Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History

Rosales, F. Arturo

• Publisher: Arte Público Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781611926125
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Derechos civiles en política

From the Alianza Hispano-Americana, a mutual aid society founded in Tucson, Arizona in 1894, to the Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles in 1943, this first-ever dictionary of important issues in the U.S. Latino struggle for civil rights defines a wide-ranging list of key terms. With over 922 entries on significant events, figures, laws, and other historical items, this ground-breaking reference work covers the fight for equality from the mid-nineteenth century to the present by the various Hispanic groups in the U.S.

Rosales chronicles such landmark events as the development of farm worker unions and immigrant rights groups to the forces behind bilingual-bicultural education, feminist activities, and protests over discrimination, segregation, and police brutality. In this volume, he provides a comprehensive look at the history of the Latino civil rights movement. In addition to covering all of the major events in labor, politics, land reclamation, and education, this pioneering work includes never-before-published biographies of the major players in the history of America's largest minority group.

An array of historical photos and entries outline the activities of all Hispanic populations in the United States, including citizens and immigrants, men and women. A complete subject index, timeline, and bibliographic documentation complement this definitive reference work compiled by one of the most respected authorities on Latino civil rights.

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ACADEMIA DE LA NUEVA RAZA, see ATENCIO, TOMÁS

ACCIÓN PUERTORRIQUEÑA

Students at Princeton University organized Acción Puertorriqueña in the 1970s in order to build a united Puerto Rican community with a strong cultural identity. The organization has also provided a lively social environment while promoting an interest in scholarly interests that are not addressed by the existing Princeton curriculum. Acción Puertorriqueña encourages those who identify with the heritage of Puerto Ricans, regardless of ethnic origin, to participate in the activities of the group. In addition, the organization takes positions on issues that impinge on the civil rights of Latinos in this country and encourages its members to engage in activism that will impede the erosion of these rights. Moreover, the organization played a key role in the creation of Latino Studies at Princeton. [SOURCE: http://www.princeton.edu/~accion/about.htm]

ACOSTA BAÑUELOS, RAMONA (1925-)

Ramona Acosta Bañuelos became the first Hispanic treasurer of the United States. Born in Miami, Arizona, Bañuelos was forcefully deported with her parents during the Depression. In 1944, she resettled in Los Angeles and soon thereafter founded a tortilla factory. By 1969, she was named Outstanding Businesswoman of the Year in Los Angeles. She was sworn in as treasurer on December 17, 1971. [SOURCE: Meier and Feliciano, Dictionary of Mexican American History, 33.]

ACTION GENERAL RESOLUTION ON CENTRAL AMERICAN REFUGEES

In 1984 the Unitarian Universalist Association adopted an Action General Resolution on Central American Refugees which provided for the following aspects:

WHEREAS, civil war in El Salvador has resulted in more than 45,000 political deaths; and

WHEREAS, there is no significant change in officially sanctioned violence, and death squads continue to operate with impunity; and

WHEREAS, almost all asylum requests have been denied by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS);

BE IT RESOLVED: That the 1984 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association supports specific rectifying legislation, H.R. 4447, sponsored by Rep. Joe Moakley of Massachusetts and others, and S. 2131, sponsored by Sen. Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, which provides for the temporary suspension of deportation of certain aliens who are nationals of El Salvador and for Presidential and Congressional review of conditions in El Salvador; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That this Assembly urges that refugees in the U.S. from Guatemala be also protected under the same legislation; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That this Assembly urges Unitarian Universalists to support actively those Unitarian Universalist societies and other religious communities which offer sanctuary to El Salvadoran and other Central American refugees.

