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US Latinx Activism and Protests: From the Farm to the (Legislative) Table Main Menu Collection Media Thumbnails Hashtag Description Art produced during the Chicanx Movement Abstract: In the midst of change, The Chicanx Movement was a monumental time for Mexican Americans in the United States during the late 1960s. The movement addressed the social, economic, and political inequalities experienced by Mexican Americans across the nation. Aimed to celebrate and acknowledge cultural pride and identity, the movement also sought to reclaim and celebrate Mexican and Mexican American history, art, and culture. The Chicanx Movement played a significant role in shaping the Latino identity and influencing subsequent social justice movements, and the artwork produced during this time allowed for many to voice their opinions on the political and social climate of the U.S during the time. Chicano Moratorium Examining the causes, events, and leaders of the Chicano Moratorium #chicanx #feminism #movement LA Demonstrations During the Chicano Movement Abstract: The Chicano Movement was a movement that involved Mexican-Americans all over the United States and was a crucial component to establishing civil rights for Latinos. While Chicanos living in the United States were at the focal point of discrimination in society, they figured that it was best to come together and establish a sense of familiarity in order to combat these racial remarks and disadvantages. To spark attention to their cause and movement, many Chicanos participated in numerous demonstrations and while many were peaceful, many considered them as radical. By Steve, Lexi, and Ricardo Bracero Program In this project we will be analyzing a number of facets of the Bracero Program with a specific focus on the causes, on both sides of the border, which culminated in the agreement. Consequently, we will explore the historical context of the US and Mexico of the first half of the twentieth century, including the impact of the Mexican Revolution as well as the dire situation brought about by the second world war. By utilizing this basis we will then analyze the “migration aspect” entailed by the program, travel from Mexico to the US and various territories. Not only as an in depth look at the agreement, but also as a necessary foundation. One which will permit the Bracero Program to be positioned in history, while simultaneously deepening the exposition and understanding of a largely forgotten case of large-scale abuse and exploitation. We anticipate this will form the backbone of the examination of bracero experiences: first-hand accounts and testimonials.. By Fernando, Joy and Lizeth Migration in the United States The United States has often been called a "nation of immigrants," here we observe specific instances of migration policy within the United States and how certain themes regarding immigrants have changed or been maintained. By: Zulema Arguello, Sofia Perez Valles, and Natalie Manzo-Silva Guatemalan Genocide & Its Dark Truth This page will focus on the Guatemalan genocide, a period of brutal violence that brought tremendous adversity to those indigenous communities residing in the rural areas of Guatemala. It will provide details regarding the atrocities that the Mayan people experienced, the trauma that was left behind, and the hardships that they continue to face today. Furthermore, it will demonstrate how this heinous period of history fostered activism and social movements in Guatemala. By Paola Chavarria and & Aurora Nieves Chicano Farm Worker Movement In this project, we will be discussing about the Chicano Farm Worker Movement and how it brought change to not only farm workers but to society as a whole. We will be focused on the working conditions of farm workers prior and after the movement, notable or influential leaders, and the communities that were fueling the movement. By examining their struggles, successes, and legacy, we wanted to provide a better understanding of the process needed to advocate and bring forth social change for a marginalized group of people. Last, we wanted to remove stereotypes and other misconceptions about the movement in creating a more equitable society. Por: Justin Bui, Kristi Kang, Jenniffer Young Las "Brujas" Feministas: Magazines, Art, and Television This project intends to provide a comprehensive analysis of women's representation in different mediums such as art, television, and fanzines. In this way, the goal is to understand the gender stereotypes that women have had to overcome from a feminist perspective. Through this discussion, the hope is to amplify women's voices to promote inclusive and equitable representation in society. By Claudia Mejia, Janet Landa, Diana Andrade Young Lords Party The Young Lords Party was founded at the peak of the 1960s political and civil rights movement in the United States. With a focus on empowering Puerto Ricans while embracing other Latinx communities, the Young Lords Party sought to effect change and fight systematic oppression faced by marginalized groups. By Isha Das, Hayden Holliman, Carli Meinert & Elise Oliver Walkouts and Protests in Los Angeles On our page, we will discuss the walkouts and protests that took place within schools and communities across Los Angeles. The school protests happened because Latino students wanted to see a change in the education system. Some of the changes Latino students wanted to see implemented were hiring more Chicano professors and administrators, having more Chicano Studies classes in higher education, and overall being treated better without discrimination or judgment. In the 1960s, high school students faced racism and discrimination, which included a lack of education and insufficient school buildings in comparison to those of white students in the area. Walkouts famously took place at Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles, where there was a large population of Latino students. In 1993, college students also faced a lack of Chicano education when budget cuts put the Chicano classes at UCLA at risk of being shut down. This led to a hunger strike, where UCLA students protested and ultimately helped to establish the UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies. In the years leading up to 1965, Latino and Black communities also protested because they wanted to see a change in the way they were treated. The Black community finally had enough in 1965 and the Watts Riots happened, which in the end led to positive changes in their community. By Sydney Schwinger, Vanessa Harris, Jazmin Chavez

