Valley's role in LULAC foundation
It is a little known secret that an event in Harlingen in August 1927 led to the founding of LULAC. Most histories of LULAC simply report that the founding convention was held in Corpus Christi in 1929. More detailed histories might mention that an organization called the Order Sons of America, which merged into LULAC, had been active in San Antonio and South Texa since 1921.
The Valley’s role in the 1920s had been unknown. The Valley witnessed the rearrangement of racial and class status in the 1920s with many Mexican immigrants moving into South Texas because of the Mexican Revolution’s violence. La Raza experienced political subordination, economic exploitation, and racial segregation and degradation.
In 1924 lawyer and activist Alonso S. Perales (originally of Alice) and teacher and activist J. Luz Saenz (also of Alice) organized lecture tours to raise interest in Mexican American civil rights. They joined numerous other mutual aid societies in attempting to uplift La Raza.
By 1927 it was clear that there was significant civil rights activity across South Texas to unite into a statewide association. So in 1927 Perales and the Order Sons of America decided to hold a Pro-Raza conference to plan a united front. However, there was one question that Perales believed needed attention: Should the organization being formed include Mexican immigrants?
The answer to this question would have been a no-brainer except that in 1924 the United States government created the Border Patrol. U.S. citizenship was becoming an important status. What Perales and his cohorts did not anticipate was the attendance of so many immigrants at the Harlingen convention. But Mexican Americans in favor of a Mexican American organization controlled the podium and they promoted their vision. Mexican immigrants walked out of the historic conference feeling betrayed by their brothers. (All were men.)
What Mexican immigrants could not immediately see was that a Mexican American civil rights organization was the way to go. Imagine the LULAC leadership being deported if they had been immigrants without papers. The undocumented could not imagine how LULAC could be pro-Raza without an undocumented Mexican base.
But LULAC proved these critics wrong. LULAC was able to forge a pro-Raza, pro-immigrant path for itself. This included fighting segregation of schools, including Mexican immigrants in schools, promoting citizenship status and English, fighting unfair Bracero contracts, fighting exploitative labor contracts and wages, and leading the battles for fair immigration reform.
Today LULAC allows anyone who supports its values membership. Interestingly enough Houstonian and restaurateur Felix Tijerina, national president in the 1950s, was a Mexican immigrant. Today LULAC does not inquire into member’s immigration status.
Moreover, imagine a history without LULAC. That means many Hispanic elected officials would not have been elected, that means there would be no American G. I. Forum (Dr. Hector Garcia led a veteran committee within LULAC), there would be no SER (an employment service) and there may have been no MALDEF, Mexican American Legal and Defense Education Fund. LULAC has been the primary Raza voice and actor in the United States.
In this era of Mexican-bashing, it is important to remember that historically Mexican Americans have always known that undocumented Mexicans are part of La Raza, part of our family. LULAC will always be pro-Raza and pro-Latino. So ironically the exclusion of Mexican immigrants in Harlingen in 1927 was the only way Mexican Americans could be pro-Raza at the time. Perales was right.
Dr. Cynthia E. Orozco is the author of No Mexicans, Women or Dogs Allowed: The Rise of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement.
