Group messages leading to the "2002" Chicano Moratorium Events.

Subject: E-mail tread about the "200" Chicano Moratorium projects and is presented here in a chronological order from 6/9/02- for your reading.

The members of Aztlannet.com has organized the "2002" Chicano Moratorium as a commemoration of the historical conflict between Viet Nam and US. The events was planned as second wave of a Chicano Moratorium legacy by Mas Caras International, Aztlannet, Centro CSO and Avenue 50 Studio.

I invite you to in strengthening our commitment for social justice and peace today.

Guillermo Bejarano
Coordinator for "2002"

From: rosaliomunoz@cs.com Date: Sun Jun9, 2002 6:33 am Subject: Re: [Aztlannet] Homeland Department.

Pedro, It is true the the specifics of the homeland proposal may be a fast shuffle and its timing hurried. Hopefully itll fizzle out this Congressional session. But Bush has won before when he didn't have the votes. ln any event some of the consolidation is happening de facto and some de jure eg the INS/police cooperation. Nixon did his consolidation in the basement of the White House. Its obvious Bush wants to use the proposal for the Congressional elections to keep calling on 911 to push his political agenda. I don't think we should count on ruling class divisions to counter the totalitarian trend the homeland proposal seeks to consolidate.

Sort of in this vein the homeland proposal brings up memories of Cointelpro and its targets, right now responding to you I think of Corky Gonzalez, one of the three fathers of the Chicano Movement along with Cesar and Reies. Some may criticize his nationalism, to me he has made some of the greatest civil rights and progressive contributions to our peoples struggle for equality. For that he was hounded by FBI, LA Sherrifs, Denver PD... etc, etc. for decades. Have you read Ernesto Vigils book on the Crusade?

The picture you mentioned of Ernesto, Cordova, Fred Aviles and myself came from a December 1969 chicano anti war anti draft conference at the Crusade. The idea of the meeting came form Ramses Noriega, Bob Elias and myself, Corky agreed to host it because he had the resources and Denver was close to the middle of the barrios from Chicago to LA. The we from LA had not done all that much mobilizing, Corky gave us full support, he was all about fostering the grouth of youth in our movement. Corky actually recommended at this conference that the LA group return to Denver in th spring of 70 head up the workshop on Chicano anti war activities and develop a national plan of action. At the spring meeting we came up with a plan for a series of chicano moratorius in barrios across Aztlan leading up to a national one on August 29. And thats what happened. Ruben Salazar was at the conference, when the plenary unanimously approved the workshops recommendations on Saturday afternoon in Denver, Ruben got it on the LA Times front page on Sunday morning. I think Ruben was joining in with Corky in making a greater personal committment to our youth and people.

With fathers day coming up I want to honor Corky for his contributions to our movement. I also want to honor women who have parented our movement, speaking of Colorado raza, some of the money to bring LA people to the Denver December anti draft conference was Polly Baca.

Yours Rosalio

From: rosaliomunoz@cs.com Date: TueJun11,2002 7:07 am Subject: Re: [Aztlannet-News] Announcement 1

Guillermo,

I just got a couple of ideas about something to be gathered and stored in the museum. As you know during 1969-71 there were many Chicano Moratorium demos of which Aug 29, 1970 in LA was the most famous and written about followed by other LA ones. The stories of what happened in other barrios that had moratoriums or mobilized for demos elsewhere. We had hoped to pick up this info after the demo back in 70 but got distracted. Maybe at AztlanNet we can start reaching out to get the data. I can contribute some memories like the July 26 '70 chicano moratorium thru Houstons magnoia barrio, the Oxnard moratorium of between 1-2 thousand, organizing trips to Rio Grande Valley, Chicago, Lansing, Kansas City et all,

Another idea is following up on some of rafas, puromando and my stuff on Lincon Heights could be streaming written, photo and other graphic works of barrios in Aztlan past and present. Just some thoughts,

Rosalio

From: michael sedano <mvsedano@yahoo.com> Date: TueJun11,2002 7:14 am Subject: Re: [Aztlannet-News] Announcement 1

i second the idea, rosalio, et al, of documenting today what remains still fresh in your mind. it's sad the vets of my dad's day only now are getting recorded. after 70 years memory fades and i wonder how much of what i heard when i was a kid has remained to commemorate that generation's youth. while you're still young, get it written. yeah, use technology as it is today to give the visual component.

Mvs

From: gbejarano <aztlannet@yahoo.com> Date: TueJun11,2002 12:06 pm Subject: Re: [Aztlannet-News] Announcement 1

Rosalio:

The thoughts that many people have memories of Chicano Moratorium and many have personal stuff, memorabilia, history and testimonials from barrios marching against the war in Viet Nam..

I got body scares from the cops batons on Sept. 16th moratorium march, I still remember, the multi-segments of Chicano Moratorium marches, walking along with Bert Corona and passing the future Machicano Art Center on Whittier Blvd., and being an eyewitness to the shooting of Ruben Salazar, August 29th. I also remember, Sept. 16th walking hand-in-hand with my girlfriend Yolanda Villeda who I later married--feeling very proud of Mi Raza and her. [Sending Yolanda home and suddenly being trapped by a line of police that was coming toward me and seeing a person welcoming me into their apartment for protection-moments later, kids, parents, uncles and others being thrown to the apartment floor, Several of us were beaten, handcuffed and arrested. We were loaded on to a bus, pepper sprayed and then received at the LA jail house, where much time elapsed until my two inche head cut was stitched up by a jailed trustee medic, I was released the following night].

Michael Sadano, Rosalio and others should get together on the Chicano Moratorium and Lincoln Heights projects. I could help in communication, web technology and production.

Guillermo Bejarano >>=====================>

From: Serg Hernandez <chiliverde@earthlink.net> Date: TueJun11,2002 8:11 pm Subject: Re: [Aztlannet-News] Announcement 1

Ross you just reminded me of something...At the 16th of Sept parade Con Safos (Rafas, Tony G, Art Flores, myself and others) carried a big image of ruben salazar, which I painted on a 4x8 piece of 3/4 inch plywood....(heavy)..as you know it got away from us and proceeded down the parade route to ELA JC where there was another confrontation with police, it was hoisted on top of the entrance of ELAJC where it stayed until the next day........Ramon Hernandez later retrieved the piece and it stayed at Art flores' home for many years.......it is now with me and I hope to donate it to a Aug 29, museum if such a thing ever exists.....Serg PS(Oscar Castillo has photos of that event and I've used some of them when I've exhibited the piece)

From: gbejarano <aztlannet@yahoo.com> Date: TueJun11,2002 10:47 pm Subject: Re: [Aztlannet-News] Announcement 1

Serg

To start this project we can coordinate these memories together with Gil, Rosalio, Michael, Cecelia, Mondo and others. This group could compile the visual, text and audio and streamed by web media production via Aztlannet.com/MOCAL. The projects such as the Chicano Moratorium and Lincoln Heights could be a great piece of history for everyone.

I'll work on the above project if there is a consensus here. I would be agreeable in making this happen.

GB

From: Serg Hernandez <chiliverde@earthlink.net> Date: TueJun11,2002 10:55 pm Subject: Re: [Aztlannet-News] Announcement 1

I'm game!......Serg

From: rosaliomunoz@cs.com Date: TueJun11,2002 10:55 pm Subject: Re: [Aztlannet-News] Announcement

I'm game too, Rosalio

From: cecelia <cecelia@azteca.net> Date: TueJun11,2002 11:28 pm Subject: Re: [Aztlannet-News] Announcement 1

I'm game as well... Cecelia

From: "ave50studio" <ave50studio@msn.com> Date: WedJun12,2002 8:10 am Subject: Chicano Moratorium/Viet Nam War

Nancy Flores and her husband are gathering information on chicanos who were in the war. They're looking for letters that were sent to families here in the States from Viet Nam. Maybe they could somehow hook up with what you guys want to do.

From: rosamwill@aol.com Date: WedJun12,2002 12:38 pm Subject: Re: [Aztlannet-News] Announcement:

Your project sounds great. It is of the utmost importance to remember what happened to our people during the Veitnam War and the Moratorium. I think it is timely too because of the political climate. The recruiters have been very busy passing out their brochures and propaganda at the high schools and community colleges. The first place they come for soldiers is our barrios, I don't think our sons should fight for anything other than our land and the honoring of the last treaty with us. I wish you great success with your project, it is important and needed.

From: rosaliomunoz@cs.com Date: ThuJun13,2002 8:03 pm Subject: Re: [Aztlannet-News] Announcement 1(Chicano Moratorium)

I would like to start off on the project with two memories. The first is of the impact of Ralph Guzmans study of raza casualties in Vietnam. I heard statistics collected by Guzman on the disproportionate number of Spanish Surname Vietnam Casualties from the Southwest states for the time at a United Mexican American Stludents multi campus conference sometime in 1968 I believe. I was just getting involved in UMAS, some one read off the statistics from some recent report. It was a defining moment in the development of my political conciousness, it touched on the three key issues I took seriously but was not committed on, the chicano movement, the anti war, and the overall need for social change. The statistics reinforced the seriousness of the issues many times over, linked them and called on me to make a commitment . It no longer was one issue over another and clouding the issue for the third. It made me commit, first to the Chicano movement on campus where increasing recruitment could also be seen as taking Raza away from the draft board and volunteering. If our project does get off the ground I would like to dedicate it in part or all to Guzman an activist intellectual whose movement informed research empowered so many of my generation to fight back. That the truths we gather serve the new generationan(s) in the same way.

My second memory is of Luis Valdez' song Welcome Back Richard Campos rithat linked our movement and the war focusing on the death of our youth long before the Chicano Moratorium. May our work be generated in the developing cultural traditions of our culture to enoble our spirit.

These are two key antecedents of the Chicano Moratorium movement at least in terms of my own involvement.

Rosalio Munoz

From: Vibiana Chamberlin <vibi@earthlink.net> Date: TueJun18,2002 8:52 am Subject: Re: [Aztlannet-News] Announcement 1

That event was a very important one in my life and in the the experience of El Teatro de los Ninos. I walked with the teatro kids on the route of the moratorium march. We were tear gassed and forced to seek refuge in back yards and homes of kind strangers. Richard Vasquez, author of Chicano, helped me and gathered the kids for me and managed to get them away. Unfortunately, I was stuck in a time warp on a porch of a little house. I ran to it for safety but two cops ran from their three deep- block long military fashion lines on the street. They leaped over the fence and ran to me and proceeded to jab me with their sticks on my chest and head, taunting me.

This was just a small attack. Others had blood spilled from their legs arms and heads. But at the time it was demeaning, cruel and their eyes were more cruel than their poking at me. like I was a mouse and they were mere cats playing with me. I tried to reason with them and asked them, Why are you doing this. what have I done? Are you husbands? Are you fathers? Aren't you supposed to protect people? They became enraged and I screamed for helped. A television crew was just over the other side of the fence. I yelled for help. they didn't help me. The guy just kept filming. I'll always remember these men. None of them helped me. I was so naive. I kept on hoping that someone walking by during this nightmare scene, proceeding in slow motion would help. But no one did. I saw a man peek out the window. I assumed he would help me. I was very mad at the cops at these guys who wouldn't help me.

