East L.A. walkouts

During the 1950s and 1960s, Chicanos took part in the national quest for civil rights, fighting court battles and building social and political movements. Chicano youth in particular became politicized, having taken advantage of many opportunities their parents never had. This became known as the Chicano movement, similar to the civil rights movement but for Chicano individuals battling for equality and power. In a radio interview, Moctesuma Esparza, one of the original walkout organizers, talked about his experiences as a high school student fighting for Chicano rights. Esparza first became involved in activism in 1965 after attending a youth leadership conference. He helped organize a group of Chicano teenagers, Young Citizens for Community Action. This group eventually evolved into Young Chicanos For Community Action, then later as the Brown Berets, still fighting for Chicano equality in California. The same conditions that led to these astronomical drop-out rates were the chief motive of the walkouts. Both faculty and administration were short-staffed, leading to 40-student classes and a school counselor with 4,000 students. Classroom materials, especially in history classes, painted over Chicano history. The school curricula were Eurocentric and students were taught only from white perspectives in American history while ignoring the racial differences in the country. The majority of teachers held their own students in belittling contempt. To improve these conditions, the students decided to organize. Esparza, Larry Villalvazo, and a few other UMAS members, along with teacher Sal Castro, helped organize hundreds of students to walk out of classes in the 1968 protests to highlight the conditions that they faced. As the protests grew, they gained the attention of the school board, which agreed to meet with students and listen to their demands. Castro was born in East Los Angeles and attended a high school in East Los Angeles in the early 1960s. She then went to attend UCLA, where she was approached by Sal Castro to attend a youth conference to bring young, educated Chicanos together and bring awareness of their fight and struggles. With David Sanchez, she was a founding member of the Brown Berets and also held meetings at their coffee shop, La Piranya. According to Sal Castro, "I knew both Vickie and David because both had attended one of the Camp Hess Kramer conferences and were impressive young people. As a result of their experiences at the conference, they became more political." Vickie Castro later said of these conferences, “This is where I got my voice. This is where my passion for justice was born in me. It changed my whole being.” == Walkouts ("Blowouts") ==

On March 1, 1968, the first students to walk out were from Wilson High School, located in East Los Angeles, an area heavily populated by working-class Mexican American families. At the time, Wilson had among the highest dropout rates of any LA-area high school with a graduation rate of 50%. Chicano students faced overcrowded classrooms, outdated textbooks, a lack of academic counseling and widespread discouragement from pursuing college. Though organizers had been planning for several months to stage walkouts to demonstrate against unsatisfactory conditions, the first blowout at Wilson was unplanned, precipitated by the principal cancelling a student-produced play that was deemed too risqué for the students to perform. In reality, the play tackled real social issues that many Chicano youth faced. Feeling silenced and disrespected, 200-300 students participated in walkout despite the disciplinary. The spontaneous act of resistance ignited momentum for the larger, organized protest that would spread across East Los Angeles. On March 5th, 1968, a more organized protest erupted at Garfield High School, where approximately 2,000 students walked out of class. Student activists had coordinated with community leaders and sympathetic teachers to prepare for action. This time, the walkout was deliberate and structured, including chants, prepared signs, and a public list of demands. When authorities attempted to block the protest by calling in police officers, it escalated tensions and drew greater media attention. By the end of the week, an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 students had walked out across seven high school campuses: Wilson, Garfield, Roosevelt, and Lincoln—where 75% of the student bodies were Chicano—as well as Belmont, Jefferson, and Venice in other parts of Los Angeles. The walkouts demonstrated the students' collective frustration and their growing political consciousness, influenced by the broader civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s. The students' timing was strategic: school funds from the state were based on daily student attendance. Organizers intentionally encouraged students to leave before homeroom attendance was taken, meaning that every absent student represented lost revenue for the school district. The goal was not only to physically demonstrate student dissatisfaction but also to apply financial pressure on school administrators and the Los Angeles Board of Education, forcing them to address the activists' demands. One of the most prominent figures to emerge from the movement was Vickie Castro, a political activist and former Roosevelt High School student. Castro had grown up experiencing firsthand the systemic neglect of Chicano students in LA schools. After graduating from UCLA, she noticed how few of her peers from East L.A. had made it to higher education. This realization fueled her passion for change. Castro became a founding member of the Brown Berets, a militant Chicano rights group inspired by the Black Panther Party. The Brown Berets advocated not just for educational reform, but also for farmworkers' rights, an end to police brutality, Chicano political representation, and opposition to the Vietnam War, which disproportionately conscripted young Mexican American men. Castro was a leading force in organizing the blowouts. On March 6, 1968, Castro entered Lincoln High School pretending to be applying for a teaching position. She quickly bombarded the school principal with questions to distract him while organizers entered the school. She then offered her car to pull down a chain-linked fence, which had been set up to prevent organizers from entering the school. == Student demands ==

