Mexican-American workers have a long tradition of radical organizing, stretching back to the days of the Industrial Workers of the World and the mid-century Communist Party. And in 1968, with a longtime Communist Chicano family at the center, Mexican-American students in LA launched the largest student walkout in US history.
During the first week of March in 1968, more than fifteen thousand students walked out of their high schools in Los Angeles, kicking off the largest student walkout in US history. The students, mostly Mexican Americans, were fed up with a school system that had given them de facto segregation, English-only instruction, and irrelevant curricula. The walkout, coordinated by student committees at each school, demanded more Latino faculty members, better facilities, and educational material that spoke to Mexican Americans’ diverse experience.
An East LA family named the Cuaróns were at the center of the walkout. Even before the events of March ’68, the Cuarón home had served as a meeting place for radicals. Mita Cuarón was a student at Garfield High School, so involved in organizing the walkout that the administration singled her out as a leader and school guards attacked her. Mita’s mother, Sylvia Cuarón, was one of the first parents down on the picket line to help support and protect the striking students. And her father, Ralph Cuarón, was elected as the students’ representative in subsequent negotiations with school administrators.
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