Speech #940064425

There are MexicanAmerican people in the State of Texas who have been denied the right to vote. who have been impeded in their efforts to register and vote. who have not had encouragement from those election officials because they are brown people. and there are economic reprisals which would be leveled against them and they would be subject to boycotts and other discriminatory practices. So. the State of Texas. if we approve this measure. would be brought within the coverage of this act for the first time. We were not brought in in 1965 because there was no literacy test in Texas. and consequently we were not brought under the provisions of this act. But. the committee has documented pages upon pages of testimony of acts of discrimination against brown peopleMexicanAmericansin Texas which are just as severe as those acts which triggered the original passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Those brown people in the counties of Texas would like for the Congress of the United States to make it possible for them to say. "I too am included. along with my black brothers and sisters. in the whole workings of the 14th and 15th amendments of the Constitution of the United States." I feel the Congress can do no less.