Isabel McMullen
BA ’17, Political Science and Spanish
This project is an exploration of a political third party in the American southwest active in the 1970s called the Raza Unida Party. This party was formed by Chicanos (Mexican-Americans) and designed to address specific issues within the Chicano community at the local level. I want to understand how supporters and leaders of the party overcame resource, education, and organization challenges to form a political party, how the leaders measured and defined their own success, and what effects their success had on the community. I plan to answer these questions in two primary ways. First, I will be using data from Census and other surveys to look at demographic data like housing, income, education rates, Hispanic population and more in certain areas where RUP was present and not present across time. Through this process I hope to determine whether there were significant differences between RUP counties and non-RUP counties and whether improvements were made across time where the party was prominent. The second part of my research will be archival work in the University of Michigan libraries and the Benson library at the University of Texas where the Raza Unida Party records are stored. I also will be conducting interviews with original members of the party in order to gain a more complete picture of the nuances that define their political participation. Beyond the fact that this research is a case study of a population and historical movement which is not widely recognized or understood, the implications extend far beyond just this one case and can provide depth and understanding to models of minority participation in local politics.
Library Mentor: Julie Herrada