That week I went to the center for law and justice or Moratorium committee I forgot what was it's name I told my story like hundreds of others. They offered my solace..but no legal help, there were others who were worst off than I was.

I grew up. I was disillusioned, I grew up believing that all men were like my father, my uncles and brothers. they respected the family, women and children. There were lines that were drawn. Places you didn't go. Places you didn't touch in our minds and on our bodies. Those two cops were young men who were family men, but became vicious animals out of control. bigots against my youth, my femininity, bigots about my mejicanidad. They were full of hate as they marched down the street in our barrio with it's neat white framed houses with gardens and puppies and makeshift patios and shrines to Our lady of Guadalupe. Our lady must have been shrieking that day, her little serene face dropping tears.

Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin

From: rosaliomunoz@cs.com Date: WedJun12,2002 5:58 am Subject: Chicano Moratorium archive /memorabilia et al

I hope this project can be on going and kept as simple as possible especially at the outset. We can have a joint place in cyberspace to collect things, try to organize what is sent without messing with the integrity of what is submitted. I don't know about physically housing stuff. It needs to be done. I know the East L.A. county library has a file with a lot of stuff on the moratorium. Some of the stuff people have is precious, who can be trusted to caretake it. I am all for physically collecting stuff but right now I am more interested in what can be done in cyber space.

I think the focus of the project should be on the unity and growth arising from the organizing and activities, I want to avoid namecalling, coulda, woulda, shoulda stuff, especiall he or she shoulda, mighta, should not a. The moratoriums were a mighty powerful collective experience for our raza, the media and a lot of histories focus on the violence, the controversy at times masking the unity and strenght built up and that remains in our colledtive memories, let us not be distracted by intervention, infiltrators et al. Sun is coming up, day is starting, off to other tasks, more later,

Rosalio

From: rosaliomunoz@cs.com Date: MonJun16,2002 4:33 am Subject: Chicano Moratorium project

From: Rudy Tovar, NCMC, Monitor

August 29, 1970 was one of the most memorable days of my life. I had a feeling at the time that life for Raza would never be the same--as of that point in time Raza was taking control of its own destiny. The coming together of marching contingents of Raza from many parts of California, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, Puerto Rico brothers from back east, Illinois, Alaska and many other states was exhilarating, awe inspiring, and exhibited self-determination -- the determination to fight for change. There was a surge of power and vibrancy pulsating through the crowd of marching protesters which spilled over into the ranks of the bystanders and sightseers. I felt a surge of Chicano pride, power and renewal and a feeling that from this day forward the Raza goal of self-determination was inevitable.

The attack on the Chicano Moratorium by "law" enforcement made me angrier than I can describe. But I made a vow to myself that I would struggle for the Chicano/a causa for the rest of my life.

Postscript: The quest for Raza equity equity in the U.S. is far from complete. We must continue to educate ourselves, argue our case wherever and whenever there is the need, back each other up when faced with a common problem, and settle internal differences among ourselves amicably. We must continue to instill ethic pride and self worth in our children by example.

From: rosaliomunoz@cs.com Date: MonJun17,2002 4:33 am Subject: Chicano Moratorium project

For about two weeks now some of us have been posting about possibly beginning a project to gather materials past and present about the Chicano moratorium movement of the late sixties and early seventies. Last Saturday some of us got together to share some ideas on this and other potential projects. It was informal, and I had to leave early, but I am sure folks agreed to go ahead in some fashion. In that spirit I want to begin putting down some remembrances of my involvement during that time in short, hopefully readable postings.

In the discussion last Saturday Rafas characterized what we were talking about as developing a "folk history" on the net. I liked that term. Folk history is desparately needed to fight back against the war propaganda we face today, especially as we Chicanos are being "discovered" by the mass media more and more. I deeply believe that it is the people that make history, that push for progress, working people in particular. The establishments, those for the status quo and worse, cover up the truth of the peoples struggles while they happen and afterwards. I think the truth will help set us free. In this spirit just a couple more paragraphs.

The Chicano Moratorium Committee started sometime in November of 1969, a friend of mine Ramses Noriega had attended the first meeting. I had been out of town and he made sure I went to the second meeting near the end of the month. This second meeting was held at the Brown Beret storefront office on Brooklyn Ave (now Cesar Chavez Blvd) near Mott across from Roosevelt High School in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles.

For the previous three months Ramses and I had been working to build up movement of Chicanos against the Vietnam war and the draft, the Selective Service System that ordered youth to leave private life to enter the military. In late August of 1969 I had received a "greeting" from President Nixon, a draft notice, ordering me to report for induction on September 16, 1969 at the induction center in downtown Los Angeles on S. Broadway just off Olympic. I decided I was going to refuse induction, risking a 5 year jail term and $10,000 fine, to help generate opposition the war and discrimination that led the disproportionately high casualty rate of Chicanos in the war. I asked Ramses to help me build a movement kicking off on the 16th, he agreed. More later.

Rosalio Munoz

From: "tuh1015@earthlink.net" <tuh1015@earthlink.net> Date: TueJun18,2002 10:36 am Subject: RE: Fwd: Re: [Aztlannet-News] Announcement 1

Beautiful job Vibiana of story telling! You captured the feminine essence of both strength of conviction by being there proactively, and the pain of exposing your feminine love & support of being with the children. Powerful!

Tess Hernandez

From: rosaliomunoz@cs.com Date: WedJun19,2002 5:08 am Subject: Re: [Aztlannet-News] Announcement 1

The individual bigotry of those two male cops, we called them pigs then, was really part of a policy of social control for the day, a policy of terror for the occupation of a community that hosted the largest political gathering of Mexican Americans until that time, the largest minority /working class based anti war demonstration of the era held in one of the most disenfranchised communities in the nation. It was a murderous policy where the killings of Ruben Salazar, Angel Diaz, and Lynn Ward were no accidents. We tried our best to fight back, to get rid of the martial law curfew imposed on our community until we demanded to march throught the streets of ELA with the casket of Ruben Salazar. We bailed out well over a hundered, several of whom skipped.. We initiated law suits we continued to protest...We had our own weaknesses, a glaring one for many of us machos in leadership of not seeing male chauvinism as a basic underpinning of the system we fought to change. Thanks Vibiana for your contribution.

Rosalio

From: rosaliomunoz@cs.com Date: FriJun21,2002 12:01 pm Subject: Re: [Aztlannet] Chicano Moratorium project

Vibiana, I would love to do this, wouldn't it be nice to have a group discussion with input from other participants in the events, also younger and other folks who we'en't around at the time who may be curious. I have a lot of thoughts, things I've said, things pent up, but the most fruitful experiences for are hearing others perceptions, feelings.

Rosalio.

From: HGold42734@aol.com Date: FriJun21,2002 12:21 pm Subject: Re: [Aztlannet] Chicano Moratorium project

Face Of Silver - Cara De Bronce

( Para Ruben Salazar)

Marching by the Silver Dollar
with a new face,
bearly covering los huesos of an old sueno,
an early death,
we listen por la voz de Ruben,
buscamos for his palabras
that fell como la lluvia over wildfires of hate,
chota golpes y scalding racism,
la marcha bowed con respeto,
pace slowed,
almost stopping
to search for his eyes,
embrace his quick pain,
warn him of the meteor
not sent by god,
marching past the Silver Dollar
with a new face,
we pass the hat
o collect flores para Ruben,
who waited for us
at his park,
la tierra rica.

By Phil Goldvarg 8/29/98
EasLos, Califas

August 29 March
Hgold42734@aol.com

From: CarlosMont@aol.com Date: FriJun21,2002 7:04 pm Subject: Re: [Aztlannet] Chicano Moratorium project

Hello everybody. The first Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam war was held December of 1969 organized by the Brown Berets. I was one of the founding members of the Brown Berets and the Minister of Information at the time. The first meeting that I recall were we discussed a Chicano Moratorium was at our office at the corner of 4th and Mott St. across from Roosevelt High School, ( not Cesar Chavez as Rosalio mentioned) in the fall of 1969. David Sanchez the then Prime Minister used the term Chicano Moratorium at our meeting and we discussed organizing a protest in ELA. I recall we started the march down 4th street near Talpa Church and ended up at Obregon Park for a rally, (teatro and all) there were about 1,500 people. I have some old copies of our newspaper La Causa showing the annoucment and call for the march. I am interested in helping with the project.

In 1990 I was one of the organizers of the 20 year commemoration were we had over 5,000 people demanding self-determination and protesting the US war against Iraq. We revived the National Chicano Moratorium Committee for that event.

We have a great 28 minute video with footage from the police attack at Salazar Park, the Salazar inquest, funeral and the march and speakers of the 1990 event. We have copies for sale $15.00.

I am currently with the Centro CSO (community service organization) and this past February we organized a Community Conference Against War at Hollenbeck Park. The Theme was Building Community Power and International Solidarity.

We have a web page at aztlannet.com community resources. Our community center is at 511 Echandia St, LA, CA 90033. (323) 221-4000.

From: rosaliomunoz@cs.com Date: FriJun21,2002 9:50 pm Subject: Re: [Aztlannet] Chicano Moratorium project

Good to hear from you Carlos, you sure were there at the start. I remember sitting down outside the Euclid Center on Whittier before the Dec. 20 Chicano Moratorium and talking with you about the movimiento and the need to make it grow. ll I recall you were quite serious and articulate and was glad to meet you. You're right the Beret office where the organizing meetings took place for that first moratorium was on 4th Street, I recall going to just 2 or three meetings there. The actual Moratorium on Dec 20 started at the 5 puntos at Cesar Chavez where the statue the Chicano ware heroes of WWII and Korea. We marched down Michigan to Obregon Park, (wasn't Eugene Obregon a medal of honor recipient?) because as I understand it a permit was turned down to march east on Brooklyn ( now Cesar Chavez). I remember feeling a little disappointed about the turnout at the start of the march until I went ahead to the park and saw the marchers fill up Michican as they came down the hill into the park, it was exciting.

As I mentioned previously I wasn't at the beginning meeting of the committe much less any discussion in house of the berets or others who planned that first demo. I had been traveling around the country to movement activists and leaders about making anti war anti draft work one of the major priorities of the movement. I plan to write a few postings about that work before I joined in the committee because it helped set the stage for the national demo on Aug 29 the next year.

Its great your going to be part of this, as the year go by I keep admiring the brilliance of the stategy for that first demo, honoring Chicano soldiers for their contributions and am looking forward to learning how it emerged.

Three months earlier I became heavily involved because I was drafted for Sept 16, Mexican Independence Day, 1969, a coincidence that made me think that my refusing induction on that day, having been the first Chicano Student President of UCLA, would draw attention to the disproportionate death rate of Chicanos in Vietnam and to draw more other the youth into the movement rather than the armed services. I remember thinking that our movimiento needed something like what Muhammad Ali's draft refusal had done for the African American and general anti draft anti war involvement. I didn't see myself as anything like Ali of course but when I was drafted for the dieciseis I judged that there was a much stronger opportunity for dramatizing the issue about Chicanos. I think I have taken up more than enough cyber space for 1 posting to night.

