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 well-known 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. The ashes of Corky Gonzales are scattered in Chicano Park in San Diego, according to the Chicano Park Steering Committee chairman, Tomasa Camarillo. The Chicanos consider the park to be “sacred”, as the first piece of reconquered land.

A Chongo is slur for the police and “vato” means “guy”. The “Comancheros” was a group that terrorized innocent ranchers, whom they claimed were living on land that belonged to them, based on original Spanish and Mexican land grants.

The followers of another co-founder, Reies Tijerina, shot two Hispanic law enforcement officers in a raid on a courthouse in Tierra Amarilla in New Mexico. They were attempting to kidnap the Hispanic District Attorney, who had vowed to bring him to justice. Tijerina wrote in his biography that his biggest enemies had always been other Hispanics, who wanted to live the American way of life. Tijerina was later diagnosed in prison as a psychopath.

One of the wounded officers was going to testify against him and he was brutally murdered shortly before the trial. They 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 thought fairly certain to have been Tijerina’s men who killed him to prevent him from testifying against Tijerina. See the book, “Tijerina and the Courthouse Raid” by Peter Nabokov for more information about Reies Tijerina