Soc. Ch. 15

the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

proposed formally in 1991 The Bush administration pressured Congress to put the negotiations for free trade with Mexico on the "fast track"—implying that congressional debate and criticism of the treaty would be minimal. Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari hailed the treaty as the key to Mexico's future. Advocates for NAFTA dismissed questions about its effects on the environment, human rights, political reform, Mexican workers, and the indigenous populations - The most controversial provision was a change in Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution, the basis for the nation's ejidos (communal lands): NAFTA made it possible for ejido members to sell or mortgage their land—thus burying the outcome of the Mexican Revolution. As one Mexican scholar put it, "the death of the Mexican Revolution at least deserved a formal farewell." The debate over NAFTA split the Latino community into ideological camps. Union activists, environmentalists, and human rights groups campaigned against NAFTA. They argued that NAFTA would take U.S. jobs away, threaten environmental laws, and hurt Mexican farmers and workers by privatizing the Mexican economy. Their campaigns, for the most part, were ineffective and often bordered on racism. U.S. labor in general was mainly concerned about job loss and depressed wages. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton became president and brought the hedging Latino organizations into line through aggressive use of patronage. On November 18, 1993, the U.S. House passed NAFTA by 234-200 votes, 16 more than the needed 218 On January 1, 1994, the day the NAFTA went into effect, the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN; Zapatista National Liberation Army) rebelled in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, citing the passage of NAFTA and the changes in Article 27 of the Constitution. Their rebellion was logical since NAFTA would encourage the influx of cheap corn into Mexico, underselling the small farmer. The indigenous peoples argued that the privatization of land would lead to the death of their culture. In 1989, Ruiz García founded the Fray Bartolomé Human Rights Center, which investigates human rights cases and conflicts over land and religion. He saw the NAFTA agreement as the final straw in the systematic destruction of indigenous communities. For his work, Ruiz was labeled a subversive. He became the target of assassination attempts, and his sister also was attacked and wounded. December 22, 1997, witnessed an event that horrified the world—the Acteal massacre—enacted with the concurrence of government officials. Masked gunmen from a paramilitary group murdered 45 unarmed Tzotzil Indians seeking refuge in a camp on the road to the village of Acteal, some 20 miles north of San Cristobal. Children, women, and old people were massacred while praying and fasting for peace in the chapel of Acteal. The Mexican government charged that the murdered villagers belonged to the Abejas, many of whom were sympathetic to the Zapatistas. [the Zapatista identity was based on the preservation of their communal culture; being an agrarian grass roots peasant movement, they believed that the neo-liberal policies of the Mexican govt. would destroy their way of life - hence they engaged in low intensity warfare to protect it - they took inspiration in their name from Emiliano Zapata - "It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!"] Meanwhile, a demoralization and skepticism spread among Mexicans. They realized that contemporary Mexico was in the hands of extremely wealthy narco-traffickers, or drug lords. Social scientist James Cockcroft likened "the 'narcotics rush' of the late twentieth century . . . [to the] gold rush of the sixteenth century in Mexico." Shortly before President Carlos Salinas de Gortari left office, drug scandals broke out involving his family and his brother Raul was implicated. It was uncovered that Raul Salinas had placed more than $120 million in foreign banks.71 However, just as NAFTA is in the hands of Euro-American capitalists, which most people in Mexico are aware of, so is control of the drug trade, which depends on a U.S. market and U.S. bankers to launder the money.

the political refugees from Central America

successive presidential administrations and Congress gave ultraright refugees prefer- ential treatment in immigrating to the United States. Congress passed the 1997 Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA) to protect Nicaraguans and Cubans from deportation if they could prove they had fled communism. By contrast, U.S. government policy excluded thousands of Salva- dorans and Guatemalans entering the United States without documents. These refugees routinely applied for political asylum and were just as routinely denied. Eventually, Salvadorans and Guatemalans, through Temporary Protected Status (TPS), won the right to go before an immigration judge to prove, on a case- by-case basis, that returning to their countries would cause them to suffer "extreme hardship." Under new rules, the U.S. government presumed that returning refugees to their countries of origin would in itself pose an extreme hardship for them. An Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) official would hear the cases rather than a judge.

the national scene: census 2000

the 2000 census comprised 58.5% Mexicans - the next largest group was "All other Hispanic or Latino" While the Puerto Ricans continued to have a presence, for large numbers of peoples other than Mexican and Puerto Rican, the question of identity was much more complex. Taken as a whole, the U.S. Latino population in 2000 was approaching that of Spain, 39.9 million, and would surpass it by 2008. The Mexican American population alone qualified as one of the largest in the United States. This was a far cry from 1970 Census. According to the 2000 Census, about three out of four U.S. Latinos lived in California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Arizona, or New Jersey. Half of the nation's Latinos lived in California or Texas, whose populations were heavily Mexican in origin. Although the largest Mexican populations lived in Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, San Antonio, and Phoenix, countless Mexicans and Latinos were living in small hamlets throughout the Southwest, Midwest, and Northwest. Latinos' voting strength was growing, although at a snail's pace compared to their dramatic jump in numbers. Youth and citizenship remained obstacles, though the Latino population grew everywhere from Oregon to the rural South, which by 2000 was 12 percent Mexican. Nationally, the U.S. Mexican population grew by 53 percent, with registered Latino voters increasing from 5.5 million in 1994 to 8 million in 2000. Hence, the potential for an increased influence of Latino voters became stronger, since the three largest Latino-population states—California, Texas, and Illinois—have nearly half (108) of the 270 electoral votes needed to elect the president. California, Texas, and New York were considered "out of play" in the race of the presidential election of 2000. Al Gore did little campaigning in California, where support for the Democratic Party was thought to be a given, and Texas, where the opposite was true, and committed few resources to the Latino voter, who was largely ignored. Democrats conceded Texas to George W. Bush. This neglect resulted in the building of some support for Bush among all voters. It demonstrates the opportunistic side of politics and a tendency in the Democratic Party since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt to ignore or take for granted the Mexican American/Latino vote. - It takes money and time to maintain an ethnic voting bloc, something that the ma- chine politicians of old understood. The trend has been for Latinos to vote for Spanish surnames, with a lessening of party loyalty. Incredibly, in places like California, Latino politicos who back white candidates over Latino candidates—for personal reasons or because they want support from the white politico—are diluting this unity. A lot more water or "grease" (in dollars) has to be put on the beans before Latinos can fry them. Latino voting increased nearly 40 percent from 1990 to 1996. New citizens became a factor as more than 250,000 Latinos became citizens in 1996. That year saw four new Latinos elected to the legislature, including the first Latino Republican. There were now 13 Latinos in the California Assembly. The elections elevated Chicanos to significant leadership positions, such as committee chairs. That same year, a Chicano became Speaker of the Assembly, and another, Senate majority floor leader. State Senator Richard Polanco played a key role in molding the Latino Caucus into an influential power bloc. By November 2000 the effect of the growth in Mexican population was evident. Mexican American representatives from Texas to the U.S. Congress numbered six (five Democrats and one Republican). In the Texas Senate there were seven Tejanos and in the House, 28. Meanwhile, the campaign for redistricting heated up in Texas. The G.I. Forum and the MALDEF submitted plans that would boost Latino representation in Congress. Crucial was the pairing of candidates with a sufficient percentage of Latinos in a district to ensure the candidate a winning chance. Many districts had a majority Latino population, but because a large number of the residents were under 18 or were not citizens, only 40 percent of the registered voters would have Spanish surnames. There were now enough Latinos in Republican districts to turn an election, and Mexican American votes were vital statewide: numbers were redefining Tejano politics.100 The year 2001 saw the election of a brown diaper baby—Julian Castro—to the San Antonio City Council; in 2002, his twin brother Joaquin was elected to the Texas House of Representatives. Twenty-six years old in 2001, they graduated from Harvard and Stanford Law Schools. Their mother Rosie Castro, a Raza Unida activist who had run for the city council in 1971, inspired the Castro brothers. the 2000 Census recorded that of the 35 million Latinos, 4.7 resided in the Midwest - Organizations such as the National Council of La Raza continued a strong presence in the Midwest and advocated for education, civil rights, the census, welfare reform, economic and community development, health issues, migrant labor, and youth leadership. In the late 1990s, Representative Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-IL), a Puerto Rican, personified coalition politics. Gutiérrez took strong stands for undocumented immigrants. Latino voter turnout had been terrible; but during the 1990s, it began to improve, and Latinos began to make gains. Seventy-eight percent of the white community was of voting age, versus 68 percent of the African American community, and barely 60 percent of the Latino community. *This fact and the fact that a high percentage of the voting-age population is recent immigrants and/or undocumented keep the voting strength of Mexicans and other Latinos just a potential rather than a reality* by 2000: the Latino population began moving into the suburbs that caused another set of problems - During the 1990s, 32 Illinois towns saw their minority populations grow by nearly 45 percent. Although these areas included more than 30 percent Latinos in 2000, only one Latino was elected to office, a trend that would continue into the 2000s. In 2000, seven aldermen on the 50-member Chicago City Council were Latinos—four were U.S. Mexican and three were Puerto Rican. According to the 2000 Census, almost two-thirds of Chicago Latinos were of Mexican origin; 15 percent were Puerto Rican; just fewer than 8 percent were Cuban; 10 percent were of Central and South American heritage. The court dealt Latinos a setback in 1998, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that only residents of voting age who are citizens should be counted for remapping purposes. *This criterion was of concern, since 60 percent of the Latinos would not be counted, thus drastically reducing their political clout*. Taken as a whole, Latinos comprised more than one in five Chicagoans (in a city of 2,896,016 residents), with some 530,462 of the Mexican born making up 75 percent of the Latino population. *Of concern to non-Latinos was that any growth in Latino representation would come at the expense of African Americans and whites. Increased gentrification also threatened Latino political power* By the 1980 Census the Latino population in Washington had grown to 3 percent of the state's total population—approximately 123,000; by the end of the decade it nearly doubled. The 2000 Census showed it had increased to 441,509. Similarly, neighboring Oregon by 2012 grew to 450,062, which was 11.7 percent of the total population, up from 8 percent in 2000.104 It is a community in transition, with the Latino population doubling every decade. Although Mexican-origin people make up approximately 80 percent of the Latino population, other Latinos are growing in numbers. The changes taking place are interesting. For example, the number of Mexican tortillerías that have sprung up in places like the Yakima Valley of Washington amazes the outsider. Indeed, Latino-owned companies in Washington grew 64 percent between 1992 and 1997, employing 18,830 persons by 1997. Mexican residency goes back to World War II when undocumented workers, braceros, and Tejanos and Mexican sugar beet workers came to pick crops. In the 1970s cold-storage facilities in Wapato and Union Gap opened new opportunities and made possible year-round employment. In the 1980s Mexican immigrants dis- placed Chicano migrants as the primary farm workforce. The landscape took on more diversity as local restaurants and tortilla plants run by Mexican immigrants and the cantinas run by Chicanos multi- plied. Some Mexicans own farms, but agriculture is still dominated by Euro-Americans. Besides this resident population, 100,000 migrants arrived in Washington annually. Another trend was the in-migration of indigenous Mexicans who knew little Spanish or English. The Spanish-speaking were bound together by a chain of Spanish-language radio stations playing Spanish music. Despite some economic progress achieved, the low educational attainment, with corresponding low income, has contributed to low rates of home ownership in comparison with other groups. The big banana in Washington is Seattle, home of Microsoft. It is a white city, ranking last in terms of percentage of minorities among the 25 most populous cities. "The Times [Seattle] analysis also shows Seattle has earned a distinction as a city short on children. Only about one in six Seattlites is under age 18." Sixty-eight percent of Seattle's population is white. It ranked second in the Pacific Northwest behind Portland, Oregon. As in other places in the Pacific Northwest, the roots of the Mexican population extend back into the nineteenth century—but up until recently they have not been strong in terms of numbers. World War II was a turning point, with significant numbers of migrants and braceros finding their way into Oregon. By the 1970s, immigrants arrived from Michoacán and Oaxaca to work in tree farms and canneries. A similar growth occurred in surrounding areas, and, by the beginning of the twentieth century, 55,000 Lati- nos lived in Marion and Polk Counties and over 100,000 lived in Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington Counties alone.108 By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the proportion of whites in the population was declining and the growth in the Latino population was taking up the slack. During World War II braceros entered the state, as did the Mexican American migrants. The Mexican population changed in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, with the existing Mexican American population settling in and the state's economy diversifying. Mexican American and Latino businesses became more common, and distinct communities formed. These communities grew more conscious of their rights. Migrant workers continued to work in Idaho, where as many as 100,000 arrived in the summer months. The Tejanos continued to be a significant part of the workforce. By 1991, the Idaho Migrant Council estimated that the Mexican-origin population reached more than 58,000 in the southern Snake River Valley.

