Roosevelt High School was among the four East Los Angeles High schools that participated in the walk outs of 1968 to demanding more student rights for the growing Mexican American population at the their school. The drop out rates for Mexican American students at these schools was nearly 60%. As well, Mexican American students were often pushed to pursue a vocational training school rather than a four-year college education. The importance of this youth movement was to raise awareness to the community and create change within the schools to stop the discrimination against the Mexican American students. They made up a large population of these schools but were often left unacknowledged. The students created a proposal with thirty-nine demands within four subject areas where they saw a need for change; these subjects included student rights, administrative, facilities, and academic. Many students wanted the school to adopt an academic system that included more appreciation for the Mexican American culture and heritage and a more bilingual education system that would be open for students to participate in.
The walkouts were successful to a certain extent because it recognized the ability of the Mexican American community to speak out against the injustices they faced. By walk-outs of thousands of students hit the Los Angeles School District economically by decreasing the stipend they received for each student. This was a concern for the district and caught the public’s attention, which only empowered their walkouts. This movement clearly inspired the Mexican American community and greater united them since all these schools across East Los Angeles were able to plant the seeds for improvements to be made in the education system for Mexican American students.
While visiting the Roosevelt High we had the pleasure of meeting one of the oldest teachers at Roosevelt. He attended Roosevelt at the time of the walk-outs and was a junior in high school but because he was an athlete he did not participate in them. We asked him if the history of Roosevelt and its involvement in the historic walk outs is still felt across the campus or among the students and he told us that unfortunately it doesn’t, even though most of the population if not all is of Mexican American heritage. He himself acknowledged that he was a second-generation student who did not know how to fluently speak Spanish and considered himself American. He feels however that the movement that Roosevelt took part in helped unite Mexican American leaders and the community which allowed further advancement in other issues concerning Mexican Americans such as employment opportunities and other social justice issues.
I was interested in this site because I think it is a huge part of the Mexican American History that is so close to us but yet is often forgotten since issues of immigration override this history and activism. It is also an interesting site because of the proximity it has from Ruben Salazar Park where another activist died fighting issues of injustices. As Muñoz mentions, the Chicano student movement was to a large extent a “quest for identity, an effort to recapture what had been lost through the socialization process imposed by US schools.”(Munoz, 61). This new emerging Chicano identity helped ignite these walkouts, whose overall goal was to change the historical racism that Mexican Americans continuously faced. This youth involvement took leadership in their concerns and eventually created a cultural nationalism.
Sources:
Munoz, Carlos. "Ch. 2 The Militant Challenge: The Chicano Generation." Youth, Identity, Power. 47-73. Print.
Submitted By: Albertina B, Raquel P, and Stephanie L.
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