily focused on gathering support from rural communities which had a high population of Mexican farmworkers. Not only would this march serve as a protest against Reagan and his discriminatory views against Chicanos, but also to garner support for La Raza Unida Party to be on the ballot. The five main issues the march would address were: the Raza Unida Party on the ballot, welfare, education, police, and the war.[29]
La Marcha de la Reconquista officially began on May 5, 1971, Cinco de Mayo, on the U.S.-Mexico border and was set to go until August of that same year. The march attracted various activist groups from around California including "Coachella-Indio area activists, MEChA students, members from La Raza Unida."[29] Rallies were held in areas with larger populations, with the first big rally taking place in Coachella where about 1,000 people attended. Student activist, María Elena Gaitán, was a featured speaker at this rally and throughout the march, rousing audiences with impassioned speeches in English and Spanish.[30] Due to police tensions with the LAPD and the history of police brutality at rallies held by the Chicano Moratorium, the march organizers decided to skip a rally in L.A. and instead hold one in San Gabriel.
Tensions arose between the Chicano Moratorium and members of the East L.A. Brown Berets. As Rosalio Muñoz (Founder of the National Chicano Moratorium Committee) recalls, "there were constant fights along the way, even before we got to Oxnard. Rivalries with gangs along the way or fights over girls or drugs only added to the tension."[31] Despite these bumps on the way, the rally concluded in August 1971 at the state capitol with the biggest rally of the march. The end of the three-month Marcha de la Reconquista also marked the end of The National Chicano Moratorium Committee. Muñoz reflects back on the history of the committee as "being shaky but in one form or another it had survived. La Marcha represented a last effort to resuscitate the coalition."[32]
Legacy
Celebratory events commemorating the initial Moratoriums started in 1986 and have been transpiring every year since beginning with the Chicano Moratorium Barrio Unity Conference in San Diego. Every year, the original events have been commemorated and emulated by the National Chicano Moratorium Committee (NCMC). The Committee addressed the American war in Afghanistan. The theme of the 2013 NCMC commemoration was "Education for Liberation, Not Assimilation". Along with this theme NCMC commemorated the life of Sal Castro who died earlier that year after his distinguished career in education, most notably supporting the East Los Angeles high school walkouts. An October 11, 1968 Los Angeles Freep article was headlined "Education, Not Eradication", began "Sal Castro won his teaching job back at Lincoln High School because the new militant Mexican American movement here demanded it and fought for it….”[33]
Chicano or Chicana is an ethnic identity for Mexican Americans that emerged from the Chicano Movement. Chicano was originally a classist and racist slur used toward low-income Mexicans that was reclaimed in the 1940s among youth who belonged to the Pachuco and Pachuca subculture.
M.E.Ch.A. is a US-based organization that seeks to promote Chicano unity and empowerment through political action.
"Strange Rumblings in Aztlan" is an article published in Rolling Stone #81, dated April 29, 1971, and written by Hunter S. Thompson. It was included in the first volume of Thompson's Gonzo Papers, The Great Shark Hunt, published in 1979.
The Brown Berets is a pro-Chicano paramilitary organization that emerged during the Chicano Movement in the late 1960s. David Sanchez and Carlos Montes co-founded the group modeled after the Black Panther Party. The Brown Berets was part of the Third World Liberation Front. It worked for educational reform, farmworkers' rights, and against police brutality and the Vietnam War. It also sought to separate the American Southwest from the control of the United States government.
Ruben Salazar was a civil rights activist and a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He was the first Mexican journalist from mainstream media to cover the Chicano community.
Ricardo Cruz, aka Richard V. (Vincent) Cruz, was a Los Angeles, California attorney who fought for many Chicano Movement causes. He was an early organizer of La Raza Law Students and the short-lived but highly effective Catolicos Por La Raza in the 1960s and 1970s.
Católicos por La Raza was a political association organized by Ricardo Cruz in the later 1960s in Los Angeles, California. Formed in the fall of 1969, Católicos por La Raza was made up of Chicano Catholic student activists who were engaged with both "their Catholic and Chicano heritage," enabling them to name and fight against racism in the Catholic Church and its effects on the community. The CPLR was concerned with the discrimination and hypocrisy of the church's institutional power and wealth, arguing that such should be "brought to bear in solving the current Chicano urban and rural crisis". CPLR sought to transform the Church into an institution for social change, creating projects focused on housing development, education, and small business development; believing that the Catholic Church in Los Angeles should use its power and wealth to address the economic and social needs of Mexican Americans.
The Chicano Movement, also referred to as El Movimiento, was a social and political movement in the United States that worked to embrace a Chicano/a identity and worldview that combated structural racism, encouraged cultural revitalization, and achieved community empowerment by rejecting assimilation. Chicanos also expressed solidarity and defined their culture through the development of Chicano art during El Movimiento, and stood firm in preserving their religion.
The East Los Angeles Walkouts or Chicano Blowouts were a series of 1968 protests by Chicano students against unequal conditions in Los Angeles Unified School District high schools. The first walkout occurred on March 5, 1968. The students who organized and carried out the protests were primarily concerned with the quality of their education. This movement, which involved thousands of students in the Los Angeles area, was identified as "the first major mass protest against racism undertaken by Mexican-Americans in the history of the United States".
