arizona latinos: centennial legacy

Transforming Arizona’s Economy

Arizona Latinos: A Centennial Legacy000

By Paul Brinkley-RogersRaza Development FundLa Voz Arizona

There has been no shortage of Mexican-American leaders, from the earliest days of the spectacular territory named by Spanish explorers

“Arizuma” after the Aztec word that mean “silver-bearing.”Entrepreneurs. Labor organizers. Teachers. Priests. Publishers. Physicians. Lawmen and lawyers. War heroes. Local politicians and state politicians. Civil rights advocates. Miners, laborers and farmers. People of Mexican descent have helped make the stark landscape of Arizona a place of incredible growth.The earliest generations of Latino lead-ers have long since passed on. A youth-ful generation has inherited a birthright of culture and language built by their grandparents and great grandparents.

Twenty-eight per cent of the population of Phoenix is now Latino. At some point in this decade, demographers say, Latinos will be Arizona’s majority population.For those now in their 60s, 70, 80s, and 90s, however, the past is vivid and real. The struggles they fought for quality and recognition are to be savored. Their ac-complishments are now part of history. Their clubs and organizations live on, evi-dence of what it took through the years to organize, assert, and lobby for equal rights as Americans.There were struggles, but also phenom-enal accomplishments. Relationships were built with state and local government agencies to create programs which al-lowed Chicanos to prosper and become entrepreneurs.For example, the owner of the El Mesquite Mexican Restaurant in south Phoenix says that because she signed up to attend the Workforce Development Program of Chicanos Por La Causa, she was able to

Arizona, our history

We have gone through good and bad experiences, but all of them have helped to form a strong community that looks forward for a bright future

Members of the Sociedad Mutualista de Obreros Mexicanos or Mexican Mutual Aid Society of Mexican Workers, gathered in 1923. Courtesy of Ginny Jordan

Soul and Heart of the Chicano MovementJoe Eddie and Rosie Lopez are, in real life, husband and wife… and they were the soul and heart of a movement social fight

By Paul Brinkley-RogersRaza Development FundLa Voz Arizona

They were the heart and the soul of the Chicano movement in Phoenix: Joe Eddie Lopez and Rosemarie “Rosie” Lopez, husband and wife.They were a one, two, punch in those days in the 1960s when Mexican-Americans were clamoring for equal treatment and opportunity.Joe Eddie worked night and day, 7 days a week, on community organiz-

Rosie and Joe Eddie Lopez. Carlos Chavez/La Voz

gain the knowledge to become a business-woman.There are still good stories to be told of what it meant to be Mexican-American when schools were segregated, when medical care was denied to injured miners, when swimming pools were off limits, when Latinos were relegated to attending mass in a church basement, when they were “not permitted” to live north of Van Buren Street in Phoenix.

A VERy DiStAnt PLAcEThese older leaders say that the many types of overt discrimination up to and through the 1960s are rare nowadays. Street protests, lawsuits, subtle pressure on civic officials, appeals to reason, brought an imperfect equality. Today, because of the immigration issue, a new type of discrimination is being employed that is causing new protests and new lawsuits. To go back to the beginning, more than 350 years before statehood, the land was once a remote outpost of Spanish Mexico. Fray Marcos de Niza – whose name was lent to a “Mexicans only” housing project in the segregated year of 1941 – wandered north from Mexico in 1539. Coronado probed the Grand Canyon in 1546. A mission was founded on the Santa Cruz River in 1687. A trade route between Tucson and California was established in 1774.But the United States won sovereignty over much of the Southwest including parts of Arizona in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo as the result of the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. Only 6 years later Mexico ceded the southern third of Arizona in the so-called Gadsden Purchase, giving the United States sovereignty over rich mineral resources and farmland already being worked by Mexicans, and a railroad route to southern California. Mexican President Santa Ana, agreed to the $10 million purchase price, saying the land would have been soon lost to the Americans anyway.Many Mexicans living in Sonora sought refuge in Arizona when the Americans at-tempted to exterminate the Apaches, and the Apaches moved south into Mexico. Some of Arizona’s oldest Mexican-American families trace their history to this event.Other families came north to work Anglo-run mining camps like Clifton and Morenci, working as laborers for one third the daily wages of Anglo workers. In the 1880s, Ari-zona Anglos outnumbered Mexican-Ameri-cans for the first time.

cRiES OF REBELLiOnIn the decade before statehood, Mexican-Americans working in the mines and in the

railroads staged the first strikes for better wages and improved work and housing opportunities. This was the beginning of decades of Latino organizing. The roots of many key Latino advocacy groups of today can be traced back to these early de-mands for equality.Self-help groups were founded to call atten-tion to the plight of miners and to provide financial assistance to injured mine workers and families devastated by fatal accidents. These groups were the forerunners of many contemporary neighborhood organizations.The Sociedad Mutualista de los Obreros Mexicanos, founded in the border city of Douglas in 1923 where the Phelps Dodge Corporation operated a copper smelter, still exists. Its meeting hall at 406 8th Street looks unchanged from those early days. There are 150 elderly members. Every year, that number shrinks, but the group is attempting to recruit young members who will cherish and safeguard its history.Lupe Jordan, 86, and her husband, Ramon, 91, have been members since they were young. “The way my dad explained it to me,” Lupe Jordan said, “it got started when one of the workers for the railroad was injured and no clinic wanted to take him because he was Mexican.“So many of us have died,” she said. “My dad; my husband’s father. But we still help. We give scholarships to Cochise College. If someone dies, we try to give the family $1,000. If a member is in hospital we help, but not very much because we don’t have the resources. So we give $4 per day for 20 days. It is a gesture of caring and respect.“I became a member when I was very young. My dad said, ‘We need help. We Mexican people need to help each other.“It was a very different world then. If you


Arizona Latinos: A Centennial Legacy 000

ing and co-founded Chicanos Por La Causa in 1968. There were many, many meetings at their home at 32nd Street and Lewis. Rosie made sure the energy level stayed high by always having a pot of steaming menudo ready to serve.It was a life full of purpose. But it was also a hard life. Joe Eddie, ever thoughtful, talked about those times in the home he and Rosie share near South Mountain. They are both 72 years old. The bond is strong. Rosie nodded her head in agreement and supplied extra details as her husband told the story.He was born in December, 1939, in Duran, a hamlet that once was home to 300 people but is now a ghost town, 6,000 feet high, in central New Mexico. He was born into a family of 10. They were farm workers.He grew up sitting in the back of an old Ford pickup shuttling between cotton and peanut fields in Texas, Colorado, New Mexico and California. He started working full time at the age of 9 and it was often so cold “my grandmother would take me home and feed me hot beans” to help keep him warm.Rosie, a tall, strong woman, was born in Santa Monica, California. Her father, who worked as a busboy in the resort town of Del Mar, was from Rincon de Romos in Aguascalientes, Mexico, a small town that was once home to a priest named Padre Nieves who people believed made miracles. Rosie’s father met his future wife in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.“I got into organizing by accident,” Joe Eddie recalled. “I wasn’t one to join a movement of any kind. I was a farm worker who travelled the migrant stream.”Finally, in 1949, when he was 10, Joe Eddie and his five brothers settled permanently in Arizona. They had an uncle who was a general foreman at Arrowhead Ranch and Joe Eddie lived there for a while. Finally, his family put down roots at 16th Street and Apache in South Phoenix.He liked to read. Even though he often had to get up at 3 AM to pick oranges, lemons and celery, he found time in the evenings to read something. “I always hoped I could be a philosopher, or psychologist. But people told me, ‘Don’t kid yourself.’”He graduated from Peoria High School in 1957. In the 1960s he met Ascencion

Ramon Jordan, one of five brothers who went to war together. Courtesy of Ginny Jordan.



wanted a soda you might not get it because they didn’t want to serve a Mexican. At grammar school there were separate classes for Mexicans. If we spoke Spanish we were spanked. We were not allowed to go to dances. It was like that until the 1950s. Even now I feel hurt when I think about that. I’ve been carrying a chip on my shoulder about it for so many years.”She said she finds it hard to forgive when she considers the fact that her husband and 4 of his 6 brothers all served honorably in the US Navy aboard the USS Marcasite during World War II. They all survived. Two other brothers served in the Navy after the war. She has a photo of the 7 Jordan brothers that show their faces arranged in a circle like a constellation of stars.After the war ended, her husband con-fronted the school principal in Douglas to change the segregation policy. “After I fought for my country, you would do this to my family?” she remembers her out-raged husband said. As a result, the policy began to change.

BEFORE AnD AFtER thE WARThe war gave Mexican-Americans who wore the uniform an opportunity to see the world outside their neighborhoods and barrios. They served with people from other cultures. There was often discrimina-tion in the military too, but the experience of fighting for a good cause galvanized many young Latino men. About 450,000 Mexican-Americans from all over the na-tion served in the military.Some of them felt this was their moment to show that they were Americans too. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, the Phoenix newspaper, El Mensajero, declared: “We should show that we are of the same disposition, ready to sacrifice all that we possess, even the precious blood of our sons.” Many of these sons decided that things were going to be different when they returned home.Phoenix was a relatively small city in 1940. Its population was 62,414, including 9,740 Hispanics – 15 per cent of the population. At the end of the war the city had nearly 100,000 residents, of whom 16,000 were Latino. The count in the 2010 Census was 1.445 million residents, 40.8 per cent Latino.The city’s boundaries ran from 24th Street on the east to 25th Avenue on the west, and from Thomas Road in the north to Buckeye Road west of Central Avenue and Buchanan Street east of Central. La-tinos lived in five clearly defined barrios in often substandard housing much of which was outside the city limits. When war started in 1942, one fact of life

was that Latinos were relegated to the other side of the railroad tracks in south Phoenix. Movement south and north of Van Buren Street did not occur until the late 1940s and early 1950s when Latino military veterans began demanding equal housing opportunities, and activist groups and lawyers started hammering at the doors of justice to set things right.Silvestre Herrera, who was born in Chihua-hua, Mexico, was one of many Phoenix Hispanics who earned medals for their service. But in his case he won the ultimate decoration: the Medal of Honor, for charg-ing German gun emplacements with a bayonet fixed to his M-1 rifle. His feet were blown off by a mine, but he continued firing.He survived and returned to Phoenix where he was given American citizenship. Governor Sid Osborn designated Aug. 25, 1945, as Silvestre Herrera Day, officials flocked to Union Station to welcome home the hero, and he was guest of honor at a parade down Central Avenue.However, only a few days before the hon-ors, Latino community leaders preparing to welcome Herrera noticed that several downtown Phoenix businesses were still posting signs which read, “No Mexican Trade Wanted.” Furious lobbying con-vinced the Governor to order the signs removed.

SEgREgAtED hOuSingWhen the war ended, Latinos began pressing for an end to segregation in hous-ing. Even federally-funded housing pro-grams that had built better housing during the war for families working in defense industry plants were segregated. In 1939 the Phoenix Housing Authority with

Silvestre herrera, a Mexican native and hero of the U.S. war. The Arizona Republic.

“Sonny” Najera who flew aircraft for the US Air Force in the Vietnam era and who had become involved in organizing young Chicanos in Cali-fornia, and then in Phoenix. Najera “dragged” him to a meeting and he discovered “it was easy for me to understand what they wanted, espe-cially when they were talking about farm workers. He was inspired by a speech he watched Cesar Chavez give at Phoenix College. Joe Eddie and Rosie met for the first time on the dance floor at the famed Riverside Ballroom, especially popular with young Mexican-Amer-icans on Sunday nights. Soon they were organizing students at Arizona State and at other schools. MASO (Mexican-American Student Orga-nization) was started at ASU and they poured all their energies into it. “That was fine on a campus,” he said. “But we felt the task of improv-ing (opportunities for Chicanos) was going to come through community organizing.Political rivalries in 1967 slowed down an attempt to establish a major Chi-cano organization in Phoenix, with the Phoenix-based Southwest Coun-cil of La Raza (SCLC) – the forerunner of the National Council of La Raza – looking on. But finally in 1968, Joe Eddie emerged as the leader, and Chicanos Por La Causa was founded with the help of seed money from the SCLC. As CPLC’s Co-Founder and Chair-man, he directed the dramatic

A 1971 publication distributed in hispanic neighborhoods in Phoenix. it referred to the garcia family.



Father Emmett McLoughlin as chairman, funded several segregated projects built in 1942: one for Anglos, one for African-Amer-icans, and one for Mexican-Americans: the 225 homes of the Marcos de Niza project from Yavapai to Pima streets and First to Fourth avenues.Many Latinos liked living in the project. But for those who wanted to live elsewhere, the door was barred. David Perez, who fought as a member of the Bushmasters during the war, tried to use the GI Bill to finance a home, but banks redlined him.Amadeo Suarez, a veteran who tried to buy a home in Melrose Manor on North 7th Avenue, was turned down because of a restrictive deed that read, “No lot or tract, or any part thereof, shall be leased, let, occupied, sold or transferred to anyone other than to members of the white or Caucasian race except those of Mexican or Spanish ancestry, and this exclusion shall include those having perceptible strains of Mexican, Spanish, Asiatic, Negro or Indian blood.”

AMERicAn LEgiOn POSt 41There were many such examples. They infuriated young veterans who had risked everything fighting for their country. Many civic organizations were started. One of the most influential was American Legion Post 41, founded in October, 1945, by Ray Martinez and Frank Fuentes. Martinez said it was not just going to be a social group. “When we got out of the ser-vice, some of us knew we had a mission,” Martinez told one historian. “Because we were not going to go back to the discrimi-nation we had suffered before. We knew that was the time, right after the war…and we thought, well this is the time to make the move.”The Post, which is still going strong at 2nd Avenue at Grant Park, helped end seg-regation at Tempe Beach swimming pool where Mexican-Americans were allowed one day a week. It halted discrimination by builders in housing developments. It lobbied city council members to allocate funding for elementary schools needed for Latino children, upgraded Grant, Central and Harmon Parks in south Phoenix, and started a baby clinic.Through the years, younger veterans joined Post 41 and, like their predecessors, often became major successes in life.Arturo “Art” Othon, whose father Lencho was a World War II vet, enlisted in the Army from 1969 to 1972. “It made me grow up,” he said. “I was a punk before I went in. I matured real quick, and after I came back and saw what was going on (in the com-munity’s fight for equal rights) I decided I

was going to work the system.”He worked in construction. He was the first Latino to be executive assistant to Mayor Terry Goddard, and he held the same title with Governor Rose Mofford. He worked at the Department of Economic Security. He spent 18 years as director of Community and Economic Development with Arizona Public Service (APS).He managed the Westside Training Center at 35th Avenue and Thomas for Chicanos Por La Causa, which he served as President from 1980-82. The group, now one of the largest Latino advocacy organizations in the nation, was started in 1967 by young Mexican-American men and women de-termined to improve the quality of life for Arizona’s Latinos.

