The Chicano Movement

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In the 1970’s when Chicanos began to revolt and fight for what they believed in, there was a lot of violence happening. The riot in which there was “one resulting death, fifty injuries, and righty arrests demonstrates all the chaos and rioting that the Chicano community was experiencing. For many years Chicanos were considered the silent or forgotten majority. “This situation was to change dramatically in the mid- and late-1960s as an independent movement developed in response to the specific oppression of the Chicano people, which had a dynamic and revolutionary logic of its own”. Throughout this time there was also much progress occurring for the Chicanos. ‘They had rose from 652,879 in 1960 to 1,228,594 in 1970, an increase of almost 90 percent”, Chicanos were no longer becoming the minority but they were now becoming the majority. There was progress for the Chicano in school and in the work field. They were no longer ignored as they were in the past years. There were more Spanish-speaking teachers and more educational programs for the Chicanos. Although the Chicano community had advanced and was starting to receive more fair treatment, there was still a lot that needed to be done. There were no associations for Chicanos, and they were not really represented in congress either. In the 1960’s the advancement was noticeable and it was good for the Chicano community, but in the 1970’s the progress that had occurred had began to erode. Although progress in education had been made still only one fourth of the Latino population had a high school diploma. The jobs had became more available but they were very limited to the Chicano. They were being offered low paying jobs or agricultural jobs. The Chicano community was very underrepre...

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...style of music was still having influence on the Chicano musical expression.
During this era, as Chicano music was trying to become more popular, it just want happening. Certain factors were not allowing for that to happen, a big part of the Chicano music not reaching it’s popularity level was the fact that R&B music and African American performers were more popular. Companies did not trust the Chicano music in the sense that it they did not believe it would not sell so they stuck to the African Americans and R&B instead. Another big factor were the demographics, there was more blacks spread throughout the country, rather Chicanos were mainly in the Southwest area. Chicanos were having a big struggle when it came to getting their records on labels, they went through a lot of compromise that for the most part was not beneficial to them, but rather the record label.

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