Rosalio Munoz

From: rosaliomunoz@cs.com Date: FriJun28,2002 10:05 am Subject: Re: [Aztlannet-News] Announcement 1

All week long I have been dissatisfied with my response to Vibianas sharing the bruta experience she had at the moratorium. There is so much that can be said about the why of this incident. The incident reminded men of the scene in Requiem 29, the Chicano filmmakers collective work on the event, where a young woman is brutally smashed on the head with a billy club by a really pig looking sherrif. Then it came to me, these upstanding representatives were attacking women because they were not only a basic, but a decisive factor in the event and the peoples struggle. Women all over this country and in the barrios had gotten out of the systems control and were pushing all progressive movements further than the establishment had expected.

This was true of the anti war movement in general and Chicano Moratorium in particular, despite the impediment that men monopolized the leadership positions it was the women who said Ya Basta, enough with the men going off to fight somewhere else, they are needed here to take care of basic business at home. In the barrios; they said pointedly Tia Guadalupe Needs You!. They were'nt just standing by their men they were marching for their community, many of them with brown berets.

One of my favorite photographs from that era was in La Raza magazine, it was from the Feb. 28 '70 ELA Chicano Moratorium in the rain and pictured Gloria Arellanes and Gracie & Hilda Reyes dressed in black, hair wet and matted, each holding a small crucifix with the name of a Chicano who had died in Vietnam on it. They worked hard as members of the berets making the Dec 20 '69 and the Feb 28 '70 demos unexpected success. The worked nearly full time with the Aug 29 moratorium committee, especially in the last 2 months, ensuring its success, they traveled to Chicano moratoriums in other areas like, organizing, mobilizing, moving their grass roots peers, especially the women to work towards the national demo on Aug 29.

I know this posting may go long but I want to offer a few sketches of key points for me where women made the difference in antiwar, moratorium organizing.

Right after I received my draft notice in Aug '69 to report on Sept 16 I went to my friend Ramses Noriegas place to seek his support for starting a Chicano anti draft anti war effort using my refusing induction as a kick off. Ramses was a talented artist who had helped Cesar Chavez organize in the Coachella Valley and helped build the grape boycott as a UFWOC organizer assigned to Pittsburgh. He was my campaign manager for UCLA student body president. He was a Caborca born immigrant who grew up among the working poor of Mexicali and the Imperial /Coachella Valleys, a principled, deep thinking hardworking man. We had talked ideas, the movement, the war for long hours previously. Now I was asking him to put our ideas to work. We talked late into the night, he plumbed the depth of my committment, agreeing would make him put off man carreer and personal goals. As we went back and forth, his wife Deanna made the comment that the war was immoral and had to be fought by everyone. I think this tipped the scales and Ramses agreed to help.

We decided that we had to move fast before the 16th less than 3 weeks away. We went to UCLAs Campbell hall where Chicano programs were housed and got the Mecha leaders to agree to begin mobilizing for a picket at the draft center on the 16th. Tony Salazar tells me it was the women of UCLA Mecha, lke Pat Tamayo, Teresa McKenna, Antonia Hernandez, Maria Elena Yepes, who pulled off that demo. This was key, this was our raza base in the movement backing our anti draft anti war play.

From there I went home to my parents to tell them of my plans. We sat in the living room and they sat stoned faced listening to my reasonings. They are deeply religious people with strong committment to personal and public morality, my father Methodist, my mother catholic. We grew up going to mass and Sunday School every Sunday. Reading the bible everynight and saying prayers at meals. Education an d family were their mottos, politics was secondary. My dad asked questions and listened. After what seemed like hours tears started coming from my mothers eyes and she sobbed out about the discrimination she had faced in school, how as my dad worked 2 jobs and went to graduate school, she had to go to the schools and deal with racist teacher, princeples, counselors et al for us 5 children who tested better than the Anglos, and our family had had it good. That settled it, the family was with me, I had a place to stay, meals at home, and was later to find with familia all over Aztlan. My dad gave me a gas credit card to help in my travels.

A month after I refused induction there were massive national antiwar moratoriums in San Francisco and D.C on October 15 1969. I was a last minute additon to the Bay area one. There were 250,000 out there who were pretty restless towards the end. Fires were lighting up to keep people warm. The organizers wanted to cut off the program before I and a few others could speak, they asked Buffy St Marie to sing to as an impromptu finale, she said " I won't sing until you let that young man speak" pointing at me. I spoke ending by saying one of the reasons I was not going to war was because the Department of Defense was the biggest buyers of California grapes and if they didnt boycott grapes I would boycott them. The crowd cheered> Dolores Huerta came across the stage and gave me a big abrazo. I was now an antiwar leader.

Dolores spoke that day, so did Corky Gonzalez, myself and I think Abe Tapia of MAPA, perhaps others Chicanos, but when Ramses and I got back to our hosts, Armando Valdez home and saw the news there was an Indian Chief, David Hilliard of the Black Panthers, and yuppie types harrasing the anti war Republican Senator, but no Chicanos. There may well have been as many of us there that day as we had in 'East LA a year later but no one new it, and the Raza didnot know we were represented. We were disheartened but convinced that we needed to mobilize in the barrios.

I was travelling around the country to Chicano confernces doing anti war workshops that fall, but I was in town for a Chicana Womens conference at UCLA I think in mid November. There was quite a debate. During a break a woman in a brown beret, an activist from Cal St. LA Mecha, announce there would be a meeting in ELA about organizing a Chicano Moratorium. Wow!

Before I got to my first Chicano Moratorium I went with my family to Tucson for Thanksgiving. My nana was close to 90 or more and mom wanted us all to go see her. We did. I had long hair, beads, huaraches and a peace medallion, and was on a liquid fast. One of my tios, my mothers oldest living brother was there, he was iving my mom hell about me. His sons had served in the Air Force out of U of A ROTC. Who was I to espouse such ideas, to come dressed so mechudo, and not even eat when my aunts had been cooking all day, and on ... and on.... Nana called out, she was the extended family matriarch widowed since the depression, here folks had come over in covered wagons from Sonora in the early 1870's, she was born in Tucson. The table was set, she pointed to the seat next to her where my huero uncle was to sit and said "Rosalio, ven, sientate aqui, quiero ver tus ojos, te ves muy mejicano". That settled where our century old Tucson clan was going to stand on the war question. My family, Tuscon & Phoenix, U of A and ASU, Catholic and Methodist was behind me too.

The next Monday or Tuesday evening I was at the storefront at 4th & Mott for th e Chicano Moratorium Committee meeting. David Sanchez of the Berets opened the meeting and called for reports. Hilda Reyes, you've seen here pictures with a beret and bandoleras perhaps (its on the cover of Jesus Trevinos memoirs Eyewitness), reported on the large number of local merchants who she and others had gotten contributions from for the demo and for people coming from out of town. Here was a true grass roots bass in the barrio for an antiwar movement, here barrio berets and Mechistas movimiento activist could unite with EICC an other activist. I was impressed with Davids meeting skills, but even more with Hildas organizing effectiveness. I committed myself to help build the moratorium.

These are a few, key ones in my memories where women turned the tide for me in work against the war, I believe similar things happened in familises, organiztions, demonstrations etc all during this time. Women were on the move, moving the causa of all kinds for all communities, Angela Davis, Alicia Escalante, thats why the police went after the women on August 29, they were not just behind the men, they were along side and in front.

Rosalio

From: "Ralph F. Lopez" <wolf.lair@verizon.net> Date: SunJun23,2002 5:25 pm Subject: Re: [Aztlannet] Chicano Moratorium project

He was a Medal of Honor winner indeed, Rosalio! However,Obregonwas killed in action andawarded the medal posthumously. The social, political, and numerical inequities involving Chicanoswho served in the Vietnam War as well as among those who remained at home notwithstanding, any commemoration of the Chicano Moratorium must take into account the feelings and point of view of Chicano war veterans. Unless one hassuffered the psychological and emotional devastation of having the blown body parts of afellow GI plastered on your face, it shouldn't be all thatdifficult for one to fathom why so manyChicano Vietnam War veterans have expressed bewilderment over the goals and objectives of the Chicano Moratorium. It is late, raza. It is time to heal the gaping misunderstanding between Chicano Vietnam War veterans and Chicano anti-Vietnam War protestors. The Chicano Moratorium Committee should initiate a dialogue with representatives of variousChicano veterans organizations with the objective of resolving one another's differences and bridging the current divide.

Those of us involvedin the Chicano Revolt of the late sixtiesand the ChicanoMoratoriumof theearly seventies entered the Movementviadifferent ideological, political, and cultural avenues. Regardless of the individuals or groups that stood at the forefront of the Chicano Movement--or the ideologies they espoused, the agendas they wrote up, and the actions they took ...their efforts would have amounted to no more than a fart in the wind had it not been for the popular support of a people that some Chicano eggheadsnow refer to as the lumpen ... raza, by god, ordinary barrio folk whose memories of racist abuse, police brutality, job discrimination, or social, political, and educational, injustice stretchacross generations of ancestors. Do not take too lightly the inscrutable face of the "lumpen" lest you wind up in a padded cell recitingan ideological mantra to your alter ego.

I too was at the Chicano Moratorium ... representing myself. I was as outraged about theobscene number of Chicano GI deaths in what I considered an equally obscene and unjust war against the Vietnamese people. Nevertheless, Iamproud of the service and sacrifice of Chicano soldier-patriots on behalf of all Americans. And I am just as proudto stand shoulder-to-shoulder withthe inscrutable "lumpen."

Rafas c/s

From: CarlosMont@aol.com Date: MonJun24,2002 3:56 pm Subject: Re: [Aztlannet] Chicano Moratorium project

Bumping with the lumpen as we used to say. Yeah we were labeled everything but basically were all poor working class people fighting for justice and self determination. But we also now have our organized criminal side remember "Trucha con Lucha." LUCHA was the League of United Citizens to Help Addicts, ex pintos who formed this self help group who some ended up going back to the street life.

The Centro CSO would lie to be part of a grassroots collective effort to do something for this years Chicano Moratorium, what do you all think?

From: Vibiana Chamberlin <Vibi@earthlink.net>Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 10:47:34 -0700 Subject: Chicano Moratorium

I congratulate you on your efforts to archive this momentous and historically critical time in Chicano history.

One of the things which I believe is very important is that the movimiento was fired by the enthusiasm, idealism and raza love of our YOUTH.

Also I want to thank you for your efforts and devotion. You are such an important person. You were what fueled the moratorium. I know there were many dedicated grupos working day and night on it but you were the voice and you spoke articulately and you represented a young man who was studying in college seriously. So you were a wonderful role model for all kids but especially for young men in high school and college.

Again. I want to thank you for your good work of the past and present. And I hope many people have thanked you. You know people take each other for granted. And You probably don't realize how great your achievements have been.