the Central American wave

the large amounts of people from Central America came not because of the Immigration Act of 1965 but b/c of the civil wars in their countries that was funded principally by the US + the population explosion in Central America [9 mill to 29 mill] Owing to the lack of a manufacturing infrastructure, the cities could not absorb displaced Salvadoran and Guatemalan rural workers. These conditions produced unrest, and civil wars followed. In Salvador an estimated 5-20 percent of the total population fled to the United States. U.S. intervention in Central America was a major cause of the diaspora. The fall of U.S.-anointed Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979 intensified civil wars in Central America—especially in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. Central American immigrants differed from the Mexican immigrants in that most Central Americans were political refugees. The overthrow of Somoza weakened North American hegemony in the region, and a domino effect followed as other Central Americans began demanding sovereignty and democracy. El Salvador had been in a state of flux since the 1920s; peasants wanted land and were tired of exploitation by the latifundista (large plantation owners). Farabundo Martí, aided by the Communist Party, led a revolt, which the Salvadoran military sadistically suppressed in 1932. More than 12,000 peasants (mostly Indians) died; Martí was murdered. During the 1960s, influenced by Liberation Theology, Catholic clergy and lay persons formed base communities where the question of inequality was discussed and many peasants were politicized. This led to a reaction by elite groups, and in the early 1970s, the ruling elite subverted elections and sponsored the rise of Roberto D'Aubuisson, a neo-Nazi, who headed death squads that conducted a campaign of terror. The United States financed military operations against the FMLN. Some 50,000 Salvadorans—most of whom were civilians—died during this civil war. Still, unable to find peace at home, hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans fled north. - The U.S. government sent the Salvadoran military $4.2 billion to conduct the war and, consequently, destroy any semblance of a free market. The military, through its surrogate Arena Party, controlled a large bloc of votes during the 1991 elections—which it subverted, committing gross fraud. Nevertheless, the warring factions signed peace accords that year. Meanwhile, in Nicaragua, the rebels under the leadership of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, or FSLN) successfully set up a revolutionary government.14 The United States, fearing that a Marxist or left-of-center government would threaten its economic and political interests, backed counterrevolutionaries with the purpose of overthrowing the FSLN. (Nicaragua numbered 2.4 million people. The United States had a population of 226.6 million in 1980.) The United States intensified the war in Nicaragua, under the pretext that Nicaragua was a threat to the security of the United States and it was supplying arms to El Salvador's insurgents. Ronald Reagan's 1980 election escalated the war against the Sandinistas. Reagan stationed 2,000 troops in Honduras, where the CIA—with the Contras (the ultraright opposition)—led military operations against the Nicaraguan government. Thus, the CIA openly violated the Boland Amendment, which prohibited the use of U.S. funds to overthrow a foreign government. pg. 363

As Mexicans made their way into the U.S.

they were faced with well-funded xenophobic organizations and a rabid press most of the media since the 1970s were shallow and pandered (gratified) to racist nativists - they stereotyped Mexicans and Central Americans as criminals

Believers: Chicana/o studies

By 1990, the Mexican American student population on university and college campuses had grown dramatically. This was a new generation that did not come of age in the 1960s and did not necessarily call themselves Chicanas/os. They were children of immigrants entering the country during and after the 1960s, who did not know about the sacrifices it took to get them on campus. Others did, but escalating costs of education forced them to drop out of political activities. Those calling themselves Chicanas or Chicanos were passionate about seeking an identity and getting more Latina/o faculty hired. On many campuses student groups such as CAUSA (Central American United Student Association) were formed, and a few campuses such as California State University Northridge began to call for a Central American Studies Department.76 Among Mexican American students, a core sought to expand their programs and recapture the mission of Chicana/o Studies, which was to serve the community.77 Within this activity a perfect storm was occurring that would affect the history of Latinas/os. The number of students brought here by their undocumented parents had grown dramatically since 1970. Until the 1990s, California colleges and universities allowed undocumented immigrant students to attend as if they were citizens if they could show residence for a year and a day when they applied and declare that they intended to make California their residence. - This resulted from a successful 1985 lawsuit known as Leticia A. v. Board of Regents brought against the University of California and the California State University Sys- tems for the right of undocumented students to attend as residents. The backlash began almost immediately; a UCLA employee named David Paul Bradford sued the University of California, alleging that he was coerced to quit because he would not implement the Leticia A. ruling. By 1991 the courts found in favor of Bradford; many Leticia A. supporters justifiably claimed that the UC system folded under this intense right-wing pressure. The University of California said that after June of 1991 it would classify undocumented students as nonresidents. In 1992, the California Student Aid Commission followed Bradford and stopped awarding Cal Grants to undocumented students. Then the California Community Colleges (CCCs) adopted the UC policy although they were not mentioned in the Bradford ruling. The CSU appealed the decision but lost and in 1995 began implementing it. Many Leticia A. supporters believed that all was lost with the passage of California Proposition 187 in 1994. However, a nucleus was growing daily that did not give up hope or abandon their dreams. Meanwhile, one of the most dramatic events in Chicana/o Studies history was the UCLA Hunger Strike of 1993, which led to the foundation of the Chicana/o Studies Department (the César Chávez Center) at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). The hunger strike in May 1993 was led by Marcos Aguilar and Minnie Fergusson who worked about four years to get a Chicano Studies Department. It was an impossible journey in which they braved opposition to the department by Chancellor Charles Young, associate vice-chancellor Raymundo Paredes, and the institution itself. (most of the Chicano faculty was divided and did not support the push for a department) - pg. 380 After three years of controversy, Chancellor Young announced on April 28, 1993, that Chicano studies "will not be elevated to an independent department at the Westwood campus."80 For Marcos and Minnie it became a now-or-never moment. Young announced his decision on the eve of the funeral of César Chávez—a slap in the face of the Chicano community. Without internal support, Marcos and Minnie went on the offensive and formed Conscious Students of Color, a multiracial group of students, most of whom had never been active in campus politics. A rally began at noon on May 11, which attracted about 200 participants. According to the Los Angeles Times, "When they were denied entrance to the faculty center, some of the demonstrators broke windows with hammers, chairs and backpacks and about 80 began a sit-in inside." UC campus police, assisted by 200 LAPD officers, arrested 89 students on felony charges. On the second day a rally drew a crowd of 1,000 people to the front of Royce Hall, and, seeing their friends arrested, some Mechistas returned to the fold. Because the quarter end was fast approaching, most observers speculated that the drive to get a department was kaput and that Marcos and Minnie would be scapegoated. - Pushed to the edge by an intransigent administration, on May 25, Marcos, Minnie, sisters Cindy and Norma Montañez, Balvina Collazo, and María Lara—along with Jorge Mancillas, an assistant professor of medical biology, and two other students—started a hunger strike that lasted 14 days. - it attracted the support of citywide Latino and Chicano students in surrounding high schools and universities who walked out of school The march stimulated community support, and a thousand supporters marched into UCLA. The strike was settled two days later, and UCLA got the César Chávez Center for Interdisciplinary Instruction in Chicano/Chicana Studies. It functioned as a department but was not given full departmental status—Chancellor Young and Paredes were vengeful to the last. When their journey toward a Chicano Studies Department began four years earlier, someone told Marcos and Minnie that it was doable, but that it would take at least five years. They did it before that deadline. much of the momentum generated by the UCLA Hunger Strike was diverted by the crises in the Chicano community as community activists, labor leaders, politicos, and students turned their attention to combating the siege on the foreign born. The ques- tion of immigration eclipsed all other issues.84 There was the emergence of racists such as California Gov- ernor Pete Wilson and media features such as Glenn Spencer's American Patrol website, CNN's Lou Dobbs, and Fox's O'Reilly Factor, which took every opportunity to label MEChA a terrorist organization. By the turn of the century, this rabid right-wing reaction rivaled the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s. These hate groups' anti-immigrant, anti-affirmative action, and pro-racist policies took their toll on Chicano student activists, and their numbers temporarily receded.