Following the walkouts, participating students from the five East LA high schools were able to meet with the Los Angeles Board of Education. At this meeting, student leaders presented a list of thirty-nine demands that called for systemic reforms to address inequities in public education for Chicano students. • Class size must be reduced so teachers can devote more time to individual students. Team teaching should be used. • All bathrooms are to remain unlocked at all times. • Cafeteria menus should have more Mexican dishes, and mothers should be hired as kitchen staff and allowed to help prepare the food. ==Timeline==

March 1, 1968: Wilson High School was the first high school to have a walkout. About 300 students walked out, which was the catalyst for the East L.A Walkout. The administration attempted to create a blockade in the main exit, but resilient students found the auditorium door and exited the school through its entry gates. Other students protested from the inside by throwing fruit, books, and other items over the gate to show support. Policemen showed up to the scene to force students back into classrooms, however, students refused until demands were met. March 5, 1968: Garfield High School walked out—about 2,000 students were in attendance at this walkout. Some students from East L.A. junior high schools join the protests, as well. Students and community members immediately organized a protest around the Hall of Justice in Downtown LA to ask for the release of the LA 13. They were supported by Senator Robert Kennedy, Cesar Chavez, and Students for a Democratic Society. Only 12 of the 13 arrestee were released; Sal Castro, a teacher and key organizer of the walkouts, held the most charges and was held in detention the longest. June 2, 1968: Sal Castro was released on bail, but lost his teaching position at Lincoln High School due to the arrest. 2,000 people protested outside of the police station to demand he get his teaching position back. September–October 1968: Students and community members organized round-the-clock sit-ins at the LA Board office until Sal Castro could be reinstated for his teaching position. 35 supporters sat at the Board offices for eight days until they were arrested on October 2. ==Aftermath==

Many of the student organizers became prominent in their fields. Moctesuma Esparza, one of the thirteen charged with disrupting the schools, who became known as the East L.A. 13, later became a film producer. He helped recruit more Chicanos to Hollywood. Harry Gamboa Jr. became an artist and writer. Carlos Montes, a Brown Berets minister, was charged with arson at a hotel during the Chicano Moratorium protest against the Vietnam War; after fleeing the country, he eventually faced trial and was acquitted. Paula Crisostomo became a school administrator, where she continues to fight for reform. Vickie Castro was elected to the Los Angeles Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education. Carlos Muñoz, Jr., went on to a teaching and research career at the University of California, Berkeley. Carlos R. Moreno, who participated in the Camp Hess Kramer conference, went on to study law and eventually became a judge for the Supreme Court of California. Additionally, many films, documentaries, biographies, and more have been produced as a result of the walkouts; some of the projects contain a direct recounting of the Blowouts while others tell similar, loosely based stories. Some films include Stand and Deliver, Freedom Writers, and Precious Knowledge. The walkouts also inspired a massive cultural awakening among the Chicano/a community. Many Latinos who were forced to assimilate into the American lifestyle began to embrace their Chicano/a identity. This sparked the uptick in the creation of Chicano/a Studies. Universities like UCLA started a Mexican American Studies program, which is also known as Chicana/o Studies. Carlos Munoz Jr. played a key role in the creation of this program. Today, over 400 universities and colleges have programs studying Latina/os in the United States and their extensive history. As of 2019, the enrollment in Chicano studies at UCLA is still growing, increasing over 40% in just 18 months. ==See also==