VOCES American Historia: The Untold History of Latinos

Imagine being alive in the year 1900.

The Industrial Revolution has changed everything, and a new kind of entertainment, motion pictures, is taking the world by storm.

The horse is being outrun by the first cars, and in Kitty Hawk, a pair of brothers make the first manned flight.

It's an exciting time, but not everyone is benefiting.

Because after hundreds of years of colonization, Latinos are still facing discrimination and racism.

We have been absolutely part and parcel of the foundations of this country, of the development of this country, of this prosperity of this country, on our backs.

[Speaking in Spanish] On the battlefield, we saw our Latino patriots overcome discrimination to become heroes.

During World War II, Silvestre Herrera would be awarded the Medal of Honor.

Couple of soldiers told me, "Hey, what are you doing in this army?

You're a Mexican".

But here's the thing: The more you push our people down, the more we rise up.

And in the 20th century, young Latino activists fought for their civil liberties.

Come on out, brothers, we are waiting for you!

Leguizamo: Much the way African Americans were fighting against the same racial injustice long perpetrated on people of color.

In the classrooms, Latino students fought for equal education.

We said we've had enough of racism and abuse.

Leguizamo: We didn't fight for just our rights, but for the rights of all.

And Latinas often led that charge.

Fernndez: When people fight and begin to win, that changes consciousness.

We're going to talk to historians, activists, and even some of the people that lived through this history.

Huerta: I had this anger inside of me, that I never knew what to do with it, until I learned how to organize.

[Speaking in Spanish] And it all comes down to one word: Resistencia.

Resistance.

This program was made possible in part by...

When you watch the news today, you see young activists like Malala or Greta Thunberg risking their lives for causes they believe in.

Or think about Rosa Parks bravely sitting at the front of the bus.

But you know who else led civil rights and labor movements throughout the 20th century?

Young Latinas.

And, of course, what can't they do?

In 1917, there were typhus outbreaks in Mexico.

Any Mexican hailing from Mexico was seen as a disease carrier.

This meant that white Americans could go into Mexico, and when they came back they didn't need to undergo inspection.

But Mexicans regularly needed to undergo inspection at the U.S.-Mexico border, and that inspection was invasive and dangerous.

It involved stripping your clothes so that you were naked, and that they bathed you in a kerosene solution.

Hundreds of dirty, lousy, destitute Mexicans arriving in El Paso daily will undoubtedly bring and spread typhus, unless a quarantine is placed at once.

Molina: There were rumors that women were being photographed when they were naked.

And one of these laborers was Carmelita Torres, who was 17 years old and a housekeeper.

Carmelita Torres refused to undergo the inspection.

She convinced the 30 other women on the trolley with her to protest.

Woman: Carmelita Torres leads riots when refused permission to enter El Paso.

Without complying with the regulations, the women collected in an angry crowd at the center of the bridge.

Led by Carmelita Torres, an auburn-haired young woman of 17, they kept up continuous volley of language aimed at the immigration and health officers.

Molina: Within an hour, there were 200 other people there protesting along with her.

What now we know as the 1917 Bath Riots.

Thousands of people joined in.

Carmelita was arrested, and she went missing.

And to this day, we do not know what happened to her.

Leguizamo: But we do know that the Bath Riots did spark another even darker historical moment.

Because U.S. officials didn't just use kerosene to disinfect Mexican laborers.

No, they used another poisonous chemical: the deadly pesticide Zyklon B.

And, sadly, others were inspired by the U.S. Border Patrol's use of Zyklon B: The Nazis, in their concentration camps.

There are events, like the Bath Riots, that are essential to American history, but that we don't learn about in school.

Then, there are events everyone's heard of, like the Stock Market Crash of 1929.

But what we rarely learn are how those well-known events shaped the Latino experience in this country.

October 29, 1929, was a day like no other.

With the devastating stock market crash known as "Black Tuesday," the economy collapsed and we entered the Great Depression.

So, looking to avoid blame, President Hoover stoked his base's racial fears, and kicked out Mexican American citizens using one neat campaign slogan: "American jobs for real Americans."

And we all know what he meant by "real Americans."

The Repatriation Programs were government-sponsored programs where Mexicans and Mexican Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and deported to Mexico.

Vlez-Ibez: Almost at every economic downturn, the Mexican population has always been targeted.

The terrible contradiction, of course, is that many of those who were deported were also American citizens, because they were children of the persons being deported.

Leguizamo: An estimated 2 million Mexican Americans were deported during this time.

I had no idea that Repatriation went all across America.

I just thought it was in the Southwest, I didn't even know it was in California.

But it's not even there, it's in Seattle, Portland.

It's in Milwaukee.

