Brown Berets
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The Brown Berets were a Chicano nationalist activist group of young Mexican Americans during the Chicano Movement in the late sixties and throughout the seventies. Modeled after the Black Panther Party, inspired by the Black panthers, American Indian Movement, Youndlords, Anti-war Movement(s), Cesar Chavez and the Farm Workers movement, Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales, Reies Tijerina, and Revolutionary movements around the world; and were seen as part of the Third Movement for Liberation. The Brown Berets focused on community organizing against police brutality and were in favor of educational equality. As a locality centered legacy, several groups have been quite active since the passage of California Proposition 187, carrying on the militant stance and paramilitary garb of the original movement. Units exist in most sections of California and a few in other southwesten states. They primarily serve as a visible symbol of historical Raza resolve at demonstrations and political parades.
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[edit] Predecessors
In 1966, as part of the Annual Chicano Student Conference in Los Angeles County, a group of high school students discussed different issues affecting Mexican Americans in their barrios and schools. Among the students at the conference were Vickie Castro, Jorge Licón, John Ortiz, David Sanchez, Rachel Ochoa, and Moctesuma Esparza. These high school students formed the Young Citizens for Community Action the same year, and worked together to support Dr.Julian Nava’s campaign as a Los Angeles school board member candidate in 1967. Sanchez and Esparza had trained with Father John B. Luce’s Social Action Training center at the Church of the Epiphany (Episcopal) in Lincoln Heights and with the Community Service Organization.
The organization’s name was then changed to Young Chicanos For Community Action or "YCCA". In 1967, the YCCA founded the Piranya Coffee House. In September of 1967, Sal Castro, a Korean War veteran and teacher at Lincoln High School, met with the YCCA at the Piranya Coffee House. The group decided to wear brown berets as a symbol of unity and resistance against discrimination. As a result, the organization gained the name "Brown Berets". The agenda was to fight police harassment, inadequate public schools, inadequate health care, inadequate job opportunities, minority education issues , the lack of political representation, and the Vietnam War. It set up branches in Texas, New Mexico, New York, Florida, Chicago, St. Louis and other metropolitan areas with Hispanic populations.
[edit] Actions
On March 1, 1968, the Brown Berets planned and participated in the East L.A. walkouts or "blowouts", the largest and lengthiest in the history of California, in which thousands of students left their classrooms to join the protest for quality education. The Brown Berets were able to unite college and high school students and begin the urban stage of the Chicano Movement. Shortly afterwards, other Chicano students led walkouts all over the Southwestern United States, and the Brown Berets became a national organization.
The Brown Berets also were involved in community issues such as unemployment and housing, which became important elements in their agenda. The publication of La Causa by Eleazar Risco and the Brown Berets helped bring awareness of the problems faced every day in the barrios of East Los Angeles.
In 1969, Brown Berets Gloria Arellanes and Andrea Sánchez produced and distributed a newspaper called "La Causa." They also participated in organizing the first free medical clinics and free breakfast programs.Women held an important role in the writing and distribution of "La Causa", but even though this was so, the Brown Berets, as the rest of the Chicano Movement, did not fully take women into strong leadership positions. The jobs assigned to women in the Brown Berets consisted of office type jobs and clerical/secretarial jobs. Sexism within the Brown Berets was evident. Brown Berets saw themselves as liberated man and ignored the women's struggle because they, male Brown Berets, believed that women's struggle was a white women's movement and that above all, first came the liberation of the La Raza. One of the female Brown Beret members, Grace Reyes in charge of writing for La Causa, constantly wrote articles about women within the Brown Berets/the Chicano Movement and the sexist attitudes towards them but were not published and ignored. Brown Beret women, most of them, believed and insisted that a successful revolution "must have full involvement from both Chicanas and Chicanos". Carlos Montes, one of the co-founders, in an interview talks about the lessons learned from the Brown Berets, “Building a mass militant movement to the stop the U.S. war drive, for social change and for revolution is key. Also rebuilding grassroots militant organizations in the community that fight for self-determination, social justice and liberation - not just for reforms. We need an organization that includes the participation of the entire family and that values and promotes the leadership of women.”
The Brown Berets also came to be known for their direct action against police brutality. They protested killings and abuses perpetrated by the Los Angeles Sheriff Department at the station in the barrio. They supported the United Farm Workers movement and the Land Grant Movement in New Mexico. In the summer of 1968, they participated in the first Rainbow Coalition in the Poor Peoples Campaign. In 1969, they were invited to be part of the first Chicano Youth Liberation Movement organized by Corky Gonzales in Denver, Colorado.