Political Roundup: 2000

*California Latinos as a whole were entering a new era, one where money beyond the means of an ordinary politician carried the day*. To run successfully for city council or mayor required more money than the Mexican/Latino community could raise independently. To attract such huge amounts of funds, compromises were made with the business community, whose interests did not always coincide with those of Mexican Americans and other Latinos. Term limits, personal ambitions, and the need to raise campaign funds were changing the direction of Chicano politics. While the redistricting processes in 1980 and 1990 were contentious, this time around the Mexican American commu- nity assumed that it was part of the establishment, given its power in Sacramento. Latinos were now incum- bents, and incumbents in both parties worked out a bipartisan redistricting plan that protected incumbents. It kept intact 13 seats (7 state senators; 6 members of Congress) currently held by Latinos. The legislature would also create a new Chicano congressional district in Los Angeles County. MALDEF disputed the plan. Considering the growth and size of the Latino population, it was entitled to more. In June 2002, the Ninth Circuit Court found that the redistricting plan—a blatant deal—was not unreasonable. In effect it held that rules protecting minorities were no longer necessary because of the dramatic political progress Latinos had made in California in recent years—such as winning dozens of seats in Congress and the California legislature and nearly electing a Latino mayor in Los Angeles. *This decision was significant since it came from the court's most liberal judges. In the space of just under three decades, society returned to the era of legal gerrymandering* in some cases increased numbers did not result in Latino representation: despite a 2000 Census count of 30 percent Latino citizens in Fort Worth, Texas, there were no Latinos on the City Council. They did better on the Fort Worth school board where they held three of the nine seats. *It was estimated that Latinos needed at least a 60 percent majority to elect a candidate. This was a pattern for Latino politics throughout the country*

the Decade of the Hispanic

= suggesting that Mexican Americans would reap the fruits of their struggle for equality. Not quite! In California, despite the hype, Mexicans still had only one congressman, and in Los Angeles, with millions of Mexican Americans, the community did not have representation at the city or county levels. Later in the 1980s, this disparity was somewhat narrowed thanks to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and lawsuits brought by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund [MALDEF].7 However, many Latino leaders and business persons were oblivious to the inequality and became cheerleaders, hyping the 1980s as the Decade of the Hispanic as if the community were a commodity. Latino organizations multiplied and many Mexican American organizations gathered immigrants to strengthen their numbers & create a national market = beneficial representation some of the negative impact placed on Latinos and minorities was balanced out by increased numbers in education from affirmative action - yet, Regan's administration and his policies of privatization and deregulation would in the next 20 yrs dismantle that access - Big business would refuse to pay for the social costs of production, and transfer the support of public higher education to the middle class and poor in the form of higher tuition fees - over time, expansion of farm employment and the growth of the light industries during the 1980s attracted more immigrants - many EA's disfavored the color of their skin as many of them came from Latin America, Asia, with very few from Europe. - they preferred if they came only from 6 states = increase numbers of darker skinned people triggered rabid racist nativism that had them build organizations in part of large fear (xenophobia) and made LOTS of money in the process

