Chicano Movement

I.             Lucy Parsons was born around 1853 in Texas. She had an African American, Native American, and Mexican ancestry.   In the early life, she married to Albert Parsons who is white radical republican. However, their marriage was probably not legal in Texas because of the miscegenation laws. Therefore, Lucy and her husband moved to Chicago and started their political activities. Lucy’s husband was fired from job because she and her husband involved in the railroad strike. When Albert got fired, Lucy opened up a dress shop to support her husband and two children. As a young adult, Lucy and her husband involved in International Working Peoples’ Association by going on strike peacefully to stop long hour of working, cutting wages and bad working condition for the people of color. Her husband was accused of bombing and killing the four police officers during the strike. Lucy tried to raise money to save her husband; nonetheless the justice does not give her a chance and executed him. For the later life, Parsons continued her husband’s activities and she organized the industrial worker of the World (IWW) to find jobs for the Mexicans and other workers of color who are in poverty and unemployment. She died in the house-fire in 1942.
Graciela Olivarez is born in March 9, 1928.   She was born from the Spanish father and the Mexican-American mother. In the early life, she grew up in a small mining town of Arizona. Olivarez’s life was hard because she dropped out of high school after her junior year and moved the Phoenix. As a young adult, she started attending the Business College and worked in radio industry. Even though Olivarez became successful with her education, she had hard time with her marriage life. She got divorced with her husband in 1961. She had a son in 1959 which was right before her divorced. Despite of her failing marriage life, she continued to work in Choate Foundation in Phoenix. The focus of this foundation was to help Mexican-American...