HISPANICS AND THE SUNBELT

...The socioeconomic condition of the Hispanic community has been dismal, and the persistence of this condition is striking...

...It is not surprising, given the emphasis put in the U.S...

...In the Southwest and California, where 70 percent of the United States' Hispanics live, large influxes of Mexican undocumented workers push the figures up even higher than the official statistics indicate...

...While this may partly be explained by the fact that, in the Sunbelt, the two groups are geographically separated, we must also recognize that they see themselves as competing for limited resources...

...The vote may well be effective only in conjunction with other displays of political discontent: marches, demonstrations, and so forth...

...Although this study is now some 12 years old and has been the object of some debate, the point is that the place of the vote in the entire repertoire of political behavior must be thoroughly analyzed by concerned minorities...

...At the very least, it must be recognized that such an argument is not to be dismissed altogether...

...What is more, apparently they will not register their views in any other visible form either...

...It is hardly coincidental that the League of United Latin-American Citizens (LULAC), an old-guard, middle-oftheroad, staunchly Democratic organization, which had lost much of its following during the 1960s, once again emerged as a "leader of the Chicano community...

...But more about this later...

...In some sectors of the Chicano community, this perception has generated a good deal of resentment...

...Organized labor, however, has not been an innocent bystander in this scheme in the Southwest, for many labor unions have routinely discriminated against the Chicano...

...When one considers that nearly half of the eligible Chicano population is not registered, it becomes clear that only a small portion of Chicanos are going to the polls...

...The same condition has also characterized political life...

...Thus, the average Hispanic woman has some 15-20 years of childbearing ahead of her...

...A recent development among Chicanos, and partly tied to the undocumented worker issue, has been the "internationalization" of the Chicano movement...

...From a registered voters' turnout of 79 percent in 1960, that turnout has dropped to 48 percent in 1970...

...The Decades Ahead NOW THE CHICANOS ENCOUNTER, at the beginning of the 1980s, a curious mix of phenomena...

...These efforts—often initiated by such organizations as the League of United Latin-American Citizens, the American GI Unemployment: Social Indicator Value (Ratios of raw measure to the majority male population) 1960 1970 1976 Males: Blacks 1.83 1.97 2.69 Chicanos 1.72 1.78 1.88 Majority 1.00 1.00 1.00 Females: Blacks 1.91 2.33 3.20 Chicanos 2.04 2.53 2.52 Majority 1.00 1.39 1.47 SOURCE: U.S...

...Various lawsuits by school districts sought to affirm their right to charge these children tuition...

...Chavez, too, facing extreme dissension within his union because of his stand on the issue, reversed his position...

...Some 6,000 pages of documents released by the FBI, the CIA, and other agencies reveal a series of efforts going back some two decades, both legal and illegal, to monitor and disrupt organized Chicano activity, particularly that of the left...

...Early Chicano History CHICANOS occupy a unique position in U.S...

...By 1974 the organization had spread to some 27 states and appeared headed for an important and permanent place in the Chicanos' political future...

...And small wonder: even though Chicanos only made up about 3 to 5 percent of the U.S...

...They have not yet been able to translate the ideas formulated in the last two decades into concrete, applicable political tools...

...A 1922 editorial in the New York Times stated that...

...To be sure, both Apodaca and Castro tilted to the right, but the 494 simple fact that Chicanos had been "allowed" to win such prominent offices was enough for many Mexican Americans to prove the Democratic party's sincerity...

...The Chicano intelligentsia has largely moved from a colonial analysis of Chicano conditions to a Marxist orientation...

...The average age of Chicano women is 19, compared to 30 for Anglo women and 27 for black women...

...Instead, some Chicano groups spoke of the Chicano nation of Aztlan, which is the ancient homeland of the Aztecs and generally considered by anthropologists to have been in what is now the American Southwest...

...Median Household Per Capita Income 1959 1969 1975 Black $ 690 ( .46) $1303 ( .50) $2263 ( .52) Chicano 742 ( .50) 1334 ( .51) 2130 ( .49) Majority 1472 (1.0 ) 2601 (1.0 ) 4333 (1.0 ) SOURCE: U.S...

