La Biblioteca
A Latinx Resource Guide: Civil Rights Cases and Events

Episode 3: Student Activism: 1968 Los Angeles Walkouts to Gen Z Justice

From the Library of Congress, in Washington D.C.

Dr. Manuel Haro The students were noting serious underlying systemic problems with the schools, but teachers, administrators, and the school district did not recognize these issues.The students decided that they were going to take action.

Daphne Frias: All you need is a couple other people and an idea and the passion behind the idea to actually make something happen and to create a difference.

Herman Luis Chavez: Hola, and welcome to La Biblioteca, an exploration of the Library of Congress collections that focus on the cultures of Spain, Portugal, Latin America, and the Hispanic community in the United States. I’m Herman Luis Chavez, a Huntington Fellow in the Hispanic Reading Room.

Maria Guadalupe Partida: I’m Maria Guadalupe Partida, also a Huntington Fellow in the Hispanic Reading Room. Hola, Herman.

Herman Luis Chavez: Hola, Lupita.

Maria Guadalupe Partida: Season two of La Biblioteca focuses on A Latinx Resource Guide: Civil Rights Cases and Events in the United States, a research guide which has been curated here at the Library of Congress. This is our third episode, which discusses educational activism in Latinx communities.Los Angeles schools in the 1950s and 60s were an academically inhospitable environment for Mexican-American students. Class sizes averaged around 40 students per teacher. Students who only spoke Spanish were segregated from their peers.

Herman Luis Chavez: Sixty percent of students would drop out before graduation. Those who did graduate usually had only an 8th-grade reading level. The few students who went on to higher education often attended trade school, meaning that the university graduation rate for Mexican-American students was barely 0.1%.

Maria Guadalupe Partida: In March 1968 and against the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War, over 15,000 Mexican-American students and teachers from seven different high schools participated in one of the largest student-led marches in American history.

Herman Luis Chavez: After nearly two decades of being challenged by disparities in education, Mexican-Americans became empowered to exert their 1st Amendment rights in the pursuit of representation and greater educational opportunities. Despite the East Los Angeles School Walkouts being centered on peaceful civil advocacy for curriculum changes, bilingual education, and representative hiring practices, the Blowouts ended in violence perpetrated by the Los Angeles Police Department. Regardless of the walkouts’ conclusion, student activism did not wither away; it only became more powerful.

Maria Guadalupe Partida: In a society with shifting paradigms and zeitgeists, our only hope is to aspire for a silver lining. Fifty-three years have passed since the East LA Walkouts, yet across the United States, Latino youth are still aspiring for a silver lining, one that brings forth solidarity and the common good. Young Latinos, Latinas, Latinxs are shattering adversity, mobilizing change, and are still defending dignity.

Herman Luis Chavez: During the 2017 Women’s March, the portrait of Maribel Valdez Gonzales became known to the world. The prominent “We the people defend dignity” poster became an amplifying symbol for diversity, utilized in multiple protests to bring awareness to Latino communities.

Maria Guadalupe Partida: Gonzales, a first generation Xicana-identifying educator, reminds us that some educators, some circumstances, and some injustices have mobilized Latino youth to ascend to trailblazing leaders in the quest to defend dignity.

Maria Guadalupe Partida: Today, we welcome Dr. Carlos Manuel Haro, who was raised in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles; he graduated from Roosevelt High School and then attended UCLA, where he received three degrees, including a doctorate from the UCLA Graduate School of Education. In 2008, Haro retired from UCLA after 33 years on staff during which he served as Program Director and as Assistant Director of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center. Dr. Haro now serves as Assistant Director Emeritus and as Postdoctoral Scholar in Residence at the Center.

Maria Guadalupe Partida: Hi Dr. Haro, welcome to La Biblioteca Dr. Manuel Haro: Hello there, I’m glad to be with you today.

