Latino Movement
Many use the terms “Latino” and “Hispanic” interchangeably to refer to individuals who trace their origin or ancestry to the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America or the Caribbean. Despite the fact that many Latinos do not identify pan-ethnically or understand what they share in common with Latinos of other national origins, the majority share a set of issue preferences that distinguish them from other US political constituencies. The emergence of this shared issue preference is sped by the high levels of mass migration from Latin America and the Caribbean over the past 40 years, which is the final pillar of contemporary Latino politics. The need to incorporate new Hispanic migrants into community politics has been a continuing community pressure, especially since the 1960s.
In post-World War II America, Americans of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent had faced discrimination. New immigrants, coming from Cuba, Mexico, and Central America — often unskilled and unable to speak English — suffered from discrimination as well. Some Hispanics worked as farm laborers and at times were cruelly exploited while harvesting crops; others gravitated to the cities, where, like earlier immigrant groups, they encountered difficulties in their quest for a better life.
Chicanos, or Mexican-Americans, mobilized in organizations like the radical Asociación Nacional Mexico-Americana, yet did not become confrontational until the 1960s. Hoping that Lyndon Johnson’s poverty program would expand opportunities for them, they found that bureaucrats failed to respond to less vocal groups. The example of black activism in particular taught Hispanics the importance of pressure politics in a pluralistic society.
The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 had excluded agricultural workers from its guarantee of the right to organize and bargain collectively. But César Chávez, founder of the overwhelmingly Hispanic United Farm Workers, demonstrated that direct action could achieve employer recognition for his union. California grape growers agreed to bargain with the union after Chávez led a nationwide consumer boycott. Similar boycotts of lettuce and other products were also successful. Though farm interests continued to try to obstruct Chávez’s organization, the legal foundation had been laid for representation to secure higher wages and improved working conditions.
The roots of contemporary Hispanic politics can be traced to the 19th century incorporation of Latin American and Caribbean populations into the expanding American empire and to the initial efforts to incorporate and exclude Latino populations. Characterizing Mexican Americans in the Southwest in the 19th and early 20th centuries or Puerto Ricans from the 1880s to the 1950s as “Hispanics” is a contemporary reading of history; acknowledging that they experienced similar forms of political exclusion and neglect that distinguished them from other immigrant and native populations in this same period is both historically accurate and key to identifying the foundations of shared experiences.
The first distinction between the Latino, in this case Mexican American, and black experiences involves the original mode of incorporation into U.S. society. Neither blacks nor Mexican Americans entered the United States voluntarily, but Mexican Americans joined the United States as citizens with treaty-based guarantees of land rights and the right of repatriation to Mexico. Although these treaty guarantees were quickly violated, Mexican Americans began their large-scale presence in the United States with representation and an elected leadership that never entirely disappeared, as occurred for blacks elected to office during Reconstruction. The territorial and state governments of New Mexico have always retained a significant plurality of Mexican American officeholders.
Whereas blacks in the South faced intimidation and violence if they sought to participate in electoral politics, the modal experience for Latinos was one of manipulation—through political machines—and neglect. Southwestern machine politics should not be confused with the machine experiences of many European immigrants in cities in the Northeast and Midwest because the Mexican American machines controlled votes for generations. Most of the European immigrant machines lost their hold on their clientele after a generation or two.
Despite some notable exceptions, Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans had poorer civic networks than did blacks in the middle of the 20th century. Among the reasons for this difference are the geographic dispersion of Mexican American populations in the Southwest, the predominantly rural nature of the population until the 1950s, circular migration flows among Puerto Ricans after the 1940s, and continued immigration. Also important in the weak development of Latino civic infrastructure are the electoral and partisan opportunities to shape policy outcomes enjoyed by Latino community elites that were denied to blacks.
Although Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and other Latino populations had some local civic and political organizations prior to 1975, these were, for the most part, not integrated nationally. Rather, they reflected the reality of the Mexican American and Puerto Rican populations in this period—regional populations with little intergroup contact. Consequently, they were not able to present a cohesive voice to Congress when it began to consider how best to address low Latino voting rates.
The VRA is nevertheless the first pillar of contemporary Latino politics: a statutory recognition of a political community united by shared exclusion, particularly linguistic exclusion.
Hispanics became politically active as well. In 1961 Henry B. González won election to Congress from Texas. Three years later Eligio (“Kika”) de la Garza, another Texan, followed him, and Joseph Montoya of New Mexico went to the Senate. Both González and de la Garza later rose to positions of power as committee chairmen in the House. In the 1970s and 1980s, the pace of Hispanic political involvement increased. Several prominent Hispanics served in the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush cabinets.
The Raza Unida Party was established on January 17, 1970, at a meeting of 300 Mexican Americans at Campestre Hall in Crystal City, Texas. José Ángel Gutiérrez and Mario Compean, who had helped found MAYO (the Mexican American Youth Organizationqv) in 1967, were two of its principal organizers. It began an eight-year quest to bring greater economic, social, and political self-determination to Mexican Americans in the state, especially in South Texas, where they held little or no power in many local or county jurisdictions although they were often in the majority. By its numerous victories in South Texas, RUP had achieved Mexican-American political dominance in some cities and altered the state's political life. Several Mexican-American women were significant participants at the state and national level.
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