Momentous day in East L.A.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-0828-chicano-20100828,0,1785513.story
Forty years after the Chicano Moratorium, Latino political power is
no longer just a dream.
August 28, 2010
On Aug. 29, 1970, between 20,000 and 30,000 Latinos took to the
streets of East L.A., marching down Whittier Boulevard for a mass
rally at Laguna Park. It was an intoxicating moment, old-timers say.
High school students and farmworkers, families and college kids had
united for a peaceful afternoon of music and speeches. They were
calling for equal opportunity and justice: respectful treatment from
law enforcement, fair wages and working conditions from employers, a
decent education and an end to the Vietnam War.
It was a time when the nation was wrestling with civil rights issues,
and Los Angeles was no different. Tensions between Mexican Americans
and law enforcement were high; allegations of police brutality were
persistent. Militant groups such as the Brown Berets were on the rise
and aligning with the Black Panthers. Ruben Salazar, a Times
columnist and news director at a Spanish-language television station,
galvanized the community with his reporting on conditions Latinos
faced in fields and barrios. Teenagers staged walkouts to protest the
substandard conditions in their high schools. A poor education was
not only an impediment to future achievement but a deadly menace:
Boys who did not go to college often found themselves drafted and
sent to fight in Vietnam.
Armando Vazquez-Ramos, a professor of Chicano studies at Cal State
Long Beach and a Vietnam-eraveteran, remembers: "What caught our
attention was the high price Latinos were paying. We grew up with the
kids who were coming back in body bags. We started to realize the
government was targeting low-income and minority communities brown
and black people and that we were coming back dead or maimed in a
disproportionate number."
That was no myth. At the time, Latinos made up 7% of California's
population, but one study of National Archives and Records
Administration documents found that they accounted for 15% of those
who died in Vietnam.
At first the rally was festive, but by afternoon it had turned ugly.
Monte Perez, then 20 years old, was at Laguna Park that day with his
wife and infant. They spread a blanket on the grass, and he went to
buy sodas. "A little ruckus started there, and I didn't think
anything of it." Within minutes, the police were "breaking heads," he
said. Families were beaten and tear-gassed; young people fought back
with rocks, bottles and bare hands. Salazar, who was sitting inside
the Silver Dollar bar on Whittier Boulevard, was killed by a
sheriff's deputy, shot in the head with a tear-gas canister.
The Latino antiwar movement, which came to be known as the Chicano
Moratorium, died out shortly after that fatal day in East L.A. But
its legacy endures, particularly in the Southwest. A generation of
community activists, politicians, professors, judges and clergy came
from the movement, which ultimately became a broader, more inclusive
coalition of Latinos.
Perez, who grabbed his wife and child and fled the park when the
melee started, is now president of Moreno Valley College, which
partners with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department on the
training of deputies.
Latino political power, a figment of hope in 1970, today is a
reality. Antonio Villaraigosa became Los Angeles' first Latino mayor
after a 133-year gap. The Los Angeles Police Department is now a
majority-minority agency, with Latinos making up the largest ethnic
group. Monica Garcia is president of the Los Angeles Unified School
District board, following in the footsteps of Jose Huizar.
Nationally, Sonia Sotomayor is on the Supreme Court. Bill Richardson
is the governor of New Mexico. The National Assn. of Latino Elected
and Appointed Officials has more than 6,000 members, and more than
100 Latinos are college presidents.
That is why, despite the grim outcome of the rally 40 years ago, Aug.
29 is a day to celebrate.
"For those of us who went through it, it's a day of recommitment,"
Perez said. "We need to recommit to the struggle. All of us who came
out of the Chicano Moratorium, that's what it left engrained in us."
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Chicano Moratorium Against War Protest Set for August 28 in East LA
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2010/8/26/chicano-moratorium-against-war-protest-set-august-28-east-la
Investigate Killing of Ruben Salazar!
August 27, 2010
Los Angeles, CA - The August 29th Chicano Moratorium Organizing
Committee held a press conference here Aug. 25 to announce a protest
march and rally set for Aug. 28 in East Los Angeles. The march
commemorates 40 years since the Chicano Moratorium.
The committee denounced the ongoing war in Afghanistan-Iraq and the
U.S. military recruiting targeting Latino youth, especially
immigrants. Veteran Chicano activist Carlos Montes urged
participation in the event, which is demanding full equality and
self-determination for the Chicano nation.
Yvonne De Los Santos stated, "Today Chicano youth continue to be
recruited by false promises of legalization and education only to be
sent to fight U.S. wars for domination for profit. We denounce the
current U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and call for all troops to
be withdrawn. We learned from the Vietnam War that wars only serve to
kill and maim our youth and make profits for the war industry like
Halliburton and others."
The committees also demanded that District Attorney Steve Cooley open
an investigation into the killing of Ruben Salazar by the LA County
sheriffs at the original Chicano Moratorium on August 29, 1970.
On August 29, 1970 over 30,000 Chicanos marched to protest the
Vietnam War, the high casualty rate of Mexican-Americans in the
Vietnam War and racism at home. The Los Angeles Police Department and
LA sheriffs attacked the peaceful rally, beating and arresting dozens
and killing Ruben Salazar, a Los Angeles Times writer and news
director for KMEX.
Delegations will be converging on East Los Angeles from as far away
as San Francisco and El Paso, Texas.
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