Maria Guadalupe Partida: Sal Castro was an influential and leading figure in the school walkouts. His story is incredible. His parents were repatriated to Mexico when Sal was young, he came back to the United States, later on. He fought in the Korean War and then came back and was stationed at different military bases. And then, finally, he became a high school educator in Los Angeles and became very influential to his students. You had the privilege to meet and organize with Professor Castro. Could you tell us more about Castro’s background, upbringing, and personal motivations that led him to organize and rally, for one, if not the biggest high school walk out in American history?

Dr. Manuel Haro: Sal Castro was an iconic figure, very relevant to any discussion regarding the Chicano Movement for civil rights and educational equity. His experience was that he transitioned from the Mexican-American generation to those that consider themselves Chicanos. And, he experienced early on, for example during World War Two, the prejudicial behavior of the military against the zoot suiter during the Zoot Suit Riots that occurred in Los Angeles during the war. During the Korean period, as you mentioned, he was in the service, and he experienced certain behavior while he was in Texas. He was in his military uniform and he was traveling in Dallas, went to a restaurant to eat, and they would not serve him because he was a Mexican. And then, of course, during the time that he was in school, he was treated differently because he was Mexican. There were no expectations of him moving forward into higher education, so they were training them for a blue collar position. And, there was no indication on the part of teachers or counselors or anyone in the schools that he had the potential to go to college or to a university. So, that also influenced him. All along, his thinking was that, when a Mexican child comes to the schools, he or she is ready to learn. The problem is not with the child, not with the Mexican kid he would say, it was with the schools, the teachers, the administrators, the school district in general we’re not prepared to prepare that child to succeed. They were preparing them for something else. Given his experiences, he thought, I can do something about this, if I go into teaching. I can motivate students to succeed. He is indeed remembered as being a teacher and also a mentor to a great many of the students for many, many decades and many, many years. He was able to establish a program—The Chicano Youth Leadership Conference which prepared students for leadership roles. And, many of the students that led the walkouts in 1968 went through the Chicano Youth Leadership Conference in 1967. It was 1968 when I first met him, I was a UCLA student. He went to UCLA as he went to other colleges and universities and sat down with United Mexican American Students—UMAS—that was a student organization that in 1969 became METCHA. At the UMAS meeting, he told the students in UMAS that the high school students were going to walk out in March because the voices of students had not been heard by the school district after many many attempts to indicate to the school board, to school administrators, that there were problems with the schools, that the dropout rate was much too high. At Roosevelt High School, the high school—that I graduated from— a dropout rate was near 50%. At Garfield High School, the other prominent Mexican American high school, 50 percent. The students were noting serious underlying systemic problems with the schools, but teachers, administrators, and the school district did not recognize these issues.The students decided that they were going to take action. Sal Castro was one of the few teachers willing to work with the students and to coordinate with them to make sure that they did it in a manner which was safe and also allowed them give voice to their grievances. And, that was what occurred in March.

Maria Guadalupe Partida: Truly, Professor Castro is an iconic figure. Thank you so much for expanding on certain historical markers and certain conditions that these high schoolers lived in. You mentioned the Zoot Suit Riots and Castro’s organizing of the Chicano Youth Leadership Conference, as well as METCHA, and all of these are important events that Influenced these students to walkout and demand greater educational opportunities. Can you tell us more about Sal’s students? Who are they and what did they learn from their Professor?

