| SACRAMENTO—Lupe
Anguiano, Assemblymember Nava’s 35th Assembly District
Woman of the Year was honored today at a ceremony in the
State Capitol.
“I am humbled by Lupe Anguiano and her lifetime of
achievements,” said Nava. “Her continued social activism
and fight for a better world is an inspiration to the
community. I am very proud to recognize her. She is a
tremendous role model for all.”
Currently, Anguiano is a leader in the struggle to
protect the California Coast from the BHP Billiton’s
Cabrillo Port LNG (liquefied natural gas) proposal,
which alone would be the single largest polluter in
Ventura County, (according to environmental documents,
Cabrillo Port would generate 25 million tons of
greenhouse gases a year from extraction to consumption)
and cause irreparable damage to marine life.
“Lupe has spent her whole life committed to social
justice and environmental issues, whether it was working
side by side with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm
Workers many year ago, or now, a leader in the fight to
protect our neighborhoods and schools to stop the
polluting proposal to build a LNG floating factory off
the Oxnard Coast,” Assemblymember Nava said. “Her
opposition to BHP means she is taking on the largest
mining company in the world. She is fearless. She is our
champion. I am very proud to recognize her.”
In 1949, Ms. Anguiano 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 under the
direction of Cesar Chavez in Delano, California.
She led the successful grape boycott encompassing the
entire State of Michigan in 1965.
Ms. Anguiano is also passionate environmental leader in
our community, helping to protect the environment from
global warming and other destructive environmental
hazards. She also volunteers with Pacific Environment,
Ratepayers for Affordable Clean Energy, Ventura County
Latinos Against BHP Billiton’s Cabrillo Port Project, No
LNG Community Alliance, Housing Opportunities Made
Easier (HOME), City of Oxnard - Sierra Linda
Neighborhood Council, and Saint Rose of Lima Global
Outreach to the Poor, and numerous social justice and
environmental organizations throughout the United States
and the world from her home state of California.
Nationally, Anguiano is best known for her many years
helping single mothers move out of the trapped poverty
cycle of welfare. She advocated changing AFDC welfare
policy from “income maintenance” to an education and
gainful employment policy and most important, changing
the term “child care provider” to calling the women
“head of household.” National welfare history was made -
when, in 1973, disturbed by the hopelessness of women
and children trapped in poverty, Lupe Anguiano moved
into the San Antonio public housing projects and within
six months, she assisted 500 San Antonio women to leave
the welfare rolls for jobs--all in the private sector.
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, child care, transportation, and other
support services needed to help stabilize the women in
gainful full-time employment. NWEE became a nationally
recognized successful employment and education model –
implemented in seven states – where over 5,000 single
mothers became gainfully employed.
While working to change welfare policy for single
mothers, Anguiano became involved with the Women’s
Liberation Movement of the ‘60s and ‘70s. She worked
with outstanding women leaders such as Gloria Steinem,
Bella Abzug, and other feminists in the formation and
founding of the National Women's Political Caucus and
helped to bring Catholic support to the Equal Rights
Amendment. In 1977, Lupe was elected a delegate to the
first State of Texas federally funded Women’s
Conference and also elected delegate to the
First National Women’s Conference held in Houston
in November of the same year – where along with Jean
Stapleton and Coretta Scott King, she read the “Declaration
of American Women." The National Women’s
Conference funded by the US Congress is a landmark
for women in the United States.
Anguiano has worked with many generations of women to
move history forward and she continues that remarkable
work today. |