The Spanish expression la Raza has historically been used to refer to the mixed-race populations, considered as an ethnic or racial unit historically deriving from the Spanish Empire, and the process of racial intermixing during the Spanish colonization of the Americas with the Indigenous populations of the Americas.
Carlos Montes is a nationally respected leader in the Chicano, immigrant rights, and anti-war movements. He was a co-founder of the Brown Berets, a Chicano working class youth organization in the United States in the late 1960s and 1970s. The Brown Berets were inspired by and often compared to the Black Panther Party. Montes was one of the leaders of the Chicano Blowouts, a series of walkouts of East Los Angeles high schools to protest against racism and inequality in Los Angeles-area high schools. He is portrayed by Fidel Gomez in the 2006 HBO movie Walkout.
Las Adelitas de Aztlán was a short-lived Mexican American female civil rights organization that was created by Gloria Arellanes and Gracie and Hilda Reyes in 1970. Gloria Arellanes and Gracie and Hilda Reyes were all former members of the Brown Berets, another Mexican American Civil rights organization that had operated concurrently during the 1960s and 1970s in the California area. The founders left the Brown Berets due to enlarging gender discrepancies and disagreements that caused much alienation amongst their female members. The Las Adelitas De Aztlan advocated for Mexican-American Civil rights, better conditions for workers, protested police brutality and advocated for women's rights for the Latino community. The name of the organization was a tribute to Mexican female soldiers or soldaderas that fought during the Mexican Revolution of the early twentieth century.
Gloria Arellanes was a political activist known for her involvement with the Brown Berets during the Chicano Movement and has been influential in the development of Chicana feminism. As the first female Prime Minister of the Brown Berets, Arellanes worked to include the Chicana perspective in fighting for Mexican rights in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s. Conflicts of covert "macho attitude" within the delegation of labor in the Brown Berets led Gloria Arellanes along with other female Brown Berets to leave the organization and create Las Adelitas de Aztlán. Similar to the Brown Berets, Las Adelitas de Aztlán strived to assist its community members in creating awareness for better bilingual education in Los Angeles as well as protesting against the Vietnam War. Arellanes was also a prominent figure in the National Chicano Moratorium Committee, leading Las Adelitas de Aztlán to participate in marches against the violence of the Vietnam War.
La Raza was a bilingual newspaper and magazine published by Chicano activists in East Los Angeles from 1967 to 1977. The paper played a seminal role in the Chicano Movement, providing activists a platform to document the abuses and inequalities faced by Mexican-Americans in Southern California. Taking a photojournalistic approach, the editors and contributors at La Raza were able to capture images of police brutality, segregation, and protests that rallied support to the Chicano cause.
Raul Ruíz was an American journalist, professor, and political activist for Chicano civil rights during the Chicano movement and for the Peace movement of the 1960s and '70s.
Rosalio Muñoz is a Chicano activist who is most recognized for his anti-war and anti-police brutality organizing with the Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War. On August 29, 1970, Muñoz and fellow Chicano activist Ramses Noriega organized a peaceful march in East Los Angeles, California in which over 30,000 Mexican Americans were in attendance to protest the war in Vietnam. The event became a site of police brutality after sheriffs attacked and tear gassed the crowd, leading to the deaths of three people, including Muñoz's friend and Chicano journalist Ruben Salazar.
David Sanchez is an American civil rights activist, and founding member of the Brown Berets. In the 1960s and 70s he was heavily involved in the Chicano civil rights and political movements.
Las Madres de la Casa Verde were a group of Chicana women in Pueblo, Colorado that formed to support the Chicano community in the lower eastside. They worked closely with other activist groups such as La Raza Unida and the Brown Berets.
Martín Porferio "Marty" Serna was an early organizer of the Chicano Movement, who was one of the founders of the Brown Berets in Pueblo, Colorado. He was part of the La Raza Unida political party, and developed several community organizations in Pueblo including the Black/Brown Berets, United Farmworkers Organization, Escuela Huitzhualopán, Southern Colorado Chicano Planning Council, and El Partido de la Raza Unida.
↑ Oropeza, Lorena (2005). Raza Si, Guerra No: Chicano Protest and Patriotism During the Viet Nam War Era. University of California Press. pp.145–160. ISBN9780520937994.
↑ Vigil, Ernesto B. (1999). The Crusade for Justice: Chicano Militancy and the Government's War on Dissent. University of Wisconsin Press. p.143. ISBN9780299162245.
↑ Oropeza, Lorena (2005). Raza Si, Guerra No: Chicano Protest and Patriotism During the Viet Nam War Era. University of California Press. p.155. ISBN9780520937994.
↑ Kunkin, Art (1972). "Chicano Leader Tells of Starting Violence to Justify Arrests". The Chicano Movement: A Historical Exploration of Literature. Los Angeles Free Press. pp.108–110. ISBN9781610697088.
↑ Chávez, Ernesto, 1962- (2002). "Mi raza primero!" (My people first!): nationalism, identity, and insurgency in the Chicano movement in Los Angeles, 1966-1978. University of California Press. ISBN0-520-23017-5. OCLC48966684.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Chávez, Ernesto (2002). Mi raza primero!: nationalism, identity, and insurgency in the Chicano movement in Los Angeles, 1966-1978. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN9780520230187.
George Mariscal, Aztlán and Viet Nam: Chicano and Chicana Experiences of the War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
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