What Were the Latino Urban Riots?

This week, I am issuing an apology on behalf of myself and the podcast. In the previous 90 episodes of this show, we have discussed slavery, the African American experience, immigration, Asian American and Native American history numerous times. And yet, we have not directly addressed the problematic experiences of Mexican, Latino and Hispanic people in the US… until now.

So this week, we are visiting 1960s Chicago, a city that poured fuel on the already explosive issue of Civil Rights, during a period of extraordinary national transformation, as I ask… what were the Latino Urban Riots?

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Special guest for this episode:

• Lilia Fernández, a Professor and Director of Graduate Studies History at the University of Illinois, Chicago, specialising in the history of Latinos in the mid-to-late 20th century United States. Her books include Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Postwar Chicago
• Lorrin Thomas, an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Rutgers University. Her research explores ideas about rights and equality in the twentieth century Americas, with a focus on Latin American history, and her books include Puerto Rican Citizen: History and Political Identity in Twentieth-Century New York City.

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Highlights from this episode:

• The long and complex history of Latino migration to U.S. cities, especially Chicago and New York
• How urban renewal and housing discrimination intensified racial segregation
• The role of police brutality and surveillance in triggering community uprisings
• The 1966 Puerto Rican riot in Chicago and the 1967 riot in New York — what really happened
• The impact of the Civil Rights Act and rising expectations for racial equality
• How media narratives distorted the nature of Latino protest and resistance

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Additional Resources:

Rethinking the Struggle for Puerto Rican Rights – The Rutgers Latino Studies Research Initiative by Lorrin R Thomas and Aldo A Lauria Santiago

Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Postwar Chicago by Lilia Fernandez

Amazon.com: Puerto Rican Citizen: History and Political Identity in Twentieth-Century New York City by Lorrin Thomas

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