Gloria Arellanes Photo Strips

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Portrait Claire Saguy
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1. Gloria Arellanes Photo Strips
Women Activists Claire Saguy
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1. Gloria Arellanes Photo Strips

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Gloria Arellanes and Las Adelitas de Aztlán This page examines the Chicana feminists behind the August 1970 Moratorium, spotlighting the remarkable organizing and leadership of Gloria Arellanes. Not only did Arellanes serve for two years as the first female minister for the Brown Berets, but she mobilized thousands of Chicanos while working for the National Chicano Moratorium Committee Against the Vietnam War in 1969 and 1970. Working with the Brown Berets, Arellanes and other women faced a stifling male-dominated macho culture and ultimately dropped their memberships in February 1970 to form their own organization, Las Adelitas de Aztlán, led by Arellanes. #chicanx #feminism #movement #moratorium #activism

[The] Brown Berets [were] a good group of young people who wanted to make changes; who were tired of the police brutality; were tired of not being able to go to college; were tired of not getting good jobs; living in poor housing; knowing that people around them, their own family, needed healthcare and didn’t have that. These were all things that touch my heart and I have passions for (Gloria Arellanes, personal communication, June 26, 2016).
Passionate about helping her Chicanx community and others, Gloria Arellanes pursued a life of activism and service. In her early twenties, she became the first and only woman minister of the Brown Berets and led the first free East L.A. community health clinic, El Barrio Free Clinic. When it later shut down, she opened another clinic providing free basic services, including reproductive healthcare. She also mobilized Chicana activists, creating the feminist group "Las Adelitas de Aztlán" and played an instrumental role planning the historic Moratorium on August 29, 1970 alongside the National Chicano Moratorium Committee. Today, her health clinic continues to serve the community as AltaMed. Her other contributions have had an equally lasting effect on Chicanx communities.

In 1968, the Brown Berets appointed Gloria Arellanes Minister of Finance and Correspondence. As the only woman minister, however, she held little to no decision-making power. In fact, if not for her “big-mouthed” and physically large presence—at 300 pounds at five-foot-eight-inches—she likely would have never entered Brown Beret leadership at all. Still, the title “Minister of Finance and Correspondence” meant little more than “glorified secretary,” according to Arellanes, who recalls receiving mostly administrative work (Juan Herrera, 2015). Brown Beret male leadership, for instance, allotted Arellanes and the women with assembling their newsletter, titled La Causa. Unfortunately, however, scant financial resources severely limited production and distribution (Gloria Arellanes Facts for Kids, n.d.).
We were not accepted. It was very difficult. When people learned about Brown Berets as time went on, they looked at it as militant troublemakers…So, we were told, “You’re going to come across people that don’t like you, and you’re just going to have to take it." (Gloria Arellanes, personal communication, June 26, 2016).
In spite of the organization’s economic struggles and macho culture, Arellanes persevered. Just as she had to rise above the Brown Berets’ reputation as “militant troublemakers” to win neighborhood support, she tried to get along with Brown Beret members. Having become sufficiently accepted by their community in 1969, the Brown Berets opened the East L.A. Free Clinic, later to be known as El Barrio Free Clinic, on Whittier Boulevard (Juan Herrera, 2015).

David Sanchez, the Brown Beret prime minister, asked Arellanes to run it. Even with no medical training or expertise whatsoever, she rose to the occasion, acquiring volunteering doctors, nurses, and technicians as well as medical equipment. As Arellanes later stated in a 2016 interview by the Southern Oral History Program, “No one had ever done that in East L.A." (Gloria Arellanes, personal communication, June 26, 2016).

Once established, community members constantly filled the clinic, worked exclusively by women. Despite high demand, however, the Clinic’s high-demand services were short-lived. Brown Beret men consistently came to the Clinic at night to party, leaving behind a mess for the women to clean. Ultimately, Arellanes says she gave Sanchez an ultimatum: “‘I will leave if you don’t change this, and I will take all the women with me, and maybe some of the younger men” (Gloria Arellanes, personal communication, June 26, 2016). In February 1970, the Brown Berets lost virtually all their female membership (Juan Herrera, 2015).

