Viva Kennedy

by Garcia, Ignacio M.

• ISBN13: 9780890969175
• ISBN10: 0890969175
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-03-01
• Publisher: Texas A & M Univ Pr

Summary

For a few brief months during the presidential campaign of 1960, Mexican Americans caught a glimpse of their own Camelot in the promise of John F. Kennedy. Grassroots "Viva Kennedy Clubs" sprang up not only in the southwestern United States but also across California and the upper Midwest to help elect the young Catholic standard bearer. The leaders of the Viva Kennedy Clubs were confident and hopeful that their participation in American democracy would mark the beginning of the end of discrimination, violence, and poverty in the barrio.

Although the dream of attaching their own Camelot to Kennedy's ultimately ended in disappointment, these participatory efforts contributed to an identity-building process for Mexican Americans that led to greater emphasis on Americanization for some and to the more radical rhetoric of the Chicano Movement for others.

In Viva Kennedy Ignacio M. Garcia surveys the background, development, and evolution of the Viva Kennedy Clubs and their post-election incarnation as PASO, the Political Association of Spanish-Speaking Organiza

Author Biography

Ignacio M. Garcia is an associate professor of history at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	viii
Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	3	(10)
The Fifties: No Happy Days for Mexicans	13	(20)
Organizing the Viva Kennedy Clubs	33	(27)
Camelot, Mexican American Style	60	(25)
La Campana: Electing JFK	85	(19)
Election Results: Appointments and Disappointments	104	(19)
A PASO Forward	123	(37)
Demise of Camelot: The Search Continues	160	(21)
Notes	181	(26)
Bibliography	207	(12)
Index	219