Viva Kennedy

"In Viva Kennedy, Ignacio M. Garcia surveys the background, development, and evolution of the Viva Kennedy Clubs and their post-election incarnation as PASO, the Political Association of Spanish-Speaking Organizations. He argues that the patriotic fervor of the 1940s and the postwar economic expansion spurred middle-class Mexican Americans to strive for full inclusion in American society. They believed that discrimination could be overcome through government actions that recognized their civil rights and their own political participation. Garcia describes the post-election problems of the Viva Kennedy reformers, who first saw the Kennedy administration ignore its campaign promises to them and then faced their own factional squabbles, chronic funding problems, and the growing unease among Anglo Americans wary of Mexican American political power."--BOOK JACKET.