Oral History Interview with María Jiménez, 1998 Jiménez, María Interview conducted by José Angel Gutiérrez, Ph.D., J.D. Interview transcribed by Karen McGee José Angel Gutiérrez Transcript converted to XML encoding by Scott Holmes Center for Mexican American Studies, University of Texas at Arlington Texas State Library and Archives Commission 45 pages; 134 KB.

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 2001

Source: MS-Word file transcript of video recording CMAS No. 96.

Oral history interviews published online as the Tejano Voices Project, partially funded by a grant received in 2001 from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission's TexTreasures program.

 English Spanish Jimenez, Maria American Friends Service Committee. Immigration Law Enforcement Monitoring Project Hernandez, Ezekiel Mexican American Youth Organization Raza Unida Party (Tex.) Gutierrez, Jose Angel University of Texas at Arlington. Center for Mexican American Studies Reyes, Ben Mexican American women--Texas--Interviews Emigration and immigration--Government policy Human rights advocacy Mexican Americans--Civil rights--Texas Labor unions--Organizing Mexican Americans--Texas--Political activity Mexican American students--Texas Discrimination in education--Texas Race discrimination--Texas Mexican American leadership--Texas Women political candidates--Texas United States--Emigration and immigration--Government policy United States--Emigration and immigration--Economic aspects Texas--Race relations oral history interview Chicanos Tejanos politics ILEMP U.S. Border Patrol AFSC AYO LOMAS INS gender discrimination sexism

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Oral History Interview with María Jiménez, 1998 Center for Mexican American Studies (CMAS) Interview Number 96.Mexican American Public Figures of Texas Interviewee: María Jiménez Interviewer: José Angel Gutiérrez, Ph.D., J.D. Transcribers: Karen McGee and José Angel Gutiérrez Date of Interview: January 22, 1998. Location of Interview: Houston, Texas Number of Transcript Pages: 45 Cite this interview as Oral History Interview with María Jiménez, 1998, by José Angel Gutiérrez. CMAS No. 96. María Jiménez Dr. Gutiérrez: We are interviewing María Jiménez in Houston, Texas. We have discussed basically the purpose of this and how it will be placed in the archive, this interview, and the areas that we are going to cover. So, why don't we start with who is María Jiménez today; what are you doing; how do you do that; who do you do it with; and work backwards. And sprinkle in any childhood memories or, or biographical data. And I will interrupt sometimes to pursue ideas and, and thoughts that you might have put on the tape? Ms. Jiménez: OK. Well, I have been directing a project for the American Friends Service Committee which is a Quaker organization. And for the last eleven years… And the project, it is called the Immigration Law Enforcement Monitoring Project. And what we do is document human and civil rights violations in the enforcement of immigration laws. And when I was first hired by the American Friends Service Committee to do this, their idea was very vague as to how to approach this. And I was asked to actually design the project. And so, having experience of, on both sides of the border in working with organizations and organizing, I based the project on the premises that you could not just simply describe the phenomena. But as we document the cases, but actually have to develop the conditions to, to, to change those policies and practices that, that affect a community. And to do that you have to organize the affected communities. So, as a result of that approach, and I, I called it… In the American Friends Service Committee there, there are two styles of work. One style is advocacy. That is a person speaks for the affected group, and the other one is an organizer. You organize those affected to speak for themselves. And so, based on that concept, I went out and began training community and community members to document the cases in four areas of the U. S./Mexico border. San Diego, California where we have an office, southern Arizona, El Paso, and, and the Rio Grande Valley. And once these screenings took place, we of course, asked them to define a steering committee and, and developed. In some areas we actually organized a couple of coalitions that have continued the work and expand in their work. For instance, in El Paso we organized the El Paso Board of Rights Coalition. And in Arizona the, the, Paso we organized the El Paso Border Rights Coalition. And in Arizona the, the, what t is now called the Derechos Humanos (Human Rights) of Arizona that directly do the work with us and a direct result of the organizing. And, and then, in San Diego, with our office, the relationship is a little different because that's a permanent staff there that is paid to do this work. But then, in the, in the Rio Grande Valley and there we simply became part of the existing coalition which was the Rio Grande Coalition for Immigrants and Refugee Rights that eventually evolved into what is now known as the Valley Coalition for Justice. So, being an immigrant… Dr. Gutiérrez:Can I get you to name those organizations in the Valley Coalition for Justice? Ms. Jiménez:Well, there, there, there are many, many organizations, but they include organizations like Proyecto Libertad, (Project Liberty) they include you know, people like Head Starts, some of the neighborhood organizations in McAllen. There are some organizations that deal with families and community development in, in the Colonias, [unicorporated areas] so there really are a variety of coalitions. Derechos Humanos of Arizona is the same thing. That one is really the largest of our coalitions and the one with the most complexity. Because it has everything from union representatives to human rights organizations to, to indigenous nations. Because somewhere along the work, in 1989, the Tohono Od’Ham Nation, several representatives came to one of our meetings and said, you know, ‘We are being very affected by the border policies. And have become an, and since then we have tried to integrate many of the other indigenous nations along the U. S./Mexico border into the work, and so, you know, most, most permanent in the Arizona area. Dr. Gutiérrez: That or ganization with, with the tribe is, is in Southern Arizona, Tucson La Mesilla [name of area prior to 1853]? Ms. Jiménez: The, the… Dr. Gutiérrez: The Tohono Od’Ham? Ms. Jiménez: Tohono Od’Ham? Dr. Gutiérrez: Yes. Dr. Gutiérrez: Yes. It's in Southern Arizona, the second largest reservation in the country. But we also have active participation of the Yaquis, the Pasqua Yaquis. Our coordinator for that coalition, which we organized, Jose Matus is a Pasqua Yaqui. Dr. Gutiérrez: Matus? Ms. Jiménez: Matus. Dr. Gutiérrez: Well, in th e Valley of Texas, you've got the one you mentioned, Proyecto Libertad is in Harlingen, no? Ms. Jiménez: It's in Harlingen. Dr. Gutiérrez: And now you've got, is Casa Romero involved in part of that? Ms. Jiménez: No. They were always part of the coalition there, but they work with, they work with Proyecto Libertad. Dr. Gutiérrez: And then, there is Ninfa Krueger in, in something called BARCA? Ms. Jiménez: Yeah. But I, I only work with Ninfa in the earlier period. She, I, she only worked with, in the coalition. But it's the day to day work that is done by someone at Proyecto Libertad who, who organizes what our project is and the Rio Grande with the other organizations there. Dr. Gutiérrez: Well th en, let me ask you again. Which are the ones that you actually work with as part of your main network in, in Texas? Ms. Jiménez: I work with Proyecto Libertad, the El Paso Border Rights Coalition which we formed the, in Texas, we are part of the Texas Immigrant and Refugee Coalition, which is a statewide coalition of coalitions. And we work with, on a separate level, a more grassroots group center that would be the Coordinadora 96, ninety-six (96) originally, which is now 2000. Which is a different, they are different groups. They are, one, the Texas Immigration Rights Coalition is more representative of agencies that deal with immigrants and refugees and the Coordinadora are more of the grassroots. Dr. Gutiérrez: How ab out in Houston, Dallas, or Austin? Ms. Jiménez: In, in, in Austin, we deal with UNIR and we deal with the Coordinadora people there with individual attorneys primarily in the immigration field. And maybe some church groups like there, there's people doing work with Central Americans en el Buen Pastor (at the Good Shepard) that, that we work with and also other groups in Austin, like the Texas Conference of Churches that is based there, that we have been involved with over the years. In, in Dallas, it's been primarily through the Texas Immigration Coalition. Occasionally with GAILA [Grupo de Apoyo a Inmigrantes Latino Americanos ] Mexicanos. More consistently with Proyecto Adelante (Project Forward) staff there. And, and again occasionally there will be isolated incidents that put us in contact with families or other groups. One example I can give you is the, there was a person who was brought in from Mexico, a U. S. citizen who had escaped from TDC. [Texas Deaprtment of Corrections] Then, he was brought back to the United States by the Mexican authorities and the family is in Dallas, so the family will call frequently and, and work with us. And, and I also have dealt over the years with the Mexican nationals on death row as well. So again, if these networks of the Texas Coalition against the death penalty and, and the death row families…. If they happen to have also links to those areas, we will link to those areas. Dr. Gutiérrez: And in Houston? Ms. Jiménez: And in Houston, we are part of the Houston Immigration and Refugee Coalition. And we work with numerous organizations from immigrant organizations like CRECEN. And the Guatemalan Support Network and the Comite de Solidaridad Con El Pueblo de Mexico. (Committee of Solidarity with the People of Mexico) which are immigrant organizations here. The organizations such as United Way, I know the couple, Multi-Cultural Committee of the United Way, I am on the police advisory committee of the, of the Houston Police Department. We are, we work with the institutions like the University of Houston for our studies. Dr. Gutiérrez: Can you spell out that CRECEN, the acronym? Ms. Jiménez: It's the Central American Resource Center. Dr. Gutiérrez: Central American Resource Center. C-R, C-A-R Ms. Jiménez: C-R-E-C-E-N. Dr. Gutiérrez: OK. Ms. Jiménez: There's a CARECEN also in Houston. Dr. Gutiérrez: All right. What is that? Ms. Jiménez: That is sort of a legal service entity and CARECEN is more of a community based organizing group within, primarily Salvadorian, but now there's more participation of, of Guatemaltecos (Guatemalans) and we are right now in the effort of organizing of the Hondurenos (Hondurans) which are unorganized. Dr. Gutiérrez: How about in East Texas? Ms. Jiménez: In East Texas, I have very little contact with East Texas. Because it's not our area of work, primarily as an area of concentration. And, and in West Texas it's, it's primarily been in where we've had particular cases like the Ezequiel Hernandez case in Redford where… I've been to Redford three or four times and, and we organize there the Redford Committee for Justice from the residents in Redford. Or, or if there is a particular case, I, I've been in Odessa once or twice and worked with several organizations there, but again it's a, around a particular case as opposed to continual work in those areas. Dr. Gutiérrez: Who are the principal attorneys that work in immigration law with you and who are some of the principal leaders of many of these organizations by name if you can and location? Ms. Jiménez: Well, the, the principal set of attorneys that we have been working with over the years is, had been the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights based in, in San Antonio. And their, originally it was, it was established by Lee Teran and Barbara Hines, but now the director is Mary Kenny. And we work with some of the other people there like Cindy Cano who is now with MALDEF [Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund], and, as a matter of fact, I saw where they had filed a suit against the military in their building of a field in Laredo. So, we work with, with, with Cindy Cano. In terms of other attorneys, in the El Paso area we have worked with Margarito Rodriguez, we have worked with who, I believe, now is the head of the MABA statewide. [Mexican American Bar Association] We've worked with Carlos Spector Calderon and we've worked with, on and off with other attorneys that, that are important attorneys. In Arizona, of course, it's Isabel Garcia and Jesus Romo. In Houston, it's, we've, Isaias Torres, Peter Williamson, Sam Williamson, when he was alive. And, and in general, I think that we attempt to work with many of the people of the National Immigration Project of the Lawyer's Guild because we are members and we are part of the steering committee as well. And I tell people I am not a lawyer, but I've got influence. That's how I, I am part of the steering committee, so I, I, I always call the guild for