Antonia Hernández

January 10, 2006; February 6, 2006; April 18, 2006

Recommended Transcript of Interview with Antonia Hernández (Jan. 10, 2006; Feb. 6, Citation 2006; Apr. 18, 2006), https://abawtp.law.stanford.edu/exhibits/show/antonia-hernandez.

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Terms of Use This oral history is part of the American Bar Association Women Trailblazers in the Law Project, a project initiated by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession and sponsored by the ABA Senior Lawyers Division. This is a collaborative research project between the American Bar Association and the American Bar Foundation. Reprinted with permission from the American Bar Association. All rights reserved.

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ABA Commission on Women in the Profession

Women Trailblazers in the Law

ORAL HISTORY

of

ANTONIA HERNANDEZ

Interviewer: Louise LaMothe

Dates of Interviews:

January 10, 2006 February 6, 2006 April 18, 2006 INTERVIEW WITH ANTONIA HERNANDEZ BY LOUISE LAMOTHE FOR THE WOMEN'S TRAILBLAZER'S PROJECT OF THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION'S COMMISSION ON WOMEN JANUARY 10, 2006

Ms. Lamothe: Antonia, thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed for this oral

history. Maybe we could begin at the beginning with your birth and I

understand that you were born in Mexico.

Ms. Hernandez: Yes, I was born May 30, 1948 in a communal ranch called El Cambio in

the State of Coahuila. I lived in the ranch until the age of seven when my

father decided to bring the family to the north to Los Angeles.

Ms. Lamothe: I see. And what was it like living in that rural area in the early 1950s?

Ms. Hernandez: Actually, it was quite idyllic and pleasant. I lived with my maternal

grandparents and with the extended family in a ranch and, in that

particular ranch, many of my relatives lived there. So I lived across the

street from aunts and uncles and I went to school in that community. My

grandfather, my maternal grandfather, had a plot of land in the communal

ranch and worked it with my uncle. My father would go back and forth

between the ranch and the United States to work in the United States. We

were, of course, poor but you would never know it. We never lacked

food. We never lacked essentials. I was surrounded by grandparents,

aunts and uncles. So I really can't say that it was unpleasant. It was quite

pleasant, quite tranquil.

Ms. Lamothe: How many brothers and sisters did you have?

-1- Ms. Hernandez: Well, actually we're a total of seven. I'm the oldest of seven. Four of us

were born in Mexico and three of the younger siblings were born in Los

Angeles.

Ms. Lamothe: After you came up to the United States.

Ms. Hernandez: Yes.

Ms. Lamothe: And tell me, what made you parents decide that they would take the

family, you and your siblings and move to the United States when you

were seven.

Ms. Hernandez: Well, actually my mother did not want to come. All of her family was

there. My father had been born in Texas. His family is from Texas and

the family was returned, sort of sent back, deported during the Depression

when a lot of Mexican families were sent back to Mexico. So my father

always knew he had been born in Texas. He had other siblings who had

been born in Texas and they had lived there for many, many years. So he

wanted to return to California, or wanted to live in California, because his

brother and sister were already living in California and he believed that we

could have a better life.

Ms. Lamothe: And so did your mother come with him after all?

Ms. Hernandez: Reluctantly, we came.

Ms. Lamothe: And how did the children feel about it? Had you ever been to the United

States on visits before you came.

Ms. Hernandez: We had never been to the United States. Interestingly enough, I had my

eighth birthday in Juarez, Mexico and we lived there for a couple of

-2- months while my father fixed our papers. I turned eight in Juarez and we

crossed the border in early June 1956. My parents worked for a while in

the fields in New Mexico and in September 1956 my uncle picked us up in

New Mexico and drove us to Los Angeles. And I've been in Los Angeles

since September of 1956.

Ms. Lamothe: Ever since.

Ms. Hernandez: Yes.

Ms. Lamothe: Tell me then, had you had any schooling in Mexico before you left?

Ms. Hernandez: Oh yes. Actually, it's quite interesting. My aunt, on my grandmother's

maternal side, was a principal in Mexico and I was the youngest of a

cohort of cousins in the ranch, which had a very good school. So when

my older cousins went to school, I chose and begged to be let to go to

school. So when I came to the United States, I had already completed the

third grade.

Ms. Lamothe: Oh you were way ahead of your class now.

Ms. Hernandez: I was ahead because I was allowed to go to school earlier. I knew how to

read and write in Spanish and I loved school. I've always loved school. I

took a great deal of pride in going to school. My parents have always

valued school, as had my cousins, my cohort cousins of the same age in

Mexico. If I had stayed in Mexico I would have been a nurse or a teacher

because all my cousins are engineers, nurses or teachers. So I felt very

comfortable with reading and writing in Spanish.

Ms. Lamothe: At home, obviously, everyone spoke Spanish, I'm assuming.

-3- Ms. Hernandez: Everybody.

Ms. Lamothe: And your father spoke English from the years that he had lived in the

United States and worked here.

Ms. Hernandez: My father to this day understands a lot but seldom speaks the language.

Ms. Lamothe: And what about your mother?

Ms. Hernandez: My mother speaks Spanish and, in fact, to this day, their predominant

language is Spanish.

Ms. Lamothe: So they speak Spanish to each other and Spanish to all of their children.

And so when you went to school in the United States. Did you go for the

first time here in Los Angeles.

Ms. Hernandez: Yes.

Ms. Lamothe: What was that like for you.

Ms. Hernandez: It was an interesting experience because we settled in East LA and all the

kids looked like me. Remember this was 1956. All the kids looked like

me but didn't speak Spanish. If you recall, in that era if you spoke

Spanish, you were punished. So they didn't speak Spanish. Very few.

And the few that did didn't want to acknowledge it. I couldn't understand;

they looked like me. Why didn't they understand or why they didn't want

to speak Spanish? And it was tough I will tell you. I think of the few

negative experiences in my mind were those first couple of years. I

remember my parents giving me, I think it was a nickel, whatever it was at

that time, money for milk. But I couldn't buy the milk because I didn't

-4- know how to say milk. And so, it was that transition of learning the basics

to survive.

Ms. Lamothe: Was it a public school that you went to?

Ms. Hernandez: Oh yes, they renamed it, Riggin Elementary in East Los Angeles. I'm a

product of LA schools, elementary, junior high, high school, community

college and the UC system.

Ms. Lamothe: So was the experience similar then for your younger brothers and sisters

who came with you?

Ms. Hernandez: Oh definitely, it was similar for all ofus. It was the sink or swim method.

There are few teachers whom I remember that really made an impression

on my mind.

Ms. Lamothe: And why do you think that is?

Ms. Hernandez: They just did not make an impression. There was one, and it was an

impression in a positive way, but with negative overtones.

Ms. Lamothe: Expand that out a little bit.

Ms. Hernandez: Her name was Mrs. Moore. I can't remember whether she was the third or

fourth grade teacher. In the beginning, I remember vividly that she would

help me during the breaks and after school tried to help me catch up

because she quickly understood that I could read and in math I was a whiz.

I was way up there. Math is a universal language. Right?

Ms. Lamothe: How fortunate.

-5- Ms. Hernandez: And the other thing with English and Spanish. I could read the letters

because they were same. But, I just could not pronounce them. For

whatever reason, she took an interest in me. And I remember, she was

helping me during her free time and that was the positive. But when I say

in a negative context because the message she would convey to me is that

she was helping me because I was different.

Ms. Lamothe: I see.

Ms. Hernandez: And I used to see the other kids; they didn't look any different from me. I

couldn't understand why I was different from them.

Ms. Lamothe: Right.

Ms. Hernandez: Now I understand what she meant. But the fact is that she did help me.

My parents dressed us the old-fashioned way so I had big old braids with

bows, pinafore, the Mexican way.

Ms. Lamothe: Starched.

Ms. Hernandez: Starched and sticky and I stuck out. So the kids would make fun of me,

use negative terms. In 1956 there were very few immigrants in California,

very few. I was the exception. All of the kids who went to Riggin

Elementary School and lived in the Maravilla projects, where we settled,

were native Mexican-Americans -- native born Mexican-Americans; they

were born here. We and two other families were the only immigrants. We

were the exception. We heard all the negative names for someone who

came from Mexico. But, as kids, you acclimate pretty quickly.

-6- Ms. Lamothe: Sometimes some of the problems are between the children and the parents

because the children want to acclimate more quickly and the parents are

somewhat fearful of that.

Ms. Hernandez: We never had that. I'm the oldest of seven. My parents have always

valued education and they have been single-minded. My dad and my

mom were poor working class and all their children are college educated.

They knew that education was very important to us. So they pushed us a

great deal. So as a woman, you ask, what impact this has? I come from

an interesting family. Not just my nuclear family, but the extended

family. Strong women are the norm, not the exception. My maternal

great-aunt in the 50's was a principal in Mexico.

Ms. Lamothe: Someone you looked up to.

Ms. Hernandez: And I had other very strong women. In fact, what my father said to us

girls, because the first four of us are girls, as far as our brains, we can be

and do anything. We had to follow certain social norms associated with

culture, associated with femininity: But as far as what we could do and

what we could be, it was up to us, our hard work, and our commitment and

passion to what we wanted to do. So I never heard "you can't do this" or

"you should do something else."

Ms. Lamothe: Were they open to anything that you chose to do so long as you were

using your education or, did they try in anyway to guide you?

Ms. Hernandez: Number one, you can only aspire to do or be to what you know. So your

circle of experience and exposure is limited. And my exposure is that you

-7- can be a teacher, you can be a nurse, and, whether in Mexico or the United

States, those were the roles for women.

Ms. Lamothe: In those days, you were absolutely right.

Ms. Hernandez: So when I went to college, my first goal was to be a teacher. I was in the

School of Education at UCLA. When I decided to transfer and apply to

law school I didn't know any lawyers.

Ms. Lamothe: So how did that happen?

Ms. Hernandez: I was an undergraduate in the late 60's, early 70's. I started law school in

August of '71. At that time in the Latino community in Los Angeles,

there was a lot of foment in the Mexican-American community, Latino

community over the educational conditions. The lockouts at Roosevelt

High School and stuff. And I was working, doing work-study at UCLA

with the program called Project Outwardbound working with high school

kids to help them get into college. I remember that one Saturday in

February 1971, a lot of kids didn't come to the Saturday program and

there had been some issue at the high school. And, out of the clear blue

sky, I said that I'm not going to be a teacher. I'm going to be lawyer. I'm

going to change the law and then I will be able to educate my kids.

Totally naive, totally with no sense. That following Monday, I walked

across to the law school. They told me "You're lucky. You have to apply

by March 1st and you've got to take the LSAT," or whatever the heck it's

called, by such and such a date. Long story short, I discovered that I was

in law school.

-8- Ms. Lamothe: Wow.

Ms. Hernandez: So, did I know what I was getting into? No. Did I know what a lawyer

did? I didn't know a single lawyer. Did I have a sense? No. Sometimes

ignorance is bliss.

Ms. Lamothe: That's absolutely true. I had a very similar experience really. Because in

those days as you no doubt had the same experience, there was no career

counseling for us. But there was that expectation that you could be a

teacher, nurse, or secretary. That was the range.

Ms. Hernandez: Secretary.

Ms. Lamothe: That was the range. To go outside that in those days was really quite

extraordinary. Let me double back and ask you a question. Just to delve a

little bit more into the summer work that you did as a child. Because you

worked in the fields. You worked in the Central Valley with your family

didn't you? Could you talk a little bit about what that experience was like.

Ms. Hernandez: Well, it's an interesting topic because it brings out the Pollyanna in me. I

don't really have many negative memories. Number one, in our family,

the work ethic is very strong. Number two, values are very, very deeply

ingrained and, to us, family is everything. And so when the family went

together, I was with my dad and my mom and my brothers and sisters. I

went in the summer. My parents never took us out of school. And they

managed to always make it so there was work and then the reward. And

the work was that after we finished school, we would go visit my Aunt

Jenny, who lived in Lamont by Bakersfield. We lived with her. We

-9- would work very hard in the fields up and down, looking for work, in that

part of the San Joaquin Valley for six weeks or however long. We would

save all we could and work very hard and then we would use that money

for going to Mexico to visit our relatives and then save some money for

clothes for school. It was very hard work. Let me not misrepresent. I

would be getting up a 4:00a.m. in the morning. I can give you a sense of

some of the embarrassment, the humiliation, beyond the hard work. As an

example, we picked a lot of peaches. Peaches are very hard work because

you have to wear a big sack in front of you. You have to climb up the

ladder, up and down with this huge sack, picking the fruit. This itself is

hard work. Then you go from tree to tree and it would take me and a sister

of mine to move the ladder to the next tree. But it was hard work. You

get up at four o'clock in the morning. In Bakersfield, in that part of the

Valley, by 11 :OOa.m., it's a hundred degrees. Remember, at that time, I

was 12, 13, 14, 15, becoming a young girl and you have to wear flannel

shirts to cover all the way up to your neck to protect you. The fuzz.

Ms. Lamothe: Irritating.

Ms. Hernandez: Some people don't realize the hard work that goes on because you have

the fuzz. You are sweating and you want to keep the fuzz out. It's

irritating and itching. And, here you are, as a young lady trying to impress

the boys with Levis and flannel shirts and whatever. But aside from that, I

was with my dad and my mom with my siblings. When my sisters, who

are real jokesters, got restless they would go and pick up the frogs and put

-10- them in their pockets and we'd be screaming and yelling and the older

people would try to direct us to the peaches. I've picked grapes. I picked

tomatoes. I picked cantaloupes. It's work.

Ms. Lamothe: It's hard work.

Ms. Hernandez: I have a great affinity for farm workers and farm work because I know

how hard it is and I cannot understand how little value American society

places on the work of farm workers, the people who put the food on our

table. And the awful conditions in which they are subjected to. I

remember we would always have boxes. Each ofus were assigned boxes.

And when we went up in the old Chrysler, all stacked up in the Chrysler.

There was the cleaning box and my mother would have containers of

cotton and we would get to our worksite where they offered housing. The

first day was literally disinfecting the place in which we were going to live

because it was in a horrible condition. And my mother is a fanatic about

cleanliness. So here we are scrubbing every comer of the walls and I cleaning all that other stuff because we were going to be there.

Ms. Lamothe: It was going to be clean

Ms. Hernandez: It was going to be clean. I have a very good sense of what farm work is

all about. But is not a searing bad memory in my mind, not at all.

Ms. Lamothe: It's a layer of experience that you carried with you.

Ms. Hernandez: It's a layer of experience. We were always a family unit. Everything we

did was a family unit.

-11- Ms. Lamothe: You know there has been so much talk in recent years and the exposes on

the amount of pesticides to which farm workers are exposed and really bad

health conditions. Does any of that ...

