Legacy of resistance: Hector P. Garcia, the Felix Longoria incident, and the construction of a Mexican American civil rights rhetoric

Mexican Americans of the post-World War II generation exercised a salient role in modern civil rights reform. This dissertation is an inquiry into the political discourse of leading Mexican American civil rights activist and South Texas physician, Dr. Héctor P. García. He was hailed by the press as a great American leader and frequently called, “the Martin Luther King Jr. of Mexican-American History.” Few scholars, however, examine García in terms of his role as a leading twentieth-century civil rights activist or situate García as a precursor to the radical rhetorics of the 1960s civil rights era. As founder of the American G.I. Forum, García mobilized the post-World War II Mexican American civil rights movement in reaction to the denial by a funeral director in Three Rivers, Texas to provide burial rites for Private Félix Longoria in 1949.;Applying Thomas Rosteck's notion of “cultural rhetorical studies,” this analysis approaches García's instrumental rhetoric from a pragmatic perspective. It synthesizes the rhetorical theories of Kenneth Burke and Walter Beale to assess the dramatistic and instrumental role of García's civil rights discourse. As a Mexican-origin immigrant who achieved an unprecedented measure of influence in the sanctioned structures of the U.S. political system, García provides an important case study in the formation of Mexican American civic identity and the acquisition of social power.;Major chapters focus on three inter-related events critical to García's civil rights project from 1949 to 1965: the Longoria case; the bracero binational labor program between the United States and Mexico; the political alliance of Lyndon B. Johnson and the Mexican American electorate. In each case, García changed the national conversation on race and provided discursive and symbolic action integral to the evolution of the Mexican American civil rights movement. García's construction of the Longoria incident offered a unifying emblem for Mexican American mobilization. García's exposure of Mexican migrant labor conditions catalyzed resistance to unjust working environments. Finally, García's twenty-year alliance with Lyndon B. Johnson and mobilization of Mexican American voters distinguished García and his generation as the most politically successful group in Mexican American history, ultimately influencing presidential policy-making.