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A History of MexicAns in tHe United stAtes

Second edition

Manuel G. GonzalesM

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INDIANA University Press Bloomington & Indianapolis

www.iupress.indiana.edu1-800-842-6796

Praise for the first edition:

“The best short introduction yet to the history of Mexicans

in the U.S. could not have come at a better time.” —ArkAnsAs DemocrAtic-GAzette

“A must-read book for anyone interested in Southwest

history.” —Albuquerque JournAl

“Gratifyingly well written and illustrated, and featuring an

extensive index and bibliogra-phy, Mexicanos is highly

recommended for general readers, historians, and pro-fessors of Chicano studies.”

—RichaRd delgado, cAliforniA History

“It is a page-turner that reads more like a novel than a his-

tory book. . . . The book pro-vides insight into a people

non-Mexicanos should see, not as interlopers, but as the latest wave in a centuries-old migration of people and cul-ture, and a movement that is parallel to the great western

expansion from the east.” —contrA costA times

Newly revised and updated, Mexi-canos tells the rich and vibrant story of Mexicans in the United

states. emerging from the ruins of Aztec civilization and from centuries of spanish contact with indigenous people, Mexican culture followed the spanish colonial frontier northward and put its distinctive mark on what became the southwestern United states. shaped by their indian and spanish ancestors, deeply influenced by catholicism, and tempered by an often difficult existence, Mexicans continue to play an important role in U.s. society, even as the dominant Anglo culture strives to assimilate them. thorough and balanced, Mexicanos makes a valuable contribu-tion to the understanding of the Mexican population of the United states—a growing minority who are a vital presence in twenty-first-century America.

MAnUel G. GonzAles is Professor of History at diablo Valley college. His books include Andrea Costa and the Rise of Social-ism in the Romagna and The Hispanic Elite of the Southwest. He is editor (with cynthia Gonzales) of En Aquel Entonces (indiana University Press, 2000).

cover illustration: young cotton picker in the san Joaquin Valley in 1936. Photograph by dorothea lange. library of congress, lc-Usf34–9950-c.

U.S. History

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Acknowledgments · ix

introduction · 1

1 spaniards and native Americans, Prehistory–1521 · 8

2 the spanish frontier, 1521–1821 · 28

3 the Mexican far north, 1821–1848 · 58

4 the American southwest, 1848–1900 · 83

5 the Great Migration, 1900–1930 · 113

6 the depression, 1930–1940 · 139

7 the second World War and its Aftermath, 1940–1965 · 163

8 the chicano Movement, 1965–1975 · 194

9 Goodbye to Aztlán, 1975–1994 · 226

10 the Hispanic challenge, 1994–Present · 265

Appendix A. national Association for chicana and

chicano studies scholars of the year · 305

Appendix B. Hispanic American Medal of Honor recipients · 307

Appendix c. Mexican American Historical novels · 309

notes · 313

select Bibliography of Works since 1985 · 343

index · 381

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oriGins of tHe cHicAno MoVeMent

still, the socioeconomic condition of the Mexicano community was not no-tably worse in the early sixties than it had been in the past. indeed, demographers indicate that steady progress had been made in this regard. furthermore, despite widespread hostility, overt forms of racism were fading. discrimination was less blatant than before, thanks in part to the efforts of the Mexican American Genera-tion, as well as the waning of the cold War and the demand for conformity that it fostered. even Mexicano participation in Vietnam, with its swelling disaffection, is insufficient to explain the rise of chicanismo; Mexicanos had fought and died in other U.s. wars without turning to militant anti-establishment activity. it was the changing intellectual climate in America, especially the rise of the black civil rights movement, that made the difference.

