|
| Affiliation | Democratic |
 |
| Name | Jesus Romo |
| Address |
Tucson, Arizona , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
Unknown |
| Died |
Still Living
(2025 years) |
| Contributor | Wishful Thinking |
| Last Modifed | RBH
Jan 17, 2021 03:33pm |
| Tags |
|
| Info | My full name is Jesus Roberto Romo V�jar, but most people know me as Jesus Romo.
While my family has its roots in the banks of the Sonora River, for generations we have moved back and forth between the ancient towns of Banamichi, Ures and Arizpe in the State of Sonora, Mexico, and Arizona and California in the United States. My mother lived and went to elementary school in Superior and Douglas; she died and is buried in Casa Grande. My great-grandfather was born in California, and died and is buried in Douglas. My father lived most of his years in Sonora, but he also spent time in both California and Arizona. I have relatives in all three states who have been there for generations.
I was born and raised in Sonora. In 1964, when I was sixteen, my family moved to Casa Grande, Arizona, where I finished high school. I had also worked in the fields and on ranches in and around Casa Grande during the two summers before moving there. While I was a student in Casa Grande, I worked part-time at a cattle feedlot. I learned a great deal about what hard work means from these jobs and I enjoyed it thoroughly.
In the summer of 1966, after my high school graduation, I joined the U.S. Army. