Latinos have operated on the political right as well as the left. In 1968, Alfred Ramirez of La Mirada, California, served as state coordinator for Spanish-surnamed citizens supporting presidential candidate George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama, then running on the ticket of the American Independent Party.
Wallace was the first segregationist candidate to woo Latinos.
Ramirez attacked the candidates and policies of both major parties. He was critical of conservative governor Ronald Reagan, according to Los Angeles Times political editor Carl Greenberg, because Reagan signed a bill creating bilingual education. Ramirez charged that the measure was “plotted by the Communist Party.”
The La Mirada Lamplighter ran the following statement from Ramirez, one of their local citizens, on February 21, 1968:
Unless the Johnson and Reagan administrations make a complete reversal in their attitude and policies toward the two million responsible and productive Spanish surnamed citizens who live in this state, most of the one million eligible voters will “Stand up for America” and support Wallace and his American Independent Party in the presidential elections this year.
Across the state, I have found vastly large numbers of Spanish surnamed citizens who are sick and tired of being falsely portrayed as second class people, branded and labeled as hyphenated “Mexican-Americans” and regarded as a “national problem” by the administration in Sacramento and Washington.
As state coordinator of the Spanish Surname Citizens for Wallace California campaign, I answer that we will not riot, loot, burn, kill or destroy cities for either ”Socialist Mexican-Democratic Party A,“ or ”Socialist Mexican-American Party B” because we are not second class citizens who depend on the federal government for vote-getting handouts.
Furthermore, we will not be led like sheep by “Mexican-American Judas Iscariots” who pose as our leaders and beg and complain while holding hands with “Black Power” racists and “Communists,” desperately trying to defend the “unlimited experiment” of the Great Society and liberal Republicanism.
We are producers, capable and determined to care for ourselves, our families, our friends and even care for those non-producers who depend upon us for their support and then continue to complain about it.
Indeed, we are first class citizens, and this is what the “Spanish Surnamed Citizens for Wallace” national campaign will prove.
