1.
The history of racial tensions in California can be traced to the stress experienced at the time foreigners (Spaniards) forcefully took the native lands and established mission schools, introduced foreign crops and used locals as farm workers. The zoot suit riots instigated in Los Angeles during the period when the racial tensions were between European-American servicemen placed in Southern California and Mexican-American population located in Los Angeles (Starr, 308). The European-American servicemen disliked the sight of Latinos socializing in clothing that they considered unpatriotic and extravagant during wartime. The riots took place in 1943 during the Second World War and it also involved some African Americans and Filipinos. The riots triggered similar incidents in Texas, San Diego, Philadelphia, Detroit and New York.
2.
The United Farm workers of America (UFW) organization was an outcome of the efforts of migrant and immigrant Filipino and Mexican farm works who initiated the farm workers movement. The social phenomena that developed in the 1960’s struggled for improved labor and living conditions as articulated by emerging rights based consciousness symbolizing a new vision for Filipino and Chicano-American identity (Starr, 216). What originally begun as a battle to organize farm workers, broadened to include the national media to air their struggles to a broader public under the leadership of Cesar Chavez. In the social context, the organization used art and symbols to express complex ideas and created a cohesive and popular movement linked to the nationalism and ethnicity of the majority of farm workers. They used a logo composed of the eagle’s head from Mexican flag symbolically linking the farm workers’ struggle to Mexican national identity. Politically, the UFW campaigns aimed for legal reforms citing 1975 when the movement headed a coalition that successfully lobbied for the Agricultural Labor Relations Act that gave American workers a legal right to organize and provided strategy for the movement’s legal protection and legitimacy. As a cultural movement, UFW transformed into a long term and large scale institution that has over the years improved the loving and labor conditions of farm workers across the state, advancing combined negotiating and winning authorized reforms.
3.
During the 20th century, California developed at an alarming rate following entertainment, agriculture and oil industries that attracted millions of people. Immigration and racial tensions that was rampant in California greatly contributed to the social and political conflict that characterized the state at the turn of the 21st century. Major factors of conflict were resource allocation (land, water and social amenities) and social classes determined by ones race. The Watts riots that lasted 6 days took place in the watts neighborhood to at least 30 deaths, over one thousand injuries, approximately 3, 500 arrests and over forty million dollars in property damage. The riot was as a result of the movement of African American Population to northern cities like New York and Detroit to avoid racial bigotry and segregation, violence and Jim Crow laws that were rampant in the southern states. After several decades, other African Americans migrated to the west coast in an effort to protect themselves from the defense industry recruitment to participate in the Second World War. This led to the creation of an outstanding African American population to the general public by the year 1965 (Starr, 309). The riot is recorded in several history books as the most severe in the city until the Los Angeles riots of 1992. The Los Angeles riots were characterized by lootings civil disturbance and arson as African Americans were protesting against a filmed and extensively covered police force brutality incident. After the riots, authorities took significant actions including analysis of the general economic and political atmosphere that triggered the riots, retrial of the police officers involved in the case protested and recruitment of more minority police officers.
4.
The free speech movement (FSM) wave began in 1964 at the University of California when the students struggled to protect civil rights and was later fueled by resistance to the Vietnam War. It ignited an exceptional wave of student involvement and activism. The FSM emerged as students demanded their right to academic and free speech freedom (Starr, 329). Despite the disturbance caused by the phenomenon, the university officials allowed for the establishment of provisional rules for political activity, a reform that is still present in universities across the state. The movement was a pivotal moment for civil liberties movement.
Works cited
Starr, Kevin. California: A History. New York: Modern Library, 2007.
