Click on each headline to expand content for each resource or expand/contract all.
From Teaching Tolerance a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
This timeline documents dozens of key Latino civil rights events between 1903 and 2006.
When reading this timeline, it's important to remember that the fight for civil rights doesn't happen in a vacuum. In many cases, the events listed below have fueled – and have been fueled by – other social justice movements, like the African American Civil Rights Movement and the fight for equal employment and education among Chinese and Japanese immigrants.
The Latino civil rights struggle did not begin in 1903 and will not end in September 2006. Watch the news and listen to politicians, and you will see the fight for equal rights for ALL people is not over.
Sources: National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, the Hispanic Heritage Plaza at HispanicOnline, PBS and A History of the Mexican-American People by Julian Samora and Patricia Vandel Simon.
1903 In Oxnard, Calif., more than 1,200 Mexican and Japanese farm workers organize the first farm worker union, the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association (JMLA). Later, it will be the first union to win a strike against the California agricultural industry, which already has become a powerful force.
1904 The U.S. establishes the first border patrol as a way to keep Asian laborers from entering the country by way of Mexico.
1905 Labor organizer Lucy Gonzales Parsons, from San Antonio, Texas, helps found the Wobblies, the Industrial Workers of the World.
1910 The Mexican Revolution forces Mexicans to cross the border into the United States, in search of safety and employment.
1911 The first large convention of Mexicans to organize against social injustice, El Primer Congreso Mexicanista, meets in Laredo, Texas.
1912 New Mexico enters the union as an officially bilingual state, authorizing funds for voting in both Spanish and English, as well as for bilingual education. Article XII of the state constitution also prohibits segregation for children of "Spanish descent." At the state's constitutional convention six years earlier, Mexican American delegates mandated Spanish and English be used for all state business.
1914 The Colorado militia attacks striking coal miners in what becomes known as the Ludlow Massacre. More than 50 people are killed, mostly Mexican Americans, including 11 children and three women.
1917 Factories in war-related industries need more workers, as Americans leave for war. Latinos from the Southwest begin moving north in large numbers for the first time. They find ready employment as machinists, mechanics, furniture finishers, upholsterers, printing press workers, meat packers and steel mill workers.
1917 The U.S. Congress passes the Jones Act, granting citizenship to Puerto Ricans under U.S. military rule since the end of the Spanish-American War.
1921 San Antonio's Orden Hijos de América (Order of the Sons of America) organizes Latino workers to raise awareness of civil rights issues and fight for fair wages, education and housing.
1921 The Immigration Act of 1921 restricts the entry of southern and eastern Europeans. Agricultural businesses successfully oppose efforts to limit the immigration of Mexicans.
1927 In Los Angeles, the Confederación de Uniones Obreras Mexicanas (Federation of Mexican Workers Union-CUOM) becomes the first large-scale effort to organize and consolidate Mexican workers.
1928 Octaviano Larrazolo of New Mexico becomes the first Latino U.S. Senator.
1929 Several Latino service organizations merge to form the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). The group organizes against discrimination and segregation and promotes education among Latinos. It's the largest and longest-lasting Latino civil rights group in the country.
1931 The country's first labor strike incited by a cultural conflict happens in Ybor City (Tampa), Fla., when the owners of cigar factories attempt to get rid of the lectores, people who read aloud from books and magazines as a way to help cigar rollers pass the time.