It's in Chicago.

It's in St. Louis, Oklahoma.

At a time where nobody had resources, Mexicans and Mexican Americans were seen as economic drains.

Anytime you went to the government for care was considered charity.

Many of these Mexican parents weren't seeking charity on behalf of themselves, they were seeking it when their children became sick, or if they passed away.

And therefore the parents were basically deported for seeking services for their American citizen children.

I know we weren't the only immigrants here at the time.

And a vast majority of other immigrants were demonized as well: Greeks, Italians, and Jews.

But nobody was deported like we were.

Today we examine a tragic part of American history where we betrayed the justice part.

Almost 2 million individuals were deported from the United States in the 1930s.

Some estimate that almost 60% of those that were deported were United States citizens.

And they were deported for but one reason: they just happened to be of Mexican descent.

Leguizamo: In 2005, after 80 years, the state of California finally passed the Apology Act, acknowledging the illegal and unlawful activities of the Repatriation Program.

Latinos who managed to stay in the United States experienced extreme levels of racism and exploitation in the workplace.

But many wouldn't stand for it, including labor leader Emma Tenayuca.

Fernndez: Emma Tenayuca was an incredibly inspiring woman.

She was born and raised in San Antonio in a poor neighborhood.

But at age 16, she joined a picket line for workers at a cigar factory.

Emma: The workers had a right to organize and it was under that concept that the cigar workers went out on strike here.

It's peculiar, it's the women were among the first, it's the women who have led.

From a very young age, she started organizing with different workers, and she is most well known for her leadership in the 1938 Pecan Shellers' Strike of 12,000 workers, and she was only 21.

Leguizamo: I'm incredibly honored to meet Emma's niece, Sharyll.

Nice to meet you, Sharyll.

What a pleasure.

Pleasure to meet you, John.

Can't wait to learn all about your aunt, Emma Tenayuca.

I didn't know that Latin people had participated in unionizing America, for all Americans.

Sharyll: She was a very bright and interested and aware child.

She knew what was going on in her community.

Emma: By that time, the Depression had really struck every city, every place.

In San Antonio, only 16 or 12% had running water inside their homes.

Only 9% had inside sanitary toilets.

The pecan shelling industry at that time in San Antonio was the leading industry, making record profits.

Business owners just felt like they could get away wit paying them as little as possible.

Pecan shellers were only making $2 a week.

And if that wasn't onerous enough, their wages were actually reduced even more.

The justification that the company gave for those low wages was said, "Well, we're feeding you, you can have as many pecans as you want."

It wasn't just about the wages, but it was also about their working conditions.

Women and children were working in conditions that were deplorable, where the ventilation was terrible.

The dust from shelling pecans was very dangerous to inhale and could lead to death.

She had the gift of her voice and she was able to instruct people that to effect change, they could not do anything alone.

Emma: Any effort of the Mexican workers to organize was met with brutal force from the very beginning.

So when you went out to meet those powers, then you had to have guts.

Leguizamo: People aren't aware how dangerous it is and how much courage it takes to be an activist.

Voices like Emma Tenayuca's starts a fire in America.

I believe the Ku Klux Klan was very upset.

She said, "There were many times when I thought I might be lynched."

She was afraid not so much for her own safety, but for that of her family.

In my family, women are very strong.

They are activists, my mom is an activist.

What do you think it is about Latin women that makes them so strong, so fierce?"

Maybe it's part of our culture.

Her personality was very strong, but she also had a tenderness about her.

Emma: I just have a feeling, a very strong feeling, that if ever this world is civilized, it'd be more of the work of women.

Ultimately they were successful.

They did win their demands for better wages and for better working conditions.

Activists like Emma and Carmelita led by example.

And they weren't the only ones, powerful Latinas like Puerto Rican Luisa Capetillo and Guatemalan Luisa Moreno were also on the frontline, igniting change for the rights of workers.

Remember how during the Depression, the U.S. deported Mexican American citizens to protect American jobs?

Well, flash forward to World War II, and guess who needs soldiers in the battlefields?

That's right, the United States.

Nearly 500,000 Latinos served in World War II.

Yet, we hear very little from their stories.

Silvestre Herrera was 27 years old when he received his draft notice.

Well, his father sat him down and told him, "Look, you don't have any obligation to go into the U.S. forces, because you were not born in the U.S., you were born in Mexico," And that his parents had died when he was very young.

When Silvestre was 18 months old, his uncle brought him over to El Paso, Texas, and raised him as his own.

He tells his uncle that he's going to go ahead and join because he doesn't want anyone to die in his place.

Silvestre Herrera was assigned to the 36th Infantry Division.

He was sent to fight against Hitler's Nazi forces on the European mainland.

