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Narrated Photo Essay: Devra Weber on The Chicano Movement's Multi-Generational Nature

CSRC_LaRaza_B2F5C1_Staff_017 Protestors at the Roosevelt High School strike | La Raza photograph collection. Courtesy of UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
In East Los Angeles during the late 1960s and 1970s, a group of young activists used creative tools like writing and photography as a means for community organizing, providing a platform for the Chicano Movement in the form of the bilingual newspaper.
La Raza

Artbound "La Raza" is a KCETLink production in association with the Autry Museum of the American Westand UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center.

In the 1960s and 70s, a group of young idealists-activists came together to work on a community newspaper called La Raza that became the voice for the Chicano Movement. With only the barest resources, but a generous amount of dedication, these young men and women changed their world and produced an archive of over 25,000 photographs. Hear their thoughts on the times and its relevance today, while perusing through some photographs not seen in public for decades in this series of narrated slideshows.

Click right or left to look through the images from the 1960s and 70s. Hit the play button on the bottom right corner to listen to the audio.

CSRC_LaRaza_B14F11S4_N012 Young boys raise their fists while holding newspapers in support of Raul Ruiz for California's 48th State Assembly District | Manuel Barrera Jr., La Raza photograph collection. Courtesy of UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
CSRC_LaRaza_B14F11S4_N012 Young boys raise their fists while holding newspapers in support of Raul Ruiz for California's 48th State Assembly District | Manuel Barrera Jr., La Raza photograph collection. Courtesy of UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
1/16 Young boys raise their fists while holding newspapers in support of Raul Ruiz for California's 48th State Assembly District | Manuel Barrera Jr., La Raza photograph collection. Courtesy of UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
1/16 Young boys raise their fists while holding newspapers in support of Raul Ruiz for California's 48th State Assembly District | Manuel Barrera Jr., La Raza photograph collection. Courtesy of UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center

Narrated Photo Essay: The Chicano Movement's Multi-generational Nature

Devra Weber

I'm Devra Weber, and in the late 60s and early 70s, I was passionate, excited about things, involved with things, curious and enthusiastic. One of the things that struck me then and still does is how much it was multigenerational, so that you had people who had been active in the issues for unions and civil rights in the 1930s — people who were parents, older siblings, cousins, and so those things mattered.

Hear more from the other photographers here.

Top Image: Protestors at the Roosevelt High School strike | La Raza photograph collection. Courtesy of UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center

Audio mix by: Michael Naeimollah