The Legacy of Bert Corona.

On January 15, Bert Corona died. You may not have heard of him. But you should have. He was a great Chicano activist, who fought throughout his eighty-two years for the rights of Mexican Americans, immigrants, and workers.

I first met Corona in the early 1970s when I was doing organizing for the Neighborhood Adult Participation Project, a group whose mission was to take working people, train them as organizers, and have them tackle issues in black and Chicano neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area.

Invited to speak at one of our training sessions, Corona arrived at the main offices in his usual casual clothes, silver hair with his ever-present sideburns, and a confidence that conveyed an attitude of respect for other people, as well as for himself.

After his presentation, he took me aside. "An organizer," he said, "demonstrates compassion to those he organizes. The organizer works with, not for, the working class. He builds an organization and develops leadership so that one day he can move on to the next fight."

Corona was not one to back down. At an immigrants' rights meeting in Los Angeles in 1972, he made a dramatic speech. "We have gone before the courts, we have set up picket lines, and last night we marched right down Broadway from Olympic to the Federal Building [in downtown Los Angeles] passing out leaflets," he said, as quoted in Somos Chicanos (Beacon, 1975). "The people are catching on to the idea of mobilizing themselves, of not being paralyzed with fear.... And one of these days, you are going to see a demonstration down Broadway of 100,000 of us. Then who are they going to deport?"

Corona was born in 1918 in El Paso, Texas, at the height of the Mexican Revolution. His father was a member of the Partido Liberal Mexicano, an anarcho-syndicalist group. He was murdered when Bert was five. From his mother and grandmother, Corona acquired a love of reading and a commitment to social justice. "They deplored any form of exploitation and believed that people should instead conduct themselves in a humane, honest, and responsible manner," he said, according to Memories of Chicano History: The Life and Narrative of Bert Corona (University of California, 1994).

In 1937, Corona began working with labor leaders such as Josefina Fierro, Lloyd Seeliger, Harry Bridges, and many others who provided a political education. He organized with the Longshoremen's Union in Los Angeles. With labor organizer Luisa Moreno, he helped shape the National Congress of Spanish Speaking People. In the 1940s, he was elected President of Local 26 of the Longshoremen's Union. Later, he joined La Asociacion Nacional Mexico-Americana (ANMA), which was one of the few organizations protesting the McCarthy hysteria of the early 1950s. He also helped establish chapters of Saul Alinsky's Community Service Organization, and in doing so, he met a young organizer named Cesar Chavez.

Corona was one of the founders of the Mexican American Political Association in 1960, an organization whose mission was the support and promotion of Mexican American candidates within the Democratic Party. The young organization helped set up the Viva Kennedy clubs that, for the first time, brought large numbers of Mexican Americans into a Presidential campaign.

But Corona was perhaps most closely identified with the work of La Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, or the National Mexican Brotherhood. Founded in 1951 in San Diego by Phil and Albert Usquiano, the organization provided services to immigrants. Over the years, La Hermandad established chapters throughout the country and at one point boasted a membership of 30,000. The focus was organizing trade unions, defending undocumented workers, and providing social services to the undocumented. Corona quickly recognized the urgency of this group's efforts, and he helped establish its Los Angeles chapter. For the next four decades, he devoted much of his time to La Hermandad. He was the group's executive director when he died.

I met up with Corona again in 1974. I had left full-time organizing and was now enrolled at the California State University, Northridge, majoring in Chicano Studies, where, coincidentally, Corona had taught in 1969. That spring, La Hermandad held a conference at Northridge, and representatives from ten states met to discuss problems confronting Mexicans in the United States who had no visas or citizenship documents. The first day, we discussed how to defend persons detained by immigration authorities and how to help immigrants acquire disability and unemployment insurance and welfare. Over the course of the day, Corona seemed to be everywhere. If not speaking at one of the workshops, he was bustling around making sure everything was running like clockwork.

The next day, we discussed resolutions from the workshops. Corona stressed the need to establish a legislative program to campaign against bills that would crack down on the hiring of illegal immigrants and to fight for humane immigration policies and practices.

This conference helped us organize at our campus and in the local community. At the same time, La Hermandad was also going through some changes. There had been an influx of student activists, professionals, and community organizers. The ideological nature of these groups brought a strong Marxist appeal, which changed the focus of the organization as Corona knew it. The newer activists wanted to deemphasize the service aspect of the organization and focus on larger ideological issues. At Northridge, there was some support from students who wanted to push a more revolutionary agenda, but many of us were not convinced how this agenda--which had its merits--would bring immediate results for the undocumented and the poor. I threw my support to Corona and to the idea that organizing could not be accomplished by polishing leftist vocabulary but rather by working hard, speaking to one person at a time, and building an organization.

By the following year, Corona had moved his operation to the San Fernando Valley, where Cal State Northridge was located, so he could continue to work with the undocumented. A group of students and I brought Corona back on campus for a conference to clarify how students should organize and mobilize against deportation raids and repression in general.

"Present-day immigration policies and practices of the government are fundamental characteristics of the capitalist system," he said, "and the only possible way to confront those oppressing us is to organize as one, the alliance of students, workers, and the community." He added: "The student movement only has validity if directly linked with the workers' movement and the movement of people."

Over the next several years, I would occasionally see Corona at meetings where he continued to push people to organize. He never seemed to waver, and his energy was boundless.

Corona, "more than any other person, furthered the ideological struggle against the nativists," according to Rodolfo Acuna, professor of Chicano Studies at Cal State Northridge. Corona made the issue of immigration and undocumented workers, in particular, a civil and human rights concern.

The last time I saw Corona was in late 1987 at a fundraiser in Los Angeles. His hair was whiter, but his intensity was the same--exactly as when I first met him. He was still going strong.

"There are still many battles to be fought," he told me. My impression then, as before, was that Bert could go on forever. And just being around him always rejuvenated my spirit.

The Mexican American civil rights movement has more than one hero. Cesar Chavez does not stand alone. A host of other figures, known and unknown, helped lead the way. Bert Corona was one of those.

In leafing through Memories of Chicano History edited by Mario Garcia, I came across Corona's own self-assessment.

"It's hard for me to think how I would like to be remembered by history," he said. "I never planned my life. It just happened the way it did. I'm proud that I was able at certain times to help organize a plant or a community group and that these organizations helped people struggle to better their lives. Frankly, I never concerned myself with a place in history. I've been busy organizing and working with others. If my life has meant anything, I would say that it shows that you can organize workers and poor people if you work hard, are persistent, remain optimistic, and reach out to involve as many people as possible."

What better way to remember Bert Corona? And what better words to share with those committing themselves to social justice?

Carlos F. Ortega is a lecturer in Chicano Studies at the University of Texas, El Paso. He is co-editor of "Chicano Studies: Survey and Analysis" (Kendall Hunt, 1997).