the movement for inclusion: the politicos

An essential part of any struggle is political representation—it is a measure of not only the unity within a group but also the group's acceptance by others. Numbers usually determine the success of the out-groups; however, they do not tell the entire story. The majority culture makes the rules, and therefore the dice are loaded in their favor. In the case of Mexican Americans, gerrymandering and other political gimmickry diluted their voting strength. But there were also other factors such as immigrants not being eligible to vote and the relatively lower median age of Mexican Americans. Moreover, white people would not vote for Mexicans. So the Mexican American community took a long arduous path through the courts to get new rules. One of the few areas where the Reagan administration helped Mexican Americans was in the enforcement of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Reagan signed the 1982 amendment to the Voting Rights Act into law, and his justice department vigorously enforced the law. This was not an altruistic gesture though. While redistricting, Republicans often sided with Latinos in disputes between them and Democratic incumbents. Mexican Americans took full advantage of these tensions between Republicans and Democrats by using the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and its subsequent amendments by Republicans, as the basis of the Mexican American electoral revolution of the 1990s. Again, as in the case of labor leadership, throughout the country the Latino candidates for office emerged out of the activist core of the 1960s and 1970s. - The Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project (SVREP) and the MALDEF were major players in the movement. The former registered Chicanos to vote, and the latter used court challenges to give them a fighting chance. For example, MALDEF sued the city of Los Angeles for violations of the Voting Rights Acts in its redistricting plans; the result was the formation of two Latino-friendly council districts. SVREP increased Chicano registration from 488,000 in 1976 to over 1 million by 1985. The project published reports and analyses of Chicano voting potential and trends. Along with MALDEF and sympathetic lawyers, the SVREP challenged reapportionment and at-large voting practices that diluted electoral strength of Latinos - In 1981, 19 Chicano candidates were elected to local offices in Salinas and the San Joaquín Valley. Latino population increased in 16 districts. The following year, Mario Obledo, former California secretary of health and welfare and cofounder of MALDEF, who had considerable credibility within the mainstream Mexican American community, decided to enter the Democratic Party primary for governor. Liberals criticized Obledo for running against Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. The unsuccessful campaign, however, mobilized Mexican American activists throughout the state, stimulating aspirations about offices statewide. Unfortunately, the new awareness and the relative success of redistricting also started political infighting in East Los Angeles, as elected officials attempted to forge a political machine. An early defector was Gloria Molina, who ran successfully for the State Assembly in 1982. - Chicanos pressured the Justice Department to file a suit against the City of Los Angeles—U.S. v. City of Los Angeles (1985)—alleging that the city violated civil and voting rights guarantees of Latinos under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Constitutional Amendments and the Voting Rights Acts of 1965, 1975, and 1982. The suit forced the Los Angeles City Council to submit a new plan to the court in 1986. A compromise was reached, and an additional Chicano district was formed, which opened the possibility of another future seat in the San Fernando Valley. Redistricting made it possible for Gloria Molina to be elected to the Council—a second Latino-held seat. Statewide, other patterns were emerging: The Latino population of the San Gabriel Valley, east of East Los Angeles, and of small cities along the San Bernardino Freeway, grew by almost 50 percent. This area was more middle class than the Los Angeles Eastside and was a base of funding support for Chicano politicos. In 1986, Texas led the nation in the number of Latino elected officials: 1,466, compared with 588 in New Mexico and 450 in California. Tejanos in the Lone Star State made up one-fifth of the voting-age population that year. Tejanos comprised 12.9 percent of the electorate in November 1988, but only 5.6 percent of the Texas city council members were Chicanos. In 1986, 50 percent of Texas first graders were Tejanos, but again only 6.6 percent of Texas school board members were of Mexican origin. - Henry Cisneros was the best known Chicana/o politico in the country in terms of offices held and his national visibility.45 He rose to become a member of President Bill Clinton's cabinet, as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Mexican-dominated San Antonio elected Cisneros to the San Antonio City Council in 1975. He was a crossover candidate favored by the Euro-American elite and their Good Government League (GGL). That year, Mexicans comprised 51.8 percent of the city but only 37 percent of the registered voters; whites made up 39 percent of the population and almost 56 percent of the registered voters. The Cisneros victory inspired more Tejano political participation, and two years later Chicanas/os and African Americans took over the San Antonio City Council. Mexicans received a big boost from the Justice Department in 1976 when the department halted San Antonio annexations (seizures) of surrounding areas. Whites used annexation as a device to dilute the voting power of minorities. - in Texas: municipalities annexed surrounding neighborhoods to include more whites, to neutralize the Mexican and black population increases - the rise of the Communities Organized for Public Service also played a role in determining role in politicizing and registering Mexican voters - in 1981, Henry Cisneros became the first Mexican American mayor of San Antonio since the 1840s (he was more Republican than Democrat & was one of the few politicos who did not have roots in the 1960s era) ---- he emphasized economic growth, participation in the technological revolution, and the necessity of attracting high-tech business to San Antonio; he appealed to the educated middle-class Mexican Americans, who were becoming a larger proportion of the community ///Texas had a larger percentage of native-born Mexican Americans than any state outside of New Mexico/// (in 1986) The electoral strength of Tejanos stemmed from the activities and the leadership development of the Mexican American Youth Organization and the political successes of La Raza Unida Party that pressured the Democratic Party to open its doors wider. In addition, Texas developed a healthy organizational network; the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the American G.I. Forum, RUP, SVREP, MALDEF, and followers of Saul Alinsky—who founded the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) in Chicago and trained community organizers for organizations such as COPS—all originated in Texas. COPS: is a part of a network of IAF organizations which have strong units in the Southwest - in the Latino community, the IAF organizations were heavily involved in Catholic Church networks - Ernesto Cortez was head of the IAF By the 1980s Chicago ranked second in the United States in terms of a Mexican-origin population. It had a unique history, and Chicago Chicanos functioned within a well-defined "patronage system." Its wards clearly defined the boundaries of the city's ethnic neighborhoods. By 1986, Chicago's Latino population was close to 540,000—19 percent of the city's total population; residents of Mexican origin comprised about 60 percent of the Latino group as a whole. - the Pilsen district remained the principal port of entry for Latinos and house the greatest concentration of Mexicans - A Mexican minority also lived in the North Side, where they shared space with Puerto Ricans and other Latino groups. Although a large percentage of the Mexican population was foreign born, in the mid-1980s the Latino Institute found that 83 percent of the Latino youth were born in the United States. In 1981, not a single Latino served on the Chicago City Council; that year, council members blatantly gerrymandered the districts, making the future election of a Latino almost impossible. The following year, MALDEF sued the Chicago City Council under the 1965 Voters Rights Act as amended in 1982. The remapping of the district, according to MALDEF, diluted Latino voting strength. Four years later, the court issued a judicial order that created four Latino wards—the 22nd, 25th, 26th, and 31st; the 22nd and 25th were predominantly Chicana/o. A special election took place in March, in which Jesús García and Juan Solíz were elected from the 22nd and 25th Wards, respectively. *The creation of the Latino wards was crucial to the growing power of Chicanos and Latinos in Chicago* In 1982, Mexican Americans and organized labor turned out heavily to elect Toney Anaya governor of New Mexico. Anaya, the former state attorney general, received 85 percent of the manito vote. Anaya was - an energetic governor who took strong and controversial stands opposing the death penalty. He declared New Mexico a sanctuary for Central American political refugees, and was pro-foreign born, condemning racist nativism. He was highly criticized for focusing on Latino issues. A bold step in his career was that he appointed manitos to key posts to protect their interests. (ex. Anaya appointed John Paez to the University of NM's Board of Regents in 1983, giving Latinos a majority for the first time) -- the next year, he appointed Jerry Apodaca and Robert Sanchez to the board of regents Latinos in New Mexico rivaled Mississippi for the highest percentage of children who lived below the poverty line. San Miguel County rivaled the Rio Grande Valley in claiming the worst poverty. How could this be? Nativists could not blame it on the immigrant, as they did in California. The tragedy was that the *old patrón politics* of the nineteenth century still victimized New Mexican politics. People there largely voted according to personal and family loyalties rather than for issues. Sadly, by the 1980s, outsiders—primarily elderly Euro- Americans—were migrating into the state, and the ability to make substantive changes was slipping away. Peña was a young, upwardly mobile urban Latino who migrated to Denver from Texas and built a rapport with the young building developers, who supported economic development. No doubt Peña, a world apart from the Crusade for Justice Chicanos of the 1960s, was a welcome relief to the white establishment. Peña also enjoyed the support of unions and construction companies because he promoted the expansion of Denver's infrastructure, which to them meant contracts and jobs. Although Peña benefited from being Mexican American, attracting national press, locally he played down his ethnicity. Peña did not promote a Mexican agenda, stating, "I am not an Hispanic candidate. I just happen to be Hispanic." Still, Peña's success encouraged other Latinos nationwide. Peña went on to become secretary of transportation in the Clinton administration. (pg. 372) 1990s: Mexican American and Latino candidates made significant electoral gains - The exuberance was expressed by Xavier Hermosillo, a Mexican American Republican from California who said, "We're taking it back, house by house, block by block. . . . We have a little saying here: 'If you're in California, speak Spanish.' . . . People ought to wake up and smell the refried beans: Not only are we the majority of the population, but we're not going anywhere."51 Because of the growth in population of Mexican-origin people and the enlargement of the Central American population, there was a dramatic increase in the voting power of Latinos. And numbers count in politics. For instance, a presidential candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win an election. Eighty-three percent of Latinos were concentrated in eight states that alone accounted for 187 electoral votes: Arizona held 8 electoral votes; California, 54; Colorado, 8; Florida, 25; Illinois, 22; New Mexico, 5; New York, 33; and Texas, 32. Of these eight states, Latino population was the highest in three—California, Illinois, and Texas. [the growth in the Latino population did not immediately translate into elected officials at the national level; There were no Latinos in the 100-member U.S. Senate in 1999, and only 18 Latinos of 435 voting members in the House of Representatives. --- yet, Latino visibility was increasing]

conclusion

As mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, the timeline encompasses two decades—two very hectic decades. Not only had the population grown dramatically, but no longer could it be assumed that Latinos were a homogeneous population—there were Mexicans, there were Puerto Ricans, and, to a lesser extent, there were Cuban Americans. Neither did these peoples live in exclusive pockets—all Mexicans did not live in the Southwest; Puerto Ricans, in New York; or Cubans, in Florida. By 2000, most Latino groups were scattered throughout the country, with the most dramatic shift (most growth in the Latino population) taking place in the South.

forging communities

Central Americans founded organizations such as the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN), El Rescate (the Rescue), the Oscar Romero Health Clinic, and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), among others. Many Central Americans were involved in street vending, day labor, and domestic work, and were prime candidates for exploitation by some employers. CHIRLA instructed the workers about the laws that govern all employers, including individual homeowners who routinely hired them for odd jobs. Apart from a cluster in Los Angeles, Central Americans were spread out in the United States. *The Salvadorans were among the most organized groups*, and in the early 1980s the FMLN sent organizers without documents to Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress and organize information centers. After the end of hostilities in 1991, most of them stayed and lobbied for domestic programs. In that year, riots broke out in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, D.C., a barrio made up mostly of Salvadorans and Dominicans - A confrontation between residents and the police ensued when police shot a migrant in a barrio street. Several days of rebellion followed, which led to confrontations between Latinos and African Americans. (This happened a year before the South Central Los Angeles Uprisings.) Meanwhile, Central American women played a key role. In the Langley Park area of Washington, D.C., Salvadoran women pushed grocery carts loaded with home cooking, selling to immigrant laborers who live in the area. Langley Park's "pupusa ladies" fed their tired, hungry neighbors for a dollar a dish. Most of the women were unwill- ing to put a sign on their chest begging for work. Many of them came to the United States during and after the war, leaving children behind with grandparents and other relatives, and were sending money back to give them a better life. Guilt about being separated from their children and fear that they might never see them again consumed many mothers.

Immigrant Women Workers

Due to a lack of education and the absence of skill development programs for immigrant women, the odds of their achieving success were low. Clearly, deindustrialization affected Latinas, as did their defined class roles. Female immigrants provided a large, motivated, inexpensive, and specialized workforce for service and manufacturing sectors, which supported the expanding export-oriented economy of places like Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Chicago. 62% of Mexican female immigrants worked in blue-collar occupations; 75% of them worked worked in part time occupations that paid extremely poor wages - they had little education & a limited ability to speak English, and their situation did not improve over time Chicanas and Mexican immigrant women had different characteristics. For instance, in 1980 the mean years of schooling among Chicanas was 11.3, compared with 8.3 years among established immigrant women and 6.8 for recently arrived immigrants. Some 36.3 percent of Chicanas did not have a high school diploma, compared with 64.5 percent of established immigrants and 83.8 percent of recently arrived Mexican female immigrants. Of the Chicanas, 4.8 percent held college degrees, compared with 2 percent of the established immigrant women and 1.7 percent of the recently arrived. *The only advantage of age was that the older female workers were more likely to organize. Younger workers were generally more passive and naïve, probably not yet realizing they would be subject to the glass ceiling* Not all immigrant Latina workers were Mexican. In the 1980s, an estimated 500,000 men and women migrated from El Salvador alone. In 1985, 32.4 percent of the Salvadoran population in the United States was under 10 years of age and 57.3 percent was under the age of 20. More than 89 percent of Salvadoran refugees and 95 percent of the immigrants (those arriving before 1980) lived in family-based households. Labor force participation among Salvadoran males was 74 percent for refugees in 1988. For Salvadoran females, it was 66.7 percent, which was higher than the 52 percent for other Latinas. Salvadoran female refugees had the highest unemployment at 16.7 percent. [in addition to economic deprivation, these refugees suffered from the experiences of civil war, oppression, and trauma] Latinas of all nationalities engaged in self-help. Libertad Rivera, 28, from Tepic, Nayarit, in Mexico, worked for the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), educating and uniting domestic servants. Women also worked in AIDS programs. In the United States, 18 percent of all teenagers infected with HIV are Latinos. In Los Angeles, 38 percent of the babies and children infected with AIDS are Latino—more than double the Latino share of adult AIDS cases. At least 40 percent of Latinas with AIDS contracted it through their husbands or boyfriends. *Fear of deportation kept many undocumented Latinas away from healthcare systems and other support services*

Don't mourn, organize!