Ms. Hernandez: Oh yeah, your skin would be irritated.

Ms. Lamothe: From the picking. Just because of what was on the trees.

Ms. Hernandez: What was on the trees. And you knew it.

Ms. Lamothe: From what you inhaled also?

Ms. Hernandez: I cannot speak to the inhaling. We only did it for 6 weeks for so many

years. We didn't do it full-time. Although my parents, even though they

lived in LA here for many years, they worked all around LA picking

strawberries.

Ms. Lamothe: When the fields were closer in, as they were in those years.

Ms. Hernandez: The 605 freeway. It was fields. It was strawberry fields, the 5 freeway

too.

Ms. Lamothe: Those freeways, the 605 freeway, the 5 freeway. It was all strawberries.

Ms. Hernandez: It was all strawberry fields and that's where my parents worked. But the

issue of the pesticides is a very real issue. For us, we knew we were

coming back to LA, but during parts of the year. We knew, through our

cousins, some of them lived in the San Joaquin Valley, that there was no

work. Now it was much more year-round but there were times in the

winter when there was no work. There was very little work. And at that

time, they had the canneries. A lot of the women tried to work in the

-12- canneries, which were right next to the fields, in order to capture the

freshness of the fruit or the vegetables.

Ms. Lamothe: But you never actually worked in the canneries yourself did you.

Ms. Hernandez: No, because they wouldn't allow us. We were kids.

Ms. Lamothe: Too young.

Ms. Hernandez: We were kids and so we could not do it.

Ms. Lamothe: Talk to me a little bit about political activism. Were you active politically

when you were in high school or in college? Was that something that you

did?

Ms. Hernandez: Yes. My father was always, from the day we arrived, and has been a great

civic model because he's voted every year. He always votes. We grew up

in a family where there's no question: you vote. It's your obligation. And

my father, even though illiterate, he taught himself how to read and write.

He never went to school. He would sit and tell us the story of the history

of Mexico. He would always watch the news and read the newspaper.

Always involved in politics. I became very, very involved when I started

junior college in 1966.

Ms. Lamothe: Where was that?

Ms. Hernandez: East LA College. I was very involved. In fact, I joined the first

organization of college students which at that time was called MECHa. I

joined MECHa at ELAC.

Ms. Lamothe: M-E-C-H-A?

-13- Ms. Hernandez: Mexican American Students Association, or something like that. I don't

know exactly. I joined MECHa. I got very involved in the pickets and

boycott. I would boycott Safeway because of lettuce and grapes.

Ms. Lamothe: Right.

Ms. Hernandez: In student involvement and protest and demonstrations I was involved in

the demonstrations and participated where Reuben Salazar was killed in

1968 in August. So yes, I've always been very politically active. And

have been very much encouraged by my parents.

Ms. Lamothe: Interesting.

Ms. Hernandez: I mean my father would drive me to demonstrations.

Ms. Lamothe: Did they also participate in the boycott or the picketing?

Ms. Hernandez: We would not eat lettuce or grapes.

Ms. Lamothe: And this was over the United Farmworkers effort to unionize.

Ms. Hernandez: To unionize. And actually, as we've gotten older, all my other sisters, not

as much as I, but they also have been politically active. We've taken our

mother to a pro-choice demonstration and she's walked with us. It's not

unusual in our family.

Ms. Lamothe: Interesting. And so there are not in your family anyway deep political

divisions. It sounds as though people are all pretty much together.

Ms. Hernandez: (Laughter). Actually it's interesting you say that because right now, my

immediate family is 31. My mother lives across the street from our house,

and all of my siblings, we all live within four miles of each other. So we

are very clannish. And we were having one of the many family events

-14- that we have and there are a lot of cousins; there's twelve cousins about

the same age cohort.

Ms. Lamothe: And this would be the children of your generation?

Ms. Hernandez: Yes, our children. And we were talking and one of the cousins, who is at

UC Davis, was talking about politics and about a girlfriend being

Republican. One of the cousins says "Lenny, in this family you're born a

Democrat and you die a Democrat."

Ms. Lamothe: (Laughter). I hadn't thought. It's like unacceptable.

Ms. Hernandez: There are certain rules and that's one of them.

Ms. Lamothe: That's great, that's amazing. So we were talking a little bit about what

caused you to decide to go to law school. Before you went to law school

you were pointed in the direction of being a teacher.

Ms. Hernandez: Yes.

Ms. Lamothe: What kind of a teacher had you thought that you would become.

Ms. Hernandez: When I was at ELAC, I student taught at Utah Elementary School. I really

couldn't tell you that I had a passion for teaching. It was the expectation.

And, actually, in my family I have one, two, three sisters that are teachers

or principals and also a niece who is now a teacher. So teaching runs very

deep. But as to me, it was more of an expectation. I cannot tell you that I

was passionate about it. Almost subsequent to graduating, I taught

elementary. I did student teaching in junior high and I hated it.

Ms. Lamothe: Why did you hate it?

Ms. Hernandez: Just the kids, the attitude.

-15- Ms. Lamothe: In junior high?

Ms. Hernandez: And I taught law school to adults. During law school, when I was going

to law school, I taught ESL for three years.

Ms. Lamothe: I was going to ask you about that. What was that experience like,

teaching, English as a second language?

Ms. Hernandez: Oh, I loved it. I taught ESL at the Lynwood School District in Lynwood,

California. My sister is currently involved with adult education. The

main thing about ESL is that you have a group of extremely motivated

individuals who are coming to your class to maximize that time because

they are working people. They have worked their day out. They are tired.

And, in addition, they're coming there. They are not going to goof

around. They are going to give the best that they can. And it's a pleasure

to teach people who really want to learn, who are there to just take it all in.

And the adult conversations that you have. And the exposure at that time

with the Ethiopians, Chileans, Argentineans, Mexicans, just a whole mix,

Polish, whatever. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Number one, it was a dam

good paying job. Okay. It allowed me to help me with my expenses. But

I enjoyed it very much.

Ms. Lamothe: That's great. What did you major in when you were in college?

Ms. Hernandez: History.

Ms. Lamothe: Why did you choose that?

Ms. Hernandez: I love history. In fact, after teaching, which was not what I really wanted

to do, what I really wanted to get was a Ph.D. in history, the philosophy of

-16- history. Because I like to know history, why people think this way, why

certain things happen and which way course of history goes. So I was

more into the philosophy of history and taking a lot of the courses at

UCLA on that. There was a teacher, a professor of Brazilian history, E.

Bradford Smith. He was a professor of history, lovely man, and I had

taken many of his Latin American history courses. So when I went to him

at the graduate school of education, when I was taking a lot of history

courses, for advice about the fact that I was thinking about going to law

school.

Ms.Lamothe: Oh, and what did he say?

Ms. Hernandez: He said, "Go." He said you will do a lot more good for your community

with a law degree than with a Ph.D. He said, "I will help you if I can."

When I got the Alumnus of the Year Award at UCLA, he came.

Ms. Lamothe: Aww.

Ms. Hernandez: And, of course, I hadn't seen him for many, many years. But there was

UCLA professor of history Bradford Burns in the audience when I got the

award. He remembered. He passed away about 4 years ago. But he

remembered. It was he who had said "Yes, this is the tool. Law is a tool

that you can really use." And he told me, "You would be good at it

because you love to bicker and argue."

Ms. Lamothe: That's great. So you did receive encouragement from a teacher to head in

that direction.

-17- Ms. Hernandez: Yes. He was the only one whom I spoke to of the professors, the teachers,

and I knew quite a bit, because, once again, part of work-study I worked in

the History Department at UCLA. So I got to know a lot of the professors

there.

Ms. Lamothe: Right.

Ms. Hernandez: Pretty well.

Ms. Lamothe: So what was the kind of work study that you were doing. Whatever they

needed?

Ms. Hernandez: File-clerk, typist, messenger. A go-fer. Work-study.

Ms. Lamothe: Now I know that you said that you had gone to East LA Community

College. What was the reason that you decided to start there instead of

going into the UC System or a four-year system?

Ms. Hernandez: Well, actually, there is another story. I remember very few teachers and I

remember this other one, in a very negative way. Mr. Woods, high school

English. I did relatively well in high school. Not superb, but relatively

well. And I remember that in one of the exercises, he wanted us to do an

essay about our dreams, our ambitions, and our goals. So we all did it.

And he had a habit of happy faces and sad faces. And I remember when I

got my paper back it was a sad face, not a happy face, saying that it was

wonderful to dream, but I had to be practical and I was not college

material.

Ms. Lamothe Wow.

Ms. Hernandez: 1965.

-18- Ms. Lamothe: How old were you.

Ms. Hernandez: 16, 17, I don't the exact age. I remember getting that paper and walking

home. That was a long walk from where I lived to the high school and

crying because it just broke my heart.

Ms. Lamothe: So deflating.

Ms. Hernandez: Totally. When I graduated from law school, I saw this son of a beehive. I

went up to him. And I rubbed it in his face.

Ms. Lamothe: Did you? Good for you.

Ms. Hernandez: That I was the non-college material gal. And some of his college material

people. It was really disheartening. And then the other thing is that I was

the oldest, there was five kids. My parents were working very hard. But

there was no way that they could afford it. My other friends went directly

to UCLA, but there was no way for me. ELAC was walking distance from

where I lived. I could continue to work. Once again, my father said that I

could be anything, but I had to live at home. I had to live at home under

the social norms and expectations. So actually, ELAC turned out to be a

fabulous decision. One, I met a mentor or a role model. I met mine.

Helen Bailey. Helen Bailey was a professor and the chair of the History

Department at ELAC. The most unconventional woman you would ever

meet.

Ms. Lamothe: In what way?

Ms. Hernandez: In every way. She defied the norms of society. She and her husband were

just wonderful. She traveled the whole world. She was brilliant, of

-19- course, as a woman, and to be, at that time, the Chair of the History

Department. She just loved the students. And she helped a lot of students.

In fact, a lot of Latinos of our generation who went to ELAC were helped

spiritually, emotionally, or financially by Helen Bailey.

Ms. Lamothe: Isn't that great.

Ms. Hernandez: And I fell in love with her. Because I loved history, I was taking a lot of

history courses. She took me under her wing and I wanted to be like

Helen. That's what I wanted to be: a history professor, just like Helen,

except I wanted to be, of course, in the philosophy of history in Chicano

studies. I could rewrite history. Our relationship was very strong. When

she died, I did her will. And she also painted; she left a painting to me.

When I was at ELAC, once again, here I was walking, distance from my

house. I knew about UCLA, but not really. To me, the big university was

Cal State up on the hill.

Ms. Lamothe: Sure because it was closer.

Ms. Hernandez: And I could see it. So my dream was to go to Cal State. But my friend

asked "why not UCLA because I'm going there?"

Ms. Lamothe: It could be on a different planet for all you knew.

Ms. Hernandez: Oh, let me tell you, there's a funny story to that. So I applied to UCLA. It

was in 1968, or thereabout, '68, '69, so long ago. I applied, and low and

behold, I got admitted. I hadn't even told my mom or my dad.

Ms. Lamothe: That you had even applied.

-20- Ms. Hernandez: So then, all of a sudden I get the letter, the papers and finally I had to go

tell my mother. I said, "Mommy, I got accepted." And my mom, she

understood that I was excited, she understood that it was a big thing. But

did she understand what the big thing was? No. Neither did I. But it was

a big thing. Helen Bailey told me this was a big thing.

Ms. Lamothe: That's right, exactly.

Ms. Hernandez: I said, mom, what are we going to do. And they said, I can't, I have to

live out there.

Ms. Lamothe: Oh, oh, this must have been a big deal.

Ms. Hernandez: My mom said, "Oh your dad." I said I know, but what'll we do? So she

stood up. I remember her telling me, because my mother is the most

entrepreneurial, funny, fabulous woman. She says we're going to work on

him. And so for a month, Dad was treated like the king of kings. And

finally, he got up and said "What the heck's going on?" So I told him. He

said "That's great, go to UCLA." I said that I have to live there. He said

"Oh no, you take the bus. You take the bus from East LA to UCLA." I

took the 87 bus line all the way from the projects to where I was. So, we

finally said, "No, Pop." He finally, literally August of 1969, and I had to

go. He finally agreed. I remember going to Julio Boulevard with my dad

and my mom to the Lerner Store. I don't even know if it's still there. My

mother packed me this old suitcase, one set of pajamas, one slip, a set of

clothes that I was going to take all of my worldly possessions in this one

little suitcase. So we all piled up in the old Chrysler and we drove all the

-21- way. But we didn't know where UCLA was. So we stayed on the 10

freeway and ended up on the beach. We finally managed to get to UCLA

and I was assigned to Sproul Hall with these rather wealthy people. My

father, being old-fashioned, demanded that I go tell the manager that he

wants to see the room and the floor. He wants to be assured that there are

locks. He wants to be assured that there are no boys on that floor.

Ms. Lamothe: That it's safe for his daughter.

Ms. Hernandez: And he wants to go check the windows, the locks and that I have a phone

in there if I have to call. I am so embarrassed, by that time, a 20 year-old

or whatever. He wants to make sure. He will drop me off every Sunday

with the whole family. Friday, as soon as my classes and work were over,

I was to take the bus back.

Ms. Lamothe: And did you do that?

Ms. Hernandez: Yes, and what happened is that I ended up, and I was very thin, I ended up

losing a lot of weight because I hated the food.

Ms. Lamothe: You were used to ...

Ms. Hernandez: Used to ...

Ms. Lamothe: Your mother's cooking. Family cooking.

Ms. Hernandez: So I lost a lot of weight. We had to convince my dad to allow me to move

into an apartment right across the street from UCLA with the roommate

that I met when I went to UCLA. But that was so interesting.

-22- Ms. Lamothe: He was determined that you would retain that family connection and that

they could continue to protect you and support you. You came from a

really good place.

Ms. Hernandez: No, no, no. But it was never that you are not going to be educated. It's

like "What's wrong with Cal State LA? You can be educated here. Why

do you have to go over there?" His thing was you can do this and still live

at home. It was interesting.

Ms. Lamothe: That's great. Let's take a pause for a minute. So let's double back for a

minute and talk a little bit more about some of your growing up years here

in Los Angeles. And particularly some of the other jobs that you had.

Ms. Hernandez: One of the values that we were brought up with was the work ethic. And,

because of the economic situation, we all had to work. And, if I look

back, every sort of experience that I had really expanded my ability to

survive. I didn't know it at the time. As an example, my mother is

extraordinarily talented and she crochets and knits very well. So she

would crochet and I would go sell in the projects. And we made tamales

and we would go sell tamales. On Friday, my mother would make batches

and batches of tamales, and remember at this time I must have been 11,

12, 13, my mother would make them, I and my mother would make them.

