Vietnam & the Chicano Moratorium

[Shiranu]

https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/lessons-chicano-anti-war-movement

https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/important-day-us-history-chicano-moratorium

This August 29 marks the 45th anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium. Held in East Los Angeles, the moratorium was the largest anti-Vietnam War demonstration by any minority group in the United States, including African Americans. Estimates of the demonstrators, mostly Chicanos, or Mexican Americans, range from 20,000 to 30,000. It was also the largest demonstration during the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, the most significant civil rights and community empowerment movement by Mexican Americans in the country to that time.

The Chicano Movement laid the foundation for today’s Latino political power. Aug. 29, 1970, is a day, to borrow from Franklin Roosevelt, “that will live in infamy.” At one level, it revealed that the Chicano Movement had integrated the U.S. unnecessary and unjust intervention in Vietnam and Southeast Asia as a major issue in the movement. Chicanos were disproportionately being drafted into the military, with many sent to Vietnam and many never returning, or returning physically or emotionally wounded â€" and usually both.
You could only escape the draft if you stayed in school, which meant graduating from high school and attending college. However, in the case of Chicanos as well as other minorities, many dropped out of high schools that were deficient and unwelcome environments for them. Moreover, these inner-city schools did not encourage Chicanos to go to college, and hence when they left at age 18, the boys were ripe for the draft. The war was also depleting federal funding in President Johnson’s “war on poverty,” reducing pre-school programs, job retraining, and sundry other social and economic programs that attempted to alleviate poverty in the barrios. For these reasons, the war became a Chicano issue, and the Movement organized against it.
The Moratorium was the high point of the Movement, but it was also the lowest. After the marchers entered into Laguna Park and the speeches and entertainment began, squads of county sheriffs backed up by Los Angeles police stormed the rally with billy clubs and tear-gas rifles. They attacked a peaceful demonstration, injuring some, arresting many, and killing three Chicanos. The police, notorious for abuses against Chicanos, were not going to allow them to rule the streets of East L.A. even for one day. Chicanos bravely fought back, and a riot â€" a police riot â€" ensued that afternoon.
One of those killed was Ruben Salazar, the most prominent newsperson of Chicano background in the nation. A veteran newspaper reporter, including several years working with The Los Angeles Timesthat involved writing a highly influential column, Salazar at the time of the Moratorium was also the news director of KMEX, the only Spanish-language television station in Los Angeles. Covering the moratorium, he and his TV crew later during the rioting went into a bar â€" the Silver Dollar Café â€" to take a break. Shortly thereafter, a squad of county sheriffs appeared outside the bar, and with no warning shot at least two, maybe three, tear gas projectiles into the café. One of them, according to the later autopsy report, hit Salazar in the head and instantly killed him. Salazar in death went from being a first-rate journalist to a political martyr of the Chicano Movement.

While Aug. 29, 1970, is a historical marker in the history of the Chicano Movement, the importance after 45 years of the events of that day is that it showed the courage and commitment of young Chicanos â€" the Chicano Generation â€" to take on the system and to demand that a “war of choice” be ended, a war that was particularly injurious to Chicanos and other minorities. Aug. 29, 1970, was a display of Chicano Power â€" self-determination â€" that has now evolved into Latino Power, as Latinos have become the largest minority in the country.

The events of Aug. 29, 1970, as well as the Chicano Movement as a whole are captured in my new book just published, entitled The Chicano Generation: Testimonios of the Movement (University of California Press, 2015). It is an oral history or testimonios of three key movement activists in Los Angeles:Raul Ruiz, Gloria Arellanes, and Rosalio Muñoz. It is their personal stories based on numerous hours of interviews I did with them, as well as archival research. They are powerful narratives of three leaders of the Movement who dedicated their lives at that time, and still do, to issues of social justice and respect for the Chicano/Latino communities.

All three of my protagonists in the book share many activities in common, but their involvement in the Chicano Moratorium of Aug. 29, 1970, is certainly a key one that they share. My book published this year is in part homage to the brave young men and women of the Chicano Generation who saw a war that was only killing Chicanos and injuring their community and said “Basta!” â€" the war has to end! Aug. 29, 1970, is not only a major event in Chicano history, but also in American history.

Two things strike me; first, that I had never heard of this movement and neither had many people, which is a shame growing up surrounded by Latinos.

Second, it's a reminder of how any protest group, unless it makes unsilenceable noise is instantly demonized and swept under the rug rather than actually having it's grievances addressed. This was the largest anti-war protest by any minority, and how many people knew it ever happened? To me, as both an American and someone with ties to the Latino/Chicano culture and alot of interest in their history, I find it utterly ridiculous this and every other civil right's movement response is always, "Oh, they are just criminals! Oh, they are just violent! Ignore them!". I understand third-rate countries behaving this way, but in a country so steeped in political disobedience in it's history, of using violence to enact social change... how quickly we are to condemn it and ignore it when the people doing it don't look like us.

This is how we have always treated minorities that protest in the exact same way we do; they are criminals when they do it, we are heroes when "we" do it (I use "we" lightly, given my biological ancestors have only been here about 50 years and were facing minority abuse in their own communities. But I was raised in a white community, even if I was never fully accepted into it).

[Baruch]

History ... think of the Zoot Suit riots back in 1943?  But protesting the draft in WW ii was more questionable.

The US is 1970 had shooting students at Kent State, and the same day, bayonetting of students at U of NM.  We were evil bastards back then, and while I thought we had changed, we have not ;-(

[Gawdzilla Sama]

History ... think of the Zoot Suit riots back in 1943?  But protesting the draft in WW ii was more questionable.

The US is 1970 had shooting students at Kent State, and the same day, bayonetting of students at U of NM.  We were evil bastards back then, and while I thought we had changed, we have not ;-(

Blacks did some rioting themselves, and there was the Pullman Port strike.

[Jack89]

I never had any good experiences with Latinos who called themselves Chicano while I was growing up.  While I can understand grasping for an identity when you're in a shitty situations, being divisive and hateful doesn't do anyone any good.  A far as I'm concerned, it's the Latino version of a skinhead.

I enlisted in the Army when I was 17 years old because my family was poor and I didn't think I had any other option at the time.  Best thing I ever did.