The Chicano Movement

The Chicano Movement

Week of 4/25-4/30​

AALS Spring 2022: Unit ​6

Warning: be sure to pay attention/take short notes

There are questions throughout this lesson, and then a quiz at the end! Your score is going in the grade book.

Remember all late work is due Friday April 29th.​

Multiple Choice

What was the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo originally supposed to give Mexican-Americans after the Mexican-American war?

• Free land and a stipend for their labor

• Extra time to apply for citizenship

• Citizenship, rights and protection of their land

• None of these

Multiple Choice

Once the Treaty of Guadalupe HIdalgo went to congress, which part of it was removed?

• Mexican-American citizenship and protection of their land

• The U.S. gaining 55% of territory that used to be Mexico

• All Mexican-Americans should recieve 40 acres and a mule

• None of these

Let's Go back out west...

Remember the Mexican-American war? After the war:

• The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed

  • Grants citizenship + protection of the land that belonged to Mexican-Americans

    • Congress removed the part protecting Mexican-American's land from the treaty before passing it

AALS Unit 6

The Chicano Movement: Background

Open Ended

Think back: What happened to the land of Mexican-Americans after it became part of the United States? How do you think the government and white Americans treated Mexican-Americans?

Multiple Choice

Americanization programs aimed at Mexican-Americans had the goal of:

• Training Mexican-American children to assimilate so they could be political leaders

• Teaching Mexican-American mothers how to cook American foods instead of Mexican foods

• Training Mexican-American families to be ready for violent conflict with Mexico's government

• Forcing Mexican-American families to assimilate and fill the demand for cheap labor in the west

Lost land and exploited labor

Remember...

We learned that at the same time that black people were dealing with the end of slavery, reconstruction, and the Jim Crow era, Mexican-Americans were also facing all types of oppression including:

• Land theft

• Violence

• Discrimination​

• Poor education ​and employment opportunities

The Chicano Movement: Background

Multiple Choice

TRUE OR FALSE: Mexican-Americans were also victims of lynching and other race-based violence during the Jim Crow era.

• True

• False

A movement that worked to embrace Chicano/a identity and reject the oppression/assimilation Mexican-Americans were facing.

-Inspired by previous acts of resistance ​by people of Mexican descent

​-Also inspired by the Black Power movement (Black Panthers)

​*Embrace culture vs. being "white" and assimilating*

The Chicano Movement: Background

What was the Chicano Movement?​

• JFK considers the issues of the Chicano community & appoints Latinx officials

  • ​Latinx-Americans use their power to demand reforms in education, labor, politics, and other areas

Chicanos use their power

• the Mexican American Political Association worked to elect JFK in 1960

  • This exposed the large impact Latinx voters could have on elections ​

John F. Kennedy's Election

The Chicano Movement takes off...

Chicano Movement: Background

Multiple Choice

Which of the following might be an ACT OF RESISTANCE taken by Mexican-Americans that motivated the Chicano Movement?

• The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

• The Mexican-American War

• None of these

• Mendez v. Westminster

Mexican-Americans were fighting to regain the land that was stolen from them.

Land

​Think about Mendez v. Westminster--Mexican-Americans continued to fight for more equitable and high-quality education.

Education

​

Mexican-Americans fought for fair wages and better working conditions.​

​​Worker's Rights

​

Mexican-Americans also fought to have their voices and issues heard in politics and the government.​

Political Representation

​

​Causes of the Chicano Movement

• Mexican-Americans were tired of their issues and voices not being heard

• Created their own political party

  • Goal: unite the race to gain more political power to make change

    • In order to fight growing inequality

​

​The Chicano Movement: Goals of the Movement

La Raza Unida

• The Brown Berets

  • Created by students

    • looking for more diversity and a better education system

      • Participated in school walk-outs, fought against land theft, and launched the El Barrio Free Clinic

    • Also as resistance to police brutality

      • similar to the Black Panther Party

        • Try looking up the Chicago chapter of the Brown Berets!

