"La Historia" features rare film footage, archival photographs, period music, and extensive interviews from the people who lived this fascinating history - poets and professors, artists and authors, and activists and community leaders.

Fall of the Aztecas and the rise of the Spaniards

1810 Mexico War of Independance

1846 US/Mexican War

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Land loss and rise of migrant and seasonal farm workers

1910 Mexican Revolution

Racism and Segregation

Bracero Program

Zoot Suits Riots

La Raza de Colorado: La Historia is available on DVD and VHS from Rocky Mountain PBS.

Ancestor of Charlene Garcia Simms	Juan Espinosa's father World War I
Ancestors of Flo Hernandez-Ramos	Mexican-American soldiers during World War II
Migrant farm workers Courtesy Colorado Historical Society	Eddie Montour during his Vietnam service

Timeline
50,000 b.c. – Pre-Columbus Native Americans inhabit the Americas from Alaska to Chile
1492 – Columbus' first voyage
1510 – Spanish and other Europeans explore Mexico and the southern parts of the U.S.
1521 – Aztecs conquered by Hernán Cortés, fall of the Aztecas and the rise of the Spaniards
1598 – Don Juan de Oñate brings first Spanish colonists to New Mexico
1680 – Popé leads Pueblo Rebellion against the Spanish
1691 – Don Diego de Vargas reconquered New Mexico
1706 – Juan de Ulibarri explores Colorado as far as the Arkansas valley and into Kiowa County
1776 – Juan Bautista de Anza pursues Cuero Verde in Colorado
1822 – Santa Fe Trail, operated from Independence, Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico, came through Bent's Fort
1843 – Mexican Land Grants or Mercedes given in Colorado by the Mexican government, Conejos Grant, Sangre de Cristo Grant, Vigil and St. Vrain Grant, Nolan Grant, part of Maxwell (Beaubien and Miranda Grant) and part of Tierra Amarilla Grant
1831 – Texas declares its independence
1846 – Mexican – American War
1847 – Invasion of Mexico
1848 – Capture of Mexico City and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
1851 – San Luis, first town in Colorado founded
1861 – Colorado Territory established
1862 – Homestead Act, land loss and rise of migrant and seasonal farm workers
1878 – Juan Antonio Baca becomes Colorado senator
1886 – Colorado becomes a state
1890s – The railroad, mining, and agriculture industries require Mexican workers.
1906 – Sociedad Protección Mutua de Trabajadores Unidos (SPMDTU) established.
1910 – Mexican Revolution
1916 – Pancho Villa invades Columbus, New Mexico
1916 – General Pershing and 11,000 soldiers sent on Punitive Expedition to capture Pancho Villa
1910 – More than one million Mexicans come to the U.S. and more than 50,000 come to Colorado during the Mexican Revolution from 1910 to 1920
1916 – U.S. enters World War I and the Brown Scare and racism and segregation of Mexicans began
1929 – Stock Market crashes and in the Southwest it was blamed on the Mexicano.
1930s – Brown Scare and KKK, Governor Johnson advocates kicking Mexicanos out of Colorado
1942-1962 – World War II, the Bracero Program; jobs went to Mexican Americans. Five million Mexicans come to the U.S. from 1942 to 1960 through the Bracero Program.
1940s – Zoot Suits Riot and self-determination. The precursor of the Chicano Movement
1946 – After World War II the Chicano middle class begins to emerge as a result of the G.I. Bill.

Selected Resources
The Alma Project: A Cultural Curriculum Infusion Project
Message to Aztlán: Selected Writing, Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales, edited by Dr. Antonio Esquibel
The Crusade for Justice, Chicano Militancy and the Government's War on Dissent by Ernesto B. Vigil
La Gente, Hispano History and Life in Colorado edited by Vincent C. de Baca
The People of the Valley, A History of Spanish Colonials in the San Luis Valley, by Olibama Lopez-Tushar
The San Luis Valley: Land of the Six-Armed Cross (Second Edition) by Virginia McConnell Simmons
Chicano! The History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, by F. Arturo Rosales
Occupied America, a History of Chicanos, by Rodlfo Acuña
The Cosmic Race (La Raza Cósmica) by José Vasconcelos
The Buried Mirror, Reflections of Spain and the New World by Carlos Fuentes (Book and Video)
The Hispanic Cntirbution to the State of Colorado edited by José de Onis
Video, "Chicano!" a four-part PBS series by Jesus Trevino
Zoot Suit and Other Plays by Luis Valdez

Discussion Questions
1. What are the similarities in terms of the treatment of Mexicano during the early 1900's and today?
2. Identify and explain five important events in the History of the La Raza de Colorado
3. What was the importance of the Santa Fe Trail?
4. Name three of the six land grants, which were located in Colorado and their significance to Mexicanos.
5. What was the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?
6. What was Manifest Destiny?

Photo Credits:
Top left photo courtesy of the Colorado Historical Society