The Community Service Organization (founded 1947) was an important California Latino civil rights organization, most famous for training Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. It was founded in 1947 by Fred Ross, Antonio Rios and Edward Roybal [1] [2] and was a source of political support for Roybal during his long political career. Ross had been hired by Saul Alinsky and was employed by his Industrial Areas Foundation. [3]
Community Service Organization, now Centro CSO remains active. The group based in Boyle Heights is protesting police killings of Chicanos and privatization of education, and promoting the environmental cleanup of Exide and legalization of the undocumented.
The archives of the Community Service Organization are held at Stanford University [4] as well as at California State University, Northridge in the Library's Special Collections and Archives. [5]
Stanford University is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford, the eighth governor of and then-incumbent senator from California, and his wife, Jane, in memory of their only child, Leland Jr.
The United Farm Workers of America, or more commonly just United Farm Workers (UFW), is a labor union for farmworkers in the United States. It originated from the merger of two workers' rights organizations, the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) led by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta and the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) led by organizer Larry Itliong. They allied and transformed from workers' rights organizations into a union as a result of a series of strikes in 1965, when the Filipino American and Mexican American farmworkers of the AWOC in Delano, California, initiated a grape strike, and the NFWA went on strike in support. As a result of the commonality in goals and methods, the NFWA and the AWOC formed the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee on August 22, 1966. This organization was accepted into the AFL–CIO in 1972 and changed its name to the United Farm Workers Union.
Boyle Heights is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, located east of the Los Angeles River. It is one of the city's most notable and historic Chicano/Mexican American communities, and is home to cultural landmarks like Mariachi Plaza and events like the annual Día de los Muertos celebrations.
Lucille Elsa Roybal-Allard is an American politician who served as a U.S. representative from California from 1993 to 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, she first entered Congress in 1993. Her district, numbered as the 33rd until 2003, the 34th from 2003 to 2013, and the 40th from 2013 to 2023, included much of southern Los Angeles, as well as several eastern suburbs, such as Downey, Bell and Bell Gardens. On December 20, 2021, Roybal-Allard announced her retirement at the end of the 117th Congress.
Edward Ross Roybal was a Mexican-American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first Latino American to be elected to the Los Angeles City Council, serving from 1949 to 1962. He later served 15 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1963 to 1993, representing portions of Downtown and East Los Angeles.
Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta is an American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with Cesar Chavez, is a co-founder of the United Farmworkers Association, which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to become the United Farm Workers (UFW). Huerta helped organize the Delano grape strike in 1965 in California and was the lead negotiator in the workers' contract that was created after the strike.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) is an organization of 38 Democratic members of the United States Congress of Hispanic and Latino descent. The Caucus focuses on issues affecting Hispanics and Latinos in the United States. The CHC was founded in December 1976 as a legislative service organization of the United States House of Representatives. The CHC is organized as a Congressional Member organization, governed under the Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives.
The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) is the 501(c)(4) nonpartisan leadership organization of the nation's more than 6,700 Latino elected and appointed Latino public officials in the United States. NALEO Educational Fund, founded in 1981, is the 501(c)(3) arm of the organization, with a mission of facilitating full Latino participation in the American political process, from citizenship to public service.
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 California Digital Library (CDL) was founded by the University of California in 1997. Under the leadership of then UC President Richard C. Atkinson, the CDL's original mission was to forge a better system for scholarly information management and improved support for teaching and research. In collaboration with the ten University of California Libraries and other partners, CDL assembled one of the world's largest digital research libraries. CDL facilitates the licensing of online materials and develops shared services used throughout the UC system. Building on the foundations of the Melvyl Catalog, CDL has developed one of the largest online library catalogs in the country and works in partnership with the UC campuses to bring the treasures of California's libraries, museums, and cultural heritage organizations to the world. CDL continues to explore how services such as digital curation, scholarly publishing, archiving and preservation support research throughout the information lifecycle.
REFORMA: The National Association to Promote Library & Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking, more commonly known as REFORMA, is an affiliate of the American Library Association formed in 1971 to promote library services to Latinos and the Spanish-speaking. It is registered in Washington, D.C. as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Latin American studies (LAS) is an academic and research field associated with the study of Latin America. The interdisciplinary study is a subfield of area studies, and can be composed of numerous disciplines such as economics, sociology, history, international relations, political science, geography, cultural studies, gender studies, and literature.
Fred Ross was an American community organizer. He founded the Community Service Organization (CSO) in 1948, which, with the support of the Industrial Areas Foundation, organized Mexican Americans in California. The CSO in San Jose, CA gave a young Cesar Chavez his first training in organizing, which he would later use in founding the United Farm Workers. Ross also trained the young Dolores Huerta in community organizing.
Marshall Ganz is the Rita E. Hauser Senior Lecturer in Leadership, Organizing, and Civil Society at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Introduced to organizing in the American civil rights movement, he worked on the staff of the United Farm Workers for sixteen years, became trainer and organizer for political campaigns, unions and nonprofit groups, and returned to Harvard where he earned his PhD in Sociology (2000). He is credited with devising the successful grassroots organizing model and training for Barack Obama's winning 2008 presidential campaign.
The Hoover Institution Library and Archives is a research center and archival repository located at Stanford University, near Palo Alto, California in the United States. Built around a collection amassed by Stanford graduate Herbert Hoover prior to his becoming President of the United States, the Hoover Library and Archives is largely dedicated to the world history of the 20th and 21st centuries. It includes one of the largest collections of political posters in the world.
Carmen Pola is a long-time Puerto Rican politician and community activist in Boston, Massachusetts. She was the first Latina to run for statewide office and the first Director of the Office of Constituent Services, a citywide office formed under Mayor Raymond Flynn.
Ralph C. Guzmán served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State of Latin America in the Carter Administration and was one of the nation's leading Latino educators. He co-founded the Oakes College at the University of California at Santa Cruz and later was appointed Provost at UCSC's Merrill College. Guzmán played an influential role in the early years of the Chicano Movement, and was a key figure in the Mexican-American community nationwide. During his time in the State Department, he was responsible for formulating and implementing much of the nation's policy in Central and South America.
Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (MCCLA) is an arts nonprofit that was founded in 1977, and is located at 2868 Mission Street in the Mission District in San Francisco, California. They provide art studio space, art classes, an art gallery, and a theater. Their graphics department is called Mission Grafica, and features at studio for printmaking and is known for the hand printed posters. It was formerly named, Centro Cultural de La Mission.
Antonio Orendain was a Mexican immigrant to the United States where he worked as an agricultural worker and Union activist. He is known for his work as a part of the Community Service Organization (CSO) from 1953 to 1962, as well as his work alongside Cesar Chavez as a part of the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA). Orendain later went on to found the Texas Farm Workers Union (TFWU) to specifically organize agricultural workers in Texas.