whoever the attorney is as a member. And so, some of the leadership of the organizations like the Texas Immigrant Refugee Coalition which is a, more of an agency based, right now it's Vanna Slaughter from Catholic Charities, and then, right now there is a young woman who has taken over the position of coordinator, Sylvia Reeles. Dr. Gutiérrez: Reeles or Reales? Ms. Jiménez: Reeles. R-E-E-L-E-S. And, and see in, in San Antonio, the coalition there is coordinated by Peter Villacillo. In, in the Valley, it's Rogelio Nunez and John, Jonathan Jones, and Nathan Seltzer. In, in El Paso it's a numerous groups of people from Susan Kirk who was the coordinator for many years, Jose Moreno who used to be with the diocese. Delia Gomez with the Las Americas Refugee Project which she recently left and has now been replaced by Ada and we continue to work with her. Dr. Gutiérrez: Ada what? Ms. Jiménez: I forgot her last name. Dr. Gutiérrez: OK. Ms. Jiménez: She is also on the school board there in El Paso, but I can't remember her last name. And, and then, we, we've worked in teams of the Coordinadora with people like Jaime Martinez, AFL-CIO, The International United Electrical Workers. In San Antonio we've worked with Pablo Hernandez of the Concilio (Council) and Lupe Pacheco, Marcelo Tafolla in Austin. And in, in Dallas, also would be Luis Garza and, and Paul, I can't think or remember his last name right now. Victor Juarez also of, over at Proyecto Adelante. That's, I mean, in terms of, those are the networks of people that we've worked with. Dr. Gutiérrez: Let me switch tracks a bit and ask you top down, who is your supervisor; who do you answer to; how is that structured; what is your funding; what is your budget? And then the second part, how do you characterize what you do? What are the things that you do? It sounds like you are on the one hand a liaison, on the other hand an organizer, on the other hand coordinator, on the other hand leader? Multiple hats, so that's the second part of my that question. Ms. Jiménez: Uh huh. OK. The, the American Friends Servcie Committee is a very complicated organization. That's the first thing you've got to understand. It is a Quaker organization that was founded in 1917 and it has forty six projects in the United States. I am only one project. And twenty-three internationally. My project is part of a program called the Mexico/U. S. Border Program in which it's the monitoring project or the Maquiladora Project that is based from Brownsville to, on the Mexican side of the border, organizing the maquiladora (twin plants) workers as, as well as the component that deals with U. S./Mexico relations. So, and we are all part of a division called the Community Relations Division. And in the American Friends Service community, there are three main divisions. The Community Relations Division, the Peace Education Division, and the International Division. And, and so,in, in my direct supervisor is the director of the Mexico/U. S. Border Program which has changed over the years from Primitivo Rodriguez was the first director, who was there many, many years. And now we have a new one, a new person called Ricardo Hernandez who is the one directing that particular group. AFC is a very complex structure. It, it also has people that are not part of, part of the staff who may work together, about four or five people of different walks of life. Every three and a half months, and they… In there we present our advances in terms of the project. And they get to come and, and advise. And these are usually meetings that begin on Friday, Saturday, and then, on Sunday. So, it's a very complex structure of, of decision making. This organization works on consensus. So it's, it's very different than if you are used to an organization that is heirarchical and tells you what to do. This is a very complex organization. It's also an organization where I didn't have to hide all my political activity. They want it. A person should have a lot of experience in organizing and, and progressive movements. And particularly they are a very principled organization. When the employer sanctions provisions of the '86 immigration law was passed and, and put into effect, the American Friends did sue the government based on religious beliefs. That, you know, that there was a lot to employment and work is fundamental for people to survive on and no one could outlaw it. And it was dismissed by the government. But the institution, the board of directors decided to not comply with the government and to this day, there is no I-9s and there is non-compliance in the whole organization. And the board of directors was, decided that it might jeopardize the non-profit status, it might just, they might be arrested or our offices might be raided by the INS. But they felt that there was a principal that had to be defended and to this day, that's the way it is. Dr. Gutiérrez: Do you remember the style of that case? The actual case, the name, like Roe v. Wade or, or Plylar v. Doe? Ms. Jiménez: It, it was AFSC verses…., I believe the person over there was Thornberg at the time. It will be, the attorney was Peter Shay for the Center for Constitutional, Constitutional Rights, I mean, Human Rights and Constitutional Law in L.A. [Los Angeles], but he was the lead attorney. Dr. Gutiérrez: So, other than these organizations you work with, is there any local board or advisory group that you deal with and are, are responsible for or accountable to in terms of your work in this region? Just directly to the director? Is that based in Philadelphia? Ms. Jiménez: It's based in Philadelphia. And it's, so I have a great deal of autonomy in how I design the project and how I implement the project. Dr. Gutiérrez: And these two gentlemen that were the directors, are, are they from Southwest; where are these people from; Hernandez and the other one before…? Ms. Jiménez: Well, both of them are from Mexico. Dr. Gutiérrez: Oh. From Mexico? Ms. Jiménez: Yeah, because their work is a great deal of work on the bi-national level. And it becomes indispensable to understand, very well, Mexican politics and the organizations that move in Mexico. Dr. Gutiérrez: Do you have any direct linkage with think tanks or research centers on, on the Mexican side, like the Colegio Frontera Norte, Jorge Bustamante [name university in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico and director’s name ] from Mexico? Ms. Jiménez: No. The, traditionally we've had contact with them, but because of their, their position of being very partisan for the government and since we are a non-governmental organization, our, our links have not been tremendously solid. Dr. Gutiérrez: So where do you get your data from? Ms. Jiménez: The data comes, well, you know, we train individuals. We, this was something that no one had done before. So we've learned over the years. And so, we expect the organizations that we train and work in the coalitions to talk about their cases and to send them to the coor…. to the person who they decide, they, they designate as the coordinator and to work with us. And, and this person, we have a, over the years we learned how to document these. And so, we have a specific form designed and we have categories of abuse of authority and injuries and sources because it could also be the, the source could be a newspaper article. And, and then, we, originally we had our own data base designed. And, and we would input at the local level in concentrating Houston. And this last time around, the University of Houston, Center for Immigration Research, decided to aid us in restructuring the, the, the, the form and the data base. And so, a student was assigned to us who, who we, we sent to a national conference on how to gather information for human rights. Because now it's a big field. When we started out, it wasn't. We were probably the first human rights organization to elaborate reports not only on a case by case basis, pero (but) on a statistical analysis of, of, of the human rights violations that were happening on the border. And from our work then, we got other organizations of an international level interested, Human Rights Watch, for instance, the Americas Watch component has done several reports. And many of our cases go now directly to them. And Amnesty International is about to release a report, and so, those go to, to them. But it's, it's, our funds partial, part of them are funded by foundations and partly through the American Friends which, in fact, the center the resources of the American Friends are individual donations. So, this particular project is that it's unusual for us, I see, because most of our work is fund, out-funded by foundations. The largest grant is for a fifty percent is the Ford Foundation, and then, the, the Mertc Gilmore Foundation, and then, other smaller foundations. Dr. Gutiérrez: Morgue or More? Ms. Jiménez: Joyce Mertc Gilmore. Dr. Gutiérrez: M-U-R-C-H? Ms. Jiménez: M-E-R-T-C. Dr. Gutiérrez: Ah. Mertc. Ms. Jiménez: Mertc Gilmore. And they, and they're in New York. Dr. Gutiérrez: OK. Ms. Jiménez: And, and basically from our funds we then give a certain amount to the local coalitions for the consistency of the work. We, we wish we could hire them permanently, but, but nah. This work is very controversial. And I think a lot of people were surprised when the Ford foundation funded us for this work. But they have been funding us for the last ten years. And, but I think it's because we have managed to be able to take the issue, give it a definition. Where, you know, ever people like COLEF, Jorge Bustamante, you know, didn't, you know, at first said, "Well," you know, "they're, you are exaggerating the number of those cases and violence." And so, when we started documenting and he saw that we had a national data base, I think he was surprised. That it, that we were able to take a social phenomenon and, and, and be able to, to put it together into not only statistical, but look at alternatives. And it was very much, when we started researching, it was very much a, the issue of misconduct of law enforcement. So we learned a great deal from organizations that have worked on police abuse. Citizens Alert, for instance, in Chicago. We were part of the National Coalition of Police Accountability, which are grassroots organizations. And we are on the steering committee of that. For many years we were part also of the International Association for Civilian Oversight, which are governmental entities. They are personnel of civilian review boards and those of us that are not governmental cannot, our members, associate members, we can only have a voice, but not a vote in the meetings. But from those professionals we learned a great deal particularly from the Canadians who had passed a bill to create a civilian review board for the Mounties. And so, we used that to push from a very early, the idea of civilian review of the Border Patrol. And as somebody said, it was originally it was… Everybody would argue you, you know, that's too exotic or, you know, it's just, so you want to use it for local police, yet we managed in, in the session in '93 to finally get a, a bill drawn which had thirty co-sponsors. It was introduced by Congressman Xavier Becerra to create an independent agency. It didn't go anywhere. But the idea was that eventually through the work, it passed the court of laugh test in Washington and was introduced as a concept. We were a little surprised last year when [Vice Presdident Al ] Gore and the administration proposed to having civilian review boards for the INS [Immigration naturalization Service] at local levels, as well as, for a national one. I mean, then the Republicans arguing that there were two weeks because they were advisory boards and needed to have some teeth. And though we struggled for years with the INS, the issue is that, I think that part of our, our, our accomplishments has been to make acceptable the idea of civilian review at federal levels. Dr. Gutiérrez: You used the phrase laugh test like in laughter? Ms. Jiménez: Uh huh. Dr. Gutiérrez: Can you explain that? Ms. Jiménez: Well, that's what the, inside the loop people call the idea that you may want to put before congress. And they say, say you know, it won't pass the laugh test. Dr. Gutiérrez: OK. Ms. Jiménez: People will laugh at it. Dr. Gutiérrez: So, so what is your gross budget for, for your project or your office and, and would you characterize your work please? Ms. Jiménez: The, we work with about half, half a million, no, no, each, a quarter of a million a year. I mean, a year. Yeah. Because we give money to the coalitions. Dr. Gutiérrez: Is that including that or excluding that? Ms. Jiménez: Including it. Dr. Gutiérrez: So, how much money do you really have to work with yourself? Ms. Jiménez: Probably myself, I probably have maybe a hundred thousand or a hundred and fifty. Dr. Gutiérrez: That's not much because you got to take salary and travel and, and… Ms. Jiménez: No, it's not. It's not much. We, we’ve been amazed at what we are able to do because our, our, our goal was to reduce the incidents of, of abuse of authority in the enforcement of immigration law as well as to establish a demilitarized border. Those were our goals. And, and we do it, through strengthening within