Noting the growth of the Hispanic American community during the mid-twentieth century, the Republican Party focused on attracting Hispanic Americans to the party. Many Hispanic Americans felt politically and culturally isolated by the Chicano Movement, a Mexican American activist movement that focused largely on labor rights and educational reform, during the 1960s and gravitated toward the Republican Party. During the 1960s and into the 1970s, Hispanic Americans started being elected to political positions despite the discrimination that was prevalent. In this address, President Gerald Ford recognized the political gains that Hispanic Americans had made and noted his party’s support for these changes. Ford asserted that the Republican Party needed to continue to support Hispanic Americans, which was important both for their advancement and for the expansion of Republican power. The Hispanic American vote was vital to Ford’s campaign because it was a large voting base that the Republican Party had failed to attract in previous years.