Salas, a well known community activist and former educator is expected to release a new book about the Wisconsin farm workers movement from the 1960's to the 1970's.
By H. Nelson Goodson
Hispanic News Network U.S.A.
April 23, 2022
Milwaukee, Wisconsin - On Friday, Dr. Candela Marini from the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) Grohmann Museum announced during the opening of the Familias Unidas exhibition that Jesús Salas, a well known migrant rights activist and an instrumental community organizer and leader in the 1960's to 1970's Labor Migrant Rights Movement in Wisconsin will be releasing his new book titled "Legacy of the Wisconsin Farm Workers Movement".
The Familias Unidas exhibit will run from April 22 to August 21, 2022 at the Grohmann Museum in MSOE. The exhibit gives tribute to the Migrant Farm Workers Labor Movement in Wisconsin during the 1960's to the 1970's.
The exhibition was made possible by the following MSOE partners: Latino Arts, Inc., UWM Roberto Hernández Center, Dr. Candela Marini and the MSOE Honors Program.
Salas during his presentation at the Grohmann Museum spoke about his labor migrant rights activism, the 1930's Obreros (Braceros) program, the Farm Workers Labor Movement influence in Wisconsin, immigrants, farm worker migrants from Texas traveling to Wisconsin to work and higher education activism in the 1960's - 1970's in Crystal City, Texas; Wautoma and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Full video of the Salas presentation at link: https://youtu.be/-wIT8oINDpc
The Familias Unidas exhibit at the Grohmann Museum includes photos and history of the Latino/Hispanic movement from the late 1960's to 1970's. https://bit.ly/3KcUzb4
The Latino Arts, Inc. is also presenting a similar Migrant Workers exhibit at the United Communty Center in the Southside of Milwaukee.
According to the Mexican Fiesta (WHSF) website, Salas is a third generation migrant worker who spent 10 years migrating from South Central Texas to the Great Lakes Region. After relocating in Wisconsin in 1959, Jesús worked in the state's first education programs for migrants. He later founded a farmworkers union, Obreros Unidos and joined Cesar Chávez in support of the California farmworkers grape boycott. In 1969, Jesús became the first Latino CEO of United Migrant Opportunity Services. He helped establish UW-Milwaukee Spanish Speaking Outreach Institute(SSOI), now the Roberto Hernández Center, and later the Chicano/Latino Studies at UW-Madison.
After spending five years in Texas, La Raza Unida Political Party politics, Jesús returned to Wisconsin and spent over two decades teaching in Wisconsin post-secondary institutions, principally at Milwaukee Area Technical College. Later, he was invited to lecture at UW-Madison's Chicano/Latina(o) Studies Program in the 1990's. While lecturing at UW-Milwaukee in Latino Studies, Jesús was named to the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents in 2003.
On August 27, 1970, Salas was one of four men and one woman arrested at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) Chapman Hall. According to UWM police records, Jesús Salas, Gregorio J. "Goyo" Rivera, Dante Navarro and Jose Luis Huerta-Sanchez and one woman, Marla O. Anderson were taken into custody for protesting the discriminatory policy that kept Latinos from enrolling at UWM and for refusing to leave UWM Chancellor J. Martin Klotsche's office on that August afternoon. The UWM protest began with about 150 people and within days, it grew to more than 500 people.
Klotsche refused to meet with the protestors, but after three days of hunger strikes by the protest organizers, the stalemate broke and Klotsche finally met with them.
By September 1970, UWM along with members of the Hispanic community created the Spanish Speaking Outreach Institute (SSOI) to offer academic counseling, recruit and retain potential students. The SSOI would especially serve nearly 30,000 Latinos living in the Milwaukee area.
The SSOI later changed its name to the Roberto Hernández Center at UWM. (Historic oral history of the creation of the SSOI/Roberto Hernández Center https://youtu.be/FzOpOxI_GKw)
Believe it or not, the 1970 takeover of UWM quietly faded away in the memories of those who participated and went on with their lives. After 31 years, it resurfaced again when the first comprehensive article detailing the accounts was written by H. Nelson Goodson and published in 2001 by El Conquistador Newspaper that included a Special Edition dated July 13-19, 2001, Vol. 4, Issue 29 and then revised on August 24, 2001 and distributed at the annual National Council of La Raza (NCLR) Convention held in Milwaukee that year. The NCLR is known today as UnidosUS.
The first Goodson article about the UWM Takeover of Chapman Hall led to other articles to be written about the Latino higher education movement in Milwaukee including Wisconsin.
In the Fall semester of 1970, there were only 14 Hispanic students enrolled at UWM, most of them from South and Central America compared to 25,000 students attending classes.
For the Hispanic community, "In Milwaukee many barriers existed blocking their paths to higher education. Their language and cultural distinctness were frowned upon, and they had limited access to information about educational opportunities and few professional role models. Discriminatory treatment was the norm." (Cited from Myriad Magazine UWM 1990)
The success of the UWM Takeover of Chapman Hall in 1970, which opened the doors for higher education enrollment for low income Whites, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, African-Americans and other students of color have remained open today. Recruitment of minority students then spread to local technical colleges, private universities and colleges in the state. Today, thousands of minorities and students of color have graduated from the UW-System and will continue to do so tomorrow.
Today, Salas continues to advocate for migrant and immigration reform rights.
Special thanks to Salas, Rivera, Navarro, Huerta-Sanchez, Anderson and all those Latino and non-Latino higher education community activists who have made Wisconsin a better place to live.
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