In May of 1945, the 36th Division was fighting near Mertzwiller, France.

They came across heavy German machine gun fire.

Silvestre was able to capture 8 German soldiers.

That same day, they continued to move forward and were hit again by two German machine guns.

Silvestre charged the machine gun nests, and stepped on a landmine that blew off one of his feet.

He continued to crawl and fire at the enemy, when he stepped on another mine that blew off his other foot.

Silvestre got to his knees, continued to fire so that his unit could outflank the German machine gun nest.

For his actions.

Silvestre Herrera would be awarded the Medal of Honor, the highest award that can be bestowed on a soldier for actions on the battlefield.

Harry Truman presented Silvestre Herrera the Medal of Honor.

The president told Silvestre, "I would rather get one of these than be the President of the United States."

This site is dedicated to the Latino American heroes who received the Congressional Medal of Honor, our nation's highest award for bravery.

For the love of country they performed above and beyond the call of duty.

We're the most awarded ethnic minority in each and every single war is a huge contribution to this country.

And you have Guy Gabaldon, an 18-year-old East L.A. kid who captured 1,300 enemy soldiers by himself in World War II.

Castillo: Guy Gabaldon was born and raised in Los Angeles.

He grew up with a Japanese family, so he spoke fluent street Japanese.

He enlisted in the Marine Corps, and when he arrived in Saipan, that night, when they're huddled there, he starts hearing something familiar.

He starts hearing Japanese, and then he realizes it's the enemy.

On his own, he leaves his position and goes and, before anybody knows it, he comes back with Japanese prisoners.

He had gone over there and talked to them in Japanese.

And so, as a result, he got them to surrender.

And when the commanding officer saw that, he threatened to have him court martialed, and he warns him, "Don't ever do that again."

Well, that same night, he goes back again, and he brings even more prisoners.

And eventually the commanding officer says, "Go ahead, do whatever you want."

Guy Gabaldon captured by himself between 1,300 and 1,500 enemy soldiers.

With respect to the portrayal of Latinos, in movies and television, a lot of it gets distorted and a lot of it gets misinterpreted, and sometimes appropriated.

Guy Gabaldon's story was told in an American movie... Announcer: "Hell to Eternity."

The amazing true story of Guy Gabaldon, the marine who captured more than 1,000 enemy prisoners, single-handed.

Starring Jeffrey Hunter.

Castillo: He is portrayed not by a Latino, but an Anglo by the name of Jeffrey Hunter.

Guy was five-foot-three, and Jeffrey Hunter is six-foot-two with blue eyes.

They never really mentioned the fact that he was a Chicano, Mexican American.

I would like more historical records to reflect publicly that Guy Gabaldon was a very patriotic American, that sacrificed for his country, and that he should be awarded the Medal of Honor for his exploits.

But he's not really given that kind of credit.

Leguizamo: It's very important for America to know how much we've sacrificed.

Because we deserve our stories to be told, we deserve our stories to be in history textbooks.

And you have the story of the men of Company E, the only all-Mexican American unit in World War II.

Company E, in the 141st Infantry of the 36th Division, was originally a National Guard unit out of El Paso, Texas.

Company E and the 36th Division spearheaded the Allied landing at Salerno, Italy, to fight against Hitler's Nazi forces, becoming part of the first D-Day.

Leguizamo: And many other Latino groups contributed significantly in World War II.

There were Cuban Americans, Dominican Americans, and let's not forget the Borinqueneers, an all-Puerto Rican outfit.

The 65th Infantry was also known, and is still known in Puerto Rico, as the Borinqueneers.

And so this name stems out of the Tano name for Puerto Rico, which is Borinquen or Boriqun.

They saw conflict in World War II, and, particularly, their history is very important to the Korean War.

They were proud of being Puerto Rican, but at the same time they needed to navigate a very hierarchical military institution that sought to demean them.

They were always carrying their flags around everywhere they went, and that was the thing that was attacked by generals.

So, one of the things that they did was they made them shave their mustache.

And this is important because, for them, it was a sense of pride.

It was a sense of their manhood.

It's interesting, when we see the record of Puerto Rican soldiers of the 65th Infantry in the Korean War, they brought with them their guitars, and although they were fighting, in the middle of the war they would sing their songs in order to feel at home.

They saw themselves as Puerto Ricans first, and then as U.S. soldiers.

So they died and they fought protecting the United States, but they never lost sight of their Puerto Ricanidad.

Latino contributions to the U.S. military are significant.

Many of them gave their very lives for the very freedoms we enjoy today.

They served with distinction and pride, Not only because they were Latinos, but because they were American patriots.

Trujillo: My dad was a World War II veteran, my uncles fought in World War II, in Korea.

