Post by the Scribe on Oct 16, 2021 20:50:07 GMT
The Sheriff's Department was watching everyone. Chicano celebrities like Ricardo Montalban, Vicki Carr, Anthony Quinn, Linda Ronstadt, and Joan Baez were being monitored. Mexican-American politicians and community leaders were, too.
50 YEARS LATER, CHICANOS ARE STILL CLAMORING FOR JUSTICE
Blogs Home
More Posts
Posted by Ernesto Arce at Wednesday, September 2nd, 2020 9:32pm
By Ernesto Arce | KPFK News
Hundreds of people gathered across East Los Angeles to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium, the largest anti-war protest in the city at the time. Although the crowds were impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, many marched, walked, skated, and even drove in a car caravan retracing the route of the original march.
On August 29, 1970, more than 30,000 Chicanos took to the streets of East LA to say: No More War in Vietnam. They were also demanding the right to self-determination for Mexican-Americans of the U.S. southwest, its own nation & culture within this diverse country.
The march and rally was violently broken up by the LA County Sheriff’s department and other law enforcement agencies. Four people were killed including journalist Ruben Salazar, considered the voice of the Mexican-American community, which compounded the community’s outrage with the city’s largely white status quo. About 150 were arrested and many suffered injuries.
Some of the faces from the 50th Anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium. (Photos by Ernesto Arce)
As a journalist for Pacifica and the KPFK News, I was granted access to the LA County Sheriff's Department secret files on the Chicano Moratorium and its organizers and key activists ten years ago. This was a result of the Los Angeles County Office of the Inspector General reopening an investigation into the incident 40 years later.
Former LA County Sheriff spokesperson Steve Whitmore gave me about two hours to peruse the files, just him and I. He was there, he told me, to supervise the files and to ensure that nothing was photographed or taken. Fair enough.
What did the files reveal? The Sheriff's Department was watching everyone. Chicano celebrities like Ricardo Montalban, Vicki Carr, Anthony Quinn, Linda Ronstadt, and Joan Baez were being monitored. Mexican-American politicians and community leaders were, too. But law enforcement was most interested in the militant movements of the day: La Raza Unida Party, the Brown Berets, Communist Party USA, Socialist Workers of America, were all specifically named as instigators and fringe groups that might engage law enforcement in violence.
The PLP, the Progressive Labor Party, was a communist organization that was making inroads in the Chicano community. Most files in the two or so boxes that I had time to go through dealt with that group. The files show evidence that PLP was infiltrated, spied on, and most likely targeted by undercover operatives.
But the biggest shock from those files that left me speechless were the coroner's photos of Ruben Salazar's dead body. The tear gas canister missile blew a four inch-diameter hole through his head. Missile is the only way to accurately describe what literally blew Salazar’s head open. I had to take a second to compose myself as Whitmore peered over at me.
more: www.kpfk.org/blogs/kpfk-news-department/post/50-years-later-chicanos-are-still-clamoring-for-justice/