1930s Mass deportation and repatriation of Mexicans living in the United States.

1940 Carmen Miranda begins U.S. film career.

1941 United States enters World War II— Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans serve in all branches of the military.

1942-1944 Sleepy Lagoon Trial

The Sleepy Lagoon Trial was a Los Angeles murder case that prompted anti-Mexican American violence and rioting. Before an appeals court overturned their unfair convictions, 12 young Mexican American youth and one Anglo, all considered “Zoot Suiters,” were found guilty of the alleged murder of José Díaz. The glaring lack of evidence that Diaz had been murdered prompted the formation of the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, supported by family members, members of the African American and Jewish communities, and Hollywood stars such as Anthony Quinn. In 1944 the convictions were overturned by the U.S. District Court of Appeals.

1942 The Bracero Program

During World War II, the U.S. suffered a labor shortage as men were called off to war. To fill the shortage of farm labor, the governments of the U.S. and Mexico initiated the Bracero (“laborer”) or “guest-worker” Program. The program allowed U.S. agri-business to recruit workers in Mexico to work at low wages. Mexicans were fumigated with DDT before being allowed in the U.S., and despite terms created to avoid exploitation of the hired labor, Mexicans were treated poorly once they signed contracts. Pro-civil rights protests and abuse of the program would lead to its end in 1964.

The Chicano Civil Rights Movement

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1943 Zoot Suit Riots

Despite the fact that many young Mexican Americans served in all branches of the armed forces during WWII, the press played up the Sleepy Lagoon case by stereotyping Mexican Americans as dangerous ruffians, transforming the term “Mexican” into a synonym for lawlessness. Racial tensions rose in Los Angeles and events soon led to the Zoot Suit Riots, in which servicemen attacked Mexican American youths at will without police intervention. The riots were largely brought to an end on June 9, when senior military officers declared Los Angeles off-limits to servicemen.

1945 World War II ends—Mexican American servicemen are the most decorated group of the war.

1948 Don Tosti records “Pachuco Boogie.”

1950 Korean War begins—large percentages of Puerto Ricans and Mexican Americans enlist 3rd generation.

Mariachi Vargas forms (1950-1993).

1952 Pérez Prado records “Mambo No. 5.”

1953 Korean War ends—Puerto Rican soldiers are honored by U.S. government.

1954 Operation Wetback

After World War II, American attitudes toward hiring Mexican farm labor again became more restrictive. In response to the influx of illegal immigrants that accompanied the Bracero Program, the Federal government initiated Operation Wetback (after an insulting slang term for undocumented Mexican immigrants), whose aim was to stop the border crossing of, and to deport, undocumented workers. Public opposition to unpopular deportation tactics, such as flying deportees to southern Mexico in order to deter them from returning to the border, would force the U.S. government to abandon the operation within a year.

1957 West Side Story debuts on Broadway.

1958 Ritchie Valens appears on American Bandstand.

1959 Vietnam War begins.

Fidel Castro overthrows the Batista regime in Cuba.

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1962-1968 United Farm Workers

Cesar Chávez and Dolores Huerta were U.S.-born, farm worker activists. In 1962, they formed The United Farm Workers (UFW), to struggle for decent working conditions for Mexican American farmworkers. Inspired by Mahatma Ghandi and MLK, Jr. in Delano, CA, Chávez used nonviolent protest to improve the lives of Mexican Americans. Huerta, an eloquent speaker and lobbyist, was a skilled strategist for the UFW. In 1965, after joining forces with Filipino workers, the UFW created an international coalition that boycotted California grapes and led to the improvement of migrant farmworker contracts. In the spring on 1968 UFW devotes fulltime efforts to Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential primary campaign.

1962 Herb Alpert records “The Lonely Bull.”

1963 John F. Kennedy, Jr. assassinated.

1965 Malcolm X assassinated. Cannibal & the Headhunters record “Land of 1000 Dances” and open for The Beatles’ second U.S. tour.

“Wooly Bully” by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs hits #2 on the Billboard charts.

1967 Monterey International Pop Festival.

Summer of Love in San Francisco.

1968 Brown Berets/East LA Walkouts

Using their uniforms to express “Brown Pride,” the “Brown Berets” were young Chicano and Chicana activists who, like the Black Panthers, focused on issues such as unemployment, housing, food, and education. In order to call attention to the unequal educational system in East Los Angeles, the Brown Berets organized “blowouts,” where hundreds of Eastside Mexican American students walked out of class the first week of March in protest of the inferior educational conditions in the public school system.

Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated.

James Brown records “I’m Black and I’m Proud.”

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1969 Apollo 11 lands on the moon . Woodstock Music and Art Fair held in Bethel, New York.

1970 Chicano Moratorium Committee

The Chicano Moratorium Committee formed in 1970 to protest the disproportionately high number of Chicano drafts and deaths in the Vietnam War. In August, the Committee planned a peaceful anti-war protest in Los Angeles’ Eastside. The event turned chaotic after policed clashed with roughly 20,000 protesters, resulting in 150 arrests, 61 injuries and three deaths, including high-profile journalist Ruben Salazar.

Little Joe and the Latinaires becomes Little Joe y la Familia.

El Chicano releases their first album, Viva Tirado.

Santana releases Abraxas with the hit track “Oye Como Va.”

1972 Centro de la Raza is created in Seattle, Washington.

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