Chicano Communists and the Struggle for Social Justice by Enrique M. BuelnaIn the 1930s and 1940s the early roots of the Chicano Movement took shape. Activists like Jesús Cruz, and later Ralph Cuarón, sought justice for miserable working conditions and the poor treatment of Mexican Americans and immigrants through protests and sit-ins. Lesser known is the influence that Communism and socialism had on the early roots of the Chicano Movement, a legacy that continues today. Examining the role of Mexican American working-class and radical labor activism in American history, Enrique M. Buelna focuses on the work of the radical Left, particularly the Communist Party (CP) USA. Buelna delves into the experiences of Cuarón, in particular, as well as those of his family. He writes about the family's migration from Mexico; work in the mines in Morenci, Arizona; move to Los Angeles during the Great Depression; service in World War II; and experiences during the Cold War as a background to exploring the experiences of many Mexican Americans during this time period. The author follows the thread of radical activism and the depth of its influence on Mexican Americans struggling to achieve social justice and equality. The legacy of Cuarón and his comrades is significant to the Chicano Movement and in understanding the development of the labor and civil rights movements in the United States. Their contributions, in particular during the 1960s and 1970s, informed a new generation to demand an end to the Vietnam War and to expose educational inequality, poverty, civil rights abuses, and police brutality.
Daughters and Granddaughters of Farmworkers : Emerging from the Long Shadow of Farm Labor by Barbara WellsIn Daughters and Granddaughters of Farmworkers, Barbara Wells examines the work and family lives of Mexican American women in a community near the U.S.-Mexican border in California's Imperial County. Decades earlier, their Mexican parents and grandparents had made the momentous decision to migrate to the United States as farmworkers. This book explores how that decision has worked out for these second- and third-generation Mexican Americans. Wells provides stories of the struggles, triumphs, and everyday experiences of these women. She analyzes their narratives on a broad canvas that includes the social structures that create the barriers, constraints, and opportunities that have shaped their lives. The women have constructed far more settled lives than the immigrant generation that followed the crops, but many struggle to provide adequately for their families. These women aspire to achieve the middle-class lives of the American Dream. But upward mobility is an elusive goal. The realities of life in a rural, agricultural border community strictly limit social mobility for these descendants of immigrant farm laborers. Reliance on family networks is a vital strategy for meeting the economic challenges they encounter. Wells illustrates clearly the ways in which the "long shadow" of farm work continues to permeate the lives and prospects of these women and their families.
The Farmworkers' Journey by Ann LopezIlluminating the dark side of economic globalization, this book gives a rare insider's view of the migrant farmworkers' binational circuit that stretches from the west central Mexico countryside to central California. Over the course of ten years, Ann Aurelia López conducted a series of intimate interviews with farmworkers and their families along the migrant circuit. She deftly weaves their voices together with up-to-date research to portray a world hidden from most Americans--a world of inescapable poverty that has worsened considerably since NAFTA was implemented in 1994. In fact, today it has become nearly impossible for rural communities in Mexico to continue to farm the land sustainably, leaving few survival options except the perilous border crossing to the United States. The Farmworkers' Journey brings together for the first time the many facets of this issue into a comprehensive and accessible narrative: how corporate agribusiness operates, how binational institutions and laws promote the subjugation of Mexican farmworkers, how migration affects family life, how genetically modified corn strains pouring into Mexico from the United States are affecting farmers, how migrants face exploitation from employers, and more. A must-read for all Americans, The Farmworkers' Journey traces the human consequences of our policy decisions.
Latinos and the Liberal City : Politics and Protest in San Francisco by Eduardo A. ContrerasThe "Latino vote" has become a mantra in political media, as journalists, pundits, and social scientists regularly weigh in on Latinos' loyalty to the Democratic Party and the significance of their electoral participation. But how and why did Latinos' liberal orientation take hold? What has this political inclination meant--and how has it unfolded--over time? In Latinos and the Liberal City, Eduardo Contreras addresses these questions, offering a bold, textured, and inclusive interpretation of the nature and character of Latino politics in America's shifting social and cultural landscape. Contreras argues that Latinos' political life and aspirations have been marked by diversity and contestation yet consistently influenced by the ideologies of liberalism and latinidad: while the principles of activist government, social reform, freedom, and progress sustained liberalism, latinidad came to rest on promoting unity and commonality among Latinos. Contreras centers this compelling narrative on San Francisco--America's liberal city par excellence--examining the role of its Latino communities in local politics from the 1930s to the 1970s. By the early twentieth century, San Francisco's residents of Latin American ancestry traced their heritage to nations including Mexico, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chile, and Peru. These communities formed part of the New Deal coalition, defended workers' rights with gusto, and joined the crusade for racial equality decades before the 1960s. In the mid- to late postwar era, Latinos expanded claims for recognition and inclusion while participating in movements and campaigns for socioeconomic advancement, female autonomy, gay liberation, and rent control. Latinos and the Liberal City makes clear that the local public sphere nurtured Latinos' political subjectivities and that their politicization contributed to the vibrancy of San Francisco's political culture.
