The Brown Berets: The Chicano Movement

the Brown Berets are a militaristic group that was supplanted within the Chicano Movement whose most popular events spanned the era of the 1960s and 1970s. The Chicano Movement, or “El movimiento” as it was termed was both a cultural and political movement used to engage in activism for the struggling Mexican American population. The use of the word Chicano in reference to this group, is pertinent because Chicano was adopted as a formerly derogatory term and was reshaped to mean a new radicalized racial identity of its Mexican-American participants who no longer wished to have any connection to “American ideology, or the word American” because it was “connoted with assimilation to the oppressive forces of American institutions” that Chicanos

(Ramirez) In this research paper I hope to take a closer look at the the militancy of the organization and the issues it faced with its radical notions and its pursuit of empowerment for the education of the Mexican American youth.

Historically, in terms of the context of the Chicano Movement that created the Brown Berets one can first look specifically at Los Angeles, California and the interactions of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) with racial minorities in general for the context that provided a platform for the formation of militant opposition. The Chicano Movement developed in response to historically unique grievances of the Mexican American community but it did not occur in a vacuum separate from the Black Civil Rights Movement. The Watts Riot of August 1965 provides a small insight into the accumulation of overt police violence that was occurring in the Los Angeles area. The violent arrest of Marquette Frye caused riots to ensue for six days in

(Kapoor) In an interview, Carlos Montes explains “[The Brown Berets] started agitating for bilingual education, better school conditions, Chicano studies and more Chicano teachers. [The Brown Berets began attending] community, school and youth meetings to raise demands for better educational and school conditions. This finally led to the historic East L.A. high school walkouts in March of 1968” thousands of high school aged Chicano youth from four predominantly Latino high schools in the Eastside over a two week period protested and Montes refers to this movement as one of the most notable and climactic victories of the Brown Berets in their prime of the late 1960s. (Staff) The Brown Berets cultivated a informed structural powerhouse that served to provide youth with a sense of purpose via training and group structure but also it created an activist group aimed at providing protection for the ten thousands of students who wished to champion for Chicano