A Distinct Minority: LULAC, Mexican American Identity, and Presidential Policymaking, 1965–1972

Abstract

During the presidencies of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, Mexican American civil rights went from being an addendum to civil rights for African Americans to a stand-alone policy with a bureaucracy, federal programs, and an independent rationale. Ever since President Harry Truman accepted civil rights in the Democratic platform in 1948, federal policymakers and politicians tried to fit Mexican Americans, and other minority groups, into the civil rights mold they had carved out for blacks in the South. While subject to severe discrimination and disadvantage, Mexican Americans did not face the consistent statutory segregation and discrimination faced by blacks. Federal civil rights policy for Mexican Americans through the mid-1960s consisted of New Frontier and Great Society funding programs to which Mexican American organizations could apply for money to develop and carry out projects in their communities. By the end of Richard Nixon's first term, a federal bilingual education program was established, agencies and committees existed whose sole function was to coordinate Mexican American programs, and Mexican Americans were recognized by policymakers as a distinct minority group with unique needs that required particular federal remedies.