Dr. Manuel Haro: From the very beginning of any class that he was teaching—and it was at the Belmont or at Lincoln or wherever he taught—his challenge was do you know who you are? Do you know where you came from? Do you know what your forefathers have contributed to this country? And, then he would ask them to look in their social studies books or their history books and ask them, “find any part of this book where it refers to you or your people.” What’s happened here is that others have written history, and they have excluded you. Here’s the challenge, you have to educate yourself, prepare yourself, and write your own history. Contribute, come back to the community, prepare those that come after you. His expectations were: you’re going to graduate from high school, you’re going to go to college, you’re going to go into a profession of some kind. His expectations of his students was always dramatically higher than the expectations of the teacher in the next classroom. Going to the Chicano Youth Leadership Conference and realizing—it was an enlightenment—you’re being treated differently than other students. You are not being prepared to succeed in this society; you’re being prepared to fail. Fifty percent of the students out of your high school are going to drop out before they graduate. Why is that? You’re not being placed into academic classrooms even though you have the potential. Why is that? Why is it that you don’t have your history taught in the schools? Why is that? At the Chicano Leadership Conference there was an enlightenment, a self-awareness of who they were. By that time, they were calling themselves Chicanos. The Chicano generation moved away from the thinking that we could be a part of this system simply by eliminating our identity and moving into the mainstream American culture. We would lose whatever history we had. Sal Castro indicated that we can change things by educating ourselves, but by knowing also who we were and where we came from. Know your history. It’s important to know that with the Chicano Movement, we also had an acceleration of individuals going into academics. They went on to colleges and universities. Dramatic increases that occurred in the very late 1960s, the development of programs, ethnic studies at the universities and colleges, also the development of academics working as faculty at colleges and universities, preparing a next generation of faculty. Those are the faculty that are preparing students. They are preparing students to learn about their background. And then, in turn preparing another generation.

Herman Luis Chavez: I would love to go back to that comment you said earlier about the 50% dropout rates of the high school at the time and connected to sort of what we’re talking about now with the educational changes and this new educational environment in the area. Can you tell us a little bit about how high school and college graduation rates have changed for the Latino and Chicano students of the LA area since the East LA walkouts?

Dr. Manuel Carlos Haro: Obviously, if you do not have significant graduation rates from high school, you’re not going to have significant rates of application or enrollment admissions at the college and university level. And, that was essentially what was happening in 1968. Large high schools like Lincoln and Roosevelt and Garfield not graduating 60% or more of their students. Relatively few of them were being prepared for applying to colleges and universities; those students at those high schools were being prepared for something else. Relatively few were being prepared for university level. Berkeley and UCLA—the major public universities of the state of California— had less than 2% of its student enrollment of Spanish surname they were categorizing at the time. These universities had under 200 students that could be identified as coming from schools, such as Lincoln and Roosevelt and other Mexican American high schools. The preparation for students for higher education was not a very strong one. This dramatically changed after 68’ 69’. There was an increase in the applications for colleges and universities, and there’s dramatic activity at the university level and college level for outreach activities—to go into the communities to try to recruit students from high schools to apply. The universities had not done that, colleges had not done that, had not outreached into the communities, into the communities of color. With the changes that occurred in the late 60s, colleges and universities did conduct outreach activities, did establish financial aid programs to support students that were needy, did provide mentoring programs and service programs for students to keep them in school, not just to admit them, but to make sure that they succeeded. And then, there was also activity on the academic and research side. Schools such as Cal State Northridge established ethnic studies programs—Chicano studies departments. At UCLA, we established a Chicano Studies Research Center in 1969. Now graduating a bit over 80% of the students. There’s still a problem with dropout rates—not comparable to other other schools in the system that are predominantly white. But, there is an example that I want to give of the progress that has been made. I organized an exhibit at Roosevelt high school. We installed at Roosevelt High School an exhibit of the 1968 walkouts. On the day of the event, the principal spoke of the importance of the students at Roosevelt High School graduating and going to college. In 1968, principles weren’t talking about that. Two women of the community spoke, and they both spoke in Spanish. They were parents, mothers of students at Roosevelt. They talked about what the parent group were doing to support Roosevelt. Parent groups—speaking in Spanish—unheard of in the 1960s. In fact, in the 1960s, no one in the school understood or spoke Spanish other than the Spanish teachers, so when a parent came in to meet a counselor or to meet an administrator, they had to have a student come in to translate for them. Imagine that—a parent coming into a school to talk about their child’s progress in the school, and no one in the school could communicate with them. They had to bring in some high school student who was bilingual and could speak and translate for the parents. So, that’s just the way it was in the 60s, but in 2019 parents could openly speak in Spanish at an event like this opening in April of 2019. Dramatic changes from what was occuring in the 60s. So, the changes that were demanded by students—changes regarding language, allow us to speak Spanish. And, there were teachers in the 60s that had a rule in their classroom: no Spanish spoken in this class, and if you broke that rule you could be swatted. But, I recognize that that event in 2019 was that many of the demands of 1968 were finally being realized.

