There Was a Time of Chicano Protest and Heat: Let’s Not Forget

In the 1960s, Mexican Americans were often called “the forgotten minority.” That is outdated, the argument goes, because Latinos are a majority in cities from Miami to San Antonio, and soon in Los Angeles. The call now is for a new strategy based on Latinos’ emerging political, economic and cultural clout.

I don’t disagree with that view. But there are times when the anger that marked the Chicano movimiento protests, especially against the Vietnam War, still comes in handy. With so much talk of a new war, this may be one of those times.

So it is encouraging to note that several organizers of el movimiento are getting together again. Later this month, on L.A.’s Eastside, they will commemorate the Chicano Moratorium of Aug. 29, 1970.

For those who have forgotten or simply don’t know, the Chicano Moratorium Committee was an activist group that organized Latino protests, many against the Vietnam War when that conflict was at its height and a disproportionately large number of Latinos was being killed. It held a series of antiwar vigils and marches that culminated on a smoggy and humid Saturday afternoon in East Los Angeles when more than 20,000 people gathered for what was, up to then, the largest Latino protest demonstration.

Sadly, that historic protest march degenerated into the worst rioting the city had seen since Watts exploded in 1965.

That happened when Los Angeles police and sheriff’s deputies, trying to stop looting at a liquor store near the park where the march had ended, used tear gas to disperse the crowd.

In the chaos that ensued, businesses along Whittier Boulevard were burned and looted and three people were killed, including Ruben Salazar, a Times columnist and news director of Spanish-language KMEX-TV.

Much has been written about Salazar and his tragic and untimely death. Less noted is what became of the Chicano Moratorium Committee and the many activists who joined in its protests. This is a void that the organizers of Chicano Moratorium 2002, which will run from Aug. 23 to 30, are hoping to remedy. They are organizing photo exhibits, lectures, film presentations and prayer services for the commemoration.

“It’s not just a reunion of the old-timers,” says Rosalio Munoz, 55, the former UCLA student body president who was chairman of the original moratorium committee. “We want it to be much more than that. It’s for our kids. We want our children and grandchildren to know what we were involved in, and why.”

All too often, he says, the current generation of Latinos--even those who consider themselves community activists--is ignorant of what happened earlier. Accustomed to statistics showing rapid growth and progress for Latinos, they barely remember a time when Mexican Americans were a minority that sent a large number of young draftees to Vietnam.

“I really fear that the next generation will be completely out of touch” with this history, Munoz says. And the timing of Chicano Moratorium 2002, he adds, could not be more appropriate, given the talk about war in Iraq. “George W. has lots of us worried,” Munoz says in referring to the antiwar activists who were the heart of the old Chicano Moratorium.

I can anticipate the criticism, even the mockery, that will greet Munoz and the other aging activists as they promote this event. Isn’t it a waste of time, some will ask, to complain about old injustices when so many new problems need our attention? But that’s beside the point.

Maybe the progress that Latino activists cite with confidence and pride today would have been achieved without the protests Munoz and other Chicano activists of his era led. All we know for sure is history, as it happened. I applaud Munoz and his friends for not letting us forget.

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Frank del Olmo is the associate editor of The Times.