the communities capacity to respond to the particular incidents, increasing public awareness about the, the nature of the abuse. Because before our work, people outside of the Mexican immigrant community didn't know it existed. And even the INS would denied that it existed. They don't now. Now, they have a civilian advisory panel which was part of our work which they have issued a report in, in which many of our recommendations have been incorporated. And then, the third thing was it, it's impacting policy. And we've been able to impact policy in an area which was very, very, considered a very difficult area. The immigration law of 1990 incorporated three of our recommendations which were part of our second report. INS wanted more authority. It was Section 503. And so, Howard Berman from California and the organizations like National Council de la Razaa in D. C. and, and the National Immigration Project, the American Civil Liberties Union in D. C. basically spoke with him about the fact that they didn't have things like the use of force policy or they hadn’t reviewed them in years. So, we've been very outdated, particularly under the use of deadly force. We have documented over twenty-four Mexican nationals shot to death by the Border Patrol in an unjustified situation by this time. And there was also the issue of the standard form of enforcement in, in how to, and the fact that these complaint processes that they have didn't work. So, Howard Berman said, "If you, if you want more authority, then before you want more authority, you have to basically review and redo your use of force policies, deadly force policies, your standards for enforcement. You have to have certification for training in those, and then, you have to develop a system to quickly deal with evaluation of those standards." And that became known in our circles as the, as the Berman amendment, but it's Section 503 of the '90 law. From then we went to regulations and we organized large groups of, of study groups, even before the regulations were out. And we sent them to the INS saying, you know, "Before you issue your regulations, this is what we think the model policy on the use of deadly force is." Or, "This is what we think is the model policy on high speed chases. This is the model policy that we think is, should be appropriate for a, an adequate complaint process that is functional," etc. I think, I think I must have sent at least fifteen pounds of paper, but there were four working groups. And they were integrated by even police professionals. I remember on the use of force, we had one of the nation's top experts, Mark Geller from the Police Research Forum, Dr. Gutiérrez: Geller? Ms. Jiménez: Geller. G-E-L-L-E-R. And professors who deal with criminal justice in the area of monitoring law enforcement, people from civilian review boards, grassroots people, and these groups are integrated in themselves and I coordinated them and, and we set this, these policies of positions to the INS. Let me say that to this day, they are still working on them. It doesn't mean that we accomplished much, but, but I think in… We got it through their head that… And it was interesting to us because they had a meeting of the civilian advisory panel which was also part of our work at the national level here in Houston. And these two people reported on how excited they are about having to redo all their regulations in D. C. And people think this is the most exciting thing they have done in years. And people are coming up with the ideas. And I, we sat there and we couldn't believe that this was actually part of our work. I also had the occasion in 1990 of testifying before the U. S. Civil Rights Commission in Washington. And the head of enforcement at the time of the INS, the Associate Commissioner of Enforcement also testified. And he told the U. S. Civil Rights Commission, he said, Don't worry. We are taking care of this issue. Because one, we are going to institute a civilian advisory panel. And secondly, we are rewriting all our policies on enforcement. And it was interesting to me that both things were the result of our work. And the civilian advisory panel was part of the work done by the Arizona groups in specific cases to where we even got editorial support by the Arizona Daily Star, by the Tucson Citizen, and Arizona Republic. And several meetings with [Senator] Diconcini where he put it in an Appropriations Bill. And the Attorney General had to form a committee of citizens and human rights people that are representative of the Mexican government, the INS, the Department of Justice to look at this issue of the abuse of authority particularly by Border Patrol agents. Dr. Gutiérrez: Is this area so provocative because you are striking at the very dichotomy and internal conflict of the mission of INS that is enforcement on the one hand and services on the other? Ms. Jiménez: We don't touch the service area. Our system is enforcement, but, but sixty-three percent or sixty-six percent of the INS budget is enforcement. And in some cases like the INS district budget, I spoke with Emilio Saenz, who heads the, the Deportation and Detention Section here at the district which covers about thirty two counties. And he was telling me eighty percent of the budget in the district here is enforcement. And so, it's controversial because any type of issue that questions law enforcement is controversial. And, and then, it hits at the whole question of, of how Mexicanos are, are placed in this society. And policy makers don't like to hear that. And I used the, you know, people like the Urban Institute that have done studies about how out of ten undocumented people in the United States, only four have crossed the southern border. Yet eighty-five percent of the resources to stop undocumented people are placed in communities along the U. S./Mexico border. And fifty, yeah, I guess that's fifty-five percent of the undocumented nationally are the Mexican nationals. The Urban Institute says thirty-nine percent of the undocumented in the country are Mexican nationals, yet ninety percent of the people arrested for being undocumented are Mexican nationals. So they don't arrest Irish undocumented or the Polish or the Canadian undocumented in L. A. It's, it's a, it's strictly targeted toward the Mexican origin population, and then, in that sense, I think strikes at the very core of how the country views Mexicans and how the relation, the, the relationship of conquest. When I address Mexican American audiences I, you know, relate these facts. I, I always tell them we are the only ethnic group in the whole country who can claim to have a national police force we can call our very own. And then, not only that, but we internalize this. Because if you listen to Mexican Americans, the way they define, we defined ourselves is: I am a second generation, I am a third generation, I'm an eighth generation. And, and I think that's because we are constantly being questioned of the right to be here and about a right to belong. And, and that deals with the issue of immigration law enforcement. And we will always be foreigners from the concept that both the general public plus it's reflected in national policy making. And, and so, in, in the documentation we, of course, we discovered there wasn't just the INS or the Border Patrol. There was problems with Customs, with local police, security, so our data base reflects that. And that is why you really open the issue of, of not having the military on the border. The Border Patrol is the most consistent user of, of the Joint Task Force Six services which is the military services from training to reconnaissance patrols, etc. And, and, and when the Ezequiel Hernandez case happened, that's why for us it was really sort of a strategic case. And we were there in Redford for a week after the incident. And developed with the people a three point strategy which was a legal strategy, the, the political strategy of the delegation to D. C., and then the, the third one was the organizational strategy. We, we began asking people around the country, organizations to conduct events every twentieth of the month, which is the, the day that Ezequiel Hernandez was, was shot on May the 20th. And, and to keep the pressure in that sense, regarding this case. I, it was an interesting delegation to take to D. C. It was very grassroots. We went directly to the policy makers. This was a very hot issue. But, our Americans also understood it not as, as an issue democracy. We understood the psychology of the American people, but you know, since the Declaration of Independence, one of the complaints was the boarding of the troops and the fact that the, King didn't hold them accountable and, you know, the posse comitatus after the Civil War. And every single state constitution has a Fifth amendment like the Constitution of the United States talking about the separation of the military. And understanding that psychology, we pushed very hard to ensure that, that, that it's, in some way we would stop the, the encroaching presence of military operations on the border. And, and it worked. At the end of the, of July, the Pentagon announced a, a temporary recall of, of ground troop operations. Not the other operations. They have the ground troop operations. And, and recently they've, they have stated that they are going to recommend it as permanently and then to, to ground troop operations because we don't know what congress is going to do. But, but it, but I know that part of that was the tremendous understanding of not only that aspect of our, of, of, of our, of us as Mexicans, but that aspect of American and what Americans fought the determination to run it. Dr. Gutiérrez: But haven't the troops been committed again in the Rio Grande Valley? Ms. Jiménez: No. There was, the, the military participates in about fourteen different types of operations. What, what they stopped has been the covert ground troop operations, but what they haven't stopped is, is, is the construction of fences and the construction of roads and airfields by the military, which is what we, what is MALDEF is going to sue them. But I think the idea was that when we began to challenge their presence with the Redford committee, the Hernandez family who became an integral part of this, is that it was the very first successful challenge to, to, to the, the military policy in, in, on, on the border. And, and again it's all very grassroots work. The Redford committee were made up of long term residents of Redford. Only one had been to Washington and that was twenty years before. Yet, they were, they were able to sustain their position of "No to the military." And not only increase in Border Patrol agents and accountability of these federal forces before the Assistant Secretary of Defense in charge of these operations, which by the way, when we asked the Pentagon for a meeting you didn’t know who to meet with? And so, we asked them to define who we would meet with. And they said we had to meet with the Assistant Secretary of Defense in charge of Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict. So, if anyone doubted that the strategy on the border was low intensity conflict, the Pentagon confirmed it. And so, that's who we met with. And, and then, General McAfree was on vacation. He canceled his vacation to meet with the Redford delegation. The White House sent two representatives to that meeting. We asked to meet with whomever in the INS. And we met with Doris Meissner, head of the Border Patrol and, and the National Security Committee of both Senate and House, their aides. The Redford delegation met because at this point congress had voted for ten thousand troops on the border. And to ensure that they would drop it in Conference Committee. The senate had not voted for it. And, and but so, it, it's, it's taking the voice of the border residents to these areas that I think has been an important part of my work that has had an impact on, on, on policy. We know that it's, it's temporary. I often talk about how getting the, the, getting that clause within the 1990 law, the, the fact that they have a civilian advisory panel getting introduced into congress. And with thirty co-sponsors, the bill to establish an independent review panel for the INS. This other issue of the temporary withdrawal of troops from ground, covert operations that led to the death of Ezequiel Hernandez. All of these things have been, for me, we have won battles, but we have lost the war. And we've lost the war because we haven't been able to in any way alter the political premises and the beliefs that see the U. S./Mexico border as, as the source of all evil to the United States. Ao that they see Mexicans as a source of evil to, to the United States. Because ultimately that's, that's the, the, with the demilitarization and the strong accountability methods for the border policing will come only when people view or people come, that cross the border and, and, and the residents of the border as human beings. The concept is, you know, they are enemies and the border is, is a war zone. Enrique Madrid, one of the residents of Redford when he was in Washington and he said, "Well, you have drugs in Washington, D. C. Wy don't you have Marines during the covert operations