Documents

To form a full picture of the impact of the 1975 Voting Rights Act Extension and Expansion on the Chicano community I examine several sources. I look at government documentation, testimonies of support for the act, oral histories from Chicano activists and politicians, and documents of public perception and reaction to the Act. Looking at several different types of sources allows one to examine how the authors bias may have impacted the information relayed in the source. In these sources, support for the Act and concerns about the Act are expressed. All perspectives on the positive or negative aspects of the Extension are important for understanding how bias against Chicanos informed public opinion about the 1975 ruling. I examine the following ten sources for this project.

“Text – H.R.6219 – 94th Congress (1975-1976): An Act to amend the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to extend certain provisions for an additional seven years, to make permanent the ban against certain prerequisites to voting, and for other purposes” (August 6, 1975)
“Text – H.R.997 – 115th Congress (2017-2018): English Language Unity Act of 2017” (March 2, 2017)
“In the United States District Court for the District of Kansas: Adam Silva, et al., Plaintiffs, vs. St. Anne Catholic School, Wichita, Kansas, et al., Defendants. Case No. 08-1143-JTM” (January 12, 2009)
“Remarks Prepared for Governor William P. Clements, Jr. U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution” (February 1982)
Barbara Jordan, “Extension of the Voting Rights Act” (April 1975)
Modesto Rodriguez, “Testimony of Modesto Rodriguez, Pearsall, Tex., accompanied by George Korbel, and Al Perez, associate counsel, Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund” (February 1975)
Joe Rocha, Austin Revealed: Chicano Civil Rights “Rise of Mexican-Americans in Politics” (2016)
David H. Hunter, “The 1975 Voting Rights Act and Language Minorities” (1976)
Kevin P. Phillips, “Liberals Hold Balance Of Power In Texas” (September 1970)
John Tanton, “Witan Memo III” (October 1986)