In 1993, César Chávez died in his sleep while on union business in Arizona. More than 40,000 mourners attended Chávez's funeral in Delano, California. Chávez followed a Franciscan regimen: he exercised regularly; he ate healthy, vegetarian, pesticide-free food; and he often fasted. However, he died of exhaustion, having pushed his body to its limits. César told his son-in-law the night before his death, "I'm tired . . . I'm really very tired." - Chávez's son-in-law, Arturo Rodríguez, assumed the UFW presidency. The union immediately stepped up activity in the fields, launching a major campaign to organize farmworkers in California; the struggle was often bitter. The UFW still relied heavily on its vast network of boycott volunteers. The workers, most of them poor Latinos, earned an average of only $8,500 a season for up to 12-hour days with no overtime or benefits. Growers continually sprayed fields with a cancer-causing pesticide. The first target was California's strawberry industry, producing 80 percent of all berries eaten in the United States and grossing more than $550 million. More than 10,000 workers were concentrated in the Watsonville-Salinas area alone.

the Mexican wave

Mexican immigration accelerated in the 1980s due to population growth and continued commercialization of agriculture + international crisis to Mexico's economy in 1982 also accelerated the push - President Portillo devalued the peso to stop the flight of dollars from Mexico - the country was also in a lot of debt (both private and public) - the minimum wage was also very low after the devaluate of the peso

Mexican American Labor

Never before in the history of Chicanos were labor unions needed more than in the 1980s and 1990s. The poverty rate went on climbing throughout the late 1970s and 1980s to reach a 27-year high in 1991, with 35.7 million people living below the poverty line—the highest poverty rate since 1964. Frequent economic recessions during the 1980s and early 1990s especially hurt women, most of whom possessed few job skills. From 1973 to 1990, the median salary of female heads-of-households under the age of 30 fell 32 percent in real dollars—more than 50 percent of the Mexicanas in the workforce earned less than $10,000. (many Mexican households lived in poverty coupled with single women with children even more impoverished along with Mexican workers who lacked a high school education) Latino segregation in schools kept increasing along with the Latino enrollment in college decreasing Capitalists hit the jackpot with Reagan's labor policies when in 1981 Reagan declared war on organized labor by firing 11,400 air traffic controllers, decertifying the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), and replacing its members with scabs—labor was paralyzed. As a result, during 1980-1987, strike activities fell some 50 percent in selected unions, and the number of strikers that were replaced jumped 300 percent. - Union membership declined nationally, with overall union participation in the private sector falling below 15 percent. In the face of this repression, the trade union movement became more submissive, reluctant to strike or fight back. Much of the credit for organizing during these lean years has to go to immigrant workers. The historical attitude of labor since the nineteenth century has been anti-immigrant. Even progressive unions such as the Western Federation of Miners in the early twentieth century sought to limit immigration and exclude Mexican laborers as retarded and not having a working-class consciousness. As late as the 1980s, labor federations such as the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor lobbied to crack down on undocumented labor. However, amnesty and the waves of immigrants changed this. Beside the militancy of the immigrant workers, there emerged a new class of organizers, many of whom had been involved in student and popular activism of the 1960s. Some were white and African American, but a large core was comprised of the Chicano student movement leadership of the 1960s and 1970s. For example, the hotel and restaurant labor had a core of Chicano activists: For María Elena Durazo, whose parents were immigrants, her interest in the protection of the foreign born began when - she was a student at St. Mary's College and member of CASA (Center for Autonomous Social Action). Durazo worked alongside Magdalena Mora, a dedicated UC Berkeley student from Mexico who died very young of cancer (see Chapter 14). After working for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), Durazo was hired in 1983 by Local 11, the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE), as a worker representative. Four years later Durazo won the presidency of the local; however, the international put the local into receivership. In 1989, Durazo was reelected as president. Under her leadership, HERE took on business giants such as the Hyatt Hotel chain. The union returned to the basics of militant unionism, picketing and courting arrest to call attention to the plight of the workers. Local 11 played hardball, relentlessly pressuring politicos to support the union. As of 2013, Local 11 is still in the trenches, fighting for immigrant workers. Meanwhile, Durazo was elected Executive Secretary of the Los Angeles Federation of Labor, one of the most powerful positions in California Labor. Immigrant workers in the cleaning service sector, although one of the most vulnerable workforces, organized across the country. Like the hotel and restaurant workers, they fought not only for decent wages but medical coverage. Membership in Los Angeles Local 399, Justice for Janitors, plunged 77 percent in the 1980s, and by 1987, only 1,500 janitors remained under contract. With the assistance of white and Mexican college graduates, the workers began to organize. The movement also produced rank-and-file organizers such as Salvadoran Ana Navarette and Chicana Patricia Recino. Navarette was active in the Salvadoran liberation struggle; Recino, a product of the Chicano student movement, had been active in various social justice organizations since her teens. Fearing permanent replacement of its desperately poor members, Local 399 formulated the strategy of going directly to the streets—making it financially dangerous for the subcontractors to get in the union's way. - targets included Century City and the International Service System = the worlds largest commercial cleaning contractor - On May 15, 1990, 150 armed LAPD officers attacked janitors and their supporters. The officers gave the order to picketers to disperse in English only. A police riot ensued, which resulted in 40 arrests and 16 injuries, with two women having miscarriages after being beaten. The Century City massacre was more vicious but less publicized than the Rodney King beating a year later. The janitors sued the LAPD, and in September 1993 they settled for $2.35 million. - Confrontational tactics helped union organizers in recruiting low-paid minority workers and renewing the cycle of activism. The percentage of union janitors working in major Los Angeles commercial buildings rose from 10 percent in 1987, when Local 399 launched its campaign, to about 90 percent in the mid-1990s. However, tensions between the members and the union leadership began to surface. In June, a 21-member dissident slate called "Multiracial Alliance" won control of the union's executive board. Once in power, the dissident slate "cleaned the house." Regretfully, it fired many leaders who contributed to the success of the union. The new Latino officers (Salvadoran, Guatemalan, and Mexican) accused the former leadership of being paternalistic and racist. Charges and countercharges followed. When the international headquarters of the janitors' union responded by placing the local union in receivership and naming Mike García of San Jose as the interim head, most of the so-called dissidents left the union, bitter because they won a fair election and were then dismissed. The old guard, in turn, rationalized that nationalism had produced the rupture. In reality, the labor movement was largely to blame for this and other ruptures, for its failure to employ adequate resources where the labor movement was expanding most—among immigrants and Latinos. 1970's - LA employed 15000 autoworkers that produced a half million cars annually - Automakers then began to dismantle their California operations; the Ford Pinto factory in Pico Rivera geared down, as did the General Motors plant in South Gate. By 1982, Van Nuys workers saw the handwriting on the wall. They knew it was only a matter of time before GM would shut down that plant. --- Led by the United Auto Local 645 president, Pete Beltrán, the workers and the community built a coalition that threatened a boycott if the GM plant was closed. Although the labor/community strategy bore fruit, the UAW international capitulated and sold workers on the notion that if they cooperated the plant would remain open. In the summer of 1991, General Motors announced the shutdown of the Van Nuys plant. Some GM workers, forced to sell their houses, moved to other states where GM employed them; - others collected severance pay for a year while the community inherited a worsening economic situation as more businesses closed down. - Despite the closing, the "Keep G.M. Van Nuys" campaign begot the Labor/Community Strategy Center, under the leadership of Eric Mann, who had spearheaded the campaign to keep the plant open.32 The center has done outstanding environmental work. In 1992, the Strategy Center initiated a transportation policy group. Two years later, the group began organizing bus riders in the "Billions for Buses" campaign to confront the racism reflected in the policies of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of Los Angeles (MTA). Membership in the Bus Riders Union has since grown to more than 3,000 dues-paying members and 50,000 self-identified members on the buses. Most of the riders are Latinos and women. - In eastern Arizona, the cradle of the Chicana/o labor movement, in July 1983, 13 unions, led by the steelworkers' Local 616 at Clifton-Morenci, Arizona, struck the workers' old nemesis Phelps-Dodge.34 Trouble broke out when Phelps-Dodge imported scabs to break the strike. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), under the Reagan administration, sided with management, and it conducted a poll in which it allowed only the scabs to vote; they voted to decertify the union. The mineworkers attempted to gain support from outside the area. A ladies' auxiliary led by activists such as Jessie Téllez toured the Southwest, talking to Chicano and labor groups. Despite insurmountable odds, the miners continued to strike, facing eviction and harassment. However, by 1987—still led by the union's president, Angel Rodríguez—the Morenci strike was all but dead. Only the diehards remained, learning from their mistakes and rebuilding their union. Barbara Kingsolver, in her book Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983, captures the feelings of women both inside and outside the mine who struggled for their space in the movement. - In San Antonio, Texas, Levi Strauss, the world's largest apparel manufacturer, closed its plant in 1990, resulting in 1,100 layoffs. The plant, acquired in 1981, was the main domestic production facility for the Dockers line of casual pants, which required twice the labor as was needed for jeans. The company produced $70 million worth of Dockers and Officers Corp jeans. The San Antonio plant made record profits in 1989, and it was Levi's largest operation in Texas. To cut costs, Levi transferred the work previously done in San Antonio to independent contractors in the Caribbean and Costa Rica, where wages ranged from 30 cents to $1 an hour, compared with $6-$7 per hour in the United States. The company notified workers 90 days before closing the plant, 30 days more than is required by law. Levi laid off 10,400 workers between 1981 and 1990, and it shut down 26 plants nationwide from 1985 to 1993. The city of San Antonio lost 10,000 jobs in 1990 alone. Virginia Castillo, a sewing machine operator at Levi Strauss, was still bitter four years after the San Antonio plant closed. The shutdown abruptly ended Castillo's employment of 16 years and began the unravel- ing of her life as a factory worker, wife, mother, and grandmother. Castillo, 52, was left unemployed. She had limited job and language skills. Her health deteriorated owing to nerve damage to her back and wrists caused by factory work. Her marriage failed. Yet her experiences made Castillo a labor activist. Like many others, she moved to San Francisco to take on Levi Strauss and to tell the world that, despite its socially conscious image and record of philanthropy, the company continues to exploit workers in the United States and abroad. - Castillo belonged to a movement called Fuerza Unida = a 480 member group of former San Antonio Levi Strauss workers - Hispanic magazine voted Levi Strauss one of the hundred best compa- nies in the United States for Hispanic workers, and Vista magazine placed it among the top 50 companies for Latina women. The fact remained, however, that Levi Strauss did not act in a socially responsible way toward the San Antonio workers. Most of the women lacked education. Paid on a piece rate, they worked extremely fast and hard. The shutdown caused vast unemployment. The women, hard hit, lost their homes and cars. Fuerza Unida: Strauss cheated the former employees of some severance pay, profit sharing, and other pay from pensions, vacation time, holiday overtime, and 500$ Christmas bonus promised to each employee the December BEFORE the layoffs - In total, the company owed the workers about $4 million. Levi Strauss responded that it had properly compensated its former employees, and a federal lawsuit by Fuerza Unida was dismissed in 1993. Levi Strauss continued its restructuring throughout the decade. In November 1997, it shut down 11 plants in the United States, laying off another 6,395 workers— one-third of its U.S. manufacturing force. The bottom line, according to former Levi workers in San Antonio, was that the 1997 shutdowns alone saved Levi Strauss $200 million. Even before the 1997 shutdowns, Levi made profits, for example, of $357 million on nearly $5 billion in sales in 1991. (closing their plant was not an economic necessity but more of a tactic to earn more profits - meanwhile, under the leadership of Chicanas, Fuerza Unida continued its fight-back campaign