in Washington, D. C. Or in New York or in L. A?" And it's because the border is viewed and border residents usually looked on as foreign, and, therefore an enemy. And to the enemy you can dismiss the Constitution very logically. So, that part we have not made much ground. So, we have won battles, but I think we've lost the war. Dr. Gutiérrez: Characterize your work week. Tell me what you are going to do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday coming. Ms. Jiménez: OK. Monday I'll be in Washington, D. C. with representatives of our coalitions meeting with the associate commissioner for policy and planning because they called us. Dr. Gutiérrez: Of INS? Ms. Jiménez: Of INS. They called us. As, as I said, they've issued, we first, you know, through Senator Diconcini, they were forced to have the civilian advisory panel. And they have come out with recommendations as how to reduce abuse and how to establish a, a, a more efficient complaint process. And so, they wanted to meet with me individually. I said, "I can't meet with you by myself and, and INS. We are part of working coalitions. If you want to, we can, we can bring our own representatives." And they said, "Fine." So, Monday we will be in D. C. discussing this particular document that they've issued on how they are going to deal with the issue of misconduct among their ranks. On Tuesday, I will probably catch up with whatever things I have for, for the week because I, I'll be coming back Monday night. And, and one of the things we have is, is the issuance of a, of a priority report on abuse. On Wednesday, I have, I have my boss, Ricardo Hernandez, coming in. And we have a meeting in the afternoon where we are bringing in the writer Debbie, Debbie Nathan from El Paso. Ricardo with the person Jennifer O'Brian who is doing the data gathering, I mean, the, the data interpretation at the University of Houston. And we go to, I am going to the, the complete layout of where the report is at, at this point. And what we need to do and what we need to do and, and develop a time line to get it out. And on, on Wednesday, I will work with Ricardo on… Basically, he's been visiting targeted areas and talking to our coalitions, so we will be talking about our relationships with those coalitions, our, our commitments in terms of finances, and these type of things. And in the afternoon I am going to have a, a meeting with representatives from the Houston coalition because we are the fiscal agent for them. And to talk about some of those things, as well. And, and then, on Friday morning I have one group, which there is no funding for, but there was a need to organize which is Mexican or Latino people who have relatives in prison or on death row. I found that many people would call wanting support, but there is no support for the families. And so, my answer to them, after about four or five called, was you know, you have to organize those systematic problems. And so, they have their regular meeting. Most of them are mothers with their children in prison on Friday morning. And I have a, an intern from the University of Houston who comes in to, to help them with the English part. And so, there we discuss what, what the individual cases as well as some of the activities that they will be involved in. And, and I also seem to be a source of organizing for people. And yesterday was a good example of that. I came into the office and besides the, you know, all the things that I have to attend to, the, you know, I had a woman who's the one trying to organize the Honduran community. And we did the leaflet, we did the agenda, we put some other material she needed for the meeting. I had an African-American young woman come in because…Who had come in a year before with problems in terms of rents and landlords. And I, you know, told her that, as far as, I know, in Houston there's no, no renter's union for organizing in that area and there's no really strong organization organizing. And so, when she came back by yesterday, and said, "I have a part time job. I want to dedicate two days a, a week to organizing people who work and I need your guidance on that." And so, we, we worked with that. Had a call from Sissy Farenthal about what are we going to do with the International Women's Day and because we… I usually, I did the one here locally in the last few years who sort of spurred having something on International Women's Day and there was nothing when I, I, when the last few years until I started doing this. And, and I said,w"Well, somebody, someone else is going, has already taken that as a project." She could talk to them. And then, I had a conference call which lasted two hours for exactly what, you know, analyzing the report of the civilian advisory panel, the INS actions with the people that are going to go to D. C. with us. So that we understand the position we are going to have before the authorities. And so, so basically it's that. And my days are very complicated days. Dr. Gutiérrez: Do you have a staff? Ms. Jiménez: I have one office manager which is great because she does not get involved in the policy work or the program. Her whole world is administrative and I… She's been with me the ten years that I've, I've, you know, that I have been working. and I am very happy that, that… Nadie mas me aguanta (Nobody else will tolerate me) because it is just such a complicated… And I am very unorganized on a personal level. And so, she keeps the office organized, administratively going, and everything is in order. So, so she's great at doing that. Dr. Gutiérrez: How much travel do you do? Ms. Jiménez: I do a tremendous amount of travel. I was trying to reduce it this, this year to about maybe once, no more than once a month, but it's impossible. I, I've traveled to San Diego at the beginning of, of January; I went to Dallas for a meeting; and I just came back from Tucson, Arizona; and then I'll be in D. C. So, this month, but it's kind of normal. I, in November I had one of the worst situations of traveling that I can remember in a long, long time which was Friday I had to go to Harlingen, from Harlingen I flew to Philadelphia. On Saturday I gave a presentation before the board. AFC won the Noble Peace Prize in 1947, so they, they were having a special celebration, recognition of the people that were still alive during, at that time, who won it. Oscar Arias was there and gave a speech. And, and so, they selected six programs for the board of directors to, to know about. And after, after the cele, after the, the Arias speech, and so, we, I was one of them. And so, we, we went to Philadelphia, and then, on Sunday morning, I went from Philly to Juarez because there was a meeting of the Mexican journalists on the border. And I have to be on a panel on the militarization of the border because public awareness is an important part of our work. It's important to have that type of contact with all the reporters, particularly that, do that work, and then, that Sunday I flew into San Diego that night because we needed to look at internal questions of documentation in our office in San Diego. And came back on Tuesday. So, that's kind of a, a, very, very bad type of travel schedules sometimes, but there's not much of al alternative. And I think if we had more staff then I wouldn't have to travel so much. But not having that, that, that staff…. Dr. Gutiérrez: What toll, what kind of sacrifice do you and your family members have to make for this? Ms. Jiménez: Well, first of all I think my activism led to my divorce. That's without a doubt. And I was married and, and lived in Mexico. The man I married, I think I married him primarily because he was the most progressive Mexican I had known in terms of women’s rights. And so, I didn't have to change my name, he didn't object to my activism. Quite the contrary. He was looking for a woman who was politically active, but as time went on, he changed his mind. I didn't change. And so, I did union organizing, independent union organizing in Mexico. And I remember there was a, the only steel plant in Yucatan [Mexican state] at the time in the area we had helped organize. And it went into a lockout and the riot police… And it was finally was broken violently. And it was the only time I have had to hide and which for about a week. But I think that did in the marriage because I put myself in danger, put the children in danger, put him in danger, put the household in danger. So, and I've never remarried since my divorce because I feel nadie me aguanta. (nobody will tolerate me.) I don't want that. I mean, I, I just, it's just very difficult to… I think for, to sustain relationships, but then, in the case of, of women, I mean, it's kind of accepted that men, like executives, you know, are out of their house all the time and doing things. But it's not acceptable for a woman to, to have that type of schedule. Dr. Gutiérrez: So, what was his name? Ms. Jiménez: My ex-husband? Francisco Villarreal. Dr. Gutiérrez: When did you marry and when did you divorce? Ms. Jiménez: I married in April of, of 1974. We were going to marry, we thought we should marry on November 20th, the dia de la Revolucion Mexicana (day of the Mexican Revolution). But it was a Wednesday and all the family wanted to come, so we, we were married on the 23rd and we divorced in October of '85. Dr. Gutiérrez: Children? Ms. Jiménez: I have twins, a boy and a girl. They were born in 1978. Dr. Gutiérrez: In Mexico? Ms. Jiménez: In, in, in, in Merida, Yucatan. Dr. Gutiérrez: OK. What are their names? Ms. Jiménez: Carlos Frederico Villarreal and Stalina Emanuel Villarreal. Dr. Gutiérrez: What sacrifices and tolls do they have to pay for your work? Ms. Jiménez: Well, I, I also think that, in their case, they've never had any other mother except me, so I don't think they know any different. And what is different about them, they are not their ages. That they are both fairly independent and they have to do a lot of things on their own. And my son, I think, is particularly affected because I, I think he, he more than my daughter felt that he was alone a lot. And he had, he has had problems in schools, and so forth, but she hasn't. She's pretty much, you know, gone on fairly well, but, but I think, I think again it's, they had to grow up on their own a lot. Dr. Gutiérrez: Do you have extended family here or, or a friends network to help you take care of that? Ms. Jiménez: Extended family. I have my parents and my brothers and sisters. Dr. Gutiérrez: Who are they and how long have they been in Houston? Where did they come from? Ms. Jiménez: My father, Raul Jiménez, is from Zaragoza, Coahuila. And his father, Jaime Jiménez was, was one of the first to migrate into the United States. My grandfather. And he was the type of Mexican immigrant that went back and forth, had the family in Mexico. During his last time he actually worked in nineteen different states of the United States. He was into railroad. My father, from Zaragoza they moved to Monclova and was, worked in the largest steel plant in Latin America, a machinist, as a machinist. And so, when he migrated, first migrated to Chicago because most industrial workers of Mexico migrated to Chicago, but he didn't like it. And so, he returned and someone told him about Houston. And that's how he, he and another group of, of people who lived in Monclova started migrating to Houston. Dr. Gutiérrez: What years were the migration of the grandfather and the year that your father resettled here? Ms. Jiménez: I think my grandfather must have been in the 1920s because he left, he didn't want to fight in the Revolution. My great-grandfather was one of the closest collaborators of Venustiano Carranza and had all his sons in the revolution. But I think my grandfather didn't want to be in the revolution. And so, he came, escaping the revolution. And, and my father migrated in 1956 and he brought us over, legally at the time. A skilled worker like him, it was very easy to get our paperwork done, and again, later. And we migrated in 1957 here to Houston. And so, my mother, her name is Elva Flores. Her father was, lived there in the Castanas, Coahuila in the Monclova area. That's where my parents met. Her father, Ramon Flores, was a teacher and her mother, Manuella Flores de Guerra, was Guerra de Flores, is a, a she was a very strong woman figure. Because my grandfather was a, he was one of these intellectual, I guess, sort of absentminded types and he was very committed to education. He was one of the first, one of the first to institute adult education among the workers there in that area. As a matter of fact, there was an elementary school that bears his name in Monclova, Coahuila, Ramon Flores Ortega. Because of his dedication, but that meant that many times he would put in his own salary to keep these adult education classes going, so it, it was up to my grandmother to develop businesses on the side to sustain the family. So, she was always a very strong woman figure. And, and so, but, but the home was a traditional Mexicano home here in the states. My father was the central authoritarian figure. And my mother always, you know, whatever he said. And, but he would always wanted us to study. And I remember that, you know, his friends would say, "Why, why educate the