...Church-sponsored sociopolitical organizations, such as Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS), have been the most successful in organizing this segment of the Chicano people...

...These figures indeed point to a great social and political potential...

...For the mass of poor Chicanos the Catholic Church continues to play a prominent role...

...Commission on Civil Rights, Social Indicators of Equality for Women and Minorities (August 1978...

...Merchants have made breakthroughs in receiving government contracts, and rules have been liberalized that regulate loans to small businesses in order to start out anew or expand an old enterprise...

...To offset the effects of the boycott, the Defense Department increased its purchase of grapes for U.S...

...An ongoing dialogue has now been formalized between various Chicano leaders and Mexican President Jose Lopez-Portillo...

...Police brutality, too, still is a vital issue, with at least several questionable killings occurring each year...

...that has 25 percent or more of its population made up of Hispanics and a similar proportion of blacks...

...Indeed, one of the Sunbelt's major attractions for business has been the low wage and the absence of unions...

...While at first Chicanos appeared to accept the negative impact of illegals, the reversal of Chicano opinion represents one of the more dramatic instances of the effectiveness of the Chicano left...

...Voting, union organizing, demonstrating, marching—such activity will probably all have to be utilized in order to effect change...

...is difficult to conceive of the two groups uniting when they continue to see each other as competitors...

...Although a good portion of the intelligentsia based in Texas have given their support to the Chicano unification strategy of the Raza Unida party, they have so far been unable to seriously help that organization expand its base...

...Thus, the so-called Carter Plan for dealing with the undocumented worker, floated among Chicanos by Castillo, was met with angry demonstrations by Chicanos throughout the country...

...The Vietnam War, too, struck a deep chord in the Chicano community...

...These younger Chicano intellectuals, who have lost much of the ethnic culture and language that had enriched them during their childhood, have now returned to reclaim and demand the fostering of that culture...

...By the mid-1970s Chicanos were so suspicious of government proclamations about the undocumented worker that Castillo could not convince them of their veracity...

...Although the socioeconomic data we have today (we'll be able to speak with much more authority after the 1980 Census data become available) seem to demonstrate that such appeals have had little effect in bettering the overall condition of Chicanos, some progress has been made in at least erecting formal and legal barriers to discrimination...

...It is interesting and rather ironic that most of these middle-class Mexican Americans with new-found prominence in the Democratic party readily acknowledged the role of the left generally, and of the Raza Unida party specifically, in forcing the Democrats to open their doors...

...Such educational issues as affirmative action, Mexican American studies programs, bilingual education, and culturally biased testing have won support among Chicanos...

...In San Antonio, the one attempt by COPS to extend its power beyond delivery of social-service issues met with failure...

...Most mainstream social and political activities have been confined to middle-class Chicanos...

...We must acknowledge that the effectiveness of the vote—despite the mythology of its power—is open to serious questioning...

...The fence proposal soon came to be referred to by many Chicanos as the "KarterKastillo Kurtain...

...The synthesis of the two areas of thought (which many argued should never have been separated) has allowed the larger social, 497 political, and economic analysis of the Marxist view to merge with the greater emphasis on race allowed in colonial theory...

...If it is mobilized, the United States may be in for quite a shock...

...Chicano groups from left to right have demanded better jobs, better pay, better benefits for Chicanos...

...Civil rights became a watchword, with new organizations sprouting up and old ones redirecting themselves...

...But to assume, as many do, that the increasing size of the Chicano population will inexorably lead to a corresponding increase in political power, which in turn will lead to an improvement in Chicano socioeconomic conditions, is truly simpleminded...

...At present a virtual moratorium has been declared on the issue, probably in part because of Mexico's increased bargaining power, but also because of the Chicano community's hostility toward the issue...

...492 It is important to note that, for the most part, in the Sunbelt, Chicanos do not live in the same states as blacks...