Reaction to little brown brothers and sisters

Since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, there has been a pattern of irrational Euro-American angst fed by the notion that someone was taking America away from them. The panic was worse during periods of uncertainty; generally the fear was fanned by the media. As in the case of a horror movie like Friday the 13th, the audience's fear reaches its height over anticipated situations. In the case of white suburban women, the fear was that the inner city would catch up to them and dark men would stalk them. The argu- ment that unauthorized immigrants took jobs away from "Americans," and in some way were stealing their "American Dream," was disproven. Americans refused to listen to the evidence and there was a disconnect between reality and myth. For example, California benefited from immigration. In 1984, the Urban Institute of Washington reported that 645,000 jobs had been created in Los Angeles County since 1970; immigrants took about one-third of the jobs. Without immigrants, the factories hiring them would have left the area, resulting in the loss of higher-paying jobs. Although the availability of an immigrant labor force spurred economic activity for the nation as a whole, nativism became more strident in 1986, as Californians passed the "English Is the Official Language" Proposition 63, which voters approved by a 3 to 1 margin. The campaign was a look into the future; it was based almost entirely on half truths and hate. Within a year, seven other states passed similar measures, and 31 more were considering English Only measures. About the same time, Congress responded to nation's jingoism by passing the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which was a compromise that included employer sanctions as well as amnesty for unauthorized immigrants who had been residents since January 1, 1981, or could prove they had done farmwork for 90 days, from May 1, 1985, to May 1, 1986. By January 1989, some 2.96 million applied for amnesty (about 70 percent of them were Mexican). IRCA allocated $1 billion a year for four years to fund English, U.S. history, and government classes to be administered by the State Legislation Impact Assistance Grant. The classes were mandatory for all amnesty applicants, and organizations such as Hermandad Mexicana Nacional and One-Stop Immigration hoped to use the funds to teach the new immigrants English and to assimilate them into the social and political life of Chicanos. The antiamnesty forces were spearheaded by groups such as the American Immigration Control Foundation (AICF) and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) whose opposition was ideological rather than based on reason. (focused on eugenics and other negative racial research) Equally to blame for spreading panic were elected officials who had nothing to lose, and a lot to gain, by taking cheap shots at immigrants. For instance, Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Jim Hart exploited the fears of the voters and warned that aliens had "no moral values," and that they were destroying Dallas neighborhoods and threatening the security of the city. California Congressman Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) proposed a constitutional amendment to deny citizenship to U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. Even California Representative Anthony Bielenson (D-San Fernando Valley), considered a progressive Democrat, raised the bogus prospect of a Mexican invasion. - This tension emboldened far-right racists, who began to abuse the initiative and referendum process with impunity. An example was the campaign to dump California Supreme Court Justice Rose Bird and Associate Justices Joseph Grodin and Cruz Reynoso, a highly respected Chicano jurist who had a long history of involvement in public interest law. Nativists lied and exaggerated the votes of these justices against the death penalty to whip up public angst and hatred of the "other."

the glass ceiling

Some scholars characterized Latinas as invisible in politics, which was often true—and often not—before the 1980s. For example, Olga Peña, wife of Bexar County Supervisor Albert Peña, Jr., in Texas, is generally credited with putting together her husband's political machine and getting him elected. By the 1980s large numbers of Mexican American women were attending universities or working outside the household. Their voices grew louder and more persistent in pursuing their interests. Chicanas were developing a profile quite distinct from that of their male counterparts: in Texas and California, for instance, Mexican American women were less likely than Mexican American men to identify with the Republican Party, a trend that was to continue through the end of the century. - Studies in the 1990s showed that there was an 18-percentage- point gender gap in party identification among Latino voters: 69 percent of Latinas claimed Democratic Party affiliation compared with 51 percent of Latino men. In 1986, the number of Latino elected officials grew to 3,314, and the number of Latino women in office jumped to 592—a 20 percent increase in one year. Women accounted for 18 percent of all elected Latino officials. By 1980, 51 percent of Latinas were either unemployed or underemployed; Latinas earned 49¢ to every dollar made by white males, versus 58¢ for white women and 54¢ for black women. Half completed less than 8.8 years of education. Some 67 percent of households were headed by women with children under 18 and they lived below the poverty line. This statistical profile did not change much throughout the next two decades. Just over 18 percent of Latinas, and 16 percent of Mexican-origin females, were professionals. More than 50 percent were white-collar workers. Between 1980 and 1990, the percentage of Latinas with BA degrees increased from 7.7 to 10. However, not all the statistics were rosy; only a fraction of 1 percent of all PhDs at the University of California were awarded to Latinas in the late 1970s, and universities nationwide awarded Latinas barely 0.4 percent of the doctorates. The achievements were small, but they represented an important avenue for the change of traditional female roles. The growth of this sector produced a market, and by the mid-1980s, even Chicana Republicans claimed space in the "Hispanic women's movement." Chicanas challenged inequalities: - 1982 - Gloria Molina ran successfully against Richard Polanco in the Democratic primary race for the California Assembly. Chicano politicos tried to dissuade her from contesting, warning that a woman could not win in East Los Angeles, that she was not tough enough to negotiate with the heavyweights, and that she could not raise sufficient funds without their support. Molina was a field representative to Assemblyman Art Torres and had participated in the founding of the national Comisión Femenil (Feminist Commission). - The issue that catapulted Molina into local prominence was her opposition to building a prison in downtown Los Angeles. This issue pitted Molina against recently elected Assemblyman Richard Polanco, who had promised that he would vote against the prison but changed his vote. Molina's leadership in the struggle against the prison attracted a constituency of grass-roots activists. Among them were the Mothers of East Los Angeles, a lay Catholic group from Resurrection Parish headed by Father John Moretta, and St. Isabel Parish, whose women members were led by Juana Gutiérrez. During the summers of 1986 and 1987, these groups attracted 1,500-3,000 protesters at their weekly marches. - The coalition fought Governor George Deukmejian for six years, enlisting the support of Archbishop Roger Mahoney for the "Stop the Prison in East Los Angeles" effort. The prison issue provided a spring- board for Molina, who in the fall of 1986 announced her candidacy for the newly created First Council Dis- trict. Molina registered a landslide victory in the contested race in February 1987. In February 1991, Molina was elected to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. At 48, Molina represented 1.9 million people and became one of the five people overseeing a $13 billion budget. Molina developed her own network, sur- rounding herself with women such as Antonia Hernández, the chief council of MALDEF; Mónica Lozano, publisher of La Opinión, perhaps the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the country; and Vilma Mar- tínez, a prominent attorney and former chief counsel of MALDEF. Texas differed from California and other states. For example, as mentioned, the RUP had a much greater impact on Chicanos in Texas than in California, and Tejanas were more quickly integrated into mainstream politics. The 1970s saw the rise of grass-roots political activists such as San Antonian Rosie Castro - who in 1971 was one of the first candidates for city council when she ran on a slate with Gloria Cabrerra and two Tejano males. Castro was very active in demanding equality and forging political space for Chicanas in the process. In San Antonio Chicanas enjoyed a measure of success in politics; but even there, the success was limited. Outside San Antonio, the problem of exclusion was even more marked. For example, in Texas the most powerful elected position within local government is the county judge. In 1998, Texas had 254 county judges, of whom 23 were white women and 7 were Chicano. Only one, Norma Villarreal of Zapata County, was a Tejana. An obvious impediment was that the election for county judge ran countywide, not only mak- ing the race expensive but also diluting the Mexican American voting numbers. - Alicia Chacón from El Paso and Enriqueta Díaz from Eagle Pass won races for county judge in the early 1990s; however, both were defeated in reelection. One impediment was that they never became part of the old-boys' network and did not conduct politics in the usual way, which was to go down to the local bar for informal sessions. Chacón was later elected to the City Council. - Norma Villarreal Ramírez made a successful bid for county judge of Zapata County in 1994. Armed with a $20,000 loan from her father, she challenged the county's count in an election, which she lost by 40 votes. The courts found fraud and ordered a recount, which Villarreal won by several hundred votes. However, once she took office, few people came forward to help Villarreal. "The collegial arrangements be- tween male members from the same political affiliation and/or ethnic group do not extend to women either. The men simply do not want the women in charge." By the 1980s there was a critical mass of Chicanas in politics. Fewer belonged to the generation that was active in La Raza Unida or the 1960s and more to the generation that benefited from those earlier struggles. They cut their teeth in more traditional political routes working in campaigns of oth- ers before running themselves. Many, such as Elvira Reyna, learned their politics under the tutelage of white politicos. (Reyna later became a state representative.) What they shared with the previous generation was life experiences which in Texas were formed more by the Confederate culture of the state. The socialization of this generation was different: racism was different—you could choose where you would live and what you would join. Elvira was raised in Dallas, picked cotton, but became a Re- publican. She was married with two kids before she went to college. She began working part time for law-and-order State Representative Bill Blackwood and became a Republican. Elvira first ran for office in 1993. This experience was much different from that of a Rosie Castro or Severita Lara, who formed their worldviews through activism.