girls? They are going to get married." And he would fight it. He said, "No, they have to be educated, too." And, and so he, he basically set his goal. And we, from a very, very young age, knew we were going to go to college and it's just no doubt about it. And so, we were secure in that. And because he was highly paid, I think we were, we had a very secure home economically except when there were recessions. And I do remember that feeling of insecurity, the times when he would be laid off because of recessions. But because machinists were in great demand he could always find another job. Dr. Gutiérrez: When and where were you born? Ms. Jiménez: I was born in Castanos, Coahuila on August 2nd, 1950. Dr. Gutiérrez: Brothers and sisters? Ms. Jiménez: I have two sisters, Alva and Olivia. I am the oldest of the five children and two brothers. Victor and Raul. Dr. Gutiérrez: All living in Houston? Ms. Jiménez: Everyone lives in Houston except my sister Olivia, who went to study medicine in Notre Dame, met a doctor there and she married. And had her children there, and she's now working in a hospital in Torreon, Coahuila. Dr. Gutiérrez: So, when did you get legalized? Ms. Jiménez: As I said we came in legally. I became a naturalized citizen in September of 1968. Dr. Gutiérrez: Tell me about your significant experiences or recollections of early childhood, high school, your first notions of politics or, or even of immigration? You said going to college was a given. I know that you were active on campus at the University of Houston, and you got started with the Chicano movement. Can you catch us up into all of that with some statement. Ms. Jiménez: Well, I, I don't know. I guess my grandfather, Ramon Flores and my father who is very active in union politics. From a very young age I understood that, that politics was a way of life. And that it was important to be active at some level. My father particularly grew up in a very poor setting. So we would always have stories about the, the harshness of his situation and, and the period of the Depression. And so, from him, I think I learned from very early that, that people who are poor suffer a great deal of injustices. And I have memories of, even our own transition from living in a small house with the dirt floor until they moved into a house with a cement floor, which meant we were getting, we were moving up the social scale. And how my grandparents, my paternal grandparents, Ramon and Lita, were, were living in, in, in homes that had the marble floors, you know. And so, it was like I was always conscience of the inequalities and, and the injustices. And, and I didn't understand them. I, I was also, I think, very young exposed to being, being a part of life, the discussion of, of current affairs and the discussion of political situations and, and the struggle to, to improve one's situation collectively because of my grandfather's involvement and because of my father's involvement. So, when we come to the United States, I, I was, I think, one of my earliest memories being in San Antonio. And seeing the segregated buses and not understanding that. And, and my father's commentary, he only went to the sixth grade, but he made it, he made it a practice that we would watch the news together as a family and, and discuss the news when we have dinner. And, and, of course, this was, allways discussions were when we went to the family in, particularly because of my grandfather's orientation. And when, by the time I was thirteen years old, I remember I had already decided to study political science. Dr. Gutiérrez: When did the, the living in San Antonio or was that just a visit? Ms. Jiménez: That was just passing through on the way to Houston. Dr. Gutiérrez: What, what years are those of the segregated bussing? Ms. Jiménez: 1957. It was in route to… The first time we were coming through Houston, it was the first feeling I had of segregation. Dr. Gutiérrez: So, at thirteen did you date; did you go to dances; did you seek the homecoming queen? Ms. Jiménez: Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Dr. Gutiérrez: Class president? Ms. Jiménez: No, no, no. That was forbidden in a Mexican household. My parents are very interesting. They wanted us to learn how to speak in English, but they forbade us to speak in English at home because they felt like that the institutions around us would teach us English. And they were the only ones to teach us Spanish. So, we all, we have always spoken Spanish at, at home. I don't know how to speak English to my brothers and sisters even though they are all educated here. And, and, and my father, oh heavens no. We were traditional northern family. I never drank beer. I was, you know, I was very, very strict. I never dated. I married the first man I dated. I mean, it was just, just the way things were. Which was interesting to me because I was a student activist in a time of sexual revolution. And, and that was no problem, certainly I was… But I remained a virgin and I, and I, to some extent, I did it consciously. Because if I wanted a leadership position in those days among Chicano students, I, I knew that had to be the unquestionable, about the sex life, with respect to if we were married. Or in my case, if I just didn't engage in any of it with any of the people around me. So, in a sense it was a conscience decision, but it was also because of the family situation. I mean, it was just, it was the, probably the worst thing I, that you could, I could do in terms of my father. So, I was, in that sense, I've always had said socially I am very conservative. It's only in my politics and my religion that were radical. Dr. Gutiérrez: In high school, any significant memories good or bad? Ms. Jiménez: I was on the debating team in high school. And I do remember losing tournaments because the judges said we, you know, we, my, see because we were Mexican. I was Mexican. And, and I also was, we won the state championship by… I had an Anglo partner in the women's division. And we debated the boys to go to national. And there were three judges. And there were two college students that were the judges rooted for the boys. And the one college professor of debate voted for us. And he later came and said, "I have to break the rules." But says, "You clearly won it. I think the other judges told me they voted for the boys because they felt that they would do better nationally rather than the girls." So, the discrimination was there. I lost scholarships because I wasn't a citizen. That influenced me in becoming a citizen. And, and the other thing that I remember was the tremendous discrimination we had at, at Mi;by High School. At the time we were only about maybe fifteen percent of the, of the student population. The rest was Anglo.And I remember that very clearly. And one of the memories I have about the issue of power relations and, and in that type of setting was… So our senior year precisely… When it was time to elect the student body president… And someone who had gone to school all, all my life, Mario Gallegos, is now a [state] senator. And actually we lived on the same block on Avenue N. We lived at one end of the street and the Gallegos lived on the other end of the street. He decides to run for class president. And, and it was interesting to me to see the, the, how everyone was horrified at the idea that they would have a Latino class president. And so, the Anglos that normally didn't organize got going and organized and to assure that, that Mario didn't get it. And he didn't get it. We were a minority at the time. And it was in this period I said that I began some, some, because of the racism there that I had felt that I became conscience of our position in the society as Mexican Americans. And my speech in, in the oratory contest, was eventually in the last year, I guess, of high school, about the situation of Mexican Americans in the United States. And, and the reaction of the judges, either they liked it or they hated it. I either got first place or I got last place. And so, that, that built sort of my notion of where I was and what I had to do. And when I got to the university, I was looking for political activity. There was an organization called LOMAS in… Which was known for being social at the time. So I didn’t join them. And I tried to join the Young Democrats and I worked with Young Democrats. But I wasn't satisfied with what we were doing in the Young Democrats. And then, I think it was about January of 1970 when LOMAS decided to become MAYO and that's when I left the Young Democrats and joined MAYO. Because that fulfilled more of what I wanted to do. Dr. Gutiérrez: What did LOMAS stand for? Ms. Jiménez: I guess the League of Mexican American Students. Dr. Gutiérrez: OK. So, what was it about MAYO that attracted you as opposed to LOMAS? Ms. Jiménez: Well, because I, I just, LOMAS was known to be sort of a social organization where people just, you know, went to dance and have fun and all the stuff that, that students are supposed to do. But I, I just didn't think, I just didn't like the, I wanted to concentrate on political activity and what I didn't like about the Young Democrats was that again, they were sort of relegated to the boycott and I, I did begin to work on the boycotts. It was the start of the boycott committee here in Houston. Dr. Gutiérrez: Which boycott are you referring to? Ms. Jiménez: The lettuce, grape and lettuce boycott of the United Farm Workers. Dr. Gutiérrez: Not the student walkout that took over a building and things…? Ms. Jiménez: Well, we, that's when I became active with, when MAYO, when LOMAS became MAYO is when I became active here in Houston. My first picket line was in support of the people who had taken over from the Presbyterian Church. And, and I participated in, in, in basically doing the work that, that U of H did in support of community MAYO. Dr. Gutiérrez: How old were you? Ms. Jiménez: Nineteen. Dr. Gutiérrez: Who were some of your colleagues; who were some of your cohorts? Ms. Jiménez: Well, there was Ramon Villagomez, and there's Cynthia Perez, Vangie Vigil, Lorenzo Cano, Ray, Willie Rodriguez, Ed Castillo, Poncho Ruiz was in the community, Gregory Salazar, Yolanda Birdwell. All of these people were, were part of, of that particular experience. Dr. Gutiérrez: What are some of the things that you all did as MAYO, that you did connected with MAYO, on the campus, in the community? Ms. Jiménez: Well, the, the thing that I, one of the most was I was elected to the student body president. No, I was elected to the vice presidency and then the president resigned, but that was an agreement that we made. It was a deal we made before I ran with, with that group of people which they represented more of the white liberal. That he would resign in six months and I would be president six months because the Chicanos didn't want me to run with an Anglo, but, nor the Blacks. And then, the women didn't want me to run with a man. So we, we negotiated and, and that was the agreement. And, and the focus of MAYO was we were really asserting the, the rights of the students in the context of, I guess, opening up admissions. And we worked a lot on the issue of, of the question of admissions, that, you know… We found out there was a committee. And so, we pressured for more flexible admission policies. And eventually, you know, and a program was established for recruiting. We actually went down to the, we pressured for the Mexican American Studies. We went down to the state legislature with a proposal that we wrote. And, and a line item was, was placed for the funding of the Mexican American Studies. Dr. Gutiérrez: Which legislators helped you? Ms. Jiménez: Well, at that time, you know, the, there was the liberal wing with the Democratic party that had just gotten in, so it was Ben Reyes, Mickey Leland. I can't remember some of the others. But those were the, that faction had just gotten in. Ron Waters and people like that. And, and then, the, we, we also had, you know, the mural, the mural down at the U of H. And I always tell people I am responsible for Sor Juana Inez because they were just painting males. And I said, "Wait a minute." And so, Sor Juana Inez was, was part of that, that mural. And we also did, we were a part of the ethnic, which still survivies, ethnic program which… And so, we could do work in the community. We had, at the time, we had a, a co-op on the north side. I remember there were two hundred families participating. Ed Castillo was in charge of that I remember. And, and, and we worked with, you know… And we brought Cesar Chavez to, to the university and, and then, from there we, you know, we connected politically in the Raza Unida. And we helped to register it. And eventually I became a candidate for the Raza Unida running against Ben Reyes. I guess I was the original opposition. Dr. Gutiérrez: Tell us, did you rise to prominence and leadership role in MAYO beyond the campus? Ms. Jiménez: Not really. I, I didn't like going too much to the state conferences and I didn't like going too much to the national conferences. Other people went always. And part, partially dealt with the family situation that my father would not have allowed it. Dr. Gutiérrez: Is that why you left the U of H? As opposed to staying