Brown v. the Board of Education encouraged a new assertiveness by blacks, whose civil rights movement began in 1955, when rosa Parks, a black woman, refused to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama. this campaign launched the career of dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968), a young Baptist minister, arguably the most powerful voice for racial justice in the annals of American his-tory. swayed by Mohandas Gandhi and Henry thoreau, dr. King preached the philosophy of militant nonviolence, which had a profound and lasting impact on his contemporaries. dr. King and the southern christian Leadership conference (scLc) spearheaded the drive for desegregation and together with the national Association for the Advancement of colored People (nAAcP) dominated the swell-ing movement during its first years.

By 1966, however, dissatisfied with the seemingly glacial pace of reform, more militant leaders emerged from the African American community, particularly in northern urban ghettos, where dr. King was less dominant. they included stokely carmichael, head of the student nonviolent coordinating committee (sncc); Bobby seale, Huey P. newton, and eldridge cleaver of the Black Panthers; and the most charismatic of the new leaders, Malcolm x (1925–1965), who became the chief spokesman for the Black Muslims. Labeling their movement “Black Power,” they called for permanent racial separation and the use of violence.

Both moderate and radical wings of the black civil rights movement, and the riots that broke out in African American ghettos across the country in 1964–1967, had a monumental impact on American society. one of the most immediate re-sponses was the War on Poverty, which was launched by President Lyndon B. Johnson in a quixotic attempt to create the Great society. A myriad of federally funded programs—Job corps, Volunteers in service to America (VistA), neighbor-hood youth corps, Head start, and Upward Bound, among them—were set up to

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affect the change. While not completely successful, LBJ’s domestic programs did ameliorate the plight of many poor people in the country, and they also took the wind out of the sails of black militancy, which had faded by the seventies.

the black civil rights crusade, though, left a powerful legacy. Almost every aspect of American life was impacted, in one way or another. one of the most mean-ingful consequences of this second reconstruction was the stimulus it provided for other people of color to stand up for their rights. these included Mexicanos, who now initiated their own movement of self-awareness.

cHÁVeZ, HUertA, And tHe United fArM WorKers

the chicano movement consisted of hundreds of organizations focusing on a variety of issues. Broadly speaking, these groups were found in barrios, schools, and prisons. in terms of their approaches, they could be divided into those asso-ciations that sought to work through the system and those that called for a major restructuring of the system, the moderate and radical wings of the movement, respectively. As the chicano crusade began, in the midsixties, the moderates pre-dominated. the key organization representing their perspective was undoubtedly the United farm Workers (UfW).

the history of labor organizing among field workers goes back to the early part of the twentieth century, as we have seen. Both the industrial Workers of the World, before and during the Great War, and the American communist Party, in the thirties, made abortive attempts to improve the lives of farmworkers in the agricultural valleys of the West. Before the rise of the UfW, the last serious initia-tive in the fields was taken by the national farm Labor Union (nfLU), formed in 1945 and led in california by ernesto Galarza. in the late forties, the nfLU launched a series of strikes in the Golden state, where it centered its activities. these initiatives failed not only because of the many difficulties inherent in organizing workers in the fields but also because the Bracero Program made it impossible to win concessions from growers, the owners of factory farms. the termination of the bracero agreement in 1964, however, set the stage for the most ambitious unioniza-tion attempt to date—the UfW strike that would be launched in california’s san Joaquin Valley during the following year. it was led by two extraordinary people: césar chávez and dolores Huerta.

despite his rejection of the term Chicano, césar chávez (1927–1993) re-mains the single most important representative of the movimiento; indeed, he is the preeminent figure in the history of Mexican Americans.6 A legend in his own lifetime, it is difficult to separate fact from fiction in relating the outlines of his long and productive career. césar estrada chávez was born on 31 March 1927, on a small family farm near yuma, Arizona. during the depression, his grandfather

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lost the property, and the chávez family, forced to move, was reduced to working as migratory farm laborers. for the next few years, they traveled up and down the agricultural valleys of california eking out a living. education for the chávez children was sporadic, given their nomadic existence, and young césar was forced to abandon his studies altogether after the eighth grade. during World War ii, the teenager, short on career options, enlisted in the navy and served in the Pacific. Upon his release in 1946, armed with greater self-confidence, the young veteran returned to the fields, joining the ill-fated nfLU.

