Description
This collection contains over 23 linear feet
of papers, photographs, printed materials, ephemera and realia related
to Lupe Anguiano's personal and professional life. It ranges in date
from 1944 to 2007. The collection has been divided into fourteen series:
Personal, Teen Post Program, Office of Education, United Farm Workers,
Southwest Regional Office for the Spanish Speaking, Department of Health
Education and Welfare, National Women's Employment and Education, Lupe
Anguiano and Associates, Environmental Work, Awards, Materials about
Lupe Anguiano, Oversized Periodicles, Oversized Awards, Photographs and
Realia and Additional Materials.
Background
For more than fifty years, Lupe Anguiano has worked for the equality
of all people. She was born in Colorado. Her father worked for the
railroad and in the summers the family lived in California, picking
fruit and walnuts. In 1949, she joined Our Lady of Victory Missionary
Sisters. As a nun, she worked for fifteen years to improve the social,
educational, and economic conditions of poor people throughout the
United States. Anguiano was also a United Farm Workers' volunteer,
working directly under the direction of Cesar Chavez in Delano,
California . In the late 60s, she was assigned to lead what became the
successful grape boycott in Michigan.
In 1966, Anguiano became the East Los Angeles Coordinator of the Teen
Post program, a program funded by President Johnson's War on Poverty
program. Her work with youth brought her to the attention of Congressman
George E Brown who nominated her to be a delegate to a White House
meeting addressing the inadequate education offered to most Mexican
Americans. From 1967-1969, she served as a presidential appointee to the
U.S. Office of Education where she created the Mexican American Unit.
She also assisted in the development and passage of the Bilingual
Education Act.
In 1973, she returned to Washington and became the Program Officer for
the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. During this time
she began to focus on women's rights, including the Equal Rights
Amendment and the Women's Action Program. She worked with Women's
Movement leaders such as Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug, to found the
National Women's Political Caucus. In the same year, she accepted a
position with the Southwest Regional Office for the Spanish Speaking
(SWROSS) which was sponsored by the National Council of Catholic
Bishops. She took this position with the understanding that women's
welfare would be her primary focus.
For many years, Anguiano worked helping women who were single parents
move out of the dismal cycle of welfare. During the 1970s, she advocated
changing AFDC Welfare Policy from "income maintenance" to an education
and gainful employment policy and most importantly to assign these women
the title "head of household." In 1973, disturbed by the hopelessness of
women and children trapped in welfare poverty, Lupe Anguiano moved into
the San Antonio public housing projects and within six months, she
helped five hundred San Antonio women switch from welfare rolls to
jobs--all in the private sector.
In 1977, Lupe was elected as a delegate to the first State of Texas
federally funded Women's Conference and was also elected as a delegate
to the landmark First National Women's Conference held in Houston in
November of the same year. Along with Jean Stapleton and Coretta Scott
King, Anguiano read the "Declaration of American Women" before the
thousands of conference delegates and guests.
In 1979 she founded the National Women's Employment and Education Model
Program (NWEE); enlisting the support of many San Antonio businesses who
provided skills training for the women along with funding for education,
employment upward mobility, child care, transportation, and other
support services. NWEE became a nationally recognized successful
employment and education model – implemented in seven states
– where over 5,000 women who were single parents became gainfully
employed.
In the early 1980's, Lupe founded her business, Lupe Anguiano and
Associates, a consulting firm that helped business build cooperative
relationships with their local neighborhoods. The firm also helped non
profit organizations find funding sources.
Currently, Anguiano says that she is "a passionate environment
volunteer, helping to protect 'Mother Earth' from global warming and
other destructive environmental hazards." She is a full-time volunteer
with the "California Coastal Protection Network" (CCPN), headed by Susan
Jordan. CCPN is leading the struggle to protect the California Coast
from fossil fuels, oil drilling, from the threat of LNG (liquefied
natural gas) tankers which would dump over 280 tons of pollution
annually, and against pipelines on the Oxnard , Malibu Ocean floor. She
also works with Rory Cox, Program Director of Pacific Environment and
Ratepayers for Affordable Clean Energy, and numerous environmental
organizations throughout the United States and other countries. She
lives in Oxnard, California.
Lupe Anguiano's Archive is housed at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research
Center. Lupe Anguiano – languiano@verizon.net
YR 3/5/07
Restrictions
For students and faculty researchers of UCLA, all others by
permission only. Copyright has not been assigned to the Chicano Studies
Research Center. All requests for permission to publish or quote from
manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Archivist and/or the
Librarian at the Chicano Studies Research Center Library. Permission for
publication is given on behalf of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research
Center as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include
or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be
obtained.