So, it was like a family tradition.

I volunteered to go to Vietnam.

A couple of soldiers told me, "Hey, what are you doing in this American army?

You're a Mexican."

It made me think.

"I said, Yeah, what am I doing here?

When I get back home, I'll just be another Mexican."

People have a hard time realizing that we have sacrificed our bodies, our spirits, and our souls in defense of the United States.

We are part of history.

We are part of this society.

We have contributed to the United States, but not just in the wars, but as a working people.

On the battlefield, they were heroes.

But imagine fighting for your country, risking your life, and returning home to face state-sanctioned racism and discrimination.

Even in the fields, Latino farmworkers suffered inhumane working conditions, and were persecuted because of their language and heritage.

Now, these terrible conditions inspired many to take action to fight for the rights of these workers, including the labor union United Farm Workers, led by Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez.

We shall not We shall not moved Just like a tree That's planted by the water The rise of the United Farm Workers is the single most important event in Latinx history.

Come on out brothers, we are waiting for you!

Ortiz: Dolores Huerta is central to the rise of the farm worker movement, 'cause remember, there have been generations of agricultural workers African, Latinos, Asian, etc., etc.

who had tried to organize and were defeated time and time again.

Leguizamo: I'm out here in Southern California to meet with labor leader and activist Dolores Huerta.

As a young girl, you were experiencing segregation, discrimination, can you describe what that was like?"

Huerta: Well, I think it was mostly the kind of discrimination that you felt from your teachers.

And from police, where they were always harassing us, even though we weren't doing anything wrong, you know?

And it was constant.

One of my girlfriends wanted to be a nurse.

And they told her, "No, you can't be a nurse.

You have to study domestic work, how to clean houses."

When Dolores was in school, she was a very devoted student.

And she had this one favorite teacher who broke her heart because one day she said to her, "I don't believe you wrote this essay.

It's too well written."

By the time I graduated from high school, most of my Black and brown friends, and Filipinos, they had dropped out, not finishing high school.

But we call it "push out" Yeah, because they have an unwelcome climate, the way that you're treated in schools, and the kids don't feel welcome.

And I had this anger inside of me.

But I never knew what to do with it, until I learned how to organize.

When you became an activist, did you have role models?

How did you figure out how to become such a great organizer?

I think once I learned that you can get people together, and that you can put pressure on the politicians, you know, be it city council or school board members and that you can register people to vote get them to vote and elect good people to office then that was willpower.

Leguizamo: In 1965, Cesar Chavez left the Community Service Organization and with Dolores Huerta formed the United Farm Workers Association.

They united with the Filipino grape pickers, who were also on strike for better pay and working conditions.

In solidarity, they not only refused to pick the grapes, but they also boycotted the purchase of the grapes in stores and markets all over the country.

Chavez: I think that all of us are looking for a place under the sun.

By that I mean for a union that we can belong as farm workers, which's going to be built by farm workers, and it's going to be for farm workers.

Huerta: With the strike and with the boycott, we were trying to get farm workers basic human rights: toilets in the field, cold drinking water, hand washing facilities, rest periods, the right to have a union, and also unemployment insurance, which farm workers did not have.

Just basic human rights.

Reporter: The decision, the outcome, is really in the hands of aliens, people who are not citizens.

They're people!

People who are right now planting and picking the crops that are feeding the whole country.

Leguizamo: Was it easy to organize farm workers?

It was not easy, because it was so much fear among the farm workers.

It took us actually 3 years to organize on the ground, meeting family by family with them, and telling them, "You can change this."

It's an injustice, when you think about it.

It's unbearable when you have to live through it.

That's why the union was founded, this is what we want to eliminate.

Want to establish some security and, and uh, some dignity for ourselves, dignity based on dollars and cents, I guess.

Yeah, we need money.

Money that we've earned already.

Dolores and Cesar knew that they were up against a very difficult struggle.

What were the fears?

Well, the fears, number one, that you could get, you could get blacklisted, that nobody would ever give you a job.

And not only you, but your family would also get blacklisted.

Was there fear of violence as well or, or just...?

Oh, a lot of fear of violence, yeah.

Sometimes people got beaten up, you know, very, very, badly.

Sometimes by the sheriffs.

And then sometimes by who?"

And sometimes by the growers.

Reporter: What do you think of the idea of a union for farm workers?

Well, I think it's ridiculous.

Do you think without the union the farm workers can improve their condition and, and create...?"

It has been done right here.

Would you want to live in this camp?"

I wouldn't live here.

You know you're being very impudent.

"Would I want to live here?"

This is what I call an impudent question.

Well, you run the camp.

I won't answer any more of your questions.

