February 12, 2019
Bobby Verdugo and Yoli Ríos, East L.A. Walkouts (or Blowouts).
In Latino USA’s podcast, “Love & Walkouts” , it explores the East Los Angeles Walkouts or “Blowouts” where Latino American students sparked a Chicano movement to fight against corporal punishment, mistreatment of Latino students and culture. The podcast focused around two students, Bobby Verdugo and Yoli Ríos, who were seniors at Lincoln High in 1968 that faced the many abuses and errors in the 60’s and both became part of the movement and later fell in love and got married. I liked this topic because it showed a little love story through all the chaos that was happening around the time. I also liked how Yoli was able to motivate Bobby to go to football practice and regularly attend classes and to this day are still able to motivate others to fight for just rights. Another thing I liked was how Bobby knew the movement was for sure going to happen but he also acknowledged that there was going to be consequences and how he was able to overcome his fears and think about the future. A couple things I didn’t like were some of the reasons as to why the Latinos were punished which was for speaking Spanish or simply being seen as not worth the time to be taught by the teachers. I also didn’t like how after the school boards had interacted with the students and were willing to hear out their requests, nothing really ever happened after and corporal punishment was still going on even after the walkout.In an L.A. Times article, “East L.A., 1968: ‘Walkout!’ The day high school students helped ignite the Chicano power movement”, it tackles the East side High School movements of the Latino American students specifically at Garfield High School. It was on Tuesday, March 5, 1968 when the students at Garfield High started a walkout and later other East side High Schools started their movements as well such as Roosevelt and Lincoln. The protests were against “run-down campuses, lack of college prep courses, and teachers who were poorly trained, indifferent or racist.” About a week after a total of 22,000 students left class and started their movements. It was known as the “Chicano movement” which was a term coined by urbanized Latino Americans “as an emblem of ethnic pride, cultural awareness and a commitment to community.” The students were a great way of starting up a movement that would help transform the generations for Latino Americans. The article also talks about how The Chicano Youths for Community Action had became the Brown Berets and how a series of protests had followed soon after all the walkouts. I selected this article because it relates to the Walkout that were occurring in the late 60’s around the same time as the Lincoln High walkout with Bobby and Yoli. The article also talks more in depth about the other protests that were going on along with the walkout and how teachers and staff reflected on those earlier times of chaos. The article also talks about how some of the students went on to later become teachers and principals after the Chicano movement.
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