Fighting for Hemispheric Solidarity: The National Catholic Welfare Conference and the Quest to Secure Mexican American Employment Rights During World War II

Abstract

During World War II representatives of the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC) pursued an end to employment discrimination as part of its larger effort to instill a moral economy. The NCWC, acting as the representative body of U.S. Catholic bishops, served as the public voice of U.S. Catholics and an agent of the Church's public interests. By protecting the employment and economic rights of racial minorities, Catholic leaders believed that they could ameliorate racial inequality and bring about a new economic order. Prominent Catholics served as administrators in several wartime agencies, including the Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC), a federal agency that worked to address racial inequality in light of the wartime crisis. President Roosevelt's appointment of Monsignor Francis Haas (1889–1953) as FEPC chairman in 1943, offered a link to the work of the NCWC and provided an opportunity for Mexican American leaders such as Carlos E. Castaneda and Alonso Perales to make use of their identities as Catholics and Mexican Americans to advance wartime projects. Together, clergy and Mexican American lay leaders formed a cooperative network to end employment discrimination and advance civil rights.