40th anniversary of first Latino political party
Mexican Americans made political history 40 years ago when, on Jan. 17, 1970, they founded their own independent political party in Crystal City, Texas. They called it “La Raza Unida Party” — or, translated, “The United People’s Party.”
A look back at this party can give us clues about where we need to go today.
The call for an independent political party came out of a national 1969 Chicano youth conference held in Denver by the Crusade for Justice, the first Mexican American civil rights organization to emerge during the 1960s. The conference produced a plan for Chicano liberation called “El Plan de Aztlan.” The document called the two-party political system “the same animal with two heads that feed at the same trough” because they represented the nation’s political power structures that historically had oppressed and colonized Mexican Americans since the end of the U.S.-Mexico War of 1846-1848.
As was the case for blacks in the South, Mexican Americans had been victimized in the Southwest — from lynchings to segregation.
The party’s strength was in Texas and California, the two states with the largest Mexican American populations. With the exception of Crystal City, where the party gained control of the city council and school board, and several other South Texas cities, there were few victories for the party, due to strong opposition from both conservative and liberal white and Mexican American sectors.
For example, Henry Gonzalez, a liberal Democratic congressman and the only Mexican American from Texas serving in the U.S. Congress at the time, publicly denounced Jose Angel Gutierrez, the leader of the party.
In California, the party was not able to get the required 66,000 voters registered to get on the state ballot. It was able to register only 22,000 people, mostly college students. It never came close to a single political victory.
The party’s last hurrah came in the 1972 Texas governor’s race when its candidate, Ramsey Muniz, received 6.43 percent of the votes.
Soon after, the party started to decline due to ideological divisions.
The party did not meet its goal of becoming an independent political institution, but it helped open doors for Mexican Americans into the two-party political system. After the party’s decline, many of the party’s activists went into the Democratic Party.
More significantly, the party contributed to the political awakening of the Mexican American people and other Latinos. It put the issue of political representation of Latinos on the agendas of local, state and national politics. Prior to the emergence of the party, there were only a relative handful of Latino elected officials. Now, though still underrepresented, there are hundreds of them throughout nation. For example, in 1970, there were five Latinos in the U.S. Congress. Now there are 25, including two U.S. senators.
The increase in elected officials, however, has not resulted in fundamental change, primarily because those officials, no matter how liberal they may be, are an integral part of the “animal with two heads.” Racial or ethnic identity does not guarantee the representation of communities of color — specifically, those who are poor and working class. The best example today is the president of the United States. The majority of black and Latinos voted for President Obama expecting he would act in the interest of their communities. He has not.
The story of the La Raza Unida Party teaches us that independent political parties based on racial or ethnic identity will not work. An independent mass political party that can represent the needs of our more complex diverse society must emerge to challenge the two-party duopoly. Such a party could lead to an authentic multiracial, multiethnic and multicultural democracy for the 21st century.
Carlos Munoz Jr. is professor emeritus of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He was one of the founders of the La Raza Unida Party in California and is the award-winning author of “Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement.” He can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.
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Comments
With all due respect, Carlos Munoz, Ph.D., professor emeritus, UC Berkeley, is writing a book, "Struggle for an Authentic Multiracial Democracy," and it seems his kickoff or top agenda item is to boot La Raza Unida Party (see http://www.pnlru.org/) out of
his political arena.
I am not speaking for or on behalf of La Raza Unida Party. I am speaking, as a longtime Chicano activist who knows and understands who and what our Chicana and Chicano Movement is about. We have a great past filled with tremendous accomplishments via La Raza Unida and other community-based Chicana and Chicano organizations along with campus MEChAs and other student groups.
La Raza Unida Party was established, as a direct response to the call for an independent political party in El Plan de Aztlan (see http://www.umich.edu/~mechaum/Aztlan.html). The
Partido remains at the heart of our Chicana and Chicano Movement today including in Nuevo Plan de Aztlan (see http://home.comcast.net/~earthbeat).
