I don’t know who killed JFK. But I know who didn’t.

First Person:
By Andy Porras

Once upon a time, the right to vote had to be bought as a Poll Tax by states in the South, like Texas, my home state.
Those who lived through those years will recall the phrase, “the sleeping giant” as being attached to the Mexican-American a.k.a. Latino, vote. Another thing the establishment added was their proverbial ‘Mexican taking a siesta’ concept.

It was about that time, in the early 50s, that white Texas gradually begin to accept Tejanos as fellow human beings.

Thanks in part to a young former U.S. Army doc, Dr. Hector Garcia and his newly organized American GI Forum chapters whose peaceful protests and legal recourse sped-up the process and courage to confront violators of civil rights of Tejanos and other Chicano/Latino voters in the Southwest. Little did anyone realized then that someday his work would be viewed in the same light as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s sacrifices for African Americans equal rights.

Dr. Garcia’s efforts helped end segregated Texas movies, restaurants and hotels. Barbershops and beauty parlors begin to serve Tejanos. Cemeteries and swimming pools, however, took longer to desegregate.

Undeterred by death threats to him and his family, Dr. Garcia crashed the national political arena in 1960 by co-founding national VIVA KENNEDY clubs for the U.S. Presidential campaign. The stage was set and never again would the former dozing giant take a national nap. Historians now point to the Latino Vote back then as providing JFK a needed push in the final vote tally.

In the short span that JFK walked on this earth, he charmed the pants off (no pun intended) many Spanish-surnamed voters. And it sure didn’t hurt that his beautiful and brainy wife, Jackie, addressed voters in Spanish. Later, both President and wife would pay homage to La Virgen de Guadalupe in Mexico City guaranteeing their place in barrio altars and folklore.

The Southwest barrios became forever Kennedy by a landslide.

“Quite frankly,” my late father, José told me back in the day. “Kennedy will go down as the only white man La Raza ever trusted.”

He would also relate to me how the establishment viewed Spanish-speaking voters and non-voters.

“If we pay our poll tax,” my Dad said. “We move up a notch and become Latin Americans,” but if we don’t participate in the political process, we’re still a plain ol’ Mexican!”

He could provide me and my homies with countless of stories regarding the way the local white politicians would gather votes among barrio dwellers.

The speeches in English!” he’d roar. “It sure beat listening to those long winded radio commercials in horrible gringo- Spanish!”

JFK’s Latino legacy will probably take another leap in the Richter Scale of politics once this 50th anniversary bit is over.

La Raza could care less if more stories against him hit newsstands or internet sites. But they still harbor hate for those that did him in, of all places, Texas.

Hopeefully someday someone will take a poll in the Southwest and uncover what a group who eternally thinks the world of JFK really think of his early demise.

At least this group of scholars or authors or whoever takes these scientific polls will find out one thing for sure; that La Raza would never even think of bringing any harm to their only white hero.