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[Historia] Coming of Age of Mexican American/Chican@ Boomers
By fauxpas | February 20, 2010
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The 40th Anniversary Commemoration Committee of the Chicano Moratoriums Presents:
February 28, 1970
5000 Chicanos Marched In Rain to “Bring Our Carnales Home” From War in Vietnam
Raza filmmakers made a documentary of it that rallied the Movimiento nationwide to say “Chale No, We Won’t Go!”
40 Years Later, What About Now?
See the historic film and discuss the Issues
February 28, 2010 2pm at Salazar Park Hall
3864 Whittier Blvd (East) L.A. 90023
Join Panelists
Gloria Arellanes: Chicano Moratorium and Brown Beret leader 1970
Ana Rosa Rizo Mayor of Maywood/peace and justice activist today
David Sanchez Prime Minister of Brown Berets 1970
Jesus Trevino Award winning filmmaker & Vietnam War conscientious objector
Moderator Rosalio Munoz 70’s moratorium leader/director Latinos For Peace
For information: chicano.moratorium@gmail.com tel 323-229-1994
1970: Coming of Age for Mexican American Boomers
2010 marks the 40th anniversary of one of the most significant events of the Chicano movement: the Chicano Moratorium.
By Rosalío Munoz, Special to EGP
You may have noticed all the 40th anniversary celebrations that are taking place, especially in East/Northeast Los Angeles. If you are from the Boomer Generation, those born after the end of WWII and the Korean military action, when large numbers of young men returned to their communities — you notice because 40 years ago is when we first started voting and were able to buy alcohol. And a few years earlier is when we guys became eligible for the draft and to die in the Vietnam War.
I say “we” because I am a “boomer” from these parts. Though I was born in Arizona in June of 1946, nine months after my dad returned from serving in the Navy in the South Pacific during World War II, I moved to East LA with my family when I was one-year-old and consider myself a native of these parts.
This year, Mexican American boomers, los Chicanos y las Chicanas, will mark the 40th anniversary of a pivotal time in the history of the Chicano movement and the struggle for civil rights: the Aug. 29, 1970 Chicano Moratorium and the death of Ruben Salazar. On that day in East L.A., some 20-30,000 people, mostly Chicanos, marched and rallied against the Vietnam War as part of the National Chicano Moratorium. At the time it was the largest political gathering ever of Mexican Americans in the US, and the largest anti Vietnam War demonstration in Los Angeles.
Studies by Mexican American scholar Ralph Guzman showed that Mexican American soldiers were dying in the Vietnam War in proportions far greater than their numbers in the general population. Because of their low college enrollment numbers, few Chicanos were eligible for deferments from the draft. About half of their general population counterparts, however, were in college and able to avoid the draft.
Although the Mexican American population in Los Angeles County numbered over a million at the time, only one congressman, one assemblyman and one school board member were Mexican American. There were no Mexican Americans on the City Council, Board of Supervisors, or in the state Senate. Poverty levels were far higher in the barrios than in the general population, and opportunities for the growing numbers of boomer Chicanos coming of age were few. It was a time of action, with young and old coming together to struggle against the barriers of historic discrimination. The 1970 Moratorium was a high point of the struggle, and arguably the whole Chicano movement.
It is also a day of infamy, for the rally was broken up brutally by Los Angeles County Sheriffs and other federal, state, local police and by some accounts, undercover military forces. Sheriffs said at the time that they had chased suspected beer thieves to the eastside park where thousands had gathered for a peaceful rally following the Moratorium march, but were blocked from their pursuit by some of the demonstrators. They declared the demonstration an illegal assembly and began forcibly driving the thousands of men and women and children out of the park. Armed and dressed in full riot gear, scores and scores of officers poured into the park and began flailing away with batons followed by tear gas.
They drove people onto the streets. Some of the rally participants resisted at first, attempting to protect the elderly and children being crushed in the panic created by the Sheriffs’ actions. But then, in anger, some began to break store windows. There were fires. As thousands sought ways to get away from the batons and tear gas, a few hundred of the protesters pushed aside the non-violent principles of the demonstration.
On that day, Ruben Salazar was covering the march and rally as the news director of KMEX TV, then the only Spanish language station in Southern California, and as a Los Angeles Times syndicated columnist. Salazar was one of the most respected and honored Mexican American journalists of the time, having headed up the Times’ Mexico City bureau and as a star reporter stationed in Vietnam in the mid-sixties. As the police began stampeding the crowd out of the park, he told community leaders Bert Corona and Rudy Acuna “they can’t blame us (Mexican Americans) for this.” He never got a chance to report the truth behind the day’s events, because a couple of hours later and a few miles away, as he and his associates relaxed at the Silver Dollar bar, a sheriff’s deputy shot off part of his head with a tear gas projectile, “by mistake.”
Absent Salazar’s voice, the Sheriffs were exonerated for the violence that day and in the deaths of Ruben Salazar and two others, Lyn Ward and Gilberto Diaz. In 2008, Salazar was honored with a commemorative US Postal stamp. The stamp erroneously gives the impression he was killed “during Chicano protest rally in East Los Angeles.” He was not killed at the rally, but hours later and miles away, and by a sheriff who shot him. Such is the official history of the Mexican American, the Chicano struggle for social justice.
Today, because of those who fought for change 40 years ago, Mexican Americans are now a more significant part of the US political scene, with more elected officials and registered voters. Now, a group of Chicano Moratorium veterans are organizing a series of events to commemorate the historic Aug. 29 demonstration and the grass root struggle to get us where we are today. The 40th Anniversary Commemoration Committee of the Chicano Moratoriums is organizing forums, symposiums, documentary film showings, and a museum style presentation of the real story on the Web. Volunteers and funding are needed. This Sunday, Feb. 14, at 3 p.m., organizers will meet at the Church of the Epiphany, located at 2808 Altura Street, Los Angeles 90031. For more information contact chicano.moratorium@gmail.com
Rosalío Munoz was the chairperson of the August 29, 1970 National Chicano Moratorium Committee.
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