Guest Column
LBJ’S ‘Great Society Ignited Hispanic Heritage Month
- By Kenneth Burt, Hispanic Link
- September, 2007
It took 403 years after immigrants from Spain first settled in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565 for the United States to proclaim Hispanic Heritage Week as an official annual national celebration.
In 1968, at the behest of Congress, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced the commemorative event, which was extended to a full month — from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 — 20 years later.
With deep roots in the Great Society and some successful campaigns to insert Latinos into presidential politics, the initiative differed from most others at the time by establishing an annual celebration, not a one-time event.
Co-sponsors of the Congressional Joint Resolution were predictably liberal for the most part. They included Edward R. Roybal of California and Henry B. González of Texas.
Also among them was George H. W. Bush, the current president’s father. The elder Bush was in the forefront of the Republican Party’s outreach efforts to Mexican Americans.
But President Johnson went way beyond symbolism. Johnson’s War on Poverty was the first serious effort to uplift economically disadvantaged Latinos. He started a host of federal programs, pumping money into job training and educational opportunities. He appointed a record number of Latinos to help oversee these programs, including Daniel Luevano as the Western states director of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO).
And for the first time, Johnson directed millions of dollars into Latino-run programs, such as Project SER, operated by the American GI Forum and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), and such California-based institutions as the Center for Employment Training (CET) and the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation (MAOF)
LBJ TAUGHT LATINO KIDS
Johnson’s special relationship with Latinos went back to his days in Texas. He taught Mexican American school children, and Spanish-surnamed voters provided the winning margin in his 1948 U.S. Senate election.
Shortly thereafter, Johnson helped Pvt. Felix Longoria find a permanent resting spot in the Arlington National Cemetery after a Texas cemetery refused to bury the World War II casualty because he “was Mexican.”
Given the controversy over Ken Burns’ initial exclusion of Latinos from his forthcoming PBS documentary on World War II, it is significant to note that Congress signaled out battlefield bravery in promoting Hispanic Heritage Month.
“The Spanish-surnamed population has contributed the highest proportion of Medal of Honor winners through acts of bravery and determination in the defense of our land,” declared the U.S. Senate.
Veterans played a central role in that era’s presidential politics and in the political appointments by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Before overseeing the War on Poverty, Daniel Luevano, a World War II veteran, served as Undersecretary of the Army, making him at the time the highest-ranked Latino in the federal government.
VETS NAMED TO LOCAL POSTS
Veterans were likewise represented at the local level. For example, President John F. Kennedy named Héctor Godínez as postmaster in Santa Ana, Calif. The national LULAC president had learned his leadership skills as a tank commander for General George Patton.
This nexus between politics and military service is best represented by Vicente Ximenes. In 1967, the president appointed Ambassador Ximenes to chair the newly created Inter-Agency Cabinet Committee on Mexican American Affairs. Winner of the Distinguished Flying Cross during World War II, Ximenes, of New Mexico, was formerly the national head of the GI Forum.
XIMENES STRESSED POLITICS
In an interview for my new book, The Search for a Civic Voice: California Latino Politics, Ximenes stressed the role of veterans in national politics. His tangible achievements included working with Congressman Roybal to enact the nation’s first bilingual education bill, which Johnson signed in January 1968.
He also stated that his most lasting contribution was placing Latino professionals and Latino issues into a federal government that had only started to recognize Hispanics.
Hispanic Heritage Month is a good time to honor the early trailblazers, many of whom served in World War II.
[Kenneth Burt is author of The Search for a Civic Voice: California Latino Politics (amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com). For more details, go to www.KennethBurt.com. Reach Burt at k.burt@sbcglobal.net.]
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