Because of your info. on the E-mail, I responded because of old emotional wounds which were opened up on that beautiful day, which began with such hope and enthusiasm. So many happy faces of all ages. So much beautiful poetic, forceful chanting as we marched with So much love. I'll always remember that wedding couple who joined the march. Then, you're right. the pigs descended on us. They came in force from surrounding cities as if L.A. didn't have enough of those racist dogs. Who sent them? Did the city council of L.A. approve. And what about the chicano and black officers. I wonder how they felt about what they were doing? I've always wondered about the provocateurs present. I saw bands of them. They were not people of color. Were there agitators from the communist league or whatever you call them? I saw them on the route and at the park mouthing off drinking beer and verbally instigating.

Anyway thanks for this forum. I would be happy to share my flyers, news letters etc. from that time. I was involved like many teatros in getting work out about injustice against in addition anti migra messages. I have many of our children's teatro plays dealing with these themes. Pasadena had quite active high school groups, the Mechas.

I am also teaching at Griffin Elem. as a Resource Specialist for Special Ed. kids. I have several pages on the history of Lincoln Heights and Griffin Elem. School. \My dad Attended Castelar, Griffen and a couple of years at Lincoln High but had to leave high school due to family poverty during the depression. He supported the family. As a youngster he stole milk and bread from the elem. schools in City Terrace and took fruit from the Italian push carts. Anyway I have alot of stories about my dad and that time. He was put in detention or in jail when he was nine years for this along with my uncle Alfonso. Later he found odd jobs and educated himself by reading encyclopedias. He worked at a pickle factory and a pie fruit filling company, on old Valley St. He always got jobs for his brothers when he got a job. His name is Elias Rodriguez Aparicio. He passed away in 1980. He was hit by a cop with a billy club when he was a young n man for simply walking down the street with his friends. He was hospitalized. We believe this injury caused a life long battle with headaches. He died of a brain embolism. We also believe it was in the same injured area of that golpe. But despite the racism imposed on dad he was always a positive man, an intellectual, an religious man who valued labor and was proud to have always had a job and who took care of his family and my mother, Isabel till the day he died. Dad also worked as a young man in the CCC. Civilian Conservation Corp started by FDR. He credits this experience with saving his life, giving him a good job in the mountains so he help support his parents. Dad was proud to have been able to speak several languages..which he learned delivering milk in the East Side, including German, Italian, Jewish and of course Spanish and English.

He loved the multicultural face of L.A. But he didn't like the gangs and serious drugs. I remember the war between White Fence and another gang. These were adult men not like the kids of today. We lived on Hazard near Fairmont in Maravilla on top of the hill. The entire front and back yard was leveled. Our white picket fence and chain link fence was trampled. I thought it was such an adventure. I kept peeking out the venetian blinds which covered my bedroom window. This little room I shared with my four brothers and sisters. I was happy, fearless and found My barrio to be beautiful, especially when we sat on our chairs outdoors at night in the middle of the street to see the movies from Floral Drive In located a couple of miles away down our very steep hill.

I have such wonderful memories of the Toy Loan at City Terrace Park, which was built down a hill surrounded by green hills and wild brush. I would borrow freshly painted wooden toys. I can still recall the smell of them. Halloweens at the park were memorable. Huge bonfires were permitted. One year, I won a ribbon as a Space creature. My nina, Irene Diaz who was also my neighbor concocted a funny costume by putting on one of her wool dresses on me upside down. Wow, I'm sure this award gave me confidence all my life.

Thank you for your patience for reading this long story.

Count me in on your efforts to gather info. for your history project. I would be happy to share papers etc. with you.

Vibiana

So dad moved us to the country. This country side with sheep, cows, crows and walnut trees was La Puente. I had many adventures there.

From: "tuh1015@earthlink.net" <tuh1015@earthlink.net> Date: FriJun28,2002 10:40 am Subject: RE: Re: [Aztlannet-News] Announcement 1

Everytime I read one of Rosalio's rememberances, I get very nostalgic and saddened for my youth. Unfortunately, my parents were extremely controlling and restrictive. I remember feeling the same lump in my throat (empathy?) of wanting to do something for raza (I was 13) and not being able to. These stories are powerful, knowing the sweet and lovely Vibianna personally makes one ill to think someone would treat her so brutally. To get further confirmation of women's involvement at that time, makes me proud.

Tess Hernandez

From: "Ralph F. Lopez" <wolf.lair@verizon.net> Date: FriJul5,2002 11:13 pm Subject: Re: [Aztlannet] Chicano Moratorium project

Splendid suggestion, Carlos. The Community Service Organization (CSO)has been at the forefront of Chicano political activism for several decades, from the late forties, the fifties,theChicano Movement of the sixties and seventies and on to the present day. We must never forget or cease to celebrate thesignificant contributions of the men and women of CSO. For in their struggle to advancethe interests of ourcommunity, they have leftus a stronger platform upon which to foil our present opposition and a platform from which we may leap imaginatively into the future.

You know ... I really disagree with those who argue that history is the "dead hand of the past" ever intruding on and stifling the present. Eliminate the deeds of a great individual, a community of great minds,or a seminal historical event and the so-called "now" turns intoan entirely different affair. Eliminate CSO from Chicano history and you eraseEd Quevedo, Ed Roybal, Fred Ross, Cesar Chavez, and Tony Rios, to mention a fewCSO members who helped advance the political, social, and cultural interests of the Chicano community. In fact, it was CSOthat backed Ed Roybal'scandidacy in the L.A.'s Ninth Council District race. Roybal became L.A.'s the first Chicano councilmansince the Mexican period of governance.

Yes, Carlos, with such credentials, CSO deserves a special place on the Chicano Moratorium Committee. Go for it, carnal.

Rafas c/s

From: rosaliomunoz@cs.com Date: SatJul6,2002 6:25 am Subject: Re: [Aztlannet] Chicano Moratorium project

I agree that CSO is an appropriate organization to commemorate the moratorium . I would like to urge that such an event be true to the history of that event and not exclude people as past commemorations have. I don't think CSO should be the only ones remembered for their participation, obviously the Brown Berets, the Mechas of that time. Other key leaders and organizations were Rev. Antonio Hernandez of Congress of Mexican American Unity and Southwest (Now National) Council of La Raza who donated office space for the Moratorium and helped get march permits, pcould be honored as well, off course Bert Corona and MAPA were key endorsers who gave much material support. Frs John Luce and Roger Wood of the Parish of East L.A., Epiphany. Congressman George Brown, donated the office space, from his unsuccessful Senate run for the Aug 29 de,p. Esteban Torres of Telacu and Congress of Mexican American Unity, Celia Luna (Rodriguez) of the Barrio Defense Committee . Sal Castro, Al Juarez , Irene Tovar of the San Fernando Valley attorney Oscar Z Acosta, Alicia Escalante of Welfare Rights Organization, Joe Razo of La Raza, the UFW spoke at our first moratorium and Cesar was scheduled for Aug 29. Luiz Valdez had the Teatro Campesino ready to perform but was rained out on the Feb 28 1970 Moratorium and getoped out on Aug 29.

I would especially like to see the people who worked on the Aug 29 1970 event day and night for months recognized Gloria Arellanes, Grace & Hilda Reyes, Bob Elias, Gonzalo Javier, Gilbert Cano, Jacobo Rodriguez, Ramsea Noriega, Katarina Davis Del Valle. Regular Committee supporters like Rudy Tovar & Rudy Salas, Lilian & Walter Villegas, Manuel Cruz are names that come to mind.

Rosalio

From: gbejarano <aztlannet@yahoo.com> Date: SatJul6,2002 9:34 am Subject: Re: [Aztlannet] Chicano Moratorium project

Aztlannet has been offer an opportunity to have a two fundrasier at Avenue 50 Gallery and Galeria Mondo in Highland Park, Ca. Both of these gallery sites could be a great opportunity for us to introduce the Chicano Moratorium project. What do you think?

From: Vibiana Chamberlin <vibi@earthlink.net> Date: SatJul6,2002 12:26 pm Subject: Moratorium posters

I would be happy to share some old Aug 29 Moratorium posters that I found in my collection of movimiento flyers, posters etc.

From: gbejarano <aztlannet@yahoo.com> Date: SunJul7,2002 5:06 am Subject: Re: [Aztlannet] Moratorium posters

It's Sunday morning here at home…I haven't got fresh coffee in my hand, but I will say this…

The moratorium project could collect as you have said all the memorabilia -- posters, flyers, [buttons, and banners], etc. We could get plenty of wall space and glass cases for an excellent anti-war movimiento exhibit. Carlos Montez has videotapes of the marches. Adding panel discussions, teatro, and inviting all movimiento brothers and sisters to the fore; to educate and raise human awareness. And, of the Middle East wars of that conflict situation brought about by misappropriation of eastern borders, religion, politics, economy, racism, violence, terrorism and aggression.

It's Sunday morning here at home…not sure what, but I will say this also…

I must say to you, listen to your intuition, acknowledging, working with, and embracing your energies. And, hold the promise to enhance you energy to inspire guidance, and to enable the new. --gb

From: "Ralph F. Lopez" <wolf.lair@verizon.net> Date: FriJul12,2002 11:36 pmSubject: Re: [Aztlannet] Chicano Moratorium project

Guillermo:

Since there exist today more hives of Chicano political and cultural activism than in the eras preceding and immediately following the Chicano Movement of the sixties and seventies, perhaps it would be a good and timely thing that the celebration of the Chicano Moratorium take place not as a centralized event organized exclusively by a single group or organization but as a major event organized and celebrated by every Chicano community in every city, county, and state of the country. Here in L.A., for example, a central committee composed of representatives from various Chicano municipalities, neighborhoods, barrios, and organizations could meet to develop a Chicano Moratorium program, one encompassing the history, organization, and mission of the Chicano Moratorium, a program developed to serve as a prototype for an ongoing commemoration of the Chicano Moratorium. Carlos Montes has told us about CSO's interest in such a venture, as has Cathy Gallegos at the Avenue 50 Gallery or Galeria Mundo in Highland Park. Such symbiotic relationships could prove beneficial for organizations like CSO, Avenue 50 Gallery, and MasCaras/Aztlannet.com, et al, and the Chicano community at large. As the heads of MasCaras/Aztlannet.com, Guillermo and I strongly believe that our very survival is contingent on such collaborations. Let's go for it Billy.

Rafas c/s

From: gbejarano <aztlannet@yahoo.com> Date: SatJul13,2002 3:06 am Subject: Re: [Aztlannet] Chicano Moratorium project

I Agree. I can grasp the trend of this topic. In your vision for calling for an ongoing commemoration of the Chicano Moratorium.--GB

From: CarlosMont@aol.com Date: SatJul13,2002 6:07 pm Subject: Re: [Aztlannet] Chicano Moratorium project

Hola, I also agree on community wide events. I just got back from Colombia. Medellin and Bogota for the International Medellin Poetry Festival, it was great. Hundreds of poets from over 50 countries. People really like and appreciate poetry in South America. It looks like the new president of Colombia Uribe is going to escalate the war against the insurgent movement who are already in Medellin and other cities. He is getting more US money to expand the military via the Plan Colombia. This is not a war against drugs but against a peoples movement for national sovereignty and social justice. The GW Bush War on Terrorism is targeting other liberation movements like the Philippines and Colombia. In commemorating this years Chicano Moratorium we need to protest the current war machine pushed by the real axis of evil: Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

From: rosaliomunoz@cs.com Date: WedJul17,2002 3:29 pm Subject: Chicano Moratorium Committee

Last Sunday Kathy Gallegos of Ave 50 Studio, Vibiana, and I got together to talk about organizing an event or events around the anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium. We had been talking about doing something for almost a month so we shared our ideas about what might be done and decided that with Aug 29th getting closer we should start something and see what could grow from it.

