Reflection #2: Herrada Image and Rosie Marie Roybal

Image: Herrada Archive, Burton Historical Collection

The postcard reads “I’ve always been impressed with the shit you’ve been able to pull 

off. Don’t bother trying to rub my nose in it anymore” from “Mr. Ellen Herrada”. The shortness, edginess and uniqueness of the note captured my attention the minute Grace and I encountered in Burton. First, Mr. Ellen Herrada addresses himself in a non-normative way that breaks gendered scripts of mail-writing. By calling himself Mr. Ellen Herrada, he does the exact opposite of what is expected. Traditionally, women are addressed as Mrs. (insert name of husband), so for Elena’s husband to do the opposite is notable. Second, he addresses Elena, with a swift, clever kick of support and a not-so-subtle hint that he would rather not be involved in Elena’s “shit.” These two aspects of the image intrigue me, but also give important leads to the story the image tells. 

The postcard tells us some obvious things: it was stamped in Detroit on September 29, 2001, sent from Mr. Herrada to Elena Herrada within the city. Clearly Elena did something troublesome and/or mischievous which turned out well. The postcard shows Mr. Herrada’s respect for Elena: he has “always been impressed” with her successes in situations that the postcard implies are problematic in some way. She’s a bright risk-taker. With the respect that her husband shows in the postcard, he proves himself to me as a trustworthy source for understanding Elena’s character. And from what I can tell from having met her, she has does hold an uncanny ability to achieve amazing things, even when success seems unlikely. 

Oral History: Rosie Marie Roybal

Rosie Marie Roybal shares her story of how educational opportunities brought her into various internships and public organizing jobs. Beginning in high school, Rosie found possibilities through her various mentors, most of which she describes as Latino men, who encouraged her to take advantage of after-school educational programs. Having come from a community of field workers, Rosie didn’t have institutional knowledge that comes with socioeconomic privilege, and learned through those special functions made for “students with potential” what she calls an “I can do” attitude: a mentality that ultimately lead her to pursue a college education.

However, getting to college was not easy. While her father was in the navy, Roybal relied on her older brother Lloyd to act as a father figure while her mom waitressed. Because the family struggled economically, Roybal’s mother feared not having the money for college tuition, so she became involved in the GI Forum as well as LULAC to help find funding. Those organizations and others like them gave Rosie the money she needed for both her undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Throughout her educational career, Rosie earned a teaching degree at Colorado State Teacher’s College, worked for the National Urban League, interned at Jobs for Progress/ Ser, networked as the Skills Bank Director, obtained a graduate degree in public administration, attended the Chicana Moratorium, worked with MAPA/ Mexican American Political Organization and combated institutional, structural, and internalized prejudices. Her widespread involvement and intense variety of experiences exposed her to the rifts even within the Latin@ community. 

Ultimately, Roybal’s interview provides us with personal, micro-experiences that relate to a broader narrative of political activism in the Latin@ community throughout the 1950s through the 1980s. Roybal describes the GI Forum in specific detail including the background of it’s creation as well as gender roles within the movement. Roybal describes how after World War II, soldiers were coming home, and families felt a sense of pride from contributing to the war effort. In response to general racism as well as a specific case of a Mexican-American war hero being denied burial in a federal war site, frustrated families came together and created the GI Forum. Roybal’s descriptions of gender roles within the GI Forum support stories from the documentary Chicano! Though I do not recall a large focus on the GI Forum in the documentary, many organizations in the Chicano and Chicana movements were influenced by it, and therefore the gender roles within it are important to note. Roybal describes how men did most of the respected work while women did clerical and domestic work. She recalls receiving cards from the organization written by women and how “wives were content to be wives”. Roybal’s descriptions of a women’s sector of the GI Forum match other community based activist groups. For example, within the Chicano movement, men enforced themselves as leaders which lead to a splintering between the men and women, creating a separate and distinct Chicana feminist organization. 

Roybal also mentions the Brown Beret movement coming to fruition during her time in school. Though she does not describe having intense involvement within the movement during her interview, the fact that she mentions seeing them around and feeling isolated from them gives us insight about the target of the movement and how class influenced which organizations individual Chicanos/Chicanas might have become involved in. Based on information from lectures in class, the Brown Berets had many similar goals to the Black Panther movement including community protection and organizing for working class people. Roybal mentions her work with African Americans during her community organizing career around the same time as the emergence of the Brown Berets. It makes sense to me that the communities were interacting, and her history confirms that. 

Beyond historical context, it is important to think about the ways the production of the interview adds to the quality and purpose of our project. One unsettling part for me was the consistent cutting and repasting of video. I felt that it took away from my focus on Rosie. In other interviews we’ve watched in class, the sessions don’t feel cut off (and I recognize that they’re edited for film). I can learn from comparing the interview to the movies we’ve watched in class that keeping a constant stream is better, if possible. 

I also noted the close focus of the camera that was used while interviewing Rosie. When Grace and I conducted our interview, we kept the camera a bit more distant. I see from watching the video, that the close view has particular advantages for the viewer, including a personal-ness and detail of facial expression that could be missed. The view adds to the project because individual personalities are precisely what the focus is. And of course, we hope to relate distinctive stories to the broader phenomenon of Chicana feminist histories.