1968 жылғы Шығано студенттерінің наразылығы: Лос-Анджелестегі оқушылар ұлттық қозғалысы

1968 protests
The East Los Angeles Walkouts or Chicano Blowouts were a series of 1968 protests by Chicano students against unequal conditions in Los Angeles Unified School District high schools. The first walkout occurred on March 5, 1968. The students who organized and carried out the protests were primarily concerned with the quality of their education. This movement, which involved thousands of students in the Los Angeles area, was identified as "the first major mass protest against racism undertaken by Mexican Americans in the history of the United States". The day before the walkouts began, Federal Bureau of Investigation director J. Edgar Hoover sent out a memo to local law enforcement to place top priority on "political intelligence work to prevent the development of nationalist movements in minority communities". For his part in organizing the walkouts, Harry Gamboa Jr. was named "one of the hundred most dangerous and violent subversives in the United States" by the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary, shared by activists such as Angela Davis, Eldridge Cleaver, and Reies Tijerina, and his activities were deemed "anti establishment, anti white, and militant". In a radio interview, Moctesuma Esparza, one of the original walkout organizers, talked about his experiences as a high school student fighting for Chicano rights. Esparza first became involved in activism in 1965 after attending a youth leadership conference. He helped organize a group of Chicano teenagers, Young Citizens for Community Action. This group eventually evolved into Young Chicanos For Community Action, then later as the Brown Berets, still fighting for Chicano equality in California. The same conditions that led to these astronomical drop out rates were the chief motive of the walkouts. Both faculty and administration were short staffed, leading to 40 student classes and a school counselor with 4,000 students. Classroom materials, especially in history classes, painted over Chicano history. The majority of teachers held their own students in belittling contempt. This attitude was reflected in a letter written by a teacher at Lincoln High School, Richard Davis:

Most of the Chicanos have never had it so good. Before the Spanish came, he was an Indian grubbing in the soil, and after the Spaniards came he was a slave. It seems to me that America must be a very desirable place, witness the number of "wetbacks" and migrants both legal and illegal from Mexico. To improve these conditions, the students decided to organize. Esparza, Larry Villalvazo and a few other UMAS members, along with teacher Sal Castro, helped organize hundreds of students to walk out of classes in 1968 protests to highlight the conditions that they faced. As the protests grew, they gained the attention of the school board, which agreed to meet with students and listen to their demands. Castro was born in East Los Angeles and attended a high school in East Los Angeles in the early 1960s. She then went to the University of California, Los Angeles, where she was approached by Sal Castro to attend a youth conference to bring young, educated Chicanos together and bring awareness of their fight and struggles. With David Sanchez, she was a founding member of the Brown Berets and also held meetings at their coffee shop, La Piranya. According to Sal Castro, "I knew both Vickie and David because both had attended one of the Camp Hess Kramer conferences and were impressive young people. As a result of their experiences at the conference, they became more political." Vickie Castro later said of these conferences, “This is where I got my voice. This is where my passion for justice was born in me. It changed my whole being.”

On March 1, 1968, the first students to walk out were from Wilson High School, which had among the highest dropout rates of any LA area high school. Though organizers had been planning for some time to stage walk outs to demonstrate against unsatisfactory conditions, the first blowout at Wilson was unplanned, precipitated by the principal cancelling a student produced play that was deemed too risqué for the students to perform. Between 200 300 students participated. On March 5, about 2,000 students at Garfield initiated the first planned walkout, prompting school authorities to call in police. Eventually, an estimated 15 to 20,000 students walked away from seven high school campuses in East Los Angeles (Wilson, Garfield, Roosevelt, Lincoln — 75% of students attending those schools were Chicano) and other parts of Los Angeles (Belmont, Jefferson, Venice). Funds for Los Angeles public schools were allocated based on the number of students in class each day. By having students walk out of homeroom before attendance was taken, the organizers could increase public attention by targeting the schools financially. Political activist and former Roosevelt High School student Vickie Castro played a leading role in the blowouts. He activism began upon her graduation from Cal State as she realized the lack of Chicano students who make it to higher education. She then helped to form Chicano rights group the Brown Berets. The group worked giving support for the Chicano movement on issues such as educational reform, farm worker rights, police brutality, and the Vietnam war. She then offered her car to pull down a chain linked fence which had been set up to keep organizers to enter the school.

Following the walkouts, students were able to meet with the board of education. At this meeting, student leaders presented a list of demands that addressed what they felt were the most pressing issues within their schools that affected their education.

Schools should have a manager to take care of paper work and maintenance supervision. Administrators will direct the Education standards of the School instead of being head janitors and office clerks as they are today. School facilities should be made available for community activities under the supervision of Parents' Councils (not PTA). Recreation programs for children will be developed. No teacher will be dismissed or transferred because of his political views and/or philosophical disagreements with administrators. Community parents will be engaged as teacher's aides. Orientation similar to in service training, will be provided, and they will be given status as semi professionals as in the new careers concept. All bathrooms to remain unlocked at all times.

March 1, 1968: Over 15,000 Chicanos, students, faculty, and community members, walk out of seven East L. A. high schools. Those schools included: Garfield, Roosevelt, Lincoln, Belmont, Wilson, Venice, and Jefferson High School. Some students from East L. A. junior high schools join the protests, as well. Students and community members immediately organized a protest around the Hall of Justice in Downtown LA to ask for the release of the LA 13. Only 12 of the 13 were released. Sal Castro, a teacher and key organizer of the walkouts, held the most charges and was held in detention the longest. June 2, 1968: Sal Castro was released on bail, but lost his teaching position at Lincoln High school due to the arrest. 2,000 people protested outside of the police station to demand he get his teaching position back.

Many of the student organizers became prominent in their fields. Moctesuma Esparza, one of the thirteen charged with disrupting the schools, who became known as the East L. A. 13, later became a film producer. He helped recruit more Chicanos to Hollywood. Harry Gamboa Jr. became an artist and writer. Carlos Montes, a Brown Berets minister, was charged with arson at a hotel during the Chicano Moratorium protest against the Vietnam War; after fleeing the country he eventually faced trial and was acquitted. Paula Crisostomo became a school administrator, where she continues to fight for reform. Vickie Castro was elected to the Los Angeles Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education. Carlos Muñoz, Jr., went on to a teaching and research career at the University of California, Berkeley. Carlos R. Moreno—who participated in the Camp Hess Kramer conference—went on to study law and eventually became a judge for the Supreme Court of California. Additionally, many films, documentaries, biographies, and more have been produced as result of the Walkouts; some of the projects contain a direct recounting of the Blowouts while others tell similar, loosely based stories. Some of these media projects include Stand and Deliver, Freedom Writers, Precious Knowledge, Racism on Trial by Ian F. Haney López, and more.