eventually, chávez settled down with his wife, Helen, and their growing family in san Jose, california, where he continued to do farm work. it was here in the Bay Area that he met and was influenced by fred ross, who recruited him into the community service organization in 1952. Hardworking and dedicated, chávez made his way up the organizational ladder very swiftly, becoming cso regional director in 1958. in this capacity, he tried to steer the association toward advocacy of the rights of farmworkers. He met fierce resistance among members who preferred to focus attention on urban and middle-class concerns. exasperated, chávez quit the cso in 1961 and took his family to delano, his wife’s hometown. Using his life savings, he initiated a new union, the farm Workers Association—known later as the national farm Workers Association and, later still, the United farm Workers—which was founded in fresno on 30 september 1962.

Because the UfW always focused on the family unit, women came to play prominent roles in union activities. Among them, Helen chávez and Jessie López de la cruz stand out. from the very outset, though, césar chávez’s most trusted lieutenant, often considered cofounder of the union, was dolores Huerta. Although eclipsed by chávez throughout most of her life, Huerta remains in many ways, as her biographer richard A. García has argued, a better symbol of chicanismo than her friend and mentor.7

dolores fernández Huerta was born in dawson, new Mexico, in 1930. Her parents divorced when she was five; and her mother, the seminal force in her life, took the family to the West coast. Unlike chávez, dolores emerged from a middle-class background. Her mother, who started off as a waitress and cannery worker, eventually came to own a hotel in stockton, california, where dolores was raised in an integrated neighborhood, received her early education, and met her first husband, an Anglo. After her marriage, she earned a provisional teaching credential by attending community college and taking night classes at college of the Pacific, becoming a grammar school teacher.

in the midfifties, however, she decided to change her life dramatically. Aban-doning her middle-class aspirations, she became convinced that personal happi-ness could be achieved only by helping the underprivileged. toward that end, she joined the cso, where she received her initial training as a community organizer

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under fred ross, who taught her the mobilization techniques associated with saul Alinsky. “the emphasis of Alinsky’s message,” writes richard García, “coincided with hers—a pragmatic non-ideological approach to life and change.”8

it was in the cso in 1955 that Huerta met chávez, initiating a lifelong though sometimes turbulent association. A devout catholic, somewhat puritanical in his value system, chávez would always have trouble accepting her two divorces and the apparent neglect of her children. these personal difficulties, however, rarely impeded effective collaboration by two individuals equally dedicated to the cause of ameliorating the lives of the downtrodden. When chávez bolted the cso in 1961, dolores Huerta followed. together, they forged the new union. she was in delano when the strike began. during the next few years, it would completely consume her life.

tHe deLAno striKe

the strike against local grape growers in the Kern county city of delano, just north of Bakersfield, was initiated by the Agricultural Workers organizing committee (AWoc), a filipino union affiliated with the AfL-cio, on 8 september 1965. Led by Larry itliong (1913–1977), filipinos struck to gain higher pay and recognition as a union, a right given to industrial workers by the national Labor relations Act of 1935 but denied to agricultural laborers. since most of the field hands in the area were Mexicanos—by the sixties, they constituted at least two-thirds of the agricultural work force in the state—chávez was asked to join and help conduct the strike. fearing that his own fledgling union was unprepared, he agreed with some reluctance. However, given his union’s superior numbers and his characteristic determination, chávez soon became the acknowledged leader of the entire operation.

