The politics of community development: Latinos, their neighbors, and the state in San Francisco, 1960s and 1970s

This dissertation examines the trajectory of Latino political activism in San Francisco during the 1960s and 1970s. Latinos launched an array of community organizing efforts aimed at enhancing their lives in a changing urban environment during this period. Their endeavors tackled a host of social and economic issues, including, but not limited to, housing conditions, employment opportunities, youth development, gender relations, and sex education. Latino agendas for social change obtained their legitimacy from multiple political philosophies regarding government intervention, the empowerment of racial and ethnic minorities, family life and sexuality. The grassroots campaigns and programmatic initiatives during these decades served as the grounded manifestations of divergent outlooks of the state, the salience of ethnicity, and the cultural fabric of Latino communities.; A history of Latino community organizing, this study unravels the aspirations and goals of community-based efforts focused on the revitalization of urban and cultural life. It utilizes the framework of community development to consider how activists and community organizations envisioned improving, enhancing, in effect, revitalizing their communities. The study argues the politics of community development exposed competing visions over liberalism, the assertion of ethnicity, and the cultural contours of Latinidad. Some of these agendas embraced a liberal ethos of governmental attention and intervention in low-income and minority communities while others challenged the parameters of engagement with the state. Many political projects solidified the expansion of Latinidad or Latinismo, the sense of shared cultural commonality, destiny, and unity among Latinos. Yet, other political orientations sought to de-emphasize the specificity of Latino interests or to redefine the cultural contours of Latinidad itself, especially in regards to gender and sexuality matters. This constellation of political visions unfolded alongside the consolidation of Latinos into a significant political bloc in San Francisco city politics. Collectively, Latino activism and politicization expanded the realm of postwar urban racial politics and the landscape of social movements in the mid-late twentieth century.