Dad and I would go sell them and then we would sell them at the bars.

And my father would ask permission to take me in because I was helping

them sell the tamales at the local bars in East LA. So I really got into the

commerce, the selling whatever. And then, on Saturday, we would make

-23- the tamales early in the morning and then we would drive all around the

garages in East LA selling them to the men working in the garages and

whatever. And so we developed a route. So I'm very good. I can sell you

just about anything.

Ms. Lamothe: That's great.

Ms. Hernandez: Then my father got a fruit truck and was selling fruit through the streets.

When I was about 14, 15, I got a job with a fellow who owned a fruit and

vegetable store on Cesar Chavez, Brooklyn Avenue, in East LA. So in the

afternoons, after work, I would go and work in the stand until it closed at

9:00. On Saturday, I would then start at the stand at the Grand Central

Market. I did that until I graduated from high school. So, and all of my

siblings, we are sort of and to this day, we are very entrepreneurial. Can

we sell this? Can we make this? How can we do it? How can we make

something out of it? It was hard work. I acknowledge that it was hard

work.

Ms. Lamothe: But it taught you so much.

Ms. Hernandez: Absolutely.

Ms. Lamothe: Life skills.

Ms. Hernandez: Life skills, social skills, negotiating skills, and also street-smart skills.

Ms. Lamothe: Absolutely, and people skills.

Ms. Hernandez: Exactly.

Ms. Lamothe: The ability to connect with all kinds of people.

-24- Ms. Hernandez: And to not be afraid and be able to sense a situation, feel a comfort level.

I really do think that all of those work experiences really helped me

tremendously as I matured.

Ms. Lamothe: Talk to me a little bit about what your social life was like starting from the

time that you were a teenager still living at home until you went to UCLA.

What was it like for you then?

Ms. Hernandez: Actually, it's interesting because I guess it goes back to my parents. I've

always grown up with a comfortable sense of self. With a lot of self­

confidence about who I am and about the fact that I'm a woman. You

think with your brain and it has nothing to do with your gender.

Ms. Lamothe: That's right.

Ms. Hernandez: It didn't stop me from being a girl, and having all of the fun associated

with girls. When I was in law school, I had some wonderful feminist

friends. We were studying for the bar and, I remember Rosemary and

some other friends, my nickname from them was "the frou-frou, civil

rights, trouble-making activist." Because I didn't look the part, I didn't

dress the part.

Ms. Lamothe: You didn't have the army boots?

Ms. Hernandez: I didn't have the army boots. I loved to dance. When I was at UCLA I

would go to a place called Casa Escobar on La Cienega.

Ms. Lamothe: I remember it.

-25- Ms. Hernandez Xavierville. Because I loved to dance, to go dancing when I was in high

school. I was not a cheerleader but I was on the drill team. I played sports

when I was at ELAC, in addition to being very involved politically.

Ms. Lamothe: It's not all that easy. Now you have to mention a little bit more about

dancing and Casa Escobar.

Ms. Hernandez: As I was saying, I've always, always have loved to dance. And when I

was at UCLA, after working very hard, and doing my studies on Fridays I

would love to go to Casa Escobar on La Cienega when Xavier Cugat was

there and just dance my heart away. It was just part of having a really

good time with good friends. Some of the friends whom I developed then

are still my best friends to this day. So I never saw being a woman and a

girl mutually exclusive with pursuing my intellectual pursuits or my

political activity because I've always been very politically active. I didn't

know politically the extent of the many things you could do. And in the

late 60's, early 70's was the beginning evolution of the Latino movement.

The elected officials, for instance, Art Torres and I went to high school

together. Richard Alatorre was several years ahead of me at Garfield High

School.

Ms. Lamothe: I'll be damed.

Ms. Hernandez: Angie, his wife, was one year behind me and we were on the cheerleading

team together. So a lot of the early activists of East LA, we all went to

school together, whether Garfield or Roosevelt, to ELAC and we were

involved in the foment of the emerging politics of the day. I remember

-26- supporting Art when he first ran, supporting Mr. Roybal when he first ran,

and supporting Gloria Molina when she ran for the Assembly. And of

course, the work with the farmworkers that was really important. That has

always been much a part of my life.

Ms. Lamothe: I'll think we'll conclude this session of January 10, 2006. Thank you

Antonia.

-27- CONTINUATION OF INTERVIEW WITH ANTONIA HERNANDEZ

BY LOUISE LAMOTHE

FEBRUARY 6, 2006

Ms. Lamothe: Good afternoon, nice to see you again.

Ms. Hernandez: Nice to have you back.

Ms. Lamothe: I think that the best place for us to pick up is probably around the time that

you were in law school and maybe you can talk about that law school

experience a little bit and tell us how it was that you decided to do the kind

of work after law school that you chose.

Ms. Hernandez: I'll start with a couple of generalities that most people find quite unusual.

One of them is that I loved law school. I had a wonderful time in law

school.

Ms. Lamothe: So did I.

Ms. Hernandez: And, secondly, when I decided to go to law school, I knew exactly why I

wanted to go to law school. I wanted to go to law school to use the law to

impact peoples' lives. I was very clear in the general sense that I wanted

to work in the public interest, although I had no idea what that meant.

And, to that degree, I think that's what made law school so interesting to

me. I saw law school not as an end of itself, but as a vehicle, a means by

which to achieve a goal. I got fully engaged in law school and, to this day,

some of the professors who are still around are dear friends of mine. I was

on the Admissions Committee of the Law School. I was involved in

-28- Latino activities, and represented the Latino law students in the

Admissions Committee. I became intimate friends with the Dean at that

time, Murray Schwartz. Dean Susan Prager to this day is one of my

dearest, dearest friends. And now Michael Schill, who is the Dean of the

UCLA Law School, I'm getting to know him well. I'm on the Advisory

Committee of the Law School. So, in every respect, I thoroughly liked

law school. I worked and one way in which I paid for law school was that

I taught ESL during my years in law school.

Ms. Lamothe: Aw yes.

Ms. Hernandez: And then, from my second to my third year of law school, I was the first

woman, not the first Latina, but the first woman going to a professional

school to get a fellowship from the American Association of University

Women. It was the first year that they gave a fellowship to a woman not

going for a Ph.D., but going into the professions.

Ms. Lamothe: Isn't that something.

Ms. Hernandez: And that was a really interesting experience for me.

Ms. Lamothe: And so did the fellowship then allow you to do the third year of law

school without having to pay, or how did it work?

Ms. Hernandez: Actually, it gave me the freedom so that I wouldn't have to seek so many

loans. It was a combination of the fellowship and, even though I taught I

think it was 3 or 4 days a week, Monday through Thursday in the evening,

I loved teaching, because it gave me a grounding. It gave me a

-29- grounding. I taught adults and it gave me a sense of the real world while I

was still in law school. So I kept both of them.

Ms. Lamothe: Were you at that time living over on the west side of Los Angeles.

Ms. Hernandez: Yes.

Ms. Lamothe: Eventually, you must have had to move over there.

Ms. Hernandez: I ended up living on a street called Curson which is right near the arts

museum in Los Angeles, Curson and Wilshire. And it's a wonderful place

to live. Close enough to the University but far enough that you can get

really cheap rents.

Ms. Lamothe: Yes.

Ms. Hernandez: And the best part.

Ms. Lamothe: It's an interesting neighborhood there too.

Ms. Hernandez: It's a very interesting neighborhood and the landlord was another law

student, Marilyn Holle, who to this day is one of my closest friends. So it

was a really great time in my life.

Ms. Lamothe: And so you saw law school then really as a way to get the tools that you

needed to do the work that you wanted to do.

Ms. Hernandez: It was to get the skills, get the knowledge, and get the degree that would

allow me to do what I wanted to do. And during the first summer between

my first year and my second year, I worked for MALDEF.

Ms. Lamothe: I see, so you knew all about it.

-30- Ms. Hernandez: I grew up with MALDEF, the institution. MALDEF was created and

opened its doors in 1968 and I worked for MALDEF in the summer of

'72.

Ms. Lamothe: I see.

Ms. Hernandez: The second summer, between the second and the third year, I worked for

California Rural Legal Assistance in Santa Maria. And that's where I met

my husband. And while I was in Santa Maria, I was able to work on

behalf of the farmworkers and it was during that time that I got to know

and met and worked with Cesar Chavez. So they were very formative

years.

Ms. Lamothe: Yes, absolutely critical. And what kind of work was your husband doing

at that time?

Ms. Hernandez: Well, at that time he was an attorney for CRLA.

Ms. Lamothe: I see. So he was already out of law school.

Ms. Hernandez: He had graduated. Actually, he graduated from Harvard. I think it was

two years before or three years, two or three years. Then he took a

masters in law at Berkeley and taught legal writing at Berkeley. And then

from there he got a Reggie Fellow.

Ms. Lamothe: I remember the Reggie's.

Ms. Hernandez: He got a fellowship to go and work for CRLA in Santa Maria.

Ms. Lamothe: That's the Reginald Heber Smith Fellowship. I remember that I had a

number of friends who did that as well. So what year did you end up

graduating from UCLA Law School.

-31- Ms. Hernandez: I graduated the summer of '74.

Ms. Lamothe: So then what happened. Where did you go first.

Ms. Hernandez: It's interesting because I never thought or worried about getting a job and

I really didn't look. And for 1974, there were not many opportunities for

women and particularly women of color. I had no interest working in a

law firm. But even if I had, I doubted that I would have gotten a job. It

was either the public sector or with a government agency, which I saw a

lot of my friends and a few went. But basically, it was private practice or

a governmental agency or public interest law. The opportunities were

very limited and it's very difficult for women in 2006 to see this.

Ms. Lamothe: To see this.

Ms. Hernandez: Now women are the majority in many schools going to law school. But at

that time, that was so different.

Ms. Lamothe: In your class at UCLA, do you remember how many women there were.

Ms. Hernandez: We were an interesting class because it was one of those classes that had a

substantial number of people of color, one of the few. And women, I

think that one of the smartest students in my class, Susan Holliday,just

really smart woman. And we kind of formed a loose alliance of women.

There were some very interesting African-American women and very

interesting Asian women. Latina women, there were three of us. It was

Georgina Rizk and Irene Gallardo and myself.

Ms. Lamothe: It's amazing, so you can count on the fingers of one hand. And I think

you're right. It is, it seems sometimes, when we look back on that period,

-32- just light years away. And yet a lot of the attitudes that existed then still

persist. But we have definitely changed in terms of our numbers. There is

absolutely no question about it. My class a couple of years ahead of yours

at Stanford, it was the same thing. It was a handful of women that was a

little bit bigger because of the war going on. And they wanted people who

had either, were not going to be drafted or who had already served. And

so, there were a larger number of women in that class than had ever been

the case. And it prompted a lot of eyebrows being raised on the campus.

Ms. Hernandez: You were taking a man's slot.

Ms. Lamothe: That's what, oh we were told that. Absolutely. I'm sure you were told

too.

Ms. Hernandez: Oh yeah.

Ms. Lamothe: So then where did you go first? What was your first job?

Ms. Hernandez: When I left the law school, not having any sense of where I would work, I

concentrated fully on the bar. I remember that right before I took the bar at

the end of July I applied to this one position working in East LA in Model

Cities, which was at that time in LA had a legal office. And I remember

that it was so interesting. I got the job, and literally I took the bar that

week and the next Monday I started. I got paid, I believe, all of $17,000

and that was more than my father had ever earned in a year. And I

thought that was so much money. But I loved my job. The offices were

on Cesar Chavez/Brooklyn A venue. And it was interesting because it was

a very unique program. You could do criminal and civil. So I had a very

-33- diverse docket. I was doing from social security to unemployment to

criminal to constitutional. It was the whole thing. Taking it all in.

Ms. Lamothe: And so were you representing individual clients?

Ms. Hernandez: Individuals.

Ms. Lamothe: I see. In court?

Ms. Hernandez: In court. Oh yeah.

Ms. Lamothe: And what court primarily. Where were you most of the time?

Ms. Hernandez: Mostly downtown LA. Mostly, it was downtown LA.

Ms. Lamothe: Superior?

Ms. Hernandez: And I remember having several cases in East LA at that time, Municipal

Court. In my third year of law school, I did an internship with the District

Attorney's office in Beverly Hills.

Ms. Lamothe: Oh.

Ms. Hernandez: You know for one of those programs -- intern/extern programs. And then,

of course, working for MALDEF and CRLA. During that summer I

represented individual clients in Social Security claims, a work-related pay

claim; a salary claim. So I had the experience of going to court.

Ms. Lamothe: Already of representing people.

Ms. Hernandez: People. And I had a fabulous docket.

Ms. Lamothe: Then how long did you stay there?

Ms. Hernandez: I stayed there and had the opportunity to litigate one of the most

interesting cases in the country.

Ms. Lamothe: What's that?

-34- Ms. Hernandez: Sterilization of Latina women by LA County Hospital.

Ms. Lamothe: Wow.

Ms. Hernandez: And, if you recall in those days, there was this sterilization of women both

in South and North Carolina and the whole issue in the women's

movement of freedom of choice.

Ms. Lamothe: Right.

Ms. Hernandez: And putting in regulations for a 24-hour waiting period, working at the

state level of the federal level, where a lot of those regulations that came

out of that era were based on the two litigations, the sterilization case in

LA County and the sterilization of African-American women in the

Carolinas.

Ms. Lamothe: Right.

Ms. Hernandez: And so I got to work with the white women's movement. The choice

movement. I got to work with Nancy Steams and Rhonda Coplan out of

New York. The women that were doing major litigation. And it was a

very interesting. .Of course, and sort of young and inexperienced, we

litigated the case. That was the case that I litigated before Judge Jessie

Curtis at the Federal District Court here in LA. And everybody was

shocked. It was a three-week trial and everybody was shocked when he

ruled against us.

Ms. Lamothe: Huh.

Ms. Hernandez: He ruled against us. We lost in the courts, but we won at the legislative

and at the federal levels because the 24-hour waiting period was adopted.

-35- You couldn't sterilize women when they were going in there for a c­

section. You had to wait 24 hours; so the abuses stopped. And then my

good friends Richard Paez and A viva Bobb came to me and wanted to hire

me to run the Lincoln Heights Legal Aid office.

Ms. Lamothe: I see. Isn't that great?

Ms. Hernandez: So in '77, I moved from Model Cities to the Los Angeles Legal Aid and I

got married.

Ms. Lamothe: So how had you made connection again with this fellow you had met in

Santa Maria.