We decided we would work on at least one event and hopefully more, to be held at the Ave 50 studio and other venues that might possibly get involved. The three of us present ruled out any personal involvement the weekend after the 29 th ( which falls on a Thursday) and would plan event(s) tentatively between Fri Aug 23-Thurs Aug 29. We want to have at least 1 event at Ave 50 Studio. We decided to develop a larger organizing committee and will meet again this Sat. July 20 at 10 am at Ave 50 studio 131N Ave 50 in Highland Park LA 90042 (between Figueroa & Monte Vista.)

We contacted Guillermo who gives the project full support and will attend Saturday. Nothing has been concretized but here are ideas we discussed.

1. A display of posters, photos, leaflets, news articles, buttons and other memorabilia of the Aug 29 and other Chicano Moratoriums and other Chicano movement activities of the era ( walkouts, catolicos por la raza, anti police brutality, etc. ).

2. A session or sessions of panel and /or roundtable discussions about what the moratorium movement meant to folks at the time and its meaning for them today.

3. A session for films on the moratorim ( Feb 28 1970 Chicano Moratorium in the rain, Requiem 29, I am Joaquin) etc. Teatro presentations, poetry readings might also fit in.

4. A session involving authors of books, histories, fiction, film on the issue. Display of new obras on the past events or current peace & justice issues.

5. A gathering of brief reminiscense by individuals of what the day /period meant for them then and means today to be possibly put on the website and displayed at events.

6. A strong emphasis on involvement and relevance for youth of today.

7. Possible fundraising for Aztlan.Net

I did'nt take notes but these were some of the main things discussed. I any or all of this and more is to happen we need people to help get it done you are all welcome to help. Again the meeting is this Sat. July 20 at 10am , 131 N. Ave 50 in Los Angeles. Suggestions, volunteer pledges, ideas etc welcome by email.

Rosalio Munoz

From: michael sedano <mvsedano@yahoo.com> Date: WedJul17,2002 7:39 pm Subject: Re: [Aztlannet-News] Chicano Moratorium Committee

Sounds great! Absolutely. Plus I'll send Aztlannet a check. What's the mail address, Bill?

"Possibly"?!? This stuff has to get written and it's not going to be done by committee. Hanging prints and running a movie projector or listening to poets have the allure of the here and now. You gotte be there at the right time and you gotta pay 100% attention or you'll miss something that can never be repeated. It's live, it's ephemera.

The ideas that build out of reminiscence deserve writing down and disseminated. The reader comes to the written text at individual convenience, at a time and place the reader's choice, to peruse, review, jump forward, get interrupted then return to the exact point left off. The text is repeatable in its exact form to as many eyes as your text can reach. The website's a darn good place for the words, but a pamphlet, eventually an autobiography or a history might be crafted. What did Uncle Mao say, "the novel of a million words begins with the first sentence on paper" or something like that, que no?

Today is Wed already and Sat's short notice. I'm glad you've posted ten or so drafts earlier here, you should have time to organize and whittle into not "possibly" but actual written documentation.

Ojala. mvs

From: Enrique Cardiel <pnlrunm@yahoo.com> Date: ThuJul18,2002 7:15 am Subject: Re: [Aztlannet-News] Chicano Moritorium

Friends: I'm in Nuevo Mexico and we're also planning Raza Memorial Day (August 29th) events here. I was wondering if there was an attempt to coordinate with other events in the LA area, like the commemoration march, etc...?

We attend the march every few years and just wondered if we're moving to coordinate, not necessarily all doing the same thing though.

En el Camino de Liberacion,

Enrique Cardiel

From: rosaliomunoz@cs.com Date: ThuJul18,2002 6:36 am Subject: Re: [Aztlannet-News] Chicano Moratorium Committee

Michael, Action speaks louder than words, word and action are better than both separately. I fully intend to go ahead with the project we started work on. However, the drum beat towards the Sept. 11 anniversary grows by day seeking a mandate in the November elections for greater agression abroad under the name of "war on terrorism & greater injustice at home under the name of Homeland Defense the names could change to protect the profits of Bill Gates et al.

I look at this action , collective rembrance, as a modest Chicano Moratorium 2002 looking at the current domestic /foreign policy direction, a war policy in the words of the president, from the perspective of the Raza's struggle for justice, on the occasion of the anniversary of the Aug 29 1970 National Chicano Moratorium. Its something we owe to ourselves our youth, and a world that must cope with the 1 superpower that our tax dollars undergird. I think its also a time to improve on our remembrances by reminding ourselves that Lynn Ward and Gilberto Diaz were killed that day along with Ruben Salazar and to link those deaths with the deaths of our and other youth in the Vietnam war, that their deaths not be in vain. Yes the time is short, but the drums are beating.

Rosalio

From: "mvsedano" <mvsedano@yahoo.com> Date: SatJul20,2002 10:09 pm Subject: Meeting Gives Direction for Chicano Moratorium Committee

Next Saturday at 10:00 at the Ave 50 Gallery, the next meeting. Bring memorabilia, artifacts, posters, and stuff from item 1, below.

There seems general agreement to do number 1, a show at Ave 50 Gallery the last week of August. CSO plans to organize a procession from a parking area to the gallery. Kathy will handle publicity for the opening and the show, and donates the space. Vibiana has card stock. Guillermo will design, once he has text he'll finish it, but he'll bring a design next meeting. Margaret and Rocio agreed to contact MECHAs to send a representative. There is a photo show. An altar space has been let. We talked about portraits and statements. We can think prints, digital video, whatelse. Vitrines wanted, or use the plastic box frames to present your buttons and medals. Serge knows where that 3/4 inch 4x8 plywood virgen is, maybe he could show it at Ave 50? The show is calendared.

Part B of this is a fundraising effort by Guillermo on behalf of Aztlannet with donations paid to MasCaras nonprofit. MasCaras / Aztlannet would compensate the gallery for expenses. Active handshaking and knocking on doors to follow up letters might garner a few thousand dollars. That is Aztlannet's job. A more local fundraiser would be a ten dollar showing of two hours worth of movies, which would produce maybe 400 dollars. The latter has been calendared.

Part C is a discussion, a panel of veteranas and veteranos of August 29th, 1970. (editorial remark: i hate the idea of a table in front of an audience. round table if all you want is a discussion. there are dramatic ways to do this, present oral information).

Part D is a literary event, authors of chicana and chicano literature that addresses August 29th, the movimiento, the war. I know of three novels that use 8/29/70 in the plot, Lucha Corpi's _Death of a Brown Angel_, Guy Garcia's _Skin Deep_, Stella Duarte's _Let Their Spirits Dance_. Duarte's novel, plus Patricia Santana's _motorcycle ride on the sea of tranquility_, together with Charley Trujillo's _Soldados_, and Alfredo Vea's _Gods Go Begging_, covers the chicano GI in the vietnam war. michael agreed to organize something book connected in association with the weeklong gallery exhibit. Whether Plan D includes a Friday night literary event remains open.

Part E is an Aztlannet show.

No agreement exists on audience, purpose, objective.

Audience: Focus on youth, or bring out the people who remember. Maybe create a speaker's bureau, be available to local schools.

Purpose: "The Thing" itself is the weeklong show and perhas a few aligned events. Archiving the events at Aztlannet remains in the air. Guillermo will follow up with a contact at LA Library to see if they can offer scanning and replcation services.

Objective: There is no focus, needn't be, but shows are much tighter with a clear focus, we see three: the vietnam war, looking back, and looking forward, upcoming wars in colombia, afghanistan, the mideast and historic levels of chicana and chicano military; the movimiento, where was it on 8/29/70 where is it on 8/23/02-8/30/02?; the moratorium march itself and the police riot.

Rosalio wrote down the calendar, please send it out so it becomes part of the record. Kathy has the attendance list, please list the names off the list.

Others have different recollections. Please comment and provide details of your own plans and understanding of where this thing is headed and what you are working on.

MVS

From: "Patricia Lazalde" <lazaldepatricia@hotmail.com> Date: TueJul23,2002 8:21 pm Subject: Re: [Aztlannet] Supporter /endorsers of Chicano Moratorium event

I would like to assisst /attend Chicano Moratorium,Patricia Lazalde/Semillas y Raices

From: gbejarano <aztlannet@yahoo.com> Date: WedJul24,2002 12:08 pm Subject: Chicano Moratorium. From http://www.aztlannet.com/org/cso.html

By Viviana Montes

Thirty-two years in Chicano/a history is a capsule of the long history of activism in the Chicano/ Mexicano community. Three decades ago the largest Chicano/a mobilization to protest the Vietnam War was seen as a threat from the peoples movement that questioned US foreign policies and the high casualty rate of Chicanos killed, in Vietnam, negative effects it had on its community at home. Chicanos were sent in large numbers to fight a war against the peoples of Vietnam in their fields and lands of subsistence. Just like at home Chicanos tried to raise awareness that the destruction of another nations homeland was the same as the destruction of the Chicanos in the barrios of Los Angeles, California, Nuevo Mexico, Colorado, Texas, and many other Southwest lands.

Youth, families, children and organizers joined the first National Chicano Moratorium in 1970 to denounce US involvement in Vietnam and to point to the ills the US causes to oppress nations even with-in its own created borders. The over 30,000 raza demonstration showed the opposition and resistance of an organized struggle of Chicano/as and Mexicano/as who understand the effects of U.S. invasion. These same US forces took its ancestors lands with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo more than 150 years ago here in the US (Southwest) in 1848. In 1970, the descendants of the those very same Southwest lands, that Chicanos came from, were demonstrating at Salazar Park in East Lost Angeles.

An outspoken journalist Ruben Salazar was killed on this same day of August 29th, 1970 because he depicted the plight of Chicanos. Salazar's killing, by an LA County Sheriff, showed a brutal censorship of the recognition of the Chicano/Mexicano Community, a clear repression of the identity of Chicanos and the urgency of the US police state to silence the economic, educational and political realities that Chicanos were uniting to fight. Many of the Chicano Moratorium participants were tear gassed, battoned and beaten that day by Los Angeles Police.

US aggression foreign policies are at its high once again with US military forces in the Philippines, Columbia and the Middle East. After September 11th 2001, a new "foreign terrorist" has been targeted and the focus has turned back on the invisible community to fight the "war on terrorism". The Chicano youth in the barrios and high schools of East LA are being immediately targeted to join the military industrial complex. The reality speaks for itself as the count of college counselors are few on high school campus but the Army recruiting office is right across the street from a local high school in East Los Angeles. These are the attempts to enlist and gear Chicano youth right back into fighting another US created war, like it did for Vietnam and numerous other wars.