...Forum, Mexican American Democrats, and the Mexican American Chambers of Commerce—have, not surprisingly, been largely effective in helping the Mexican American middle class...

...This segment also, undoubtedly, holds the key to the Chicanos' future...

...The 1970 Chicano moratorium that was organized in East Los Angeles against the War attracted some 25,000 demonstrators, so far the largest Chicano demonstration in this nation's history...

...By running under the auspices of or by actively supporting the Democratic party, these Mexican Americans were giving the party a legitimacy among Chicanos that had been seriously eroded by the presence of the RUP...

...But, as we enter the decade of the '80s, the Chicano community seems unsure of which way to proceed...

...These organizations have been most successful in San Antonio and Los Angeles, and have concentrated on improving the delivery of social services to Chicanos...

...That they are one of the fastest growing minorities in the United States cannot be disputed...

...Commission on Civil Rights, Social Indicators of Equality for Minorities and Women (August 1978...

...With the election of Jimmy Carter, and his subsequent appointment of Lionel Castillo, a Chicano, to head the Immigration and Naturalization Services, the campaign against the undocumented worker escalated to the point where proposals were made for the construction of a razor-sharp fence along the border...

...Thus, figures of up to 12 million illegal residents in the U.S...

...Yet, even though Chicano intellectual thought has become increasingly sophisticated, it still remains an endeavor with little connection to political life in the Chicano community...

...In the labor market of the Southwest, Chicanos have occupied the worst jobs and received the worst pay...

...The hierarchy in the Church has for the most part continued to be intransigent in its refusal to deal with sociopolitical issues...

...Thus, the "promise" long heard in the Chicano community that staying in school and getting a college degree will lead to a "good" job may soon become a cause of unrest for the children of the Mexican American middle class...

...Moreover, the weapon most often pointed to as the tool for increased Chicano power is the vote—and to wield it either in the Democratic or in the Republican party at that...

...society because of an imperialist aggression instigated by this country to expand its borders...

...Mexican American members of the Democratic party—a group largely consigned to the role of beating the Chicano bushes to get the vote out for non-Chicano Democratic candidates—suddenly found themselves receiving party support for their own candidacies, for everything from city council to state representative, to seats on the Democratic party's state and national steering committees...

...In addition to these two sectors of the Chicano population—the mass of the working class and poor, and the middle class— there is a third group, the growing intelligentsia, which is in a somewhat unique position...

...Along with the opening-up of occupational opportunities, Chicanos now are grappling with the issue of educational discrimination...

...Frank Shaeffer-Corona of the Washington, D.C...

...In Texas, for instance, only some 13 percent of the labor force is unionized...

...The driving forces behind these organizations usually have been rank-and-file clergy people...

...history) the undocumented worker as a major source of economic problems...

...Yet, by the mid-1970s these same individuals were either directly or indirectly involved in weakening the RUP...

...Had everything else remained equal, Kennedy would not have won the presidency without the 90 percent plurality of Chicano votes he received...

...493 Chicanos and the Last Two Decades CHICANOS EXPERIENCED THE 1960s in much the same way as did the rest of American society...

...Perhaps the most dramatic issue to emerge in the 1970s was that of the Mexican undocumented workers...

...That Chicanos are not convinced of the vote's effectiveness is suggested by their voting behavior...

...Many Chicanos who have entered the universities, largely from middle-class backgrounds, came out not only with a much more sophisticated critique of American society but also with the desire to help the masses of poor Chicanos...

...One of the most dramatic developments was the emergence in 1970 of the Raza Unida party in Texas...

...Finally, the 1960s saw the dismal plight of Chicano farmworkers come to the forefront with the organizing of Cesar Chavez's United Farmworkers' Union (UFW...

...began being tossed around in the press by Leonard Chapman, then the director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service...

...Yet, the Chicano intellectuals have remained separate from precisely the Chicanos they wish to help...

...By this time even Cesar Chavez, under extreme pressure from the AFL-CIO, had taken a public stand against the Mexican undocumented worker...