ISBN: 9780812251128
Publication Date: 2019-03-15
"Mi Raza Primero!" : Nationalism, Identity, and Insurgency in the Chicano Movement in Los Angeles, 1966-1978 by Ernesto Chávez¡Mi Raza Primero! is the first book to examine the Chicano movement's development in one locale--in this case Los Angeles, home of the largest population of people of Mexican descent outside of Mexico City. Ernesto Chávez focuses on four organizations that constituted the heart of the movement: The Brown Berets, the Chicano Moratorium Committee, La Raza Unida Party, and the Centro de Acción Social Autónomo, commonly known as CASA. Chávez examines and chronicles the ideas and tactics of the insurgency's leaders and their followers who, while differing in their goals and tactics, nonetheless came together as Chicanos and reformers. Deftly combining personal recollection and interviews of movement participants with an array of archival, newspaper, and secondary sources, Chávez provides an absorbing account of the events that constituted the Los Angeles-based Chicano movement. At the same time he offers insights into the emergence and the fate of the movement elsewhere. He presents a critical analysis of the concept of Chicano nationalism, an idea shared by all leaders of the insurgency, and places it within a larger global and comparative framework. Examining such variables as gender, class, age, and power relationships, this book offers a sophisticated consideration of how ethnic nationalism and identity functioned in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s.
ISBN: 9780520230187
Publication Date: 2002-10-24
Voices from the fields : children of migrant farmworkers tell their stories by Beth Atkin
Call Number: HV741.V65 1993
Publication Date: 1993
Sitios Web
California Farmworker FoundationWe believe in helping Farmworkers become leaders, empowering individuals to become advocates for themselves and their communities. We seek to strengthen the skills and abilities of Farmworkers to improve their quality of life.
Beyond the Fields : Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and the struggle for justice in the 21st century by Randy Shaw
Call Number: HD6515.A292U548 2008
ISBN: 9780520251076
Publication Date: 2008-11-17
Fight in the Fields : Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers movement by Susan Ferriss
Call Number: HD6509.C48F47 1997
ISBN: 9780151002399
Publication Date: 1997-04-15
From the Jaws of Victory by Matthew GarciaFrom the Jaws of Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement is the most comprehensive history ever written on the meteoric rise and precipitous decline of the United Farm Workers, the most successful farm labor union in United States history. Based on little-known sources and one-of-a-kind oral histories with many veterans of the farm worker movement, this book revises much of what we know about the UFW. Matt Garcia's gripping account of the expansion of the union's grape boycott reveals how the boycott, which UFW leader Cesar Chavez initially resisted, became the defining feature of the movement and drove the growers to sign labor contracts in 1970. Garcia vividly relates how, as the union expanded and the boycott spread across the United States, Canada, and Europe, Chavez found it more difficult to organize workers and fend off rival unions. Ultimately, the union was a victim of its own success and Chavez's growing instability.
From the Jaws of Victory delves deeply into Chavez's attitudes and beliefs, and how they changed over time. Garcia also presents in-depth studies of other leaders in the UFW, including Gilbert Padilla, Marshall Ganz, Dolores Huerta, and Jerry Cohen. He introduces figures such as the co-coordinator of the boycott, Jerry Brown; the undisputed leader of the international boycott, Elaine Elinson; and Harry Kubo, the Japanese American farmer who led a successful campaign against the UFW in the mid-1970s.