Salazar pointed to these contradictions in his articles and the Chicano/a Peoples conclusions were a deep analysis of how US priorities were building a unnecessary war and not addressing the home issues of education and well being. But instead, building ruthless military powers at the cost of peoples of color. This holds true for the recent attacks on Palestine, the Philippines and others while the Prison Industrial Complex at home is imprisoning Chicano youth and men for no cost labor and exploiting immigrant labor that includes the hands of many Latina/Mexicana women for corporate profit and imperialist gains.

The Latino/a immigrant community is heavily being scape-goated across the country characterized as foreigners or "suspected terrorists" causing an even greater number of their jobs being taken away and allowing for sub-standard living wages that organized efforts and unions have been fighting against. Many are being fired on the spot from airport jobs because they are not naturalized citizens; but regardless of their migratory status they are allowed to enlist into the army.

On May 1st 2002 over 15,000 demonstrators including the Centro CSO's East LA Anti-War Action Committee, with a contingency opposing US aggression and the war on Palestine, showed mass protest of immigrant scape-goating and repression of Latinos, Blacks, South-east Asian and Native American. The efforts of many Chicano organizers is to call out US Capitalist and Imperialist to make them accountable for the repression of oppressed nations; and to demand to revitalize these communities by reestablishing the Chicano/ Mexicano Nation, its people and its economic and political self-determination.

The demands include basic rights that continue to be denied by Bush and the US who is once again demonizing and making excuses to fight "terrorism" in Afghanistan and abroad to build the US war machine like it did in Vietnam calling it the "Vietcong."

The Chicano/a community and many oppressed nations today are organized and continuing the struggle and resistance for the very same demands the Moratorium raised in 1970. The organized people call for:

Self Determination of the Mexican@-Chican@ People

Union jobs and decent wages

Housing and health-care

An end to police/INS abuses and terror

Relevant and Bilingual Education

No Police State in the neighborhoods; and US forces out of Latino America, the Middle East, the Philippines and Colombia as an added list.

Black, Pilipino, Asian, and Native American resistance like the high-school students in the high-school walk-outs, the Brown Berets, the Crusade for Justice, Mechistas, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, the Centro CSO and the Boyle Heights communities continue grassroots organizing through community teach-ins and developing Chicano/Mexicano leadership in the community.

Today from August 29th 1970 to August 29th 2002 Centro CSO calls the community of resistance to organize and struggle for Self-Determination in the Southwest. Join the Struggle!

El Centro CSO 511 Echandia St., Boyle Heights,

California 90033 (323) 221-4000

From: "res0ywj9" <r.rafaslibre@verizon.net> Date: SatJul27,2002 11:44 am Subject: Re: [Aztlannet] Correspondence re Chicano Moratorium 2002

Nice touch Rosalio.

It's encouraging to know that some of the old Movement horses are still running. Que nuestrosabuelosy abuelas todaviacarganpoder. The warmwords of encouragement and support from Viet Nam War draft resistor and Corky Gonzalez ally, Ernesto Vigil; Pete Navarro; poet/authorStella Pope Duarte;Vietnam War veteran and author of Aztlan And Vietnam: An Anthology of Raza Writings on the Vietnam War, Jorge Mariscal;and our old homieand L.A. Times reporter, Frank Del Olmo, were heartening, to say the least. As the Brits say, "Good show, old boy!"

Rafas c/s

From: juanrvi@aol.com

Dear Rosalio:

I will be pleased to take part, and give a "testimony" of what things looked like from my perspective. Am mailing you a copy of my paper written for CEHILA (an international pastoral-historical reflection from the perspective of the poor).

The Sisters of the Divine Master (specialize in making liturgical vestments) made me an alb, and I went to pick it up today. Their place is on Whittier Blvd. near La Verne, near where Silver Dollar used to be. It is no longer there, and in fact an employee of the CLOTHING STORE that is now located there strongly denied that their place used to be the Silver Dollar. She is Asian, and I think que no quierren llamar la atención in fear that they may be inviting a riot. But what do I know?

What I do know is that there is no plaque or marker at the very place where the blood of Ruben Salazar was spilled . Es una lástima! For a couple of years, I went to a dramatic representations of the event inside the bar. For six years I was pastor of San Francisco Church on Olympic and Fetterly, a few blocks away from the place. For some years, there were flowers and candles on the spot on August 29. How about a prayer service there that day, or at another place nearby...

Read my offering, and give me your reaction. I volunteer for a panel and prayer service. Could I sell copies of my essay? Cost would be cost of printing plus 20%. If not, that's OK. It has never been published. ANDO SANGRANDO by Armando ____ was the only book published. Will you have pictures by Raul Ruiz of the Silver Dollar and the Sheriff man TIRANDO LA BALA? Hope so.

Invite Frank Del Omo to one of the things;l Sal Halpert and Henry Alfaro covered the PADRES Press Conference. Any news tapes of the event still around in archives. A VIDEO collection would be great.

Paz!

Fr. Juan

From: rosaliomunoz@cs.com Date: MonJul29,2002 3:52 am Subject: Moratorium meeting decision.

Decisions of July 20, 2002 Chicano Moratorium 2002 committee (as I recall, we will have official mintute taker for next meeting. This is a draft other attendees please help improve..

1. Joe Sanchez will head a committee to seek 100 donors of $100 apiece to cover costs of the planned events, ensuring posting of materials, photos on AztlanNet.com web site, and keeping of permanent archive on the net and physically of materials. Mascaras International, a tax deductible fund with Ralph "Rafas" Lopez as treasurer will handle the funds. A fund appeal mailer will be prepared ASAP.

2. Guillermo Bejarano will prepare the leaflet/ announcement for the event and post it on the AztlanNet.com web site ASAP, copies with union bug will be available at Aug 3 meeting.

3. Approved holding Aug 23-30 th exhibition and memorabilia at Ave 50 Studio., Aug 23 evening film showing , Aug 24 afternoon-evening reception with 8/29/70 moratorium committee members as special guests, Aug 25 afternoon panel of movement authors on moratorium dedicated to scholar /activist Ralph Guzman, Aug 29 prayer service to be coordinated by Fr Juan Romero, Aug 30 panel on what the legacy of the Chicano moratorium means for today.

4. Coordination and curating of the exhibition would by led by Nancy and Rudy Tovar and Rosalio Munoz.

5. Written/graphic remembrances will be in a special file on AztlanNet.Web site ASAP.

6. Press relations for events to be coordinated by Kathy Gallegos

7. We will welcome, support, and encourage of commemorations of the 70 moratorium in other places, venues.

8. Rosalio Munoz was elected chair of the working committee, will prepare agenda for August 3, 10am-12:30 pm meeting.

9. Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin will prepare the altar for the exhibition.

10. A special section of the exhibition will be prepared featuring Women of the Chicano Moratorium.

11. Members of the working committee will serve as advisory committee for AztlanNet /Mascaras International for long term presenting/archiving materials gathered in the future.

From: rosaliomunoz@cs.com Date: ThuAug1,2002 6:47 am Subject: Chicano Moratorium 2002

Hey everybody, check out the new homepage format of AztlanNet.com. I think its great, especially having an announcement spot for Chicano Moratorium 2002, there you will find a draft leaftlet /announcement. There is plenty of interest from the veterana/o s from back then and we haven't touched the potential. However we need to reach out to youth, immigrant communities, the broader community to whom Chicano Movement is a sixties if there is any awareness at all. We need to share these experiences with them.

Those that can please join our working committee to pull this thing off. We meet again in 2 days, Satuday August 3, 10am ant Avenue 50 Studio, 131 N Ave. 50 L.A. 90032 (Highland Park), if you can't participate in preparations via email, donations, etc. , there are many ways of being there. Be there or be Hispanic,

Rosalio

From: "mvsedano" <mvsedano@yahoo.com> Date: ThuAug1,2002 11:20 am Subject: Re: Chicano Moratorium 2002

The poster's looking good. Time to get it circulated along with press packet to as wide a circle as possible.

Hey, does anyone have contact info for the undercover cops who infiltrated the moratorium? One of these tipos should be included in the panel of reminiscences. Any strong objections to including one? I have a lead to the brother of a narc and am looking to do an interiew with the vato.

mvs
c/s

From: rosaliomunoz@cs.com Date: ThuAug8,2002 6:38 am Subject: Chicano Moratorium 2002-

DON'T FORGET CHICANO/A MORATORIUM 2002 WORKING MEETING THIS SATURDAY AUG 10, 10 AM AT AVENUE 50 STUDIO 131 N. Ave 50. Bring memorabilia please, we are building the exhibit. Send in donations, volunteer for committees etc.

The following is a beginning of a draft of a Chicano Moratorium history that I have been promising. If you have remembrances additions, comments, please send them in, please excuse my using the 3rd person. More installments to come

Chicano Moratorium History Draft (about the draft, ha!)

The chicano anti Vietnam war movement that grew into the Chicano Moratorium demonstrations of 1969-1971 got its first major impetus when the UCLA Mecha chapter mobilized a protest demonstration in front of the downtown Los Angeles draft center on South Broadway near Olympic Blvd on September 16, 1969. The demonstration was in support of former member Rosalio Munoz who refused induction that day accusing the draft system of discrimination against Chicanos. Over 100 demonstrators were on hand to support the stand of Munoz, who had graduated from UCLA in June of 1969 after having served as the first Chicano Student Body President of UCLA. Munoz had been ordered to report for induction that September 16, which was also the anniversary of the declaration of Mexican independence from Spain

The protest drew on a study by professor /activist Ralph Guzman which showed the percentage of Spanish surnamed casualties in the Vietnam war were nearly twice the percentage of Spanish surnamed people in the population. In a statement made in front of the draft center that day Munoz said that the disproportionate death rate was a form of genocide resulting from discriminatory draft laws and other forms of institutional racism in the political, educational, law enforcement, social services, and employment practices. He called for draft deferments for "all Chicano youth who serve our people" and for the government to provide "the money and support that would make such work meaningful in social political and economic terms."

Munoz' statement was read at Chicano movement celebrations at in other locations like Denver Colorado and Albuquerque New Mexico. The demonstration got major print & electronic coverage in Los Angeles, and was put on the Associated Press bulletin for the day which was printed by several papers across the country.

The demo was the launching of an effort to build an "antiwar anti draft current" in the growing Chicano movement to encourage Mexican Americans to find ways to stop being cannon fodder for an "unjust war". Leading the effort were Munoz and close associate Ramses Noriega a painter and organizer who was a graduate student in fine arts at UCLA and had worked as an organizer for the United Farm Workers.

In October Munoz quit his job as a recruiter for the Clarmont Colleges to work full time to antiwar /antidraft work within the Chicano movementis cause. He was given office space at the Euclid Community Center, directed by Rev Antonio Hernandez a staff person for the Congress of Mexican American Unity and umbrella group for Mexican American groups and agencies in the greater Los Angeles area.

TURNING POINT

The turning point in the Chicano anti war work was the November 14 national moratriums against the war in Vietnam held in San Francisco and Washington D.C. Between 500,000 to 1 million Americans demonstrated against the war that day. Among them were thousands of Chicanos. Chicano leaders Rodofo Corky Gonzalez of the Denver based Crusade for Justice, Dolores Huerta of the United Farmworkers, Abe Tapia of Mexican American Political Association, and draft resistor Munoz spoke at the San Franciso protest.