​

The Chicano Movement: Goals of the Movement

​

​Education

• United Mexican American Students and the Mexican American Youth Association

  • ​Walkouts to protest:

    • bans on Spanish speaking, white supremacist curriculums, the lack of Chicano(a) teachers, and other issues

• Eventually led to the creation of Bilingual and Bicultural programs in schools and the hiring of more Chicano(a) teachers

​

The Chicano Movement: Goals of the Movement

​

​Education

• One of the biggest goals was for farm owners to recognize workers unions

• Dolores Huerta and Ceasar Chavez founded the United Farm Workers' Union​

  • Went on strike, including hunger strikes​ to demand recognition

​

​The Chicano Movement: Goals of the Movement

Worker's Rights

• Mexican-Americans were questioning the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

• ​Reies Lopez Tijerina

  • major leader in the fight to reclaim land

    • This land was their ancestral homeland, also known as Aztlán.

• The goal was to regain the land stolen from Mexican Americans

​The Chicano Movement: Goals of the Movement

Land

​

• Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales​: advocated for a separate Mexican-American State

  • Wrote the poem, "Yo Soy Joaquin"

    • “The Treaty of Hidalgo has been broken and is but another treacherous promise. / My land is lost and stolen. / My culture has been raped.”

​The Chicano Movement: Goals of the Movement

Land

​

Multiple Choice

“The Treaty of Hidalgo has been broken and is but another treacherous promise. / My land is lost and stolen. / My culture has been raped.”

Which of these is Gonzales most likely talking about when he says "my culture has been raped"?

• The land theft that happed after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

• Forced Assimilation of Mexican-Americans

• The destruction of local property

• None of these

Programs for bilingual education in public schools and the hiring of more Chicano teachers

Bilingual Education

​Many farm owners--specifically grape growers--agree to recognize the United Farm Workers Union. This would ensure some improvements to wages and work conditions

Union Recognition

​

Chicano representation in politics--more Chicano legislators being elected and issues being brought to the "table" ​

​​Increased Representation

​

​Even though Chicanos did not successfully reclaim their land--the fight for land isn't over, and it educated many people about the history of the land stolen from Chicanos

​​Increased Awareness

​

​Outcomes

​Although the movement did not achieve all of it's goals, there were many important achievements. Here are a few:

Chicanas fought to make sure that their voices and issues weren't left out of this movement.​​

• Played a huge role in organizing and other movement work

• Joined different groups and organizations like the Brown Berets ​

• Created their own spaces, groups, and philosophies ​to explore what it meant to be Chicana

Women in the Chicano Movement

Test your knowledge with an exit pass quiz!

Answer the following questions, using what you just learned. Be sure to read each question, carefully!

Multiple Choice

TRUE OR FALSE: After the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Mexican-Americans gained the full citizenship and rights promised to them.

• True

• False

Multiple Choice

TRUE OR FALSE: During Reconstruction and Jim Crow Mexican and other groups of Spanish-speaking Americans were also segregated from white people and discriminated against.

• True

• False

Multiple Choice

Which of these is NOT a cause of the Chicano movement?

• Unpaid Reparations for slavery

• Land Theft

• Political Representation

• Educational Inequity

Multiple Choice

TRUE OR FALSE: Mexican-Americans played no role in the election of president John F. Kennedy

• True

• False

Multiple Choice

The goal of La Raza Unida was to:

• Unite all minority races to elect a Mexican president

• Create more representation of Hispanic and Latinx people and issues in politics and government

• Unite different Hispanic and Latinx and build a military to take back Mexico's land

• None of these

Multiple Choice

Students fighting for more educational equity in schools in the Chicano Movement continues which act of resistance we learned about?

• John Brown's Raid

• The Montgomery Bus Boycott

• None of these

• Mendez v Westminster

Multiple Choice

Which of the following was a success of the Chicano Movement?

• Bilingual and Bicultural programs

• Free land grants for Mexican-Americans

• Free breakfast programs

• None of these

Multiple Choice

Although Mexican-Americans are still fighting for their land, the Chicano movement:

• Drew more attention to the history of how the U.S. stole Mexico and Mexican-American land

• Exposed a secret society of rich white men who were enslaving Mexican-American immigrants

• Successfully was able to reclaim over half the land stolen from them by settlers and the U.S. government

• None of these

Multiple Choice

Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez were both important leaders of which branch of the Chicano Movement?

• Education

• Land Rights

• Politics

• Worker's Rights

Multiple Choice

TRUE OR FALSE: Women didn't play a huge role in the Chicano Movement.

• True

• False

Great Work! You are all done 🥳

If you have any questions or want to go over anything, please come see me! Remember: You can go through the exit pass quiz as many times as you'd like until you get 100%!

Please do not forget that ALL late work is due Friday!​