Viva Kennedy

Viva Kennedy

Author: Ignacio M. García

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9781603447324

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For a few brief months during the presidential campaign of 1960, Mexican Americans caught a glimpse of their own Camelot in the promise of John F. Kennedy. Grassroots "Viva Kennedy Clubs" sprang up not only in the southwestern United States but also across California and the upper Midwest to help elect the young Catholic standard bearer. The leaders of the Viva Kennedy Clubs were confident and hopeful that their participation in American democracy would mark the beginning of the end of discrimination, violence, and poverty in the barrio. Although the dream of attaching their own Camelot to Kennedy's ultimately ended in disappointment, these participatory efforts contributed to an identity-building process for Mexican Americans that led to greater emphasis on Americanization for some and to the more radical rhetoric of the Chicano Movement for others. In "Viva Kennedy," Ignacio M. Garcia surveys the background, development, and evolution of the Viva Kennedy Clubs and their post-election incarnation as PASO, the Political Association of Spanish-Speaking Organizations. He argues that patriotic fervor of the 1940s and postwar economic expansion spurred middle-class Mexican Americans to strive for full inclusion in American society. Ironically, those involved in the Viva Kennedy movement showed their militancy in fighting discrimination even as they upheld America's conservative values. They believed that discrimination could be overcome through government actions that recognized their civil rights and through their own political participation. Garcia describes the post-election problems of the Viva Kennedy reformers, who first saw the Kennedy administration ignore its campaign promises to them and then encountered their own factional squabbles, chronic funding problems, and a growing unease among Anglo Americans wary of Mexican American political power. Based on research and interviews with key leaders of the Viva Kennedy movement such as Ed Idar, Jr., Edward R. Roybal, and Albert Pena, Jr., this study unveils a portrait of a people in transition and provides a nuanced picture of twentieth-century Mexican American history.


One Night in America

One Night in America

Author: Steven W. Bender

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-12-03

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1317254961

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"Courageous." -Ilan Stavans, author of Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language Robert Kennedy and Cesar Chavez came from opposite sides of the tracks of race and class that still divide Americans. Both optimists, Kennedy and Chavez shared a common vision of equality. They united in the 1960s to crusade for the rights of migrant farm workers. Farm workers faded from public consciousness following Kennedy's assassination and Chavez's early passing. Yet the work of Kennedy and Chavez continues to reverberate in America today. Bender chronicles their warm friendship and embraces their bold political vision for making the American dream a reality for all. Although many books discuss Kennedy or Chavez individually, this is the first book to capture their multifaceted relationship and its relevance to mainstream U.S. politics and Latino/a politics today. Bender examines their shared legacy and its continuing influence on political issues including immigration, education, war, poverty, and religion. Mapping a new political path for Mexican Americans and the poor of all backgrounds, this book argues that there is still time to prove Kennedy and Chavez right.


Vicente Ximenes, LBJ's Great Society, and Mexican American Civil Rights Rhetoric

Vicente Ximenes, LBJ's Great Society, and Mexican American Civil Rights Rhetoric

Author: Michelle Hall Kells

Publisher: SIU Press

Published: 2018-01-29

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 0809336405

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Beginning as a grassroots organizer in the 1950s, Vicente Ximenes was at the forefront of the movement for Mexican American civil rights through three presidential administrations, joining Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society and later emerging as one of the highest-ranking appointees in Johnson’s administration. Ximenes succeeded largely because he could adapt his rhetoric for different audiences in his speeches and writings. Michelle Hall Kells elucidates Ximenes’s achievements through a rhetorical history of his career as an activist. Kells draws on Ximenes’s extensive archive of speeches, reports, articles, and oral interviews to present the activist’s rhetorical history. After a discussion of Ximenes’s early life, the author focuses on his career as an activist, examining Ximenes’s leadership in several key civil rights events, including the historic 1967 White House Cabinet Committee Hearings on Mexican American Affairs. Also highlighted is his role in advancing Mexican Americans and Latinos from social marginalization to greater representation in national politics. This book shows us a remarkable man who dedicated the majority of his life to public service, using rhetoric to mobilize activists for change to secure civil rights advances for his fellow Mexican Americans.


