This piece is meant to be used with the following lessons: "Understanding the History of Latino Civil Rights" and "Exploring the History of Latino Civil Rights."
When reading this timeline, it's important to remember that the fight for civil rights doesn't happen in a vacuum. In many cases, the events listed below have fueled—and have been fueled by—other social justice movements, like the African American Civil Rights Movement and the fight for equal employment and education among Chinese and Japanese immigrants.
The Latino civil rights struggle did not begin in 1903 and will not end in September 2006. Watch the news and listen to politicians, and you will see the fight for equal rights for ALL people is not over.
1900s
1903 In Oxnard, Calif., more than 1,200 Mexican and Japanese farm workers organize the first farm worker union, the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association (JMLA). Later, it will be the first union to win a strike against the California agricultural industry, which already has become a powerful force.
1904 The U.S. establishes the first border patrol as a way to keep Asian laborers from entering the country by way of Mexico.
1905 Labor organizer Lucy Gonzales Parsons, from San Antonio, Texas, helps found the Wobblies, the Industrial Workers of the World.
1910s
1910 The Mexican Revolution forces Mexicans to cross the border into the United States, in search of safety and employment.
1911 The first large convention of Mexicans to organize against social injustice, El Primer Congreso Mexicanista, meets in Laredo, Texas.
1912 New Mexico enters the union as an officially bilingual state, authorizing funds for voting in both Spanish and English, as well as for bilingual education. Article XII of the state constitution also prohibits segregation for children of "Spanish descent." At the state's constitutional convention six years earlier, Mexican American delegates mandated Spanish and English be used for all state business.
1914 The Colorado militia attacks striking coal miners in what becomes known as the Ludlow Massacre. More than 50 people are killed, mostly Mexican Americans, including 11 children and three women.
1917 Factories in war-related industries need more workers, as Americans leave for war. Latinos from the Southwest begin moving north in large numbers for the first time. They find ready employment as machinists, mechanics, furniture finishers, upholsterers, printing press workers, meat packers and steel mill workers.
1917
