McCarthyism, Mexican Americans,and the Los Angeles Committee for Protection of the Foreign-Born, 1950–1954

Jeffrey M. Garcilazo

En este artículo, Jeffrey M. Garcilazo examina la formación y las actividades del Comité de Protección de los Nacidos en el Extranjero de Los Angeles durante la Era de McCarthy en los años cincuenta. El argumento trata sobre los esfuerzos del comité para proteger los derechos de los mexico-americanos de clase trabajadora en el sur de California y el resultado de este tipo de activismo. Al estar preparando la revisión de este ensayo, el autor sufrió un accidente médico que no le ha permitido terminar su trabajo. La Revista Western Historical Quarterly publica esta versión, la última que se recibió de Jeffrey M. Garcilazo, como reconocimiento de sus importantes contribuciones a la historia mexico-americana y del oeste.

In this article, Jeffrey M. Garcilazo examines the formation and activities of the Los Angeles Committee for the Protection of the Foreign-Born during the McCarthy Era in the 1950s. The argument concerns the committee's efforts to protect the rights of Mexican American working-class people in Southern California and the outcome of this activism. While preparing revisions for this essay, the author suffered a medical accident that prevented him from completing his work. The Western Historical Quarterly publishes this version, the last received from Jeffrey M. Garcilazo, as an acknowledgment of his important contributions to Mexican American and western history.

On the morning of 10 September 1948, Latin labor leader Luisa Moreno stood before the House Un-American Activities Committee in San Diego, California. Richard E. Coombs, chief counsel for HUAC asked Moreno: "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?" Before she replied, Coombs told her that if she did not cooperate, her application for citizenship would be rejected, and she would face deportation. Moreno proudly replied, "Citizenship . . . means a lot to me, but the Constitution of the United States means more."1Moreno declared her right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution and refused to answer questions. In so doing, she claimed the moral high ground before HUAC and marked the beginning of a new and important stage in the campaign to provide legal protection to the Mexican American working-class in Southern California.2

1

In response to this persecution, the Mexican American Left, and the Left in general, organized a variety of defense groups. The Los Angeles Committee for Protection of the Foreign-Born (LACPFB) emerged and assumed the mantle of leadership. It opposed politically driven deportations of all immigrant groups, but especially on behalf of Mexican Americans. This article examines the formation and activities of the LACPFB, and considers the way LACPFB functioned as a window to the past. I hope that this study will fill a gap in the literature on the history of the LACPFB and that it will enable readers' to better understand the impact of McCarthyism on the Mexican American community of Los Angeles. As a contribution to the revisionist literature of the Left in the postwar period, this article shows that the Communist Party(CP), while prominent, did not control or determine the direction and activities of the groups with which it worked. Along with white Left-leadership, Mexican Americans contributed to their own defense, and moreover, negotiated for control of their own defense organizations.3

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