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Chicano conference programs and speeches, April 1973-May 1974

1973-04-14 Keynote Speech Page 7

was sent back to his home town in Three Rivers, Tejas. In Three Rivers, Tejas the local white folks had a different attitude about  this: Mexicans, dogs and Niggers were buried in the other cemetery, not in the white cemetery. They refused burial to this young soldier. They never to this day have accepted the remains of that soldier. He today is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. And out of this issue, the basic right to be buried in land that was once his or his forefathers, emerged the G.I. Forum. A young doctors by the name of Hector Garcia from Corpus Christie led this fight and he was assisted by a patronizing liberal congressman named Lyndon Johnson, who also did not agree with this issue but resolved it by burying him in Arlington. He was the first Chicano put in that cemetery.

As these things were happening in the forties there was another development that was the riots by police and the military on "Chicano Pachucos." We had the Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles. It seemed that the sailors recognized the beauty of the Chicanas. They came and tried to solicit our women and were refused. The young Chicano male, being offended by this kind of demeaning attitude and conduct, proceeded to beat up a couple of sailors. But then the entire battleship along with L.A. police and the County Deputies descended upon the Chicano community, singled out all the Pachucos and we were not hard to distinguish. We had duck tails. We were way ahead of our time in styles. They were aided by a newspaper campaign by the Hearst News Paper Co., calling for the extermination of Chicanos because we were inherently criminal because we were vicious and didn't know any better. So police campaigns and police riots against Chicanos took place predominantly in L.A. but across the United States.

Along with the Zoot Suit Riots came deportation. |There were a series of bills that were passed in the twenties dealing with immigration. At first immigration was restricted to all countries including Mexico. But you had the beginning fights in Congress over Mexico. You had the secretary Department of State who was defending the capitalists, the imperialists. You had the Department of Labor who was defending the local bigots. The bigots when they got through with Chicanos in the fields, railroads and mines had Chicanos deported. The capitalists recognizing a good deal wanted to keep the Mexicans because we were a source and have always been a source of cheap labor. We have been kept without unions and have been kept segregated. So the debates began and culminated when the bigots won out. We began seeing the second wave of deportations under Eisenhower. Massive deportations, it is estimated that well over three quarters of a million people, our people were deported. Of those three quarters of a million, one quarter (250,000) were U.S. born citizens. So you had many defense committees spring up. Many of the leadership in those committees came from other ethnic groups. Anglos, Jewish and Blacks came to our defense to no avail. So if you ask yourselves today how come we do not have representation among movie stars, athletes, bankers or among this or among that category, part of the answer my friends is that they are in Mexico. The leadership, the backbone of resistance and struggle was deported. There is a movie if you have not seen it called "Salt of the Earth". A movie that for many years was banned. The leading star of that movie, Rosaura Reveltes, to this

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was sent back to his home town in Three Rivers, Tejas. In Three Rivers, Tejas the local white folks had a different attitude about this: Mexicans, dogs and Niggers were buried in the other cemetery, not in the white cemetery. They refused burial to this young soldier. They never to this day have accepted the remains of that soldier. He today is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. And out of this issue, the basic right to be buried in land that was once his or his forefathers, emerged the G.I. Forum. A young doctors by the name of Hector Garcia from Corpus Christie led this fight and he was assisted by a patronizing liberal congressman named Lyndon Johnson, who also did not agree with this issue but resolved it by burying him in Arlington. He was the first Chicano put in that cemetery. As these things were happening in the forties there was another development that was the riots by police and the military on "Chicano Pachucos." We had the Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles. It seemed that the sailors recognized the beauty of the Chicanas. They came and tried to solicit our women and were refused. The young Chicano male, being offended by this kind of demeaning attitude and conduct, proceeded to beat up a couple of sailors. But then the entire battleship along with L.A. police and the County Deputies descended upon the Chicano community, singled out all the Pachucos and we were not hard to distinguish. We had duck tails. We were way ahead of our time in styles. They were aided by a newspaper campaign by the Hearst News Paper Co., calling for the extermination of Chicanos because we were inherently criminal because we were vicious and didn't know any better. So police campaigns and police riots against Chicanos took place predominantly in L.A. but across the United States. Along with the Zoot Suit Riots came deportation. |There were a series of bills that were passed in the twenties dealing with immigration. At first immigration was restricted to all countries including Mexico. But you had the beginning fights in Congress over Mexico. You had the secretary Department of State who was defending the capitalists, the imperialists. You had the Department of Labor who was defending the local bigots. The bigots when they got through with Chicanos in the fields, railroads and mines had Chicanos deported. The capitalists recognizing a good deal wanted to keep the Mexicans because we were a source and have always been a source of cheap labor. We have been kept without unions and have been kept segregated. So the debates began and culminated when the bigots won out. We began seeing the second wave of deportations under Eisenhower. Massive deportations, it is estimated that well over three quarters of a million people, our people were deported. Of those three quarters of a million, one quarter (250,000) were U.S. born citizens. So you had many defense committees spring up. Many of the leadership in those committees came from other ethnic groups. Anglos, Jewish and Blacks came to our defense to no avail. So if you ask yourselves today how come we do not have representation among movie stars, athletes, bankers or among this or among that category, part of the answer my friends is that they are in Mexico. The leadership, the backbone of resistance and struggle was deported. There is a movie if you have not seen it called "Salt of the Earth". A movie that for many years was banned. The leading star of that movie, Rosaura Reveltes, to this