Ethnic heritage as rhetorical legacy: The plan of Delano

The Plan of Delano was a powerful persuasive document in the interrelated Chicano and farmworkers’ movements of the 1960s and 1970s. To support the thesis that this Plan's persuasive qualities are illuminated best from the perspective of its own ethnic legacy, this essay attempts to demonstrate that the Plan's Mexican‐originated generic form and Mexican‐American cultural context reveal sources of its rhetorical power and meaning. These findings provide several implications for the rhetorical criticism of ethnic discourse.