“Cowards die hundreds of times a day; a warrior only once,” my father once said to me. When I met Reies López Tijerina these words came to have meaning and impact. He was a warrior for our people’s … [Read more...]
In 1967, lay preacher and land grant activist Reies López Tijerina founded the Alliance of Free Pueblos in the state of New Mexico. His goal was to return ownership of contested land grants to the … [Read more...]
The effort to organize farm workers under a union contract has been a long and difficult struggle. In 1965, César Chávez and Dolores Huerta created what would become the United Farm Workers Union. … [Read more...]
CONTEXT: ON NOVEMBER 20, 2014 PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA DELIVERED A SPEECH ON NATIONAL TELEVISION OUTLINING EXECUTIVE ACTION THAT HE WAS TAKING TO FIX WHAT IS CONSIDERED A BROKEN IMMIGRATION SYSTEM. … [Read more...]
This is a Moment in Time from the 1970s. The undated photo shows three of the most prominent scholars in the Latino literary and artistic world having a moment together: art and literature critic and … [Read more...]
On August 29, 1990, Latinos in Los Angles marked the twentieth anniversary of the 1970 Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam war. Among those attending was a delegation of activists from El … [Read more...]
In March of 1968, five thousand Mexican American high school students walked of the four high schools in East Los Angeles to protest the inferior education they were receiving. After a week of protest … [Read more...]
A MOMENT IN TIME. "SOMOS UNO" In June 1973, the Mexican popular creator company Los Mascarones were on a statewide tour of California performing their theatrical pieces. … [Read more...]
Around the year 1325 A.D. the Mexica people settled in the Valley of Mexico and founded what we know as the Aztec empire. According to the Codex Boturini, an Aztec pictograph scroll, the Mexicas … [Read more...]
Latinopia continues its exploration of the possible geographic site of Aztlán, the mythic homeland of the Mexica people. The Codice Boturini, an ancient Aztec manuscript, indicates that Aztlán was … [Read more...]
CHARTING A NEW COURSE ON CUBA. CONTEXT: On Thursday, December 18, 2014, President Barack Obama announced a sea change in the United States fifty-year policy on Cuban/U.S. relations. Since the … [Read more...]
A MOMENT IN TIME "NEW YORK … [Read more...]
In 1937 San Antonio, Texas was the center of pecan production in the United States. More than 12,000 people worked at shelling pecans for America's markets. When management decided to cut back on … [Read more...]
Bert Corona was a pioneering Chicano labor, civil rights and immigrant rights leader who passed away in 2001. Throughout a labor activist career that goes back to the 1930s, he worked with nearly … [Read more...]
TREATY OF GUADALUPE HIDALGO, 1848 CONTEXT: On December , 1845, the Republic of Texas was admitted to the United States of America as the 28th state. But there was a dispute as to the boundary lines … [Read more...]
Soñia Escot is a journalism major completing her senior year at the University of Texas at Austin. She participated in the 2012 VOCES Oral History Editing Contest sponsored by the Journalism … [Read more...]
March 27-31, 1969 PREAMBLE TO PLAN DE AZTLÁN PROGRAM OF EL PLAN DE AZTLÁN CONTEXT: In March of 1969, Chicano activist leader Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales convened a National Youth Liberation … [Read more...]
Robert Francis Kennedy was shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968. The brother of President John F. Kennedy, Robert had just been nominated by the … [Read more...]
Latino identity has always been a vexing question. Should we call ourselves Mexican Americans, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Boricuas, Latinos, Hispanics? A historic moment of self-definition took place in … [Read more...]
On April 20, 2012, acclaimed Chicano author Rudolfo Anaya was awarded the Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award by the Los Angeles Times. This award recognizes a lifetime of achievement by a living … [Read more...]
José Martí was a world class poet and essayist whose literary works ushered in the modernist literary tradition in Latin American letters. He was also an impassioned revolutionary who spent most of … [Read more...]