LOW-incOME StuDEntOthon, 62, is retired. But you would never know that, looking at his daily schedule. He is deeply involved in the running of the family-owned El Bravo restaurants on Seventh Street and also at Terminal 4 of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.He is immediate past chairman of West-marc, a coalition of West Valley govern-ment, education and business leaders. He is chairman of the Victoria Foundation and a board member of the Valley of the Sun YMCA Hispanic/Latino Advisory Council. He is chief Business Development Officer at Naff & Associates Insurance Services.He has come a long way since he first left the military and as a young man eager to both learn and change the system at home, started attending city meetings “to see and understand what was happen-ing.”Early on, he realized that education of-ficials were not funding predominantly Latino schools so that they were on a par with schools elsewhere. He looked at the 32 schools in the Washington School Dis-trict, one third of which are in mostly Latino south Phoenix, and learned that schools there were not getting funding for music, art and physical education which meant that at graduation time Latino students were not competitive in access to higher education.He helped change all of that. He became a major figure in the business community. But he said that given the present climate of discrimination in Phoenix he can’t help feeling that “Those kinds of things are still happening today. In some ways we have advanced. In some ways we have gone back.”Othon is highly critical of SB1070. “They cre-ated all those lies,” he says of those who lobbied for the bill, including former State Sen. Russell Pearce, Governor Jan Brewer,

18-month fight to improve condi-tions and opportunities for Latino students at Phoenix Union High School where a walkout had oc-curred after girl students were mo-lested. But he also was working full time as a refrigeration steam fitter. Joe Eddie was consumed by work. There was the cause. There also was the need for a paycheck. The hours were long. Sacrifices were made that both Joe Eddie and Rosie have not forgotten because they had such an impact on their life as a family, and on their chil-dren.“If I wanted to see Joe Eddie, it usu-ally had to be at a meeting,” Rosie said. “It was the sacrifice we made. Lots of us in the movement had to make that sacrifice.“I got to cook every night for those bearded guys. Our kids (Eddie and Debbie) suffered an awful lot. My son Eddie didn’t have a very close relationship with his dad. He (Joe Eddie) spends a lot of time with his son to make up for that.“Because he was so involved, it affected our family life. I would take the kids to school and then go to CPLC. Then I would go back to school, and then there would be more meetings and I knew in my heart that I would have to be there,

The Lopez’ couple on their wedding day. Courtesy of Rosie and Joe Eddie Lopez.

former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The “culture of fear,” he said, “as been ruinous for Arizona’s image.“What Pearce has done,” Othon said, “has hurt our state. As director of economic development for APS, I would send teams to other states to recruit businesses. But because of Pearce and the others, we were a laughing stock. Businesses asked why their employees would want to go to a state that doesn’t properly educate chil-dren. Why would they want those children exposed to racism?“Right now, I would say things are worse,” he said, compared with what he remem-bers from his youth. “Our (Latino) kids feel the effects of this racism. Anglo kids are asking our kids, ‘Where are your papers?’ “This is blatantly worse than it was in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. In the 1940s it was “Get off the sidewalk. Our culture then was humble. We respected authority. We didn’t challenge. But we did get a good educa-tion.”

SOnS OF thE LEgiOnPhoenix native Pete Garcia succeeded Othon as President and CEO of Chicanos Por La Causa in 1984, but his work with the large social service organization dates all the way back to 1972. He has just stepped down as CPLC’s leader. He is 67 now, a big relaxed guy with a baritone’s voice. He also is a veteran. He often played football in Germany in 1962-65 when he was in the

Army.He has clear memories when he was a teenager, Garcia said, of “never going north of Van Buren and staying south of a ‘certain area.’ “It was not allowed,” he said.But the military broadened his exposure to the world outside of the public housing project where he grew up in central Phoe-nix. One moment he was just a kid from Phoenix. The next moment, as a GI, he was monitoring the location of Soviet nuclear weapons in case the Russians decided to invade West Germany.Returning to Phoenix, he decided to go to Phoenix College. Later he moved on to Arizona State University, earning a degree in education in 1972. He also was a loyal member of Post 41, and he helped start Sons of the Legion.Sons of the Legion included sons and daughters of veterans. It gave young Latinos the opportunity to learn about organizing around Robert’s Rules of Order, and to go from being activists to provid-ing opportunities for Chicano youth to get scholarships. In a way, members took the ideals veterans had fought for and began putting them into action. “I did my homework there at the bar of the Legion” he said, laughing. “I am still a member. When I go there, everybody buys me a drink.”Garcia cracks pretty good jokes.But, like Othon, and other Arizona Latino leaders who have clear memories of the injustices of the past, he does not joke about the injustices of the present.“It’s a cultural shock for Anglos to come here and see the positions they (Latinos) are in, in terms of leadership,” he said. “Ari-zona is totally different from other states. The food. The culture. The religion. They are all different.”Anglo immigrants are susceptible to input from fear mongers, Garcia said. The rheto-ric of fear dominates the moment. But this also is the time when Latinos have never been more successful: more young people are going to college, even though college is less and less affordable. There are more Latinos in professional and ex-ecutive positions. Latino representation is growing in local and state politics. Latino organizations are becoming effective.Rapid demographic changes are pointing to a future in Arizona where Hispanics will be the majority population and those who say ‘I want my country back’ will be facing the inevitability of becoming the minority population.It is a unique moment for the Latino com-munity, Garcia said. It is a time of great opportunity and possibilities in terms of



like Joe Eddie.“There were the marches. The boy-cotts. We would both be there. If I wasn’t doing that I was making big pots of menudo, or making enchi-ladas, to feed everyone” attending the so frequent meetings at the Lopez home.Rosie said “In those days it was not kosher for a wife to be helping her husband” with leadership and ideol-ogy. “It was difficult for her. I was a causista (activist) from day one. I was kind of shy. I was not confident about speaking up. I was not recog-nized as a person on my own.” But she did help recruit a group of older women, who were mostly mothers, to the board of CPLC, which gave the organization huge credibility it would not have had if all its leaders were young people.“Without that group of women we would not have succeeded,” Joe Eddie said. Without (ASU Professor) Miguel Montiel giving guidance we wouldn’t have made it. You have to have a community organization that is representative of the commu-nity, if you are going to succeed.The presence on the board of wom-en like Zobeda Fritz, Hilda Valles, Antonia Diaz, Guadalupe Huerta, Carolina “Curly” Rosales and Terri Cruz, who is still with CPLC, created a “la familia” at CPLC.It helped blunt criticism and suspicion, in both the Anglo and Latino communities, “that we were radicals,” Joe Eddie said. It helped win the struggle for better medical services in south Phoenix. It helped bring curriculum reforms and better

Art Othon, former president of chicanos por la causa. Carlos Chavez/La Voz

Joe Eddie and Rosie Lopez have a great family, though they devoted a lot of their time to activist work. Courtesy of Rosie and Joe Eddie Lopez



national influence. The immigration debate has intensified as these changes happen, maybe because of these changes.On the one hand, the Anglo majority “has a fear of the Latino population. They fear the possibilities. There is a phobia about the future. We hear about illegals, drugs, beheadings in the desert. There is fear that the (Latino) population will revolt, or do something bad.

A hiSPAnic gOVERnOR“But if you are objective, and you look at improvements made by Latinos, what do you see? There has been a Latino governor. Latino city council members. Latino con-gressmen. All of us who have been working since the early 70s to improve the availability of jobs and other things have a lot to be proud of.”Garcia is proud of what he came from, as well as what he has done with his life.His Victoria Foundation, a Phoenix phil-anthropic non-profit with offices at 12th Street and Buck- eye Road, started up in 2008. It makes grants that impact economic development, education,

arts

and culture and affordable housing.The foundation is named after his mother, Victoria. “I gave it her name,” he said, “be-cause she saved me from going to the peni-tentiary. She was born in Pima, Arizona, near Safford. She got there in a covered wagon all the way from Silver City, New Mexico, where my grandfather owned a farm.His upbringing was stormy, he said. “My mom was a single mother with severe arthri-tis. My dad was an alcoholic who torched the house. Out of that, Garcia made a life most people would envy. He even has fans and friends in far away Wales where he visits every now and then to see check on the progress of the credit union he helped get off the ground.The credit union now has 5,000 members, including many blue collar workers.It is proof, he said, that expertise gained working for a Chicano social services orga-nization like CPLC is transferrable. He got a kick out of the fact that he, a former kid from the barrio, was able to chat with Prince Charles in Wales as a result of his work there. The Prince is better known as the Prince of Wales.

nAtiOnAL cOunciL OF LA RAzA’S ROOtSThere is a much larger organization than CPLC that works out of offices in Washington DC and lobbies in behalf of the Hispanic community in Congress and among leaders of industry. That organization is the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest Latino advocacy organization in the United States.But the organization that gave birth to NCLR – the Southwest Council of La Raza (SCLR) – was founded in February, 1968, in Phoe-nix with funding from the Ford Foundation, the United Auto Workers, and the National Council of Churches. Herman Gallegos, SCLR’s first executive di-rector, was an activist who came out of the wave of community organizing in the Bay Area in the 1950s and 60s, aided by self help mentors like Saul Alinsky and Fred Ross. The organizing resulted in groups deter-mined to effect social change in urban areas, and labor movements groups like that led by Cesar Chavez working in behalf of farm workers mostly in California and also in the Yuma, Arizona, area where Chavez was born in 1927. Gallegos, now 81, was working his way through college as a gas station attendant in San Jose when he first became involved with the Community Service Organization (CSO). He has spent a lifetime pursuing a commitment to empower Mexican-Ameri-cans and other disenfranchised minorities ever since.In 1960, at the age of 25, Gallegos became president of the National

security at Phoenix Union. Young Mexican-Americans no longer were being steered into vocational train-ing, They could aspire to become anything they wanted. CPLC, born to activism, matured to become a major community development organization like Unity Council in Oakland, and TELACU (The East Los Angeles Community Union). They were founded about the same time as CPLC.Joe Eddie said honors came his way. He was offered fellowships or scholarships to Yale University and the University of California’s Hastings Law School in San Francisco. But he was too busy.Later, he served terms in both the Arizona House and Senate from 1991 to 1996, representing District 22.“My biggest regret,” he said, “is that perhaps because of our efforts in getting the organization going, we caused a lot of families to split up. I regret that. In talking to some of them, they often say now it wasn’t the best decision. They were sorry it happened. I sometimes feel a little bad about those things.“We chose to make the sacrifice. I see now how I neglected my son and daughter. I just pray that they understand this. My son, Eddie, had a great love for camping. He had to do it alone. I knew then when I was neglecting them, but I couldn’t ex-plain it to them. I couldn’t say it was because we were doing something really important.”Chicanos Por La Causa is now a large organization with hundreds of employees and massive community development programs affecting whole neighborhoods all across Arizona. The days of meeting in a small green building are long gone. The legacy and the memories are strong.

Pete garcia, former presi-dent of cPLc and current president of the Victoria Foundation. carlos Chavez/La Voz

Raul Castro was born in Sonora, Mexico but became the first Hispanic governor of Arizona and was U.S. ambassador. The Arizona

Republic



Community Service Organization and then moved from community-based organizing to pioneering work with non-profits. With other visionary Latino leaders, he helped establish SCLR, selecting Phoenix because it was a neutral ground between rival powerhouses of Hispanic activism in Texas and California, yet Phoenix had a grow-ing Latino population base and emerging Mexican-American leaders of its own.He displayed an ability to create helpful dialogue both with grass roots activists, and with leaders of government and major companies. As a result, he became the first Latino to serve on the boards of publicly traded corporations, and on the boards of the Rockefeller and Rosenberg founda-tions, and the California Endowment.Gallegos has a past rich in experience. But he is looking to the future. Future leader-ship, he said, cannot come about as the result “of one day workshops in leadership training. Leadership happens when the marches are over.“Also, when it is all said and done,” he said, “old organizational blood should ensure that we invest in training and development of indigenous leadership. If you have an employment program and that person gets a job and becomes a couch potato, that is not good. You have to give back to the community.”That was a less learned when he was a young organizer. It was a lesson that served him well in Phoenix when the SCLR first began flexing its muscles. It was one thing for SCLR to give a loan that in theory would help establish Unity Council in Oakland, an investment which upset critics of community organiz-ing in Congress. It took guts to then adapt to the Ford Foundation’s demand that SCLR invest only in “hard projects” which could be monitored and cause productive changes in troubled communities.Gallegos left SCLR in 1970 when it moved to Washington DC to be closer to the center of political power and became NCLR. He lives in the San Francisco area today.African Americans had their National As-sociation for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) which laid out a program of change backed up by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Economic Opportunity Act that same year.That legislation, however, did little to help advance Mexican-Americans. There were no Mexican-American colleges. Powerful foundations that were a source of financial grants had only a minimal awareness of the Latino community. But with NCLR, Lati-nos were finally being heard in Congress.Alex Zermeno, who is now 74, also worked

out of the Phoenix headquarters of SCLR. He lives in Woodland, near Sacramento, California.He graduated from San Jose State Univer-sity and then received a Masters of Public Administration from Harvard University. Later he was NCLR’s deputy director and was a founding member of Oakland’s Unity Coun-cil, serving on that board for 15 years.

FROM PhOEnix tO Dc In 1992 Zermeno was appointed to the Human Rights Commission of Contra Costa County. Skilled organizers were important in the early days of community activ-ism in places like Phoenix and Oakland. But war veterans provided the drive and determination. “Thank God for those vets,” Zermeno said. “That was the purpose of the Southwest Council…to build one voice, to harness all that energy brought home by those veterans, to influence DC to create social services.”Zermeno chuckled as he recalled the Ford Foundation’s frantic signals to stop “agitat-ing” and halt “giving away money with no strings attached.” The Foundation was under pressure from Congress to assist with community development that could be au-dited and monitored, instead of financing “agitation.” SCLR sent him to Washington to open an office there to better understand the mood in Congress.He said that Phoenix was “a safe place to be” for a Latino organization attempting to confront Congress. “In terms of national politics, the Republicans hated us. But (Barry) Goldwater was pretty decent. He had an understanding of what Latinos in the Southwest were all about. We were learning what the rules were.”SCLR’s modest offices in a building on Ad-ams in downtown Phoenix were a cockpit to watch what Latino activists were trying to do nationwide. Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworkers Union were doing their thing. Young leaders in Phoenix were estab-lishing Chicanos Por La Causa. “Cesar and CPLC were sort of rivals,” he said.“We were trying to understand Chicano politics. California could not deal with Texas. New Mexico had ruthless politics. Colorado had its problems. There was internal warfare among Chicano leaders. Arizona was middle ground and Phoenix was a safe place for Chicanos. It was a kind of ‘nothing is happening’ place.”Everyone was on edge. “Eventually we (SCLR) broke up and we gave a $10,000 grant to CPLC. I thought it was a good investment,” he said. “I almost got fired for that. But, the nice thing about CPLC was that it produced good results. They did not

abuse the money. They set up good pro-grams. And they knew politics.”

thE MinERS’S StRuggLESIt has been 30 years since the strike by the mostly Mexican-American mine workers against the Phelps Dodge Corporation’s open pit copper operation in Clifton/Morenci. The bitter labor struggle lasted from 1983-86. Mexican immigrants built and founded the city of Clifton and they gambled everything – their livelihood, their homes, their small town culture and neighborhoods – when they walked out for better wages and working conditions.They fought and lost. The strike was the last hurrah for Latino labor organizers. Phelps Dodge brought in replacements, both An-glo and Latino, to work the mine and break the strike. The strikers confronted the hated “scabs” but Gov. Bruce Babbitt sent in hundreds of state policemen to keep order, which in effect meant blocking the ability of the strikers to shut down the plant.Out of this white hot battle, two unlikely heroes emerged. Dr. Jorge O’Leary and his wife, Anna Maria Ochoa O’Leary, were heroes as far as the strikers were con-cerned. The company did not know quite what to make of them when they became, in effect, spiritual leaders of the strike even though they were not miners.Dr. O’Leary had been the company doctor but Phelps Dodge fired him when he sided with the strikers and opened the “People’s Clinic” in a former feed store. The doctor, born in Hermosillo, Sonora, had a fiery, rebel streak in him which he attrib-uted to his Yaqui and Irish ancestors. Anna O’Leary was born in Clifton into a mining family. While Doctor O’Leary delivered ba-bies, bound up wounds suffered in clashes, and denounced his former employers, his wife began organizing Clifton’s women who became a force to be reckoned with on the picket line.The doctor, now 71, retired some years ago. But he got bored and is practicing medi-cine again in Tucson. Anna O’Leary, 57, is assistant professor of Mexican-American Studies at the University of Arizona, examin-ing migration and immigration issues with a focus on gender.Doctor O’Leary looks back on the strike experience with nostalgia and sadness.“The unions lost,” he said. “If we had won, it would be history.“The Democratic Party didn’t help, al-though the Governor was a Democrat…During those political times Presidents Regan and Bush were against unions. Arizo-na Governors were anti-union.” The strikers were proud, but that was not enough.



