Educational Issues Coordinating Committee: Championing Chicano Rights Through Education Reform

In the late 1960s, East Los Angeles faced a school system deeply rooted in racism. The Mexican American community had the highest high school dropout rate and the lowest college attendance among any ethnic group. Poor facilities and constant underestimation of student capabilities by teachers created an atmosphere hostile to learning. In response to these oppressive conditions, students, activists, and teachers united to address the situation, leading to the formation of the Educational Issues Coordinating Committee (EICC).

The Genesis of Protest: The East L.A. Walkouts

The East Los Angeles Walkouts, also known as the Chicano Blowouts, were a series of protests in 1968 by Chicano students against unequal conditions in Los Angeles Unified School District high schools. The first walkout occurred on March 5, 1968. The students who organized and carried out the protests were primarily concerned with the quality of their education.

Seeds of Discontent

Chicano youth in particular became politicized, having taken advantage of many opportunities their parents never had. The oppressive conditions coupled with the inability to make changes compelled students, activists, and teachers to meet and discuss the situation. They decided that making their plight public was the best way to pressure the school board into compliance with their demands for education reform.

Key Figures and Organizations

Teacher Sal Castro, along with student leaders such as Paula Crisostomo, college students like Moctesuma Esparza, and groups such as United Mexican American Students (UMAS) and the Brown Berets, played pivotal roles in organizing the walkouts. Vickie Castro, a founding member of the Brown Berets, also played a leading female role in the walkouts.

Moctesuma 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, which eventually evolved into Young Chicanos For Community Action, then later as the Brown Berets, still fighting for Chicano equality in California. At the same time, he and 11 friends started a group called United Mexican American Students (UMAS), whose goal was to increase Chicano enrollment in colleges. Soon, UMAS shifted its strategy by splitting up into smaller groups, with each group to mentor students at the L.A. high schools with both high minority enrollment and high drop-out rates.

Triggering the Blowouts

Wilson High principal Donald Skinner canceled a student production of Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park,” citing it as too risqué for a Mexican American audience. In reality, the play tackled real social issues that many Chicano youth faced. The incident was enough to prematurely trigger the walkouts.

The Walkouts Commence

Although Wilson was not one of the original three schools intending to walk out, 300 students there walked out on March 1, 1968. The administration had senior students blockade the main exit, but resilient students found the auditorium door. They pushed the school entry gates back and forth, as students inside demonstrated by throwing fruit, books and more over the gate. Policemen and photographers showed up on the scene as the students were told to return to class. Some refused, forming sit-ins and rallies. As a symbol of the walkouts, students wore the image of a foot on their clothes. They said they would not return to class until their demands were met.

On March 5, two thousand students walked out of Garfield High. They were met by policemen and an angry administration. The next day 2700 students walked out carrying leaflets on education reform. They continued to walk out on the 7th and the 8th. As planned, Roosevelt High School walked out next on March 6. The principal locked the gate, but determined students climbed over the fence only to be met by police, who beat the students. On March 8, Belmont High students attempted to walk out, but found their school invaded by police. After walking out March 8, 10-15 thousand students from the main five East LA schools, adding Lincoln and Jefferson, held a 9 AM rally at Hazard Park.

Strategic Disruption

Los Angeles public schools are paid based on the number of students in class each day. Funds for Los Angeles public schools were allocated based on the number of students in each class each day. By walking out of homeroom before attendance was taken, the students could target the schools financially. An ad hoc committee, UMAS, and college students established Blowout committees at Roosevelt, Lincoln and Garfield high schools, plus a central coordinating committee. Their meetings were almost always infiltrated by plainclothes policemen.

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.

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Demands for Change

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 curriculums were Eurocentric and students were taught only from white perspectives in American history while ignoring the racial differences in the country. Most of the Chicanos have never had it so good. Before the Spanish came, he was an Indian grubbing in the soil, and after the Spaniards came, he was a slave.

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.