around…? Ms. Jiménez: Yes. Because I had offers on the debating team from UT, to go to UT and my father said, "No. A young woman just didn't go there." And I remember I would argue with him. "Well, you are more interested in one part of my body rather than my other," which was my brain. But he, he still, you know, I, I pretty much was always a, you know, just didn't argue. Because I had to have… I, I always preferred the political activity, that he permitted the political activity. I just didn't sacrifice the other. And the school…. Dr. Gutiérrez: Where did you develop or what are the roots of your strong feminist posture, if that's the correct adulation? Ms. Jiménez: Yeah. That's correct. It came with a position of inequality, having, you know, sensed inequality and injustice from a very early age. And I just always any, any statement or anything which, which created unequal conditions of expression or as a person or as groups, I opposed. And this, this became… And on a personal level. I disliked very much, because… And I remember the comments of my father's friends about educating us and, and the equality. I didn't particularly… My mother, even though she was, and she still is, very traditional in, you know, she's never had a job outside the home and very much does what my father says. She, she didn't, she wasn't very romantic about childhood and you know, motherhood and but these were difficult things, so I kind of had a sense that it was not the easiest thing in the world. And, and my grandmother Manuela who was such a strong woman figure. I think that helped in, in my understanding that a woman could be very strong figures in that context. And then, it was the times. It was the time of the question of those roles. And I remember a, very much, I wrote my first article defending the right of women to participate for the Papel Chicano [newspaper] which Alfredo Vasquez had in, in Houston. And I remember the reaction amongst some of the fellow Chicano activists was, "Well, you’re OK. That's good gringo way viewing the role in the family, the culture." There was a lot of opposition, but what I did was just research the history of the Mexican people. That's why Sor Juana Inez, about the feminist movements in the Yucatan, the participation of women who, for one thing or the other, como Dona Pepa, Josefa Dominguez (like Mrs. Pepa, Josefa Dominguez), and the revolution, you know. The many women who led batallions and fought in the revolution and you know, to fight for the rights of education, of women in Mexico. They fight for the right to vote in the Fifties for the women of Mexico. So whenever I was questioned by Chicano activists who thought that I would blurt out the litany of facts, historical figures and facts, and then, something I say, but, you know, "That's my history. I don’t know where your history comes from, the history of the Mexican people. It includes the history of the struggle for the equality of women." And so, they couldn't argue with me, so they just…. Dr. Gutiérrez: Can I assume that some of this you are battling against the male hierarchy was because you also were made to cater to your younger brothers? Cooking for them, ironing, washing? Ms. Jiménez: Oh, I never did any of that. Dr. Gutiérrez: Mama had to do it all? Ms. Jiménez: My mother had to do it all. My father's concept was that our role was to study. And that's what we did. Dr. Gutiérrez: Well, then let's pick up this running against Ben Reyes. How were you recruited to, to run for that and, and why did you do that? Ms. Jiménez: I didn't like the idea of running. But that was our, a decision made by the party. And I, I think individually for me it was a hard decision. I, I don't like electoral politics. And I don't like being a candidate. And I didn't like the decision, but, but I felt that it was necessary at, you know, at the time we didn't think we could win. We didn't have a majority of, of, of Chicanos in the district. And, but it was necessary to run for something because we, we were talking about community control of, of our own political destiny. And this was a way that we could attempt or to organize the, the forty-five percent Latinos who were in the district. And so, as a party goal, I accepted, but not, not as a personal. It was very difficult for me. The whole, the whole period, I didn't like it. I don't like it. That's why I don't attempt to run. I, I, I like the role of the work that I do now. I understand it. And I know how to do this type of policy impact organizing. Because I ultimately believe, I, I believe that it doesn't matter who is in office if we don't have active groups of citizens, then we don't have what we want. So, to me, it's, that's what the Valley was. And that's what I learned in Raza Unida. And we, and that was, as I said, I ran. It was hard. I mean, we were idealists. I guess we thought that if we did everything right we could win. And I quit my job. And I finished my, my degree and I… Three months I walked streets, you know, every day. Raining, I had an umbrella in this thing and I walked streets, And then, the, the whole Raza Unida county organization also walked. And I think we walked about a hundred thousand, knocked on a hundred thousand homes here in Houston. Dr. Gutiérrez: How did you do? Ms. Jiménez: Well, precisely that was where, I think, we were idealists. I only got nineteen percent of the vote. Dr. Gutiérrez: You did or the slate? Ms. Jiménez: I did. Nineteen percent of the vote, of that particular district. But, but you know, when it came time to vote, you know, all the, the precinct chairs were in the hands of the Democratic Party. We, we made an alliance with a group of African-Americans who are now leaders in, in their own right here in Houston. Who were active in the 3rd Ward. They were Park Bee, Omawali Utili. And they helped us walk in the African-American districts. I, I, I often say that Houston was the only place where that would happen. Where Raza Unida had integrated in, in the struggle of an African-American component and, and it was, and I remembered that Omawali Utili in, in, in the, in the precincts on election day, that he had to work. He pretended not to, to be a voter, that he'd forgotten his, his registration card. Well, at the time, that was very strict. You couldn't use anything but your card. And, and that he didn't know how to read, and so, this precinct judge said, you know, "Go ahead and vote." And, and he went into the booth and says, "I can't read." So he came and, of course, instructed him. Says, "I want to vote for my María Jiménez." And they instructed him to vote for Ben. And so, he took the complaint to, to whoever you had to have a complaint, the officials says, "Yeah." But said, "We are all part of the Democratic Party. We are not going to take your complaint seriously." So, we were real naive in that sense, I think. But the experience was an important experience because I, I learned to understand very much what, how groups function who are facing distinctive, an, a, a distinctive set of experiences in their society. That they react to it. That's what we were doing. Reacting. We weren't, didn't have a theory, you know. We were reacting to our reality. And organizing around it. But eventually the, the involvement with the farm workers and the involvement with Raza Unida, I started to look for a theory. And I became a, a socialist in, in, in thought. My ex-husband, part of the attractiveness that I saw, because he was already a, a socialist. And he had a tremendous library. One of the benefits of, of, of the marriage to him was that I could commute all sorts of theoretical questions. And he was very much in touch with, with many sectors in Mexico that belonged to the left. Which had proven to be valuable to me because now many of the same people that are a part of the, the changes within Mexico, in the PRD, for instance, [Partido Revolucionario Democratico], and they know me. And I have known them for many years and I can, you know… They have confidence in me and I can work on a bi-national and knowing the, the groups and the organizations and, and know who's who within the context. Dr. Gutiérrez: Before we elaborate on, on that phase of your life, let's ask you just some quick questions. How do you spell this Black gentleman's name? Iluti?. Ms. Jiménez: Omawali. There's a story in the [Houston] Chronicle on the 19th about Martin Luther King Day and he's there because I don't know exactly how to spell it. Dr. Gutiérrez: OK. Ms. Jiménez: Luthili. It's L-U-T-H-I-L-I. I think something like that. Dr. Gutiérrez: OK. Could I assume that you were the first Mexican American to be elected student body president at U of H? Ms. Jiménez: Yes. And… Dr. Gutiérrez: And woman? Ms. Jiménez: And woman. Both Dr. Gutiérrez: Well, you used the phrase you learned about "impact organizing." Can you elaborate on that concept? Ms. Jiménez: Well, basically that the, the, well, you know… It's interesting now, now that the Zapatistas have surfaced and their philosophy. I understand their philosophy. If we don't seek power, power in the sense of running the government. What we do is, is we want changes. So how do we achieve those changes? So, it doesn't matter what government is in power. It's, it's how you develop the political forces that can impact those who, who, who govern to achieve the changes for the well being of the collective entity. And so, that's, that's basically, I think, what I refer to. That it's, it's, it's more impacting policies and practices and not through being the direct governmental actor. But, but by, but by being part of a, as the collectives, political forces, that it impacts whoever is there. Dr. Gutiérrez: All right. Well, then quickly tell me about the love affair. Where did you meet this husband and why did you decide to repatriate and go back to Mexico, and then, in a very difficult area in Yucatan? Ms. Jiménez: Actually it was Sinaloa, first, and then, Yucatan. Well, I, it was again my, we were always going to Mexico. And for me it was mostly our families went there two or three times a year. And one of my aunts basically, who was a teacher, and they were going to have an excursion into different states of Mexico. And asked me to go along. So, I, I decided to go ahead and, and go. And one of the places we stopped was in Oaxaca. Dr. Gutiérrez: You were twenty, twenty one? Ms. Jiménez: I was nineteen. Dr. Gutiérrez: You had graduated from college at nineteen? Ms. Jiménez: No. This was, I was, that was my first year of college. It was my first year in college and, and it was the summer, it was that summer after I don't know if it was high school. No, it was the summer of my first year at college. And so, I went on this tour and, and the tour stopped in Oaxaca. And we stayed at this hotel where, where these were teachers, the majority of them from Monterrey that I was on this tour with. There was a group of teachers, mostly male, who basically worked in, went to the summer to Oaxaca as part of a program to try to certify the rural teachers who, who, who were in the rural areas. And my ex-husband was one of these teachers. It turned out that he was from Monterrey and knew some of the, some of the people on that bus. And so, they organized a dance. And again, I didn't want to go to the dance. And my aunt says, "You have to." You know, "it's not polite. The Mexican…. It's not polite to not be there." So, what I did was I told her, "Well, I'll be there in one hour." And I decided to sit in the chair next to the stairs. So when my hour was up I could disappear and not causing any ruckus. And my, and, and, and then, it turns out my ex-husband told me that, that he was being pressured to ask somebody to dance. And so, I was the closest one to where he was. And so, he asked me to dance and, of course, at that time, in Mexico, you dance what we call tandas. When somebody asks you to dance, you have to dance seven dances together and, and then, the, the, the man, the young man or the, the man would sit you down. So it was an insult if you didn't dance, you know, if you didn't dance the seven dances. But it was so, so much…an insult that he sat you down during the seven dances. So, I figured well, I am going to talk to him about politics and history, bore him to death. And he'll set me down before the seven dances and I can go up to my room. Dr. Gutiérrez: Did you know how to dance? Ms. Jiménez: Yeah. Oh yeah. I, I liked dancing. I don't like to go to dances, but I love dancing. And so, that's what I did. I started talking to him about politics and history. It turns out he loved politics and history. And then, he knew about Chicanos which was kind of rare. And, but it was because he was politically and philosophically, you know, active. And, and so, he was six years older than I. And the, for him it was immediate, you know. I mean, he, we started writing since then and, and he would visit me and he wanted to marry me immediately, but I didn't. I wanted to finish my school. And I, I just didn't want to leave the states. I mean, I felt that I was, you know, being a political woman was the most important thing. And it wasn't until I matured ideologically to understand that the same problem that we were facing here was the same problem they faced in Mexico that I was able to, to