Surprisingly, O’Leary said the present mo-ment in American history gives him some hope that the labor movement, which at times helped Latino workers earn wage parity and benefits, may have life in it yet despite decreasing numbers of members.“In the last couple of years I have seen signs of strength,” he said. “When wallets get thin, people get organized.”For Mexican-Americans, getting organized means getting out the vote, O’Leary said, so that the community can earn meaning-ful respect at the national level. Voting power, plus more Latino membership in unions, could mean political power, and not much will change until Latinos see their fast growing strength in numbers translated into elected officials at all levels of government.Anna O’Leary said that her studies are revealing the size and power of the Latino work force across the United States. “Latinos make up the bulk of the working class across this country,” she said. “By and large, Chicano and Mexican-Americans have made up 75 per cent of the working class, and that has not changed in 100 years, with or without immigration.”

It is up to us to stop the past to repeat again“I never accepted the word ‘minority.’ It degrades me as a human been. I am with the majority, born and raised in the United States.”

DANIEL ORTEGA:

What is the foundation of the Chicano community? It is family, and the values of that family, and there are many tens of thousands of young Latinos in high school and college who have high am-bition because there are generations of successful role models in those families.Take the extended family of Phoenix attorney Daniel R. Ortega Jr., known to family and friends as Danny. Danny Ortega is in his third term as chairman of the board of the National Council of La Raza and he has been a relent-less critic of SB1070 and Arizona politi-cians who backed that legislation. He also is a board member of the Cesar Chavez Foundation and since 1971 he has served 31 organizations in various positions.Ortega, born in El Paso, Texas, comes from a big family. Not so long ago it worked mostly in the fields. He reckons that more than 300 members from his father’s side of the family – uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers, sisters, and “all the chil-dren of those children,” plus more than 100 members from his mother’s family, live in the Phoenix area.His father, Daniel R. Ortega, born in Laveen but raised in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and his mother, Elvira Avila Or-tega, born in Torreon, Coahuila, Mexico, had 8 children. “Of those 8 kids, 7 have bachelor’s degrees – 6 from ASU and the other from Grand Canyon College. Of those 7, four have professional degrees. The remain-ing child is a community liaison worker for a Phoenix school district. Ortega and his brothers and sisters spent much of their childhood in both the American Southwest and in Juarez.Ortega has three children, all graduates, like their father, of Arizona State Univer-sity. Reyna has a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing. Daniel III has a bach-elor’s degree in political science and just received his law degree, passing the state bar on the first try. His other son, Miguel, has a degree in Physical Educa-

tion and wants to be a high school PE teacher.“If you talk to immigrants today,” said Ortega, who is 60 and is a personal injury lawyer, “they are no different from my mom and dad. In the case of dad, he was a farm worker, but he had this dream that he would run a small busi-ness.“It was a case of taking a negative and turning it into a positive. For my dad, salaried jobs were not available. He was Mexican. He didn’t have the education. However, the entrepreneurial spirit in a situation like that comes from opportuni-ties denied in society.“My dad never thought ‘They are not giving me jobs because I am a Mexican.’ He just said ‘I’m going to get ahead.’ Dad never said ‘Racism is hold-ing me back.’ He always said. If you work hard you’ll be a success.’” And his father was a success. He bought an old pickup truck in 1958 and started hauling vegetables and produce from the fields to the canneries, and he earned more income from that than he would ever earn picking oranges or cotton.”Ortega’s father died 7 years ago. His

Daniel “Danny” Ortega Jr., lawyer and president of the board of the directors of the national council of La Raza. Carlos Chavez/La Voz

in the 1970’s, the government violently sup-pressed a strike movement in Arizona’s min-ing towns where most workers were Mexican-American. The Arizona Republic



gLOBALizAtiOn VS. JOBSGlobalization has meant that many Americans have seen their jobs go overseas where wages are lower. But Latinos have shown resiliency. Some work categories are now dominated by Hispanics. “You can’t move some jobs overseas,” she said. “Res-taurant workers. The hotel industry. Many service jobs…those have to be done here.“Those are the jobs we are locked into as Mexican-Americans because we are not able to go to college. Because we are locked into being the working class it really keeps our population from nurturing the economy and from having a say in the intellectual direction of the country.”Arizona’s more recent role as a receiver of large numbers of immigrants, she said, means that eventual the presently soured political climate will have to change. “Descendents of immigrants – their children – can vote. Their children are going to be the foot soldiers of the Mexican-American people and they won’t stand for their par-ents receiving abusive treatment.” In many ways, the Latino experience in the border communities of Arizona has been distinctly different from what has happened in Tucson, Phoenix and other cities that do not have daily contact with Mexico.A greater percentage of residents in the Somerton and San Luis area, and in Nogales, Naco and Douglas, speak Span-ish, although many of them acknowledge that their daily language has become a mix of Spanish and English. They may have frequent contact with relatives in Sonora. Latinos are the majority population in these communities.But their daily language, more often than not, is a mix of Spanish and English. Their families may have lived in those border towns since the 1880s.. Ray Borane Jr., a Douglas native, served 12 years mayor, stepping down in 2008. He is a former superintendent of schools in Douglas, and taught Spanish in Douglas schools after studying languages at universi-ties in Bogota, Colombia, and Guadalajara, Mexico. He is a former deputy State Super-intendent of Public Instruction. In his youth he was an FBI special agent in Washington, DC. At this time. Borane serves on the Southwest Border Task Force as an advisor to Home-land Security director Janet Napolitano. He is frequently interviewed on news programs, he has written Op-Ed pieces on immigration in the New York Times, and he has been an outspoken critic of SB1070, vigilantes, and border fences.Borane, 73, was born into a Lebanese-Mex-ican family in one of the poorest neigh-borhoods in Douglas: Barrio de le Hilacha

mother lives on Baseline Road in South Phoenix.Ortega said many of the estimated 75,000 undocumented immigrants and supporters marching on the state capital to protest SB 1070 in May, 2010, soon after Governor Jan Brewer signed it into law, have similar dreams of starting a small business.In his case, he said, he was working at the age of 5, helping to load and unload trucks coming from the fields. “At 8, I started mowing lawns. Then I got a newspaper route. My parents worked, worked, worked, as if there was nothing else to do. Work was the foundation of our family, the reason for its strength.”Ortega went to Phoenix Union High School. He was a high achieving student. He was class president and he excelled at cross country athletics. Anglo kids had no trouble getting into pre-college classes. But Ortega’s teachers urged him to take shop classes “good for being an auto mechanic or a sheet metal worker or some other trade that Chicanos did.” He dug in his heels, and got the classes that he wanted.All around him in Arizona and the South-west, Mexican-Americans were organiz-ing. Ortega did not have much political awareness. He was a high schooler who “was very proud of being of Mexican descent, proud of our music, our food, and our family structure.”His first exposure to political action came when “ASU students with MASO (Mexi-can American Student Organization organized in 1968) invited me to a LULAC (League of United Latin American Citi-zens, founded in 1929 in Texas) meeting. I went, but mostly because I thought it get a scholarship to go to ASU.” Instead there was a confrontation between the two groups and Ortega dis-covered he had much in common with MASO, founded by students like him.

He got his early mentoring in political action and awareness from activist veterans Joe Eddie Lopez and Rosie Lopez, who helped found Chicanos Por La Causa. “I was only 17 then. MASO then invited me to a meeting at Joe Eddie’s house at 39th Avenue and Lewis. That house hosted so many meetings! They invited me to speak. It was all new to me, but I was happy to be around Mexican-Amer-icans from the university. … From there, there was no turning back.”It was an ideal time for a young Chicano to go to college, he said. The national struggle for civil rights – already in its eighth year – was rallying the Latino, African-American, Native-American, and Asian communities. Congress, universi-ties and foundations were prompted to begin offering scholarships. Ortega won a Pell Grant. He passed the state bar in 1977.Ortega said Arizona is at a critical point in its destiny.The worst of the anti-Latino, anti-immi-grant, wave of prejudice, may be over, he said. “The pendulum is now swinging the other way. The middle class main-stream is beginning to say ‘This doesn’t feel right.’ States outside Arizona realize that politicians can ruin a state’s image – ruin it for business - which has happened here. “I think we are going to get over this and come to a point where everyone recognizes that we (Chicanos) are contributors. We are going to be the majority in the future. It is up to Latinos to behave in a way that does not repeat the recent past. We need to have the vision to understand what it means to be the ‘majority’.“I never accepted the word ‘minority.’ It demeans me as a human being. I am with the majority, American-born and raised.”

(hilacha means ‘ragged’). “I have been bilingual all my life,” he said. “Spanish was my first language. My dad (who was assistant port director of the bor-der crossing) spoke English. But my mother spoke Spanish at our home.” His maternal grandmother was born in Arizpe, Sonora.“There is a tremendous difference in grow-ing up in a community away from the bor-der, and what life is like here. Douglas and Agua Prieta (the much larger neighboring Sonora city) were one community as far as Latinos were concerned. “We went back and forth with ease.”

Borane said “militarization of the border” is destroying those connections. “My mother was part-Mexican and constantly going across the border to visit family and friends. We shared the music, the language, the food, the culture.”Latinos may have been the majority in Douglas. But Anglos often dominated city government, businesses and the school system. The last Census showed that 86 per cent of the 14,500 people living in Douglas are Latino. “When I coached basketball years ago, all my kids spoke Spanish. A Tucson newspa-



per covered one of our games and they wrote, ‘If you play basketball for Ray Borane you have to speak Spanish.’“That caused a big negative reaction in Douglas, he said. “The superintendent called me into his office and he said that a board member had objected. ‘Ray,’ he said. ‘You have to speak English.’ I said, ‘I have to speak what the kids are comfort-able with.’ He didn’t really take any action. He was just going through the motions of reprimanding me.”

thE BORDER’S WAy Borane says he remembers separate home rooms for Anglo and Latino children in junior high school. “If an Anglo girl dated a Mexican, they talked about her. It wasn’t acceptable. Some Anglo families they became very upset, very upset by it.” There were separate dressing rooms and showers for workers at the Phelps Dodge smelter, which closed in the early 1980s.Unlike the big cities, equality demands by Latinos were rare. In a small city, discrimina-tion mostly died a quiet death as Hispanics gained political clout. It still exists, but in Douglas, with old neighborhoods where people know each other, such issues rarely create controversy.

Exceptions have been the prosecution in 1980 and in 2009 of Anglo ranchers for alleg-edly assaulting undocumented immigrants they stopped and detained on their prop-erty located near Douglas.Borane said he received death threats in his second term in office as mayor when vigilante groups said they would come to Douglas and he convinced the city council to pass a resolution “saying you are not welcome in our town.” Borane says that hate rhetoric has not persuaded him to back down. It also has not caused him to sever his ties with life in neighboring Agua Prieta. His efforts have been appreciated in that Mexican city of 200,000 people: a neighborhood there has been named “Colonia Ray Borane” and the mayor of Agua Prieta, a cattleman named Vicente Teran, has signed up Borane to be his adviser on border issues.

DEtERMinAtiOn in thEiR DnASome Arizona Latino families have had determination and ambition in their DNA for long, long time.Art Ruiz, for example, who is the new direc-tor of State Farm’s Multicultural Business De-velopment Group, has been with the insur-ance company for 31 years. Recently, the

company “lent” him to help start Arizona State University’s Center for Community De-velopment and Civil Rights, which had been founded by Raul Yzaguirre, former CEO of the National Council of La Raza. Ruiz also serves on the board of the Raza Develop-ment Fund in Phoenix. Ruiz, 63, was born in Bisbee. He said his fam-ily has lived, and prospered, in Arizona for more than 100 years. His paternal grandparents came from Bacoachi, Sonora, and Chihuahua. His ma-ternal grandparents were from Alamos and Hermosillo, Sonora. Part of the family was Flemish, originally from Belgium.Some of those grandparents were ranch-ers and business people in Mexico. They came north during the period from 1908 to 1911 to escape unrest, caused by the Mexican Revolution, in Sonora. They went into business or worked in the mines after they relocated to Arizona. His father, Arturo, worked in the copper mine in Bisbee. An uncle, Rafael Ruiz, was the first Hispanic elected to the Bisbee City Council. A cousin was postmaster in Bisbee Ruiz, who only lived in Bisbee until he was 2, said his family moved out after subtle urg-ing from a Doctor Silva who worked at the Phelps Dodge company hospital.He said the doctor delivering him asked his mother if she intended to have 8 children, like her mother. Then the doctor asked his father, ‘Do you want to get black lung disease (a fatal lung disease caused by dust inside mines)?’ His parents soon moved first to Tucson and then to southern California where his father went into sheet metal work.His parents had only one more child. His dad did not get lung disease. His mother, Bertha Ruiz, went to school after she was widowed.

Rey Borane, former mayor of Douglas (bottom left) with his basketball team. Courtesy of Rey Borane Jr.

Art Ruiz, State Farm insurance.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish at the age of 55. One year later she earned a master’s degree She worked several jobs with the State of California. Bertha will be 85 in May: she is retired and lives in Oro Valley just north of Tucson.Ruiz said that in discussions with his mother he has learned that some schools attached to mining camps offered a good educa-tion. These schools also were often segregated. “My mom was a straight A student in school,” he said. “Her friend, Pearl Rojo, asked my mom why her name was not on the A list posted at the school. She went looking for her name – Bertha Navarro – and it was true.” Her name was not mentioned. “Was this because she was Mexican?” Ruiz asked. “It makes you wonder.”

Ruiz said that when he was a youngster, Latino veterans of the World War II had already laid the groundwork to change the discrimination status quo. The practice of paying Anglos miners much more than Hispanics doing exactly the same work came to an end. Segregated schools merged. “The soldiers came back to the United States having served and they said, ‘We paid our dues. We are Americans. We were born here.’ They took advantage of the GI Bill. There was to be no more non-sense for them.”Armando Ruiz (not related to Art Ruiz), who served in the Arizona House and Senate from 1983-93, said that he is a strong believ-er in the fact that what he calls “The 3 Fs” – Faith, Family, and Food and Fiesta – have sustained Mexican-Americans for decades, through times good and bad.Those qualities, he said, are special and will enable the community to strongly influence the direction of the United States now and

in the future. “They (Latinos) will shape the conscience of the country and the future of Arizona,” Ruiz said.“Neither party – Republican or Democrat – has yet captured the loyalties of this large voting block. Hispanics are in a position to influence the live of this country.”Ruiz, 55, said he is fortunate to have had “a unique life experience” which has enabled him to be optimistic, to view issues from all sides, and not be haunted or encumbered by injustices of the past.He was born in Lordsburg, New Mexico. His parents settled in south Phoenix near Cen-tral Avenue. He said “they had the foresight to send me” to Brophy High School. “I was from south Phoenix but I was educated with middle class kids. I had the experience of living in both worlds.”