The Brown Berets organized the first Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War in 1970, and a few months later the National Chicano Moratorium in which close to 20,000 Chicanos marched and protested the high casualty rate of Chicanos in Vietnam and the military draft. This peaceful protest became chaotic when the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department decided to end the event by attacking attendees. Three Chicano activists were killed (two of them Brown Berets), including journalist Ruben Salazar.
In 1972, twenty-six Brown Berets occupied the Santa Catalina Island and claimed it for Mexico. However, by this time, the organization had been weakened by internal conflicts and police and FBI infiltration. There were approximately thirty chapters throughout the Southwest when the Los Angeles chapter dissolved, but not all the members abandoned the organization.
[edit] Activity In Other Regions
The Brown Berets set up Benito Juarez Health Clinic ("BJHC") in Chicago in 1972. This was a free health clinic that provided free medical care to all people located throughout the Chicago area. Working in conjunction with Cook County Hospital and other major hospitals in the Chicago area, BJHC served the needs of the uninsured and those with no ability to pay for health care services. It was located at 1818 S. Racine it was call the Casa Aztlán Center, the community building located on the west side of Chicago just outside of downtown Chicago had as its Center Director MS. Dorthy Cutler. The medical center was open to the public four days a week from noon until after 11:00 PM. It provided all types of medical help from colds, major cuts, x-rays, blood test, health screening, shots, medical tests, and full pharmacy services all at no cost. The community knew of its existence through word of mouth. Each day it would handle up to a hundred medical cases. The only question asked from anyone seeking medical help was their name. It served a great need to many who had nowhere to turn for health care. It worked on its own and no political or institutional hospitals throughout the Chicago area had control of it. The main people who helped organize and were the forefront for the clinic in other community matters were Maurice "Mori" Mendoza, Rudy and Gogi Cabello. The Brown Berets also fought for public Education issue. They Took over a middle High School called Frobel Middle 9th Grade School. The Brown Berets alongside families, community members and students took over the school for a full day. The Chicago Police force was called to the location to help remove people from the occupied school at the end of the day. A riot broke out that evening and one police man was injured alongside many innocent people that the police beat with their clubs. The Police had 6 cars that were destroyed that day along with other victims. The community wanted a school built in their community, and in 1979 a School was built in the Pilson community now called the Benito Juarez High School.
In San Antonio, Texas SNCC and Brown Berets often supported each other in marches against the Vietnam War and jail conditions at the Bexar County Jail. SNCC ran African American candidates for State offices under the La Raza Unida Party and often supported Mexican American activists.
The Brown Berets also established a presence in the Pacific Northwest with chapters emerging in Eugene, Oregon, Yakima, Washington as well as Seattle, Washington and other places. The presence of the organization was accentuated by the relative isolation from other urban communities and would leave an indelible mark on this region that remains to the present day.
The Brown Berets [in Washington State] originated in Granger, Washington. The group was then transplanted to Seattle as students from the Yakima Valley were recruited to the University of Washington in the late sixties and early seventies. The Seattle Chapter worked with the chapter in Yakima, Washington in attempting to organize various projects including the formation of a 'La Raza Unida Party' in Washington. It is believed that the group was initiated first in 1968, with the Seattle chapter emerging in 1969. The organization would attract over 200 members all throughout the state.
Though having a short-lived presence (approximately from 1968 to 1974), the Brown Berets would be instrumental in organizing youth as well as college students. Of note was the organization's partaking in the occupation of the old Beacon Hill School in Seattle,which led to the founding of 'El Centro de La Raza, which is now one of Seattle's most prominent Civil Rights organizations. Activism also transcended the organization's early phase, with many former member establishing various community institutions to meet the needs of the local community.
[edit] See also
- Identity politics
- Black Power Movement
- Red Power
- Civil Rights Movement
- Chicano nationalism
- Las Adelitas
[edit] External links
- Interview with original Brown Berets co-founder Carlos Montes
- Watsonville Brown Berets website
- Brown Berets of Salt Lake website
- Brown Berets shoot down a police helicopter
- San Antonio Brown Berets website
- Interview with Jesus Rodriguez (Seattle Brown Berets)
- Interview with Rogelio Riojas (Seattle Brown Berets)
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