La Vida Nueva, founded in 1968, was one of the most successful Chicano organizations on a school campus. It started its own newspaper that aimed to educate the student population about the injustices in the United States. La Vida Nueva newspaper was published at the East Los Angeles College campus and informed their audience about the discriminatory laws and practices happening to Mexican-American communities in Los Angeles and the greater United States. La Vida Nueva newspaper “functioned as a means of communication for students and eastside community members…[it] published articles about the effects of poverty on the Chicano movement, barrio discrimination, police brutality, [and] local politics.”[1] La Vida Nueva, one of the most successful Chicano organizations on a school campus documented the event on its newspaper that was aimed to educate the student population about the racial injustices faced in Los Angeles.

On March 6 1969, a group of approximately 300 students staged a demonstration at Roosevelt High School in East Los Angeles, California. The students were demanding that their petitions for better school conditions and “more attention to the educational needs of Chicano were being ignored” be acknowledged publically and by the school administration.[2] This demonstration was a continuation to the high school walkouts of 1968 that were in response the educational inequalities students felt the educational system needed to address. The school decided to confront the situation by calling on the Los Angeles Police Department to dissuade the crowd. In response, a tactical squad was sent to remove the demonstrating youth from the high school.

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[1] Garcia, M.T. (2014). The chicano movement: Perspectives from the twenty-first century. New York and London: Taylor and Francis Group. p.61

[2] La vida nueva. (1970, April 29). California ephemera collection. UCLA, Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library. p.1