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A MARTÍNEZ: It was the early 1990s. And a voice piercing through the airwaves at a student radio station in Davis, Calif., galvanized the growing Chicano movement.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "LA ONDA XICANA")
OSCAR GOMEZ: Make sure and question the history that you've been taught, because a lot of times you know that George Washington is not your father. What are these people scared of? That the raza's going to get educated, and they're going to be able to go back and empower their communities? It's something that we've got to ask ourselves, raza, and something that we must continue to ask ourselves because la lucha continua.
A MARTÍNEZ: Within a few years, that man would be dead, his voice silenced. His name was Oscar Gomez, and his body was found at the bottom of a massive bluff in Santa Barbara. A reporter at Southern California's KPCC has been unraveling the details of his mysterious death.
ADOLFO GUZMAN-LOPEZ: It was during a time when California's politics were red hot.
A MARTÍNEZ: That's Adolfo Guzman-Lopez. His new podcast series is called "The Forgotten Revolutionary."
ADOLFO GUZMAN-LOPEZ: There was a lot of immigration from Central America and from Mexico into the United States, and this was largely because of the U.S.-funded Central American civil wars and this Mexican economic crisis that happened in the 1980s. And that really tested the institutions in California and Texas and lots of other places. And the response by policymakers was to try to shut people out of services. It was a xenophobic response. And Oscar was one of thousands of college students who resisted, who tried to return the dignity back to people who were targeted, who were being called less than human.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OSCAR GOMEZ: You know, the California (speaking Spanish) because when we start seeing walls, walls on the frontera,...