The "New" Hispanic Civil Rights Movement?

Juan Williams asked a rather shocking question in yesterday's Washington Post. Reflecting on the recent protests by Hispanics across the United States in response to potential immigration legislation, and, more importantly, a new wave of xenophobia aimed directly at Mexican Americans, Williams wonders, "Is this in fact a major new civil rights movement?"

The answer, of course, is "no," and Williams, who has been an astute observer of black civil rights throughout his career, ought to have known better than to have asked. There has been a Hispanic Civil Rights Movement in the United States for decades in places like Texas and California and Arizona and New Mexico. In places where the racial dynamic has not always been black-white, or at least not merely black-white, Mexican Americans and Mexicans have waged a ferocious fight for justice. School access, opportunities in employment, fair treatment at public facilities -- these have been issues at the forefront for generations of Mexican Americans. I think he is correct when he discusses the diffusive conception of "Hispanics" in the United States, but this does not change the fact that in vast portions of the nation the Civil Rights Movement he identifies is not new and to pretend that it is does an injustice to generations of people who have kept their eyes on their own prize.