Munoz remembers "when we saw the coverage of the event we saw a native American chief in traditional garb, Black Panther David Hilliard, and antiwar Republican Senator Wayne Morse featured, we Chicanos were invisible". Munoz adds "we realized that we helped build opposition to the war which resulted in more mainstream American youth to find ways to refuse to fight in an unjust war, leaving the draft boards to fill their quotas with more minorities and the poor. It was clear to us we needed affirmative action on the issue, a peace movement for the barrios". On November 18 at a protest in front of the downtown L.A. induction center Ramses Noriega told the L.A. Times (quoted Nov. 19) "we are talking of holding a Chicano moratorium. Independently the Los Angeles based Brown Berets had also decided to take action on the Vietnam issue. A few days later a committee was formed to organize a Chicano Moratorium in East Los Angeles. Brown Beret leader David Sanchez and Noriega helped lead the meeting. A demonstration was planned for Dec 20.

Meanwhile Munoz was carrying the Chicano antiwar message nationwide. On November 20-22 Munoz led an antiwar workshop at a church funded national conference of Chicano organizations, activists and leaders from around the country. The conference was held in Kansas City, Kansas and was convened by Presbyterian Minister, a score of chicano activists from around the country signed up to work with Munoz for future anti/war anti draft work. Among them was Los Angeles activist Bob Elias who committed to working with Munoz full time. The two both planned to attend a New Mexico wide Chicano conference the following week, While Munoz traveled to Tucson and back to Los Angeles to continue organizing, Elias agreed to make contact with Corky Gonzalez to enlist the Crusade for Justices support of the budding Chicano antiwar

At the Nov 28 New Mexico Conference Munoz announce that a national Chicano meeting to plan antiwar anti draft actions was to be held at the Denver Crusade for Justice on December 6-8. In between trips Munoz attended the 2nd meeting of the committee organizing the Dec 20 Chicano Moratorium in East L.A.

At the Denver meeting delegates from Texas, New Mexico, Northern & Southern California, Chicago and Colorado attended. Support for the Dec 20 L.A. moratorium was approved.

From: rosaliomunoz@cs.com Date: FriAug9,2002 7:06 am Subject: Chicano Moratorium 2002

Ernesto Vigil, one of the primary activists in the Denver Crusade for Justice in the sixties and seventies, a draft resistor and author The Crusad for Justice - Chicano Militancy and the Government's War on Dissent, has been sending me material from the FBI files on the Crusade for Justice that relate to the Chicano Moratorium, Ernesto got this material through the freedom of information act provisions. Some of this will be on display in the exhibit we are preparing for our activities for Chicano Moratorium 2002. One of the more interesting documents is an internal memo of th e FBI dated Sept 2, 1970 (the Wednesday morning after the Saturday demo & police riot", I quote from the 1st paragraph.

Subject: NATIONAL CHICANO MORATORIUM August 29, 1970 Internal Security - Spanish American

Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Wesley g. Grapp of the Los Angeles Office telephonically advised this morning that the Attorney General had requested a briefing at 8 a.m. (Los Angeles time; 11 a.m., Bureau time), concerning the recent Mexican-American antiwar demonstration at Los Angeles. The Attorney General indicated he would brief the President at 9 a.m . (Los Angeles time). END OF QUOTE

The memo also says that SAC Grapp "is also being instructed to furnish the Bureau a summary of his briefing of the Attorney General." We don't have a copy of that summary, nor anything about what Mitchell actually told Nixon. What do you think those two talked about? Who else was there? Any ideas Aztlannetistas?

From: CarlosMont@aol.com Date: FriAug9,2002 4:37 pm Subject: Re: [Aztlannet] Chicano Moratorium 2002

Hi, you all, just a quick update on the plans for the march and rally for August 24. I spoke with Arturo Chavez of Ed Reyes office and made our the application regarding getting the permit for the march and park use. Our plan for the march is to gather at corner of York/Figerora for a brief ceremony recognizing the soldiers who died in WW II in the fight against fascism and those who died in the unjust Vietnam war from the Highland Park area, We will start marching at about 3:30 PM south on Figueroa using the Street. March to Sycamore Park for a rally with music, speakers, and poetry. If you have suggestions for music, etc., and would like to help we are having a meeting this coming Tuesday. August 13 at 7 PM at the Centro CSO community center at : 511 Echandia Street, off Chavez Ave, Boyle Heights 9003, (323) 221-4000.

From: rudy <racuna@csun.edu> Date: FriAug9,2002 5:05 pm Subject: Aug 10 testimony

Billy:

I assume that you are the official archivist. My daughter had oral surgery today, and at my age I am over protective about her, and will have to stay home tomorrow. Enclosed is my contribution because I know that you all are trying to get a collective vision of Aug. 29. Although I was not one of the leaders, I did play a small part and hope that my experiences help in unraveling much of the story. I remember that it was still on both of our minds a year later in Cuernavaca. Venceremos,

Rudy

Rough Draft Remembering August 29, 1970 Rodolfo F. Acuña August 9, 2002

Rosalio has asked us to write out our remembrances of August 29th, putting the event into the context of our personal experiences. Without a doubt, the Aug. 29th demonstration has taken on historic proportions, formed largely by the collective memory of the participants. At the time of the march, I was a professor at San Fernando Valley State College, and the Chicano Studies Department there had just completed the first year. The department had been established in the Spring of 1969 as the result of student activism and I had the great fortune of being its first chair. As part of an agreement between the administration and the students, 350 Chicano students were recruited for Fall 1969, more than tripling the number of Mexican American students at SFVSC. The first year was difficult because of the militancy both outside and inside the campus. SFVSC was at the time one of the most militant campuses in the region. Apart from a very active Black Student Union led by African American activist such as Archie Chapman and Jerome Walker, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had various factions with leaders such as Mike Klonsky, Marc Cooper, Mike Lee and others. In Fall 1969, because the district attorney had indicted many black student leaders for the Nov. 4, 1968-takeover of the administration building, there was a void in the student leadership,. The sudden presence of a critical mass of Chicano students filled the vacuum.

The incoming Chicano students were a mixture of young high school graduates, lumpen elements, and a core of students from Los Angeles City College. The latter group was very important because the mix socialized younger students. For example, the LACC contingent had published El Machete and they along with Frank Del Olmo founded El Popo. Like on most campuses, the war in Vietnam occupied much of the discourse on campus. Professors discussed the war in classes throughout the college and professors such as Warren Furumoto, a biologist and faculty adviser to UMAS (United Mexican American Students), ran study groups. We also had community people who would bring peace literature to the campus such as Pierre Mandel and Lester Baylock. Jimmy Gonzales had been active in the Valley Peace Center since at least 1968 and also brought in informational material. I had participated in antiwar demonstrations since about 1965 through MAPA and was influenced by faculty at Valley City College where people like Art Avila, Pat Allen and Farrell Brailowsky were very visible. The students also brought in their own networks. For us, it was significant that the start of the program coincided with Rosalio Munoz refusing induction on Sept. 16, 1969 because it gave the struggle a Chicano face and thus a link to the greater struggle. By Spring 1970 students had taken part in the various antiwar demonstrations on campus as well as those led by Rosalio and the berets. After this point it seemed as if Bobby Elias was living on our campus. Representatives from the committee were present at many MECHA meetings, and it appeared as if they were effectively using the colleges, universities and sometimes the high school networks to get out the word. Chicano student newspapers also advertised the mobilizations that were taking place at the time. MECHA leaders such as Jose Galvan and Maria Teran became important conduits. Also, former students such as Evie Alarcon frequently visited the campus. On campus, Irene Tovar was the most visible, and pushed the mobilization at her SFVSC community center. Irene had a core group of students working for her. Moreover, we cannot overestimate her personal network and organic links to the community. Irene brought in much of the more established community leaders. Carlos Reyes also played a key role both on campus and in setting up the security for the moratorium. It was through Carlos that I became a monitor. The single event that politicized most of the Chicano students was the burning of the Chicano House on May 5, 1970. Spring 1970 had been especially eventful and the killing of four students at Ohio's Kent State University on May 4, 1970 polarized students nationally. The shootings occurred on the fourth day of protests by Kent State students following Nixon's announcement that he was sending U.S. troops into Cambodia. National Guard troops tear-gassed hundreds of students on the campus. (May 14, 1970 marked the tragic climax and shooting of black students at Jackson State). Kent State brought an immediate reaction and unleashed a demonstration at SFVSC, with police brought in when MECHA students pulled down the American flag and burned it. That night, on el cinco de mayo, unknown persons burned down the Chicano House. The next day most of the Chicano students met in front of the department and marched silently through the campus. Chicano students succeeded in closing down the campus, and the administration suspended most classes for the semester. This single event prepared students for the moratorium by personalizing the issue.

I went to a few meetings during the summer of 1970; however, most of the time was spent on campus. Some administrators had taken a tough line and wanted to penalize the program and myself for shutting down classes. For months we straddle that line that separates the road from the canyon. Most of the people in my circle were nervous because relations with police had been worsened as a result of several killings in the county jail and shootings in the community. The war was inseparable from these and other issues.

When I arrived at the demonstration, I remember that it was hot. I saw Carlos Reyes who stuck out, or should I say towered over everyone. Carlos guided me to where the sizeable San Fernando Valley contingent had gathered and put a monitor armband on me. I surmised that he was placing us among people we knew and in that way insure that there were no problems. The march as usual was a bit late in getting started. Its size surprised many of us and we were even more surprised when we reached Laguna Park (now Salazar Park). Throughout the march the participants were orderly yet very spirited. The youth of the participants struck me whom I assumed a majority to be between 16 and 20. They also seemed to come from throughout the Southwest and even the Midwest. During the march, I often fell behind because of my bad knee, and several students would fall back with me, leading me to question who was or were the monitors.

Once at the park everyone settled into a picnic atmosphere. The Trio Aztlan from SFVSC played, and the presence of the college was heavy (as they used to say). Rosalio was on stage; however, his elves seemed to be everywhere. Bobby Elias and Gil Cano floating in and out. After an hour or so, I settled in and then prepared to leave. Mickey and Silvia de la Pena, one a former student of mine at USC and the other at Cal State Dominguez Hills, had gotten married and I wanted to go to the reception and relax. When I finally made my move to leave, I saw some youth running toward the northwest section of the park. The festivities and speakers continued. I walked back into the park and rushed toward where the youth were running. At this point, I saw sheriff deputies and police in black (presumably LAPD) forming a line ready to enter the park. I identified myself as a college professor and an official monitor and told them that there was no need for them to be there. Students later falsely accused me of pulling out my Ph.D. diploma and showing it to the officers. Evidently my credentials did not impress the police and they closed ranks and began to come onto the park with their batons drawn. The monitors and some of the spectators also closed ranks and we locked arms hoping to slow the deputies down. At that point, the monitors had everything under control and except for a few individuals everything was peaceful. Many of us kept telling the police that there were small children in the gathering. However, they did not listen and suddenly rushed the monitors, knocking us to the ground. Although I later discovered bruises on my body, I frankly do not remember getting hit--I was in shock. I saw mothers and fathers looking for their infant children, and at one point saw Ruben Salazar who was in the midst of the storm. I remarked that this was terrible, the children were getting gassed. Salazar replied that they could not blame us this time--the attack was unprovoked.

