The celebration of Arizona's centennial has made me reflect on the history of our community throughout these 100 years. We definitely have changed socially and politically, but our family values and love for our country, culture, traditions and faith, have remained the same.

Our community has endured and prospered in spite of the suffering inflicted by racism, abuse and greed, thanks to the courage of people who have stood up against these injustices. Several organizations have movement has been created to fight for their rights of our people. The most important was the Chicano Movement, a national and coordinated effort during the ’60s created out of the fight waged by Chicano leaders against segregation, discrimination and the lack of opportunities for Mexican-Americans trying to get a good education and better jobs.

Arizona played a key role in the movement. The Southwest Council of La Raza now National Council of La Raza was born in Phoenix. Cesar Chaves, Maclovio Barraza, Garciela Gil Olivarez, Joe Eddie and Rosie Lopez, Alfredo Gutierrez and they many other who gave their heart and soul, were important and valuable examples of the caliber of our state leadership.

Important as well was the priceless support we received from people in business, and other communities and backgrounds. They included Gene Rice, Bob Mathews, Don Bliss, Congressman Mo Udall, Mark DeMichael, Congressman John Rhodes, Governor Bruce Babbit, Council Calvin Goode, Pastor Warren H. Stewart, and many others.  

The success of the Chicano Movement can be measured in many ways. It organized the largest social movement born in the Barrios. It changed the way the country perceived our community. It led to the formation of labor unions and persuaded legislators to change policy, thus enabling our people to enter labor, government and academic institutions.

Our families now have access to health care, affordable housing, education programs and business financing, through community organizations and various governments programs. There are Latinos in powerful positions, including elected officials or those working in major corporations, owing businesses, and working as educators and lawyers. The success of the Chicano Movement was to bring down all the barriers. Today we are woven into the fabric of Arizona and the Nation.

We live in the greatest country in the world, Yes, Arizona has its faults that with time are corrected through our democratic system. So as Arizonans, let us enter the next 100 years with a new Latino movement which has at its core our experiences, sacrifices and wisdom in building an Arizona that has all families at its center. We can work for an Arizona that respects the human dignity of every person, an Arizona that measures economic success by creating opportunities for all families, regardless of their station in life. We can create an Arizona that respects freedom of religion and conscience, an Arizona that educates all our children to lead our state and country based on their love of family.

The late British writer and philosopher G.K. Chesterton once said: “When people begin to ignore human dignity, it will not be long before they begin to ignore human rights.”

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An article that appeared in the first edition of La Voz on January 2000, had the same headline as the one above. Today, 11 years later, the phrase has the same important meaning. And will continue to do so.

In 1912, Arizona became the 48th state of the Union. And that’s what we’re celebrating this February: a century’s worth of accomplishments and setting up the foundation for a better future, Its new status gave Arizona a more formal “American” character. But not necessarily more Anglo-Saxon.  It rather made it more diverse in what has characterized and enhanced this great country of immigrants, of ethnic diversity and culture prevalence.

More so than many other entities in this country, Arizona is a diverse that, It has a deep and beautiful Native American culture and it boasts rich and colorful Hispanic tradition. Both are fusion of the legacy stemming from the diverse values of the pioneers and European colonizers. Today, it’s a cultural melting pot of languages, history and skin colors.

Today, as we celebrate Arizona’s 100th anniversary, Hispanics ha a lot to celebrate. During this time, we’ve been an integral part of the state. We’ve written many of its history’s pages with our important accomplishments and that make us proud. We’ve left our foot prints in every step of Arizona’s journey.

But it hasn’t been easy to get our accomplishment acknowledged and accepted. Throughout this time, there have been critics who have gone against any logic and reason. But justice always prevails and as we all know the birth and growth of a state or nation is not exempt of great efforts, sacrifice and pain.

Just like Hispanics have contributed to the mosaic that built this state during this first century, we’ll continue to make our contributions. We will do so with the same determination, with our own beliefs, moral and family values. We will do it as a better educated and a politically involved community. We will do it with a greater self awareness that we’re an integral part of this society.