In 1961, the Unitarian Universalist Association formed as a result of the consolidation of two religious denominations: the Universalists, organized in 1793, and the Unitarians, organized in 1825. The organization now represents the interests of more than one thousand Unitarian Universalist congregations across the hemisphere. [SOURCE: http://www.uua.org/actions/international/84refugees.html; http://www.vua.org/aboutus.html]

ACUÑA, RODOLFO (1932-)

Rodolfo Acuña is considered to be one of the most influential scholars in the field of Chicano* Studies, an interdisciplinary field examining the life and culture of Mexicans on both sides of the border. Born in 1932 in the Boyle Heights, he grew up and attended public schools in Los Angeles, where that community is located. While studying for his doctoral degree in Latin American Studies at the University of Southern California, in1966 he taught the first Chicano History class ever offered in the United States, at the community college level. After completing his Ph.D. in 1968, Acuña established one of the first Chicano Studies departments in the country, in 1969. In 1972, as member of the faculty at San Fernando Valley State College (now California State University, Northridge), he published the most-read survey of Chicano history, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos.* Acuña acknowledges that he used a unique paradigm to write this book because he felt that mainstream historians had neglected the history of Mexicans in the United States. The book traces the conquest of northern Mexico by the United States and the ensuing conflicts over land, language, and civil rights of Chicanos from the 1800s to the present.

In his career as an historian, Acuña also became an advocate for the rights of ethnic Mexicans living in the United States and served as a pioneer in helping shape the course of the Mexican-American civil rights movement during the 1960s. To a large degree, participants in this movement were influenced by Acuña’s writing and teaching in rejecting the strategy of earlier organizations struggling to gain civil rights objectives through litigation, electoral power, and diplomatic appeals. Acuña and other Chicano intellectuals offered a new paradigm to combat racism and discrimination through militancy and confrontation in order to dramatize social injustices toward ethnic Mexicans and to intimidate establishment officials into effecting change.

Acuña published an additional fourteen books and continues to inspire academic researchers and students alike. U.S. Latino Issues, published in 2003, addresses such issues as migration, intermarriage, and the use of the term “Latino” itself, as well as examining civil rights issues that affect other Latinos. [SOURCE: Acuña, Occupied America; Rosales, Chicano!, 254.]

ADAMS-ONÍS TREATY

In the final years of the Spanish regime in North America, John Quincy Adams and Luis de Onís, the Spanish ambassador to the United States, negotiated an agreement that determined the boundaries of the Spanish Empire in North America. The final proviso became known as the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819. Among the many provisions in the treaty, the one that specified the western boundary of the Louisiana Territory rankled Americans the most. Detractors, especially those living close to Texas, felt that Spain had kept too much territory on the Louisiana-Texas border. The Arkansas River served as an international boundary between Spain and the United States after the Adams-Onís Treaty was signed; many Americans had hoped lands south of the River would be available for settlement but were disappointed with the resultant boundary, which was considered an obstacle to what would become the doctrine of Manifest Destiny.* [SOURCE: Campa, Hispanic Culture in the Southwest, 131, 179.]

AFRICAN AMERICANS AND HISPANICS IN MIAMI

Between 1959 and 1989, an adversarial relationship developed between the African-American citizens and the Cuban refugees pouring into Miami in flight from Communist Cuba. During this period, the civil rights movement was struggling to provide political and economic opportunities for blacks at the same time that the government was providing public assistance to the Cuban refugees. In comparison to blacks in other southern cities, however, Miami blacks had to compete for jobs and housing with a more-educated Cuban community, which quickly experienced mobility in both the public and private economic sectors. Blacks often remained confined to menial jobs while still living in poverty-stricken ghettos. As a consequence, the perception that Cubans and other Hispanics were obstacles to improving the condition of the black community, caused deep resentment and triggered several riots [SOURCE: Mohl, “On the Edge: Blacks and Hispanics in Metropolitan Miami since 1959.”]

