Banners encouraging student and Chicano empowerment waved along the entrance of the San Jose Peace and Justice Center as speakers, teachers and students gathered to celebrate the 53rd anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium on Tuesday evening.
On Aug. 29, 1970 nearly 30,000 demonstrators formed the National Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War. Marching through East Los Angeles, the moratorium became one of the largest Mexican American anti-war demonstrations, including thousands of individuals who organized Chicano Moratoriums along the West Coast, according to a research guide by the Library of Congress.
The focus of the moratorium was to rally against the Vietnam War and remember the deaths of Mexican American troops during the war.
Other social issues in the United States that affected the Chicano community were also at the forefront of the march for the moratorium.
Inequality in public education, systematic exclusion from achieving higher education and high unemployment rates among Mexican Americans were core issues that supported the anti-war demonstration.
The Moratorium began as a peaceful march, but the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and police department arrived at the scene, disrupting the crowd as police assaulted protestors, injuring several dozen and killing three individuals, according to the same research guide.
Among the protesters, student activists and the Brown Berets marched together.
The Brown Berets is an organization concentrated on combating police brutality and racism against the Chicano community.
Guest speaker Carlos Montes is a veteran Chicano activist who co-founded the Brown Berets in the late 1960s and helped organize the moratorium.
“When the Brown Berets found out that there was a high casualty rate in Vietnam, we did the first Chicano Moratorium,” Montes said.
According to the Library of Congress, Chicanos were 5.5% of the deaths from the Vietnam War and 4.5% of the general U.S. population.
“It was a peaceful rally with music and a picnic atmosphere,” he said.
Montes said the march turned violent when individuals were attacked by the Los Angeles Police Department, sheriff department and the FBI.
Montes said he recalls police running into the crowd swinging clubs at protesters, threatening the submission of the demonstrators with shotguns and clouds of tear gas.
“There was tear gas all over the neighborhood and people were running,” Montes said. “People called it a riot, but I called it a rebellion.”
Los Angeles Times Journalist Ruben Salazar was one of the three individuals killed during the march.
“The FBI was spying on the Black-liberation movement and the Chicano movement, and they wanted to prevent the two from unifying,” Montes said.
He said the FBI was previously spying on the Brown Berets and Salazar, who at the time was reporting on the Chicano movement and struggles like police abuse.
“One of the sheriffs shot a tear gas missile into the bar where Salazar was finding shelter and hit him,” Montes said.
The park’s name was later changed to Salazar Park to honor Salazar’s legacy in the Chicano movement.
“It was Chicano organized, and Chicano led . . . there is this legacy and narrative of resistance and activism and mobilizing against oppression,” Johnny Ramirez, assistant professor of Chicana and Chicano studies at SJSU said.
He said in honoring the 53rd anniversary of the National Chicano Moratorium, it recognizes the Chicano community and disregards the stereotype that these communities are unable to stand and fight with their voices.
He said although there has been a great progression in Chicano representation since the moratorium, low income and communities of color are still targeted.
“[Recruiters] only go to certain kinds of community colleges and Cal State schools because they know the student demographic is low income, first generation students of color,” Ramirez said. “How come those military recruiters don’t go to Stanford or the Ivy Leagues?”
He said his entry point into Chicana and Chicano studies was in community college.
“As a young person in the ‘90s, it was that class that turned this light on and helped me understand that my cultural identity and heritage is connected to a movement,” Ramirez said.
Chicana and Chicano Studies senior Jorge Castillo is part of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán (MEChA) Leadership Committee at SJSU.
MEChA is a student social justice organization that promotes higher education and Chicana and Chicano history and empowerment.
“The Chicana and Chicano studies came out of that movement,” Castillo said. “So this event is particularly special for me and my department because if it wasn’t for the movement in the ‘60s and ‘70s, we wouldn’t have this discipline.”
He said it is the legacy of the moratorium and the representation that followed that gives him a sense of identity.
