Marc Simon Rodriguez - Rethinking the Chicano Movement

First published 2015
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

And by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2015 Taylor & Francis

The right of Marc Simon Rodriguez to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rodriguez, Marc S., 1968
Rethinking the Chicano movement / Marc Simon Rodriguez.

pages cm.(American social and political movements of the

twentieth century)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Chicano movementHistory. 2. Mexican AmericansPolitics and

government. 3. Mexican AmericansSocial conditions. I. Title.
E184.M5R5875 2014
973.046872dc232014022362

ISBN: 978-0-415-87741-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-87742-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-08172-3 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Welcome to the American Social and Political Movements of the 20th Century series at Routledge. This collection of works by top historians from around the nation and world introduces students to the myriad movements that came together in the United States during the 20 th century to expand democracy, to reshape the political economy, and to increase social justice.

Each book in this series explores a particular movements origins, its central goals, its leading as well as grassroots figures, its actions as well as ideas, and its most important accomplishments as well as serious missteps.

With this series of concise yet synthetic overviews and reassessments, students not only will gain a richer understanding of the many human rights and civil liberties that they take for granted today, but they will also newly appreciate how recent, how deeply contested, and thus how inherently fragile, are these same elements of American citizenship.

Heather Ann Thompson
Temple University

From the dusty border towns of Texas to the busy streets of Chicago and Los Angeles, the impact of the Chicano Movement is still felt in the daily lives of all Americans. The Mexican American civil rights movement, which flourished in the 1960s and 1970s, pushed the boundaries of US citizenship, provided the impetus for modern bilingual education, and continues to expand the historical understanding of what it means to be a long-standing racial minority in the United States. This social movement, with aims comparable to those of the African American civil rights movement, sought to end generations of formal and informal discrimination against Americans of Mexican ancestry and to remedy past discrimination by creating support for educational, social, and employment opportunities for Mexican Americans. Comprised of many regionally based movements, the Chicano Movement had several important loci of activism, rather than a central leadership. In some ways parallel to the Black Power Movement, it built upon an established tradition of Mexican American civil rights activism, even as it saw itself as a radical and youth-driven movement dedicated to the creation and celebration of a distinctly Chicano culture and politics.

The Mexican American, or Chicano, community has not always been generally recognized as a historically significant presence in the United States, and the Chicano civil rights movement, in particular, is comparatively little known. Informed people are aware that Mexican Americans (or Spanish Americans or Latins) have populated the US Southwest as a distinct regional minority group for generations, and some would also locate Chicanos alongside Native Americans and Asian Americans as one of the smaller minority groups with a long history in the United States. However, these lesser minority groups often remain outside the US historical imaginary. The typical worldview among both everyday people and scholars has created a black/white binary of understanding when it comes to race and history in the United States. For example, most Americans have heard of the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, but how many know about Hernandez v. Texas decided that same year? The Chicano Movement altered common understandings of the history of racial and ethnic discrimination and introduced language rights into the national civil rights debate.

The American Social and Political Movements of the Twentieth Century series is itself an effort to expand common understandings of the variety of twentieth-century social movements; in this spirit, the current book is an effort to rethink the Chicano Movement and place it alongside the important social movements of the era.