Mario G. Obledo, Latino Civil Rights Pioneer, 78, Washington Post
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/22/AR2010082202747.html
Mario G. Obledo, 78
Mario G. Obledo, 78, Latino civil rights pioneer, dies
By Emma Brown, Washington Post Staff Writer
Mario G. Obledo, a son of poor Mexican immigrants who became a prominent
civil rights activist and the first Latino to head a California state
agency, died Aug. 18 [2010] at his home in Sacramento after a heart attack.
He was 78.
Mr. Obledo, one of 13 children raised by a single mother in San Antonio, has
been called the godfather of the Latino civil rights movement for his
efforts to raise Latinos' profile as a political force.
A lawyer by trade, he co-founded the Mexican American Legal Defense and
Educational Fund in the late 1960s and served as its first general counsel,
using the courts to fight discrimination against Latinos in the workplace,
in public schools and elsewhere.
He also co-founded the Hispanic National Bar Association and the National
Coalition of Hispanic Organizations, and he played an early leadership role
with the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, which works to
boost the number of Latino voters.
In 1975, he was tapped by California Gov. Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr. to
head the sprawling Health and Welfare Agency, overseeing more than 50,000
employees and an annual budget exceeding $11 billion. During his tenure, Mr.
Obledo fought allegations that he was tied to the Mexican Mafia and stirred
controversy with his unapologetic efforts to hire more minorities into state
government.
He served until 1982, when he resigned to run unsuccessfully for governor.
In the mid-1980s, he served as president of the League of United Latin
American Citizens, the nation's largest and oldest Hispanic American
organization. He was outspoken on issues including immigration reform and
bilingual education, and he refused to accept what he considered the scant
attention mainstream political candidates gave Latinos.
At the 1984 Democratic National Convention, he urged Latino delegates to
boycott voting on the first ballot to reprimand the presumed presidential
nominee, former vice president Walter F. Mondale, for ignoring issues
important to them. Asked whether sending that message to Mondale was more
important than defeating President Ronald Reagan, Mr. Obledo replied: "I'm a
Democrat and I love my party. But I love my community more."
Mr. Obledo served as chairman from 1988 to 1993 of the National Rainbow
Coalition, the left-leaning organization founded by Jesse Jackson after his
1984 presidential bid. Then Mr. Obledo largely faded from view until 1998,
when Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the
nation's highest civilian honor.
Clinton said Mr. Obledo "created a powerful chorus for justice and
equality," citing as an example his efforts in 1970 on behalf of Latino
children who were banned from a public swimming pool in Texas.
Mr. Obledo drove 200 miles to the pool and was told he couldn't enter. He
brought suit, and when he won, Clinton said, "even the joy in the courthouse
could not match that of Mexican American children whose civil rights had
been defended, as finally they had a chance to jump into that public pool."
Also in 1998, Mr. Obledo made a series of statements that landed him at the
center of the national debate over race and immigration.
"It's inevitable that Hispanics or Mexican Americans are going to control
the institutions of the state of California in the not-too-distant future,"
he told the Los Angeles Times. "If people don't like that, they can leave."
He called for a boycott of the fast-food chain Taco Bell, because of its
commercials featuring a Chihuahua speaking with an accent, and vowed to
destroy a billboard that had been erected in Blythe, Calif., near the border
with Arizona.
"Welcome to California, the Illegal Immigration State," the sign said.
"Don't Let This Happen to Your State."
Mr. Obledo called the sign racist and promised to burn it down, a threat
that gave rise to demonstrations and counter-demonstrations. Even as the
issue raged in the media, many Latino activists distanced themselves from
Mr. Obledo and his tactics.
He said he understood that resistance. "We're generally a law-abiding
community," he said of his fellow Latinos. "But I felt that was an action
that needed to be taken."
The billboard was eventually removed.
Mario Guerra Obledo was born in San Antonio on April 9, 1932. His father
died when he was 5, and he and his siblings grew up on welfare with their
mother.
He served in the Navy during the Korean War and then graduated in 1957 with
a pharmacy degree from the University of Texas at Austin. He worked as a
pharmacist to put himself through law school at St. Mary's University in San
Antonio, from which he graduated in 1960.
Mr. Obledo worked for the Texas attorney general's office before he was
chosen in the late 1960s to help establish the Mexican American Legal
Defense and Educational Fund by a San Antonio lawyer who had secured
financial support from the Ford Foundation.
One of the first issues Mr. Obledo took on was employment discrimination by
local public utilities, which were known for prohibiting the hiring of
anyone who had an accent or was shorter than 5-foot-10. Mr. Obledo argued
that such policies unfairly targeted Latinos.
"I remember arguing the case with a manager from Southwestern Bell," Mr.
Obledo recalled in a 2001 interview with the San Antonio Express-News. "I
asked him, 'You mean to tell me that you wouldn't hire Mrs. Lyndon B.
Johnson because she has an accent?' "
Mr. Obledo taught briefly at Harvard University's law school before Brown
appointed him secretary of health and welfare.
His first marriage, to the former Mary Robles, ended in divorce.
Survivors include his wife of 15 years, Keda Alcala-Obledo of Sacramento;
three children from his first marriage, Mario Obledo Jr. and Sybil Obledo of
San Antonio and Sylvie Obledo of Santa Fe, N.M.; nine sisters and brothers;
and four granddaughters.