For Hispanics in the United States , as for all grouping still strain for justice and equality in America , the summer of 2020 hulk as something potentially singular .
Whether this tumultuous here and now in sentence — marked by adeadly pandemic , a polarizing presidential election , furious protests against racial injustice and for the Black Lives Matter movement , and , now , the celebration ofHispanic Heritage Month — actually turns out to be historically meaningful for the roughly61 million Hispanics in the U.S. , or just another pip in time , stay to be seen .
But it is dissimilar .
" I call up the Black Lives Matter movement has really kind of quicken citizenry ’s desire to change the historical narration , " says University of Florida historianPaul Ortiz , whose Quran , " An African American and Latinx History of the United States , " examines the link between the two mathematical group . " That is , ' How did we get here ? ' involving the skilful and unsound . ' Why do we still have systemic racism ? ' The good is , ' What about our bequest of struggle against systemic racism ? And how can we recover those stories , those founding heroes if we will , if we ’ve forgotten them ? How do we think them ? ' "
5 Turning Points in American Hispanic History
The history of Hispanics in America is long and deep , one that began with Spanish explorers obtrude upon the continent in the 1500s and has go forward with the social movement of mass from Latin America and the Caribbean . In recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month , here are five little - known fact of Hispanic American story .
1. Hispanics Have Served in Congress Since the 1800s
Some 300 years after Spanish adventurer became the first non - Native Americans to view the Mississippi River and , later on , the Grand Canyon , Joseph Marion Hernández helped polish the transfer of the territory of Florida into U.S. rule . Florida was still part of Spain when Hernández was bear in St. Augustine in 1784 , but that changed when was selected to serve in theHouse of Representativesand was curse into obligation in 1823 as the first Hispanic American to serve inCongress .
In historical context , the striver - have Hernández is slightly controversial . Still , he remains thefirst of 128 Hispanics to serve in the Congress of the U.S.Maybe of more relevance today is the first senator elected to a full terminal figure in Congress , New Mexico’sDennis Chávez , in 1935 .
" In addition to being the first [ American - bear Hispanic senator ] , he ’s critical for the meter we live in because he fought on behalf of all working class , equally , " Ortiz says . " He contend for gamey earnings lawmaking . He fought for people to have the right to organize a union . He fight for more progress in U.S. foreign insurance policy for Latin America . He organized with NAACP leaders against Jim Crow separatism . Dennis Chávez is one of those people we can use Latino Heritage Month to talk about our connection to other the great unwashed ’s democratic struggles . "
Today ’s Congress , the 116th ( 2019 - 2021 ) , has47 membersof Hispanic inheritance .
2. Hispanics Fought in the Civil War
The American Civil War was not only a struggle between the Union and Confederacy . It was not just white fighting overslavery . The conflict involvedat least 20,000 Hispanics , too . Many in the Southeast helping of the country sided with the Confederacy . From theNational Park Service :
But more Hispanics supported the Union . " A lot of Mexican American soldier fought on the side of the Union Army in the Southwest and really helped kill the Confederacy in the Southwest , " Ortiz says . Hispanics in the West back the Mexican government , too , and celebrated that commonwealth ’s licking of the French at theBattle of PueblaMay 5 , 1862 , — Cinco de Mayo — in a victory thatmay have help prevent the French from siding with the Confederacy .
3. The Zoot Suit Riots
In tardy May and other June 1943 , Los Angeles was rocked by what fall to be live as theZoot Suit Riots , a serial of racist attacks on Mexican American youths by bloodless U.S. man and largely appropriate by a racist law mien .
The orgy were the culmination of year of animosity in the surface area , fueled by :
When the dapperly dressed zoot - suited new men mixed with soldiers on their way to the warfare in the Pacific , violence finally break out .
During the height of the riots , in a hebdomad in June , soldier usedmakeshift weaponsand march into neighborhood looking for anyone wearing azoot suit . No one was toss off , but the pictures of beaten immature men in the streets , stripped of their clothing , and the similar wildness that spilled into other cities forced the nation to face the reality of racism at home .
4. Mendez v. Westminster Desegregated Schools in California
Almost eight years before the U.S. Supreme Court rule ( inBrown v. Board of Education ) segregation in public school unconstitutional , a Hispanic schoolgirl showed the way .
Sylvia Mendez , of Puerto Rican and Mexican inheritance , was just 8 years old when she and her brother were denied registration into the whitened - only Westminster School District in Orange County in 1943 . At the metre , about 80 percent of California school districts were segregate . Her parent , Gonzalo and Felicita Mendez , enlisted other parents to fight the conclusion , and they get hold of the schooling board to motor lodge , Mendez v. Westminsterwas launched . After solicitation that were abandoned suddenly of the U.S. Supreme Court , Mendez v. Westminster became the first successful federal shoal integrating case in the nation . That was in 1947 .
The compositor’s case was important in arguing thatsegregation itself , even if schools were " separate but adequate , " was harmful and unconstitutional under the14th Amendment(specifically , the article that call for " equal shelter of the law " forallcitizens ) . In collection , Sylvia ’s case was argue ( in anamicus curiaebrief ) byThurgood Marshall , who was to contend for the plaintiff in the Brown v. Board of Education case , too , and later would become a Supreme Court justice .
Felicitas died in 1998 , but Sylvia has continued to secern her class ’s story . In 2007 , a U.S. Postage stamp marked the 60th anniversary of the eccentric and on Feb. 15 , 2011 , President Barack Obama represent Sylvia with the Presidential Medal of Freedom .
5. The Chicano Blowouts
Even after Mendez v. Westminster helped desegregate school in Orange County , things were not great in the schoolhouse . Students in Los Angeles in the ' LX were timeworn of soar number of dropouts , grim gradation rate and a counselor - to - student ratio of 1:4,000 . So they planned a aggregate walkout in March 1968 — about 22,000 gamy school scholar in Los Angeles leave their classroom and took to the streets . The incident was dubbed The Chicano Blowouts and the drawing card made 26 demand of a school system of rules that was mischievously bomb them , including more studies of Mexican American history and more Mexican Americans in the administration .
The Blowouts were not totally peaceful . teacher blocked outlet . Police clashed with the bookman inoften brutal showdown . stop were made . But the protests became " a crucial flashpoint in the trend to accomplish equality for Chicano students in the L.A. Unified School District , " allot to theUnited Way of Greater Los Angeles . And they paved the way for more , in force education for Hispanics in California .
" Those high shoal students who graduated from , say Garfield High School in Los Angeles , they go to college three , four , five years later , they ’re at San Francisco State University , they ’re at UC Berkeley , " Ortiz tell , " and now they postulate the implementation of Chicano chronicle on the college story . "
Those kinds of protests , Ortiz says , are what slowly bend the discharge of history toward judge and equality for Hispanics and Latinos , in educational activity and elsewhere . Latino Heritage Month celebrates those moments , and serve to establish how much has been achieved , and how much remains .
" I want us to be proud of our parent and our grandparent . I desire us to be proud of where we came from , " enunciate Ortiz . " And I want us to remember that all the privilege and benefits , and all the advances that we ’ve enjoyed in this country , we have fought for . Or our parents and grandparents have fought for and , in some pillow slip , go and died for . My gosh , we have so many things to be proud of as multitude in terms of contributions that we ’ve made to the social club . "