La Voz want to give our readers a glimpse of Hispanics’ contributions to our beloved state during this past century. In this special edition of La Voz, “100 years of Mexican-American influence in Arizona,” we offer a review of the most important events and pay tribute to the men and women who made Arizona a vibrant and important state. To all of them, thank you for the efforts, bravery, struggle and heroism!

We recognize that the content of “100 years of Mexican-American influence in Arizona” may have error and omissions, and for that we apologize. But rest assured that it wasn’t our intention.

Arizona, our History

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 means “silver-bearing.”

Entrepreneurs. Labor organizers. Teachers. Priests. Publishers. Physicians. Lawmen and layers. 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 leader have long since passed on. A youthful generation has inherited a birthright of culture and language built by their grandparents and great grandparents. Twenty-eight percent 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, 70s, 80s, and 90s, however, the past is vivid and real. The struggles they fought for quality and recognition are to be savored. Their accomplishments are now part of history. Their clubs and organizations live on, evidence of what it took through the years to organize, assert and lobby for equal rights as Americans.

There were struggles, but also phenomenal accomplishments. Relationships were built with state and local government agencies to create programs which allowed 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 gain the knowledge to become a businesswoman.

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.

These older leaders say that the many types of overt discrimination up to and through the 1960s are rare nowadays. Street protest, lawsuits, subtle pressure on civic officials, appeals to reason, brought an imperfect quality. Today, because of the immigration issue, a new type of discrimination is being employed that is causing new protest 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 “Mexicans only” housing projects in the segregate 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 Americas anyway.

Many Mexicans living in Sonora sought refuge in Arizona when the Americans attempted to exterminate the Apaches, and the Apaches moved south into Mexico. Some of Arizona’s oldest Mexican-American families trace their history to the event.

Other families came north to work Anglo-run mining camps like Clifton and Morenci, working as laborers for once third the daily wages of Anglo workers. In the 1880s, Arizona Anglos outnumbered Mexican-Americans for the first time.

In the decade before statehood, Mexican-Americans working in the mines and on 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 demands for equality.

Paul Brinkley-Rogers is a former reporter for Newsweek, The Miami Herald, The Arizona Republic, and the Phoenix-based Spanish language newspaper La Voz. He was a member of The Miami Herald’s reporting team that earned a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the highly emotional child custody dispute in 2001 over Elian Gonzalez, the little boy who survived the sinking of the boat bringing him and his mother from Cuba to seek a new life in the United States. Paul won the Overseas Press Club’s Malcolm Forbes award in 2002 for writing about the economic and political turmoil in Argentina.

The Heart and Soul of the Chicano Movement

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 organizing and co-founded Chicanos Por La Causa in 1968. There were many, many meeting at their home at 32^nd 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 booth 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 Ciduad 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 16^th Street and Apache in South Phoenix.

He liked to read. Even thought he often had to get up at 3 a.m. to pick oranges, lemons and clery, 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 1960’s he met Ascencion “Sonny” Najera who flew aircraft for the US Air Force in the Vietnam era and who had become involved in organizing young Chicanos in California, and then in Phoenix. Najera “dragged” him to a meeting and he discovered “it was easy for me to understand what they wanted, especially when they were talking about farm workers.” He was inspired by a speech he watch Cesar Chaves 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-Americans on Sunday nights. Soon they were organizing students at Arizona State University and at other schools. MASO (Mexican-American Student Organization) was started at ASU and they poured all their energies into it. “That was fine on a campus,” he said. “But we felt that task of improving (opportunities for Chicanos) was going to come through community organizing.

Political rivalries in 1967 slowed down an attempt to establish a major Chicano organization in Phoenix, with the Phoenix-based Southwest Council 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 Pr La Causa was founded with the help of seed money from the SCLC.

As CPL’s Co-Founder and Chairman, he directed the dramatic 18-month flight to improve conditions and opportunities for Latino students at Phoenix Union High School where a walkout had occurred after girl students were molested. Bet 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. Sacrifieces wer 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 children.

“if I wasnted to see Joe Eddie, it usually 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 log 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 meeting and I knew in my heart that I would have to be there, like Joe Eddie.