Ms. Hernandez: Actually, we became quick friends. You talk about women as lawyers and

the issues that women face balancing life and one of the interesting things

that, even to this day when I talk to young women, this whole issue of

balance. And I tell them that maybe because of ignorance on my part, I've

always felt that my ability to marry and have children had nothing to do

with being lawyer. I tell people that I think with my brains and I have

babies with my tummy. I never saw it that way. So I met this wonderful

fellow who shared my values, who shared my politics, who wanted to do

the same thing, who is extraordinarily supportive, and we just developed

this fabulous friendship that mushroomed and developed into a

relationship and we married.

Ms. Lamothe: How did your parents feel about this? And the rest of your family. How

supportive were they of a fellow named Stem.

-36- Ms. Hernandez: Very supportive. In fact, this is the funniest story. I started dating and

bringing him home and my parents adored him. And one day my daddy

sat me down and said it is time, "If you love that fellow, you marry him;

and if you don't, don't keep stringing him along." My parents adore my

husband.

Ms. Lamothe: Isn't that great.

Ms. Hernandez: And so they were as happy as can be. And my sisters are the ones that

maneuvered so that the relationship would work. It's really, really been

amazing. As far as me being Mexican and my husband being Jewish, I've

always made it very clear that to me my religion is very important. I'm a

Catholic. And I observe my religion. Michael is wonderful. He is from a

progressive family but didn't grow up religious.

Ms. Lamothe: So they were not practicing.

Ms. Hernandez: No.

Ms. Lamothe: Culturally, yes. But not religiously. It made a little easier, didn't it.

Ms. Hernandez: Much easier and I will tell you one funny story but I am sure my husband

does not want me to repeat but I finally met my father-in-law, who passed

away not too long ago, but just a very interesting fellow, a very

progressive fellow. He was a member of the ACLU of Northern

California, a social worker. Very, very involved. So we sat down and we

talked and he says to me, I don't have any concerns that you're Mexican.

My concerns are that you're Catholic. And I said that I have no concerns

that you're Jewish so we're just about even. (laughter) And after we got

-37- along really well. Because in many ways, we shared the values, the

politics, my mother-in-law. And I told my mother-in-law I said, "Look, I

will never deprive you from sharing the culture and the religion with the

children. Books, readings, exposure, however, they're free. And when

they get older, they are free to choose." My father-in-law and mother-in­

law and all my in-laws came to my wedding, they participated in the

wedding, I was married in the Catholic church. My mother-in-law spends

holidays with me. It's never been an issue because I've never made

either/or. This is what I believe; this is what I practice, but you expose

them. And I'm the one that when Hanukkah comes, I'm lighting the

candles.

Ms. Lamothe: Me too, let's find that Passover plate. And so what has happened with

your three children. Talk a little bit about what it was to raise them with

those two cultures and what choices have they made so far.

Ms. Hernandez: After I went to Legal Aid, then I had the most fascinating experience of

my life. At that time, Gloria Molina was my friend. We've been friends

since, in fact she was the head of an organization that I sought to be the

class plaintiffs in the sterilization case. And that's how I met her. But

anyway, we were friends. She was into politics. I was into being a do­

gooder. And she worked on behalf of Jimmy Carter on the campaign so

that, when he won, she got a job working in White House personnel at the

White House. So she would call me often, and say, "Okay Antonia, this is

the perfect job for you. Come and live in Washington." And I said no,

-38- I'm not interested. I just got married. I'm happy as can be. I'm living

close to my parents. You know, I have a great job. I'm not interested.

And so one day, she calls me up and she says, "I've got the job you'll

definitely say yes to." So that's when Kennedy had taken over as

chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the Senate.

Ms. Lamothe: Ted Kennedy.

Ms. Hernandez: Ted Kennedy. And he was looking for people for the positions as counsel

to the Judiciary Committee. So she said, they're looking. And she said,

"Look, there's a fellow going to California. ,Just talk to him." And so I

remember Jay Steptoe coming in and I came home and I told my husband.

And he said, "Antonia, please meet with him. You don't know. People

would die for this."

Ms. Lamothe: This job.

Ms. Hernandez: This opportunity. And I said, "I don't know what it is, I don't want it."

But he forced me to go meet with Jay Steptoe who was already counsel in

charge of transportation issues for the Senator. And I remember I drove to

the West Side because we were meeting in Senator Cranston's office.

And we had a lovely conversation. But at the end of it, I said, "It's a

wonderful opportunity. Thanks, but I'm not interested" and I forgot about

it. So then I got a call that they wanted me to fly to D.C. to meet the

Senator. And I go to Michael, and I said that I cannot do this because I'm

not interested. And, it's really funny because Michael said, "Please,

-39- honey, do it." At that time he was a Deputy Federal Public Defender here

in LA.

Ms. Lamothe: I see.

Ms. Hernandez: And he goes, "Honey, you don't know what an opportunity this is.

Please." And I said no. I went to my mother, and I said Mom, look

what's happening. And my mom said, "Honey, don't do it, you just got

married. Marriage is your priority." I went to my father. And I said, Pop,

help me sort it out. And he says to me, "What does Michael say?" And I

said Michael says that I should do it. He then says, "You should do it."

Your life is now with Michael and if he thinks it's an opportunity, you

should do it." So the day I was supposed to fly to Washington, D.C. to

meet the Senator, they cancelled. And they called and said "No, you don't

have to come to Washington, David Boies is coming to the Ninth Circuit

to speak in Palm Springs, and he wants to meet you in Palm Springs

because at that time David was the chief counsel of the Judiciary

Committee." I didn't know who the heck David was, right. Of course, my

husband knew, yes. But did I know? No. So, as I remember it was so

funny, I had this little Nissan and my husband says we have to go to

Robinson's to get you an interview outfit.

Ms. Lamothe: Oh great!

Ms. Hernandez: He thought of everything. I could care less. I'm a legal aid lawyer. What

can you say?

-40- Ms. Lamothe: You were a legal aid lawyer. You had to fit the part. Not a Robinson's

suit.

Ms. Hernandez: I remember we went to Robinson's. We bought an outfit. And he said,

"Honey, you have to dress like that; honey, it's important." So I had my

interview suit. So I drive to Palm Springs and then, David calls, and says,

"I'll meet you at coffee shop". And I said "how will you know that it's

me". "You'll know its me and I'll know it's you". So I drive to Palm

Springs. It was at the hotel where the Ninth Circuit was meeting and I

walk into the coffee shop and there was this guy, rumpled, seersucker suit,

which he's notorious for, and lots of rumpled hair. We sat there for two

hours. He never asked me a question about my qualifications. We had a

discussion about immigration. We had a discussion about other issues.

Nothing about the job or any question. It wasn't an interview. It was a

discussion. He said "come to my room, I'm getting ready to go make by

speech and. then if you want to you can listen to my speech". And that's it.

Ms. Lamothe: So what did you think of the interview?

Ms. Hernandez: I didn't know what to think of it.

Ms. Lamothe: So you went home?

Ms. Hernandez: I thought I'd listen it to a little bit and it was kind of boring and I left. I

drove back. I told my husband that I had had the most interesting

conversation about immigration, about civil rights, about the type of cases

I've taken. He was very interested. What did I do in this criminal case?

And how did I approach this issue in the sterilization case? How are you

-41- approaching this issue and how did you deal with this? So it was all

related to litigation and the cases. The following Monday I get a call with

a job offer.

Ms. Lamothe: Oh, for heaven sakes.

Ms. Hernandez: And I say no. Apparently, they had never gotten that before. So they

thought it was money.

Ms. Lamothe: Oh they thought you were holding out for more money.

Ms. Hernandez: I didn't even know how much they paid. And, of course, it's government

pay so I had no idea. Therefore, from wh~re I was, earning not all of the

$20,000, so anyway, they offered me the job and they couldn't believe I

said no. So David called and said he wanted to talk to me. Anyway, to

make a long story short, my husband says to me, "Antonia, listen to me."

"You don't know what an opportunity this is for you and it's going to

transform your life and how you are opening the doors to a place where no

Lantino Hispanic has ever been. You've got to do it for your community.

You've got to do for the larger cause. This is not about you and your

comfort level."

Ms. Lamothe: Wow!

Ms. Hernandez: And I said what about the babies and I want to have babies and we had

just bought our house and I love my job and whatever. He said, "No, this

is more important." And I said "What about you? You love your federal

public defender job?"

Ms. Lamothe: So what was he able to do?

-42- Ms. Hernandez: He said, "I will quit. I will follow you. I will get a job. Don't worry."

He said he will get a job.

Ms. Lamothe: What a great guy.

Ms. Hernandez: He said "I will get a job".

Ms. Lamothe: And so he did it obviously.

Ms. Hernandez: We left on a red-eye on a Friday. I remember it was really cold and there

was a snowstorm. We stayed at a friend's house, Michael's friend. When

we arrived Saturday, it snowed. Saturday I went to Lord & Taylor and

Saks to buy my suits.

Ms. Lamothe: More suits.

Ms. Hernandez: Clothes, shoes and a coat because it was snowing. And Monday I started

my job.

Ms. Lamothe: Oh, my gosh.

Ms. Hernandez: I remember I showed up, I signed all the paperwork, and then at 11 :00,

they show my this tiny little cubbyhole that they you put you in. And then

at 11 :00 they come in and say that the Senator wants to see you. So I'm

going, what do I do? So I walk in his office and of course its full of

history and everything. And he comes in and says "So you're Antonier.

I've never hired anyone I hadn't seen." It was the beginning of an

absolutely fabulous relationship to this day. I still consider him a friend.

And we're still involved in some activities. It does help. I ended up being

counsel to the Senate Judiciary.

Ms. Lamothe: Isn't that something. What a great story.

-43- Ms. Hernandez: And my husband was absolutely right. It changed my whole life. And my

husband got a job at the Justice Department, the Civil Rights Division,

Criminal Section, and he ended up just doing some fabulous litigation

throughout the country. So we lived there for five years. I had two

children while in Washington, D.C.

Ms. Lamothe: So your children were born back there.

Ms. Hernandez: Two of them were born. Once the second one was born, we realized that

we had decided to have children and at this point in time with our careers

we needed to come home. We could not, I could not, continue being

involved and engaged if I didn't have the support of my extended family

and so we moved back to California. And we made a conscious decision

that while our children were growing up, they were going to have a stable

home and that we would not move from Los Angeles so they could have a

stable life during their formative years.

Ms. Lamothe: So for how then, when was your first child born?

Ms. Hernandez: Benny was born July of '81, Marisa was born June of '83, and then Mikey

was born here in March of' 86. So within 5 years, I had three kids.

Ms. Lamothe: And so, what did you do about childcare? Was it your mom?

Ms. Hernandez: Well, it was a combination. My mom lives across the street. My sister

lives across the street. And so what we did, we hired a person who

actually lived with us for almost 14 years and saw my kids. She helped

out. But on the cultural, moral values as my mother sort of really and my

father, both of them, have been there for them. So that is why, when

-44- women ask me, "how do you do it". My answer is "barely". There are

trade-offs. There are hard decisions that you need to make and there is

never the perfect solution or the perfect way of doing it.

Ms. Lamothe: That's true. And everybody finds, I think their own path. You were so

fortunate to have your family.

Ms. Hernandez: We made the decision. I was fortunate. But I made my fortune. Because

I said notwithstanding what's in Washington, notwithstanding that I was at

that time, Democrats lost control of the Senate, I went to head the

Washington DC office ofMALDEF. It's an exciting city. My husband

had a fabulous job. But we said, we made the decision, our careers and we

knew, we could have had wonderful careers in LA. But our careers were

going to be second fiddle to the fact that we chose to have children and

therefore the children were going to be the center of our life and that we

needed to be close to my family because they're the ones to help take care

of them. And I forgot to tell you when I had my first child in Washington

D.C., my progressive, involved teacher mother-in-law retired, moved to

D.C. with me, because no stranger was going to take care of her

grandchild.

Ms. Lamothe: Aww.

Ms. Hernandez: And so she was there to take care of him. And to this day, the relationship

between my oldest and my mother-in-law is special and precious. She

was there for the first two years of his formative life.

-45- Ms. Lamothe: This seems very rare now. It's really, I mean if you will an old fashion

solution that works beautifully. It's a very traditional solution that you

recognized was going to work best in your family. And its terrific if one

can get that kind of a solution to work.

Ms. Hernandez: You're absolutely right. And actually, it was so interesting because, like I

said, my in-laws are not your typical in-laws. They are very involved.

My mother-in-law is written up in books because she was one of the early

CLUW organizers for the women in organized labor. She's an union

organizer and a teacher. My father-in-law was a counselor in prisons, a

social worker. So my mother-in-law is not your typical stay-at-home

mother-in-law. But Benny was the first grandchild, as in the Second

Coming.

Ms. Lamothe: Does Michael have siblings?

Ms. Hernandez: Yes.

Ms. Lamothe: But he was the first one to produce a grandchild.

Ms. Hernandez: So this was it. And my mother-in-law was interesting, because I

remember we called my mother-in-law for Mother's Day in May of '81 to

tell her the baby was coming. She told us I have submitted my retirement,

I am going to go to Paris and spend a month in Paris. On the way back,

I'm moving in. And of course, I went "Oh!, what's going on? So I didn't

know what to do and then I said Mrs. Stern you don't have to do this. And

she said I'm doing it, I've done it. So I hung up the phone and I called my

mother. I said, "Mommy, guess what happened". And you know what

-46- my mother said? She said, "Number one it doesn't matter that she's

going. What she does with your house, it doesn't matter. None of that

matters. What matters is that you have someone who is going to love and

adore your child, who is going to give him all the care, and therefore, that

is the priority. Get over it, make room for her, and organize your life

around her and the baby".

Ms. Lamothe: Wow.

Ms. Hernandez: And that was the end of the story. I could not whine. I could not

complain. I could not whatsoever. It was "get over it."

Ms. Lamothe: But they did not talk in advance.

Ms. Hernandez: No, it was my mother. It's a top priority, she's offering. Whatever

adjustments you have to make, make them. Get over it. Exactly. And

actually, we made all the accommodations. When we moved back to LA,

she moved back to San Francisco which is her home. She's very close to

my children, very, very close.

Ms. Lamothe: That's wonderful.

Ms. Hernandez: But the point I'm making is, that as a professional woman, I made choices.

Now they're in college, but throughout the time from '86 or '85, '86 when

we moved back from D.C=-until today, while they were in school, neither

my husband nor I would ever entertain any type of circumstance that

would move us from Los Angeles. Because they were to have a stable

home.

Ms. Lamothe: And it worked for you.

-47- Ms. Hernandez: And it worked.

Ms. Lamothe: And it worked for them. Do they, now looking back on their childhood

count as one of the important things, their sense of roots.

Ms. Hernandez: Absolutely. And they will tell you that when they left, they thought that

was the norm. And when they went to college, they found that they were

not the norm. And they will tell you that they count as one of their

blessings that they have had a very stable home and a very extended one.

