A Mexican-American Fighter for Equality and Justice
ector Perez Garcia was born in the small Mexican village of Llera, Tamaulipas on January 17, 1914 to two educators, a college professor and a school teacher. When Hector was only 4 years of age, the entire family, which included six other siblings, immigrated to the South Texas town of Mercedes in order to escape the ravages of the Mexican Revolution. Upon arrival to "El Valle de Tejas", the Garcias, although well educated, were forced to work in the fields in order to survive as did the majority of the Mexican-American population of that era. During this time, the Garcia's experienced repeated
incidents of Texas style discrimination including a brutal raid by the Texas Rangers of their home and the Anglo arson of an uncle's store.
After some years the Garcias were able set up a "barrio tiendita" to supplement their income and this allowed the father, a strict disciplinarian and believer in education, to send six of the seven siblings to college and all eventually became doctors. This was no small feat in a time when Mexican-Americans had an average of only a third grade education. Hector P. Garcia graduated as the valedictorian of his high school class.
After high school, he enrolled and graduated with honors from the University of Texas in 1936 at the age
of 22 years. He soon applied and was admitted to the University of Texas Medical School in Galveston at a time when the school had a strict policy of admitting only one Mexican per year. Dr. Hector P. Garcia, or
Dr. Hector as he was affectionately called by his contemporaries, graduated from medical school in 1940.
Two years later Dr. Garcia volunteered for duty with the United States Army during World War II. He first served as an infantryman but soon was promoted to a combat engineer officer and eventually to an officer in the Army's Medical Corps. Dr. Garcia was finally discharged as a Major in 1946 and was awarded the Bronze Medal with six battle stars for his service on the battlefields of both North Africa and Italy.
Dr. Garcia returned back to South Texas after the war with his newly acquired wife, Wanda Fusillo, whom he met in Naples, Italy in 1944. She had just finished her doctoral studies in liberal arts.
The conditions in which Mexican-Americans lived in "El Valle" did not escape Mrs. Garcia. She was quoted in a historical document by Carl Allsup as stating: "In Italy and many European countries that I have visited, the word 'America' was always associated with liberty, equality and freedom of opportunity ..... I was dumbfounded at the attitudes displayed towards the Mexican people." This was a time when the infamous Texas Rangers would routinely beat, frame and imprison Mexican-Americans for daring to drink water from a fountain meant for "whites only."
Fresh from the war, Dr. Garcia opened his first small medical practice in Corpus Christi, Texas in 1946 next to the U.S. Veterans Administration Office. He wanted to serve the thousands of maimed, injured and sick Mexican-American veterans of World War II who were being neglected by the established veteran medical system. The Veterans Administration took him up on the proposal and offered to pay him $3.00 for every new patient he signed up. Considering the era in which this occurred, it was a great accomplishment. It was a time that according to Dr. Garcia "We had discrimination everywhere. We had no opportunities. We had to pay to vote. We had segregated schools. We were not allowed to go to public places. We were not allowed to buy land either, except in the barrios."
While treating hundreds of Mexican-American veterans through his modest practice, he became aware of the intolerable discrimination against the very soldiers that fought bravely to defend democracy and the American way of life. He learned that the veterans were coming home to the very same or worse discrimination they had left. The Pulitzer-price winning author Edna Farber wrote about the insidious discrimination against Mexicans in Texas in her 1952 book "GIANT" that was made into a film in 1956. She utilized some of the experiences of the Garcia family to write her book. There were at the time approximately 500,000 Mexican-American veterans that had served with distinction in World War II. Dr. Hector P. Garcia made a call to organize the American G.I. Forum on March 26, 1948 and more than 700 veterans answered. Within months branches of the A.G.I.F. were opening throughout Texas and the nation. A new era in the struggle for Mexican-American social, economic and political change had begun.
One shameful discriminatory incident that propelled the A.G.I.F. to national prominence in 1948 was the "Felix Longoria Affair." After the war, the body of Private Felix Longoria of Three Rivers, Texas was being brought home for burial. The white owner of the only mortuary in town would not let the "Mexican" to have chapel services there because according to him "the Anglo people would not stand for it!" The mortuary offered to bury Private Longoria in a segregated "Mexican" cemetery separated by a barbed wire fence. Felix Longoria's widow contacted Dr. Hector P. Garcia after she had heard of the newly formed Mexican-American veterans organization. Dr. Garcia and the A.G.I.F. reported the statement of the mortuary to the media and sent 17 telegrams to congressmen, senators and the governor.
Private Felix Longoria quickly became the symbol of the insidious racism in Texas and the story was picked up by the national media. The well know journalist Walter Winchell commented on the air: "The great state of Texas, which looms so large on the map, looks mighty small tonight." Soon after Dr. Garcia received a telegram from then Senator Lyndon Johnson that said: "I deeply regret to learn that the prejudice of some individuals extends even beyond this life. I have no authority over civilian funeral homes nor does the federal government, however, I have made arrangements to have Private Felix Longoria buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery where the honored dead of our nation's wars rest."
During Dr. Garcia's time, there was a complete vacuum of organizational leadership in the Mexican-American community and not even LULAC that was formed in 1928 was advancing the issues that the A.G.I.F. was articulating. Dr. Hector P. Garcia should be considered the "father" of the "Chicano Movement" that did not have its major impetus until the late sixties. The A.G.I.F through the leadership of Dr. Garcia was ahead of its time in articulating the rhetoric that was later picked up by the "Chicano Movement" and our present day civil rights organizations. The Southwest Voters Registration Project(SRVP) and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund(MALDEF) did not exist when Dr. Garcia first challenged the poll taxes, organized voter registration drives and filed and won court case after court case declaring one Texas school system after another illegal. Dr. Hector Perez Garcia is truly a great contemporary hero of La Raza!
"Education is Our Freedom,
and Freedom Should be Everybody's Business"
The A.G.I.F. Motto
by the Founder
Dr. Hector P. Garcia
Chronology of Dr. Hector P. Garcia's Life
and
Honors Bestowed
POSTER: First Call to Mexican-American Veterans
POSTER: Call for Action on the Felix Longoria Affair
Letter from Dr. Hector P. Garcia to Senator Lyndon B. Johnson concerning the Felix Longoria Affair
Telegram from Senator Lyndon B. Johnson to Dr. Hector P. Garcia's concerning the Felix Longoria Affair
"There is a time when the operation of the machine
becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart,
that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part,
and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels,
upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop.
And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it,
that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"
Mario Savio
Sproul Hall Steps
University of California, Berkeley
December 3, 1964
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