DEMOcRAt AnD REPuBLicAnHe was a Democrat. But he also went to work for former Republican Gov. Fyfe Symington as executive assistant. “I got the perspective of working for both parties.”After his work in government, Ruiz went into Catholic lay missionary work. He did a marriage ministry and last year founded Mis-sionaries of Mary.In addition, he helped establish three “Espir-itu” charter schools in Phoenix, built around a legacy grant from the National Football League’s proceeds from two Super Bowls.My experiences have given me a unique perspective,” Ruiz said.“I have always been aware of the struggles (for equal rights) and the leaders in those struggles. But at the same time I was aware of the fruits of those struggles. Because I was younger, I was able to enjoy being involved in politics and the new media.” He said he believes Arizona is “in a new time” in its history. It is a pivotal moment, he said, that fills him with hope.“The sheer numbers of Latinos in Arizona are changing society,” Ruiz said. “Those numbers will allow Hispanics to mold the conscience of this country.”He said the 3 Fs are common to both His-panic Catholics and evangelicals.“Faith shapes the perspectives of life,” he said, “and desires of what that life should look like.“The extended family experience – the grandparents, the uncles, the aunts, the cousins, the children and grandchildren – is very different from most other communi-ties. Food and fiesta: that is all about the idea that life should be celebrated. We celebrate the hard times: the funerals. We celebrate the good things: births and birthdays.”

OBSERVER OF thE chicAnO StRuggLEMiguel Montiel, Southwest Borderlands

Scholar and Professor Emeritus in the School of Transborder Studies of Chicano Stud-ies at Arizona State University, was born in Nogales, Arizona. He received his doctor-ate at the University of California, Berkeley. Montiel’s father, born in Phoenix, was from a family of “great landowners and ranch-ers” from Magdalena, Sonora, who were “castaways,” he said, “because they backed the wrong side” in the Mexican Revolution. His mother is from Tepic, Nayarit, in Mexico.“I am different” said the 70-year-old Montiel, who during the early years of Chicano activism was both academic and activist, a voice that lent good counsel, and ardent and familiar advocate for Mexican-Americans both in the universities and in the streets. “My perspective is both” Mexican-American and college professor. “As a kid I used to go to the village in Mexico” where his father’s people were from. Montiel first came to ASU in 1974 and held assignments in social work, at the Hispanic Research Center and in public affairs. In the 1980’s, he served as assistant vice president for academic affairs. It was during

this period that he attended the Institute of Educational Management at Harvard University. He worked for the City of Phoenix as a loaned executive, chaired the city’s Human Services Commission, and served on the Board of the Arizona Center for Public Policy and as a member of the Arizona Judicial Council. His most recent book is Resolana: Emerging Chicano Dialogues in Community and Globalization, published



Bertha navarro

Armando Ruiz, former State Senator.



in 2009, a study of how Latinos gather, talk and decide on a course of action. Over the years, Montiel has become both an astute observer of efforts by Arizona Chicanos to organize their community, and he also has lent advice from the Academic sidelines to those organizing many of the pioneer Latino community groups. He said he believes the Mexican-American community as, “no different from any group” of people in Arizona. “The Mormons, settlers, Native Americans … all these groups have melded together, some better than others.”But Latinos, he said, “blended into the fabric” of the founding and making of Arizona from its earliest days as a territory and then as a state. Mexican-American “made great contributions to the defense of this country in World War II and in Iraq, although I don’t know how much of a contribution they made when they went to Vietnam. They have been a very brave people. You can’t point to their great wealth, but you have to recognize their industry and the personal sacrifices.“Their ‘rich’ part is their history,” Montiel said. However, their accomplish-ments are often lost or ignored by other Arizonans because “we are the people who lost (as a result of the Mexican-American War and the Gadsden Purchase). The people who won get to write our history.”But what about future history? Will the in-evitable Latino majority in the state result in Latino power in government, in commerce and industry, in access to the kind of hous-ing and neighborhoods that are home to so many Anglos? “Numbers and birthrate are not the best indicator of what is going to happen in the future,” he said. Birthrate will remain high. “Immigration is strictly a func-tion of economics. It happens where there are good opportunities. If things improve economically in Arizona, there will be a pickup in immigration.”Looming ahead, he said, is “a generation-al gap.” That gap – a difference in how things will be done in Latino organizations and even in Latino families – is probably already here. He quoted Spanish phi-losopher Jose Ortega y Gasset (author of Revolt of the Masses, 1930) as say-ing “what propels history if generations are in accord with each other.” The generation of Mexican-Americans who won their leadership and organizing spurs in the 1960s and 1970s “is not in accord with young people.” That fact, like the demographic change and getting out the Chicano vote, is going to af-fect what happens in the next century.Mexican-Americans in Arizona are in-creasingly earning recognition in the arts: painting, ceramics, crafts, sculpture, music

and literature.

Sitting nExt JAn BREWERStella Pope Duarte, who was raised in the Sonorita barrio in south Phoenix, did not start writing until 1995. But she has already received national recognition for her two novels and two col-lections of stories, all of which deal with the experiences of Latinas.Her most recent novel, the American Book Award-winning If I Die In Juarez, focuses on the wave of murders of young women, most of whom are maquiladora workers, in Ciu-dad Juarez, which shares the border with El Paso, Texas. Her most recent published work is Women Who Live In Coffee Shops and Other Stories, published in 2010.The current climate of hostility on some parts of Arizona toward Latinos has historical roots in Anglo attitudes toward Mexico and Chicanos, Duarte said.“I call it backlash and scapegoating,” she said. “When things are bad, blame it on drugs.If it is unemployment, it is caused by these Mexicans here. It’s all about ‘We are going to find ways to get them out of here.’“This is not new. A backlash is nothing new. I didn’t know this kind of thing would comeback. It’s sad they would use it again, that they would say.’ The reason why we are in this bad economic situation is that these people are taking our jobs.’ Duarte said that at a recent ceremony at Phoenix College celebrating the 90th anniversary of the founding of the school, she was invited to take a seat on the stage along with Governor Brewer. “I said, ‘This governor has done nothing but come after the Latino population and I won’t sit on stage with her.’”She said she has had positive dialogues with Anglo audiences when she talks

about her books and her view of contemporary Ari-zona. At a recent speech she gave before 800 people from the mostly Anglo retiree community of Green Valley south of Tucson, “I told them I am from the Mexican nation, the nation of the Aztecs and the Mayas. They didn’t know that. But it’s not their fault they didn’t know.”Duarte sees a very positive force in the next 25 years. She says “we know what we needto do. So let’s get it done.” In addition, organized voting by Latinos “will change the ability of Anglos to persecute us. The voting we see now is already show-ing that. Instead of saying ‘We hope, we hope,’ and crossing our fingers, we are not doing that anymore. We are learning how to use organized power. (Senator Russell) Pearce is ousted. (Maricopa County Sheriff Joe) Arpaio is next.“The truth about Anglos is that once the fear is gone, they are not afraid of Latinos. And that fear of us is definitely dissipated among young people.”

A BASkEtBALL REFEREETommy Nunez, 73, of Phoenix was the first Latino referee in the National BasketballAssociation. He is an optimistic, high energy, former Marine Corps corporal who grewup at 9th Street and Washington and whose life continues to be packed with acclaim and accomplishments.He is self-effacing too. His colorful life with the NBA, he said, “is no big deal.” Prejudiceand discrimination exist, but he does not let it get to him. There is too much to enjoy, hesaid.Nunez played some basketball. “But I was more of a bench warmer,” he said. “The thing about bench warmers is that they can make good referees because they become

Stella Pope Duarte, a well-known Latina writer. Carlos Chavez/

La Voz

Tommy Nuñez of Phoenix was the first NBA hispanic referee. Carlos Chavez/La Voz



good observers. That was me. That’s how I got into refereeing.”When the Phoenix Suns franchise was start-ed in 1968, Nunez said, he went to work forthe team. By 1970 he was refereeing the occasional “rookie game” for the Suns. In 1971there were many more rookie games. In 1972, he was invited to referee some pre-season games. And in 1973 he signed on full time with the NBA, spending “30 years on the floor” and 5 years with NBA administra-tion.“I don’t make any big deal out of all of this,” Nunez said. He was lucky he was a kid from Phoenix and the Suns started playing here. No one selected him to be “the firstLatino” referee. He got that job because he was good at it, that’s all, he said.There is another side to Nunez: his deep connections with the Phoenix Chicano community and his willingness to work with Latino youth.He became involved with the birth of a summer youth program in 1974 at the urging of Chicanos Por La Causa. He worked with state officials for 20 summers to put on sports programs for disadvantaged youngsters.For 31 years he has been running a Labor Day Weekend basketball extravaganza – The National Hispanic Basketball Clas-sic – which has grown to include 72 teams playing 167 games in 6 gymnasiums.Nunez said he is too busy to worry much about anti-Latino sentiments.“It’s about 10 per cent – that’s about it – of people who don’t like us. Most of them are from out of town. Most of them haven’t spent much time around Mexicans.“We get a lot of bad publicity be cause of what is happening on the border. Yes, there are people who are anti-Latino. But as far as I am concerned, this is not about a struggle for acceptance. There will always be racists and racism.“The good thing is that there are more and more intelligent, well-educated Latinos. When I was a young man I didn’t go to college. Most of us didn’t go to college. We had to go to work. It was the sons and daughters of miners who led the way, who started going to college because their parents raised them to do that. I think that was just great.”

FiEStAS PAtRiAS FOR EVERyBODyDoctor Mary Jo Franco French, a dynamic woman whose energies have touched and improved lives in both the United States and Mexico, was born in Phoenix in January, 1936.Her parents were Jesus Franco, Mexico’s consul in Phoenix, and Josefina Carrascoso de Franco, publisher and editor of the Span-ish language weekly newspaper, El Sol.She married Doctor Alfred Robert French, an ophthalmologist. The couple has delighted in being involved in community affairs at all levels.Mary Jo attended Xavier High School and graduated from Arizona State University.But she earned her medical degree at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico. She served with Mexico’s Ministry of Health and Welfare, Mexico City’s 1968 Olympic Games Medical Committee, and the National Institute of Nutrition of Mexico. In 1952, in behalf of the Mexican community of Phoenix, she presented a medal to Presi-dent Miguel Aleman of Mexico.In Phoenix, Mary Jo was publisher and editor of El Sol from 1970-80. She handled various assignments from the Diocese of Phoenix during the Papal visit of 1987, and did work for Alma de la Gente. She was a member of the U.S. Defense Advisory Committee for Women in the Services. She was Executive Director of the Hispanic Health Coalition.

As a woman knowledgeable with both Mexican history and culture, and the lives of Mexican-Americans in Arizona, she took it upon herself to make sure that one’s Mexican heritage could be celebrated in Phoenix, with gusto. Her parents, and later Mary Jo herself, were organizers of Fiesta Patrias on a grand scale, making it not only popular – especially during the 1960s - with Latinos, but also with Anglos who she said had tended not to socialize much with Mexican-Americans.Fiestas Patria as one big event free and open to all to enjoy, was popular for a long time. But more recently the celebration has become fragmented and “commercial.” Mary Jo said the first Fiestas Patrias started in the early 1920s with what she said were “little events.” The celebration was not city-wide until 1936. She has an original program for the 1936 event when her father was President of the Mexican Blue Cross. “When my dad first came to Phoenix there was a lot of discrimination. But the fiestas were the beginning of some understanding between the Anglo and Hispanic communi-ties.”Eventually, “Fiestas Patrias became a really, really large event. There was the corona-tion of the queen. There was the ‘Grito’. In the 1930s there was the grand banquet to which all the Anglo authorities were invited.“But now it has all become commercialized. That’s too bad. There are even low riders, which don’t have any historical significance in Mexico. Now the events make a lot of money. They even charge to get in.“There is no single unified Fiesta Patrias anymore. It was a very important event. You could say that in the 1960s, Fiestas Patrias was actually the beginning of the socializa-tion of the two groups (Anglos and Latinos). A lot of Anglos used to go.”The celebration helped end some of the more outrageous discrimination, she said.“When my mom and dad first came to Phoenix, Riverside Park on South Central had a swimming pool. There was a sign there: ‘No Mexicans or Dogs Allowed.’ Sometime in the mid-1950s my dad got the mayor of Phoenix to remove that sign.“The bishop and St. Mary’s (Basilica) decid-ed (in 1919) that Hispanics could not go to mass with everyone: they had to go in the

For many years Dr. Mary Jo Franco-French spearheaded the independence Day celebrations. Carlos Chavez/La Voz

basement – even though 3,000 Mexican Catholics living in Phoenix help raise the funds to build the church in 1881.Spanish was not spoken at masses in the basement. Immigrants missed the music and pageantry of masses back in Mexico. That is why Hispanics built Immaculate Heart Church (dedicated in 1928 at 909 E. Washington).“There were places where Mexican people simply could not go,” Mary Jo said. “There were restaurants that wouldn’t serve them. Children were not allowed to speak Spanish at school. But in the 1950s, all of that started slowly going away.” Some institutions that shunned Latinos, such as the Arizona National Guard, suddenly had lots of Latino members. In the 1970s - she said - “there was an artillery brigade of all Mexican kids from small towns.”The present situation, she said, “is sinister.” On a recent trip back from Nogales it seemed at an immigration checkpoint “as if they were stopping every single person who had dark skin. I say it the discrimination is sinister, or veiled, because it comes from officials. Every time it is brought up they say it doesn’t happen.“But what I know makes me think. It makes me realize that it (prejudice) is much more widespread than you might think. People like Arpaio represent evil of some sort. They represent non-caring hearts. There have been times in history where there have been people like that.”

A PRiESt OF thE PEOPLEFather Tony Sotelo served for 13 years at Immaculate Heart, from 1985 until 1998. He has been in Arizona since 1977 and he was also parish priest at Saint Catherine of Siena and Saint Augustine churches in Phoenix. Nowadays he celebrates mass at federal prisons every day except Saturday, the Lewis and Maryvale state prisons, and at the Durango and Estrella county jails.Father Sotelo, 79, has long been what could be called “a people’s priest.” He marched with the tens of thousands of im-migrants on the state capitol in May, 2010, to protest SB1070. He has been involved in scores of protests and demonstrations.But he believes in dialogue.“I encourage people to talk to each other,”

he said.“When we come to the end, we are not going to remember our enemies. We will remember those who stood behind us.”One of the father’s most memorable moments, he said, came in 1989 when Mexican-American Catholic faithful said they saw the image of the Virgin of Guada-lupe in a twisted flowering stalk of a yucca plant growing at a Mexican restaurant at 11th Street and Van Buren.Father Sotelo responded to the religious fervor by lifting up the stalk and leading a march with it to Immaculate Heart: the church of the Virgin Mary, the historical center of faith for Chicanos. To the faithful, he said, the image “was a reminder that the community is blessed by the Virgin Mary. It was a recognition of ev-erything that is important to Latino people. These are very proud people, not afraid to

stand up for their rights.”The Mexican-American community of Phoenix has a long history, he said.People who were dying or who needed help have said they did not want to see “a Mexican priest.” He said, “I know this to be true.“I remember my mom was fined for speak-ing Spanish in her El Paso (Texas) school.The other day, I gave a sermon and I said, ‘You know what! I’ve never heard a public servant praising children for being bilin-gual.’“Three months ago I was going into a Wal-mart with two people fluent in both English and Spanish. At that moment they were speaking Spanish, but someone came up behind them and said loudly – rudely - ‘Speak English!’“I love this country,” Father Sotelo said.“But why do these things happen?”



the beloved Father tony Sotelo has for many years been the “priest of the people.” Carlos Chavez/La Voz



By Valeria FernándezLa Voz Arizona

(Synopsis and adaptation from a story ran in La Voz in 2006)

Phoenix was founded in 1868, roughly 20 years after signing the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which marked

the end of the war with Mexico and Mexi-cans lost nearly its territory. Jack Swillings, a businessman, and his Mexi-can wife, Trinidad Escalante are considered the founders of the city, though Phoenix didn’t become the state’s capital until 1889.