And they are very close to their cousins. They do things together. Family

in our life comes first. And that's not just my family, but Michael's

family.

Ms. Lamothe: That's great. So during that time that you were in Washington, when first

your son was born and then your daughter was born, what work were you

doing at that point? Was it required that you do a lot of travel or were you

working basically on legislation, what was your work like?

Ms. Hernandez: Well, it was a combination of both, as counsel to the Senate Judiciary

Committee, I was responsible for some constitutional issues, immigration

issues, and also the confirmation of some of the judges, particularly the

Ninth Circuit. Jerry Tinker and I were the two people who worked on the

Senate side and were responsible for passage of the Refugee Act of 1980.

Ms. Lamothe: So talk a little bit about that why don't you. Just to place it in a broader

context than sort of a political and legislative context. What was going on

at the time.

-48- Ms. Hernandez: What's really interesting from a legal perspective and a woman's

perspective, particularly during our time, is that you can't dream of what

you do not know. You cannot seek what you are not exposed to. I had no

sense other than what was written in the books about the legislative

process. I had no sense of how power and influence works. I had no

sense of how the inner circle of power works. And to be this immigrant

girl from East LA and to be thrust into, sort of the midst of power in the

legislative sens,e was really quite an experience. A lot of people say that

one of the things about Senator Kennedy, whether they do agree with him

or not, he has the reputation of hiring the best and the brightest. And so

my colleagues, Susan Estridge, David Boies, Stephen Breyer, was my boss

because he was counsel to the Judiciary, Ron Brown was my boss. There

was Kenny Feinberg doing the criminal code and these people, those were

my colleagues. Those were the people I worked with and they really

stretched me and challenged me. As far as being a woman, more women,

particularly now, the cases are exploring the different aspects of the law.

It is not just your perception of what law is important. It's not just

litigation; it's not just appeals; it's not just transactional. The law in

American society transverses almost every activity of American life. The

other thing that I learned in D.C. was that most of the legislation is driven

by very young people. Most of the work, whether it's in the Senate or in

the House, any legislative branch, you have young, inexperienced people

like me working on legislation. There are, of course, experienced people

-49- but you know the rhythm of legislation is that its driven by young,

idealistic people from both sides. And so I found it fascinating on how

legislation is made. It's absolutely true that it's like making sausage. And

there are things that I learned which I think compliments my personality

and approach to life. It's a process of give and take.

Ms. Lamothe: Yes, very much so. It's not something where a victory, you have today,

you have for all time. You don't, you still have to live together.

Ms. Hernandez: And not only that, but I think that women in many ways are much more

suited for legislative work. As women, we have had to transverse a lot of

worlds. We understand the give and take. We understand the balancing.

We understand more because we have been forced to because of our roles

as mothers, as daughters. In many ways that helped me tremendously.

Ms. Lamothe: Um huh.

Ms. Hernandez: The fact that I understood what it is to give and take. That you're not

always going to get everything you want and that you're not always right.

And that you have to put yourself in other people's shoes and see issues

from different perspectives. And, as a woman of color, I've been very

accustomed to doing that. So in that sense, I think that I was able to do

well in that world. The politician and partisan politics are much more

partisan now. When I was there, I had to staff Senator Thurmond. I had

to staff Senator Hatch, Senator Grassley and Senator Alan Simpson

because they were members of the Judiciary Committee and we worked

for the entire committee. And it was very collegial. It was extraordinary

-50- people, strong philosophical differences, but always within a collegial

environment.

Ms. Lamothe: So people were not nasty to you.

Ms. Hernandez: Oh no, and there was this sense of confidence. I could call Charles

Mathias, Senator Mathias, "What about this?" Alan Simpson became a

friend of mine. So it an accommodating environment. I don't believe it's

that way now. But, when I was there, it was very much an

accommodating environment and, of course, I got to know the leadership

of the civil rights movement and to work with the leadership of the civil

rights movement. And to this day I still have a lot of contacts and a lot of

my work is still connected to Washington and New York.

Ms. Lamothe: Certainly, certainly.

Ms. Hernandez: I would say that going to Washington, working in Washington, was a very

transformative time in my life.

Ms. Lamothe: One of the areas that you have worked in and I know spoken about a lot

over the years is immigration. Will you talk a little bit about the time that

you spent in Washington what opportunities you had to work on those

issues and then after you came back, what have you done in the field of

immigration?

Ms. Hernandez: I think many of us sometimes are typecast. And certain issues are given to

you because of what you are and who you are. And I believe that

immigration was one of those issues. I happen to be an immigrant. I

happened to be very interested in immigration issues, but I didn't always

-51- say "I'm going to be an immigration expert or this is my thing". I was

typecast. There is some good to that and a lot of opportunities came out it

but there was also a negative side to it that I think in many ways I was not

given an opportunity to do a lot of other things.

Ms. Lamothe: Yes.

Ms. Hernandez: Because of that typecasting, women get typecast in many instances. So

we make the best of it. I happened to be very passionate about the

immigration issue and developed an expertise on immigration law and that

is one of the major issues that I covered in the Judiciary Committee and

subsequent to that, of course, with MALDEF. When I went to work with

MALDEF this was one of the major issues of the day.

Ms. Lamothe: Certainly.

Ms. Hernandez: Because it was Simpson-Massoli legislation. And it still is.

Ms. Lamothe: And it's not going away.

Ms. Hernandez: And it's not gonna go away. So in that in that sense.

Ms. Lamothe: At least you chose right. It's been full employment. Think of that way. A

long time. It's true though isn't it that sometimes you feel as though there

are so many other issues I want to speak on, why do people keep asking

me about this one? But it is true.

Ms. Hernandez: But there is some sense, and I think there is some common sense as to why

as an immigrant I am grounded in it. I've had the experience of going

through the process. I've had the experience of being seen as an

immigrant. I've been here since 1956. I came as a child. People look at

-52- me today and still ask me where I came from. Because, in their eyes, I

still don't look like an American, even though I am an American. So this

is another one of my own philosophies in life: you don't complain about

you are, throwing away or you embrace it and go with it and make the best

of it. My philosophy is always "make lemonade out lemons." I always

make the best of it and I fight it. I happen to be a Latino and a woman and

I know that my success opened doors for a lot of people. And when I

know that my failure would not be my failure but would reflected in my

community. I am very much aware ofit. It's not a burden. That's just

life. So you just go with it. Immigration is one of those interesting issues

in American society. It's like language. It's like religion. It's a gut issue.

It's an emotional issue. That comes with all of the baggage. Logic and

common sense and data in fact have ...

Ms. Lamothe: Have nothing to do with it.

Ms. Hernandez: Nothing to do with your reaction. And so that's why we're embroiled to

this day. On this whole issue of immigrants and immigration, I think to a

large degree that this issue is much more embedded in American life today

than it was when I was in Congress or when I was in the Senate 25 years

ago. Because today immigrants are a much larger part of American

society and the demographics have changed. When I came to this country

in 1956, there was very little immigration to the United States from

Mexico in California. If you look at the statistics, it was like a little book.

Ms. Lamothe: Illegally as well as legally, little?

-53- Ms. Hernandez: Little. And there was very little immigration from the part of the world

where I came from. The volume of immigration as we know it today

began literally in the earnest in the 70's. It was a product of the 80's and

the 90's and the late 70's.

Ms. Lamothe: And terrible poverty.

Ms. Hernandez: And terrible poverty. But it's not just you perceive it as Mexicans and

Salvadorians. It's also Pakistanis. You go into Washington, D.C., it's

different. Boston is the Irish

Ms. Lamothe: Every city that you can think of is impacted and whether Vietnamese

fisherman.

Ms. Hernandez: Exactly.

Ms. Lamothe: Or the moving, the people who have flooded into Southern California

from Asia. It's remarkable to watch the rest of American society trying to

understand how to accommodate these groups of people.

Ms. Hernandez: But the interesting thing is the rest of America, like if you go into Atlanta,

Georgia or you go into Tifton, Georgia. I'll give you a couple of examples

in some of the speeches I used to make. I started going to the Southeast

when we saw the migratory flows after the 90s. Dalton, Georgia is the

carpet capital of the United States. Fifty years ago it was a sprinkle of

Mexicans. Today, over 50 percent of the schools are Mexican-American.

You go into Tifton, Georgia. Now Tifton is especially different. You go

into Gainesville. Now Gainesville is where people kill the chickens. They

don't grow the chickens there, but they are big on poultry. It was only a

-54- sprinkle, and today it's over 50 percent. If you go into Raleigh-Durham,

stop by the Home Depot. It's like stopping at Home Depot here

everywhere you go. The migration is not just from the south; it's in

Detroit, the Middle-Eastern community; it's just wherever. The fact of the

matter is that this country has become much more heterogeneous.

Secondly, the economics.

Ms. Lamothe: We were talking about immigration and some of the issues that you have

seen, the visceral attitudes that people have in the United States about

immigration issues.

Ms. Hernandez: Well, it seems that, at the end of the day, we haven't had a real honest

conversation about the visceral reaction. I think that its part of the

ongoing discussion that really we've never had on civil rights and you

can't really divorce it you know from when I say honest conversation and

open conversation about the racial components. It's really funny because

there were a lot of undocumented blue-eyed blondes but nobody sees it as

an issue; but if they don't look like what you perceive.an American to look

like, then it's the issue of the changing demographics, the changing

component that comes with the culture. I tell people, "People love our

music, our food, our dancing; it's just the dam people that they don't like."

Ms. Lamothe: That's right (laughter).

Ms. Hernandez: Okay, I know they just like whatever.

Ms. Lamothe: Or they feel as though it's okay in a small number.

Ms. Hernandez: In a small number.

-55- Ms. Lamothe: But somehow knowing that the birthrate is higher. That you have that

feeling of, oh, other Americans will be swamped, be submerged, be

engulfed.

Ms. Hernandez: Or these Americans won't look like the way I perceive the Americans to

look.

Ms. Lamothe: That's right.

Ms. Hernandez: What people forget, and I can say this as an immigrant, to a large degree

to be an American is an ideal, a state of mind. But if you look at what

makes us Americans, it's the fierce independence, the entrepreneurial

spirit, the belief that we can do anything and achieve anything. We're in a

country that allows us to believe in whatever we want to, to pursue

whatever we want to. It's a state of mind. But it's like you cannot

perceive it. That people that don't look like you can have those same

values.

Ms. Lamothe: That's true. It's really a failure of vision. And it's such a shame to see

and yet I think you're right. I think it's time for a much more honest

conversation where people can really get down to discussion because

without it is truly frightening to think.

Ms. Hernandez: We speak in code words.

Ms. Lamothe: What a powder keg it is.

Ms. Hernandez: It is an interesting thing about it is that it's detrimental. At the end of the

day it's just the demographics of the world. What has kept this country

ahead of Europe has been the immigration issue which has filled the

-56- economy. That's not to say, and I want to be very, very clear that I do not

believe that there are no challenges with immigration, that I do not believe

that we have a right to control our borders, that I do not believe that we

don't need to pay attention as to how we integrate people, and that to be an

American, it's not just about rights. It's about rights and responsibilities.

People coming to this country have to understand that there are certain

expectations. And that you have to give in the collective. You have to

buy into the collective.

Ms. Lamothe: And the values.

Ms. Hernandez: And the values of the collective.

Ms. Lamothe: So talk to me a little bit about your experience of being a naturalized

citizen. When did that happen for you and give us a little bit of

background on that event. That was very important I'm sure in your life.

Ms. Hernandez: I know in many ways that I'm not the norm. My dad was born in the

United States. His family was pushed out during the Depression. So my

dad always knew he was born in the United States and my uncles and my

aunts were born in the United States. He grew up in Mexico because the

family was pushed there into abject poverty. My grandfather died on that

trip back to Mexico. So my father grew up without a father. And he kept

going back and forth. He married my mom and he decided to bring us to

the States. When we crossed the border, it was in Juarez El-Paso. By law,

we were entitled to derivative birth because we're children of a U.S.

citizen. But because my father couldn't prove that he had spent the first

-57- eight years of his life in the United States, the immigration officers said,

"Look we'll just give you a green card and you can just cross the border

and quickly and in two months get the process over with". Because we

were coming into Juarez and living in Juarez while my father emigrated

us, the easiest way was to get a green card instead of going through the

derivative process line. So we knew we were children of a U.S. citizen,

and therefore, it was no big deal. I get to law school and actually I was

one of the persons with others who first instituted an immigration course

at UCLA Law and brought in Ron Bonaparte, who was a practicing

lawyer on immigration, to be the first professor of immigration law. But I

found out that I was not a citizen. I was in law school so I went to

immigration and filled out the papers and went through the process to

become a citizen. And I remember it was so silly. I was already a law

student. I went for my interview. The guy wanted me to write, "I went to

the store to buy a loaf of bread."

Ms. Lamothe: Oh for proficiency in English.

Ms. Hernandez: So I wrote "I went to the store to buy a loaf of bread." He asked me some

questions about how many justices to the Supreme Court so I gave him the

answer and then I got my certificate, and I, of course, became a citizen.

And to me citizenship is very important. I grew up in an environment

where my parents, in particular my father, are uneducated. In fact, he

taught himself how to read and write and is an extraordinarily smart man.

From the day we crossed the border, I don't think my father has ever

-58- missed voting in an election. We grew up knowing and being involved

and aware of politics.

Ms. Lamothe: The responsibilities of citizenship.

Ms. Hernandez: The responsibilities. I mean everybody votes in my family. We control

over 25 votes. Everybody votes. When I was growing up my father used

to drag me to the beginning of the demonstrations. He knew and he would

take food when I went and picketed Safeway because they sold lettuce and

grapes.

Ms. Lamothe: I remember.

Ms. Hernandez: We have always grown up in a very politically-active family.

Ms. Lamothe: Very active. Yes.

Ms. Hernandez: Not active in the sense of politics but civically active that we know our

responsibility. And my philosophy is that if you don't vote, you have no

right to whine and complain.

Ms. Lamothe: You can't talk. That's right.

Ms. Hernandez: And I tell people, "Have you voted? Because if you have, I'll listen to you.

But if you haven't, you have no right to complain." And that was the

philosophy of the household I was brought up in.

Ms. Lamothe: And that's what your parent said no doubt.

Ms. Hernandez: The other value that our parents taught us was that serving in the public

interest is a very noble endeavor.

Ms. Lamothe: It's a very high calling.

-59- Ms. Hernandez: A high calling. I have a sister who teaches at junior college and works for

Headstart. I have a sister who is a school principal. I have two others who

are teachers. My brother is an engineer but he volunteers for Habitat for

Humanity. And we been brought up by my parents telling us to serve the

public interest, be good citizens. Being good public citizens is the value

that our parents taught us.

