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==COINTELPRO and Infiltration==
What these students and organizers did not anticipate was the amount of push back they would receive from the federal government and the new COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program) that Herbert Hoover initiated in response to the Black Panthers and the Black Liberation movements in order to successfully stop and dismantle and civil rights movement. The protesters and organizers of the walkouts thought that they were exercising their constitutional rights to freedom of speech and protest. Unfortunately, thirteen members that were involved with the planning and organization of the East L.A. walkouts would be targeted and arrested for treason by COINTELPRO and the federal government. Sal Castro, a teacher who supported the students and spoke out against racist and discriminatory practices at Lincoln High in East L.A., would be included in the group of thirteen, which sparked uproar in the community in order to reinstate him as a teacher at Lincoln High. Eventually, the federal government would release Sal Castro and the other twelve individuals because of the unconstitutional nature of the arrests and . As the U.S. American public became even more aware of Chicano’sChicanos, the school walkouts, and their ability to form their own unique movements amongst the larger political atmosphere of the decade.<ref>Michael Soldatenko, “Mexican Student Movements in Los Angeles and Mexico City,” ''Latino Studies'', 1 (2003): 291.</ref>
What the infiltration by the federal government of the East L.A. walkouts and the various groups that had begun to emerge like MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlan) and MAYO (Mexican American Youth Organization) told the Mexican American and Chicano community was that they were considered dangerous and hostile. This would only fuel the fire that was the movement and begin to confirm that the Anglo community had no intentions of listening or even considering what Chicano’s and their allies had to say. The COINTELPROs existence was enough proof to argue that the federal government supported racial discrimination towards people of color, and in the case of the Chicano movement, the infiltration and the resulting protests and creation of community organizations would only be the beginning of a long fight for social, economic, and political justice for their people.
==Conclusion==
The East L.A. walkouts is only one of the important markers signifying the beginnings of a political revolution that would eventually span the entire Southwest of the U.S. Non-profit organizations and other community organization rose out of the Chicano movement in order to better serve the local Chicano communities . These organization not protested unfair conditions, but advanced Chicano rights through the arts and of course legal representation legally and in protest. This These walkouts also helped spur the creation the Chicana movement of Mexican and Mexican American women. Chicanas came out of this important era with an understanding of how both racism and sexism played a role in their own unique oppression that barred them from leadership positions during the 1960s through the 1980s. With influence from both the Chicano movement and the Feminist movement, Chicanas would begin to write their own literature and create their own art that was expressive of their identities. These pieces of literature and art inform today’s Chicano scholars and only improve the understanding of the Mexican American and Chicano culture. The Chicano movement would last up until about the early 1980s and fizzles out as the media focuses its’ attention elsewhere. What is important to understand about the ‘ending’ of this movement is that the people who took part in all of the marches and protests for equality never stopped working with their ''communidad'' in order to fight for social, economic, and political justice for the ''gente''.
==References==