Mexican American Civil Rights Movement: Ceaser Chavez

Samuel Anderson

Mrs. Huey, & Ms. Joiner

American lit/ U.S. History

22 March 2023

Mexican American Civil Rights Movement

In the mid-19th century, Ceaser Chavez was a great influential leader in the Chicano movement, he helped Mexican Americans achieve civil rights through his speeches. He once said, “To make a great dream go true, the first requirement is a great dream capacity to dream; the second is persistence”. The Mexican American fight for social justice and equality has been ongoing since the mid-19th century when the United States annexed the southwestern territories that were formerly part of Mexico. Mexican Americans faced discrimination and marginalization in various forms, including segregation, limited access to education and employment

It wasn't until the mid-1960s that Cesar Chavez and other civil rights activists started the Chicano Movement to combat this pervasive discrimination .One area in which Mexican Americans faced significant challenges was in the workplace. Lopez even says, Chicanos who work in the fields are subjected to discriminatory practices deemed illegal by US law yet commonly exercised without repercussions”(Lopez). As a result, many Chicanos worked for very little pay or even for free, putting in long hours of hard labor with little to no recognition or compensation. Unfortunately, the discrimination did not end there. Many other problems occurred in schools. Many schools did not give a good education to Chicanos. Haney-López says ”Chicano students participated in a variety of school “walkouts” in 1968 to protest their educational curriculum”(Lopez), which didn’t give them good future opportunities. These walkouts highlight the fact that Mexican Americans were discriminated against and were not given equal opportunities in education or the working environment. The Chicano movement was a major role in raising awareness to the issues and fighting for equal rights of Mexican

To address these problems, Mexican Americans engaged in a variety of peaceful protests as part of the civil rights movement. One key figure in this movement was Cesar Chavez, who became a “national icon for farmworker rights and gained notoriety for his nonviolent approach to political protest, drawing inspiration from figures like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr”(Herrera). They would have long walks and walkouts give speeches, etc. Despite the nonviolent many people still didn’t listen as they thought Chicanos as lesser beings. As a result, Mexican Americans began to engage in more assertive forms of protest, such as the Chicano Blowouts. “The Chicano Blowouts were considered the first major mass protests conducted by Mexican Americans against racism”(Gutiérrez). They were organized by students and involved large-scale walkouts and protests that spread across the country, giving people the right cause to join in the fight for civil rights. They began and went across the country giving people the right cause to join in the fight. The Blowouts show what Mexican Americans were willing to do to achieve freedom and equality. These protest were not without hardships as it took lots of time and