Clash of Cultures & the Discovery of Gold      123456

Mexican Americans, the United Farm Workers, and the Chicano Movement

The Mexican American Political Association (MAPA) was established in 1959. The organization fought for the civil rights of Mexican Americans and was mostly opposed to illegal immigration from Mexico. Just a few years later, in 1962, labor activist César Chávez joined with other community activists to found the United Farm Workers Union. The UFW sought to improve the situation of Mexican-American and Filipino agricultural workers. Chávez also wanted to limit the employment of undocumented workers, who he claimed lowered the wages of those who were U.S. citizens.

The Chicano Movement

By the late 1960s, new voices emerged to argue that all Mexicans — whether U.S. citizens or Mexican citizens — should band together and fight what they saw as racial discrimination against "brown people." In 1970 and 1971 a series of articles appeared in major California newspapers pushing for stricter laws to halt the flow of Mexican immigrants. In 1972 and 1973 the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) stepped up its enforcement activities. It placed more armed agents at the border, patrolled the border by helicopter and rounded up and deported thousands of undocumented Mexican immigrants. The new Chicano Movement — which sought to reclaim and educate people about their Chicano heritage and identity — gained strength following this period of anti-immigrant sentiment and arrests. Even Mexican American critics of illegal immigration, such as MAPA and Chávez, switched the focus of their criticism from the immigrants themselves to the economic structure that displaced them from their homes and took advantage of their labor.