UfW tactics and strategy at delano mirrored chávez’s personal philosophy. Profoundly impacted by both Gandhi and dr. King, he had come to embrace the philosophy of militant nonviolence. Like his two renowned mentors, chávez was against violence on principle; but he also realized, as they did, that violence was self-defeating when directed at a power with a monopoly on armed force. on the other hand, the idea of turning the other cheek, while praiseworthy as a christian ideal, was calculated to preserve the status quo. it was essential, he felt, that the oppressed unite and assert themselves, using a variety of nonviolent strategies to gain their ends. in the case of farmworkers, those objectives were better working conditions, including higher wages, and recognition of their union. Unlike many other militants of the time, chávez believed that the American middle class was basically responsive to the needs of poor people and would support them if given the opportunity.

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during the long struggle, chávez recruited help from various disparate sources. these included the trade union movement, especially the AfL-cio, with which he affiliated in 1966; christian organizations, both Protestant and catholic; radical student associations, including the students for a democratic society (sds); and other civil rights groups. Aside from alliances, he relied, too, on demonstra-tions, prayer sessions, marches, and fasts. His basic tactic was the strike, the huelga, the time-honored weapon of organized labor. eventually, though, he discovered that a work stoppage had limited potential in small agricultural towns like delano, where powerful growers could generally count on the support of the local citizenry, including the Mexicano petite bourgeoisie, and even many of the farmworkers themselves. Beginning in 1968, chávez came to rely on the boycott, a consumer strike, which meant that his success would depend to a large extent on winning support in urban areas throughout the country. His boycott of nonunion grapes in 1968–1975, the first nationwide boycott of any kind, was highly successful. some 12 percent of the adult American population (17 million people) honored the appeal, effectively wiping out grower profits. still, the strike was long and hard. it finally ended in 1970, when growers reluctantly agreed to recognize the union and sign contracts with it.

flushed with victory, the UfW had visions of organizing farmworkers throughout the country. inspired by chávez’s example, a campesino strike had already occurred in the cantaloupe fields of starr county in texas in 1966, the beginning of chicano militancy in that state. chávez immediately dispatched An-tonio orendain, an able lieutenant, to mobilize the farmworkers of south texas. similar developments would soon take place in Arizona, colorado, Washington, and other states. even the Midwest felt repercussions. in 1967, the toledo-based farm Labor organizing committee (fLoc) was founded by Baldemar Velásquez, a native of Pharr, texas, to fight for the rights of migrant workers.9 concentrating its efforts on ohio and Michigan, the fLoc achieved its most notable victory in 1986, after an eight-year strike and boycott of the campbell soup company. in neighboring indiana, the farm Labor Aid committee (fLAc) was established by a small coterie of activists, including Gilbert cárdenas, later an eminent chicano scholar. chávez, however, knew that california was the key, and he next tackled the lettuce growers of the salinas Valley, where labor conditions were as abominable as they had been in the Great central Valley. relying on the same tactics as before, the union achieved moderate success.

the UfW was suddenly forced to return to delano in 1973. Upon the ex-piration of the old contracts, growers, ignoring chávez, chose instead to sign new agreements with the teamsters Union. the international Brotherhood of teamsters had been expelled by the AfL-cio in 1957. A maverick union, under the leadership of Jimmy Hoffa, it would be the only major working-class organization to support the republican Party in the post–World War ii period. Moreover, it was the only

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labor union to embrace the Bracero Program. efforts to organize field hands were blatantly cynical since the teamsters had little interest in these workers themselves; their overriding concern was the welfare of the truckers, who would be out of work without fruits and vegetables to transport. the teamsters were intent on mobilizing campesinos to keep them from striking. since their interests coincided with those of growers, the latter were anxious to end their association with the UfW and sign sweetheart contracts with the Hoffa union.

during the next few years, an acrimonious jurisdictional dispute erupted throughout the agricultural valleys of the West between the two competing unions. it was not resolved until california Governor Jerry Brown, whose sympathies lay with chávez, entered the fray and forced a compromise: the teamsters would have jurisdiction over cannery and packing shed workers, the UfW would have free rein over field workers. surprisingly, the truce held. the 1975 Agricultural Labor relations Act (ALrA), which Governor Brown guided through the state legislature, helped the UfW initially—it won almost half the 406 elections decided in the first few months—but republican administrations in california, particularly under Governor deukmejian, subsequently undermined its effectiveness, causing chávez to regret his initial support of the legislation.

