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Legacy of a Mother’s Dedication : Juana Gutierrez, a Beacon for East L.A., Wins National Award

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SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

The story of how the Mothers of East Los Angeles Santa Isabel almost single-handedly shut down plans to build a prison in their neighborhood, then went on to fight the construction of a hazardous-waste incinerator in nearby Vernon, is old news to Juana Beatriz Gutierrez.

It has been recorded by the British Broadcasting Corp. and in the pages of La Opinion. Even L.A. Style and Rolling Stone magazines have documented Gutierrez’s dedication since the 63-year-old mother of nine co-founded the now politically potent Mothers group in 1986.

“That’s history,” Gutierrez, the daughter of a Mexican farmer, says with a wave of her hand. She has new challenges on her mind: the increase in lead poisoning in poor children, the lack of jobs for local students and the need to raise money for scholarships to keep those students in school. And then there’s the pending closure of the county’s health clinics and the need to lend a hand to other communities that are fighting their own environmental issues.

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At least one more time, though, Gutierrez is going to have to acknowledge her history. She has been awarded this year’s Mujer Award, a national honor bestowed by the National Hispana Leadership Institute, which trains Latinas in leadership skills. She will travel to Washington in October to receive the award.

Nancy Leon, president of the organization, said the group looked for a woman who has served the Latino community with a lifetime of achievement and “through the years has evolved with the times and has maintained herself grounded in the present social, economic and political environment.”

Gutierrez is a “a humble woman who lives in a community and sees a need and acts on that need. It’s the kind of leadership we believe in,” Leon said.

Gutierrez says that leadership evolved from her determination to keep her own children away from the gangs and drugs she saw in her Boyle Heights neighborhood, where she joined the PTA and Neighborhood Watch in the 1970s.

“I was worried for my kids,” said Gutierrez, who said she stayed home but earned money baby-sitting and selling plants to supplement her husband’s paycheck from warehouse and sales jobs. “I wanted to stay close to my husband and children.”

Her rebellion against what she describes as a system that penalizes low-income communities began when her children were in elementary school. She said her husband, Ricardo, was warned by a teacher to speak to their children in English at home. Otherwise, the teacher said, “they won’t amount to anything.”

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But the Gutierrezes continued to speak Spanish to their children, intent on instilling pride in their Mexican heritage. As long as the children stayed in school, they would learn English, the parents reasoned. The Gutierrez children all finished college, attending some of the nation’s best universities, including Princeton and UC Berkeley.

“We proved them wrong,” said Ricardo Gutierrez.

Mothers of East L.A. was born out of similar defiance. After a meeting in Gutierrez’s living room called by then-Assemblywoman Gloria Molina to inform the community about plans to construct a prison, Gutierrez and several friends organized an information campaign and held weekly candlelight vigils.

The women also caravaned to Sacramento to tell politicians there were already too many prisons near East L.A. schools. Their actions brought widespread media coverage, and the state dropped its plans in 1992.

Since that year, the organization has run a water conservation program that offers free low-flush toilets and recycles old ones. The program employs 20 people and earned enough money to award $20,000 in college scholarships to local students this year.

A lead-poisoning education project employs 10 youths, and a graffiti removal program employs 15.

Although Gutierrez’s community activism has been taken up by her children, her own upbringing did little to foster such work. Born in a rural town in Zacatecas, Mexico, she came to El Paso with her family when she was 15.

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Instead of attending school, she worked in her aunt’s ice cream shop. Her father quashed the young woman’s desire to do anything outside the family.

“My father said, ‘That’s not your business. Don’t get involved in the community,’ ” recalls Gutierrez. “But after I married I had a lot of support from my husband. He’s not macho. He knows what I do is something good, especially for our kids.”

The two-story home where Gutierrez raised her family now functions as the water conservation project office. The phone is constantly ringing. Gutierrez, still president of the Mothers group, said she has thought about retiring but just can’t seem to break away from her work, attending two or three community meetings many days.

“Every time I say, ‘I’m going to quit, I’m tired,’ I can’t,” said Gutierrez. “We have too many problems.”

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