Herman Luis Chavez: There are so many different dimensions to educational equity that have changed and also you need to change. And, I think that this definitely speaks to the amount of changes and impact that can arise out of such an activist event. So, the Chicano Studies Research Center at UCLA, which you are affiliated with was founded in 1969, so a year after the blowouts. Can you tell us about the relationship between the research center and the educational environment of LA at the time, and what the CSRC has either done or is doing in relationship to this educational environment at this institutional level.

Dr. Manuel Carlos Haro: The proposal for the Chicano Studies Research Center was actually proposed in 1968. So, 1968 was a critical year. Not only were we having demonstrations—the walkouts and other demonstrations were occurring in 1968—but there was also work being done to implement programs and change policy at the university level. Several of the college students that were involved at UCLA in the walkouts were also involved in preparing for changes at the university. The proposal to implement the Mexican-American Cultural Center, which became the Chicano Studies Research Center was part of the UMAS and MECHA series of proposals to the chancellor’s office in 68. Also part of that, were demands for greater outreach programs to the community, to schools like Roosevelt, Garfield, Lincoln and so on. The Chicano Studies Research Center is a research unit. It’s supposed to provide support or research of faculty and students with regards to the Chicano Mexican-American community. Now, it’s expanded its role to the Central Americans as well. The services that it provides are not only with regards to support the faculty and students to conduct their research through fellowships and research grants. It also has a library. It archives materials, so that researchers can delve into primary research materials. La Raza Magazine, in the late 1960s early 70s, was very important in the community. It was a print publication, but it included photographs. And, the photographers for La Raza Magazine accumulated thousands and thousands of photographs. That collection is at UCLA under the Chicano Studies Research Center. Publications of the Chicano Studies Research Center includes the journal Aztlán, which has been in existence since 1970.

Herman Luis Chavez: It’s really amazing to hear you know how much work is coming out of the research center, and you know the connections that it has to the community being such a foundational part of the educational work that continues to happen in the LA area and particularly for this community. And, I do want to say for our listeners that we do link to Aztlán on our research guide. So, that is a way to really easily access that journal from our Latinx civil rights research guide at the Library of Congress. Well, Dr. Haro, we would love to ask you if you have any calls to action that you would like to give our listeners or any other information that you would like to add?

Dr. Manuel Carlos Haro: I would further suggest to individuals that are interested in what the center at UCLA has done, and is doing, to go to the center website. There are a wealth of resources there. And they’re easily accessible

Herman Luis Chavez: Daphne Frias is a 23-year-old youth activist. Having Cerebral Palsy, and using a wheelchair she is proud to be a champion for the disabled community. She got her start shortly after the Parkland shooting by busing over a hundred students from her college campus to the nearest March For Our Lives event. In August of 2019, she was appointed as the New York State Director for March For Our Lives.

Maria Guadalupe Partida: Hi Daphne, welcome to La Biblioteca! Daphne Frias: Hi, thank you so much for having me.

Maria Guadalupe Partida: Could you share with us more about your background as a young student activist? What led you to be vocal about all these issues that you’re passionate about?

