Armed with a ballot: The rise of La Raza Unida Party in Texas Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Garcia, Ignacio Molina, 1950- Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 04/10/2021 12:14:25 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/291552 INFORMATION TO USERS The most advanced technology has been used to photograph and reproduce this manuscript from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. 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University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 1339668 Armed with a ballot: The rise of La Raza Unida Party in Texas Garcia, Ignacio Molina, M.A. The University of Arizona, 1990 UMI 300 N. ZeebRd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 ARMED WITH A BALLOT: THE RISE OF LA RAZA UNIDA PARTY IN TEXAS by Ignacio Molina Garcia A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 1990 2 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the library. Brief quotations from this thesis are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his or her judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR This thesis has been approved on the date shown below: 7,//3 J *1 Juan R. Garcia Professor of History 3 PREFACE The mid-1960s and most of the 1970s were years of social unrest in many of the Mexican American neighborhoods of the Southwest. This turmoil came to be known as the Chicano Movement, a political and social catharsis that led to the founding of numerous self-help and militant organizations that sought to better the conditions of the Mexican American population. During this intense period, a third political party was founded by Chicanos and Chicanas who saw the Republican and Democratic parties as the "same monster with two heads." The party was known as El Partido de la Raza Unida.* The Raza Unida Party (RUP) was different from other Mexican American organizations in that it attempted to solve the problems facing the barrios through the ballot. Previously, most Mexican American organizations had used protest and litigation as a way to change the bleak educational, economic, and social status of their community. Since Mexican Americans voted in such small numbers, and few were ever elected, it seemed ludicrous to base social change on the power of the ballot. Raza Unida Party founders, however, believed that Mexican Americans would participate in large numbers. And they set out to prove their point. This thesis attempts to shed light on two important aspects in the development of El Partido de La Raza Uriida. First, it reviews the events leading up to the founding of the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO), which was the precursor of the party. The bleak economic and social conditions that existed in that period and the activities of numerous organizations to change them led to an environment that bred La Raza Unida. Possibly no other time did conditions exist in the Mexican American barrios as in the 1960s, when a third political party could have been established. Second, this work focuses on the strategies used by the MAYO activists to organized Mexican Americans into a voting bloc. That voting bloc gave the RUP political control of two counties in South Texas, and numerous elected positions throughout the '"The Party of the United People." 4 state. The strategies in simplified form were: develop ethnic pride in the Mexican American community; polarize the organizing area into Anglo vs. Chicano; and establish grassroots entities that would bring large groups of voters together for indoctrination, and guarantee that they would make it to the polls. As would be expected from a political party founded by young people amid the social rebellion of the war in Vietnam, the Civil Rights Movement and the War on Poverty, La Raza Unida was more than an electoral organization. Party leaders saw themselves as a militant vanguard that would influence every aspect of Southwest Chicano society. Consequently, Raza Unida organizers did not limit themselves? to registering voters and getting them out to vote. They established local unions, liberation committees, they boycotted schools and they established links with foreign governments, particulaiy Mexico and Cuba. At times they acted as government officials in exile. At other times they seemed willing to strike deals with either of the two established parties. Their ideology was based as much on what they did not want as it was on what they sought to accomplish. Ideology, in fact, became a major point of contention both between the party and other Mexican American leaders as well as within the party's hierarchy. While the party grew to become a national organization, with chapters in eighteen states and the District of Columbia, this thesis will only deal with the Texas chapter of the party, which proved to be the most active and the one with the most success in the electoral phase. This work will also not look at the period of the party's decline, instead it ends with the party at the height of its power. This is done to maintain the focus on the development of the electoral process as an alternative for Mexican Americans in their quest for civil rights. I would like to acknowledge the help and support given me by the three members of my committee, Dr. Michael Schaller, Dr. Juan R. Garcia, and Dr. Oscar Martinez. Dr. Schaller's lectures helped me understand the precursor years, while Dr. Martinez's comments allowed me to place a proper perspective on La Raza Unida's role within the 5 larger Chicano Movement. Dr. Garcia has been a true mentor and to him I owe the most for having finished this thesis. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE 3 ABSTRACT 7 CHAPTER ONE The Prelude 8 CHAPTER TWO A New Kind of Activist 21 CHAPTER THREE Destiny Calls Again 42 CHAPTER FOUR La Raza Unida Becomes A Party 58 CHAPTER FIVE Ramsey Mufiiz and The State Campaign 83 CHAPTER SIX The Six Percent Victory 96 CHAPTER SEVEN La Raza Unida Spreads Ill CHAPTER EIGHT La Raza Unida in Retrospect 131 ENDNOTES 135 SELECTED BIBUOGRAPHY 157 7 ABSTRACT In 1970 a group of Mexican Americans in Crystal City, Texas came together to form El Fartido de La Raza Unida (The Raza Unida Party) and challenged the Anglos that had governed there for years. From that beginning came a state-wide party that ran a candidate for governor in 1972 and in a short period took political control of two counties and numerous other elected positions throughout the state. This thesis looks at two aspects in the development of the Raza Unida Party. It reviews the years leading up to the founding of the Mexican American Youth organization, which was the precursor of the party, and it focuses on the strategies used by this group to organize Mexican Americans into a voting bloc. It is the premise of this thesis that La Raza Unida Party, more than any other Mexican American organization before it, was responsible for Mexican Americans becoming participants in the electoral process in larger numbers than ever before. 8 CHAPTER ONE THE PRELUDE Southwestern society in the mid-1960s was marked by an obvious disparity between the dominant Anglo population and the mostly lower-class Mexican Americans. Two different worlds coexisted, and their inhabitants intermingled only when the job required it or circurratances briefly brought them together. In many small towns the railroad tracks separated the two; in others prejudice and discrimination, both de facto and de jure, indicated the dividing line and made sure everyone knew his or her place.