The chicano movement: dead or alive?  (Page 7/11)

While Chavez embraced non-violence and passive resistance in the face of police, agricultural grower, and Teamster union aggression, Tijerina took direct action against such entities. Tijerina claimed the various state and federal constitutions gave Indo-Hispanos the right to make citizens’ arrests of those violating laws and treaties. Various state constitutions the U.S. Constitution, and Anglo-Saxon common law place an affirmative duty on citizens to make arrests of those violating the law and also to assist police in arresting those who have broken the law. He claimed that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and Spain’s Leyes de las Indias gave Indo-Hispanos inviolate rights to culture, land, and heritage. And, he went in pursuit of those he deemed must be arrested and tried: scientists at Los Alamos Atomic Laboratory in New Mexico and Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Warren E. Burger (1969), in Washington, D.C., for example. He collaborated with Martin Luther King, Jr. in developing the Poor People’s Campaign Martin Luther King Jr. envisioned a national campaign based not only on the plight of African Americans but also all other poor people. In 1968 he organized a massive demonstration involving a camp-in at the Washington Monument by the poor of the U.S. known as Tent City. Chicanos, Indians, poor whites, and other minorities joined in this effort. and formed alliances and coalitions with Indios in New Mexico and other states.

Both Chavez and Tijerina internationalized the Chicano Movement in that they traveled outside the United States to publicize their SM’s and seek support for their causes. Tijerina went one step further and engaged in research of land titles and grants in Spain and Mexico for his case against the U.S. He unsuccessfully pressured countries, such as Spain and Mexico, and international bodies, such as the United Nations and the Organization of American States, to present the Indo-Hispano claim to a homeland within the U.S.

For his many physical confrontations with U.S. authorities, both state and federal, Tijerina was jailed repeatedly and finally imprisoned for several years in the federal penitentiary. Imprisonment led to his demise as a civil rights leader given the conditions of parole which included he could not speak about or lead any organization that addressed land grant issues.

The chicano movement in the 1970s and 1980s

Chavez and Tijerina commanded the most attention from all sectors during the 1960s. By the following decade, women and youth of Mexican ancestry had fully joined the universe of SMs and emerging organizations. Chicanas tired of male-centered leadership and social dominance. Some women, of course, had been involved with both the farm workers and the land recovery movement, but most were not. Chicanas sought a feminine-centered SM and organization, which they found in the Comicion Femenil , the organization that took place around school boycotts and strikes, the formation of La Raza Unida Party, and the International Year of the Woman. Many Chicanas exhibited leadership and accomplished major reforms during these two decades but none became as known as the emerging male Chicano leaders.