User:Aiyonna/sandbox

A group of politically active Latinx high school students formed the Young Citizens for Community Action in 1996. Several members had trained at Father John B. Luce's Social Action Training center at the Church of the Epiphany in Lincoln Heights.

The organization's name was changed to Young Chicanos For Community Action or "YCCA". In 1967, the YCCA founded the Piranya Coffee House. In September 1967, Sal Castro, a Korean War veteran and teacher at Lincoln High School, began meeting with the YCCA at the Piranya Coffee House.

There are several claims to the name Brown Berets. Some claim co-founder Dr. David Sanchez purchased several brown berets and gave them to members in order to replicate the revolutionary Che Guevara. Others say Sanchez was inspired by the Black Panther Party and the name Brown Berets came from the LAPD. The berets represent pride and militancy. Their agenda was to fight police harassment, inadequate public schools, inadequate health care, inadequate job opportunities, minority education issues, the lack of political representation, and the Vietnam War. It set up branches in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, New York, Florida, Chicago, St. Louis and other metropolitan areas with large Mexican American, or raza, populations.