In 1961, Father Jerald Merrill, a Catholic priest, was assigned to the “Our Lady of Guadalupe” Mission on the West side of Salt Lake City, Utah. With the mission having recently received a new building, all adults of the parish were invited to monthly meetings of the Guadalupana Society—a group which met to discuss problems pertaining to their mission. A few months after his arrival, Father Merrill created a branch of the Guadalupana Society that focused on social programs meant to solve the Hispanic community’s problems. In a rented room underneath the Rio Grande Hotel, Merrill and other members founded the precursor to the Guadalupe Center. Later, in 1966 and under the direction of Manuel G. Martinez and Oliver Ulibarri, volunteers helped to open a larger version of the center on 346 West 100 South with faith that the center would become a focal point for local Hispanics.  After its opening, the center focused on projects for the economic and professional development and well-being of the Hispanic community. The Westside Catholic Credit Union focused on helping local members of the community to build capital. The Voluntary Improvement Program taught English and other valuable skills. A cooperative store was opened to serve poorer families in the area. Additionally, the Utah Nonprofit Housing Corporation collaborated with multiple churches and cooperative associations in the area to rehabilitate houses in the inner city region. The Guadalupe Center served as a clearinghouse for information on these and other services and coordinated support for the city’s Hispanic population. The center was also the birthplace for Hispanic activist group SOCIO, which helped pave the way for Latino civil rights throughout Utah.  To create capital that could be reinvested into these programs, leaders decided to open La Morena Café as part of the center. Started just six months after the opening of the Guadalupe Center, La Morena proved immensely valuable. In addition to the profit it eventually generated, enough to support many of the Center’s programs, it also unified a diverse set of people—both hispanic and non-hispanic—in the community through its warm atmosphere and authentic Mexican cuisine. La Morena became a welcoming place for all and encapsulated the vision of  Father Merrill through its ability to unify the community.  In 1986, after their rented lot was bought to build the Triad center, the original Guadalupe Center closed its doors. However, the center’s aims extended into the Guadalupe School which continues to operate today. The school provides personalized education for children with a focus on those in the Latinx community. For Latinx adults the center provides English classes, citizenship classes, and career planning. Since its inception, the spirit of the Guadalupe Center and those who founded it continue to better the lives and welfare of members of the Utah Latinx community.

For more (including 2 images) view the original article

In 1974, the United States was home to over 11 million Spanish-speaking people. The Chicano Conference was organized in order to “understand and confront the challenges facing Spanish-speaking people in their struggle for education and for finding their proper place in American society.” These problems varied, but included an unemployment rate that was two to three times the national level, disease, and cultural barriers.

The basis of the conference included workshops, speakers, and lessons. Leaders of this conference included a wide array of professors and leaders of the Chicano movement, as well as leaders in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Organizers highlighted non-stereotypical problems and people of the Spanish-speaking community in order to bring awareness to the disservice that such stereotypes were causing Spanish-speaking people.

One of these “non-stereotypical” scenarios was originally told by Dr. Clark Knowlton and was included in the opening statement. In a neighborhood in El Paso, Texas, gang members rallied together to raise enough money to give a college scholarship to one of their own. When that member failed his first quarter, fellow gang members woke him up at four in the morning to study, escorted him to and from class, and made sure that he completed his homework. That member passed his second quarter and went on to complete a law degree. Such a story emphasized one of the overarching messages of the conference: Spanish-speaking Americans were fighting battles that were important to the whole country and were not exclusively their own.

The symposium’s keynote speaker, Utah Governor Calvin Rampton, ended the conference by expressing his desire for greater action and initiative on behalf of Spanish-speakers within the state. He mentioned the involvement of the Spanish Speaking Organization for Community, Integrity, and Opportunity in creating government councils, as well as a 20-hour training on the culture of Spanish-speakers for law enforcement.

The Chicano Conference of 1974 was a part of the larger Chicano Movement which began in the 1960s. The movement itself was multifaceted and evolved overtime, but it originated in Mexican Americans rejecting previous efforts to assimilate into white American identity and instead embracing their heritage. The Chicano Conference—the “most important event on campus” at the time—followed previous conferences in Utah, such as the Chicano Conference in 1971 sponsored by Chicanas Unidas and the Chicano Conference in 1973 sponsored by La Raza; both groups were coalitions of Chicanos in the state. The Conference of 1974 joined previous efforts to alleviate pressure of assimilation as well as increase understanding of the needs of Hispanics in Utah.

For more (including 2 images) view the original article

At a December 1967 meeting held in the Guadalupe Center, over 150 people—including Father Jerald H. Merrill from the “Our Lady of Guadalupe” Mission and Bishop Orlando Rivera from the Lucero Spanish Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS, or Mormon)—came together to discuss the possibility of forming a grassroots organization aimed at advocating for the welfare of Hispanics in Utah. The name of this operation would be the Spanish-speaking Organization for Community, Integrity, and Opportunity (SOCIO). On March 21, 1968 SOCIO formally began operations on behalf of the over 50,000 Hispanics residing in Utah.