To now say La Raza Unida should be eliminated because it hasn't accomplished everything Carlos -- or any other individual Mexican-American would hope for -- is just plain reckless and irresponsible. It's like saying MEChAs and our entire Movimiento should be disbanded, i.e., everything Chicano and Latino should just merge into "multiracial" or "multicultural" programs, organizations or committees where
everybody pretends we are all the same or "separate but equal" when we are not and never will be.
This multiracial push might gain Carlos points with his superiors and other "higher education" assimilationists pushing multiculturalism (acculturation) on their students like Ecstasy, but it solves nothing when it comes to the mounting racism against La Raza in our real world, nor does it help Chicanas and Chicanos become proud of our great history, culture and heritage, especially our young who need this pride in who and what they are the most, in order to succeed in life.
The fact Carlos Munoz and other professors like Rogelio Reyes at San Diego State University are assailing La Raza Unida Party only goes to show just how detached their profession and "higher education" are to our campos, barrios and colonias. If these professors want to start a new "multiracial party" to promote their personal agendas, fine, but not by sticking it to La Raza Unida Party on their way into the political arena.
La Raza Unida is one of the very few Movement organizations that hasn't disbanded or sold us out, after 40 years of very hard work, dedication and experience fighting for La Causa, i.e., peace and justice.
Who will they target next, MEChAs? Well, we all know just how "involved" most teachers and their Chicano, Ethnic, Diversity, Multicultural and other "minority programs" get with MEChA students; like ZILCH!
But wait, these same "wise and learned educators" are even less involved in their surrounding communities, so why wouldn't they know everything there is to know about our campos, barrios and colonias, in order to conclude one of the very few genuine community-based Chicana and Chicano organizations fighting for our rights needs to be eliminated? The academics went to a workshop, after all; maybe even heard a good lecture and watched a movie or two
about "it."
Their "it" is all they need to know about La Raza, our Movimiento and key organization, i.e., LA RAZA UNIDA PARTY, don't you think? Minimal involvement with their students; minimal involvement
with their communities -- this qualifies professors to lash out at grassroots organizations from their ivory towers?! I don't think so.
La Raza Unida is THE BACKBONE of our Chicana and Chicano Movement. I have no doubt Carlos Munoz's intentions are good, but he has lost sight of what our Movement is and will always be about, i.e., liberation also known as self-determination.
La Raza is composed of over 650 million multilingual people from all the races, colors, nationalities, ethnicities, cultures, religions and creeds of the world. Over 45 million (7% of our multiracial population) live in the U.S. We have more diversity than any other segment of U.S. society, and we are Indigenas or Native American, too.
It is not only racist to believe one race is "superior" to any or all others, it is racist to believe mixed-race people are "inferior." Chicanas and Chicanos come in all races and colors, and this
is why La Raza Unida is anything but racist.
What true racists have learned, nevertheless, is to label those of us who fight against their racism, as racists. It is okay for them to be racist and force their institutionalized racism down our throats, but it is not okay for us to resist, oppose or fight back against their racist ways and means of keeping us exploited and oppressed?!
Comments re Carlos Munoz's "multiracial party" proposal on the Progressive webpage at
http://www.progressive.org/mp/munoz011510.html show just how much racist respondents love how he has turned against La Raza Unida Party and seemingly everything else "La Raza." And as per usual, these red-blooded racists are calling us racists for fighting against their racism; how convenient.
Then, there is the Democratic Party that hates La Raza Unida for "taking away votes;" and as for the extremely racist Republican Party, I won't even go there. Carlos Munoz is making a lot of people outside our Movement happy.
In conclusion, eliminating La Raza Unida Party is like removing the backbone and even the heart out of our Chicana and Chicano Movement. A heartless and spineless Movimiento is not what Chicanas and Chicanos are about. Mexican-Americans like Carlos Munoz are always free to move on, but those of us who remain "behind" will continue to expose our exploiters and oppressors for so long as the rivers flow.