Daphne Frias: So, I’m a second generation American. My family is Dominican, and I live in West Harlem, a predominantly black and brown community in New York City. Where I live, most of our community is older and a community full of immigrants. English is their primary second language. So, I grew up surrounded by my culture, by my language. It wasn’t until I was older and traveled away from my neighborhood to attend high school on another part of the city that was incredibly affluent that I realized the disparity between my community and the way the other communities were living in terms of simply urban planning and the way our communities are structured based on socioeconomic status. As I was getting older, I was like well, maybe it’s time for someone to say something about this. And, it was really as I went off to undergrad that pressure of like being the first in my family to go to college. It was really overwhelming, and I felt like I had to like make it the most rewarding experience possible because I wasn’t just going to school for me, I was going to school for my whole family. And, I struggled a lot, because I didn’t have anyone to talk to about having similar experiences in my family, because no one had done it before. So, I was really paving the way for myself and learning as I went. And through that process, I started organizing, and it was for the first time I realized the powers of organizing and the powers of community that like all you need is a couple other people and an idea and the passion behind the idea to actually make something happen and to create a difference. My community deserves a voice in this movement. I had never really seen a young Hispanic disabled Latina doing any sort of organizing before, and while it was daunting I knew that similarly to the way that I was working for my family to achieve a dream of college, I knew that my community depended on me to be their megaphone and to be their voice, because no one was listening to us before that.

Maria Guadalupe Partida: It’s so inspiring and uplifting to hear more about your upbringing as a second generation American and the first in your family to go to college as well as your motivations to become a community organizer. Daphne, This background led you to be at the front lines of being an advocate for the disabled community. May we ask, what inspired that work?

Daphne Frias: I was born with cerebral palsy. I use a wheelchair to navigate my life. Growing up, I lived in a very disability positive environment, but definitely like my elders my abuelos and abuelas, they were very critical of my disability as disability is often seen as a death sentence, especially in immigrant communities. And I really had to challenge the status quo because I was born sort of with a different deal of cards, doesn’t mean that my life is over and that doesn’t mean that I can’t achieve all the dreams that I have set out for myself. I really utilized the skills that my family taught me: just that spirit of of continuing forward and pushing forward to challenge the notions that people had about me. I was one of the first students in New York City public school to have a disability and be part of a general education classroom that was really challenging experience because public school systems in general are meant to sort of divide students between their abilities and they group students with disabilities into sort of just one big category without tailored educational experiences for them, and my mom really fought hard to make sure that I had the best education possible. So, I wanted to be able to make sure that our community was heard, but not only heard, seen it in a positive light that had never been cast upon us before. Like I said before, disabilities are often seen as a negative thing, and so much of my work is to change that status quo and say: we can be powerful, we can be leaders of movements, we can be change makers and we deserve to be part of all those things.

Maria Guadalupe Partida: That is so impactful to hear and aside from your work within the disabled community, You are also the founder of Box the Ballot, could you tell us more about this voter engagement initiative that encourages voter turnout among the young electorate? What have been a few of the results and lessons learned for this initiative?

Daphne Frias: Yeah, so I started Box the Ballot in 2018 shortly before the midterm elections, and I ended up having to vote by absentee ballot, because I was away at college, and I didn’t know how to navigate the process at all. I thought about how many other young people were probably not voting just because they didn’t understand how to do it. And, when we look at the Hispanic community, we are the second largest voting demographic in the country. But, so many young people in our community simply just don’t know how to accomplish it. I connected with about 60 different colleges across the country in under a month, and they were able to collect the absentee ballots of their classmates. And, in the 2018 midterms, we were able to collect 370,000 ballots under about six weeks. And then, this iteration of Box the Ballot for the 2020 presidential election looked different because of the pandemic. So, I created a system of drop boxes, where we actually collected information of young voters and interested individuals and we sent them drop boxes to their homes. We empowered them to be leaders in their communities and help their communities collect their absentee ballots. In looking at the demographics of who signed up to have a dropbox, it was mostly individuals of color in multi- generational communities who were first time voters. And, I think that that teaches us an important lesson about why communities like ours don’t vote. It isn’t because of the desire to not want to vote; it’s simply because there’s such limited access to resources and limited access to education about voting in general. Similarly to how I produce bilingual content on social media, we created a bilingual resource guides. And, it was one of the first times ever had seen political discourse happen in Spanish,in a written form in a way that can be easily digested by our community. I received so many emails and messages on social media from young people who said, for the first time, they were actually able to have political discussions with their family members, because they had content that was accessible to them that was in the language that they spoke. And, it broke down so many intergenerational barriers in terms of voting in general.