Ms. Lamothe: Right, and you've carried it on also to your children.

Ms. Hernandez: Yes. Very much so.

Ms. Lamothe: And so what are their interests now as they are growing up.

Ms. Hernandez: Well, Ben is graduating this May from law school and he's going to clerk

with Judge Harry Pregerson. My daughter graduated from Brown last

June and joined the Jesuit volunteer program and she is working with

farmworkers in Georgia. And she's going to do that for a year or two

before she goes to graduate school or law school. But she's very civic

minded and then my younger son is a sophomore at Brown.

Ms. Lamothe: That's great. That's terrific. Talk to me a little bit about MALDEF

because MALDEF is, I mean, it's so intimately related with your name.

It's an organization that really bears your stamp on it still. Tell me a little

bit about that.

Ms. Hernandez: Well, MALDEF. Some of us are blessed to be able to find a job that

combines our passion and MALDEF is that institution. I used to tell

people that I should pay to work at MALDEF. It's a wonderful vehicle for

really testing your wits, being a great lawyer,and working on cases that

-60- have major impact. Here one is able to articulate and be a voice for a

people in a community while working with some of the brightest people.

So I worked at MALDEF for 23 years. It was a fabulous vehicle. It is the

noblest of ways to practice law. And I used to tell people "I've never lost

sleep, I never spent a sleepless night wondering if I was doing the right

thing. I've spent a lot of sleepless nights wondering how I was going to

make payroll, raising the funds, but I never questioned what I did." And I

tell them that the law, this is the beauty of the law. I've been blessed to be

able to practice law in its highest calling and to give life to what the law

should be.

Ms. Lamothe: The noblest aspects of it.

Ms. Hernandez: And the other thing about MALDEF and what I've done, I tell people,

"I'm a very conservative person by nature." People think that that's an

oxymoron, but it's not. And MALDEF is a vehicle. This is the beauty of

American society and the law. There are vehicles within American

society to mend, to shake, to stretch within the system and that's what the

law is. The goal of MALDEF is to make the system live up to its ideals.

To the best of what American society can be and we can do it all within

the law. Every tool, every strategy, the strategies and the tools that

American society gives. And that most people of wealth ...

Ms. Lamothe: People take it for granted.

Ms. Hernandez: To me it's very ...

Ms. Lamothe: Very empowering.

-61- Ms. Hernandez: It's very empowering. MALDEF has given me access and opportunities

that most people would not have access to. So I have been very blessed.

It hasn't been and wasn't a trouble-free 23 years by any stretch of the

imagination. But what I've learned about management, I learned at

MALDEF. What I know about leadership, I learned at MALDEF. What I

know about influencing public policy in the larger sense, I learned at

MALDEF. So I'm very grateful to the institution.

Ms. Lamothe: Who were your mentors there and how was it that you got started. I mean

obviously, you began even when you were in law school but what was that

caused you to take the job and ....

Ms. Hernandez: When I was still working in the Senate, Vilma Martinez was president of

MALDEF. She had called me and offered me a job and I said "Are you

crazy? I love what I do, no." And then she called again and offered me a

job, and I said, "No, I'm not interested." And at that time, Mike Ballard,

Morris Ballard, was the vice president for litigation. In our civil rights

world, Mike had litigated some of the big employment cases in the

Supreme Court. So for lawyers who love litigation and civil rights this

was an incredible opportunity to work with Mike Ballard. So he called me

and offered me the job and I said "No, I won't take it." Then, the week

after the Democrats lost control of the Senate and I lost my job, Vilma

called me and said "Well, are you now interested in my job?" And I said,

"No," I wasn't yet interested. And in fact, I will tell you when Kennedy

lost, when the Democrats lost control, and Kennedy knew he was losing

-62- his chairmanship, he called us all, all us counsel. And he said "I will do

whatever I can to place you where you want to go. Tell me what you want

to do. Tell me where you want to go". And when I shared with him

MALDEF. He didn't want me to. He said Antonia, "You're one of the

very few that have been able to break into this world. You can make such

a difference doing other things, MALDEF will always be there. You can

always go back to that world but there is so many other opportunities.

Don't limit yourself'. And yet I chose because I knew that's why I went

to law school.

Ms. Lamothe: That's right._ And also the affinity with the balance that you wanted to

choose the rest of your life. Because when you moved from the MALDEF

office in Washington right, then you moved back here?

Ms. Hernandez: Actually, I quit. I quit MALDEF, I'm moving back home. I don't know

what I'm going to do. But at that time, Joaquin Avila was President and

Vilma Martinez had left. He basically said "Antonia you can go back to

litigating and do whatever you want to do out of the LA office, but stay at

MALDEF." So I chose to stay. In many ways, what I tell all students and

women, I never had a 5-year plan or a IO-year or a one-day plan. I don't

know what I'm going to do tomorrow. Actually, my secretary does. But I

tell them, please don't be blind-sided and don't be blind-sided by a plan

because you are going to miss all of life's opportunities. If you're so

focused on this plan, you're going to miss all those opportunities that are

going to come your way. My life has been one of all these opportunities

-63- coming my way that I never planned for and I couldn't have planned for.

So I moved back to LA and started back on the litigation route, doing

employment litigation and then, within a very short time, took the

leadership first as Vice-President for MALDEF and then I was elected

President of MAL DEF.

Ms. Lamothe: And what year was that? Was that '85?

Ms. Hernandez: '85. And then what happened which is really interesting, I got elected in

'85. I would like to say that it was a unanimous vote but it wasn't. Four

folks, males, did not want me to be the president of MALDEF because

they didn't see me as a leader. They thought a woman could not to be a

leader at MALDEF. Even though Vilma had been president ofMALDEF.

Ms. Lamothe: Had they been on the Board at that point?

Ms. Hernandez: And so they were ready for a male leader. Take the institution wherever.

And here I came. And I was relatively young.

Ms. Lamothe: What experience did you have for example in fund raising and

management?

Ms. Hernandez: Well, in fund raising I had quite a bit. Because what had happened was

when I was in Washington, that's the interesting thing when you live in

Washington, I got to know the Ford Foundation and the people at the Ford

Foundation. I got to know Rockefeller Foundation. I got to know

Carnegie Corporation. One of the interesting things I discovered is that

Washington and New York are a very small, insular world and once you

make it into that world, you're one of them. Whereas, if you come from

-64- this part of the world entering that world, it's really hard. Well, I was

already part of the. So I knew the people and, in fundraising, it's all about

relationships.

Ms. Lamothe: That's right. It's who you know.

Ms. Hernandez: It's who you know. And I knew the media. I knew philanthropy, so in

that sense I knew. As far as management, I had run a small office but I

didn't, and that was the deficit. So I started, and I must say that from the

day I started, those folks were dead-set on making my life miserable.

Ms. Lamothe: Those four.

Ms. Hernandez: And it came to a point where they saw an opportunity to appoint the

former Governor of New Mexico, Tony Anaya, as the president and

general counsel of MALDEF and the fact that they thought that would

bring in a lot of prestige.

Ms. Lamothe: And this was in

Ms. Hernandez: In '87. And so they set out to fire me and it became a very public fight. It

was on the front page of the LA Times and on the front page of the New

York Times. I mean it was a very public feud.

Ms. Lamothe: Describe if you will sort of how that particular event unfolded.

Ms. Hernandez: It was the person who became my chair. The two consecutive people who

became my chairs made it very clear that I was not their candidate. I was

not their person and I'm usually pretty accommodating, or I try to be but I

will not be pushed around. That's just who I am. And so when I wouldn't

go along with their party line and I ended up having disagreements my

-65- role as the president and what they wanted and what I thought the

organization needed. And there are no absolute wrongs. There are no

absolute rights. I'm sure I contributed to the discord. But it was there. So

in March, back in 1987, the Executive Committee

Ms. Lamothe: Which was how many people?

Ms. Hernandez: It must have been about eight, formed a little cabal.

Ms. Lamothe: How big is the Board.

Ms. Hernandez: The Board is usually between 35, 36, the maximum is 40, but it ranges

between 34 and 3 7. But it was the Executive Committee formed a little

cabal, scheduled a meeting in Dallas, Texas and ordered me to fly to

Dallas, Texas. I thought I was going for an Executive Committee meeting

and, when I got to Dallas, they put me in a room, and literally said to me,

"We want you to resign." If people ask me the right way and they reason

with me, I usually accommodate them. But I do have a very stubborn

streak about me. And if you push me up against the wall, I'm going to

fight you. And so I said, "No, fire me. I am not resigning. I have not

done anything wrong. You do not have the authority to fire me. I will not

resign. Do whatever you feel". And they said "If you walk out of this

room and you do not resign, we will fire you. We will deem you that you

have quit." I would not quit. And so they had already arranged for the ex­

Governor to fly into Dallas. So that afternoon they had a press conference

announcing the new President and General Counsel of MALDEF.

Ms. Lamothe: Oh.

-66- Ms. Hernandez: They got very little publicity in Dallas. I flew back and I was really upset.

Not that they had fired me, but I was so upset that, in my parents' eyes, I

had always been the model child. I had always been successful.

Ms. Lamothe: You were some how letting them down.

Ms. Hernandez: And here, I was going to be humiliated. And that I would have to tell

them I had been fired.

Ms. Lamothe: Publicly humiliated.

Ms. Hernandez: Publicly humiliated. I was waiting on my parents. So I remember flying

back and I called my lawyer friends and all of them said "They can't do

this. What are you going to do?" I came home, I told my parents and I

told my husband. And I remember my husband saying, "You're not a

quitter." And my father told me the same. And I said I don't need this. I

have so many options I can go do this, or I can do that. I don't need this

job. But my parents said "You're not a quitter. And if you do not fight

this it will not be you." I said I don't want to fight. Because you have to

fight it. So yeah, I went, I hired some lawyers. W sued in Texas because

that's where MALDEF was incorporated.

Ms. Lamothe: I see, I didn't realize.

Ms. Hernandez: It was incorporated in Sabine, Texas. We went and got an injunction.

There was a whole meeting of the Board of Directors. I barely won

because the politics of race and also because they actually did some

terrible things. The people who were fighting me were saying that I was

-67- there by the support of the white folks. The Board voted and I believe the

vote was 17-14. It was acrimonious and very public.

Ms. Lamothe: Was it thereafter pretty divided for a long time or did they come together

behind you.

Ms. Hernandez: No. I consolidated power. And people said, "Well you're good". And

goodness--! was very good. I controlled the power. It only happens to me

once. Those Board members as soon as I got them out of the Board, we

moved on. But no, I consolidated power. I also learned some lessons. I

learned that as the head of an organization, and to this day, I have to keep

my Board informed. I have to communicate with my Board. I have to

share with my Board. I have put extra effort. So there were a lot of really

good lessons. It's not just this thing happened with the board, it's also

knowing what did I do that contributed to the issue. There's very few

instances in life where it's black and white. It's a shade of grey and by

personality or by actions or by deeds. We all contribute to where we are

in life. So to me, it was "What did I do?" So to me, it was okay what did

I do. What could I do differently and what could I have done differently?

Ms. Lamothe: Then how could I learn from this and move on?

Ms. Hernandez: Exactly. And so that's what I did.

Ms. Lamothe: I think we ought to stop now. Thank you.

-68- This is the third session of the oral history of Antonia Hernandez being taken by Louise

Lamothe. The date is April 18, 2006.

Ms. Lamothe: Antonia, hello

Antonia: How are you?

Ms. Lamothe: I'm fine and you?

Antonia: Fine, thank you.

Ms. Lamothe: Great. We left off at our last session talking about the years, the early

period of time that you spent at MALDEF and, particularly, that very

tumultuous time when you were fired and then regained power. And I

wonder if you could pick up at that point and talk for a while about what

you accomplished from then on as the President of MALDEF.

Antonia: I think that my tenure at MALDEF, the decade of the '80s and into the 21st

century, is a reflection and coincides very well with the evolution of the

Latino community. In many ways, the work of MALDEF through its voting

rights, redistricting and education cases, paved the way for what you see

today, in large part, the political involvement of the Latino community and

particularly in the critical states in the Southwest and Illinois. It was mostly

-69- through our litigation in Texas that the political face of the state was

transformed. In California, it was the litigation that we did in the late '80s,

the litigation in the early '90s, and our redistricting that basically resulted in

the political participation of the Latinos in California, Texas, New Mexico

and Arizona. It was through our litigation that went to the Supreme Court

three times that the first congressional district in Chicago, Illinois was

created and resulted in the first Latino to get elected. In many ways, as we

look at the work ofMALDEF and my leadership, it's marked by our

involvement in opening the political process for the Latino community. The

same can be said for our involvement in the current issue that is consuming

the day, the issue of immigration. In the early '80s, it was the Simpson­

Mazzoli bill that passed in '86 and the subsequent litigation, and, of course,

the present debate taking place today in 2006. I've been asked many times

"What's so different about America's reaction to the flow of immigrants

beginning in the late '70s, '80s and '90s, particularly with the Latino

community?" There are a lot of misimpressions. Up to the mid-'70s, the

flow of immigrants, specifically from Mexico, was very low.

Ms. Lamothe: And why was that?

Antonia: Because, in reality, they had the bracero program. And the people came

here through the bracero program. The last major influx of Mexicans from

Mexico was as a consequence of the Mexican revolution. And that's where

a large in-flow of Mexicans came. That was cut-off, when the Depression

came and immigration literally came to a standstill in the United States.

-70- Ms. Lamothe: Right, and then, also, some Mexicans were actually repatriated; people who

lived in the United States were sent back.

Antonia: During the Depression.

Ms. Lamothe: Right.

Antonia: Were sent back. What happened is that, due to the labor shortage during

World War II, the bracero program was established. And what a lot of

Americans don't realize is that it was that flow that was established during

the bracero program continued. The bracero program took place in the mid-

1940' s to 1964. The braceros were from certain states in Mexico. When

that program ended, the flow didn't stop. But instead of coming legally or

temporarily, they began to come illegally. But it was a trickle. It was very

small. In fact, in California, when I came to the States in 1956, I was an

anomaly. There was not a lot of Mexican immigration. It started in the late

'70s. And the real flow from Mexico and the new flow, very new from El

Salvador and Guatemala.

Ms. Lamothe: Honduras and so forth.

Antonia: Exactly. It's a late '80s, and '80s, '90s phenomenon.

Ms. Lamothe: Uh-huh.

Antonia: I think the difference is this predominance, over 50% of the immigration

legally and illegally, is from south of the border. We have a large in-flow

from the Philippines and from Southeast Asia. Underneath the debate is the

not so subtle fear that, literally, the complexion of America has changed.

Ms. Lamothe: Absolutely.