...Perhaps the most vivid example of oppression is evidenced in their treatment by the Texas Rangers...

...Instead of looking to Washington, D.C...

...economy began its periodic downturn in 1972, gaining critical force during the recession of 1974-75, official government channels rediscovered (as had been done countless times in U.S...

...Unannounced raids of homes and workplaces also increased...

...Reies Lopez Tjjerina of New Mexico has met several times with Spanish government officials...

...498 There has yet to be any serious political cooperation between blacks and Chicanos...

...In fact, one study on the effectiveness of the black vote, William Keech's The Impact of Negro Voting (1968), concluded that voting had little impact on the overall condition and the delivery of services to blacks...

...for political benefits and power, some leaders have begun to look beyond the borders of the United States...

...Such was the "opening of the doors" of the Democratic party (and, in some isolated instances, the Republican party) that the number of Chicanos elected to public office in the Southwestern states increased by some 200 percent between 1972 and 1978...

...Yet, the black condition in 1980 continues to be dismal...

...To begin with the most obvious points, it should be self-evident that blacks already have (and have had for quite some time) the numbers and proportion the Chicanos look eagerly forward to reaching...

...Moreover, Chicanos have maintained constant contact with Mexico...

...The potential of the Chicano community to seriously affect the social, political, and economic future of the Sunbelt remains just that—a potential...

...While this is not to argue that in the areas where the black vote has become a significant bloc—in, for instance, Atlanta, Newark, Detroit—the black vote has had no impact...

...In Texas alone, following the MexicanAmerican war, it is estimated that Chicanos were illegally robbed of some 20 million acres of land by judges, lawyers, land speculators, and others...

...And, as mentioned earlier, Chicanos now also are candidates for public posts within the Democratic and Republican parties...

...Steadfastly nonpartisan, they have concentrated on insuring that services available in the cities' middle-class neighborhoods be extended to the poorer sections...

...Even today many Chicanos continue to call for the abolition of the Rangers...

...There have been few demonstrations, walkouts, or strikes of any consequence in the last few years...

...So most programs and agencies, ostensibly created to help the poor Chicano, from migrant programs to Model Cities, have hired middle-class Mexican Americans to operate them...

...The last figure has remained almost constant for the Carter/ Ford race in 1976...

...Even before his September 1979 meeting with President Carter, the Mexican President chose to meet with several Chicano leaders...

...If any single group in the Mexican American community has been helped by the activism of the last two decades, it has been the middle class...

...From the activism of the 1960s emerged various groups within the Chicano community that now are competing for its political loyalty in the 1970s...

...troops in Vietnam from 468,000 pounds in 1966 to well over 4 million pounds in 1969...

...Horror stories abound about the "open season" on Mexicans that persisted in Texas until well into the 20th century...

...It may well be that the estimation of the American political system is inaccurate in regard to the Chicano voter rather than to the, nonvoter...

...Unlike most ethnics who "chose" to immigrate to the United States, Chicanos simply became citizens because of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848...

...As the U.S...

...Indeed, there is no county in the U.S...

...College Completion: Social Indicator Values (Ratios of raw measures to the majority male population) 1960 1970 1976 Males: Blacks .20 .27 .32 Chicanos .20 .23 .32 Majority 1.00 1.00 1.00 Females: Blacks .30 .36 .32 Chicanos .10 .14 .15 Majority .45 64 .65 SOURCE: U.S...

...Now middle-class Mexican Americans are receiving appointments in the local, state, and national bureaucracies, and they have been able to secure some government moneys for their specific agendas...

...Yet, this also has exacerbated the low socioeconomic status of the group...

...The annual growth rate for blacks is 1.3 percent and for whites only 1 percent...

...To be sure, the efforts of these organizations are largely reformist in nature...

...495 Although Chicanos still have to make significant progress in achieving educational parity with their Anglo counterparts, it is interesting, and potentially a source of largescale disaffection, that at precisely the time when university doors are slowly beginning to swing open for Mexican Americans a university degree is becoming less meaningful in the marketplace of labor...