“There were the marches. The boycotts. We would both be there. If I wasn’t doing that I was making big pots of menudo, or making enchiladas, to feed everyone” attending the so frequent meeting at the Lopez home.

Rosie said “In those days it was not kosher for a wife to be helping her busband” with leadership and ideology. “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 recognized as a person on my own.”

But she did help recruit a group of older woman, who were mostly mothers, to the board of CPLC, which gave the organization huge credibility it would not have had it 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 community, if you are going to succeed.”

The presence of that board of women 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 scuffle for better medical services in south Phoenix. It helped bring curriculum reforms and better security at Phoenix Union. Young Mexican-Americans no longer were being steered into vocational training. 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 Hasting 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 log 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 explain it to them. I couldn’t say it was because we were doing something really important.”

By Eduardo Bernal / Courtesy of La Voz

The Mesoamerican culture influence in the southwestern part of the U.S. – the ones that developed in central and southern Mexico as well as Central America- 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 cultures that develop before, during and after the Spanish Conquest.

The Latino culture 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 Arizona as a consequence if 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 Churches such as San Xavier del Bac mission in Tucson, through theatre companies created in the 1800s, (Teatro Lírico, Teatro Cervantes or Teatro Carmen), through music like the Club Filarmónicos de Tucson, Orquesta Navarro, Los Music Makers de Pete Bugarin, the Mariachi Changuitos Feos or the Mariachi Cobre – the latter founded in the early ’70s 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 showcasing 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 Marin, 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 outlets to the rest of the world. Among the traditional movie theaters in Arizona were the Orpheum, Rex, El Azteca in Phoenix and The Plaza in Tucson. Some movies filmed totally or partially in Arizona and which were popular are “The Gunfight at OK Corral” (1957), “Easy Rider” (1969), “Stagecoach” (1939), and many others.

Most recent films by contemporaries like Paul Espinoza and Dan Devivo touch on topics like immigration, border and social injustice issue.

Artistic expressions 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-American and Latinos found outlets to express themselves, which were crucial factors in creating their identity.

In the 1970’s, the visual arts catapulted in Arizona with MARS (Movimiento Artístico del Rio Salado) and Xicanindio in 1975, through artist like Zarco Guerrero and Antonio Pazos’ murals. Other upcoming artists were Raul Guerrero, Patssi Valdez and Gaspar Enriquez.

Several of the artist Latino groups grew out of civil rights movement including MECHA, Chicanos Por La Causa, Valle del 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 artist but also opened the door to a cultural understanding in the state. Until the ’60s, when 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 artist were given spaces for sharing their visual interpretations of society. Currently, there are hundreds of murals Latinos painted in Tucson and Phoenix and other key Arizona cities.

In the Pazos’ tradition and influence, urban muralists such as Lalo Cota, Pablo Luna, El Mac, El Moisés, Breeze, Gennaro Garcia 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 Garcia, Adam Cooper-Teran, Neniel Martinez, Marco Albarran, Martin Moreno and Ignacio Farias.

Toward the end of the 1800s and the turn of the past century, theatre companies like Teatro Cervantes, El Lirico, and Teatro 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, and Teatro Meshico in Phoenix, display the same characteristics, 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 evolving, and connecting ethnicities, leaving its footprint of historical and cultural legacy. Amid this framework, galleries, museums and cultural center began showing Latino work and local government began promoting Latino Culture.

Organizations such as ALAC (Arizona Latino Arts Cultural Center), CALA ( Celebracion Artistica 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. 

To read the complete 100 Years of Mexican-American Influence in Arizona visit our home page to view an interactive PDF in Spanish or English.

IN THIS ISSUE...  

• A Message from Tommy Espinoza, RDF's President and CEO 
• When Arizona Became a State ... We Were Already Here.
• Arizona, our History.  
• The Heart and Soul of the Chicano Movement.
• Arizona: Following the Paths of our Culture. 
 

Community Corner

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 ambition 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 relentless critic of SB 1070 and Arizona politicians who backed that legislations. He also is a board member of the Cesar Chavez Foundation and since 1971 he has served 31 organizations in various positions.