Unfortunately, we had 5 people that were killed during the strikes.

The first one was a young Jewish girl from Boston, named Nan Freeman.

The second one was a young man from Yemen, Nagi Daifallah.

And the third one was a Mexican, Juan de la Cruz.

Another one, Rufino Contreras.

And the last one was a young man named Rene Lopez.

So, we had 5 people killed, even though we, as a union, and during the strikes and the boycotts, were non-violent.

Were you arrested?

Were you incarcerated?

Yes, I was arrested about 20 times.

They would get injunctions against us and take us to jail.

And you kept going back.

Kept going back.

That's incredible.

If we quit, we lose.

Think about all those farm workers that were on strike, because the strike lasted for 5 years.

5 years!

Wow.

5 years.

That must have been very difficult for you to stay motivated for 5 years, especially people who were losing their income.

Mara Elena Fernndez: Dolores Huerta was one of the negotiators.

Just the fact that she was a woman and, you know, by definition only men were businessmen, right?

And so, there she is, challenging them, and, of course, they used slurs, right?

To stereotype her.

And they called her the "Dragon Lady."

Huerta: At the end of the boycott, we had 17 million Americans that did not eat grapes.

I would have never thought that America could be united to help Latino farm workers fight against the corporations or the farm owners.

It's amazing that they saw your cause as a noble cause.

[Applause and cheering] Before I mention any names, to all those of you who came here, contributed money, and brought food, we thank you especially.

During Obama's campaign, he adopted your slogan, S, se puede.

"Yes, we can."

How did that feel for you?

Well, when I met that President Obama, he said to me, "I stole your slogan."

And I said, "Yes, you did."

[Laughs] "Want to borrow it?

Yes, you can."

Leguizamo: The grape strike changed conditions for American farm workers forever.

10 major agricultural companies had recognized a union and agreed to its terms, which included salary increases, unemployment insurance, one day off per week, and better working conditions.

While Dolores Huerta and others were fighting for civil liberties in the fields, Latinos continued to be subjected to Jim Crow laws, also known as "Juan Crow" laws.

And these Jim Crow laws were statutes that legalized segregation and made Latinos second-class citizens in their own country.

Molina: In the early 20th century, the Jim Crow laws were developed to separate Blacks from Whites.

Latinos had their own system of Jim Crow, which people now refer to as "Juan Crow."

They couldn't live in every neighborhood.

They had to attend segregated schools, segregated churches.

Leguizamo: So here we have the effects of Jim Crow laws in the Southwest, because we were in larger populations in the Southwest.

And as you can see, the order is...

It's intense: "No dogs, Negros or Mexicans."

And if you're Mexican, you're at the bottom of it, even lower than dogs.

Segregation has many implications and many consequences.

In our particular case, the Spanish language has been used as a racist trope, and for those of us who were in school, we were forbidden to speak Spanish, and for every word of Spanish that you spoke, we were hit with a bat that had been shaved with holes at the end.

So you went home and your mother might bathe you when you were 5 years old, and she asked, well, you know, "What are those marks on your rear end?"

And I told her, I said, "I got spanked."

"Well, did you misbehave?"

I said, "I don't know."

But I didn't know why it was being spanked.

What occurs is that the child then learns to associate pain with the language that the child is speaking.

Now that language is internalized very early on.

The language that's spoken by a mother to her child when she's cooing her child, "Ay, mijito lindo," o le est cantando en espaol, has a deep implication because you learn then that you've got to hate this language that your mother raised you upon.

Leguizamo: When most immigrants come to the United States, within two to three generations they assimilate, and many lose their native language.

How would you feel if you were forced to write, "I will not speak Spanish" hundreds of times on a piece of paper?

Or imagine if your school had a mock burial of "Mr.

Spanish."

That's exactly what happened at some schools in the United States.

And in 1954, school segregation was abolished by the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case.

But for decades before, Latino families had been leading the charge against this horrible policy, including the historic case of Mndez v. Westminster.

In the Mndez v. Westminster case, in 1946, you have Gonzalo Mndez, who sends his sister to register his kids and her kids in a school, and is told, "We'll register your kids," because her kids were lighter skinned, "but not your brother's kids."

Sylvia was 8 years old.

Gonzalo and Felicitas looked at their daughter and said, you know, "This isn't right.

This is discrimination."

Because they understood that it wasn't just a separate school, it was an inferior school.

It was one in which the facility itself was inferior.

And so there was no hope for the future without a good education.

They hire an attorney who says, "Have you heard about this happening with other families?"

And he says yes, and he says, "Get them together.

We're going to do a class action lawsuit."

Cranston: Our greatest resource is the skill and the vision and wisdom of our people.

