History Colorado

Land Rights and Recognition of Place

Staff of Life by Emanuel Martinez, 1976, Acrylic on cement, donated by Chicano/a Murals of Colorado Project

Mestizos

El Movimiento Sigue (the Movement Continues) in Colorado

Largest Hispano and Mexican Neighborhood in Denver

The Art of the Chicano Movement was an effort to continue the tradition of storytelling to describe a non-Western narrative of Mestizaje--mixed heritage--ancestry, history, and culture through poetry, theatre, dance, art, and public art, specifically murals in Chicano neighborhoods.  Chicano artists embraced their Indigenous ancestry by incorporating traditional storytelling, pictography, and symbolism in their art.

Art & Culture

Chicanos had grown angry with their history being left out and with racism in schools. By the 1960s and ‘70s, as students demanded equal treatment, schools became battlegrounds across the state. 

Student Movements

Inspired by the Mexican Mural Movement in the mid-1900s, young Chicano artists began to paint murals in historically marginalized neighborhoods.  Emanuel Martinez, pioneer of the mural movement in Colorado, began painting murals in the La Alma Lincoln Park Neighborhood in 1969.  Resident of the Lincoln Housing Projects, Emanuel, with the assistance of youth in the community, painted murals on the swimming pool buildings in various Denver parks and in the Lincoln housing projects.  The murals gave the community a sense of space and served as historical textbooks describing the rich history of Black, Indigenous, Hispanos, Chicanos, Mexicans, and others in Colorado. 

The Chicano Mural Movement

Digging sugar beets, cutting lettuce, and picking fruit: all are grueling tasks. Factory work can be equally hard. Relegated to the worst jobs, people of Mexican descent toiled for long hours under terrible working and living conditions.

Farm Workers and Labor

The Bracero Program

Vietnam War

Beginning in the 1690s, the Spanish gave large tracts of land to individuals or groups in New Mexico.  The Spanish settlers were isolated and had limited access to goods from Mexico City and became increasingly dependent on trade with Puebloan groups and other Indigenous tribes.  The settlers, also known as Hispanos, established distinct traditions and customs in the Spanish Empire’s Northern Frontier.  After Mexico won their independence from Spain in 1821, Mexico granted land to Mexican citizens in the present-day states of Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California. The land grants were meant to encourage settlement in Mexico’s northern boundary, where the United States was also interested in expanding. Hundreds of land grants were given out, mostly by the Mexican government to Hispanos and Mexicans.

Land Grants

A community advisory committee helped develop El Movimiento: The Chicano Movement in Colorado. The exhibit shares the story from their point of view, in their voices. History Colorado is honored to work with the committee, people who stood up for human rights at the height of the Movement in the 1960s and ‘70s, and who continue the fight for education and equality.

The Chicano Movement—El Movimiento—changed lives. Years of racism and discrimination that kept Mexican Americans poor, marginalized, and often invisible would not be tolerated anymore. The battle for justice and equality intensified in the 1960s and ‘70s, particularly in Colorado. 
Chicanos demanded better working conditions, housing, education, and representation. They called for an end to war in Vietnam. In cities, they stood up against police brutality; in rural areas, they fought to reclaim land. El Movimiento forced change, and the struggle continues.




Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program 1942-1964

Colorado Chicano Movement History: Portal 

The Wonderful World of the Chicano Experience

Chicano Murals in Colorado: The First Decade

Su Teatro: Cultural & Performing Arts Center

When a Colorado governor declared martial law and blocked poor New Mexicans at the border

La Gente: El Movimiento/The Movement

Civics and Government

Social Studies

U.S. History

World History

In the 1960s and ‘70s, Chicanos and others in the western United States demanded basic workers’ rights: dignity, safety, and livable wages. Activists organized boycotts, protested companies that discriminated against workers, created and joined unions, and went on strike.

Digital copy of a film negative taken by photographer Juan Espinosa circa 1973, depicting an unidentified man, likely one of the grape workers who went on strike in California to protest unfair labor practices by the E. & J. Gallo wine company. Espinosa likely made this image during the summer of 1973 while he was on the staff of "El Malcriado," the newspaper of the United Farm Workers (UFW).

Negative, Grape worker

Coors symbolizes Colorado. And in the 1960s and ’70s, it represented racism and sexism to some. Like many companies, Coors employed few Chicanos, and they only worked low-level jobs. As a University of Colorado regent, Joseph Coors opposed the Educational Opportunity Program for Chicanos and others. The American GI Forum started the Coors boycott. Support from the Brown Berets and the Black Panthers meant that many people stopped buying Coors—in Colorado and across the nation.

Digital copy of an original film negative taken by photographer Juan Espinosa, depicting a young Chicano boy holding a sign that reads "Chicanos Boycott Coors." The image was taken during a 1973 march in Denver to protest unfair hiring practices against Chicanos by Coors Brewing Company.

Negative, Young boy during the boycott against Coors Brewing Company

Chicano activists organized Hecho y Dicho to fight for rights of lettuce workers near the town of Center in 1970. The union demanded higher wages ($2 per hour instead of $1.40), an end to abusive working conditions, and employer recognition of the organization.

College students around Colorado boycotted lettuce and went on hunger strikes to support striking workers.

Digital copy of a film negative made by photographer Juan Espinosa, depicting a parade on Pearl Street in Boulder, Colo. in the summer of 1972 to protest labor practices used by the lettuce industry with Hispanic migrant workers. The boycott was organized by the United Farmer Workers, and the banner in the parade was carried by children attending a summer school for children of migrant laborers.

Negative, Lettuce boycott march in Boulder

High humidity, damp dirty floors and dangerous equipment caused illness and injury at the Kitayama Rose and Carnation Plant in Brighton. Workers toiled nine- to ten-hour shifts with few breaks and no overtime pay. Employees, mostly women, formed the National Floral Workers Organization in 1968. When the company ignored demands for better working conditions and pay, the workers went on strike for 221 days.


Digital copy of a film negative taken by photographer Juan Espinosa, documenting labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez (1927-1993) speaking at the Constitutional Convention of the United Farm Workers (UFW) in Fresno, California in September 1973. The image was taken while Espinosa was on the staff of the UFW newspaper, "El Malcriado."

Resource Kits

Object Library

Museums

La Gente: El Movimiento/The Movement

Farm Workers and Labor

Background Knowledge

Activists Stand Up For Rights In Fields And Factories