LA AGRUPACIÓN PROTECTORA MEXICANA

San Antonio Mexicans started La Agrupación Protectora Mexicana in 1911 to provide “legal protection for its members whenever they faced Anglo-perpetuated violence or illegal dispossession of their property.” Such concerns dated from the nineteenth century and primarily affected native Tejanos and northern Mexicans who arrived early enough to become land owners, tenants and sharecroppers. By 1911, members of La Agrupación were predominantly immigrants, probably Mexican northeasterners. That La Agrupación was centered in San Antonio was an indication of its appeal to urban Mexicans, as well. In Houston, a chapter was started by Mexican school teacher J.J. Mercado.* The chapter worked with the Mexican consul to remedy Mexican grievances about employers, such as compensation for accidents at work. Members of La Agrupación in 1911 attended Texas’ first major Mexican civil rights meeting, El Primer Congreso Mexicanista.* [SOURCE: De León, Mexican Americans in Texas, 38.]

AGUIRRE, EDUARDO (1945-)

On June 17, 2005, Eduardo Aguirre, Jr. of Houston, Texas, was sworn in as ambassador to Spain. Aguirre had been the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for the Homeland Security Department since 2003. Born in 1945 in Cuba, Aguirre’s parents sent him in 1960 to Louisiana through a program called Operation Peter Pan,* a project which transported many children from Cuba so that the Communist indoctrination of Fidel Castro’s* regime would not affect them. In Louisiana, he was sheltered by a Catholic charity and after graduating from high school in New Orleans, Aguirre attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, where he received a degree in finance in 1967. In 1970, Aguirre obtained a master’s degree from the National Commercial Lending Graduate School at the University of Oklahoma. Before heading the Citizenship and Immigration Services, Aguirre was vice chairman and chief operating officer of the Export-Import Bank, a presidential appointment he accepted in 2001 after working for 24 years at Bank of America as an executive officer. Governor George W. Bush appointed Aguirre to the Board of Regents of the University of Houston System for a six-year term, where he became chairman from 1996 to 1998. [SOURCE: http://uscis.gov/graphics/aguirre_bio.htm]

AIR TRAGEDY, 2001

American Airlines Flight 587 crashed November 12, 2001, after taking off from New York’s JFK airport. About 70 percent of the 251 passengers were Dominicans, and their deaths highlighted the transnational lives that many Dominicans have lead through much of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. On November 27, 2001, New York Mayor-elect Michael Bloomberg traveled to the Dominican Republic and met some twenty grieving relatives of victims who died aboard the ill-fated flight. He pledged help and espoused solidarity with the homeland of immigrants, who were rapidly achieving political clout in the city. Bloomberg also convened a private meeting with President Hipólito Mejía, in which he agreed to co-operate in aiding the victims’ families. The two also touched on another of Mejía’s major concerns: the issues and problems facing Dominican immigrants in New York City. [SOURCE: http://www.skicanadamag.com/TravelNewsNYCrash/011127_tribute-ap.html]

ALBIZU CAMPOS, PEDRO (1891–1965)

To Puerto Ricans who support independence of the island from U.S. rule, Pedro Albizu Campos, who was born in Tenerías Village, Ponce, on September 12, is considered a hero and martyr. By his own admission, his relationship with the United States became estranged after he experienced first-hand racial discrimination in an African-American unit during World War I. Albizu Campos joined the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico in 1924 after receiving two degrees from Harvard (B.S. 1916, L.L.B. 1923) and was elected president of that organization in 1930. He was imprisoned on the mainland from 1937 to 1943 after being convicted of seeking to overthrow the U.S. government. He returned to Puerto Rico in 1947 and helped orchestrate an unsuccessful campaign in the 1948 elections. He was arrested again in 1950 and sentenced to a 53-year prison term for masterminding an attack on the governor’s mansion in Puerto Rico. Alvizu Campos was also a suspect in an assassination attempt on President Harry S. Truman on October 31, 1950. In 1953, Governor Luis Muñoz Marín* offered a conditional pardon to Alvizu Campos, only to withdraw it after Puerto Rican nationalists attacked the U.S. House of Representatives the next year. Albizu Campos spent most of his remaining years imprisoned and in poor health. A year before his death in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, on April 21, 1965, he received another pardon. [SOURCE: http://welcome.topuertorico.org/culture/famousprA-C.shtml#albizupedro]