Herman Luis Chavez: Thank you so much for mentioning those amazing details around Box the Ballot. I know that you’ve done work with students in the K-12 environment, in addition to your amazing work with college students, you yourself are a student. I think it’d be great if you could share a little bit with us about how those experiences have gone, and maybe some of the things that you’ve noticed that are pressing for students today when it comes to the intersections between the Latino identity and disability justice.

Daphne Frias: Something that I translated back to young students when I came back home was that: if you’re not accepting of yourself, no one is going to be accepting of you; you have to be the first one to sort of embrace that power and embrace your ancestry. So, something I’ve worked really hard on over this past year is to work with multiple authors to be featured within their publications. One book that came out recently, it was a picture book for grade school children. It’s called More Than a Wheelchair, and it talks about various disabilities, from even people who don’t use mobility devices, and it crosses all gender identities and ethnicities. It’s a great book. For the first time in my life, I actually saw someone with a disability be drawn and spoken about in the book. And, I was able to present that book in a couple of classrooms before the pandemic. The response from students, even who didn’t have disabilities, saw themselves in characters because of gender identity and because of ethnic background. For the first time they said, like, I see myself in someone. And because of that, I believe that I can accomplish more and do better. If I could give advice to any educator out there it’s just: find stories that your students can connect to, that they can see themselves in because it’s incredibly invaluable. Youth can see themselves in me, and maybe for the first time realize that they can be doing something similar and helping their communities, because that’s really the only way we can go forward.

Herman Luis Chavez: So you’ve talked a lot about the work that you’ve done with students and sort of this highlighting of representation, but if I’m correct you’re still a student yourself, right? You’re working towards this dual MD/MPH. How have any of the issues that you’ve experienced continued in your health education?

Daphne Frias: I constantly wrestle with the fact that I’m trying to become part of a system that hasn’t been really made for us. In navigating my application process for medical school, my Hispanic identity was something that was constantly brought up in ways that hadn’t previously been before in terms of in admissions interviews very blatantly being asked, does my Hispanic identity inhibit me from being a good doctor. It was in that moment that I realized that being a Latina makes me exactly fit to be a doctor, because of the trials and tribulations that our community has faced, but also because we deserve a system that sees us and that doesn’t downplay our pain, that doesn’t downplay our illnesses. That actually tries to mitigate various health issues that our community is predisposed to. I think the things that our community can offer to healthcare are invaluable. There’s so many times where our community doesn’t receive access to healthcare, simply because lack of access to insurance or because providers don’t speak Spanish, especially in multi-generational households, where younger family members are often helping to take care of our family members. We should be able to create a system in healthcare that treats everyone for who they are not for who we want them to be. I think that in navigating medical school, I’ve also seen how race plays a huge factor into how patients are treated. Hispanic students and students of color have a three times a higher dropout rate of medical school than any other student population, simply because we don’t have the resources to help us navigate higher educational spaces that constantly push us out. Fewer than half of medical schools have a Latino medical student association on campus, where we can actually come together as a community and talk about the challenges that we face. But medicine has a long way to go, but I’m not giving up.

Herman Luis Chavez:We are so excited for you to be in such an influential role as, as a doctor and acknowledging that you’ve had such an important voice in so many spaces, So with that acknowledgement, I would love to hear about what you think about Gen Z’s role in instituting this change and how Gen Z’s activism sort of fits in within these strains of educational, voter, medical access that we’ve been talking about today.