Phoenix at the time, was merely a patch of farms scattered throughout the vast desert that perhaps belong to some Mexicans who lived there since Arizona became part of the United State. The international border was practi-cally open and people could freely travel between the two countries. That allowed Mexicans to come here to work in agricul-ture. South Phoenix was merely patches of tiny farms near the Rio Salado area. In 1870 Hispanics were 52 percent of the city’s population. The majority of homes were made of adobe, similar to the con-struction used in Mexico at the time.

hiStORy REPEAtS itSELF The arrival of the railroad, between 1879 and 1895, boosted employment and gave merchants the chance to sell produce out-side of the state. “There had to be workers. And who will they be? The Mexicans,’’ said historian Chris Marin.There were frequent tensions between the immigrant community of south Phoenix and Anglos, said Frank Barrios, a historian and a board member of the Central Arizona Project. As more Anglos arrived in Phoenix from other parts of the country lured by jobs, the Latino population shrunk and problems

Latino Barrios: a landmark in history

Food City was established at the turn of the century in various Latino Barrios (16th Street and Mohave). In the 1990’s, the Bashas’ family acquired it. The Arizona Republic.



began, Barrios said. Pro-Mexican organizations such as La Liga Protectora grew out of tensions between the two races at the turn of the 20th Cen-tury, according to a report by James D. McBride. Around 1914, the state Legislature began launching a series of anti-Mexican laws. One of them, sponsored by Rep. W. D. Claypool, prohibited anyone from hiring for at-risk jobs people who were deaf or who couldn’t speak English. The initiative effec-tively eliminated the opportunity for many Mexicans to get jobs in industries such as mining, McBride said. The proposal was immediately viewed as a direct attack against Mexicans, and as a result the Liga Protectora Latina, a mutual aid society, was created with its leader Pedro G. de la Lama, a former Mexican soldier who moved to Phoenix. The league started to recruit members using the slogan “One for everyone and everyone for one,” and began offering bilingual workshops to counter the effects of the laws. At the turn of the century, the Mexican barrios or neighborhoods began to grow south of Van Buren Street, pushed by the segregation sentiment. Between 1900 and 1920, nearly 47,000 Latinos arrived in Phoenix, according to

data from the Phoenix Historic Preservation Office. But not all of them came from the neighboring country to the south. Some came from nearby towns such as Miami and Bisbee. The newly arrived founded barrios like Sonorita, Cuatro Milpas, El Mezquital, Las Avenidas, Canal Seco and El Campito. The neighborhoods were mostly nestled between Jackson and Henshaw (now Buckeye) streets and 16th Avenue to 48th Street. A consulting group, Athenaeum that Phoe-nix hired to identify buildings with historic significance, narrates in a report the history of these neighborhoods. The consultants studied more than 200 constructions and 19 neighborhoods that still show some historical remnants.

nEighBORhOODS’ gROWth In the 1940’s, Phoenix had grown from 5,500 residents to about 65,000 residents. During that decade the Hispanic popula-tion was about 15 percent. Phoenix was nestled in the midst of cot-ton and farm fields. The irrigation canals stretched to Jefferson Street to 1st Avenue, which is now downtown Phoenix, recalls Arturo Luera, who grew up in the public housing complex Marcos de Niza between Pima and First streets. .

Luera worked in the cotton fields since he was 5 and until he was 14 years old. There were laws prohibiting child labor and when teachers protested the answer at home was simple. “Tell the teacher to come work so you can eat.” Phoenix was a town that boasted homes with vast land and plantations, Luera remembers. There were homes without refrigeration, chickens roaming and fences falling down.The barrios or neighborhoods were home to clusters of folks from different Mexican states such as Sinaloa and Sonora. “My grandmother used to say ‘be careful crossing the street because you’ll be in So-norita and people there carry machetes,” Luera said. But before enlisting to go to WWII, young-sters entertained themselves going danc-ing at the famous Riverside Ballroom near Salt River and Central Avenue. Movie theaters like Azteca and Ramona fea-tured such favorites as “Alla en el Rancho Grande.”But good memories are also clouded with the painful reminders of segregation. Mexicans could only use the swimming pool at Riverside on Fridays; a day before the pool’s dirty water had to be drained. And movie theaters like Fox assigned the balcony to Mexicans.

Father Albert Braun, standing, at a Latino celebration in one of the Sacred heart salons. Courtesy of Frank Barrios.

The Ramona Theater was a favorite of the Hispanic Community. Courtesy of Frank Barrios.



POPuLAtiOn AnD gEOgRAPhy• Total Population: 6.5 million• Hispanic Population: 30% • State Capitol: Phoenix• Largest Cities: Phoenix, Tucson, Mesa, Glendale and Scottsdale• Border States: California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, utah• State Size: 113,909 square miles• State Symbols• State Motto: Ditat Deus (“God Enriches”)• State Nickname: Grand Canyon State• State Songs: “Arizona March Song” and “Arizona”• State Flower: Saguaro Cactus Blossom• State Gem: Turquoise• State Tree: Palo Verde• State Bird: Cactus Wren• State Fossil: Petrified Wood• State Mammal: Ringtail• State Reptile: Arizona Ridge-Nosed Rattlesnake• State Fish: Apache Trout • State Amphibian: Arizona Tree Frog• Official Neckwear: Bola Tie

SOURCE: THE ARIzONA OFFICE OF TOURISM

State Symbols

• Statehood: February 14, 1912. Arizona was the 48th state to join the united States.• State Flag: Adopted in 1917, the lower half of the flag is a blue field. The upper half is divided into thirteen equal segments, six light yellow and seven red. In the center of the flag is a copper-colored five-point star. The red and the blue are the same shades as the flag of the united States of America, and it measures four feet high and six feet wide.• State Seal: Arizona’s main enterprises and attractions are represented in the seal, which was adopted in 1911. In the background of the seal is a range of mountains with the sun rising behind the peaks. At the right side of the mountains are a water storage reservoir and a dam, with irrigated fields and orchards. There are cattle grazing on the right, and a quartz mill and a miner with a pick and shovel on the left.



By Elisa cordova and La VozLa Voz Arizona

Patriotism, pride and love for our country were just some of the feelings Mexican-American longed for as they

served in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II. Little did they know that their devotion to our country, while fighting for the red, white and blue would only be rec-ognized during the war. Nevertheless, while on the front fighting side by side, all roots joined as one fighting against the enemy.With the invasion of Pearl Harbor on De-cember 7, 1941 the United States officially entered the war. Although a sudden feel-ing of anxiety fell over the people of Pearl Harbor, concern also grew among the people of the United States. Not knowing what might happen tomorrow or in the weeks to come only made the country stronger, uniting those who were willing to defend the flag. Mexican-Americans also joined in. According to the National World War II Museum, in New Orleans, between 250,000 and 500,000 Hispanics served in the U.S. Armed Forces. Among them, many joined the ranks of the Army, Marine Corps, and the Navy as volunteers.

WOMEn’S SuPPORtThousands of Hispanic women joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAACs) and Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES). Through these programs women were able to serve as nurses and also played a role in administra-tive positions.Although many Mexican-American, those who were at war and those who remained at home, didn’t necessarily feel like they were being recognized for their triumphs many stood proud feeling a sense of ac-complishment within themselves. Some even managed to leave a permanent mark in our history and are today recog-nized as true heroes of our country, espe-cially within the Hispanic community.

SiLVEStRE hERRERA thE hEROESeveral of those who served during the war came from the soil of our land, here in Arizona. Silvestre Herrera, born in Camargo, Chihuahua, Mexico, was the first Arizonan to win the Medal of Honor during World War II, also wore Mexico’s highest honor (“Premio al Mérito Militar”) for valor on the field of battle, making him the only person to earn both. In 1945, Herrera was awarded the Medal of Honor, by president Harry Truman, for saving his platoon from machine-gun fire near Mertzwiller, France, not far from the German border. The Army private first class with the 36th Infantry Division took out one emplacement, then charged through a minefield toward a second, losing both feet to explosions. The eight Germans manning the ma-chine-gun nest threw down their weap-ons and surrendered. Despite risking his life, Herrera once said he didn’t consider himself a particularly brave man.“I was one of the lucky ones, to live to be awarded the Medal of Honor,” he saidproud. (Source: The Arizona Republic)

DOWnDED 12 EnEMy PLAnESArthur Van Haren, Jr. was a World War II fighter pilot and the top fighter ace from Arizona. He may, in fact, be one of a handful of highly decorated Mexican-American aces in the history of aerial warfare. Born in Superior in 1920 to Rose Valenzuela and Arthur Van Haren, Sr., he was attending the U of A when he joined the Navy during the war. He was a member of U.S. Navy Fight-ing Squadron Two (VF-2 “Rippers”).He downed 12 enemy planes and earned numerous military decora-tions. After the war, he received his law degree from the U of A in 1948. He served as a deputy Maricopa County attorney, as legal counsel to the Maricopa County Planning and Zoning Commission, and as a Phoenix judge. Van Haren died in August, 1992. (Source: The

Arizona Republic) Gilberto C. Estrada of Nogales, AZ., was promoted to Private First Class after his extraordinary performance of heroism in Jan., 1944. According to the war depart-ment citation, Estrada, an infantryman, had killed two enemy machine-gunners while his company in New Georgia was under attack. Other Hispanics were also recognized for their bravery including Anthony Santestebán of Winslow, recipient of the Purple Heart for wounds suffered in battle on the New Georgia Islands against the Japanese. Robert V. Espinoza, 90, from Phoenix, fought in Guam and was wounded in 1946. De-spite his wounds, he

For the Love of our Country

Silvestre herrera, won a Medal of honor for his heroic combat actions. The Arizona Republic

In War World II many stories of courage were written by Hispanic Men and Women



helped a group of his company’s soldiers to reach their battalion. “A marine never leaves a soldier behind”, he proudly com-ments. Robert received the Purple Heart from President Harry Truman. Robert’s pride of serving his country is shared by his kids, grand kids and great grand kids.Mexican American women quickly con-tributed as well as they supported the war. PFC Carmen Martinez of Phoenix, AZ., served with the U.S. Marine Corps Women’s Reserve as a typist and filing clerk in the message center at the Marine barracks in Quantico, Virginia. Others from Phoe-nix such as Cpt. Matilde Yanez served as chief nurse in a combat zone hospital on the island of Luzon, and Pvt. Carmen C. Contreras became the 750th woman from Arizona to join the Army. Fernando Navarrete Cordova, 75, of Tuc-son, AZ., recalls the day his older brother Raul was drafted. Raul Navarrete, of

Phoenix, left home at 18-years-old to join the Navy where he served on the destroyer USS Bullard.“There were many stories that Raul would tell me about the war,” said Cordova. “Even though he was considered a minority it was as if one’s race no longer mattered during battle… Everyone united.”Cordova remembers one story in particular that shows his brother’s bravery. “One time they knocked down a Japanese plane right out of the sky and it landed right in the ocean,” said Cordova. “The pilot was still alive so Raul and others swam out to res-cue him but the soldier pulled out a gun to try to kill them.” Fortunately his brother survived the incident however; others lost their lives during the episode. Historically, it is during the most difficult times, like WWII, that everyone stands to-gether and no one is left behind.

Arthur Van Buren, Jr., in his plane during an air raid mission. The Arizona Republic.

Robert V. Espinoza, fought in guam during WWII and got wounded. Carlos Chavez/The Arizona Republic



By Eduardo BernalLa Voz Arizona

The Mesoamerican cultural influence in the southwestern part of the U.S. –the ones that developed in central and

southern Mexico as well as Central Ameri-ca—dates back to at least 500 years B.C. Historical records show the existence of the commercial relationship between the two regions and provide evidence of a tight connection between Arizona and the cul-tures that develop before, during, and after the Spanish Conquest. The Latino cultural influence in Arizona dates back to the first colonists who settled in this region before Arizona joined The Union. The culture of any ethnic group is bound to its roots; this is the one that bloomed in Ari-zona as a consequence of the immigration influx that increased in the mid XVIII and XIX centuries. The quest to strengthen the Latino identity dates back to the region’s first settlements and the desire to express a collective Mexican-American or Latino voice has been established through music, theater, film, literature and visual arts.These artistic manifestations are visible from the first frescos painted in Catholic Church-es such as San Xavier del Bac mission in Tuc-son, through theatre companies created in the 1800s, (Teatro Lírico, Teatro Cervantes or Teatro Carmen), through music like the Club Filarmónico de Tucson, Orquesta Navarro, Los Music Makers de Pete Bugarin, the Mariachi Changuitos Feos or the Maria-chi Cobre -the latter founded in the early 70’s and which was the first professional group of this genre in the state.Many Latino writers influenced the region’s cultural landscape, specifically with greater force after World War II. Writing (through poetry, essays, stories, novels and theatre scripts) was a determining factor in show-casing the Mexican-American experience. Their contributions through literature played a pivotal role in expressing the Mexican-American identity and experience. Among the notable writers are Amado Robles Cota, Carmen Beltran and Mario

Suárez (the first Latino to be published in Arizona Quarterly).During the Chicano Movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s, Latino authors such as Octavio Romano (El Espejo) and Miguel Mendez (Peregrinos de Aztlan), who are bastions of the Chicano Literature in the southwest, sought more opportunities at publishing houses. Also notable are Gary Keller, (Tales of the el Huitlacoche), Patricia Preciado Marín, Alberto Ríos, Margarito Cota-Cárdenas and contemporary Stella Pope-Duarte and Eduardo Barraza.Similarly, the film industry in Arizona gained notoriety during the 1940’s because it was less costly to film here than in California or other states. Movies were a widely form of entertainment and an information outlet to the rest of the world. Among the tradi-tional movie theaters in Arizona were the Orpheum, Rex, El Azteca in Phoenix and The Plaza in Tucson. Some movies filmed to-tally or partially in Arizona and which were popular are “The Gunfight at OK Corrral

(1957), “Easy Rider,” (1969), “Stagecoach” (1939), and many others . Most recent films by cotemporaries like Paul Espinoza and Dan Devivo touch on topics like immigration, border and social injustice issues.Artistic expression revealed the ideological and cultural values of a community from its inception, showcasing its pride and its settlements. From the urban neighborhoods to rural ranches, Mexican-Americans and Lati-nos found outlets to express themselves, which were crucial factors in creating their identity. In the 1970s, the visual arts catapulted in Arizona with MARS (Movimiento Artístico del Rio Salado) and Xicanindio in 1975, through artists like Zarco Guerrero and Antonio Pazos’ murals. Other upcoming artists were Raúl Guerrero, Patssi Valdez and Gaspar Enriquez. Several of the artistic Latino groups grew out of civil rights movement including MECHA, Chicanos Por La Causa, Valle del

Arizona: Following the Paths of our culture

the Pete Bugarin orchestra, became an icon in the Valley. Courtesy of Frank Barrios.