If your education falters or fails, everything else that we attempt as a Nation will fail.

If you succeed, America will succeed.

Over half the Mexican-American children have less than 8 years of school.

How long can we pay that price?

Molina: The Mndez v. Westminster case was pivotal.

It was foundational to establish that separate is not equal.

Leguizamo: After a hard-fought legal battle, the Mndez, a Puerto Rican- Mexican family, won.

Molina: The Mndez v. Westminster case is an example of triumph and victory in Latino history.

But it's one that's also made possible by shared alliances: by David Marcus, the Jewish-American lawyer who took on the case.

By Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP, who said, you know, "We understand your struggle because it is ours."

By Japanese Americans who had only recently come back from internment camps and were really trying not to ruffle any feathers, to show that they were patriotic Americans, and yet said, "This is a struggle that's worth it for us to speak out against."

Leguizamo: Mndez v. Westminster ended segregation in schools in California.

And it was crucial in setting the precedent for the national case, Brown v. Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court found segregation in schools to be unconstitutional.

The Mndez case was a real victory for equal education, but the fight wasn't finished.

Even after school desegregation became the law of the land, majority-Latino schools still received less funding and resources, putting their students at a disadvantage.

Pioneering teachers like Bolivian Jaime Escalante continued to demand real education equality.

Olmos: Teaching is a blessing, because then the students get everything out it, because they have someone that is really sharing and giving of knowledge.

And there's nothing more powerful than that.

So, to me, Jaime Escalante became the vehicle that changed my life.

Did you know that neither the Greeks nor the Romans were capable of using the concept of zero?

It was your ancestors, the Mayans, who first contemplated the zero, the absence of value.

True story.

You burros have math in your blood.

Using all that I had learned from doing Jaime and his understanding that children will rise to the level of expectation...

Yes.

And Jaime Escalante changed the course of the way that we understand the teacher.

The teacher is the essence of understanding.

Mm.

And, and bless it.

I mean, so many of us had great teachers.

So, to me, mentors are everything.

I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for teachers who really taught so beautifully, loved the history or loved literature, or acting teachers.

Then you find your path in life.

That's right.

Eddie...

I mean... You know, you're a legend, you're an inspiration to all of us.

When I saw Jaime Escalante on film, all of a sudden I felt like, "Wow, if Edward Olmos can do it, maybe I can do it, too."

It just...

It gives you hope.

That's right.

You also did an incredible movie called the "Walkouts," based on the original walkouts that happened here in L.A. as a protest to bad public schools, and lack of supplies, lack of funding.

Chicano!

Power!

Chicano!

Power!

Chicano!

In 1968, students stood up and walked out of the classroom, trying to bring awareness to something that they'd been trying to push for years.

And that was just equality in teaching.

Leguizamo: The 1968 walkouts were just one in a series of movements to fight for civil rights among Latino youth.

Because young Americans of Mexican descent had adopted "Chicano" as a term of cultural unity and defiance.

And fed up with racism and police brutality in their community and schools, Latinos organized and fought for justice and equality, demanding their voices be heard.

And the Brown Berets were one of the groups that led the way in that struggle.

Montes: The 1968 East L.A. walkouts was the first urban uprising of young Chicanos in the United States.

The Brown Berets were a group of young men and women who were angry about the racism and conditions we faced in the barrio.

We often think about African Americans in the quest for civil rights, but Latinos were also fighting for their rights in every way.

I attended Garfield High, and I was a 10th grader.

And we took an adult role to protest for the right for an education.

Sal Castro was the instructor, the teacher, that allowed them to understand the differences outside of their school district.

He led the walkouts.

-Chicano!

-Power!

There had to be changes in education in order for the Mexican to get a real equal opportunity.

Molina: They were protesting all their inferior conditions, a system of inequity in their schools.

We're going to walk until we get some action, because we're tired of talking... [Cheering] Let the students back into the library so maybe they can learn how to read.

The ways in which they were tracked into shop or homemaking.

The general messages that they were receiving from their teachers saying, "Why teach you these subjects when you aren't going to go on to college?

You're going to go on to do manual labor."

And so, it was them pushing back.

Cuaron: We created a survey by collecting the concerns of other students and their ideas about what's going on in the schools.

We took the surveys to the Board of Education and we waited.

And we waited.

And we waited.

And there was no response.

He is our principal from our school, and he's not even there sitting down.

You know, we go... We go talk to him and he walks out of the office.

We invited him here to attend the meeting, and why isn't he here?

And the role of the Brown Berets was to go the high school, whether it's Garfield High School, Lincoln High School, Roosevelt... To talk to parents, to talk to students, to start raising the demands.

That we wanted a quality education, we wanted bilingual education, we wanted ethnic studies.

