Title: A Civil Rights History: Latino/Hispanic Americans |
Headings: A Civil Rights History: Latino/Hispanic Americans
A Civil Rights History: Latino/Hispanic Americans
Content: But in 1953, the U.S. Government launched “Operation Wetback,” a program to send people of Mexican descent to Mexico. More than 3.8 million people were deported through the operation, many of them, American citizens. Latino and Hispanic resistance to discrimination, violence and the United States’ push-pull immigration policy began to take shape as early as the 1920s. Cannery and factory workers in the Southwest formed unions. The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) opened its doors in 1929 with the mission of fighting injustices such as racially segregated West Coast schools and discriminatory hiring practices at railroads. In the 1960s, Latinos and Hispanics made their fight for equality even more visible, modeling their actions on the successful African-American struggle for civil rights. In 1962, Cesar Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association. In 1965, his fledgling organization started a boycott on grape growers that exploited their Latino and Hispanic workers. Latino and Hispanic activists also pushed educational institutions to include the contributions of Latinos and Hispanics in discussions of U.S. History. Throughout the 1960s, Latino-American and Mexican-American history departments opened at many major universities.