The Rise of the Latino Vote

The Rise of the Latino Vote

Author: Benjamin Francis-Fallon

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2019-09-24

Total Pages: 505

ISBN-13: 0674241878

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A new history reveals how the rise of the Latino vote has redrawn the political map and what it portends for the future of American politics. The impact of the Latino vote is a constant subject of debate among pundits and scholars. Will it sway elections? And how will the political parties respond to the growing number of voters who identify as Latino? A more basic and revealing question, though, is how the Latino vote was forged—how U.S. voters with roots in Latin America came to be understood as a bloc with shared interests. In The Rise of the Latino Vote, Benjamin Francis-Fallon shows how this diverse group of voters devised a common political identity and how the rise of the Latino voter has transformed the electoral landscape. Latino political power is a recent phenomenon. It emerged on the national scene during the turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s, when Mexican American, Puerto Rican, and Cuban American activists, alongside leaders in both the Democratic and the Republican parties, began to conceive and popularize a pan-ethnic Hispanic identity. Despite the increasing political potential of a unified Latino vote, many individual voters continued to affiliate more with their particular ethnic communities than with a broader Latino constituency. The search to resolve this contradiction continues to animate efforts to mobilize Hispanic voters and define their influence on the American political system. The “Spanish-speaking vote” was constructed through deliberate action; it was not simply demographic growth that led the government to recognize Hispanics as a national minority group, ushering in a new era of multicultural politics. As we ponder how a new generation of Latino voters will shape America’s future, Francis-Fallon uncovers the historical forces behind the changing face of America.


Latino Politics

Latino Politics

Author: Lisa Garc¿a Bedolla

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2021-01-22

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1509537759

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The third edition of this popular text provides students with a comprehensive introduction to Latino political engagement in US politics. Focusing on six Latino groups – Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans – the book explores the migration history of each and examines their political status on arrival in the United States, including their civil rights, employment opportunities, and political incorporation. Finally, the analysis follows each group’s history of collective mobilization and political activity, drawing out the varied ways they have engaged in the US political system. Fully revised and updated, the new edition explores the state of Latino politics under both the Obama and Trump Administrations, discussing issues such as migrant detention at the US–Mexico border, the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, and the thawing of relations between the United States and Cuba. It encourages students to think critically about what it means to be a racialized minority group within a majoritarian US political system, and how that position structures Latinos’ ability to achieve their social, economic, and political goals.


Chicanismo

Chicanismo

Author: Ignacio M. García

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 1997-09-01

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 0816544549

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During the 1960s and '70s, Mexican Americans began to agitate for social and political change. From their diverse activities and agendas there emerged a new political consciousness. Emphasizing race and class within the context of an oppressive society, this militant ethos would become the unifying theme for groups involved in a myriad of causes. Chicanismo, as it came to be known, marked a transformation in the way Mexican Americans thought about themselves, enabling them for the first time to see themselves as a community with a past and a present. In Chicanismo, the first intellectual history of the Chicano Movement and the militant ethos that emerged from it, Ignacio Garcia traces the development of the philosophical strains that guided the movement. First, Mexican Americans came to believe that the liberal agenda that had promised education and equality had failed them, leading them toward separatism. Second, they saw a need to reinterpret the past as it related to their own history, leading them to discovered their legacy of struggle. Third, Mexican American activists, intellectuals, and artists affirmed a renewed pride in their ethnicity and class status. Finally, this new philosophy-Chicanismo-was politicized through the struggles of the Chicano organizations that promoted it as they faced resistance or external attacks. Although the idea of Chicanismo would eventually unravel, its ideological strains remain important even today. Combining research and personal knowledge of people, events, organizations, and political/cultural rhetoric, along with a synthesis of scholarship from a variety of fields, Chicanismo provides a unique, multidimensional view of the Chicano Movement.


