Comment: Recognize Homegrown Leader Velasquez
I ran into Catarina Velasquez recently at Ruta Maya coffee shop, where she is the chief operating officer, and congratulated her on the latest commemoration of her father's work.
She looked surprised and asked, "What commemoration?"
Catarina is one of the daughters of the late William C. Velasquez, founder of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Projects, or SVREP.
Last month, U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, working with U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., amended the title of the Senate version of the Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 to include the name of Willie Velasquez.
Velasquez's name was included with the names of such civil rights dignitaries as Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Barbara Jordan and César Chávez.
The addition of Velasquez's name is an important act of national recognition. While there is no guarantee the House will follow suit, it is a start.
It is also a start in recognizing community leaders — unfortunately, something we do not do well in San Antonio.
It is little wonder that Catarina had not heard the news.
Why? Instead of the community recognizing and celebrating homegrown leadership — leadership that had a national impact on the voting rights and enfranchisement of Latinos across the country and the election of a new generation of Latino officials — we too often focus on the salacious, a la Britney Spears.
In San Antonio, we have statutes of former U.S. Rep. and New Deal Mayor Maury Maverick, labor leader Samuel Gompers and even one of Tejano Jose Antonio Navarro. But where is our monument to leaders such as Velasquez?
Where are the Willie Velasquez graduate fellowships at our local universities to commemorate and carry on his legacy of leadership? Better yet, where are the Willie Velasquez papers and archives so that students and scholars might study civil and voting rights leadership and history?
Why must it take the action of U.S. senators from Colorado and Vermont to recognize and commemorate the actions of a San Antonian? (Vermont? That sounds a lot like picante sauce from New York City!)
Velasquez was a leader in the United Farm Workers efforts in South Texas. He was part of Cinco de MAYO (Mexican American Youth Organization) at St. Mary's University, perhaps the predecessors to the Raza Unida movement in Texas. Today every time we hear "Su voto es su voz" ("Your vote is your voice"), we cannot but help think about Velasquez and SVREP.
Velasquez was only the second Latino in the nation to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom — one of the nation's highest civilian honors — in 1995, posthumously awarded by President Clinton.
Velasquez was often accused of being a radical, a socialist and even a communist. But no one could accuse him of not believing in the nation's system of representative democracy. His aim was to empower the disenfranchised through voter registration and equitable election systems.
If he were here today, he would likely say the successes that are often attributed to him were the successes and leadership of a variety of people who worked at SVREP, including Andy Hernandez, Rolando Rios, Aurora Sanchez, Choco Meza, Robert Brischetto and many others. That was Willie's way; his was a transformative leadership style, not a transactional one.
Next year will be the 20th anniversary of Willie Velasquez's premature death. It is not too late as a community to commemorate his leadership. San Antonio — home to civil rights organizations such as the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, SVREP and the William C. Velasquez Institute and home to League of United Latin American Citizens President Rosa Rosales and Texas state leaders like Leticia Van de Putte and Robert Puente — can do better in recognizing and celebrating homegrown leadership |