ISBN: 9781438176734
Publication Date: 2017
The Words of César Chávez by Cesar Chavez; Richard J. Jensen; John C. Hammerback
Call Number: HD6509.C48A25 2002
ISBN: 9781585441693
Publication Date: 2002-05-09
Video
“Born-Again Feminist:” Dolores HuertaIn the 1960s, labor leader and civil rights activist, Dolores Huerta organized in the fields, spearheading a national boycott of grapes and lettuce and making decent pay and working conditions a reality for thousands of farm workers. After receiving a Medal of Freedom at the White House in May 2012, Huerta spoke with NewsHour’s Ray Suarez. Original broadcast date: May 30, 2012. (7 minutes)
Harvest of Loneliness: The Bracero ProgramShedding light on the current debate over immigration reform and the use of “guest workers” in American agriculture, this historical documentary examines what was known as the Bracero Program—a system put in place from 1942 to 1964 to recruit Mexican farm laborers for temporary work in the United States. The film presents ample testimony from surviving braceros as well as family members and descendants of these displaced workers, who typically went north expecting not just high wages but also humane treatment and working conditions—expectations that were rarely if ever met. Featured experts include Mexican activist and politician Victor Quintana, Bracero Program in California author Henry Anderson, and several others. Extensive archival material is also included. The DVD contains both an English and a Spanish version of the program. (58 minutes)
Mobilizing the Latino Community: Ernesto J. Cortes, Jr.Ernie Cortes isn’t a business tycoon and he hasn’t been elected to public office, but a Texas business magazine named him one of the five most powerful Texans, along with people like H. Ross Perot. Ernie Cortes’ influence, though, reaches beyond Texas and he has been called "the most effective Latino grassroots organizer in the country today." He is a man who empowers, a member of the national staff of the Industrial Areas Foundation, a nonprofit organization that helps "ordinary" people organize to make positive changes in their communities. In his home state of Texas, he teaches citizens to take on issues that matter to them: water and sewer systems, roads, education, worker safety, and health care. In this program with Bill Moyers, Cortes discusses individual participation in American politics and highlights the importance of agitation, confrontation, and compromise in the discourse of democracy. (50 minutes)
Moyers & Company: Fighting for FarmworkersDespite miracles of agricultural progress and innovation over the decades, the harsh lives and working conditions of migrant laborers have changed very little. Their cause has been championed in the past by Edward R. Murrow, Cesar Chavez, and the United Farm Workers, but that list is incomplete without Baldemar Velásquez. Velásquez was among hundreds of thousands of children who joined their migrant parents working long hours in the fields. Shaped by that early experience, Velásquez founded the influential Farm Labor Organizing Committee. In this edition of Moyers & Company, Velásquez, a MacArthur Fellow, joins Bill to talk about the ongoing David versus Goliath struggles to ensure fairness for American farmworkers. Broadcast date: July 19, 2013. (43 minutes)
Symbols of Resistance: A Tribute to the Martyrs of the Chican@ MovementIlluminating the untold stories of the Chican@ Movement with a focus on events in Colorado and New Mexico, the film engages student activism, police repression, and issues of identity, land, and community that still resonate in Chican@ struggles today. Through interviews with those who shaped the movement and rare historical footage, the film offers a window into a dynamic moment in history.
TED Talk: Dolores Huerta: How to Overcome Apathy and Find Your Power"Sí, se puede!" -- "Yes, we can!" It's the rallying cry Dolores Huerta came up with as a young activist in the 1970s, and she's lived by it in her tireless pursuit of civil rights ever since. With her signature wit and humor, Huerta reflects on her life's work, offering inspiration for anybody trying to overcome apathy, get involved and find their own power.
They Called Me King Tiger : A Biography of the Chicano Malcolm XDubbed “King Tiger” and “the Malcolm X of the Chicano Movement,” Reies López Tijerina inspired Mexican-American college students of the late 1960s and early 1970s to start the Chicano Civil Rights Movement that stressed ethnic pride, ethnic studies, and opposition to police brutality. The Chicano movement eventually faded away, but at the time of the production of this film, King Tiger was alive, living in Mexico, and wanting to tell his story.
DVD
Cesar Chavez by Diego LunaThe story of the famed civil rights leader and labor organizer torn between his duties as a husband and father and his commitment to securing a living wage for farm workers. Chavez embraced non-violence as he battled greed and prejudice in his struggle to bring dignity to people. He inspired millions of Americans who never worked on a farm to fight for social justice. His triumphant journey is a remarkable testament to the power of one individual's ability to change the world.
Call Number: DVD PN1997.C47 2013
Publication Date: 2013
Chicano! : the history of the Mexican American civil rights movement by Hector GalanLand, labor, educational reform, and political empowerment are the four themes of this documentary miniseries regarding the Mexican American civil rights movement from 1965 to 1975.
This is a four part television series documentary. It premiered nationally on PBS in April 1996. The program consists of four one-hour episodes. Episode 1 examines the events at Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, that sparked a national movement for social justice. It focuses on the 1967 struggle by Mexican Americans to regain ownership of New Mexico lands guaranteed them by the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and then visits the landmark Denver Youth Conference in 1969. The episode concludes with the Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War, held in East Los Angeles in 1970 ... an event that turned into a tragic riot resulting in the death of renowned journalist Ruben Salazar. Episode 2 examines the efforts of farmworkers to form a national labor union under the leadership of César Chávez. Episode 3 documents the Mexican-American struggle to reform an educational system that failed to properly educate Chicano students. Episode 4 focuses on the emergence in Texas of Mexican-American political power and the creation of a third political party, La Raza Unida.
Call Number: DVD E184.M5 C45 2014 (4 discs)
Publication Date: 1996
A class apart : a Mexican American civil rights story by Sharon Grimberg