Sol, Barrio Youth Project, Friendly House and most recently The Rise Project, which teaches art to at-risk youth in low-income neighborhoods in Phoenix. These organizations not only helped artists but also opened the door to a cultural understanding in the state. Until the 60’s, when the Latino civil rights movement began, the visual artists in Arizona were limited to painting backdrops of theatre plays, posters and some advertisement, but not really exposed in galleries. But with the Civil Rights Movement, urban arts began to flourish and artists were given spaces for sharing their visual interpretations of society. Cur-rently, there are hundreds of murals Latinos painted in Tucson and Phoenix and other key Arizona cities.In the Pazos’ tradition and influence, urban mu-ralists such as Lalo Cota, Pablo Luna, El Mac, El Moisés, Breeze, Gennaro García and Carlos Rivas, continue this artistic expression. Similarly, there are other artists who have explore other formats and done some unique work such as Claudio Dicochea, Fausto Fernández, Ceci García, Adam Cooper-Terán, Daniel Martínez, Marco Al-barrán, Martín Moreno and Ignacio Farías.Toward the end of the 1800s and the turn of the past century, theatre companies like Teatro Cervantes, El Lírico, and Treatro Carmen among others, emerged. Then came Borderlands Theater, which addressed social inequality and existential issues. Now, plays by its contemporaries such as Teatro Bravo!, New Carpa Theatre, Teatro Wirrarica o Teatro Meshico in Phoenix, display the same char-acteristics, though they explore the individual’s role in society.In the music industry, nationally acclaimed groups or individuals are Larry Hernandez, Mariachi Batiz , Mariachi Fuego del Sol, Fatigo, Shinning Soul, Fayuca and Snow Songs among others. The Latino Culture remains firmly rooted in Arizona as it was from the beginning, constantly evolv-ing, connecting ethnicities, leaving its footprint of historical and cultural legacy. Amid this framework, galleries, museums and cultural centers began showing Latino work and local government began promoting Latino Culture. Organizations such as ALAC (Arizona Latino Arts Cultural Center), CALA (Celebración Artística de Las Americas), Centro Cultural Calaca and Xico, Inc. promote the work of artists who represent their cultural environment and the ever-evolving Latino identity as the state becomes multicultural and glances at this new century.

zarco guerrero, one of the leading ambassadors of chicano Art. The Arizona Republic

A mural by Gennaro Garcia, part of the Calle 16 project. Courtesy of Gennaro Garcia



By Valeria FernándezLa Voz Arizona

Arizona’s immigration history grew out of conflict and achievements, rejection and resistance. When the

U.S. Mexico border was drawn, a history of dramas was also etched. “It’s a border that grew out of violence. It’s not a peaceful relation how this began. It’s the result of war,’’ said Raquel Rubio-Gold-smith, head of a bi-national immigration institute at the University of Arizona. Since then, oral history registered the strug-gle of Mexicans who became foreigners in their own land and fought to preserve their cultural identity and traditions, she adds. In Arizona, the arrival of farm workers has always been tied to the need for cheap labor. “There was a duality in the form immigra-tion law was applied. During harvest time, people were allowed to cross without prob-lems. They (the border patrol) closed their eyes. When harvest was over, they became demanding,’’ Goldsmith said. In 1850, Mexicans began their journey up north seeking work in the mines and agriculture. “It was circular migration, they left their families in Mexico and then they would return,’’ Goldsmith explains. “That was seen as beneficial for both Mexico and the U.S. It was a way of exploiting Mexican labor and it was an important foundation for Arizona’s economic development.” The abuses against migrant workers were noticeable from the start.

MigRAntS AnD MinERSIn 1904, the Mexican-American workers in the mines of Morenci and Clifton began the first strikes in the Southwest, protesting

wage disparity. The start of the World War 1 in 1914 sparked a shortage of farm workers, which meant a higher demand for Mexican laborers. During the Great Depression of the 1930’s, Mexican cheap labor wasn’t welcomed anymore. This led to a wave of political rhetoric against “illegal immigration.” It promoted the idea that immigrants were criminals and they should be deported. In the city of Tucson, thousands of Mexicans whether legally or not in Arizona were de-ported under a partnership between local and federal authorities. The historic event, which was known as the “Repatriation” re-sulted in half of million people deported in the Southwest, Godsmith said. The segrega-tion Latinos intensified in all aspects of daily life. In cities like Phoenix, Hispanic neighbor-hoods were separated. “They looked at the physical aspect of the person. The Mexican citizens have always been a second-class citizen,’’ Goldsmith explains. The U. S. involvement in World War II called for collaboration between Mexico and the U.S. creating the Bracero program in 1942. Again, the country needed cheap farm work labor to replace the hundreds of thousands of young soldiers who went to war. Between 1942 and 1964, nearly 4.5 mil-lion Mexicans joined the Bracero program working in the fields. Critics decried the poor working conditions and exploitation of

the workers. Thereis still a dispute today because the Mexican government hasn’t yet given Braceros or their descendants a portion of the salary the government withheld to create a sav-ings fund. When Mexicans, who had joined the armed forces, returned after World War II, they faced sharp discrimination and their anger prompted them to fight for their civil rights. And thus that’s how a new move-ment began in the 1960’s designed to give Latinos a political identity. “The Chicano movement was important because for the first time that segment of the population had a name,’’ Goldsmith said.

BORDER SEcuRity Arizona’s immigration history is tied to U.S. foreign policy. With the economic global-ization that begins in the 1970’s, the U.S. begins to export jobs, Goldsmith said. “People see Mexicans arriving looking for work, they believe it’s the immigrants fault without realizing it’s the result of a structural change,” she said. In 1994, The North American Free Trade agreement went into effect between U.S. Mexico and Canada. President Bill Clinton and his administration argued that as part of the treaty, the U.S. would help Mexicans stay in their country. But it has had the op-posite effect, making it hard for Mexican

Blood, sweat and tears

A border patrol agent in the 1920’s. The Arizona Republic

Arizona’s history would not be complete if, at the time to tell it, the immigration story wouldn’t be included on each of its chapters and moments



farmers to compete with the heavily subsi-dized corn industry in the U.S. The result was an increased migration to the north. The same year, California passed Prop. 187, which denied public education to undocumented immigrants. Their propo-nents blamed the federal government for the increased illegal immigration. That prompted the Clinton administration to begin re-enforcing the border, launching operations Gatekeeper in California and Hold the Line in Texas. When parts of the border were fortified, human smugglers or coyotes began using the Arizona desert to help immigrants cross the border, putting their lives in danger because of the scorching summers.“The federal government knew people would die,” said activist Isabel Garcia, founder of a human rights coalition in Tuc-son. The coalition estimates that since the mid 1990’s, about 5,000 have lost their lives trying to cross the border illegally.The state became the entryway for about 50 percent of the undocumented immi-grants crossing the border illegally. At the same time, the immigrants who routinely re-turned to Mexico began settling in the state to raise their family. Federal immigration policies on border security made Arizona the epicenter of the most divisive illegal im-migration debate in the country.

gROWing Anti-iMMigRAnt SEntiMEntArizona’s anti-immigrant sentiment sur-faced in the 1990’s but the focus shifted from the border to urban centers. In 1996, the state Legislature approved a law requir-ing immigrants to show proof of legal status to get a driver license. Former state Senator Russell Pearce, who then was in charge of the motor vehicle division, pushed for the law. A year later, immigration and local au-thorities raided several Chandler neighbor-hoods, arresting 340 Latinos. The attacks against Latinos went beyond immigration focusing also on education. In 2000, Arizona voters approved a law ban-ning bilingual education. In 2001, Pearce wins a seat in the state House of Represen-tatives and begins promoting his idea that Latinos bring with them crime and abuse public services. The 9/11 terrorist attacks helped fuel the

fire linking illegal immigration to national security. Pearce’s long-term strategy was to make life extremely difficult for immigrants in the state until they were forced to leave.The Pearce, a Republican politician, lob-bied and continues to lobby states to pass tougher anti-immigrant laws, arguing the federal government has failed to stop them from crossing the border.In 2004, Pearce proposed Prop. 200 with the help of the California-based group Protect Arizona Now. The organization received a financial shot in the arm by groups associ-ated with White supremacists sympathizers such as American Federation for Immigra-tion Reform. The initiative passed with 60 percent of the vote. The law put state agencies between a rock and a hard place because it required them to report anyone suspected of being an undocu-mented immigrant seeking public benefits. The law was the backdrop for armed border vigilantes such as the Minuteman in 2005, which patrolled the

border with the help of citizens from across the country. The Minuteman attracted racists groups to Arizona. Their plan to secure the border failed but they succeeded politically. A year later, Democratic Gov. Janet Napoli-tano, who had opposed militarizing the border, asked that the National Guard be stationed at the border. Arizona voters approved four anti-immigrant laws, among them Prop. 300, which required undocu-mented students to pay out-of-state tuition to attend college. Other laws included making English the official language of the state, denying undocumented the right to post bonds and the right to sue for punitive damages from employers.

thE SLEEPing giAnt WAkES uP Amid an increasingly hostile atmosphere toward undocumented workers, the pro-immigrant movement began to take shape in 2006 similar to the protest during the Viet

A group of migrant workers gathered to get donated clothing and other items. The Arizona Republic



Nam war.On March 24, 2006, more than 24,000 peo-ple marched in downtown Phoenix, protest-ing the federal initiative HB4437, sponsored by Congressman James Sensenbrenner, to criminalize the presence of undocumented immigrants.It was a spontaneous movement sparked by activists such as Linda and Tony Herrera, Magdalena Schwarts, Antonio Velasquez, and Roberto Reveles. But on April 10, the group Somos America convinced more than 200,000 residents to take to the streets to protest Sensebrenner’s proposal and to demand a federal immigration reform that included legalization.With the slogan, we march today, we vote tomorrow, the march united activists who normally wouldn’t work together like Salva-dor Reza, Alfredo Gutierrez, Lydia Guzmán, Elías Bermudes, Martin Manteca, Martin Herández, Carlos García and Ben Miranda. “It was the largest march in Arizona’s his-tory,’’ said Reveles. “It was the first event when all the organizations united into one coalition.”

ARPAiO in ActiOnThe tumultuous marches scared a segment of the population even more, and some politicians took advantage of it. In 2006, former Maricopa County Attorney General Andrew Thomas and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio joined forces to push for a state law making it a crime for immigrants to hire a human smuggler or coyote. Hun-dreds of immigrants were jailed or deported under this law.A year later, Arpaio signed a federal agree-ment knows as 187g allowing him to train 160 of his agents to verify the immigration status of immigrants in jail or on the streets. America’s toughest sheriff began his crime-sweeps primarily in heavily Latino neighbor-hoods, detaining drivers for minor traffic infractions and asking them to show their papers. Critics decry the sheriff’s tactics and several lawsuits were filed claiming Arpaio used racial profiling during his crime-suppression sweeps. Before leaving office to become Homeland Security Secretary with the Obama admin-istration, Napolitano signed the employer-sanction bill into law, penalizing employ-

ers who knowingly hired undocumented immigrants. Arpaio uses the law as another tool to raid businesses and arrest undocu-mented immigrants.

LAtinOS cOuntER-AttAck SB1070 is approved into law amid massive deportations under the Obama administra-tion, and greater cooperation between the federal government and local police agencies. On April 23, 2010, Gov. Jan Brewer signed SB1070 into law, which Pearce sponsored, who by then was president of the state Senate. The detention of immigrants turned out to be good business for federally subsidized private jail companies. Youth, religious and pro-immigrant rights activists organized a series of civil disobedience activities. It’s estimated that more tan 100,000 immigrants left Arizona between 2010 to other estates trying to avoid deportation and thus being separated from their families after SB1070 was signed into law. Arizona’s tourism industry lost more $140 million because of an international eco-nomic boycott against the state protesting SB1070. But the Arizona law inspired many other states to follow suit, though only a few actually became law. A year later, private businesses stopped a package of five anti-immigrant bills, which among other things would deny citizenship to the children of undocumented workers. The contributions of immigrants with or with-

out proper papers began to be acknowl-edged after the economic collapse pro-voked by the anti-immigrant atmosphere. In 2011, a bi-partisan coalition called Citizens for a Better Arizona led by Randy Parraz collected enough valid signatures to force a recall election against Pearce in Mesa’s District 18. Jerry Lewis won the elec-tion, replacing Pearce. “This victory is tied to the marches of 2006 and their message of “we march today, we vote tomorrow,” said Reveles about efforts to get out the Latino vote. A federal investigation showing Arpaio violated Latinos’ civil rights put the sheriff on a tough spot. This is the beginning of the end of the ex-tremists’ politics in Arizona, said Reveles. On April 25, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments for and against SB1070, in a historic debate over who ultimately has control over immigration issues. This year, Arizona is celebrating its centenni-al but also Tucson school district suspended its ethnic studies program. Its critics say it promotes an anti-American sentiment while supporters argued that one is bound to re-peat our past mistakes if history is forgotten. The controversy inevitable leads to some reflection, especially when Latino contribu-tions have not been fully documented or acknowledged. “It’s our history and the struggle for that his-tory will continue,’’ said Goldsmith. “Edu-cation is the knowledge of who we’re in making history.”

currently, the borderline is a tall and costly fence. The Arizona Republic



1913 Phoenix was recommended as the headquarters to mobilize the Arizona National Guard in case of war with Mexico. 1913 (April) Mexican-Americans pro-tested Arizona’s anti-alien ownership law, which took away their prior property rights. 1915 The Liga Protectora Latina, a fra-ternal and mutual aid society, was formed in Phoenix and incorporated throughout Arizona, with 30 lodges remaining active. In 1917, the Liga played an important role in the unification of Mexican-American cop-per miners. 1917 During World War I, Mexican farm workers, railroad laborers, and miners are allowed to enter the United States to work temporarily. 1917 (February) Congress passes the Immigration Act of 1917, impos-ing a literacy requirement on all immigrants aimed at curbing the influx from southern and eastern Europe, but ultimately inhibiting immigration from Mexico.1917 (July 12) The Bisbee Deportations. Two months after the U.S. entry into World War I, copper miners in Bisbee, southeast-ern Arizona walked out on strike. Vigilantes rounded up more than 1,000 strikers, most of whom were Mexican-Americans, shipped them out of Arizona by rail, and left them out in the New Mexico desert in boxcars without food or water. Although charges were brought against the vigilantes be-cause of their inhumane actions, no court action resulted. 1920 (July) Two hundred Mexican laborers employed in Arizona cotton fields were refused their pay and sent to Nogales. Arizona Gov. Thomas Campbell began an investigation after charges that the laborers had been abused surfaced. 1920 The Ku Klux Klan became active in Globe-Miami, Phoenix, Tempe, Prescott, and Tucson, maintaining its strong anti-Mexi-can philosophy. 1920 Phoenix Americanization Com-mittee founded Friendly House with the objective to teach English and citizenship to foreign-born clients. From the 1920s to the mid-1960, Friendly House maintained a program to teach immigrants English and citizenship and placing women in jobs as domestic workers. During the mid-1960’s, Friendly House began to broaden its focus with programs for senior citizens, establish-ing a social work department, training

women for jobs other than as domestics and expanding its youth programs.1921 Limits on the number of immigrants allowed to enter the United States during a single year are imposed for the first time in the country’s history. A depression in Mexico causes severe destitution among Mexicans.1923 Pedro Guerrero starts a Phoenix tamale stand that grew to become Rosarita Mexican Foods. The Mesa plant closes in 1999.1924 Congress creates the Border Patrol. The Border Patrol expanded to 450 officers. Recruits furnished their own horse and saddle, but Washington supplied oats and hay for the horses and a $1,680 annual salary for the agents. 1924 Mexican-Americans built the Im-maculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Phoenix as a response to the racial preju-

dice and segregation at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, where they were forced to hear mass in the basement of the church. 1926 (March) The Arizona Cotton Growers’ Association started lobbying in Washington for changes in immigration laws, which would permit growers to bring in more Mexican labor. 1927 César Chávez, organizer and labor leader and charismatic head of the United Farm Workers Organizing Commit-tee, was born in Yuma. Chávez dedicated himself to fight for the rights of all farm work-ers and challenged agriculture’s insistence on its right to an unlimited supply of cheap labor. 1933 (March 4) President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the Civilian Con-servation Corps to provide employment to men in need of work during the Great De-

100 YEARS OF MEXICAN-AMERICANS IN ARIZONA

THE LEGACY OF CESAR CHAvEZ

His memory will always be alive

La Voz ArizonaCesar Chavez legacy transcends the

famous phrase Si, Se Puede (Yes, it can be done). Born into a family of farm laborers in San Luis, Arizona in 1927, the work of the legendary activist on behalf of farm workers has inspired generations to fight for health, educational and civil rights equality for all.

