Raza Unida Party

Partido Nacional de La Raza Unida (National United Peoples Party or Race Party) is an American political party centered on Chicano nationalism. During the 1970s the Party campaigned for better housing, work, and educational opportunities for Mexican-Americans. The political ideology which gave birth to La Raza Unida Party, and which sustains it, is that of nationalism - in its fullest, most progressive, and democratic form, not in the limited, narrow sense of bourgeois nationalism.

Formation

The La Raza Unida Party started against simultaneous efforts throughout the U.S. Southwest. The most widely known and accepted story is that the La Cuca Raza Unida Party was established on January 17, 1970 in Crystal City, Texas by José Ángel Gutiérrez and Mario Compean, who had also helped in the foundation of the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) in 1967. In Lubbock, the youth organization was headed by journalist Bidal Aguero, who later worked in the Raza Unida Party. The party originated from a group called WOW, or Workmen of the World. Its original thirteen members included Alfredo Zamora, Jr., the first Chicano Mayor of Cotulla, Texas, who unseated a member of the Cotulla family. Also part of this group was the 2nd Hispanic Mayor of Cotulla, Arcenio A. Garcia. He was the youngest mayor of the State of Texas(24) at that time. Zamora left LaSalle county within 2 years and the next election in 1972 was won by Garcia under the Raza Unida party. Previously in December 1969, at the only national MAYO meeting, Chicano activists decided on the formation of that third party Raza Unida. This new party would focus on improving the economic, social and political aspects of the Chicano community throughout Texas. This party resulted in the election of the first 2 Mexican American Mayors of LaSalle County Texas.

Following the victory of the RUP in municipal elections in Crystal City and Cotulla, the party grew and expanded to other states, especially California and Colorado. In Colorado the RUP worked closely with Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales and the Crusade For Justice based out of Denver. In California the RUP spread throughout the state and held strong ground in the County of Los Angeles at one point with as many as 20 different chapters.

The novice city council was not very effective in implementing their goals, which damaged the party's reputation in the short-term. Much of the council's ineffectiveness was due to political and economic attacks by Anglo business and landowners in the surrounding counties and also attacks by both the Republican and Democratic parties. The accuracy or substance of those attacks is not dealt with here. Despite this the RUP continued to be active, however, and ran candidates for Governor of Texas, Ramsey Muniz in 1972 and Mario Compean in 1974. They petitioned Dr. Hector P. Garcia to run on the RUP ticket, but the conservative doctor refused. In 1972, they ran a candidate in a very competitive US Senate race in Colorado, Secundion Salazar, who received 1.4% of the vote.

During the late 1970s the La Raza Unida Party decided to change tactic from a "get out the vote" organization to a more community based, grassroots, Revolutionary Nationalist formation seeking the unity of all Chicano, Latino and Native American peoples of the Southwestern United States which is commonly referred to as Aztlan by proponents of the views of the Party, but not by non-Chicano, Latino and Native American peoples. During the same time Xenaro Ayala was voted in as National Chairman a post he holds presently.

References

• Armando Navarro, Mexican American Youth Organization: Avant-Garde of the Movement in Texas (University of Texas Press, 1995)
• Armando Navarro, The Cristal Experiment: A Chicano Struggle for Community Control (University of Wisconsin Press, 1998)
• Armando Navarro, La Raza Unida Party: A Chicano Challenge to the U.S. Two Party Dictatorship (Temple University Press, 2000)

External links

• [1](Partido Nacional de La Raza Unida)
• Handbook of Texas Online: La Raza Unida Party
• La Raza Unida Organizing Committee (Albuquerque chapter, info about party history)
• Texas Raza Unida Party, 1974 state convention, Houston, Tex., September 21-22.