Today’s guest blogger is Martin Schiesl, a professor emeritus of history at California State University, Los Angeles, and a  coeditor of City of Promise: Race and Historical Change in Los Angeles. While researching his forthcoming book on the NAACP in California from 1930 to 1970 he came across a letter from Cesar Chavez to the NAACP that piqued his interest.

The growers turned to politics in an effort to overcome the UFW's strike and consumer boycott.

Farm worker unionism encountered much dislike and resentment in the California state legislature in the early 1970s. There were several attempts to enact anti-farm worker legislation in 1971. The principal bill was AB 964 sponsored by Assembly Democrat Kenneth Cory. It outlawed the secondary boycott. The bill received a “do pass” recommendation from the Labor Relations Committee in June and was referred to the Ways and Means Committee, where it appeared that there were enough votes to send the measure to the floor of the Assembly.

Read the rest of this entry »

Segments of the Latino community, like the larger population, have periodically operated outside the two-party political system.

As previously noted, La Raza Unida sought to create a third party for Chicanos—mostly younger Mexican Americans—in the Southwest and Midwest in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Latinos achieved a civic voice through the Cigar Makers' International Union of America. Pin courtesy of Special Collections, University of Maryland.

Less well known are the earlier third party activities of a variety of Latino groups in the Northeast, most notably in New York.

Latino members of the Cigar Makers’ International Union of America never fit comfortably within the Irish American-run Tammany Hall political machine that controlled New York City a hundred years ago.

The cigar makers were skilled craftsmen from Puerto Rico, Spain, Cuba and other nations. They held a strong working class analysis and shared an international orientation.

They supported Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follete’s 1924 Progressive Party presidential campaign along with the American Federation of Labor and the Socialist Party. The Wisconsin senator won 17% of the national popular vote.

Read the rest of this entry »

The state of Florida has a long tradition of Spanish-speaking elected officials that goes back to the founding of St. Augustine, the U.S.’s oldest city, in 1565.

Joseph Marion Hernández entered Congress from the Florida Territory in 1822. He was a Spanish American and the first Hispanic to serve in Congress.

In the modern era, Robert Martínez served as mayor of Tampa from 1979 to 1986, and then governor from 1987 to 1991. Mel Martínez served as U.S. Senator from 2005 to 2009. Both men were moderate Republicans.

Read the rest of this entry »