say, "Yes, now, I will marry you." But five years passed and, and so, then I married him. But he, he, he actually is a Mexican immigrant too because he, he had his card. Now his family lived in L. A. But he didn't like the United States. And a friend of his offered him a, a job in Sinaloa. And since by this time I was convinced that whether I lived here or in Mexico it was the same struggle. We went to Sinaloa. And there got involved in teaching at the University of Sinaloa. And there was a student movement that, that organized against bus fares and my husband and a friend of his got involved. And so, the, the organization, they, the governmental agency I worked for basically said, "We either fire you or you go to Yucatan." So, they sent me over to Yucatan, and so, that's how we wound up in Yucatan. Yucatan turned out to be a very interesting place. Dr. Gutiérrez: Merida? Ms. Jiménez: Merida. Dr. Gutiérrez: And that's where your children were born? Ms. Jiménez: They were born in there. They are Yucatecos. Dr. Gutiérrez: Did you all decide on just one child and you had twins? Where did the genes come from for twins? Ms. Jiménez: Well, it, it was interesting. I think originally we decided to, to have two biological and two adopted children. But we didn't get to the adopted children because we couldn't handle the biological children when they were born. I have, I, it, it basically there is twins on my side of the family at several levels. And my father's brother has twins and the oldest brother… And I think the prima hermanas, (first cousins), a first cousin of my mother, also had twins. And it was funny because part of the, the struggle with the family was that when I married in Mexico, you know, women had babies right after they are married. And we decided not to have children immediately. And so, when we finally decided we had two of them, I remember it tickled my father to death. He told me that. He said, "You waited three years to have two just like if you had one right after the other." He just thought that was really funny. But my, my ex-husband was very participatory. I mean, he, he was unusual in that sense as, as a Mexican father. I mean, all the neighbors would be shocked to see what was going…. It's too expensive to buy the, you know, the, the… Dr. Gutiérrez: Diapers? Ms. Jiménez: …diapers. So we had cloth diapers. And they had to be, with twins they got to be very, hung out. And he would go in, he would do that, he would change them, he would feed them. So people were a little shocked about his participation. He was a better cook then I was. I didn't know how to cook. He taught me how to cook. And even my children, when they were grown more, like pancakes, they would always ask, "Who made the batter, you or, or, or papa?" They knew that if I made it, it wasn't too good, but if he made it, it was very good. So, in that sense we, we had a different type of marriage. It's just that I think as time went on I got more and more committed to organizing the political movements in, in Mexico. And he got more and more interested in just leading a private middle class life. And we were, became two different people, just like we sat down and, and decided to get married, we sat down and decided to get unmarried. It wasn't like… It was just we became two different people and said this isn't going to work. So, we have to go through this divorce. Dr. Gutiérrez: All right. So you came back eventually and, and you had perspectives. How do you think the Raza Unida experiment failed? Ms. Jiménez: Well, I, I think it, it failed because I, I think we were dealing with the effects rather than the causes in, in the sense that… The closest was, I guess, the experience of Crystal in which you attempted to deal with the causes which was the why we were in political inequality. There was political inequality because there was political inequality, and then, there was economic inequality. The way you get ahead of the issue of the political, the economic inequality. That's when they started hitting hard. So, so I think for many that was, it became very clear that the, in the relationships between the, the causes and, and effects of, of the inequalities. But the, the most important is determining when it's economic inequality which leads to the others. But Raza Unida also taught me how dynamic. It was a not a, it was not a, a, the relationships could be, but fundamentally that, that was the essence of all our inequalities. Dr. Gutiérrez: Well, you came back around '78, '79? Ms. Jiménez: No, I came back in '85. Dr. Gutiérrez: '85? Well, things have changed in the U. S. Can you give us a thumbnail sketch of immigration policy as you saw it and what attracted you to that kind of work? Ms. Jiménez: Well, I guess it was an accident in, in a sense because I, when, when I left we, I remember some of the first discussions on immigration were beginning among Chicano circles. I remember that. But when I came back ten years later, I sought in Houston… A lot of the people that I was active with I had found out that they were not active anymore. And so, I kept looking. And there was one person, Eddie Canales, who, who said, "Well…" He said that there is a couple of people who are organizing immigrants and, and SCIU. And since I had had experience in Mexico organizing unions, says, you know, "Why don't you come on and, and help with this effort?" So, I talked to them and they, this was Sandra, Sandra Specter and Carlos Specter. And they, they said, "Yeah, we, we," you know, "the union won." One that was organizing janitors. And, and so, "We are going to do another campaign and you can join us going to the houses and that sort of thing." So, I started working on that and, of course, I found out that Houston had changed tremendously because most of the workers were Central American workers. Dr. Gutiérrez: What is S-C-I-U? Ms. Jiménez: The Service Employees International Union. Dr. Gutiérrez: I see. Ms. Jiménez: And so, I started on that campaign. And it was toward the end of '85 and, and the work that I did with them voted for the union. This was at the, I remember it very clearly. It was the 23rd of December when they voted for the Union, so it was just the second and third buildings in the downtown area. Dr. Gutiérrez: 198? Ms. Jiménez: 5. Dr. Gutiérrez: 5? Ms. Jiménez: December of '85. Well, about a month later in, in January… And I remember so clearly, I was talking to someone in Yucatan that did the union organizing and said, "Well," you know, "how things were different here." About a month later, the INS conducted a raid in the old, in the only buildings where the union had won. Clearly, a union busting tactic. And so, that told me how important it was, how important the immigrant labor was for this economy. I mean, the reaction was so… In Mexico the reaction was to, you know, beat you up and put you in jail. Here it was to deport you. And, and so, because of that, that also led me into the national circles of, of immigration. There was a period where when I came back I started working for SER Jobs for Progress, the youth employment. But I, I still had connections with some of the people active like Bill Chandler who was, at the time, in the Texas State Employees Union and Bill says, "There is a position open." So, for awhile I worked with the, into the organizing the state employees in the Houston area. But I didn't like it because there were very few Chicanos. And, and, and there was a very few immigrants. And, by this time I had already, you know, become active also with an organization that Victor Trevino worked, vice president of Concilio of Hispanic organizations. And I headed the, the committee on immigration and went through a whole period of Simpson-Rodino to people coming in and, and doing the work for the Concilio. And so, that's how I got involved. And, and when I was with TSCU, I mean, it didn't have this immigrant base, kind of structure probably because Sandra was out on a working group at the American consumers committee and Carlos called me and said, "Hey, they, they just opened up this position. And we think it would be perfect for you. And so,why don't you apply?" So, I applied. We knew very little about the AFSC and, and you don’t have to be a Quaker, but you do have to have a philosophical principles. They ask you questions about your views on, you know, the way… Do you believe social change is possible in non-violent means and this type of thing. And so, because the Quakers did not believe in the use of violence. And, and so, anyway, I did my applications. And apparently many people applied nationwide and they selected four people. They flew us into Philadelphia. They have a funny way of interviewing because they start you out at eight in the morning and end at four with one or two people an hour interviewing you. And, you know, I, to all of these people, I, I, the position was supposed to be in Philadelphia and I said, "I cannot go to Philadelphia. I have two young children and the network support that will take care of them while I am traveling would be my parents and they are in Houston. And if you want to hire me, you have to open up an office in Houston." And so, that's when in a few days they called me back and said, "You are hired. You have your office in Houston." And so, that's how I come I am in Houston. Now there is a reorganization of the AFSC. And they don't know what to do with me because I am the national staff out by myself. But, but the experience with the Quakers was very, very important. When I, when I explained to my father, who is a Mexican immigrant, about who the Quakers were, he looked at me and he said, "Oh," he said, "you have been one of those for years." And I, and the local meeting, the Live Oak, says that I am a closeted Quaker. And I remember Tatcho Mindiola because I, I used him as a reference for this application. After I got the job, I went to see him and to tell him I had gotten the job and he told me, he says, "Well, you finally found your niche in society." And, and he was right. I, I, it's very comfortable. It's a pleasure to work for the Quakers. I, it has given me the ability to participate with resources in a way that many of us wish we had and were able to do. And, and so, it's, it's been for me, a very interesting last eleven years in the area of political activity. Dr. Gutiérrez: Why do you do what you do? Ms. Jiménez: That's a good question. Why do I do what I do? I do what I do because tengo coraje. (I have rage.) Dr. Gutiérrez: Translate that into as rage? Ms. Jiménez: Rage. About the social injustices and inequality. This was very angry that children die of hunger here and every where in the world. And, and I know that, that I, I channeled that rage. And that’s the only way I can explain that and to try to, trying to transform that in reality. And, and to create the conditions for that all human beings could be respected and grow potentially to their, to their fullest. And so, but I know that is what it is. And I, sometimes I feel depressed, but I never, I never feel disillusioned because I think that the moment that you do, you lose, you lose the ability to…. I mean they, they beat you. That the powers that create, that are interested in, in keeping the situations as is, have beat you once they take hope from you. So, that keeps me going, but it's, but when I analyze it, what it is is rage. I am very angry. Dr. Gutiérrez: That statement on evolution policy, immigration policy as you have seen it over the years? Ms. Jiménez: It's, it's very, immigration policy, as I said, it's, it's a, a, it's the regulation of the movement of people across borders which is increasingly part of our global system. It is, as I said, that it, it is a, a method, I think, of insuring inequalities at an international level. Because the very wealthy and the political elite have no problems in obtaining legal methods of entry into all of the countries of the world. The Border Patrols on the militarized borders are for people who are the international working poor who are internationally displaced poor. And so, in that sense, it's reflective of our inequality at a, at a global level. And it is a, a method of, of insuring that inequality, particularly on the issue of mobility and the equality of mobility in our current global economic arrangement. And I think that it's a key. And it's a key strategy of, of, of, the transnational corporate structure and economic development. And, and I say this because all countries of the world have similar immigration policies in the current profile and similar responses to the need of the people. Again, it's the poor people because the CEOs and, you know, the Kuwaitis who, the wealthy, you know, come into the U. S. as refugees without any problems and, and so forth. But the very wealthy don't have any problems of entering or leaving a country or staying in a country legally. Our immigration policy, even with a green card if you have a million dollars, you know, have a business going with ten employees for two years. And so, NAFTA, you know, and they took that freedom of moving of the executives between the free countries, but no such freedom for farm workers or janitors or domestic workers. So, in, in that sense I, it turning period I believe is, is key to the issue