Daphne Frias: Yeah, I think the thing that’s amazing about Gen Z is that we are generation that is entirely global, that isn’t bound by nationalism to one country or to one entity, but really has the ability, because of the Internet and because of social media to connect with people from all over the world. Our identities aren’t singular to where we’re from but really a homogeneous representation of who we are globally. We are dismantling years and years of gatekeeping because it as easy as an Instagram post, it’s as easy as a Twitter thread. I think Gen Z is only going to continue to be a leader in that regard, but I also think that Gen Z has grown up as a generation that has constantly seen our parents struggling for the bare minimum. Because of that, we’re no longer waiting until you know where we’re old and gray, to go into politics we are doing it right now, where we are running for elected office, we are leaders in the COVID fight.

Herman Luis Chavez: I hope you know that so many of our generation look up to leaders like you that are paving the way for more of us in our generation to step up and to take on the mantle. In that spirit, I would love to ask you if you have any calls to action that you would like to share with our audience?

Daphne Frias: Disability justice is all justice. Whether you talk about, about healthcare, whether you talk about race, whether you talk about gender identity and LGBTQ+ issues. Anything ever that has the word justice in it is disability justice because disability transcends every single community and as an every single intersection and if you’re not including people with disabilities within your work you’re not holistically fighting for justice. The thing you hate about yourself right now is exactly what makes you wonderful and special and will give you the tools go forward. So, I encourage any young Latinx individual listening to this to just embrace everything that you are, remember your community, never forget them, they always have your back and everything is for them.

Herman Luis Chavez: We are so grateful to have had this conversation with Daphne, as well as with Dr. Haro. During this conversation, we’ve been able to see how education is really something that does not exist in a vacuum when it comes to activism, and that we really have to consider alongside other forms of activism. Daphne herself mentioned to us how her work in education is highly involved with her work in access to voter registration for communities that are disenfranchised when it comes to accessing voting as well as when it comes to medical education and access to an education that is equitable for students with disabilities. I think it’s really important for me to take away this intersectional activism with education. And how, when we fight for equality in education, and especially in the Latino community that we also have to acknowledge these other levels of access to community representation and what health means for education and what it means to really represent everyone in our community in the educational spheres that we’re in. And it reminds me of the We Defend Dignity poster and the fact that that poster represents Maribel Valdez Gonzalez, who is this Chicana educator. Her image is one that has become this really rallying call for activism and protesting. The image of an educator is one that is used to try and expand equality at the different protests at this poster shows up at. She was born in San Antonio to Mexican immigrants and she works with students that are Latino, Black, and Brown students. And, I think that understanding that someone who is an educator is also someone who is fighting for changes, also someone who is an activist– important to move forward when we consider how to become even more equitable in education for the Latino community.

Maria Guadalupe Partida: Thanks Herman. I’m so happy that you brought up the We Defend Dignity Poster. Now this poster was widely used in the 2017 Women’s March. it’s known nationally and even internationally. And, as you mentioned, this poster includes a portrait of Maribel Valdez Gonzalezs, who actually studied history, with an emphasis on Mexican American studies. This poster reminds me Of the conversation that we had with Dr. Haro about Sal Castro, who was an educator and was involved in the 1969 LA School walkouts. Sal was always pushing his students further their education in order to obtain higher levels of influence, including in the education industry, where they could be in the position to teach the next generation of leaders. Sal’s vision for the future of Latino students could be depicted in Valdez Gonzales’ image, for she is the product of the advocacy and investment that was done in the 1968 school protests, and in other student and teacher led movements for greater educational equity. These movements are still active today. Activists like Daphne Frias are showing us the intersectionalities of student advocacy, which also includes voting and disability rights. The presence of the Gen Z generation continues to be manifested in Latino Latinx communities,and it could definitely inspire us to put our bets on change.

Herman Luis Cahvez: Happy Hispanic Heritage Month 2021! Thank you for tuning in to La Biblioteca, Season 2. I’m Herman.

Maria Guadalupe Partida: And I’m Lupita. Be sure to tune in to the next episode of La Biblioteca! For more information on the Latinx community and civil rights, visit us online at guides.loc.gov/latinx-civil-rights.

Herman Luis Chavez: Hasta pronto!
This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.