This time-line will help you understand the relationship between music and the society.

Introduction

The Chicano civil rights movement in California peaked in the 1960s. Responding to decades of second-class citizenship, Mexican American youth, inspired by the African American civil rights movement and national independence movements in Latin America and the Third World, organized to demand better education and employment opportunities. “Chicano” and “Chicana” replaced the term “Mexican American” as symbols of self-determination and cultural pride.   

1935-1939: Mass deportation and repatriation of Mexicans living in the United States

1940: United States enters World War II—Mexican Americans serve in all branches of the military
          Carmen Miranda begins U.S. film career

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.  

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.

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: WWII 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 of 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 WWII, American attitudes toward hiring Mexican farm labor again became more restrictive. In response to the influx of undocumented workers 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 Mexican 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 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 Battista regime in Cuba

1962-1965: César Chávez, Dolores Huerta and the United Farm Workers
Chávez and 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 farm-workers. Inspired by Mahatma Ghandi, 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 farm-worker contracts.  

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

1968: Brown Berets/East LA Walkouts
Using their uniforms to express “Brown Pride,” the “Brown Berets” were young Mexican American social 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 public schools students walked out of class the first week of March in protest of the inferior educational conditions in the school system.

1968: Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated
          James Brown records “I’m Black and I’m Proud”

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 20,0000 protesters, resulting in 150 arrests, sixty-one injuries and three deaths, including high-profile journalist Ruben Salazar.  

1970: “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