The Latino Presence Grows

Spanish-speaking Americans, or Latinos, have always been a large and diverse group. The country's Latino population includes people from several different areas: Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, other Caribbean islands, Central America, and South America. Because these groups all trace their roots back to Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America, people often group them together. However, each Latino group has its own history, its own pattern of settlement in the United States, and its own set of economic, social, cultural, and political concerns . During the 1960s, the Latino population in the United States grew from 3 million to more than 9 million.

During this time, the number of Mexicans settling in the United States rose. Mexican Americans, who have always made up the largest Latino group in the United States, once lived mostly in the Southwest and California. Some were the descendants of the nearly 100,000 Mexicans who had lived in territories ceded by Mexico to the United States after the war with Mexico in 1848. Others were the children and grandchildren of the million or so Mexicans who settled in the United States in the decade following Mexico's 1910 revolution. Still others came as braceros, or temporary laborers, during the 1940s and 1950s. And, of course, the largest number have recently come to the United States to escape poverty and economic repression in Mexico. Since the 1960s millions have come to the United States, some legal and some illegal, but they have all come to find a better way of life.

One of the great success stories is the way that Mexican Americans have come to this country with very little resources and managed to find their way into the American middle class. Within a generation many now own their own businesses and contribute greatly to our culture and economy. In the United States they have found successes that would have been impossible in their native Mexico.

The Latino population in the United States

The biggest migration of Latino’s has come to the United States since the

Why do most Latino’s come to the United States?

Which statement is true?

THE FARM WORKER MOVEMENT

Thousands of Mexican Americans working on California's fruit and vegetable farms found themselves subjected to long hours of backbreaking work for little pay and few benefits . Cesar Chavez believed that the only way to improve conditions for farm workers was to unionize them, so that they could bargain as a group for improved conditions and better treatment. In 1962, Chavez and Dolores Huerta established the National Farm Workers Association.

Four years later, Chavez merged this group with a Filipino agricultural union to form the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC). Chavez and his fellow organizers insisted that California's large fruit and vegetable companies accept their union as the bargaining agent for the farm workers. In 1965, when California's grape growers refused to recognize the union, Chavez launched a nationwide boycott of the companies' grapes . Chavez, like Martin Luther King, Jr., believed in nonviolence to achieve his goals. His strategy was to win, through peaceful means, American public support for La Causa, or the cause of social and economic justice for farm workers.

The union sent farm workers across North America to convince supermarkets and shoppers not to buy California grapes. To call further attention to the workers' plight, Chavez, in 1968, went on a three week fast in which he lost 35 pounds. He ended his fast by taking communion with Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

The efforts of the farm workers eventually paid off. In 1970, the grape growers finally signed contracts with the UFWOC. The new contracts guaranteed union workers higher wages and other benefits long denied them. "The boycott of grapes was the most near-perfect of nonviolent struggles," said Chavez afterward .

Who started the National Farm Workers Association?

Which group joined with the United Farm Workers Association to form the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC)

In the 1960s which growers did Cesar Chavez target for a boycott to build the union?

The boycott that Chavez led was

Which promenent American politician gave his support to Cesar Chavez and the farm workers movement?

CULTURAL PRIDE

The activities of the California farm workers helped to inspire other Latino "brown power" movements across the country. In New York, Puerto Ricans began to demand that schools offer Spanish-speaking children classes taught in their own language as well as programs on their culture . In 1968, Congress enacted the Bilingual Education Act, which provided funds for schools to develop bilingual and cultural heritage programs for non-English-speaking children

Young Mexican Americans started to call themselves Chicanos or Chicanos-a shortening of "Mexicanos" that expressed pride in their ethnic heritage . A Chicano community action group called the Brown Berets formed under the leadership of David Sanchez. In 1968, the Brown Berets organized school walkouts in East Los Angeles high schools . About 15,000 Chicano students walked out of class demanding smaller classes, more Chicano teachers and administrators, and programs designed to reduce the high Latino dropout rate. Militant Mexican-American students also won the establishment of Chicano studies programs at colleges and universities

Which statement is true

In 1968 the Chicano drop-out rate in LA city schools was

Who started the Brown berets

Most of the demands of Latinos centered around

POLITICAL POWER

Latinos also began organizing politically during the 1960s . Some worked within the two-party system to win support for Latino issues and candidates. For example, the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), which sponsored candidates, registered and educated voters and lobbied for legislation that benefited the Latino community. In 1962, MAPA helped elect Los Angeles politician Edward Roybal to the House of Representatives. Roybal was the second Mexican American to serve in Congress . Henry Gonzalez, elected to the House of Representatives from Texas in 1961, was the first.

Others sought to create an independent Latino political movement. That was the dream of Texan Jose Angel Gutierrez, who established La Raza Unida (the United People Party) in 1970. In the 1970s, La Raza Unida ran Latino candidates in five states and won positions on school boards and city councils, as well as several races for mayor. Still other Latinos took on a more confrontational tone. Reies Tijerina, a one-time evangelical preacher, argued that the United States had stolen some of the Latinos' land. In 1963, Tijerina founded the Alianza Federal de Mercedes (Federal Alliance of Land Grants) to help reclaim U.S. land taken from Mexican landholders in the 19th century.

What did the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA) do?,

MAPA was a

Use all of the readings above to answer these questions