The Hard Life of a Latino Hero

With his 10-gallon cowboy hat, bow tie and guitar, Pedro Gonzalez once electrified Los Angeles’ burgeoning Latino community as a singer of Spanish-language ballads, a fearless advocate of social justice and a pioneer radio broadcaster in his native tongue.

To his legions of immigrant fans, Gonzalez was a hard-living hero whose life spanned almost a century and whose rich tenor voice raged against mass deportation and the hostile local establishment that railroaded him to jail--and, unwittingly, to stardom.

His working life began in 1910, when, as the teenage telegrapher in a dusty Chihuahua village, he was pressed into service at gunpoint by the forces of the revolutionary leader Francisco “Pancho” Villa. Gonzalez, who had been secretly telegraphing reports of the insurgents’ movements to government officials in Mexico City, was caught by Villa and offered a choice: Join the revolution or die.

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Though his conversion to revolutionary politics came under duress, Gonzalez accepted, acquiring along the way not only a new vocation, but also a social conscience he never lost. While escaping with Villa’s men into U.S. territory, Gonzalez was shot by U.S. Army troops. He returned to Mexico to recover from his wounds and was apprehended by government forces. He was standing in front of a firing squad when several village children were instructed by their teacher to stand between Gonzalez and his executioners, who spared him rather than shoot the children. Years later, at a village fiesta, Gonzalez was introduced to one of his saviors, by then grown. Her name was Maria. They danced, and not long after were wed.

In 1923, Gonzalez and his family immigrated to Los Angeles, where he auditioned as a singer for radio station KMPC’s popular live radio variety hour. The station manager sent him away because he sang in Spanish. Undeterred, Gonzalez got his foot in the door by doing commercials for the station in Spanish, opening a previously untapped source of revenue for local radio.

Gonzalez and his newly formed band, Los Madrugadores (The Early Risers), were soon broadcasting a daily 4 a.m. wake-up call to L.A.’s growing Latino community. The ballads he composed--including the classic “Sonora Querida”--were recorded and released by the Columbia label, turning him into an instant folk hero.

But his popularity with Latino listeners did not extend to the city’s white establishment, which soon labeled Gonzalez a rabble-rouser.

Two hours after he announced over the radio that workers were needed to clear some land, hundreds of hungry Latinos arrived in downtown Los Angeles with picks and axes, ready for work. Police responded by throwing them in paddy wagons, fearing they were armed for some kind of uprising. Gonzalez denounced the roundup on radio, and attempts were soon made to cancel his broadcasting license.

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In the early 1930s, a few years before Los Angeles rolled up its welcome mat for Dust Bowl immigrants, it shut its doors to Mexican migrants. Immigration and Naturalization Service sweeps plucked about 600,000 Latinos, many of them U.S. citizens, off the streets of Los Angeles and summarily deported them to Mexico.

Gonzalez blasted the architects of the sweep as the “real criminals. . . . They say that this deportation campaign is to secure jobs for North American citizens. It’s a trick. It isn’t true. It’s really nothing more than a racist attack against all Mexicans. We are neither illegals nor undesirables,” he said during one broadcast.

His reputation as a former revolutionary and his on-the-air opposition to the U.S. Department of Labor’s “Operation Deportation”--which his folk singer contemporary Woody Guthrie soon would condemn in his own ballad, “Deportees”--soon got Gonzalez in trouble with Dist. Atty. Buron Fitts.

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As a former lieutenant governor who became a prosecutor with a reputation for corruption, Fitts needed help in getting out the Mexican American vote for his reelection. But after Fitts bought political ads on Gonzalez’s radio program while stoking the anti-Mexican sentiments of white voters, Gonzalez turned against him.

A year later, in 1934, Fitts had Gonzalez indicted on a trumped-up rape charge.

Gonzalez was convicted of assaulting 16-year-old Dora Versus and sentenced to one to 50 years in San Quentin, where he organized hunger strikes and other efforts to improve prison conditions.

Versus soon recanted her accusation, admitting that she had been induced by authorities to lie. A judge, however, refused to admit the new evidence, citing a technicality.

After a steady stream of Latino protests--including appeals by two Mexican presidents--and support orchestrated and sustained mostly by his wife, Gonzalez was paroled after serving six years and ordered deported to Mexico.

On the day of his release in 1940, his train stopped at Union Station, where a crowd of thousands cheered him. He entertained them for hours with ballads and songs, until the train left for the border.

Settling near Tijuana, he formed a band and resumed his broadcasts, speaking out against social injustice.

In 1971, the Gonzalezes finally were permitted to return to the United States and become citizens, ending years of separation from their U.S.-born children.

Pedro Gonzalez, unwilling revolutionary and unbending social activist, remained steadfast in dedication to his people on both sides of the border until his death near San Diego, at 99, in 1995.