When Chavez was in eighth grade, his

family lost its farm in 1937 during the Great Depression, prompting them to move to California in search of work. Chavez joined the Marines and four years later returned to work in the fields with his family, where he discovered the horrible working conditions that farm workers faced daily.

With no formal education, Chavez educated himself and in 1962 formed what later became the United Farmworkers of America and devoted his life to improve working conditions and wages for labo-rers. He advocated non-violence, gaining national attention through fasting, boyco-tts, strikes and pilgrimages.

In 1968, he fasted for the first time. Then U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy joined 8,000 farm workers to celebrate the end of Chavez’ 25-day fast, designed to re-energi-ze his non-violence movement.

Chavez fasted for the second time to protest a law that prohibited laborers to strike and a third time in 1988 to call attention to pesticides’ harmful damage to health.

Chavez’ dream was to unite Hispanics, which still remains a challenge in the United States. After gaining international fame, Chavez died the same way he lived his life – humble. He died April 23, 1993 in his native San Luis.

icons of the Century



pression. Thousands of Mexican-American men enrolled, living and working in CCC camps throughout the U.S. In Arizona, they built forest roads, range fences, and erosion control channels; they planted trees, con-structed armadas and trails and improved the forests. They earned $30 a month, and kept $5; the remaining $25 was sent home to their families. 1933 Mexican Americans built the first Catholic Church in Scottsdale. Originally built on the corner of Brown Avenue and First Street, the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church served the Mexicans who lived in Scottsdale and worked in the area as labor-ers and cotton pickers. 1939 The Mexican Methodist Church, known as the “Powder Box Church” of Je-rome, was built by Sabino Gonzalez in 1939 and completed in 1941. The church was built for the Mexican-American miners and their families who experienced racial preju-dice at the hands of the Anglo Methodists who refused to allow Mexicans into their church. Gonzalez built his church with disas-sembled wooden blasting-powder boxes. 1941 The Fair Employment Act is passed, eliminating discrimination in employment. 1942 Hundreds of thousands of Latinos serve in the armed forces during World War II.1942 The Asociación Hispano-Ameri-cana de Madres y Esposas, the Mexican-American Mothers and Wives Association, was founded in Tucson by Rosa Rodriquez Caballero. The organization was founded to help support the war effort in Tucson, and to provide economic and moral support to the Mexican-American soldiers abroad in World War II. The women published a community newspaper, The Chatter, and raised over $1 million in war bond sales in a 12-month period. 1942 The Bracero Program, created under a joint U.S.-Mexico agreement, permits Mexican nationals to work in U.S. agricultural areas on a temporary basis and at wages lower than domestic workers. 1945 Mexican-American veterans of World War II organized the first American Legion post for Mexican-Americans in Phoe-nix. Frank Fuentes and Ray Martinez funded the Thunderbird Post No. 411950 Immigration from Mexico doubles from 5.9 percent to 11.9 percent and in

the 1960s rises to 13.3 percent of the total number of immigrants to the United States.1951 Court Case: González v. Sheely, Attorney Ralph Estrada of the Alianza Hispano Americana successfully argued to abolish segregation in Tolleson. School dis-tricts in Arizona often established separate “Mexican Schools” for Mexican American

students. Districts argued that segregation was necessary because of students’ poor English skills. The segregation of Mexican American students in Arizona’s public schools was not an isolated practice but occurred in tandem with other discrimina-tory practices that restricted the social rights of Mexican Americans, many of whom

vALDEMAR AGUIRRE CORDOvA

First Hispanic Superior Court Judge for Maricopa County and in the nation

La Voz ArizonaValdemar Aguirre Cordova was born on

Dec., 6, 1922, to Luis and Carmen Cordova, in Phoenix, Ariz. Cordova was one of eight children and grew up in the Grant Park neighborhood of South Phoenix. Just like his father, Cordova wanted to make a diffe-rence in his community and become suc-cessful. Luis Cordova, a boilermaker for the Southern Pacific Railroad, assisted the Latin American Club in fighting prejudice against the Latino community in Phoenix. Luis also played a role in creating Grant Park making it a place for children to play, including his son Valdemar.

Cordova attended Lowell Elementary School in Phoenix and Phoenix Union High School. At age 17 however, he joined the United States Army in Aug., 1940, in which he later served in the Army Air Corps as a first lieutenant during WWII. Cordova’s service ended when he became a prisoner to the

enemy after his plane was shot down during a bombing. He remained a prisoner in Stalag Luft I in Barth, Germany, for 18 months where he experienced much adversity. He was honorably discharged in Nov., 1945 and returned to Phoenix after the war.

Upon his return Cordova completed his high school education and pursued his colle-ge education. He attended both Arizona State University and the University of Arizona, from which he received his BA. Enrolled in law school at the U of A, he became presi-dent of the law school student body in 1949, and in 1950 he graduated from the College of Law placing second in the Arizona State Bar Exam.

Upon returning to Phoenix he served on the Phoenix Board of Adjustment from 1945-’55, the Phoenix City Council from 1955-’59, the Phoenix Civil Service Board from 1961-’65, the Advisory Board for the Boy Scouts of America, Roosevelt Council in ’66, and was on various other boards. On June 1, 1965 he was appointed by Gov. Samuel P. Goddard as the first Hispanic Superior Court Judge for Maricopa County. In 1967 he left the bench and becoming Gordon Cooks partner at his law firm, which became the firm of McKesson, Renaud, Cook, Miller & Cordova. After suffering a severe heart attack howe-ver, Cordova decided that the best thing for him to do would be to assume the position of a judge once more and in 1976, Gov. Castro appointed him a second term on the Maricopa County Superior Court. Cordova served until ’79 when he was then appo-inted by President Carter on July 3, 1979 to serve as a federal district court judge on the United States District Court, District of Arizona. After President Carter’s appointment Cordova became the first Hispanic federal judge, not only in Ariz., but also in the nation.



were American citizens. In this case, Judge Dave Ling declared segregation unconstitu-tional over three years before the Supreme Court’s historic decision in “Brown v. Board of Education”.1954 Peoria School District, the last school to desegregate in the state, ends the practice. 1954 It is the beginning of Operation Wetback and which goes on until 1958. The government effort to locate and deport undocumented workers results in the de-portation of 3.8 million persons of Mexican descent. Only a small number of them are allowed to have deportation hear-ings. Thousands of U.S. citizens of Mexican descent are also arrested and detained.1955 Court Case: Baca v. Winslow United States District Court No. Civ-394-Pct. A court suit to enjoin discrimination in furnishing swimming pool facilities; the segregation pattern consisted of permitting use of the swimming pool every other day to Mexican-Americans, American Indians, and Blacks only. The Anglos used the pool only on the day it was cleaned. Upon pressing the court case, the City of Winslow stipulated to discontinue the segregation. 1955 Court Case: Ortiz v. Jack, U.S. District Court of Arizona, No. 1723. After filing of court case, the Board of Educa-tion of Glendale agreed to discontinue the segregation and discrimination of Mexican school children. 1955 Court Case: Gonzalez v. Sheeley: Opinion by United States District Judge Dave Ling, Phoenix. The Court injunction effectively barred segregation of Mexican school children. The ruling anticipated a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Negro school segregation cases. In the course of the decision, the Court declared: “...a paramount requisite in the American system of public educa-tion is social equality. It must be open to all children by unified school association, regardless of lineage.” 1956 Father Albert Braun a veteran of World War I and II, and resident of the Golden Gate Barrio build The Sacred Heart Church located on the northeast corner of 16th Street and Buckeye Road in south-east Phoenix. The Sacred Heart Church was the center of civic and religious life for Mexican-Americans in that neighbor-

hood. After a prolonged struggle with the city government, the Golden Gate Barrio neighborhood was purchased and razed to make room for the expansion of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. The last regular church mass was held on Dec. 29, 1985 Since the closure of the church, the Braun-Sacred Heart Center has hosted an annual Christmas Mass every year in the Old Sacred Heart Church. 1960 (March) Tempe annexed the Mexican-American Community of La Victoria, known as Victory Acres. The area was named “Victory Acres” during a three-day celebration of the U.S. conquest in World War II. The community remained a Mexican-American community until it was annexed. 1960 The American Coordinating Council of Political Education (ACCPE) was founded in Phoenix to provide a political support base to elect a Mexican-American principal in the Phoenix Elementary School District. 1962 The United Farm Workers Union organizes under the leadership of Cesar Chávez to win bargaining power for Mexi-can-Americans farm workers in California. Chávez considered by many as the equiva-lent to a Latino Martin Luther King follows a non-violence philosophy in the fight for farm workers rights.1965 Cesar Chávez organized the suc-cessful Delano grape strike and first national boycott. It becomes part of the AFL-CIO in 1966. Today the union is known as the United Farm Workers of America.1965 The end of the Bracero Program forces many Mexicans to return to Mexico. They settle near the U.S. border. To pro-vide jobs for them, the Mexican and U.S. governments begin border industrialization programs, allowing foreign corporations to build and operate assembly plants on the border. These plants, known as maqui-ladoras, multiply rapidly, transforming the border region. The maquiladoras attract companies because they provide cheap labor close to American markets. They employ hundreds of thousands of Mexicans in assembly work, but often in poor working conditions.1966 Miranda v. Arizona was another case that helped define the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. At the

center of the case was Ernesto Miranda, who had confessed to a crime during police questioning without knowing he had a right to have an attorney present. Based

LALO GUERREROHis music won the hearts

of Latin America and people in the

United States

La Voz ArizonaA Tucson native, Lalo Guerrero wrote

hundreds of songs during his seven-decade career including the classic folk song “Canción Mexicana”, Mexico’s most tradi-tional folk song.

At the height of his recording years in the 1940s and 1950s, he released several albums and dominated the Latin American and U.S. charts as a vocalist and songwri-ter. Many major Mexican artists performed several of his songs including Lucha Reyes, Jorge Negrete, Lola Beltrán, and the legen-dary Trio Los Panchos among others.

Celebrating his bicultural roots, the Tucson native was an early pioneer writing and recording bilingual songs and was the first to bring American swing and boogie to Spanish-language music in the ‘40s with a string of hit records.

The Smithsonian Institution declared him a National Folk Treasure and his countless other honors include induction into the Tejano Hall of Fame and the Mariachi Hall of Fame. He received the National Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton.

Guerrero made his European debut in 1998 at the Cite de la Musique in Paris, France at the age of 82.

The beloved artist died at the age of 88.



on his confession, Miranda was convicted. The Supreme Court overturned the con-viction, ruling that criminal suspects must be warned of their rights before police questions them. These rights are: the right to remain silent, to have an attorney present, and, if the suspect cannot afford an attor-ney, to have one appointed by the state. The police must also warn suspects that any statements they make can be used against them in court. Miranda was retried without the confession and convicted.1967 A group of young Latino men and women came together to collectively strat-egize on how to improve the quality of life for Arizona’s Mexican-American population. Chicanos Por La Causa, (CPLC) was born out of long meetings and discussions. Rec-ognizing their desire and dedication, the Southwest Council of La Raza, which would later grow to become the National Council of La Raza, made an initial investment in the newly formed organization. With the financial assistance, CPLC implemented programs targeting rural development is-sues. Additionally, CPLC lent much needed support to Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers. 1968 Arizona State University students organized the Mexican American Student Organization (MASO) as part of a trend to press education officials to meet the needs of Latino communities.1969 University of Arizona students Sa-lomón “Sal” Baldenegro, Raúl Grijalva and Lupe Castillo found the Mexican American Liberation Committee (MALC), which orga-nized walkouts in Tucson to fight overcrowd-ing. 1970 Valle del Sol was founded to fill a gap in behavioral health and social services available to the Latino community with nowhere else to turn. 1970 Dr. Manuel P. Servin, noted and most prominent scholar, educator, and writer of Mexican and Borderlands history, came to ASU in Tempe to head the new American Studies Program in the College of Liberal Arts. Servin taught Chicano history courses as part of the program’s goal to of-fer minority history courses to ASU students. 1970 The Hayden Library at ASU in Tempe established the first Chicano Studies Library Project in Arizona. Christine Marín, native of Globe, was named Director of the

library’s collection development program and library project. 1971 Ramona Acosta Bañuelos, native of Miami, was named by Richard Nixon to become Treasurer of the United States.1974 Raul Castro, born to indigent par-ents in Cananea, Sonora, Mexico, became Arizona’s first Mexican-American Governor. 1974 Margarita Alcantar Reese be-came the first Mexican-American woman mayor of El Mirage. 1974 Regina Rivers was the first Mex-ican-American woman from Arizona ap-pointed to a service academy, the United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, NY. 1975 (April) The first Arizona conference for Spanish-Speaking Women was held in Tucson and was sponsored by the Tucson League of Mexican-American Women. 1977 The Hanigans of Douglas, the fa-ther and two sons, were accused and later acquitted of torturing and robbing three Mexican nationals who crossed their ranch along the U.S.-Mexico border looking for

work. The incident sparked bitter contro-versies over the rights of alien workers and touched off bitter and numerous demon-strations against the American court system. 1977 Graciela Gil Olivares, native of Sonora, Arizona, was selected by President Jimmy Carter to head the Community Services Administration program in Washing-ton, DC. 1979 Ramona Cajero became the first Mexican-American woman to pass the physical abilities test of the Tucson Fire Department. 1980 (October) A 3-figure bronze sculpture of Mexican-American World War II servicemen was unveiled by Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Silvestre Herrera at the Escalante Community Center in the community of Victory Acres. The memorial honors all Mexican-Americans who served their country in WWII. 1983 Mary Rose Garrido Wilcox, native of Superior, became the first Mexican-Amer-ican woman elected to the Phoenix City Council.

