TEXAS STATE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION: MEXICAN AMERICAN YOUTH ORGANIZATION

MEXICAN AMERICAN YOUTH ORGANIZATION

Teresa Palomo Acosta

MEXICAN AMERICAN YOUTH ORGANIZATION. MAYO, founded in San Antonio in 1967, was for 

a decade the major political organization of Mexican-American youth in Texas; it also led to the founding 

of the Raza Unida party in 1970. 

Like many other Mexican-American organizations in the state, MAYO sought social justice. But unlike

older and more established groups, such as the League of United Latin American Citizens, the American

G.I. Forum, or the Political Association of Spanish Speaking Organizations, it stressed Chicano cultural nationalism and preferred the techniques of direct political confrontation and mass demonstration to accomplish its goals. 

Activism among Mexican-American university students in the mid-1960s grew out of such events as the 

1965 Crusade for Justice in Denver, Colorado, and the June 1967 takeover of the Tierra Amarilla County 

Courthouse in New Mexico. µIn Texas, MAYO became one of the anchors of the Chicano movement. 

Besides MAYO originator José Ángel Gutiérrez, the organization's other four founders were Willie 

(William) C. Velásquez, Mario Compean, Ignacio Pérez, and Juan Patlán. Later, Ernesto Cortez was 

invited to join the group. All were greatly influenced by the political dissent sweeping the country in the 

mid-1960s. They were particularly intrigued by the grassroots strategies employed by the Student 

Non-violent Coordinating Committee throughout the South and by Reies López Tijerina's 

New Mexico movement, the Alianza Federal de Pueblos Libres (Federal Alliance of Free

Communities).

In San Antonio, MAYO members set up a political study group and consulted with civil-rights leaders 

Eleuterio Escobar, Jr., and María L. de Hernández. 

True to their activist vision, Gutiérrez, Compean, and Pérez staged MAYO's first demonstration in front 

of the Alamo on July 4, 1967. They continued to bring other young people into their growing 

circle-mainly disaffected youths from the West Side of San Antonio and urban and farm-labor activists

from around the state. They called their new group the Mexican American Youth Organization for the 

term's "boy-scoutish" ring, hoping that the name would mollify the public criticism they expected to 

receive. 

The five founders incorporated MAYO into a nonprofit organization consisting of local chapters and a 

state-level board of directors. They selected as a logo an Aztec warrior inside a circle, a symbol they 

borrowed from the Mexican national airline, Aeronaves de México. Membership in MAYO was drawn 

from among Mexican-American teenagers and university students who were committed to "la raza." 

The concept of "la raza" was part of MAYO ideology from the start. For a time the organization was 

known informally as La Raza Unida because of a series of conferences that Velásquez organized under 

that heading. From its office on the West Side, with Gutiérrez as its head, MAYO spread to Kingsville, 

Uvalde, and other areas in South Texas and the Rio Grande valley. Thirty chapters were reportedly 

established by Chicano students around the state in 1967–68, and after MAYO spread to other parts 

of the country by 1970 its total membership reached 1,000. University students also became a part of the 

MAYO network. A chapter was established in 1968 at the University of Texas at Austin as an outgrowth 

of the Mexican American Student Association, an organization formed at the university in 1967. There, as

in many MAYO chapters, men often held the top leadership roles. But scores of women joined MAYO 

around the state, and several headed the University of Texas chapter in the 1970s. When the Mexican 

American Unity Council, an economic development corporation in San Antonio, received a $110,000

Ford Foundation grant, it allocated $10,000 to MAYO, a move that was denounced at the time by United

States representative Henry B. Gonzalez, a Democrat and a vocal foe of MAYO ethnocentricity.

MAYO identified and addressed three needs of Mexican Americans-economic independence, local 

control of education, and political strength and unity through the formation of a third party. The 

organization publicly protested the poverty and injustice faced by some Hispanics, denouncing incidents

of  exclusive employment policies and police brutality. It also organized walkouts in the public schools of 

Edcouch, Elsa, Weslaco, Crystal City, and other towns. 

Estimates of the total number of MAYO-organized walkouts varied from a low of seventeen to a high of 

thirty-eight. With MAYO's assistance, students protested the school authorities' treatment of Mexican 

Americans and usually presented them with a list of demands such as the employment of more Mexican-

American teachers and staff and the addition of Mexican-American history to the curriculum.

Starting a third party occurred to Gutiérrez and other leaders early in MAYO's history, but the idea did 

not gain wide support until late 1969. During the first (and only) national MAYO conference, held in 

Mission from December 26 to 30, 1969, conference participants endorsed the idea of forming the Raza Unida party. 

MAYO had recently proved its political mettle in the 1969 San Antonio city election, when Mario 

Compean had come within 300 votes of forcing a runoff in the mayor's race against the incumbent, 

Walter W. McAllister, Sr. In the San Antonio race, MAYO, working on the West Side, had increased 

voter registration among Mexican Americans by 14 percent and voter turnout by 11 percent over the 

previous year. MAYO leaders were therefore eager to take the next step in uniting Mexican Americans

in politics across the state.

The mainstream press sometimes gave a "bandido" image to MAYO by characterizing its members as 

"wearers of brown berets, combat boots, serapes, and rolled blankets slung over [their] shoulder[s]." 

Nevertheless, though MAYO rejected the diplomatic tactics of established Mexican-American

civil-rights organizations, the San Antonio chapters of the American G.I. Forum and the League of

United Latin American Citizens originally admired MAYO's "aggressive style" and offered assistance. 

In addition, local Mexican-American businessmen made nominal contributions to the group. At the 

University of Texas at Austin, MAYO garnered the support of both the eminent anthropologist Américo 

Paredes and the well-regarded teacher George I. Sánchez. Though the general public usually became 

aware of MAYO only through the mainstream press, the organization had its own newspapers, in which 

it reported on its activities in English, standard Spanish, and the Spanish argot known as caló (see 

PACHUCOS). The newspapers, with such titles as El Despertador, Hoy, El Azteca, and La Revolución, 

often brought a decidedly different-some would say militant-slant to their articles. But they also 

published stories not seen in the general press, as well as poetry, and at least one newspaper occasionally 

carried "el güiri, güiri," a witty gossip column written in caló.

By the late 1970s, MAYO was losing momentum as the Chicano movement weakened throughout the 

Southwest, like many activist organizations across the country. The Raza Unida party was in ruins after 

the state election of 1978. Its gubernatorial candidate, Mario Compean, had received only 15,000 votes,

a poor showing that caused the party's originating organization to lose its political clout statewide.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: 

Ignacio M. Garcia, United We Win: The Rise and Fall of La Raza Unida Party (Tucson: University of Arizona Mexican American Studies Research Center, 1989). 

José Ángel Gutiérrez Papers, Benson Latin American Collection, University of  Texas at Austin.

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CITATION:

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.

Handbook of Texas Online, Teresa Palomo Acosta, "MEXICAN AMERICAN YOUTH

ORGANIZATION," accessed May 18, 2020,

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/wem01.

Uploaded on June 15, 2010. Modified on April 14, 2020. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

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