SOCIO initial activities centered on improving conditions for Spanish-speaking children in Utah schools. From the start of the organization, members of SOCIO recognized the disparity between Hispanic children and their classmates, with over half of Spanish-speaking students dropping out of school in 1969. SOCIO helped increase the number of children attending school through proposals to implement bilingual programs, hire bilingual teachers, and address the specific needs of minority children. This raised the ratio of minority teachers by 263 percent in a span of just 5 years. They also succeeded in creating leadership opportunities for Hispanics and increased the number of Spanish-speaking persons on the Salt Lake School District Board of Education. SOCIO continued into the 1970s with such success. However, due to the high school dropout rate of Hispanic students still being above 50 percent, SOCIO created the Committee on Education in order to lobby for more representation in administrators, as well as Chicano student scholarships.

When SOCIO started, there were about five Chicano students attending the University of Utah, making up approximately .02 percent of the total student body. The notable lack of minorities in the student body of the university led to a bill that would use leftover funds in Utah as scholarship money for underrepresented populations. When the bill was proposed on a Thursday to the Utah legislature, it was rejected. On Friday, SOCIO decided to get involved and convinced different churches in the area to have their members appeal to their legislators on behalf of the bill. That weekend, legislators across Utah were inundated with so many calls that on Sunday at midnight, the president of the Utah Senate called the president of SOCIO, Ricardo Barbero, to have a meeting the next day regarding the bill. By Tuesday the bill had been passed. SOCIO’s lobbying power as a grassroots organization had varying levels of success, but indelible progress such as this bill was being made.

By 1981, funding became a growing problem for SOCIO with no plausible solution. Previous efforts to rally funding from church organizations, businesses, and the government—along with a membership fee—proved insufficient. By 1990, SOCIO stopped operations. SOCIO’s contributions to the education of Hispanic children persists in the form of Latino scholarships and continued programs aimed at serving the needs of Spanish-speaking children.

For more (including 3 images) view the original article

At a December 1967 meeting held in the Guadalupe Center, over 150 people—including Father Jerald H. Merrill from the “Our Lady of Guadalupe” Mission and Bishop Orlando Rivera from the Lucero Spanish Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS, or Mormon)—came together to discuss the possibility of forming a grassroots organization aimed at advocating for the welfare of Hispanics in Utah. The name of this operation would be the Spanish-speaking Organization for Community, Integrity, and Opportunity (SOCIO). On March 21, 1968 SOCIO formally began operations on behalf of the over 50,000 Hispanics residing in Utah.

SOCIO started as a grassroots organization seeking to ensure the civil rights of Hispanics in Utah. For decades, Hispanics had faced varying levels of racism and discrimination. In the mid-1960s, many struggled to thrive in Utah’s growing economy. Discrimination was persistent in new private-sector job markets, and many lacked the skills and training for the new jobs and industries. These issues were at the forefront of SOCIO concerns.

Several other organizations shared SOCIO’s goals and concerns and focused on helping Hispanics, mainly Mexicans, navigate financial and social problems in Utah. However, SOCIO differed from other Chicano Civil Rights efforts in the Southwest in its approach to protecting and edifying the Spanish-speaking population. They made it a point to avoid confrontational methods of protest and activism and instead worked with the systems already in place in order to include Hispanics in leadership and fix the rules and regulations that were negatively affecting them. In this sense, they focused on rectifying the causes of challenges rather than alleviating negative outcomes as previous Hispanic rights organizations in Utah had.

SOCIO focused its attention on creating representation in both governmental and professional markets. They created several skill training programs aimed at increasing Hispanic self-sufficiency and included clerical skills, math and grammar skills, construction training, and even the Minority Women Employment Program which worked to train Hispanic women for occupations such as plumbing. Furthermore, SOCIO helped implement permanent offices in the Utah government such as the Governor's Advisory Council on Hispanic Affairs whose specific aim was to serve as the voice of Utah’s Spanish-speaking population at a bureaucratic level. They also proposed the formation of a Utah Migrant Council, whose task would be to care for migrants who came each year for agricultural labor. Efforts such as these helped to create an expectation within the Hispanic community of representation on the bureaucratic level.

However, by 1981, funding became a growing problem for SOCIO with no plausible solution. Previous efforts to rally funding from church organizations, businesses, and the government—along with a membership fee—proved insufficient. By 1990, SOCIO stopped operating, but not without making a lasting impact on both the educational, social, and economic systems in Utah as seen through the continuation of changes such as the Office of Hispanic Affairs.

For more (including 3 images) view the original article