The NCLR was founded as a Chicano organization, being both descriptively and substantively representative of Mexican Americans; however, with the development of the Hispanic classification the NCLR began to make greater, panethnic claims. The efforts of the NCLR to popularize the Hispanic classification paid off as the organization saw large increase in its funding when began to use the new census data as part of its grant proposals and congressional lobbying in the late 1970’s. This increase in funding was due to the fact that NCLR was, “able to classify Mexicans, and select others, as part of a national minority group,” from the new census data (Mora 193). This in turn allowed the NCLR to argue, “that Hispanic poverty, unemployment, and education