Unfortunately, successes were few and far between for chávez during the next few years, as the public mood grew increasingly conservative, boding ill for both trade union and civil rights movements. the upsurge of undocumented workers brought unwelcome competition for agricultural jobs. internal dissen-sion compounded union problems. When chávez died in 1993, the union was moribund, having lost 80 percent of its members during the previous decade. the UfW rebounded under his son-in-law, Arturo rodríguez, but by 1995, when there were an estimated 1.6 million farmworkers in the country, membership was only 26,000, a stark contrast to the 70,000 members during the union’s peak years in the mid-1970s. the obstacles to organizing farm labor had proved insurmountable. Moreover, the rapid development of mechanization—machines harvested fewer than 2 percent of california’s tomatoes in 1963, but five years later they harvested 95 percent—created another formidable obstacle. An integral part of corporate America, growers were as strong as workers were weak; it truly was a david and Goliath battle.

still, the failure to unionize farm labor should be seen in a wider perspective. chávez brought about much-needed reforms in the fields, including medical, pen-sion, and unemployment benefits. the determined UfW leader served as a crucial catalyst in this regard. He was also responsible for focusing national attention on the abuses of agribusiness interests, particularly monopolistic tendencies vis-à-vis land and water.

Moreover, it is a mistake to see and measure chávez solely in terms of union activity. His movement was much more than an attempt to organize farmworkers;

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it was a vital component of the civil rights movement, which partly accounts for the enthusiastic support he found among most churches. chávez was concerned about the plight of Mexicanos generally, not just those among them who happened to be campesinos. He succeeded in politicizing a large part of the ethnic community, his paramount contribution to the chicano movement. indeed, he even found this expanded focus to be too constricting. Like Gandhi and dr. King, he eventually came to espouse the entire gamut of human rights, irrespective of race, perhaps his most enduring legacy.

in recent years, it has become fashionable to focus on chávez’s shortcom-ings as both man and leader. even sympathetic observers have pointed out that he sometimes made poor decisions and fostered authoritarian tendencies within the union. Alienated by these actions, many UfW stalwarts had eventually quit the organization in disgust, including Gilbert Padilla, who had served, together with dolores Huerta, as its first vice president and had done yeoman duty during its formative years.

Among his own people, chávez has been criticized from both ends of the political spectrum. Most Mexicanos who have disliked him allege that his movement is un-American. often products of the cold War era and middle class in background, these conservative critics are embarrassed by his emphasis on Mexican ethnicity, use of the tactics of confrontation, and alliances with radical groups. even some farmworkers, usually with economic ties to agribusiness, have withheld their sup-port. though less evident, there is some criticism of chávez from the other end of the political spectrum, chicanos who assail him for his conservatism. these have generally been student radicals, often schooled in Marxist ideas, who felt that his nonviolent approach was misguided, who objected to his emphasis on catholic symbols, or who were embittered by his rejection of La Raza—”the race,” a self-referent used by chicano cultural nationalists—that chávez saw as a new form of racism.10 notwithstanding these criticisms from both political extremes, the union leader has been and remains the most respected Mexican American among his own people, three-quarters of whom, at a minimum, see him as a hero. not surprisingly, at his death, his name was bestowed upon a variety of streets, schools, parks, and community centers, often in the face of outraged Anglo opposition. the most pub-licized instance occurred in 1993, when chicano students at UcLA, after a lengthy hunger strike, succeeded in getting university officials to set up a césar chávez center for interdisciplinary study and chicano and chicana studies. seven years later, california passed legislation making his birthday an official state holiday.

otHer eArLy cHicAno LeAders

during the sixties, another extraordinary individual emerged from the ranks of the Mexicano community who received national attention and, for a short while