RAMONA ACOSTA-BAñUELOS

Firs Mexican-American appointed U.S. Treasurer

La Voz ArizonaRamona Acosta Bañuelos was born to

poor Mexican immigrants in Miami, Arizona, on March 20, 1925.

Her family moved to a relative’s ranch in Sonora, Mexico, when the U.S. government deported thousands of Mexican-American

families during the Great Depression. Ramona married and at the age of 18

had two sons, Carlos and Martin. She later divorced. Ramona lived in Juarez, Mexico where she crossed the border to work in El Paso, Texas.

She moved to Los Angeles where she found work as a dishwasher and waitress. She married Alejandro Bañuelos and saved enough money to start her own tortilla factory, Ramona’s Mexican Food Products, Inc. Today it is a multi-million dollar family business.

With the growing success of the Mexican food products business, Bañuelos soon found herself in the banking business after several businessmen recruited her to help start Pan American in 1964. She was selected to serve as chair of the bank’s board of directors in 1969. She eventua-lly served three terms as bank president while simultaneously serving as president of Ramona’s.

In 1970, President Richard Nixon chose Ramona to serve as the 34th Treasurer of the United States. On Dec. 17, 1971 she became the first Hispanic to serve in that position.

PAN AMERICAN BANK



1983 Louis P. Rodriguez, native of Superior, was the first Mexican-American Superintendent of the Phoenix Elemen-tary School District. He was appointed by unanimous vote of the district’s 5-member board. 1983 The Phoenix Elementary School District board voted to select 25 eighth-grade Mexican-American women and their mothers to participate in a pilot program previewing campus life at Arizona State University in Tempe. The “Hispanic Mother-Daughter Program” was funded through the federal Women’s Educational Equity Act and began in January 1984. 1984 (May) Arizona’s first Hispanic Convocation was held at Guadalupe, Ari-zona. The Hispanic Convocation ceremony honors all Mexican-American graduates of Arizona State University in Tempe. 1984 (August) Phelps Dodge Corp. or-dered Mexican-American Sears employees to stop speaking Spanish during their lunch and work places, sparking bitter racial and ethnic confrontations over the rights of Mexican-Americans in the Morenci store. 1985 (January) The United Steelworkers of America formed District No. 39 in order to give Mexican-Americans a voice in the union hierarchy. The new district covered Arizona, California, Nevada, and New Mexico. 1986 After more than a decade of debate, Congress enacts The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), creating a process through which undocumented immigrants could get their legal status. To quality, the applicants had had to be in the United States illegally since Jan. 1, 1982. President Ronald Reagan signed IRCA into law.1987 Pope John Paul II visits Arizona.1988 Los Abogados, a civic group of Latino attorneys, is founded. Its objective is to educate the Latino community about its rights.1989 Governor Rose Mofford signed a law to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a paid holiday, making it possible for the state to hold the Super Bowl.1990 According to U.S Census data La-tinos represent 25.3 percent of the Arizona population, becoming the fastest growing segment of the population at the state and federal level.

HENRY GARFIAS

First Marshal of Phoenix

La Voz ArizonaMost of Enrique "Henry” Garfias’ feats

of bravery far surpass those of the more famous lawmen of the Old West.

Garfias was born in 1851. At the age of 20, he moved to Arizona, settling in Wickenburg and three years later he moved to Phoenix.

Garfias became county deputy sheriff and quickly the Latino lawman’s reputa-tion began to spread. When Phoenix was officially incorporated into a town in 1881, he was appointed town marshal.

Later, when a formal municipal elec-tion, he became the highest elected Mexican-American official of Mexican descent in the Valley during the 19th cen-tury. He was the city’s first marshal.

JACINTO OROZCO

First Spanish-language DJ in tucson

La Voz Arizona Born in Zacatecas, Mexico in 1898,

Jacinto Orozco lived in Jerome, Arizona for a period of time. He started his DJ career at a small, low frequency radio station. At the crack of dawn, he started his show with the song “La Marcha de Zacatecas.”

In 1938, Orozco moved to Tucson and immediately joined KVOA radio station where he began airing his popular show “La Hora Mexicana.” There he informed the community of important events.

Jacinto Orozco died in 1971 and though a lot of people don’t remember him, his radio contributions are etched in Arizona’s history.

JOSé CANCHOLA

First Hispanic member of the New York Stock Exchange

La Voz ArizonaJosé Canchola was born in Parsons,

Kansas, but grew up on Chicago’s West Side.

In the 1950’s, he was the first Hispanic to join the New York Stock Exchange. In 1976 he opened the first McDonalds restaurant on the international border in Nogales, Arizona.

He contributed to the Ronald McDonald House in Tucson providing hundreds of scholarships to journalism undergraduate students, as well as business graduate students.

He was chairman of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and became mayor of Nogales.

In 2002, President George W. Bush appointed him to the National Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics.

JULIA SOTO ZOZAYA

Spanish-language radio pioneer

La Voz ArizonaBorn in 1926, Julia Soto Zozaya was

the first Latina to buy a radio station in Phoenix.

Sozaya, who had only one child with her husband Steve, studied business at Lamson Business College in Phoenix.

She worked for several local groups such the League of United Latin American Citizens,

Arizona Department of Economic Security, and U.S. Senator Dennis DeConcini's Arizona office.

Zozaya established Arizona's first 24- hour Spanish language radio station KNNN.

The Arizona Real Estate Bulletin in 1992 reported how she overcame the fact that she was legally blind.

HISPANIC RESEARCH CEN-TER/ ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY



1991 Ed Pastor becomes the first Latino congressman. 1992 A Nogales’ family files a lawsuit known as Flores v. Arizona, against the way Arizona’s English language learners pro-grams are being implemented.1992 The first Hispanic Women’s Confer-ence takes place at Arizona State Univer-sity. 1993 Mary Rose Wilcox becomes the first Latina to be elected to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. 1993 Farm workers’ rights leader, Cesar Chávez dies in Yuma, Arizona.1997 Hundreds of Hispanic immigrants are targeted by the police on what it comes to be known as the “Chandler roundups.” The City of Chandler is sued and the plaintiffs win.1997 Gov. Fife Symington resigns after he is convicted of banking fraud.1998 The Arizona Supreme Court re-peals as unconstitutional a voter-approved law requiring English to be the official lan-guage of the state to handle state govern-ment meetings.1999 President Bill Clinton visits Chicanos por la Causa in south Phoenix and par-ticipates in a round table focused on the development of small businesses.2001 The U.S. Census Bureau of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reveals that His-panic population has increased, reaching 35.3 million, 20.6 million of those are people of Mexican origin.2003 The Macehuali day-labor center is founded in Phoenix’s Palomino neighbor-hood. The center coordinated by activist Salvador Reza from the non-profit Tonatierra ease concerns from businesses in the area about day laborers looking for work and loitering in their property. Most of the men are Latinos, some are Mexican immigrants. 2005 The Arizona Women’s Heritage Trail, designated as a “legacy” program by the Arizona State Centennial Commission, has honored the contributions of Latinas & their “historic trails”: Graciela Gil Olivarez of Sonora, Arizona; Placida Garcia Smith & the Grant Park Block in south Phoenix; the Latinas of the camps in Litchfield Park, who picked cotton for the Goodyear Farms in the periods of 1916-1986; the women whose families built Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catho-lic Church in Tempe in 1903; and Tucson’s

JESUS MELéNDREZ

Founder of El Mensajero Newspaper

La Voz ArizonaJesus Meléndrez came from Yuma,

Arizona in 1878. He worked as a clerk for the Salt River Valley Herald and later for the Arizona Gazette. He founded his own newspaper, El Mensajero, in 1990.

El Mensajero published local, natio-nal and international news stories. His journalistic theme included “The best medium to reach the Spanish speaking home.” Residents could subscribe to the paper for $1.50 a year. Meléndrez helped found the organization known as “La Liga Protectora Latina” to fight civil rights.

MANUEL T. PACHECO

university of Arizona’s 17th President

La Voz ArizonaManuel T. Pacheco was born on May 30,

1941, in Rocky Ford, Colorado. In 1962, Pacheco received his bachelor’s

degree in languages from the New Mexico Highlands University. Pacheco earned a master’s degree in Spanish in 1966 as well as a doctorate in foreign language education in 1969, from Ohio State University. He was appointed president of the University of Arizona in 1991.

During his term as president at the U of A Pacheco built the Integrated Learning Center (ILC) and promised to build the Student Union Memorial Center simulta-neously. The ILC was named in Pacheco’s honor on Oct. 6, 2004. Ten years earlier, he helped the university obtain the Science and Technology Park, a research and develop-ment facility.

PETE BUGARIN

Latinos danced to his music

La Voz ArizonaBorn in 1917 as Pedro Cheretin Bugarin

in Marinette, now Sun City, Pete became a fixture in the music business. He began his music career at Phoenix Union High School, playing the guitar and singing in Spanish.

Bugarin did everything from playing Mexican music and commercials. But he got his break acquiring the orchestra "Los Caballeros Alegres." He later created live music and recordings with his 10-piece orchestra, the Music Makers, including Carmen and Laura, Juke Box favorites.

The orchestra made Arizona history because of weekly dance-hall bailes at the Calderón, Casino, and others.

HISPANIC RESEARCH CENTER/ ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

TRINIDAD ESCALANTESWILLING

Salt River Valley pioneer

La Voz ArizonaTrinidad Swilling Shumaker was born

in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico and later moved to Tucson, where at 17 she married Jack Swilling, the first White settler in the Salt River Valley.

Swilling organized the Swilling Irrigating and Canal Company, which established the town site of Phoenix and with Mexican laborers dug a modern canal system, enabling a dependable delivery of water, earning Swilling the title "the father of Phoenix."

The Swilling's original adobe home was near 36th and Washington streets. When Trinidad died in 1925, The Arizona Republic called her "one of the best-known pioneer figures of the Salt River Valley".



PETE MORAGA

A JOuRnALiSM LEgAcy

La Voz ArizonaBorn and raised in Tempe, Arizona,

Pete Moraga devoted his life to improving the image of Latinos in electronic media.

In 1949, after graduating from Arizona State University, Pete became a mem-ber of the original group of KIFN, the first Spanish-language radio station in Phoenix.

Pete joined the Foreign Service in 1961 and worked as a press assistant with the U.S. Embassy in Mexico.

In 1969, he joined the KNX-CBS radio in Los Angles and subsequently worked at KMEX-TV in that city. In 2001, he was inducted into the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Hall of Fame.

PLACIDA ELvIRA GARCIA SMITH

community Activist

La Voz ArizonaPlacida Elvira Garcia Smith was born

on Aug. 7, 1896, in Conejos, Colorado and became the County’s deputy county treasurer.

In 1929, Smith and her husband, Reginald G. Smith, moved to Phoenix where she took a job with what is now known as the Phoenix Newspapers Inc. She worked as a substitute teacher at Phoenix Elementary School and Phoenix Union High Schools. However, in 1931 Smith took on the directorship of Friendly House, a non-profit organization that helped immigrants assimilate. Smith also organized the first Spanish-American Boy Scout Troop in 1932 and in 1953 received Daughters of the American Revolution Award of Merit. In 1962 was chosen as Phoenix Woman of the Year by the Phoenix Advertising Club.

cultural artists, Carmen Beltran, Luisa Espinel, & Carmen Vasquez. 2006 Arizona’s Gov. Janet Napolitano establishes the Raul H. Castro Institute, a non-profit organization with a focus on issues that affect the Latino community of Arizona, with an emphasis on civil rights, education, health & human services & leadership. 2006 On March 24 more than 20,000 people in Phoenix rally for migrants in the city’s biggest demonstration ever as part of a national wave that calls for the legaliza-tion of millions of undocumented immigrants living in the country. 2006 A crowd of between 125,000 to 200,000 people marched two-and-a-half miles from the state fairgrounds to the state capitol in a national day of action to sup-port immigrant reform. 2007 Salt River Project publishes the first Arizona Business Study: Focus On Minority-Owned Business. The study shows that 67 percent of Hispanic businesses are family-owned and that 13 percent of Hispanic businesses have reputable business partners. 2007 Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio signs a 287(g) agreement with the Department of Homeland Security that deputizes 160 of his agents to enforce im-migration laws. 2007 Gov. Janet Napolitano signs an employer sanctions law to go after busi-nesses that knowingly hire undocumented workers. The business sector calls it a death penalty for companies.2008 Arpaio launches crime-sweeps in Latino neighborhoods. His deputies stop Hispanic motorists for broken taillights and cracked windshields drawing allegations of racial profiling. The American Civil Liberties Union files a civil rights lawsuit against his of-fice.2009 President Barack Obama delivers a Commencement Address at Arizona State University on May 13 and urges graduates to find the greatness that lies within each of them. 2010 The Arizona State Historic Preserva-tion Office (SHPO) recognizes the historical significance of La Santa Cruz de Globe, Arizona, built in 1936 by Mexican & Mexican American Catholics atop a hillside in Ruiz Canyon. The state’s Historic Sites Commit-tee advances its nomination of La Santa Cruz de Globe to the National Register of

Historic Places in Washington, D.C. 2010 The Chicana/o Research Collec-tion & Archives at the Hayden Library at ASU is awarded a $155,576 grant from the Council on Library & Information Resources & the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support the “Labor Rights Are Civil Rights” project. The Chicana/o Research Collection & Archives is Arizona’s first archival reposi-tory to receive this CLIR grant.2010 E-Latina Voices, an on-line orga-nization comprised of Latinas in Arizona, announces its advocacy for the civil, politi-cal, social & economic rights of Latinas & Latinos statewide. Founded by Olga Aros, the on-line organization maintains a website & provides information to help Latino com-munities resolve issues that affect them. Membership to E-Latina Voices is free & is open to all. 2010 Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signs SB1070 into law on April 23, making it a state crime for an undocumented immigrant to be in Arizona. Federal judge Susan Bol-ton stops certain sections of the law. The PUENTE Movement and religious groups launch civil disobedience actions. A na-tional boycott is launched against the state.2011 Republican Senator Russell Pearce –the sponsor of SB1070 and president of the Senate is recalled, he is replaced by Jerry Lewis.2011 The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) informs that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department was involved in civil rights violations against Latinos.2011 A federal judge in the ACLU lawsuit on MCSO racial profiling orders the sheriff’s office to stop using traffic stops to inquire about people’s immigration status.

SOURCES: UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT.STATE OF LATINO ARIZONA.THE ARIZONA LATINO RESEARCH ENTERPRISE.THE ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF TRANS-BORDER CHICANO/A AND LATINA/O STUDIES AND ASU OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS.HISPANIC HISTORIC PROPERTY SURVEY, CITY OF PHOE-NIX PRESERVATION OFFICE.UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY.THE CHICANO RESEARCH COLLECTION, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY.ARCHIVES OF LA VOZ NEWSPAPER AND THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC.BRAUN SACRED HEART CENTER.

arizona latinos: centennial legacy

Documents

shortage of mexican

joe eddie lopez

mesquite mexican restaurant

population of phoenix

people of mexican descent

rosemarie rosie lopez

earliest days

south phoenix