¿Gobernar es poblar?

The 1990 Census showed that 25 percent of California's 29,760,021 inhabitants (an undercount) were Latinos, an increase from 4,544,331 (19.1 percent) in 1980 to 7,687,938 (25.8 percent) 10 years later. This population was heavily concentrated in 10 assembly districts, yet Latinos represented only four of the districts. (The California Assembly had 80 seats.) At stake in any redistricting were seats in both houses of the state legislature and in Congress. The basic problem was that Chicana/os and Latinos did not always vote, for various reasons: *many were not citizens, a substantial number were under 18, and 18- to 35-year-olds, which made up a large proportion of the Latino population, overall had lower registration and turnout rates* In 1990, only 844,000 Latinos voted out of a population of 4,739,000 Latinos who were 18 or older. Some 2,301,000 adults were citizens, 1,218,000 of whom were registered to vote. Another problem was incumbency: white politicos stayed in office for years, and it took substantial efforts to win their seats. As always, Democrats in the California legislature protected their own. Meanwhile, Governor Pete Wilson vetoed (rejected) three proposed redistricting bills, giving the excuse that the Democratic majority was seeking an "unfair partisan (supporter) advantage." Because the legislature and the governor could not agree on a plan, the chief justice of the California Supreme Court appointed a panel of three jurists. They remapped districts for the state legislature and Congress. The maps devised by the court made it possible for Latinos to increase their representation by 40 percent in the state legislature. The 1992 elections made room for gains in the Assembly, where seven Latinos won election. Latinos did not do as well in Congress and gained only one additional seat. The Chicano community believed that with proper redistricting it could have gained another congressional seat. Even so, the first Chicana elected to Congress was Lucille Roybal-Allard, the daughter of retiring Congressman Edward R. Roybal. Nationwide, the 1992 election marked the entry of 17 Latinos to Congress. An estimated 1 million Latinos voted in California alone. And, in the spring of 1993, Latinos won some 60 city council elections in Los Angeles County alone. --- up to this point, population growth and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its amendments drove Chicano political victories ---- - in Texas, population clusters made it almost impossible to prevent Mexicans Americans getting elected - However, California in 1990 was a closed shop with incumbents monopolizing the election process. In 1990, by a margin of 52 percent to 48 percent, California voters passed *Proposition 140*, which put term limits on most state offices. Pushed by Republicans in the days when the Democrats held sway over the California legislature, the proposition reflected the mood of Californians, who trusted neither themselves nor politicos to govern. In their usual self-righteous way, California voters thought that by passing an initiative they would empower themselves merely by forcing incumbents out of office. - Term limits opened the door for more Latinos to become involved in politics. The proposition re- sulted in the election of Cruz Bustamante as the first Chicano speaker of the California Assembly, and term limits forced him to seek higher office. He was elected California Lieutenant Governor in 1998—a first in the twentieth century. His successor as speaker was Antonio Villaraigosa, and the so-called Latino Caucus, for the first time in history, was a "power broker" in the true sense of the word. - during the 1990s Texas' Latino population increased - 53% rise - Latinos became the largest ethnic group in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and El Paso - Elected women officials among Mexican Americans ran ahead of women officials from other groups. The first Chicana elected to the Texas state legislature was Irma Rangel from Kingsville in 1976, and the first elected to the state senate was Judith Zaffirini from Laredo in 1984. Other changes took place, such as most La Raza Unida activists joining Mexican American Democrats (MAD). "[By] 1990 more than 1,000 Mexican Americans (not all MAD members) attended the state convention." The number of Tejano elected officials increased to 2,030 in 1993, more than in any other state. It is estimated that Texas had 40 percent of all Latino elected officials in the country. Latinos, mostly Mexican Americans, made up a quarter of the state's 17 million residents. Some 2,684,000 Latinos were eligible to vote in Texas; 40 percent (1,073,600) were registered. In 1994 the Texas congressional delegation included five Mexican Americans, all members of the House. However, the question remained: Did numbers auto- matically translate into political power? ---- Most pundits assume that Mexican American support for the Democratic Party was a matter of fact. However, as José Angel Gutiérrez pointed out during the 1994 national congressional elections, Latino support for the Democratic Party dropped from 72 percent in 1992 to 61 percent in 1994. There was a spillover to state legislative races; of 140 Latino incumbents in nine states, four lost their seats. Nevertheless, as a group, they were effective and brought about reforms. *For example, during George W. Bush's terms as governor, the legislative Latino caucus successfully lobbied him for increased funding for education and bilingual programs* - *Outside California and Texas, it was more difficult to get Latinos elected to office* For instance, in Iowa the population of Latinos grew 153 percent during the 1990s. They aspired to be represented in the famed Iowa Caucus, since that would have been an indicator of the power of the Latino vote. The numbers were not large enough, however, for representation. Latinos—especially Mexican Americans—were young, with almost 40 percent of the nation's Latinos not yet voting age. Another factor was that many Latinos were not yet citizens.

the renaissance in Chicana/ Chicano thought and arts

The impact of Chicana/o Studies goes beyond the formation or lack of formation of Chicana/o Studies programs or even their influence on the campuses. A large number of the murals, paintings, literature, and music in the communities owe their geneses to Chicana/o Studies. For example, El Centro De La Raza in Seattle, the murals on the walls of Chicano park in San Diego, the National Mexican Art Museum in Chicago's Pilsen District, mariachi and Mexican Folk dance groups throughout the country, and many theatre groups have been nourished by Chicana/o Studies. It is the largest market for Chicana/o literature of all forms. Indeed, the main mission of the disparate study programs has been to organize and produce a Mexican American corpus of knowledge. Moreover, these programs have been a source of support for progressive causes such as the Zapatistas. Chicana/o Studies went beyond the walls of academe. The content of Chicana/o Studies has changed over the years. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the symbol of the farmworker's eagle and the face of César were ubiquitous. Although initially it was an almost all-male club, since the 1990s the main scholarly current has been that of Chicanas. In 1991, a cursory survey of Proquest's 72 dissertations and a smattering of theses in Chicana/o Studies shows that 49 were written by women. In 2008, out of 94 dissertations/MA theses, 70 were written by women; they are also an indicator as to who will be teaching in those programs. Dissertations are important in synthesizing the existing fund of knowledge. Besides the implications of the hegemony of Chicanas in the area of Chicana/o Studies, much of the ideological energy came from Chicanas who raised questions and pushed the parameters.

the militarization of the border

The official line—that the Border Patrol was fighting a war on drugs—gave the agency tremendous latitude in violating human rights. In 1990, one year after the Berlin (Germany) Wall came tumbling down, the Defense Department built an 11-mile fence in the San Diego area as part of its war on drugs. Two years later, the Army Corps of Engineers announced plans to place scores of floodlights along a 13-mile strip of border near San Diego to "deter drug smugglers and illegal aliens." President Bill Clinton, mindful that he had been defeated in his reelection for Arkansas governor because he allegedly did not act quickly enough to put down a riot of Cuban inmates at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, played Mr. Tough Guy and followed the policies of Reagan and George H. W. Bush. He manufactured a war against undocumented immigrants, ordering Attorney General Janet Reno to begin blockades and roundups in the El Paso and San Diego areas. By the end of the Clinton administration, San Diego became ground zero in the anti-immigrant war. The Clinton administration called it "Operation Gatekeeper": sealing the border in western San Diego County and forcing undocumented immigrants to cross the deadly terrain to the east. The government increasingly commingled crackdowns on immigrants and the war against drugs—falsely equating immigration and drug smuggling and, thus, further criminalizing the immigrant. However, as described later in this chapter, immigration hysteria lessened considerably by 1998—partially because of improved economic conditions, but in good part because of the backlash within the Mexican American and other Latino communities.

