Since its founding in 1987, the San Benito County League of
United Latin American Citizens has reshaped local elections,
donated more than $136,000 of scholarships to 140 students and been
named the national LULAC
”
council of the year.
”
Hollister – Since its founding in 1987, the San Benito County League of United Latin American Citizens has reshaped local elections, donated more than $136,000 of scholarships to 140 students and been named the national LULAC “council of the year.”
Not bad for a 20-year-old.
San Benito LULAC President Mickie Luna said that before starting the local council, she had been attending LULAC meetings in Salinas for two years. But after learning about a local labor camp where families lived among exposed raw sewage, Luna and other LULAC members decided that San Benito County needed a council to work on local issues.
“Every person in the Latino community knows the name LULAC,” Luna said.
Since then, San Benito LULAC has scored several big political victories, including the creation of district-based City Council elections and the issuance of a federal Department of Justice decree to force the county to provide more bilingual poll workers and Spanish-language ballots in local elections.
Even before the imposition of districtwide elections, there were a few Latino council members, Luna said, but they were relatively rare, and it seemed like most of the Hollister City Council consisted of white men.
“When we saw that three council members could discuss the agenda in the back of the fence because they live in the same area, we were concerned about that,” Luna said.
Hollister voters now elect one council member from each of the five districts, and there are three Latinas on the City Council. Even without district elections, Councilwoman Pauline Valdivia, a Latina, said she would have run for office in 1998. But she agreed the new system has improved Latino representation.
LULAC’s biggest accomplishment, however, is its work with local youth, Luna said. And Valdivia agreed.
“LULAC really stepped up to the plate,” Valdivia said.
Hollister’s Veronica Lezama said she might never have gone to college without LULAC. Her parents, she said, had been farmworkers with an elementary school education, while LULAC leaders encouraged her and, eventually, connected her with scholarships.
“They asked me, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?'” Lezama said. “No one had ever asked me that before.”
Now Lezama is a college graduate and a transportation planner with the Council of San Benito County Governments. Fourteen years after becoming a member, she’s still involved with LULAC.
Police Chief Jeff Miller also said he has made regular appearances at LULAC meetings since he came to Hollister four years ago.
He has a personal connection to the group because it was one of the first organizations to welcome him to the community. Miller, though, said he’s also impressed by their work with children, most recently through co-sponsoring and staffing the Gang Task Force’s upcoming community meeting.
“You hear too many things and stereotypes, you know, about wayward youth … and yet, here’s a group of kids that aren’t into any of that,” Miller said.
San Benito LULAC has earned a national reputation, Luna said, and she should know since she served four years as the state organization’s president.
“Other councils, they sometimes focus on specific issues like civil rights or education,” Luna said. “We concentrate on them all.”
