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Chapter Nine Instrument of Change and Service: The Rise and Fall of RUP in Arizona, 1971-1974 Arizona was not immune from the Chicano Movement's contagion. The state's Chicano activists became involved in the struggle to form the Raza Unida Party (RUP), even though Arizona did not have the large Mexicano population concentrations of Texas, California, and New Mexico. The Chicano Movement (CM) turned many of Arizona's activists off to the nation's two major parties and turned them on to the idea of forming a Chicano political party. Arizona has a rich tradition of labor and mutualista activism (mutualista refers to a brand of self-help, fraternal organizations). The news of the Cristal, Texas, takeover and of RUP's emergence in Texas, Colorado, and California, led Mexicanos in the state, especially around the Tucson area, to organize RUP beginning in 1971. The Historical Setting in Tucson: Before the Chicano Movement The rise of RUP in Arizona, specifically in Tucson, as elsewhere, was a result of discontent with the two-party system. The discontent of Tucson's activists, however, had its roots in the state's history of relegating Mexicanos to an internal colonial status. As was the case with Mexicanos in Texas, California, and Colorado, Mexicanos in Arizona were never viable participants in the process of statewide governance, from 1848, when Arizona together with New Mexico became a territory ofthe United States, to statehood in 1911, to the early 1970s.1 The Mexicano population of Arizona in 1848 was only about 1,000 and was concentrated around the Tucson area. A flood of Whites, primarily Southerners, into the new territory was impelled by their pursuit of mineral wealth, railroad expansion, Copyrighted Material THE RISE AND FALL OF RUP IN ARIZONA, 1971-1974 203 and agricultural development that in turn fostered a need for cheap labor.2By 1870, Mexicanos constituted some 30 percent of Tucson's population and a majority of Arizona 's population. It was during the 1880s that a few Mexicanos, chiefly from Tucson, were elected to the legislative assembly.3Mexicanos during these years were the ones who gave political life to Tucson by developing the city and school infrastructure. At this time, they had access to the process of governance. By the 1890s, with the influx of Whites from the East and Midwest, Mexicanos in Tucson began their journey into demographic minority status. White settlers soon became the majority, and it was they who were in total control of the city and school politics.4 As David Weber writes: "Anglos held firm control of Arizona throughout the territorial period. From 1863 to 1912, no one of Spanish surname served in an important territorial office, either elective or appointive."5Carey McWilliams suggests that, as a consequence of the 1848 war, Whites felt "a measureless contempt for all things Mexican."6 Hence a paradox developed: While Whites hated Mexicanos, they needed them as a source of cheap labor. And, according to David E. Camacho: "One may infer that La Raza were unable to control their destiny because of their inability to break from their traditional role of servant to master."? The first major Mexicano resistance in Arizona came in 1894when in the Tucson area some Mexicanos organized La Alianza Hispana Americana (the Alliance of Hispanic Americans). Formed initially as a mutualista organization, it sought to relieve the Mexicano's repression by providing its members with death insurance and other forms ofaid.8 However, until its demise in the 1960s, it also developed a quasi-political and advocacy function, seeking to protect and advance the interests of the declining Mexicano population of Arizona, especially in Tucson. The Mexicano's resistance from the early 1900S to the early 1970S occurred in both the labor and political organizing arenas. During these years, Mexicanos were victimized as an "inferior race" and despised, ostracized, and exploited, working hard for starvation wages.9 Mexicanos responded by becoming involved in numerous strikes-for example, Clifton-Morenci (1903 and 1915)-in the labor movement of Arizona's mine workers. In some cases, the workers and leaders were Mexicanos, many of them from the ranks of mutualista organizations. Mexicano workers resisted their exploitation by joining a number of unions, including the Industrial Workers of the World in the 1930S and others in the years that followed. Politically, Mexicanos in Arizona were relegated to a powerless internal colonial status. Even though La Alianza had linkages to both major parties, neither sought to mobilize Mexicanos politically. From...

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