The women did not give up their activism along with their membership—far from it. Under the leadership of Arellanes, they formed Las Adelitas de Aztlán, a group for Chicana’s rights named after La Adelita, the revolutionary woman who fought alongside the men in Mexico’s Revolution (Gloria Arellanes Facts for Kids, n.d.). By this time, Arellanes had also joined the National Chicano Moratorium Committee, helping coordinate marches protesting the disproportionate drafting of young Chicanos in the Vietnam War. Her contributions to the August 1970 moratorium cannot be understated. Without her instrumental outreach in the North California Bay Area region, traveling, making phone calls, and distributing flyers (Gloria Arellanes Facts for Kids, n.d.), the Moratorium’s participants may not have reached twenty or thirty thousand (Carlos Francisco Parra, 2020).

Arellanes also played a leading role in the Moratorium procession. Flying a banner from her father’s truck, she sat on the back shouting chants into a megaphone. Later, she got up on the stage to speak. Soon after, however, she was tear-gassed. The police had arrived, helicopters circling above the peaceful march. Everything became a blur. Stampedes of panicked people pushed through the hot summer air in search of safety.
We’re trying to listen to the news, and then all of a sudden, we see from the direction of Whittier Boulevard, the smoke going up. And people are crying. They can’t believe that such a beautiful event ended so tragically terrible. Because it took so much work to bring people out... It was the largest gathering I had ever seen the Chicano people do. And not only Chicano people—there was all kinds of people there... It was a real unifying force, and it was destroyed like that (Gloria Arellanes, personal communication, June 26, 2016).
The violent aftermath of the march marked the end of Arellanes' involvement with the Moratorium Committee and the Chicano Movement altogether (Gloria Arellanes, personal communication, June 26, 2016). Even removed from the Chicano Movement, Arellanes continued to pursue her passion in providing free community healthcare. About six months after the August Moratorium, she opened another clinic on Atlantic Boulevard, which supplied free medical services to the community, just as the Brown Berets' Barrio Free Clinic did before shutting down. It also provided important reproductive care and abortion counseling to women. Although Arellanes resigned from the board in 1972, the clinic continues to serve East L.A. inhabitants as AltaMed (Gloria Arellanes Facts for Kids, n.d.).

A fearless trailblazer and skilled organizer, Arellanes made enormous contributions to the Brown Berets and the Moratoriums. Standing up for her fellow Chicanas in the face of machismo, she co-founded "Las Adelitas de Aztlán," a fierce feminist force in the Moratorium marches. She also relentlessly pursed her passion for community health, running El Barrio Free Clinic, the first free clinic to serve East L.A., and later forming her own clinic after its closure. In areas of heath care and grassroots organizing alike, Arellanes' activism propelled the Chicanx movement well-past the 1970s.

Works Cited
Carlos Francisco Parra. (2020, August 20). The Chicano Moratorium 50 Years Later: Retracing the Mexican American Struggle Against the Vietnam
War. http://www.nomadicborder.com/the-chicano-moratorium-50-years-later.html
Chicano Moratorium Flyer. (n.d.). https://www.lucypr.com/theater/august-29/august-29-photos/
Gloria Arellanes. (2016, June 26). Civil Rights History Project Interview completed by the Southern Oral History Program under contract to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History & Culture and the Library of Congress, 2016 [Personal communication].
Gloria Arellanes facts for kids. (n.d.). https://kids.kiddle.co/Gloria_Arellanes#Las_Adelitas_de_Aztl.C3.A1n
Juan Herrera. (2015, March 26). ¡La Lucha Continua! Gloria Arellanes and Women in the Chicano Movement. KCET. https://www.kcet.org/history-society/la-lucha-continua-gloria-arellanes-and-women-in-the-chicano-movement
La Causa Newspaper. (n.d.). https://www.california-mexicocenter.org/the-chicana-revolt-las-adelitas-de-aztlan/
Letter Resignation. (n.d.). https://www.california-mexicocenter.org/the-chicana-revolt-las-adelitas-de-aztlan/
Marching with Brown Berets. (n.d.). https://www.california-mexicocenter.org/the-chicana-revolt-las-adelitas-de-aztlan/
Oscar Castillo. (mid 1970s). Free Barrio Clinic Signage.
Taylor Davidson. (n.d.). Gloria Arellanes. Chicana Por Mi Raza. https://chicanapormiraza.org/chicanas/gloria-arellanes
Vanessa Martínez & Julia Barajas. (2020, August 23). The Chicana Revolt: Las Adelitas de Aztlán. The California-Mexico Studies Center, Inc.