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 Latinx students. Some of those demands included:

In-service education programs will be instituted immediately for all staff in order to teach them the Spanish language and increase their understanding of the history, traditions, and contributions of the Mexican culture.
All administrators in the elementary and secondary schools in these areas will become proficient in the Spanish language. Participants are to be compensated during the training period at not less than $8.80 an hour, and upon completion of the course, will receive, in addition to their salary, not less than $100.00 a month.
Bilingual Bi-cultural education will be compulsory for Chicanos in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where there is a majority of Chicano students.
Administrators and teachers who show any form of prejudice toward Mexican or Chicano students, including failure to recognize, understand, and appreciate Mexican culture and heritage, will be removed from East Los Angeles schools.
society and to show the injustices that Mexicans have suffered as a culture of that society.
All administrators where schools that have a majority of Chicano descent shall be of Chicano descent.
Every teacher's ratio of failure per student in his classroom shall be made available to community groups and students.
Class size must be reduced so teachers can devote more time to individual students.
Students must not be grouped into slow, average, and rapid ability groups and classes based on the poor tests currently in use that often mistake a language problem with lack of intelligence.
Schools should have a manager to take care of paperwork and maintenance supervision.
School facilities should be made available for community activities under the supervision of Parents' Councils (not PTA).
Community parents will be engaged as teachers' aides.
The Industrial Arts program must be revitalized. Students need proper training to use the machinery of modern-day industry. Up-to-date equipment and new operational techniques must replace the obsolescent machines and outmoded training methods currently being employed in this program.
New high schools in the area must be immediately built. The new schools will be named by the community. At least two Senior High Schools and at least one Junior High School must be built.
Library facilities will be expanded in all East Los Angeles high schools. At present, the libraries in these high schools do not meet the educational needs of the students.

The Educational Issues Coordinating Committee (EICC)

Chicano students, parents, professors, and community members formed the Educational Issues Coordinating Committee (EICC) as their representative voice.

Formation and Purpose

After a week of protests, the LA Board of Education set a meeting for March 11. At the meeting, the EICC asked for amnesty for all students involved in the walkouts as well as a community meeting to discuss the needed education reform. The Board agreed and the students returned to school. 1,200 people attended the community meeting held at Lincoln High on March 28. The EICC presented the original 36 demands. Although the Board claimed to agree with the needed changes, they cited a lack of funds to follow through.

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Repression and Resistance

On March 31, thirteen of the walkout organizers were arrested for conspiracy to disturb schools and the peace, a felony charge. Included in the LA 13 were Sal Castro and Moctesuma Esparza. Sympathizers began demonstrations to release the LA 13 immediately. Students and community members held picket lines in front of the Hall of Justice downtown. They were supported by Black nationalists, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Senator Robert Kennedy, and Cesar Chavez. On June 2, over 2,000 supporters rallied at the Central Police station as Sal Castro was released on bail. However, he could not resume teaching until cleared of the charges. Activists demanded that the Board reinstate him. They began sit-ins at the Board office. 35 supporters sat there for eight days until they were arrested on October 2. On October 3, Castro was reinstated.

Aftermath and Legacy

Organizations began to fall apart after the refocus on the LA 13. Students became disillusioned with the original demands. The Board did begin to recruit and hire more Chicano teachers and administrators. Change was not immediately apparent in the high schools; however a significant change occurred in the college recruitment of Latinos. Although most of the demands were not met, the walkouts unified and empowered the Chicano community, which in the process became a political force.

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.

The student actions of 1968 inspired later protests that used similar tactics, including the 1994 student walkouts against California Proposition 187, the 2006 student walkouts against H.R. 4437, the 2009 walkouts against Arizona's SB1070, and the 2007 walkouts in support of the proposed Cesar Chavez holiday. 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 of these media projects include Stand and Deliver, Freedom Writers, Precious Knowledge, Racism on Trial by Ian F.

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 California State University, Los Angeles, 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 at the State University. Today, there are over 400 universities and colleges that have programs studying Latina/o in the United States and their extensive history. According to Dolores Delgado Bernal, the California State University, Los Angeles, Chicana/o Studies Department Chair, it's been said, “The number of students majoring in Chicano Studies has grown almost 40% over the past 18 months…”

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