...The 1960s also saw a marked increase in activism among Chicano youth...

...on education as the key to upward mobility, that the schools and universities have become the scene of militant Chicano activism...

...He argued that at least 1 million jobs would become immediately available, and most of them in the Sunbelt, if all illegals were deported...

...A recent study by University of Houston sociologist Tatcho Mindiola demonstrates that even when education is controlled, a substantial gap in income continues to exist between browns and whites...

...The history of the Chicano in the United States has been marked by continual exploitation...

...population in the 1960s, they accounted for 21 percent of the casualties in Southeast Asia...

...Shortly thereafter, and no doubt largely because of the shock given the Democratic party by Raza Unida, there began a much more prominent emergence of middle-class Chicano groups and individuals throughout the Southwest...

...Thus, many Chicanos regard the limited gains made by blacks in the '60s and '70s as having come at the expense of Chicanos...

...Even though middle-class leaders and politicians have often lamented the low turnout and have pointed to it as evidence of Chicano pathology and a major reason for lack of systemic responsiveness, the black experience seems to call such arguments into question...

...Nonetheless, the ultimate effect was to weaken the RUP...

...As early as 1960 a huge Chicano turnout for John Kennedy gave him important electoral votes in Texas, New Mexico, and in several Midwestern states...

...Yet, it is precisely that segment of the Chicano community most affected by official neglect and / or animosity that seems immobilized...

...That they are one of the most powerless and ill-treated groups in America is equally evident...

...It is probably somewhere in the mix of the various forms of political behavior that Chicanos will benefit and so advance...

...For the left organized a campaign to expose, on the one hand, the history and invidiousness of the American government's efforts to "blame" the illegals for its own inability to solve crucial economic problems, and to cement, on the other hand, a solidarity between Mexican illegals and Chicanos...

...The Raza Unida party in 1975 accepted an invitation from Cuba to visit the island...

...There is some evidence of this development in the recent voting patterns...

...Nor are there any signs that such cooperation is developing...

...It seems likely that such blasts at the Raza Unida party by Mexican Americans had the effect of simply confusing Chicanos, thus keeping them away from the polls altogether, rather than regenerating support for the Democrats...

...In fact, it may well be, as Robert Allen has argued regarding blacks in his insightful Black Awakening in Capitalist America (1972), that the Chicano community is now developing an internal schism based on class—between the middle-class minority and the poor masses...

...The annual growth rate for this group is 2.7 percent, a figure that translates into a doubling, within some 25 years, of the present Hispanic population of 15 million...

...Linguistically, socially, culturally, they have been continualIy reinforced by heavy immigration from Mexico, both legal and illegal, and so Chicanos have not faced the physical isolation from the mother country that has characterized other groups in the United States...

...In still other instances, Mexican American Democrats publicly extolled the virtues of the Democratic party and the folly of supporting a "radical, Communist," third party...

...The result was the election of a Democratic governor who was supported by less than a majority of the voters—not insignificant in a Democratic state such as Texas...

...Issues in the Chicano Community A VARIETY OF OTHER ISSUES have captured the attention of the Chicano people over the last two decades...

...If for no other reason than the sheer size of the group, Hispanics constitute an important part of life in the Sunbelt...

...Even though Department of Labor data indicates that only 4 percent of all undocumented workers have children in the public schools, the issue of their free schooling also aroused much concern...

...school board has developed contact with Quebecois, and with Cuban and Nicaraguan officials...

...Thus, despite the continuing liberalization of voting laws (ballots are now being printed in Spanish) and the increased efforts of Chicano middle-class groups to bring out the vote, the Chicano turnout has steadily diminished over the last decade...

...Whether the mechanism to realize that potential lies in the Democratic, Republican, or Raza Unida party, indeed, whether it lies in the vote at all, remains a point of debate...

...In 1976, COPS took the position that only businesses that were willing to pay workers at least $5.00 per hour should be encouraged to relocate in the city...

...Throughout the Southwest, high-school and even junior-high-school students staged massive walkouts, protesting racism in the schools...