Hate is tax deductible

They financed the English Only political campaigns; Scaife May donated $650,000 to U.S. English. She used the severe recession of the early 1990s to fan an anti-immigrant hysteria—encouraging opportunistic politicos and racist nativists to play on the fears of "Americans." As mentioned, supporters contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to these hate groups, which subsidized the research of right-wing scholars. For example, the Heritage Foundation helped fund The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (1994) by Richard Hernstein and Charles Murray, a book that argues that inherited intelligence is a prime determinant of success or failure in society. The authors tied the question of intelligence to race and concluded that African Americans were unsuccessful not because society did not invest in them, but because they lacked intelligence. These and other foundations actively poisoned public opinion toward affirmative action, immigration, and bilingual education by funding vicious campaigns. The Hoover Institution at Stanford sponsored the work of John Bunzell, one of the intellectual godfathers of the anti-affirmative action movement. The Hoover Institution held ties with the National Association of Scholars (NAS), a right- wing professional organization founded with a gift of $100,000 from the Smith Richardson Foundation. The Center for Individual Rights, founded in 1989, also held close ties with the NAS; it led the fight in Hopwood v. Texas (1996), a case filed against the University of Texas Law School in 1992, which resulted in a decision that severely limited affirmative action programs nationally. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that the University of Texas School of Law violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by denying admission to Cheryl Hopwood, a white woman, and three white men while admitting African American and Mexican American students with lower grade-point averages and test scores. The court held that race could not be used as a "factor in deciding which applicants to admit." In police code the number 187 means "Murder," referring to the California Penal Code section for Murder or Homicide. It became an insider joke among the supporters of Proposition 187. The Proposition 63 campaign laid the groundwork for Proposition 187; more than $1 million was spent on the 63 cam- paign—$500,000 of it from U.S. English, the largest English-first organization in the country. From this point on, the anti-immigrant movement started to pick up speed with angst dollars pouring in from small contributors. The FAIR and extremist groups such as Voices of Citizens Together (VCT) spun statistics manufactured by the INS and the think tanks. Internet fund-raising was also a bonanza for many immigrant hate groups that collected tax-deductible donations. - The draconian SOS (Save Our State) Initiative, *Proposition 187*, appeared on the November 1994 California ballot. It proposed denying health and educational services to undocumented immigrants. Gov- ernor Pete Wilson immediately supported the proposition. Supporters of the breakup of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the voucher campaign, and the "3 strikes and you're out" proposition joined him. Even Democratic candidates opposed to 187 took potshots: in July, U.S. Senate candidate Diane Feinstein ran an ad claiming that 3,000 "illegals" crossed the border each night. "I'm Diane Feinstein and I've just begun to fight for California." Chicano organizations and individuals in Los Angeles, led by activists from the 1960s, responded to the anti-immigrant hate crimes by going to the streets. In February 1994, a pro-immigrant march in Los Angeles drew 6,000. On May 28, another march attracted about 18,000 people who trekked up Broadway to City Hall. On October 16, more than 150,000 protesters marched down Avenida César Chávez to City Hall. Some Latino leaders feared that the large number of Mexican flags seen on the march would turn off white voters. On the eve of the election, spontaneous massive walkouts of high school students who opposed 187 caught most people by surprise. Some Latino politicos, worried that the walkouts would turn off white voters, opposed the demonstrations. Walkouts took place at Huntington Park, Bell, South Gate, Los Angeles, Marshall, and Fremont High Schools, and throughout the San Fernando Valley. Police were called out in Van Nuys as students took to the main street; 200 officers were on tactical alert. News sources estimated that 10,000 (on the low side) students walked out of 39 schools. A September 1994 Los Angeles Times poll showed that 52 percent of Latinos supported Proposition 187. However, Latinos were increasingly alarmed by the racist tone of the anti-immigrant rhetoric, and a field poll about a month before the election showed Latinos in California sharply divided over Proposition 187: Latinos opposed the measure by a slight margin of 48 to 44 percent, and white voters favored it by 60 to 17 percent. White support for 187 remained constant, and another Los Angeles Times poll showed that Californian whites favored 187 by 65 to 35 percent, and Latinos by 52 to 48 percent. As expected, on November 8 California overwhelmingly passed 187. Only the San Francisco Bay Area voted against—by 70 percent. Los Angeles voted for 187 by a 12-point margin. Exit polls showed Latinos opposing the proposition 77 percent to 23 percent statewide. On November 5, 1996, California voters passed Proposition 209. The California Association of Scholars, funded by ultraconservative foundations, placed Proposition 209 on the ballot. It said that "preferential treatment" because of race, sex, ethnicity, or national origin was forbidden. In effect, Proposition 209 made anti-discrimination laws moot. Institutions were not required to recruit or enroll minorities; consequently, there were no damages if they discriminated. Proponents of 209 argued that affirmative action went too far and now was resulting in discrimination against whites who were better qualified. The United States was supposedly a color-blind society. African Americans voted against Proposition 209 by 73 percent and Latinos by 70 percent. Asian Americans also voted against it, although only by 56 percent. Whites made up three-fourths of the voters; white males voted for 209 by a 66 percent margin and white females by 58 percent. The death of an idea such as social justice does not happen by accident. Indeed, it is very difficult to reverse public policy and change basic commitments to ideals such as civil rights. - Proposition 209 was driven by mean-spirited and extremist organizations and people. Unfortunately, the Latino community did not organize marches of any size against Proposition 209 in California. Latinos, however, held a march in Washington, D.C., in October 1996. More than 50,000 peo- ple marched through the capital in support of Latino and immigrant rights. Although it was successful, the march in Washington was criticized. Many activists felt that a march in Los Angeles to protest Proposition 209 would embarrass President Clinton. It was not until the end of the presidential campaign in California, when Clinton was certain to win by a landslide, that the Democratic Party took a more visible stance.94 In June 1998, Californians overwhelmingly approved Proposition 227, insidiously called the "English for the Children" initiative. Californians based their vote not so much on the merits of bilingual education, but on numerous untested assumptions that bilingual education was a failure. Exit polls of Proposition 227 showed that the Latinos opposed 227—in fact, some 63 percent of the Latino electorate voted against Proposition 227. Because of the perception that the proposition was racist, some Republican candidates began to distance themselves from the anti-immigrant, anti-affirmative ac- tion, and anti-bilingual education sentiments of their party. Attorney General Dan Lungren, aware of the growing antipathy of Chicanos and Latinos toward Republicans, came out against Proposition 227 to try to stem the loss of their support. - Spanish-language media were crucial in informing the public about 187 and 227. Spanish-language reporters identified with the issue. In the Greater Los Angeles area, 9.74 million radio listeners divided their attention among 81 stations, 12 of which broadcast in Spanish. Two of the 10 TV broadcast channels were Spanish in a "designated market area" that encompassed Los Angeles County; all of Orange, San Bernardino, and Ventura Counties; and parts of Kern, Riverside, and San Diego Counties. Los Angeles- based Univision KMEX Channel boasted higher ratings for its 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts than those for its English-language competitors.

some things never change: police brutality

Twenty-five years after the assassination of Rubén Salazar (described in Chapter 13), the justice system was still not protecting the rights of Mexican Americans. In 1995 in Sun Valley, California (a suburb of Los Angeles), William Masters II, 35, killed an 18-year-old tagger named César Rene Arce and wounded his friend, David Hillo, 20. Both taggers were unarmed. Many Euro-Americans applauded Masters, while the Chicano community remained largely indifferent. In the end, the district attorney did not indict Masters for the murder; still the community remained silent. In 1999, the Los Angeles Police Department's (LAPD) Rampart scandal began when Officer Rafael Pérez, who served as a Rampart Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) antigang officer, copped a plea bargain for having stolen drugs from LAPD evidence lockers - in return for evidence of widespread corruption and brutality in the Rampart CRASH unit Dozens of police were implicated in numerous crimes and acts of brutality committed while waging a systematic war and shooting down youth in the Pico-Union neighborhood. Only a few Chicanos and Central Americans protested this gross violation of human rights; many Latino elected officials sided with the police. - In Bellevue, a suburb of Seattle, Washington, police killed Nelson Martínez Méndez, 24, an unarmed Guatemalan accused of domestic violence against a cousin. El Centro de la Raza of Seattle, led by Roberto Maestas, organized protests against the injustice. In January 2002, an inquest jury ruled it justifiable homi- cide, and the district attorney refused to prosecute the officer. - In 2005, an LAPD SWAT team killed 19-month-old Susie Lopez Peña in an exchange of gunfire with her father, who was holding her. Police fired over 60 shots at the father, with numerous bullets hitting and killing Susie. Not one politico challenged Police Chief William J. Bratton, who defended his officers.114 Race continued to be a factor in society. At the trial of Jessy San Miguel, the prosecutor made a point of emphasizing the so-called Mexican Macho culture. The prosecutor made a reference to "those that cross the border and commit crimes." San Miguel, 28, died from lethal injection, after George Bush refused a stay of execution.