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ch ap ter s even From Latin American to Chicano, 1958–1 978 Bet ween 1958 and 1978, Houston’s Mexican American community experienced a level of political activism and social ferment unprecedented in its history, a parallel to events across Texas and the Southwest. Mexican American activism in the Bayou City was in part given impetus by the black civil rights movement, but it had a life and momentum of its own. Impelled by longstanding grievances and newfound possibilities, Houston activists formed groups to support progressive political candidates . During the 1960s, most folks in Houston discarded the term “Latin American” for “Mexican American” or “Chicano,” the more militant term for la raza, and Houston had its own version of a Chicano protest movement operating through an array of barrio organizations. Mexican Americans were a vigorous and rapidly expanding segment of Houston as the city emerged as an international metropolis. By 1960, the Mexican American community numbered seventy-five thousand. The figu e had doubled to one hundred fi y thousand by 1970, or roughly 12 percent of Houston’s total population, and that percentage continued to rise. Such relative growth gave politicized Chicanos the opportunity to grapple with their disadvantaged status and even make an impact outside the confi es of their city. Houston Mexican Americans gained local and state office for the fi st time in signifi ant numbers. The community’s middle class expanded so that, by the 1970s, Mexican Houstonians became an economic and political force refl cting their cultural and numerical impact on the nation’s fi h largest city. The expanded horizons of Houston’s Latin American community took defin te political shape in 1958. Until then, most political observers considered the Latin American vote in Houston negligible, being relatively small and with little unity. 78 ch ap ter s even In the summer of 1958, however, the Civic Action Committee (CAC) formed. The CAC evolved from the support of Roy Elizondo, Alfonso Vázquez, E. P. Leal, and Dr. Alfredo Hernández for the candidacy of state senator Henry B. González for governor of Texas. González came to speak in Houston, and his vitality inspired these individuals to rally Houston Mexican Americans in support of his campaign. Th s nucleus of people enlisted the help of friends, relatives, neighbors, and key figu es from various community organizations, including Mary López, Al Matta, David Ortíz, and Roy Solíz. Many of the men were veterans of World War II and Korea. A mixture of longtime Houstonians and relative newcomers to the city comprised the group. The CAC represented a truly grassroots organization, resembling other spontaneous political groups coalescing in Mexican American communities across the Lone Star State. Its core membership consisted of twenty to thirty people and their families, who met regularly in homes and in popular restaurants. Houston’s CAC broke political ground in 1958 by holding several extremely successful fundraisers for González during his energetic although unsuccessful bid for the state’s highest offi . These events involved husbands, wives, children, and other relatives, thus making the political process a family aff ir. Responding to the alarming reality that in 1958only one thousand two hundred Latin Americans had paid poll taxes in Houston, CAC members launched a systematic poll tax drive within the Houston Mexican community during late 1958 and early 1959. They organized a group of over thirty people led by Alfonso Rodríguez, Walter Avalos, Genaro Flores, Ruth Valdez, and Carmen López. They concentrated their effort in Magnolia Park, the North Side, and the Second Ward, in such places as theater lobbies and food markets. On Saturday nights they would mount the stage at local night clubs during the bands’ intermissions to implore Mexican American audiences to pay their poll tax so that they could make their political will felt. They solicited at predominantly Mexican American Catholic churches on Sundays. In addition to advocating direct political participation of Latin Americans , early in 1960 the CAC joined with LULAC and the American GI Forum to study and promote a free lunch program in the Houston Independent School District. A school board member had sparked their action by remarking that Mexican American children did not need free lunches because they would rather eat “pinto beans.” In 1960, the CAC became absorbed in the presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy. Enthusiasm for the candidacy of the charismatic, progressive, Catholic senator was overwhelming among Mexican Texans. State-level [18...

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