These are two excerpts from a speech made by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales in 1969 at UCLA, one of the four founders of the radical Chicano political movement. The “Mission” incident he talks about is apparently a then famous case, in which Chicanos killed a cop in the Mission District of San Francisco in 1969. The Chicanos were members of radical Chicano organizations, including the Brown Berets de Aztlan. See video description for a link.

These revolutionary ideas are still taught in Chicano studies classes in universities and high schools across the nation. Corky’s ashes are scattered around the Zapata statue are Chicano Park in San Diego, which makes the place “sacred” according to the Chicano Park Steering Committee chairman.

A Chongo is a cop and “vato” means “guy”. The “Comancheros” was a group that terrorized ranchers, whom they claimed were living on Chicano land.

The followers of another founder, Reies Tijerina, shot two law enforcement officers in a raid on a courthouse in Tierra Amarilla in New Mexico. They were trying to kidnap the District Attorney. One of the LEO’s was going to testify against him and he was killed shortly before the trial. They brutally beat him to death, put him in his vehicle and pushed it off a cliff into a ravine. They didn’t have enough evidence to charge anyone, but it was pretty certain to have been Tijerina’s men who killed him.