I wandered around, washed my eyes with open water hoses running on the lawns of homes on the Eastside perimeter of the park. I briefly hooked up with Oscar Castillo whom I asked to take a picture of a deputy who had threatened me and others. By this time, George and Eddie Nunez had joined me; they were students of mine from the Fresno area. We were attempting to help some of the injured people and help others find their children. I remember seeing Bert Corona and talking to him briefly. Suddenly, George hollered that police were arresting him. I was at the time talking to Father Henry Casso, and I naively identified myself to the deputies and told them who I was and that Father Casso could vouch for me. The deputy shouted for me to shut up or he would arrest me for inciting a riot. I attempted to re-engage him and he threw me on the hood of the squad car and he and three other deputies put plastic cuffs on me. This encounter left my left shoulder weak for years (I was recently operated for a torn tendon that over the years separated from the rotor cup). As I already explained, I had and have a bad right knee of which I informed the deputies. However, they threw us to the ground, and then piled eight of us into a squad car and drove us to the Belvedere Substation where they hand cuffed us and put us in buses. The sheriffs kept us on the buses for several hours. At one point I saw Frank Del Olmo who was doing an internship with the Los Angeles Times and had him call my son. Many of those arrested were as young as 14 and 15. Sammy Garcia of Oxnard was about that age, and he was bleeding from a head would. Gil Chavez, not much older, later with the band Califas was also there. They kept us in the bus for what seemed several hours. The heat was well over 100 degrees in the buses. Yet when the students started complaining and they yelled at the deputies, they shot mace into the buses on three separate occasions, forcing us to close the windows to stop the gasses from entering, which made things worse because of the heat. Several of us older detainees (we were in our 30s) complained to the deputies that there were minors on the bus and that they needed medical attention, the deputies denied these requests for medical attention.

The deputies then took us to the Central jail. There they made us wait in a large room. They instructed us to strip completely, and made us shake every piece of clothing by the numbers. At one point, I shook my left sock instead of my right sock and they berated for my stupidity. After what seemed to be over an hour in the nude, they took us to the showers where they showered us, deloused us, and gave us a rectal examination for drugs. They then fingerprinted us, gave us two baloney sandwiches and a cup of coffee after which they coerced us into taking blood tests in what I considered an unsanitary environment. They then assigned us cells. I was separated from the group. When I saw the officer assigned to my block of cells, he asked me if I hadn't been on ABC the week before on a program I appeared with Bert Corona and Vicky Carr in which many of us criticized the police. I shrugged my shoulders and was assigned to what I assume to be the only cell without Chicanos in the entire Central Jail.

I do not know whether at this point or sometime before the jailers had pulled me out to see an attorney; however, from what I remember Irene Tovar's legal team quickly brought the attorneys into the process. I was one of the first to be interviewed. She was a young black lady, small in stature. I felt very good seeing her, and during the interview she asked me where I worked. When I told her, she responded that she was going to get me out as soon as possible because the press would have a field day. She was also concerned that this would affect my job status. The attorney assured me that the youth had been separated from the arrested adults. I remember returning to the cell and one of the black inmates asked me for what I was in jail. I responded for demonstrating, and he said he had heard about what had happened at Laguna Park, and told me that they had killed a Chicano reporter. Ruben Salazar did not come to mind at the time but Frank Del Olmo did and I fretted about this possibility.

Somehow I was lost for two hours, and my name came blaring out over the loudspeaker. They could not find me. The black inmate told me to keep my hands away from the bars because they liked opening the doors suddenly to break the anxious inmate's hands. Like Columbus, they discovered me, and they released me about 6:00 a.m. My sister and son picked me up. The experience politicized me. I was from a Catholic High School and although streetwise, still believed that there was a justice system. I believe that the Moratorium experience contributed greatly to the tone of the first edition of Occupied America. Stanley Mosk's brother took my case, however, they dropped charges. I immediately returned to SFVSC and prepared for the entering semester. The experience convinced me that we were under siege, which at times was the case. For example, the campus police along with the LAPD were found wire tapping a statewide MECHA conference in the SFVSC cafeteria. During CAPA vs. PDID we learned during discovery that at least two officers, Joe Ramirez and Augie Moreno spied on MECHA and took Chicano Studies classes on which they reported. The discovery phase also revealed that there were probably more officers and informants involved. Officer Sumaya had attempted to infiltrate UMAS.

In retrospect, Rosalio and the dozen or so people around him, along with the berets, accomplished the impossible. Aug. 29, 1970 probably would not have been possible in 1969. The colleges and youth themselves were politicized by the times and ready by the summer of 1970. In retrospect, some scholars have criticized the movement of the times for being overly nationalistic. This, however, is presentism and ignores the dialectics of the times when identity played a great part in all groups, i.e., black power, feminism, etc. The Moratorium was a coming of age for many of us. The only thing that was missing was the end game, and we cannot blame the establishment for everything that went wrong. It had a lot of help from the true believers who did not fall behind the leadership of Rosalio and others. We cannot dismiss the egos.

From: rosaliomunoz@cs.com Date: SatAug10,2002 3:19 am Subject: Fwd: from Ernesto in Denver

Again from Ernesto Vigil, draft risistor, movement organizer

from Ernesto in Denver

A friend in OC has forwarded me the e-mail you sent to your list of contacts re the FOIA item that mentions SAC Grapp. It is not really material to anything major, but Wesley Grapp in certain books was described as a hard-core Hooverite, a true reactionary bootlicker whose star rose in the Bureau because of these traits.

He was said to have been detested by many of his subordinates. These were all venal and vicious men, and the fact that LA's DA Evelle Younger and LA Sheriff Peter Pitchess were former-FBI agents leaves solid ground for logical and fact-based speculation about what really happened on Aug. 29, 1970. What went on the behind the scenes will probably never be known with provable certainty, but for all of us who were there (and saw the phalanxes of cops and sheriffs march into the park like they had long-practiced for that moment), it is abundantly clear that the attack was unprovoked and unwarranted and those cowards in uniform enjoyed their job that day, and their commanders and LA's political establishment lied about what happened.

I retrieve more materials that have been copied and will go thru them tomorrow and will send what I find that is of interest and relevance to the Moratorium.

I also received a forwarded item that I believe you wrote where you recount your work to build the moratorium, including some conferences in New Mexico and Kansas City in late 1969. Guess what? There's FBI reports on those gatherings, but I don't think antiwar references are found therein. I will look for them and make sure you get copies.

Lastly, a very good friend has provided me with an airline ticket to be in LA, but I can only be there for the Aug. 24, 25, 26 events, then I return to Denver on the 27th, a Monday I think.

I will be in touch with you before that, of course.

From: "r_rafaslibre" <r.rafaslibre@verizon.net> Date: SatAug10,2002 7:06 pm Subject: 2002 Chicano Moratorium

Amigos of Aztlannet.com:

The National Chicano Moratorium, which was scheduled to take place in East Los Angeles' Laguna Park on August 29, 1970, was a massive protest against the legality and excesses of the Viet Nam War; a war Chicanos and Americans across the nation saw as an illegal and senseless war against the Vietnamese people. While many Chicanos shared this view, they were particularly incensed by the fact that Chicano GIs in Viet Nam were dying in obscene numbers relative to their size in national population, representing more than 20% of the casualties while making up only 6% of the American population. Ironically, while Chicano GIs were sacrificing life and limb in the steamy jungles of Viet Nam, their families in America continued to be treated like second-class citizens. This was a bitter pill to swallow--the more so because the National Chicano Moratorium never really got off the ground.

An incident at a nearby liquor store outside Laguna Park was the slim pretext the Los Angeles County Sheriffs needed to justify their marching lockstep into the park, black batons at the ready, to begin breaking up what up to that moment had been a crucial, yet, in typical Chicano fashion, a festive, family oriented affair. Until that riotous point in time, the hopes and aspirations inspired by the Chicano Movement, which sought a redress of grievances that had been suffocating in our memories for nearly a century-and-a-half: the freedom to exercise our right of self-determination; the right to identify ourselves according to covenants of faith and historical truths that we as a people deem valid; and the right to confront and wrest away from a long-standing racist establishment our fair share of political, social, educational, economic, and cultural power, an agenda that had rocketed our spirits to an apogee of expectations unrivaled in Chicano history … an agenda momentarily chilled by the police overkill at Laguna Park.

On that fateful day, the warriors amongst us, that is, the men, women, and children armed only with picket signs, magazines, flyers, purses, bottles, fists, and feet gallantly withstood the brutal onslaught of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs, fiercely resisting this unprovoked attack against our First Amendment right of free speech and our right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances, but as police reinforcements from surrounding municipalities or jurisdictions streamed into the battle zone with sirens blaring, those who weren't beaten into submission or arrested had little alternative but to scatter helter- skelter from the mêlée, joining the stampede of thousands of shocked, angry, and outraged Chicano anti-Viet Nam War protestors.

At day's end on August 29, 1970, an estimated 30,000 Chicano souls—great numbers of whom had traveled to East Los Angeles from cities and barrios across the nation were gone; only the debris of those victimized by the police riot lay strewn on the park green … a haunting reminder of the foul blow struck against Chicano liberation and empowerment, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, and American democracy. But shock soon turned into outrage as Chicanos awoke to the dangerous implications of the foul injustice perpetrated against them by a racist establishment, and the Chicanos struck back, torching and overturning police cars; smashing storefront windows; and torching buildings on Whittier Boulevard. By the time the smoke cleared, hundreds of Chicanos had been injured Chicanos and/or hauled off to jail, and three Chicano patriots murdered, including Lyn Ward, Brown Beret, Angel Diaz, and KMEX TV journalist, Ruben Salazar. The smoke plumes rising from the embattled ruins of our peaceful moratorium on the Viet Nam War signaling the people of Southern California that disaster had once again befallen East Los Angeles. This was indeed … a bitter pill to swallow--but, not an uncommon experience for Chicanos.

In the weeks that followed, outraged Chicanos rallied again, this time organizing a march to commemorate the untimely deaths of Ruben Salazar, Angel Diaz, and Lyn Ward, while unleashing a passionate campaign to change the name of Laguna Park to Salazar Park. Ruben Salazar was, of course, the Chicano journalist whose assignment it was to cover the Chicano Moratorium at Laguna Park. Irony of ironies, little did he know that while he sat quaffing a beer at the Silver Dollar Bar--taking a brief respite from an event of hope, empowerment, and joy suddenly turned violent, shocking, and tragic-- that a Sheriff's ill-intended missile would snuff out his life and that Laguna Park, the site of this seminal event in Chicano history would soon bear his name.

In 1989, concerned Chicanos realized that this miscarriage of justice, this heroic and tragic event in Chicano history must not be allowed to lapse into oblivion; that the memory of its noble and empowering mission, the establishment's racist repression of the event, the thousands of Chicanos who traveled far and wide