In the midst of the Civil Rights activism of the 1960s, Latinos across the United States founded economic development organizations, eventually known as Community Development Corporations (CDCs), many of which have endured to this day. Mexican American and Puerto Rican and other Latino organizers and community leaders recognized the potential for establishing and directly controlling institutions dedicated to improving economic conditions in their neighborhoods. Leading the way among Mexican Americans, pioneering leaders Herman Gallegos, Ernesto Galarza, and Julian Samora incorporated an advocacy group named the Southwest Council of La Raza (SWCLR–now UnidosUS), in Phoenix with a satellite office in San Francisco. In 1968, during the planning and organizational phase SWCLR received a one-year Ford Foundation of $630,000 to support itself and the work of local Mexican American social actions groups. In 1969, under the leadership of Henry Santiesteban, the Council received another two-year award from the Ford Foundation of $1,353,700. Distributed to seven community development affiliates, including in Oakland, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Antonio, the resources funded many of the first initiatives in what became a thriving Latino CDC movement. Acting separately, other Latino groups, especially Puerto Ricans established social action groups on the east coast, especially Boston and New York.
These Latino groups created community based socioeconomic networks that today play an important role in promoting and sustaining the welfare of Latinos in the United States. Over time, leaders and their organizations developed sophisticated strategies for social service delivery and workforce development. They promoted affordable housing and learned about real estate markets to help their communities. Others secured lending for small business investment in Latino communities. Perhaps most importantly, some leaders and their organizations eventually found ways to accumulate assets for independent development projects in local communities. Overall, the Latino economic development movements worked for the greater good. They produced many positive political, cultural, and socioeconomic changes in Latino communities through development strategies based on local realities that have improved economic conditions and mobility in their communities. What follows are thumbnail sketches of the organizations that formed in the 1960s, along with various multimedia treatments identified by our research team.
In 1964, Mexican American Unity Council in Oakland, California, under the leadership of Arabella Martínez, a young activist originally from New Mexico who had cut her teeth with War on Poverty programs, merged with a number of other local organizations to form the Spanish Speaking Unity Council. The Unity Council initially provided social services in Alameda County and then with Ford Foundation funds moved into developing affordable housing and founded a small Savings and Loan institution. Throughout its existence, the Unity Council has promoted social equity and quality of life in Latino communities in Alameda County and in Oakland’s Fruitvale district.
In 1965, Organization for Business, Education and Community Advancement (O.B.E.C.A), in San Francisco’s Mission District began its work under the leadership of social justice activists, Leandro Soto, Herman Gallegos and James McAlister. While working with San Francisco’s Mission Coalition Organization (MCO), in 1967, Gallegos, along with Soto converted OBECA into a stronger organization called Arriba Juntos. The organization provided resources and services to an increasingly large number of Latino immigrants moving into what was before a primarily Irish and German working-class neighborhood. This included adequate housing and education, improved employment opportunities, reliable childcare, and health care. (See “MCO and Latino Community Formation”)
In 1965, Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (IBA, or the Puerto Rican Tenants Association) formed to support tenets in the Puerto Rican barrio in South Boston. Israel Feliciano, Rev. William Dwyer, Helen Morton and Phil Bradley organized this grassroots initiative to oppose a Boston Redevelopment Authority plan to tear down existing housing to make room for new housing that local residents could not afford. Their motto became “No nos mudaremos de la parcela 19” (“We will not be moved from Parcel 19”). In 1968, the group incorporated under the name Emergency Tenant’s Council of Parcel 19, Inc. (ETC) and developed a model housing project called Villa Victoria. Going forward, under its new name, IBA, collaborating with other organizations and ethnic communities, built affordable housing and provided services and skills that prepared residents to manage their housing and their futures.
In 1965, United Migrant Outreach Services (UMOS), an ecumenical group of Christian social activists, concerned with the social and economic condition of Wisconsin’s agricultural migrants, organized to provide assistance to this population. Within UMOS, a controversy arose over how many Latinos and non-Latinos UMOS employed and in 1968, farmworker activists Jesus Salas and Salvador Sánchez, along with Ernesto Chacon and Dante Navarro, demanded that migrants themselves have a central role in UMOS administration. Also demanding that Anglo-led UMOS expand migrant services, protest low wages, and fight against workplace and housing discrimination, these Mexican American activists took control of the organization. Salas became the new director and relocated its headquarters to a building purchased with Office of Economic Opportunity funds close to the largest population of Mexicans in the Wisconsin. In addition to helping migrants, UMOS began providing legal advice, housing assistance, bilingual drivers’ education, and family planning clinics to city residents.
In 1967, Chicanos Por La Causa (CPLC), a young group of Latino activists, led by Joe Lopez, Alfredo and Gustavo Gutiérrez, Terri Cruz and others set out to improve quality life for Mexican Americans living in Phoenix. Encouraged to organize personally by César Chavez, they developed bilingual housing referral services for low income barrios in South and Central Phoenix and with aid of grants from the Ford Foundation, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and local financial institutions, in the following years CPLC expanded its programs to include economic and workforce development in addition to housing and counseling.
In 1967, Mexican American Unity Council (MAUC) emerged from the activism of the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO)founded in San Antonio’s westside barrio. Originally led by Jose Angel Gutierrez and Willie Velazquez, others, like Juan Patlan and Mario Compean continued the work when Gutierrez and Velazquez went on to found the Raza Unida Party and Southwest Voter Registration Project. Led by Patlan, MAUC offered social services in the barrio and developed affordable housing with funds from the Ford Foundation and the federal government.
In 1968, The East Los Angeles Community Union (TELACU) grew out of a fairly limited social service agency under the auspices of a Los Angeles-area local of the United Auto Workers Union (UAW). Modeled loosely on similar efforts in community organization attempted by the UAW and other labor unions, TELACU’s directors received federal funds to support small scale start-up programs in East Los Angeles ranging from summer camps for underprivileged youth, volunteer assistance to elderly residents, and job training programs. In 1970, led by local activist Esteban Torres, TELACU moved from social services delivery to economic development activities beginning with a grant from the Ford Foundation through the SWCLR to develop affordable housing.
In the 1970s, these organizations, and other new ones, expanded their activities and services. Although not without economic, leadership, and other challenges and controversies, they persisted with their vision of improving living conditions in Latino barrios across the country.