The 5th of March, in the afternoon, the fire alarm went off.

[Alarm rings] Montes: The students had the signal that they were going to stand up and walk out, and it started happening.

So we all walked out on the front lawn and the chant began: "Walkout, walkout, walkout."

Walkout!

Walkout!

Walkout!

Walkout!

Molina: And it wasn't just one school, it was the 5 high schools in the East Los Angeles area.

I was right inside of this, I was 18 years old myself at the time.

When 5 schools walked out at the same time, it was all over.

12 students from UCLA and different major universities, and Sal Castro, all of the leaders of the walkouts...

Threw them in jail...

Were arrested because they were protesting.

Yeah, exactly.

A peaceful protest, but they arrest the leaders because... 20,000 kids?

John... Wow.

They were not ready for it.

...arrest as of right now.

Cuaron: The sheriffs were formed in a long line, in their full outfits, ready, and they were proceeding to come toward us.

So the danger, the violence, was very apparent.

Molina: When the students walked out, they had signs that really showed that throughline of oppression that they had experienced, not just in their lives, but their parents' generation and generations before.

The parents of these kids were scared.

And I don't blame them.

Wow.

What did the police do?

What did...

They beat them.

They beat them.

They beat the kids.

Savagely.

[Sirens blaring] I was accosted, I was attacked, I was questioned.

They pulled no punches to attack us physically, psychologically, and on the campus, so that we had no protection.

Absolutely no protection.

[Sirens blaring] Olmos: Brutal.

I mean... Leguizamo: On kids, on kids.

We're talking about 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds.

Using batons on, on... ...on young kids, yeah.

Montes: 13 of us were arrested for conspiracy to disrupt the peace, disrupt the schools.

But an appellate court threw the case out because they concluded that it was our right to protest: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly.

So, all those charges were dropped.

There were many positive results that came out of the walkouts in terms of the school board finally adopting some of the demands that they had been making.

We got more Chicano teachers hired, and administrators.

We got bilingual education.

We won some victories and we made history.

The whole situation bred a great feeling of understanding of strength and power.

If you want something done, you have to raise your voice, you have to talk, you have to get it out there and you have to start speaking your mind.

You have to start writing about it, you have to start doing movies about it, you got to start bringing it into the art forms.

So this is the dream footage that I've always saw in my imagination.

Like, where were we in the '60s and '70s when everybody was protesting and fighting against the war, for civil rights?

And there we are, in huge numbers all across the United States.

And it motivates and inspires you to keep going, to keep fighting.

We had all this activism that's just never talked about, never included in any of the documentaries.

And it does a disservice to history because you're excluding a huge portion of the population that contributed to your country.

Leguizamo: Here we are at the Museum of the City of New York.

You know, every time I look at footage about New York City and activism, you never see Latin people.

You just never see them represented, you never see them included.

And yet we were there.

And we were actually the big motivators.

And especially here in New York City, we had the Young Lords, this big, powerful organization of Puerto Rican intellectuals here in Spanish Harlem.

Johanna Fernndez: So, here we are with the Young Lords, who are the Puerto Rican counterpart of the Black Panther Party.

The organization emerges in Chicago in 1968 and it spreads to New York in 1969 And how old are they now?

These are like 17-, 18-, 19-year-old kids who have been transformed and radicalized by all the struggles of the 1960s.

And have become revolutionaries.

What we want is the type of society where our people can live decently, as opposed to how they're living now.

The Young Lords, like the Black Panthers, upheld the power and needs of the collective, and that people at the bottom of society should organize collectively to transform it in their interest.

Preach, preach.

Listen... [Laughs] The Young Lords was the most significant cultural, political, and social event of our generation.

They forget that it was Jesus who said, "Feed the-- Feed the hungry and clothe the poor."

Melendez: We were the first generation born, raised, and educated in this country.

And we were not going to take the same lies that were fed to our parents.

We demonstrated how to provide services to our community, whether it was health, whether it was food, whether it was legal.

It was time for people to kind of disgorge themselves and find, you know, another way of doing things.

Johanna Fernndez: The television was the new media of that period, and so they figured out how to amplify their story, on television, through dramatic actions.

They also identify health, education, housing as issues that they're going to address.

More power to the people!

And they're committed to radical action in the streets.

So they take over buildings and hospitals to shift the conversation.

[Protest chants] The Young Lords were negotiating with Lincoln Hospital for months.

And some of the things that we had talked about, you know, had to do with patient care, basically.

There was blood splatters on the walls, you would find cockroaches.

I mean, it was just horrendous.

Despierta, boricua, defiende lo tuyo!

Patients, particularly Black and brown patients, were dying in the care of doctors in this hospital.