Pedro Albizu Campos

ALBUQUERQUE WALKOUT

Some leaders from traditional Mexican-American organizations, such as the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC),* the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA),* La Alianza Hispano-Americana,* and the Political Association of Spanish-Speaking Organizations (PASSO),* showed militancy when they walked out of the 1966 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)* in Albuquerque. Triggering the action was the perception that President Lyndon B. Johnson,* who promised in his 1965 “Great Society” inaugural address a “War on Poverty,” did not follow through when it came to Mexican Americans. The initial promise by Johnson buoyed the hopes of Mexican-American leaders that programs to combat poverty and patronage jobs would be forthcoming. This optimism was dashed, however, when Johnson’s Great Society set its sights more directly on America’s black population. Most Mexican-American conservatives saw their dignity disparaged and their leadership positions endangered by these organizations’ militant tactics. But for younger, less-compromised Chicanos,* and for some from the Mexican-American generation, this paved the way to using confrontation in obtaining or safeguarding civil rights.

In response to the protests, President Johnson named Vicente Ximenes* to the EEOC, who in turn established the Inter-Agency Cabinet Committee on Mexican American Affairs.* In October of 1967, Ximenes scheduled hearings at El Paso that coincided with the much-heralded ceremony in which the United States returned to Mexico the disputed Chamizal territory. [SOURCE: Rosales, Chicano!, 108, 166.]

ALEGRÍA, RICARDO E. (1921-)

Through Professor Ricardo Alegría’s efforts, the influential Institute of Puerto Rican Culture was established in 1955. He served as director of the institute from its founding to 1972. In 1993, he was awarded the Picasso Medal from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, becoming the first Latin American to receive such an honor. That same year, he accepted the Charles Frankel Award of the Humanities from President Bill Clinton. [SOURCE: http://welcome.topuertorico.org/culture/famousprA-C.shtml#alegriaricardo]

ALEMANY, JOSÉ SADOC (1814-1888)

A bishop, and later archbishop, Alemany came to the United States from Spain in 1840. After the Mexican-American War, he was named as bishop of the diocese of Monterey and in 1853 became the archbishop of the San Francisco diocese, which had jurisdiction over all of California. Alemany was successful in regaining title to many of the missionary properties that had been secularized or lost for the Catholic Church during the changes in dominion from Mexico to the United Sates. He resigned in 1884 and returned to Spain. [SOURCE: Meier and Rivera, A Dictionary of Mexican American History, 10.]

ALIANZA

Latino students founded Wellesley College’s Alianza in the early 1980s to increase cultural and social awareness of Latin Americans and Iberians on the Wellesley campus and to advance the common concerns of these people. It provided, then and now, a familiar atmosphere in which students of these backgrounds can share their similar/different experiences and establish friendships through various activities such as salsa/merengue classes, lectures, discussions, etc. [SOURCE: http://www.wellesley.edu/Activities/homepage/alianza/html/index.html]

ALIANZA FEDERAL DE LAS MERCEDES

In the 1950s, as New Mexico’s population grew, land competition fostered tension between Hispano farmers and outsider landowners. To stem their economic erosion, Hispano villagers formed the Corporation of Abiquiu. In the 1960s, an evangelist Texan, Reies López Tijerina,* took over the new organization just as the U.S. Forest Service* had issued stricter codes regulating grazing, wood cutting, and water use on federal lands. The restrictions, combined with López Tijerina’s announcement that the land claims of Hispanos could be legitimized by Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo* provisions, increased the popularity of the fledgling organization. In 1963, the Corporation of Abiquiu’s headquarters moved from Tierra Amarilla to Albuquerque and changed its name to Alianza Federal de las Mercedes.

To persuade officials to investigate their land claims, Alianza members marched from Albuquerque to the steps of the state capital in Santa Fe in July 1966, only to have their claims rejected. Fru...