and the immigration policies reinforce that. And, and, and by that I, I mean that it is the only area of employer-employee relations that is enforced with the use of armed force. And that's why I think it's key. You know, if, if employers do not obey the minimum wage laws or the safety of health codes or even tax laws, you don't have a set of armed agents who come to your business site to, to make you enforce that law. And the only area of employer/employee relations where that happens is in the area of the international worker and his right to work. And, and that kind of is parallel to the slave patrols of the deep South. It's like the slave patrols of the deep South. Their function was to impede mobility of the slaves. And ensure and, and, and reassure the, the social structure and economic structure of the period. And particularly for the expansion of the economy of the war. So, this whole issue on mobility, I think, is key in economic global development because mobility as an attempt to stop the mobility between nations. Because they are for the ensuring a large reserve labor pool for the maquiladoras. And if the people have to pass over illegally, then the society conditions them to also greater exploitation at the job site, but also justifies the abnegation of rights for this population which, you know, in a period where you've outlawed slavery, de facto slavery in, in the sense. So, that's why I think immigration policy in our current period is, is… The way that the, to, to reinforce that strategy of, of high profits, low wages. And, and to assure control of, of, and to ensure that those inequalities are enforced at a lower level. Dr. Gutiérrez: Throughout the interview you've used the phrase "human rights" and never have used the words civil rights. What is the difference? Ms. Jiménez: Well, civil rights, I think, correspond more to the concept of the nation state and you know, because before that it was divine lines. I mean, it was only the king and, you know, who, who had rights. Nobody else had rights. And when the nation state develops and you have the issue of, of a civil government so they are civil rights and, and constitutional rights. Human rights become part of a, of the experience in, in, when there is acknowledgment of the international community. And so, it reflects more, I believe, the current, our current, the period of, of the integrated global movement system. Therefore, and so, the norms is to standardize the issue of, of the individual rights and the Declaration of Human Rights, which the 50th anniversaryis this year, is all encompassing. It's political rights, it is civil rights, it is social and economic rights. And so, in, in that sense, it's, I think it really does talk about the, the, the gamut of rights that, that go toward the development of fulfilling potential. And so, I, I use that word more and more in the work of immigration because in the American context, as well as, the international context. Dr. Gutiérrez: So, it has not couched in any kind of religious philosophy or ideology? Ms. Jiménez: No. It's, it's about understanding the development of rights. Dr. Gutiérrez: Human rights. Ms. Jiménez: It's a human concept. Dr. Gutiérrez: OK. You do have an appointment at twelve. It's twelve o five. You said you could call and extend this a few minutes. You want to take specific questions? Moving on to the last segment. In your mind, over time or currently at whatever level, local, state, national, who is or are the most effective Mexican American political leaders? Ms. Jiménez: For me, the, the most, I guess the most effective political leaders are those leaders which continue to work on attempting to deal with the, the process of the, the inequality. Because they are the ones who, I think, have at heart the interests of the, of the majority. We have a lot of organizations, I think, that, who represent us at the national level. But it, it seems to me that it is sometimes these particular organizations are more committed to different elements of the power structure. And that's why that keeps them moving as opposed to what is beneficial for the majorities. And so. I have, as a rule, more than, than faith in the leadership. I have a lot of faith in the, in, in the masses of people. To understand their reality and to move for those, seeing that happen, to move the leadership into, and into those issues and those positions which would lead them to a better, a better quality of life. And so, it's real hard for me to answer because I, I, I, I find that I will always look to the people that do what I do for the interests. I don't have much of a trust of elected officials among, among the Latino. Dr. Gutiérrez: Any names that fit your category? Ms. Jiménez: Well, it could be probably the many labor leaders like Baldemar Velasquez, people like Jaime Martinez. They would be attorneys who like Thelma Garcia who has extended along political asylum. People like Lupe Castillo in Arizona who has spent a lifetime organizing the Tucson area, and particularly the young people. It would be people like… Well, there are numerous… I think labor leaders that from parts of the country that, that tend to work for the benefit for community, community leadership also. I think that our important people, like some of the LULAC leadership and may not have elected positions, but they, they have worked to improve the quality of life. Here Johnny Mata is a good example. Some of the other leadership, I can't think, at the moment, I’m blank with names. Dr. Gutiérrez: All right. Same question except now most effective Mexican American organizations. Ms. Jiménez: I don't think we have one. Dr. Gutiérrez: OK. Most pressing issues facing the Mexican American community today. Ms. Jiménez: I think the most pressing issue is the, the gamut of, of aspects of, of the quality of life. And that's educate, you know, from education to housing, etc. And then, include with that the authority, political powers. So, ultimately it's the issue of organizing. Dr. Gutiérrez: A quick history of the development of immigration policy. Ms. Jiménez: Well, like the, I guess, to sum it up….I, I am a reading now, a phrase now…. Once I accepted the, the golden rule. The, those that make the gold, make the rules. And I think that is reflected in the immigration policy throughout the history. Those who are in control to define control who comes and who stays. The early period, the first law which was the Alien Sedition Acts which was to keep the Friends Revolutionaries out of the United States. And remove them, if they were making trouble in the United States to, you know, to the point where Europeans borders had to be closed because there were too many Italians. To the current period focused on an anti-Mexican anti-union. I think the, again for the immigration policies are reflective of the inequalities. Dr. Gutiérrez: A statement that you might want to make for purposes of this archive or an area I forgot to ask you about that you think is important. Any last remarks? Ms. Jiménez: Well, not, not really. I don't, I think what, what is important for, particularly I think it's important for future generations to know is that social changes, never ever an individual accomplishment, but it's always, always a collective one. And that the responsibility of, of the conditions we are living in as well as their transformation resides in that a, a, assuming that collective responsibility and, and, and the obligation to, to pursue the avenues to, to change things. And I, I think that's why I am very attracted by the Zapatistas. Because, you know, their masks, what it indicates is that, you know, there is not any individual or individuals that are recognizable and in the end of, of profund transformations. It is, it is the collective whole. And so, I think that's, that's really important, but then, again leaders are such cannot be leaders without followers. And leaders may give direction but they cannot, they are not the determining factor in transformations. And the relationship between leaders and followers or the activity of the followers or the masses is most, most important because it defines who is the leader and why the leader, and so forth. I mean, leaders come and go. Dr. Gutiérrez: How much longer are you going to keep doing this? What's next for you; what's some of your future plans; what are some goals that you would like to have personally accomplished? Ms. Jiménez: I don't really know. I often say that my work is my life so I don't see that I am going to change much. I am going to die doing this work whether I am paid for it or not. There was a, like an elderly woman who was a union, union organizer. Her, her name was Anna Elwood. And she used to be in charge of the Houston area for the Texas State Employees Union and she was training me when I started working for them. And I remember this picture of Anna, this elderly lady at the mental retardation hospital there at the entrance. And she was elderly woman doing leaflets to these cars as they passed. And I looked at her and said, "That's the way I'll be," you know. "A little old lady passing out leaflets on some issue or cause." So, I, I don't think that no tengo remedio.(I am without remedy.) That's, you know, I guess that's why I am not married. No tengo remedio (I am without remedy) a hopeless cause in that sense. Dr. Gutiérrez: Have you specifically trained anyone to follow you like you followed that elderly lady? Ms. Jiménez: Well, I, in the work we do, we attempt to get the new people in and, and we wound up in the work, and then, first of all I have what I call my citizen adoptive children who are the young people. They come to my office and, and work with us and in doing so… And I, although it's already, in that sense, we, we are trying to make sure that there are others that follow because we are, as a consciousness of how age does have an impact on our ability to sustain activity. I mean, we just can't do the way we did twenty years ago. So we are happy the young people have the energy to, to go ahead. But we can share our experience with them. Dr. Gutiérrez: Any names? Ms. Jiménez: María Loyas. Veronica Bronze in Arizona. Basically I think those are some of the, Gabino Hernandez from Houston. The… Juan Manuel Mendez also in Houston. And we have a series of young, young first generation immigrants. People like Gloria Barrera who are becoming active in, inmmigrant circles here. Evelyn Silva, Hondurena, and all of those, especially the young women, particularly focus on young women and try to, to support them, to become involved with their community and to assume leadership roles. Dr. Gutiérrez: Well, are your children interested in following what you do? Ms. Jiménez: No. They are not. I think they are, I would take them to all these events when they were young. I think their value orientation is mine. But they are, they are not active. I think my daughter, it's…Says often, says that she always finds herself in the minority and arguing against the death penalty, and so forth. So we, and my son, as well, and so, ideologically they are, but they are not active in any, any political circles. Dr. Gutiérrez: Tell me of an accomplishment of your work or what's the most important thing that you have achieved? Ms. Jiménez: Trust from the community to me and from me to the community. I think the most important thing is that people, I've always said, "You don't have to a great organizer, you have to be a consistent one." And I felt that if I do go over to the INS or I don't meet with the INS. I think people understand or if I meet with the Mexican government or whatever is, there's this concept of being sold out. I think people trust the integrity that we work with and they trust the commitment. And they and they, and they respect our, our activity. So I, I think that's the greatest accomplishment of any political activist that works in the style we do, which is to build that trust and confidence. Dr. Gutiérrez: What has been your biggest disappointment? Ms. Jiménez: My biggest disappointment has been, precisely that a lot of the Raza Unida activists who are no longer active. That was really disappointing because I, I guess I had the benefit of leaving the states, you know. And a good part of the growing social movement for democracy in Mexico, so I, I was never able to leave political activity. But it was so disappointing when I came back to see so many people that, I don't know the right word. But the lesson as well… Because it taught me that, you know, something I learned in Mexico, you know… If you said the meeting begins at three and everybody showed at four. So I remember that I couldn't understand that they thought that revolutions are a process, you know. Whenever you get there, that's fine. If you leave, that's also fine. And so, I, you know , what's a disappointment? I also grew to understand that the historical periods and moments some people keep being active. And some people to stop being active, but they are reporting in the movement of their activities and, and what they did at that moment and through that. And even though it's a disappointment you also have to not be frustrated with the process because it is a process. And they may be active next year or one day and, you know.