Fronteras: 'Mapping the Movimiento' — Take a tour through San Antonio’s Mexican American civil rights history

By Norma Martinez

Published December 10, 2021 at 5:00 AM CST

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One location on the tour includes La Prensa’s former headquarters on Dolorosa street. In 1913, La Prensa debuted as a weekly publication, and within a year, it was published daily and expanded from local to national circulation. It became a fixture for San Antonio’s Mexican American community after the end of the Mexican revolution in 1920. This image is from the interior of La Prensa newspaper in the early 1920s.

Photo courtesy UTSA Libraries Special Collections (General Photograph Collection, 083-0409)

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The site of the former Mario's Restaurant on South Pecos Street serves as a location for the tour. For anyone involved in West Side politics and Chicano activism from the 1960s through the 1980s, Mario’s Restaurant was a prime location for business—both official and informal. This image shows Mario Cantú in front of his restaurant on July 2, 1985.

Photo courtesy UTSA Libraries Special Collections (from the collection of Amy Rushing)

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San Fernando Cathedral’s central location both geographically and spiritually made it an ideal location to draw a crowd and spread a message during the Mexican American civil rights movement. Members of Fuerza Unida protest the shutdown of the Levi's Strauss plant outside San Fernando Cathedral in 1991.

Photo courtesy UTSA Libraries Special Collections (Fuerza Unida Records, MS 535)

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John Phillip Santos, professor of Mestizo Cultural Studies at UTSA and narrator of the Mapping the Movimiento tour. Dean Hendrix, Vice Provost and University Librarian at UTSA.

Photos credit of UTSA

San Antonio was at the center of the Mexican American civil rights movement.

Groups like the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Southwest Voter Registration Project got their start in San Antonio.

Fifteen sites on San Antonio’s historic West Side are featured in a new interactive, self-guided walking and driving tour called Mapping the Movimiento.

Mapping the Movimiento - map of the self-guided tour

It takes you to St. Mary’s University, Edgewood High School, and the Alazán-Apache courts, and places no longer standing, like Munguía Printers and Mario’s Restaurant.

The University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries has collaborated with the Institute of Texan Cultures to create an interactive map of the places where activism and advocacy were born.

“We know that there are more than 15 sites that represent the movimiento here in San Antonio,” said Dean Hendrix, Vice Provost and University Librarian at UTSA. “But we're starting out with this pilot of 15 sites.”

“We are living in a moment where many of our leaders from this period are aging,” said John Phillip Santos, professor of Mestizo Cultural Studies at UTSA and narrator of the tour. “They’re elders now, and some have already passed…We're offering this project as a way to make it possible for schools to use these resources to give our students a sense of their own history.”

Take the interactive tour here.

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