Before World War II
Overall, LULAC was consistently politically involved as it struggled to erase discriminatory laws and practices in the U.S. Southwest. Although it was a nonpartisan group, it encouraged members to vote for candidates who were supportive of the group’s ideals. During the 1930s, LULAC’s activities included voter-registration and petition drives, poll-tax repeal drives and litigation to improve the conditions of Mexican Americans. They also worked to improve education for Mexican Americans by conducting community-education campaigns and setting up a college scholarship program. These activities conformed with institutional structures already existing in the United States. A major event was the 1930 court case of Del Rio v. Salvatierra where LULAC sued Del Rio Independent School District for segregating Mexican Americans due to their race. Although it was not completely favorable in its ruling, the case made an important inroad for desegregation cases to come.
Read more about this topic: League Of United Latin American Citizens
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or war:
“Novelists are perhaps the last people in the world to be entrusted with opinions. The nature of a novel is that it has no opinions, only the dialectic of contrary views, some of which, all of which, may be untenable and even silly. A novelist should not be too intelligent either, although ... he may be permitted to be an intellectual.”
—Anthony Burgess (b. 1917)
“The dead have been awakened—shall I sleep?
The world’s at war with tyrants—shall I crouch?
The harvest’s ripe—and shall I pause to reap?
I slumber not; the thorn is in my couch;
Each day a trumpet soundeth in mine ear,
Its echo in my heart.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)