Mexicano Political Experience in Occupied Aztlan

Mexicano Political Experience in Occupied Aztlan

Author: Armando Navarro

Publisher: Rowman Altamira

Published: 2005-07-14

Total Pages: 772

ISBN-13: 0759114749

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This exciting new volume from Armando Navarro offers the most current and comprehensive political history of the Mexicano experience in the United States. He examines in-depth topics such as American political culture, electoral politics, demography, and organizational development. Viewing Mexicanos today as an occupied and colonized people, he calls for the formation of a new movement to reinvigorate the struggle for resistance and change among Mexicanos. Navarro envisions a new political and cultural landscape as the dominant Latino population 'Re-Mexicanizes' the U.S. into a more multicultural and multiethnic society. This book will be a valuable resource for political and social activists and teaching tool for political theory, Latino politics, ethnic and minority politics, race relations in the United States, and social movements.


Memories of Chicano History

Memories of Chicano History

Author: Mario T. García

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2023-11-10

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 0520916549

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Who is Bert Corona? Though not readily identified by most Americans, nor indeed by many Mexican Americans, Corona is a man of enormous political commitment whose activism has spanned much of this century. Now his voice can be heard by the wide audience it deserves. In this landmark publication—the first autobiography by a major figure in Chicano history—Bert Corona relates his life story. Corona was born in El Paso in 1918. Inspired by his parents' participation in the Mexican Revolution, he dedicated his life to fighting economic and social injustice. An early labor organizer among ethnic communities in southern California, Corona has agitated for labor and civil rights since the 1940s. His efforts continue today in campaigns to organize undocumented immigrants. This book evolved from a three-year oral history project between Bert Corona and historian Mario T. García. The result is a testimonio, a collaborative autobiography in which historical memories are preserved more through oral traditions than through written documents. Corona's story represents a collective memory of the Mexican-American community's struggle against discrimination and racism. His narration and García's analysis together provide a journey into the Mexican-American world. Bert Corona's reflections offer us an invaluable glimpse at the lifework of a major grass-roots American leader. His story is further enriched by biographical sketches of others whose names have been little recorded during six decades of American labor history.


Introduction to Latino Politics in the U.S.

Introduction to Latino Politics in the U.S.

Author: Lisa Garcia Bedolla

Publisher: Polity

Published: 2009-06-29

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 0745633854

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Focusing on five Latino groups – Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans – this book provides students with a comprehensive introduction to Latino participation in US politics. It begins by looking at the migration history of each group and how that experience is affected by US foreign policy and economic interests in each country of origin. The political status of Latinos on arrival in the United States, including their civil rights, employment opportunities, and political incorporation, is then examined. Finally, the analysis follows each group’s history of collective mobilization and political activity, exploring the varied ways they have engaged in the U.S. political system. Using the tension between individual agency and structural constraints as its central organizing theme, the discussion situates Latino migrants, and their children, within larger macro economic and geo-political structures that influence their decisions to migrate and their ability to adapt socially, economically, and politically to their new country. It also demonstrates how Latinos continually have shown that through political action they can significantly improve their channels of opportunity. Thus, the book pushes students to think critically about what it means to be a racialized minority group within a majoritarian U.S. political system, and how that position structures Latinos’ ability to achieve their social, economic, and political goals. For more information and resources visit the accompanying series website: www.politybooks.com/minoritypol


The Kennedys

The Kennedys

Author: John H. Davis

Publisher: SP Books

Published: 1993-11

Total Pages: 898

ISBN-13: 9781561710607

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Now revised and fully updated, this "definitive Kennedy biography" (Cleveland Plain Dealer) includes exclusive, previously unknown information on the Palm Beach scandal, the newest revelations on the JFK and RFK assassinations, as well as the latest on America's most notorious family. The author is first cousin to Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis.