Lupe Martinez | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 10, 1945 |
| Occupations | |
| Children | Michelle, Sheila and Joseph |
| Awards | Farmworker Advocate Hall of Fame (2017) |
Lupe Martinez (born 1945) is an American labor leader and civil rights activist who has spent an entire career advocating for the living and working conditions of migrant and seasonal farm workers.
Martinez serves as chairman of the National Farmworker Alliance; chair of MAFO, a national partnership of farmworker and rural organizations; president of the Wisconsin Farmworkers Coalition; chair of the Governor's Council on Migrant Labor in Wisconsin; board member for Farmworker Justice; board member of the National Council of La Raza; and as president and chief executive officer of United Migrant Opportunity Services (UMOS) for over 45 years. [1]
Martinez was a migrant worker whose family traveled throughout the Midwest harvesting crops. He was one of 10 siblings in a family of migrant workers and accepted the responsibility of paying bills and managing the family finances. As a young man, Martinez organized and marched side-by-side with Cesar Chavez during the grape boycott of the 1970s. [2]
In 1974, Martinez was appointed as President/CEO of UMOS. At that time, UMOS was a single state, single-focused migrant serving agency only. As of 2019, UMOS is nationally recognized organization, administering over forty programs. UMOS is the largest Hispanic-managed, non-profit organization in Wisconsin, and one of the largest in the United States. UMOS operates throughout the state of Wisconsin, as well as in Minnesota, Missouri, and Texas.
Martinez is a member of the executive committee of the Milwaukee Area Workforce Investment Board. Every month, 20,000 people, on average, walk through the doors of the UMOS Job Center in Milwaukee for employment related services. Martinez founded the Latina Resource Center, the first and is still the only comprehensive center that provides domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking supportive services under one roof, targeted to Hispanic women.
In 1993, Martinez was a pallbearer of Cesar Chavez' casket for his "final march" of 40 acres on the land where Chavez hosted his first fast that brought the farm workers movement national attention. In 2002, Martinez worked with the Racine Unified School District to found the Cesar Chavez School of Excellence, a public charter school.
Martinez was appointed to the Wisconsin Council on Migrant Labor by Governor Jim Doyle, and reappointed to the committee by Governor Scott Walker. Martinez was also appointed to the State Advisory Council on Early Childhood Education and Care. [3]
In April 2014, Lupe Martinez presented the MAFO Lifetime Achievement Award to Arturo Rodriguez who succeeded Cesar Chavez as President of United Farmworkers.
Martinez received the Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Hispanic Professionals of Greater Milwaukee. Martinez was honored with the Cesar Chavez Humanitarian Award from the widow of Chavez, and received the World Citizen Award from the International Institute of Wisconsin. [4] In 2015, Martinez was named as a "Champion for Migrant Workers" by the Spanish Journal. [5]
In 2016, Martinez was named as "the most influential Latino in the state of Wisconsin" by OnMilwaukee. In 2017, Martinez was inducted into the Farmworker Advocate Hall of Fame. [6] In a tribute to UMOS on its 50th anniversary, Congresswoman Gwen Moore said of Lupe Martinez during a session of Congress that "Mr. Martinez is dedicated to advocating and providing programs and services to improve employment, provide education opportunities as well as health and housing supports for UMOS' clientele whether they are migrant and seasonal farm workers or other underserved populations." Madison365 wrote that Martinez would be a highly eligible candidate should he seek the office of Governor of Wisconsin. [7]
Martinez is depicted with the faces of other Latino leaders in the mural at Shorewood High School. [8]
Cesar Chavez was an American labor leader and civil rights activist. Along with Dolores Huerta, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) to become the United Farm Workers (UFW) labor union. Ideologically, his worldview combined leftist politics with Catholic social teachings.
The United Farm Workers of America, or more commonly just United Farm Workers (UFW), is a labor union for farmworkers in the United States. It originated from the merger of two workers' rights organizations, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) led by organizer Larry Itliong, and the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) led by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta. They became allied and transformed from workers' rights organizations into a union as a result of a series of strikes in 1965, when the mostly Filipino farmworkers of the AWOC in Delano, California, initiated a grape strike, and the NFWA went on strike in support. As a result of the commonality in goals and methods, the NFWA and the AWOC formed the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee on August 22, 1966. This organization was accepted into the AFL–CIO in 1972 and changed its name to the United Farm Workers Union.
Colegio Cesar Chavez was an American college-without-walls in Mount Angel, Oregon. The college was named after Mexican American civil rights activist César Chávez. Colegio was established in 1973 and closed in 1983. Colegio was the first accredited, independent four-year Chicano/Latino college in the United States. In 1975 it was granted candidacy status from the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges. In 1977, Colegio granted degrees to 22 graduates, a number exceeding the combined number of Chicanos who graduated that same year from University of Oregon and Oregon State University. In his book Colegio Cesar Chavez, 1973–1983: A Chicano Struggle for Educational Self-Determination, author Carlos Maldonado writes that Colegio Cesar Chavez was one of the few institutions that was named after Cesar Chavez during his lifetime.
Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta is an American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with Cesar Chavez, is a co-founder of the United Farmworkers Association, which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to become the United Farm Workers (UFW). Huerta helped organize the Delano grape strike in 1965 in California and was the lead negotiator in the workers' contract that was created after the strike.
Obreros Unidos (1966–1971) was an independent agricultural labor union founded in Wisconsin in 1966 by Mexican American civil rights activists Jesus Salas, Francisco Rodriguez and many more, originally Texas-based farm workers from the small town of Crystal City. The union took root after a march from Wautoma, Wisconsin, to Madison, Wisconsin that state's capitol to protest the working conditions of the thousands of annual Mexican-American migrant workers who traveled from Texas to Wisconsin each year. This protest march was inspired by the similar march of César Chávez' United Farm Workers (UFW) in California earlier that spring, and the Texas Farmworker march on Austin, Texas of 1966. Obreros Unidos engaged in its first labor action by seeking to organize migrant potato harvest and processing workers in the town of Almond, WI, and received support from the AFL-CIO, Cesar Chavez, and other labor unions.
Ernesto Chacon, a Texas native, has served as president and director of the Federation for Civic Action, a Latino and low-income civil rights organization based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, since 1989.
Philip Villamin Vera Cruz was a Filipino American labor leader and farmworker. He helped found the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), which later merged with the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) to become the United Farm Workers (UFW). As the union's long-time second vice president, he worked to improve the working conditions of migrant workers.
The Delano grape strike was a labor strike organized by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), a predominantly Filipino and AFL-CIO-sponsored labor organization, against table grape growers in Delano, California to fight against the exploitation of farm workers. The strike began on September 8, 1965, and one week later, the predominantly Mexican National Farmworkers Association (NFWA) joined the cause. In August 1966, the AWOC and the NFWA merged to create the United Farm Workers (UFW) Organizing Committee.
Eliseo Vasquez Medina is a Mexican-American labor union activist and leader, and advocate for immigration reform in the United States. From 1973 to 1978, he was a board member of the United Farm Workers. He is currently secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union. He was previously an international executive vice president, the first Mexican American to serve on the union's executive board. Medina announced his resignation as an SEIU executive vice president effective October 1, 2013.
Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, more commonly known by the acronym PCUN, is the largest Latino union in the U.S. state of Oregon. PCUN is located in Woodburn. According to the Statesman Journal, the meetings that led to the formation of PCUN were held at Colegio Cesar Chavez, the nation's first fully accredited and independent Latino college. PCUN was founded in 1977 by Cipriano Ferrel, who graduated from Colegio Cesar Chavez and worked closely with Cesar Chavez himself. Ferrel was motivated to create the organization after an increase in immigration raids in Oregon. PCUN has organized the creation of migrant housing and farmworker housing. Cipriano Ferrel worked closely with Cesar Chavez.
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Richard Estrada Chavez was an American labor leader, organizer and activist. Chavez was the younger brother of labor leader César Chávez, who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, now known as the United Farm Workers (UFW). Richard Chavez is credited with building the UFW into a major California agricultural and political organization.
Helen Fabela Chávez was an American labor activist for the United Farm Workers of America (UFWA). Aside from her affiliation with the UFW, she was a Chicana with a traditional upbringing and limited education. She was also the wife of César Chávez.
Modesto "Larry" Dulay Itliong, also known as "Seven Fingers", was an American labor organizer. He organized West Coast agricultural workers starting in the 1930s, and rose to national prominence in 1965, when he, Philip Vera Cruz, Benjamin Gines and Pete Velasco, walked off the farms of area table-grape growers, demanding wages equal to the federal minimum wage, that became known as the Delano grape strike. He has been described as "one of the fathers of the West Coast labor movement."
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