By José Angel Gutiérrez and Luz Bazán Gutiérrez, founders of La Raza Unida Party, Exclusive for El Magonista, January 15, 2020
La Raza Unida Party (RUP) was created shortly after negotiating a settlement between boycotting Chicano students and the Crystal City Independent School District Board of Trustees in early January 1970. The famous and successful boycott had begun on December 9, 1969.
A year prior older students, many of them brothers and sisters of the successful students, failed to initiate a boycott. Together, that experience and the new student leaders, made the 1969 boycott a tremendous success. More importantly, the need to set aside the settlement and focus on removing the school board trustees and overwhelming Anglo-dominated administration, faculty and support staff, took front and center as the number one priority.
A week later at the Salon Campestre, the favorite local dance hall on the outskirts of Crystal City, many parents and happy students, about 300, met to form La Raza Unida Party (RUP) so they could compete electorally for all government positions on the school board, city, county, community college, and state legislative and executive seats. La Raza Unida Party, (RU P) was incorporated by January 17, 1970 with the State of Texas.
Elected as first county leader of the RUP for Zavala County, Texas was Luz Bazan Gutierrez, my wife then. She and I were the organizers sent by the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) to establish and organize the Winter Garden Organizing Project, which we did.
Community groups were formed. In Cristal, as the Chicanos call our hometown, we organized Ciudadanos Unidos, and other similar names in Cotulla, Carrizo Springs, Pearsall, Robstown, San Juan, Harlandale and Edgewood school districts in San Antonio, and Anthony, Texas on the New Mexico/Texas border by El Paso. During the April 1970 elections for city and school boards in the three counties of La Salle (Cotulla), Dimmit (Carrizo Springs) and Zavala (Crystal City), the RUP ran 16 candidates and the RUP won 15 of these races.
The next month, two other RUP members were elected as County Commissioners in La Salle and Zavala County, Roel Rodriguez and Elena Diaz, respectively.
By September 1972, the RUP had spread and grown in 17 other states and the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.). The RUP was elected to govern other cities such as San Juan, Poteet, Anthony, and elected many more officials including a school board member, Frank Shafer Corona in Washington D.C.
Those elected officials and other members of the RUP from across the nation met in El Paso, Texas to form the National La Raza Unida Party. The RUP continue to win elective offices across Texas and the nation. The RUP candidates filled most positions in Zavala County. Jose Serna became the first Chicano Sheriff in our county, and I became the first Chicano County Judge. There were many others who won elective office.
The RUP was removed from the Texas ballot by Democrats; denied ballot status in California and Illinois; disqualified in New Mexico and Oregon. The RUP’s candidates were defeated in other states like Arizona and Colorado. Despite the legal status being denied and the RUP label removed from ballots, the idea that people of Mexican origin should govern themselves remained.
Ex-RUP members and their children, such as Ciro Rodriguez (Harlandale) and Roberto Alonzo (Crystal City), ran and were elected to the Texas House of Representatives. Raul Grijalva of South Tucson and Ciro Rodriguez went on to higher office and became U.S. Representatives as has Joaquin Castro, son of Rosie Castro, a RUP candidate in San Antonio.
The other twin brother, Julian, just made an impressive run for the Presidency of the United States. Today, Roberto Alonzo, from Crystal City is running for Texas Railroad Commissioner.
This is the historical legacy of the Raza Unida Party and the courageous people in Cristal, La Pryor, and Batesville of Zavala County, Texas who decided in 1970 to take the reins of political power and govern themselves.
This January 2020 is the 50th anniversary of that beginning.
Viva La Raza!
By José Angel Gutiérrez and Luz Bazán Gutiérrez, founders of La Raza Unida Party, Exclusive for El Magonista, January 15, 2020