Reporter: Is your emergency room service adequate?

Absolutely not.

It could not possibly be adequate in the physical plant that we have at Lincoln Hospital.

The hospital was not up to code to protect the communities that it was supposed to be serving.

And that is precisely why the Young Lords came in and occupied the hospital.

Melndez: When we went to the hospital, we took it over at 5 o'clock in the morning, and the media was there.

There was a lot of support, basically from the hospital staff, particularly from doctors that had to work in these conditions.

We went into the nurses' residence, because we didn't want to interfere with patient care.

And we emptied out the building and had complete control of that building.

Now, the Young Lords would carry rifles, they would carry guns.

But this was not a violent occupation.

It was a symbolic action.

And it only took a few hours.

They occupied the building, they send the message.

Then they dressed as doctors and left, no one knowing how they went out.

Although actions may appear revolutionary, they were really reforms.

It's okay to break the rules for the greater good, understanding what the consequences are.

And we got up every morning and understood that, and that's how we served our community.

The Young Lords are important because they drafted the first known Patient Bill of Rights, something that we take for granted.

Yeah, yeah!

And these were kids.

I would've never thought of the Young Lords would have created this.

I know!

How beautiful is that?

And these were kids.

And this is started by the Young Lords...

This was started by the Young Lords.

Young people who had a great heart, who had courage and wanted to speak out.

They established the notion that if I'm going to see a doctor, the doctor has to talk to me in a way that I can understand.

So I need a translator.

Right, right.

Which happens in all the hospitals, in all the languages.

Yeah.

[Protest chants] Part of what the Young Lords did was establish the sense of togetherness and common cause.

That kind of unity between Black Americans, migrants from Latin America, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and poor Whites, could challenge... Yeah.

...inequality in a very profound way, in this country.

You have to stand up for the people, the Puerto Rican people, and say, "That's enough.

That's enough."

I just feel, like, it's really important to me to get Latin history, our contributions to America, our contributions to the world, on film, in books, in movies, because it's the only way to authenticate our contributions to America.

And we still have a language, and a culture, and a bond, and a history of oppression, and we come from great empires, and that's who we are.

It's essential that we set the record straight about Latina, Latino, Latinx history.

It's important for people to understand their origins, being exposed to where other people come from.

I think it develops a different sense of citizenship.

Mara Elena Fernndez: To learn our history is healing.

And this whole country needs to heal.

The key to the advancement of humanity is to allow us to do our stories.

But they should be more inclusive, that's the word.

Right.

Mara Elena Fernndez: We're actually connected to so many different people.

Our African heritage, our European heritage, our Indigenous heritage.

We are connected to everybody.

That is the recipe for harmony.

Molina: There's been Latinos in this country for 500 years, you know, before it was even formed as a country.

Trujillo: Where would this country be without the Mexican labor, without the Puerto Rican, and Latinos as a whole?

Huerta: People who are right now picking the crops that are feeding the whole country.

Ortiz: We didn't know that our people had a very powerful tradition of pro-Indigenous movements or pro-labor movements.

We weren't taught any of those things.

When I get in the classroom, I want my students to be able to see our ancestors clearly, so we can see ourselves clearly.

Let the students back into the library, so maybe they can learn how to read.

Melndez-Badillo: To young people like my kid, my daughter, you know, I want them to feel proud of who they are, and to feel part of this country.

Children that grow up in subsequent generations need to have that sensation of belonging.

S, se puede!

Our history books need to be changed.

Our curriculums in our schools need to be changed so that little kids will understand, number one, that we have only one human race and that we are all one people.

And that way we can stop discrimination and stop domination against other people and treat each other as brothers and sisters and cousins.

S, se puede.

[Laughs] Awesome, awesome!

Thank you!

Leguizamo: My journey to uncover the real history of Latinos began with these questions: What's the true story of my people?

What would we teach our kids about our history if we hadn't been colonized?

So I tugged at that thread and an amazing new world opened up to me.

I explored sacred tunnels of Teotihuacn.

I learned about Latino patriots who birthed this this nation.

I delved deep into the stories of fierce Latina icons like Emma Tenayuca and Dolores Huerta.

And along the way, I learned that at every key moment of our country's past, we were there.

Latinos are not just an asterisk in history.

Our story is the history of the United States.

But the work of decolonizing our history isn't complete, because we have to keep uncovering and celebrating the stories of those who came before us.

And when you rescue that history, you realize what a deep and meaningful influence Latinos have had on American history and culture.

And one day soon, every kid in America will know that Latino history is American history.

So thank you for taking this journey with me.

I've been enlightened in a way that I've never imagined, and I hope it's done the same for you.

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