-71- Antonia: In American society there are three major factors that impact how natives

perceive immigrants. I think it's worldwide. They are language, religion,

and race. Here in the United States, you have two. The debate on bilingual

education was the code word for a debate on immigration. Now, there's no

more code word. In California, we had Proposition 187 in 1994 and it

hasn't really stopped. When you were having the debate on Prop 187, we

had a major recession in California. I used to tell folks, "Listen, the

recession was caused by the change in the defense industry. There were no

undocumented workers working in the defense industry. There was the

debacle in the savings and loans industry and I don't know of any

undocumented that owned savings and loans." It was an economic

transformation of the California economy. The undocumented was there

and so immigration became the issue. And now, today, it's the same thing.

Immigration is a funny issue. I have been living with it for thirty years. It's

not a Democrat issue. It's not a Republican issue. It's an issue with the

strangest of bedfellows.

Ms. Lamothe: It is, isn't it. Why do you say that it's not a Democrat or Republican issue?

Antonia: If you look at immigration, first and foremost, it is an economic issue.

From the Republican, or the business Republican perspective, you also have

to look at the Republican Party from different vantage points. Traditionally,

up to twenty-years ago, until President Ronald Reagan, the Republican

Party was seen as the party of business and that was their perspective, one of

less government and more of a business perspective. You had the Lindsays

-72- and you had the Mathias' s who favored less government, for lawful

government and business interests. As an economic interest, immigration

has grown. There's no question about it.

Ms. Lamothe: Sure.

Antonia: From the Democrat perspective, organized labor is a strong force. And the

protectionism that goes with the leadership of organized labor.

Ms. Lamothe: Are threatened by a huge influx of immigration. Sure, to break unions

which are what they would be worried about.

Antonia: Exactly, protecting the current industrialized. At the same time you have

the predominantly conservative Southern Democrat, what I call the

Christian right moving to the Republican Party. So immigration is as

strange as its bedfellows. When I was in Washington, it was the strangest

thing to see. We would testify on immigration issues. Here is a table of

four people testifying. Two for, two against. And here's me and the United

States Chamber of Commerce testifying against the bill. My allies on that

were the business interests. On the other side, testifying for the legislation

and employee sanctions was the AFL-CIO!

Ms. Lamothe: Sure.

Antonia: Then there were some ethnic groups at that time like the NAACP because of

the fear of the takeaway from jobs. So where it is on most issues, it would

be reversed. And I think, right now, the debate that people hear about is a

debate that confounds the evidence.

-73- Ms. Lamothe: I think so too. What about the fear that seems to be just barely below the

surface, that Latinos in particular don't seem to be so interested in

assimilation?

Antonia: I don't agree with it. I don't see it. But, once again, what are they really

saying? Because if we are going to talk about assimilation, let's talk about

immigration from Europe. First, it was mostly Anglo-Saxon immigration.

And that's the general perception of this country's origins. Even though the

Native Americans were here, the perception is that we are an Anglo-Saxon

extension of England. So anything that differs from that is threatening.

When the Italians came in, they were different. When the Germans came in,

and people from Poland, they were different too and yet they were sort of

similar. They were like distant cousins. Therefore, the United States is an

exceedingly open country for those who want to have an open door. And if

you're perceived to look like, or to come from a culture that is somewhat

similar to the Anglo-Saxon, it's much more inviting. And that's what the

fear is. What you have is fear of the Mexicans, the Guatemalans,

Salvadorans and Chileans coming in. And Americans can't usually tell the

difference.

Ms. Lamothe: That's right.

Antonia: But it's there. And then, of course, there are the Asians and Filipino people

who are very, very different. The fact of the matter is that if you look at the

history of immigration and if you measure immigrants who come to this

country and the process for assimilation, it's a three-generation process. If

-74- you look at people from south of the border, they're assimilating at the same

rate, if not faster. The difference is that the flow doesn't stop. It stopped for

Germans and Italians. There was a major in-flow, then a trickle. There are

people coming in, but not in large numbers. So people in California or

Texas can't see the assimilation because the flow continues.

Ms. Lamothe: Sure.

Antonia: But if you look at the time period when people have been here. Look at me,

I am the immigrant generation. I am not just the first. I wasn't born here.

My children are totally assimilated into the process. And this is within one

generation.

Ms. Lamothe: Right.

Antonia: So, it is happening. But the perception, because of the continuous flow, is

that it's not happening.

Ms. Lamothe: I think that's right, and also I think, as you said before, these issues of

language are in many ways overriding. Consider all those cases about the

right to speak Spanish in the work place, those kinds of cases have arisen in

the last ten or fifteen years.

Antonia: But what's interesting is that the first anti-bilingual cases in the Supreme

Court and other courts originated out of the Midwest on the issue of

retaining the German language.

Ms. Lamothe: Interesting. Same kind of thing?

Antonia: The same issues. If you litigate in this area, that's where you find the first

cases. Those Germans in the Midwest were not acculturating and

-75- assimilating. Unfortunately, Americans tend to be a nation less interested in

learning and speaking a different language. In Europe or in any other

country, an educated person speaks three, four or five languages.

Ms. Lamothe: Many languages. That's right.

Antonia: Here, unfortunately, this is not the case and diplomatically we suffer the

consequences. The uniqueness of the Latino community, and I speak for

myself as I'm as American as they come, is that it doesn't mean that I have

to lose the culture I was born with or the language. I see myself much more

valuable because I can speak two languages and because I can traverse and

bridge two worlds. It's not in lieu of, it's in addition to. And I think that's

why people say we're not assimilating. We celebrate the Fourth of July,

and, in addition to hot dogs, we have tacos and burritos and tamales. I

speak English and I can speak Spanish and that doesn't make me any less

American. But I think that there is this phobia and there is fear. And I also

think that the future is going to be different. The United States is so much

more multi-ethnic. Demographically, that ship has left port.

Ms. Lamothe: It's never going to change. Well, interesting question. I think now what we

are looking at politically is 11 million illegal immigrants the media tells us.

Even if we were able to figure out a way to deal with the 11 million people

on board already.

Antonia: Yes.

-76- Ms. Lamothe: Then what happens down the road. Have we really managed to achieve

something that will stem the flow of illegal immigration? If we take those

steps with respect to the 11 million people who are here already?

Antonia: All that enlightened legislation can hope for is controlling the borders. But

to say they are going to close the borders is unrealistic. And the reason for

this phenomenon is that pull, our economic pull, and the push because there

is a significant familial tie here that is pushing families. But it's not just

from Mexico. I can say that about the Philippines. I can say that about any

community. Where you have a community, French, German or another,

there are still familial connections; you are going to have that push because

it's more than economics. Immigration from south of the border is

primarily economic. People talk about the undocumented coming in and

being a drag on the economy. They cannot receive welfare. They cannot

receive benefits. So they either work or they starve or they return. In fact,

the highest worker participation group is Latino men.

Ms. Lamothe: Is Latino men.

Antonia: And undocumented Latino men because they don't have a choice.

Ms. Lamothe: That's exactly the reason they are here in the first place is to work and send

money home.

Antonia: Exactly. So what I often tell folks, "Americans love our food, our music,

our art. It's just those stinking people that get in your way."

Ms. Lamothe: Laughter.

Antonia: People are not commodities.

-77- Ms. Lamothe: No.

Antonia: You can't control the in-flow of people. You can't say "I just need you to

do my gardening and then go away."

Ms. Lamothe: That's right. Disappear.

Antonia: Disappear. And I get my gardening cheap. I get my restaurant meal cheap.

But if the employer isn't paying for their health benefits, as a society were

going to pay.

Ms. Lamothe: That's right.

Antonia: If they are here and they have families here.

Ms. Lamothe: It's going to be education.

Antonia: Exactly. If I pay my cleaning lady less and don't cover her medical

expenses, this does not mean that we, as a society, don't pay. At the end of

the day, we are going to pay. So the question is, in the aggregate, would we

be better off by closing the door to immigration from whatever part of the

world?

Ms. Lamothe: Right.

Antonia: And the answer is "no." What distinguishes the United States and its

economic growth and competitiveness is the fact of its constant growth of

younger people. But I must say that young and uneducated is not good

either.

Ms. Lamothe: No.

Antonia: In the future economy, we're going to have to have educated workers. In

fact, there's an article today in The New York Times about our changing

-78- economy and needs of the future. It's a very service oriented economy.

Either service at the top level. ...

Ms. Lamothe: Or at the lowest.

Antonia: Or at the lowest level.

Ms. Lamothe: But you look at what's happening with young people from India coming to

the United States with very good English skills and with decent educations.

Its going to be very interesting to see how that wave fares. I think we are

going to see a greater and greater wave coming from all sorts of areas that

we have not seen immigration coming from.

Antonia: And at the same time a lot of jobs have been transferred to India.

Ms. Lamothe: Yes.

Antonia: Okay, so what people don't realize, and is scarier to some more than others,

is that we're truly in a very small world, very small universe. And the

intersection of technology and mobility being so affordable, the United

States hasn't been, and definitely will not be able in the future, to isolate

itself.

Ms. Lamothe: Right, and yet, you know, if you look back into our not-so-distant past, how

isolationist we have been and, as you said, how unfortunate it is really that

such a low percentage of Americans even speak a second language.

Antonia: Any language. Whatever problems or issues we might be having in the

Middle East or elsewhere, the lack of the ability to speak those languages is

harmful. So I think, at the end of the day, the debate that's going on with

immigration, unfortunately, isn't being as thoughtful and as rational as it can

-79- be. We are in the need of a public debate about the changing demographics

and how this country is truly in the vanguard of being a world country.

Ms. Lamothe: Right and what it means for us going forward.

Antonia: Exactly.

Ms. Lamothe: What it means for all of us. And, you know, that rather naive belief that you

can have open borders before September 11th and then the convulsive

reaction to that has not necessarily aided the public debate.

Antonia: There are some very basic fundamental principles. Our founding fathers

valued freedom of expression and freedom of movement. Our society's

culture and law is based on these values. Well, how do we have freedom of

speech? How do we have freedom of movement? How do we have our

privacy rights? How do we allow for freedom of just human mobility when

we are trying to close ourselves? And at what price do we protect ourselves?

Are we willing to give up our way of life, the way we see ourselves, speak,

who we are, what we do, for some false perception of security?

Ms. Lamothe: A greater measure of security we believe.

Antonia: That we think we can have, and yet we want total freedom on mobility.

Whether it's the ports, or airports, we hate what we must deal with at

airports to get through. And yet even that is not sufficient to protect us.

Ms. Lamothe: No.

Antonia: So there are a lot of issues at play. We are moving to an era in which who

we are is going to be redefined, and it is scary.

-80- Ms. Lamothe: Yes, it is. Very, very frightening to people, and I think, and I agree with

you, it seems unfortunate that the debate is not really being grounded in

those terms. I mean, I think it is at least useful to say if we do nothing else,

we have 11 million people here who are undocumented whom we need to

regularize. That's too many people to have under the radar.

Antonia: From a security perspective, how can you be secure when we don't

acknowledge our workers? They are our gardeners.

Ms. Lamothe: We see them everyday.

Antonia: They're the ones who take care of our kids. They're among us. They're the

people we rely on. They allow the comforts of being upper and middle

class.

Ms. Lamothe: Absolutely.

Antonia: And to some degree, it has been the cheap labor from the illegal and

undocumented that has allowed the middle class women to do what we

want.

Ms. Lamothe: To do what we want?

Antonia: To do what we want. To have our professions, we have someone take care

of our children. To have our professions, we have to have someone help us

clean the house. Many people are not willing to acknowledge how each and

every one of us benefits or has benefited. And some people think I want

nothing. I have nothing to do. But they don't realize the impact that will

have on their lives. These immigrants are so interwoven into the fabric of

American society. So whether Congress prevails in a level-headed way or it

-81- doesn't, it's going to make it harder for the undocumented. But it's going to

dramatically change the status of our economy and the way we live. So I

think at the end of the day it might be better not to have an aggressive

immigration policy at this time than to have a passive-aggressive

immigration policy that it's going to be harmful, and much more divisive.

Because we do need, and I want to be very clear, that I believe in controlling

our borders. It's like with everything else, our certain capacity of absorbing

people is a real issue.

Ms. Lamothe: That's right.

Antonia: These are real issues we cannot minimize and they have to be addressed and

discussed in a rational, thoughtful manner. And that's what I don't see

happening in· all of this debate and discussion, which is really screaming at

each other.

Ms. Lamothe: Absolutely. Over the years, I'm sure that MALDEF was involved in one

piece or another of immigration issues. I mean for as long as you were

associated with the organization. Was it mostly through litigation that you

attacked the issues that MALDEF saw or what?

Antonia: In the '90s, it was through public policy involvement and debate in

Washington, D.C. that I was personally involved with the various Senators

and legislative proposals. Most of the recent activity has really been on the

legislative policy front. In the litigation, it's been about clarifying certain

language in the legislation. But most of the debate has been at the policy

level.

-82- Ms. Lamothe: And so how then did you on behalf of MALDEF become involved? Did

you actually propose legislation? Or was it to react or to support legislation

that had been put forward by others.

Antonia: Actually both. Personally, when I went to work for Senator Kennedy, I was

hired because of my immigration expertise. Together with my colleague

Jerry Tinker, we crafted the Refugee Act of 1980, which is still on the

books. As Staff Counsel to the Judiciary Committee, my expertise was

constitutional law and immigration. So, on a personal level, I've always

been involved in the issue. At MALDEF, it was every single piece of

legislation that was drafted, we testified and we have advocated either for or

against. We've been part of the group that influences the legislation at the

federal level because immigration is a federal issue. I can say the same

thing for the Voting Rights Act. On voting rights litigation and legislation,

we're it. In fact, a month ago, MALDEF's attorneys litigated a very

important voting rights case out of Texas in the United States Supreme

Court.

Ms. Lamothe: And how did the Voting Rights cases arise? What were the issues involved

in those?

Antonia: These issues involve denial of participation of Latinos in the political

process -- whether it was the redrawing of districts, the manner in which

folks were elected, violations of the bilingual provisions of the Voting

Rights Act or challenging redistricting plans. MALDEF is considered one

of, if not the premier, expert on voting rights and civil rights in the country.

-83- Ms. Lamothe: Uh-huh.

Antonia: That's because we've been doing voting rights from the day the doors were

opened at MALDEF. In fact, in Register v. White, which is a voting rights

case we litigated, it was our plan here in California that was approved in the

1980 redistricting plan. It was the 2000 redistricting plan adopted by

California that we took it to the Supreme Court. We lost the case. But

MALDEF has been involved in every single major piece of litigation that

reached the Supreme Court on voting rights and immigration. MALDEF is

the organization that litigated the Texas case that gives undocumented

children the right to public education. That was our case.

Ms. Lamothe Oh, I see.