...In 1972 its candidate for governor of Texas, Ramsey Muniz, a charismatic young lawyer from Corpus Christi, carried nearly a quarter of a million votes on a shoestring budget...

...the killing of Mexicans without provocation is so common as to pass almost unnoticed...

...Antonio Orendain, leader of the Texas Farm Workers Union, toured Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries in 1978 and was recently invited to Iran during the hostage crisis...

...Chicanos, in fact, have already demonstrated their importance in the political arena...

...The available economic data seems to indicate that the major impact of such progress is to create nicer and more comfortable jobs for those Chicanos who are already living nicely and comfortably...

...Similarly, the American GI Forum, also a moderate to conservative group of middle-class Mexican Americans with a long history of unwavering support for the Democratic party, also achieved a new-found prominence...

...The economic gap between the nation's white and brown populations has remained remarkably constant throughout the last two decades...

...The group came to be a part of U.S...

...Chapman put much emphasis on the impact of these workers not only on Chicano labor conditions but also on the general availability of social services to the Chicano community...

...For the Chicano communities in the Southwest, the geographic location—a 2,000mile common border with Mexico—has had important beneficial effects in relation to the maintenance of their cultural heritage...

...After the cultural renaissance of the 1960s, many Chicanos became acutely conscious of the fact that they had never left their country of origin...

...Thus, some of the young activist clergy has found itself "exiled" (transferred to another community) because of its involvement in these efforts...

...Sociopolitical Institutions Among Chicanos INSTITUTIONALLY, the Chicanos early on developed an infrastructure of institutions...

...The nation's two largest minorities tend to be geographically separated...

...At present, in any given election, some 8 of 10 eligible Chicanos will not go to the polls...

...Perhaps the most dramatic manifestation of this collusion came to light at the height of the UFW-instigated grape boycott in the late 1960s...

...Two Mexican Americans were even elected to governships, Jerry Apodaca in New Mexico and Raul Castro in Arizona...

...political history...

...This pattern, particularly at the local and state levels, has been repeated countless times...

...Such organizations as the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO), Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA), and the United Mexican American Students (UMAS), all spoke to the concerns of youth...

...Several leaders of the American GI Forum and LULAC visited with General Torrijos during the Panama Canal treaty debate and lobbied for its passage...

...What has happened to this group, how it has experienced the turbulent'60s and recessionary '70s, and what is its present condition—all these are crucial questions that will affect not only the Sunbelt but the entire United States...

...Thus far, COPS and other, similar organizations have been developed in San Antonio, Houston, El Paso, and Los Angeles...

...Largely a product of the late'60s and '70s, this group was an important beneficiary of the activism of the period—for universities have increasingly opened their doors since that time in response to minority demands...

...Under pressure from city officials who argued that such demands would simply send companies to other Sunbelt cities, COPS backed off, apparently concluding that lowwage jobs were better than no jobs at all...

...The issue of "going back" to the mother country, which concerned segments of the black community in those years, never seriously surfaced in the Chicano movement...

...From their early Mutualistas and fraternal organizations to church-related groups, the Chicanos have long had a relatively elaborate network of institutions...

...This issue dramatically highlighted collusion between public and private sectors in keeping farmwork the most underpaid labor in the U.S...

...That few rewards have been forthcoming for anyone but the tiny middle-class sector in the Chicano community is evidenced by the data I have presented earlier...

...it is to suggest that the vote's impact is limited (particularly for the poor blacks) well beyond that normally described in American political folklore...

...That the United States' political leaders realize the potential significance of this group is evidenced by the large amount of attention given to the group by the intelligence community...

...Proposals for increased educational and occupational opportunities have been embraced by virtually all sectors of the Chicano community...

...In 1969, the National Chicano Youth Conference in Denver, Colorado, adopted the Plan de Aztlan, calling for selfdetermination—" a nation autonomous and free—culturally, socially, economically and politically...

...Commission on Civil Rights, Social Indicators of Equality for Minorities and Women (August 1978...