Antonia: That's why I say that in many ways MALDEF's history and my tenure

parallel many of the changes that affected the Latino community.

Ms. Lamothe: Why don't you speak a little bit to the issue of education?

Antonia: For Latinos, education is absolutely the key to upward mobility. I am the

oldest of seven. My parents are poor working class. All seven of us went to

college. And it is this country's ability to give us that opportunity, the key

to upper mobility, out of poverty for my family and for many Latinos, and

poor people in general.

Ms. Lamothe: I was going to say, it's so common.

Antonia: It's through the opportunity of an education. And so, therefore, we have

been able to transform our family and our economic status through

education. To come from a working poor class to a comfortable middle

-84- class within one generation has been through education. For Latinos,

education is the key. It is one of the areas that is of greatest concern to our

community. I often tell people that it doesn't do any good to say that we're

the largest, growing minority in the country if we are also the largest

uneducated and poor group.

Ms. Lamothe: That's right.

Antonia: Numbers don't mean anything. It's the educated and active members who

fuel the economy of this country. Political power can only get you so far.

It's a combination of the economic and political power that propels you into

the mainstream of American society.

Ms. Lamothe: Absolutely.

Antonia: There's the issue of the failure of public education to educate.

Ms. Lamothe: Right.

Antonia: I am the product of a public education. I went to high school in East L.A. I

went to a community college. I went to UCLA, a public institution. And,

unfortunately, my public elementary, junior high, and high school education

weren't great. But in comparison to what it is today, it was much better for

me. Today, it is of poorer quality. So, instead of moving forward, we have

moved back.

Ms. Lamothe: Absolutely.

Antonia: As public schools, particularly public urban schools, in America became of

color, whether it's African American or Latino, public support for public

education went down.

-85- Ms. Lamothe: Absolutely.

Antonia: And everybody started pulling their kids into private education. Many think

it's not going to impact them .... Well, now we know that it impacts

everybody. Having an educated citizenry is critical to everybody. And I

think now we're beginning to see a new interest and support of public

education.

Ms. Lamothe: I hope so. One wonders sometimes, really.

Antonia: The future of American society rests on our ability to educate the poorest of

the poor.

Ms. Lamothe: We must be competitive. Globally competitive for exactly the reasons that

we discussed earlier, because it is such a small world. And if we can't

compete, we will be left behind.

Antonia: I think that the biggest challenge is the dropout rate. Quality education

requires having parents understanding that it's not enough to graduate from

high school. But now college education is paramount. Another issue that is

impacting minority communities more starkly as well as the larger

communities is that we have flipped. A greater number of women are going

into college. The men are the ones that are falling behind them and

dropping out and failing. I think that it particularly impacts Latinos and

African Americans.

Lamothe: That's right.

Antonia: And it's not just the poor.

Ms. Lamothe: No, it's middle class boys too. Where are they going and why?

-86- Antonia: Exactly. I think that this is going to be an issue that we all have to face

because it has societal implications far beyond the individuals involved. As

a society, we will be going back to this issue. It's whether America can

accept this demographic transformation and see it as a positive rather than

as a negative. Some believe that the disaffection of men is due to the

women's movement. Once again the gender issue, the race issue.

Ms. Lamothe: From?

Antonia: This is an issue of coming to terms with change. In most cases we are so

much ahead of the game worldwide, in dealing with humanity and the

evolution of humanity. It isn't clean. It isn't smooth. But, at the end of the

day, whether it's a women's movement, whether it's gender, whether it's

the gay-lesbian issue, we are so much ahead of it. Although sometimes with

the far right, one may wonder if we are.

Ms. Lamothe: A lot of backlash.

Antonia: Yes, there's backlash, but I think that those steps are part of the process

because we are going back. It's when you are moving forward when you

can't put the genie back in. But, at the same time, it's a very painful

process.

Ms. Lamothe: It is, it is. And it isn't win

Antonia: No, it is not at all.

Ms. Lamothe: You had mentioned before that during the years that you headed MALDEF

that you were really the only woman heading a major civil rights

-87- organization in the United States, and I'll be interested in particular in how

you think that shaped some of the issues that MALDEF worked on?

Antonia: I think to a large degree the whole issue of what women, what people of

color bring to the table is an important question. Some people say it's only

a matter of inclusion. I don't believe that. I think that as a woman and as a

woman of color, I definitely bring a different perspective to the table. We

see issues in a different way. And being the only woman, and particularly

heading MALDEF, I was not the first one. Vilma Martinez was the first

woman to lead MALDEF. MALDEF has a unique history that for basically

three-fourths of its existence it has been headed by women, which is a

unique thing. I think we bring a different perspective to the table and yet

you have people saying that the Latino community is so macho and male

dominated. One time a reporter asked me, "Well, how do you deal with the

macho mentality?" My response was, "I deal with it the same way I deal

with the sexist mentality of white men." I said, "Because whether it's

sexism or machismo, from a woman's perspective, it is all the same." I

said, "It's a gender issue." I remember in the early '80s, issues were coming

before the Supreme Court dealing with the subject of choice. And choice is

not a priority issue for most. But as a Latina, of course, it's a priority issue.

So I went to my Board and I said, "I want MALDEF to join in a case

involving access to the courts." And it was quite a lively debate. Many

Board members were Catholic and believed that our women do not have

abortions. And I said, "Let me give you the statistics. For Latina women,

-88- it's not an issue of choice. It's an issue of necessity. Many of them abort

because they can't financially support another child. And they do this

because they don't know any better or don't have choices. Being a woman

at that point in time made a difference. I didn't convince my board to do it

on the merits, but they let me do it because I said, "It's my tushy on the line.

I' 11take the heat."

Ms. Lamothe: That's right.

Antonia: No matter what happens. But I never got any heat.

Ms. Lamothe: Interesting.

Antonia: You know.

Ms. Lamothe: Yes.

Antonia: But, ifl had not been there, as a woman, fighting and saying, "Okay, don't

give me the approval. Just get out of my way," and willing to take that.

Then we wouldn't have been there.

Ms. Lamothe: Yes. Interesting seeing that, made a difference for MALDEF putting the

weight of that entire organization behind choice.

Antonia: Choice, whether you loved it or not, is an important issue for Latina women.

We might filter it a little different, but it's important. Choice is an

important issue for the evolution of women, feminists, and Latina women.

In all of the issues, whether it is immigration or health, or education, the

unique perspective of Latina women is important. So we created a Latina

Rights Project. We had to close the project because we couldn't get support

for it. Its unfortunate we had to close the Latina Rights Project. But, in

-89- reality, all it meant is that I will integrate the gender issue into every

program. It won't be a separate project; it won't be an afterthought. And

my staff knew not to bring issues to me that didn't have that lens. So it does

make a difference. Now, are women better or worse? I don't know.

Ms. Lamothe: Just different.

Antonia: Different lens and a different perspective. Working with my colleagues was

interesting. I think it's over simplistic to say that they tolerated me. But it

was interesting that I was the only woman representing an ethnic group

that's ascending and coming up with big players. It's a black and white

world, a black and white male world.

Ms. Lamothe: Right.

Antonia: But you know, I must say that, to a large degree, though not fully embraced.

I was nevertheless successful.

Ms. Lamothe: Right, right. So what made you decide finally to leave MALDEF? You had

had so many years there. So much leadership invested. What made you

decide to make that change?

Antonia: I think that there was a whole variety of issues that played into it. But I

must tell you that it was not like this long extensive thought process. I was

at MALDEF for twenty-three years.

Ms. Lamothe: Right. What was the year then that you decided finally to go?

Antonia: I left in January of 2004. It has been two years that I've been here at CCF.

I had been in MALDEF for twenty-three years. I had been in the public

interest for thirty-four or thirty-five years. To me, MALDEF was the

-90- perfect vehicle for social change and for doing the right thing, for the right

reason, without having to sacrifice my perspective or views. It's more like I

should have paid MALDEF for giving me thatjob.

Ms. Lamothe: Uhuh.

Antonia: It was a perfect job. I gave me the opportunity to have impact at the macro

level on social policy. So I could have been there forever. I loved it. It was

fascinating. It was fulfilling and it gave me a forum and opportunities to

give back. But, at the same time, I firmly believed that leadership needs to

move on.

Ms. Lamothe: For the health of the organ_ization?

Antonia: For the health of the organization and also to give other people an

opportunity.

Ms. Lamothe: To get, to move up?

Antonia: To move up.

Ms. Lamothe: Otherwise, they're blocked really, from getting to the top.

Antonia: The other thing is, though I'm not that old, I did start early and my views of

the world are covered by the lens of my life experience. The younger

generation has had a whole different life experience and they view issues

differently. And so I thought, MALDEF should see it through a younger,

different lens.

Ms. Lamothe: It's time for that turnover to occur.

Antonia: For that turnover.

-91- Ms. Lamothe: All right, so it was the opportunity for turnover and to give others an

opportunity to move up.

Antonia: And so when this opportunity came to me.

Ms. Lamothe: How did it happen?

Antonia: Well, it's interesting. I was on the Board of the California Community

Foundation. I had just been appointed to the CCF's Board that January. I

took a very long sabbatical. I was away for four months. So from mid-

2004 to the fall of 2004, I was out. I was gone. And when I came back, the

opportunity was presented to me. What interested me was that I saw CCF

as another vehicle to do the same thing.

Ms. Lamothe: And how is that?

Antonia: Well, CCF is a community foundation.

Ms. Lamothe: And why don't you just describe some of the background of that and what it

means philanthropically.

Antonia: A community foundation is unique in that it's a place-based philanthropy.

The California Community Foundation serves Los Angeles County. We are

basically the charitable arm of this community. So, like in Santa Barbara,

there is the Santa Barbara Community Foundation. I love Los Angeles.

And like the Chamber of Commerce, CCF's role is to promote and improve

the well-being of Los Angeles. I had been the macro, public policy, 30,000

feet looking down. CCF is on the ground. I can now work to implement

fund programs to improve the quality of life for Angelinos.

Ms. Lamothe: Art projects or --

-92- Antonia: Education, housing projects, community health clinics and scholarships. So

for me, it was another vehicle for improving the quality of life of people in

L.A. County. You get to really concentrate on L.A. County. So when the

opportunity came to me, I said "yes" because this is a chance for me to work

on behalf of a great institution for a place that I love. It was a perfect match.

In many ways, this institution is much smaller than MALDEF. Its reach is

much smaller than MALDEF's. It is also a lot less complex. At MALDEF,

I had offices throughout the country.

Ms. Lamothe: Right.

Antonia: I had double the staff at MALDEF than I have here. This makes it, in many

ways, a little less complex here at CCF, but in other ways much more

complex. And everything interests me. I believe I'm the third Latina

woman in the country to head a foundation. There are two others, Luz Vega

from the Marguerite Casey Foundation up north and Sandra Hernandez, no

relation, who heads the San Francisco Community Foundation. I think that

they also just hired a fellow out in Miami to be the head of the Knight

Foundation. I think the four of us are the totality of Latinos in philanthropy.

To me that was another thing, being a pioneer.

Ms. Lamothe: The draw for you was to play that role all again.

Antonia: In philanthropy, and also from MALDEF, the challenge is dispelling the

myth or the perception of who I am; that I am only capable of representing

my ethnicity and my gender. It is challenging for a woman to transfer into a

position where you now represent the whole, every interest and for people to

-93- see you primarily in that light. The biggest barrier that I've encountered is

peoples' perception of what I can and cannot do because of what they see

and who they see. So for me it's an opportunity, once again, not to be seen

as Antonia, a MALDEF ethnic person, but as Antonia, the head of CCF, a

philanthropic organization that represents a greater whole.

Ms. Lamothe: To move beyond.

Antonia: Exactly.

Ms. Lamothe: Where you began.

Antonia: I will always be Antonia. I will always be Latina and people will continue

to look to me know what the Latino community thinks. But I'm not just

that. I'm that and a lot more. This last year has been a transformative one

because we bring different things to the table. And this institution is a

glorious institution and it's going through its own transformation. The

culture is changing.

Ms. Lamothe: How is it transforming, would you say? What are the changes that the

California Community Foundation has experienced under your leadership?

Antonia: Well, we adopted a new ten-year plan, a strategic plan that's much more

community-based. It expandeds its reach, whereas before we did not fund

public policy, but you see we will now. We are getting involved with the

difficult issue of housing and affordability for poor people by creating a

land trust by which we're going to be much more involved in creating and

building housing. My background allows for me to employ, bring in and

partner with the public sector, which I know and understand. I am

-94- comfortable working with the private sector. In my position at MALDEF, I

had to raise a lot of money. I had to approach corporations and the private

sector. Being on corporate boards allows me to become very comfortable

going from sector-to-sector and working with them. I believe this

foundation can be the bridge, the table where the different sectors come

together to try to address issues and I bring a much more grassroots

perspective of the world to the table. So I think in many ways this

foundation and its board was ready to make those changes.

Ms. Lamothe: To really, it sounds to me as though the organization has a somewhat

different profile now then it had before and some of it is informed by all of

that advocacy work that you brought from MALDEF.

Antonia: And it's interesting because it has not been entirely positive. Some people

feel it's a real positive thing and I've been very well-received. Others are

taking a wait and see attitude and others are saying "Well, wait a minute,"

because I have to prove that I can transition into philanthropy.

Ms. Lamothe: Again.

Antonia: Again, from being the public face for MALDEF and advocacy and public

policy to the head of a foundation in which we are basically facilitators.

Ms. Lamothe: Right, you both raise money and give money away?

Antonia: Exactly. And so that's interesting. I think women are uniquely situated to

play these kinds of formative roles because, as mothers, as wives, as

professionals, we have had to straddle a lot of worlds and a lot of different

demands on who we are, and to me, that is just natural. At this stage of my

-95- life people have asked me what's next. I don't know what is next. I don't

make plans. I have never had a five-year plan or a ten-year plan.

Ms. Lamothe A strategic plan? No?

Antonia: There's never been a strategic plan for yours truly. And, in fact, I told a

young lady who called me because she was writing an article on me that I

have never had strategic plan. I've applied for five jobs and I've been very

fortunate to have gotten the five jobs. And I said, "Young lady, don't be too

focused and don't put on blinders; because if you're too focused and you

have your blinders, you will fail to see life's unexpected opportunities".

And that's the beauty oflife. Unexpected opportunities are what make life

so interesting. If you had talked to me in the fall of 2004 and told me that

six months from now I would be the head of CCF, I would have thought you

were smoking something. I didn't know what the future held for me. My

commitment has always been to work for the public good, to work for social

change, and there are so many ways to do it. That is all I want to do, to

have opportunities to do just that and I know that can happen in a whole

variety of ways.

Ms. Lamothe: That's great. Thanks very much.

Antonia: Pleasure.

-96-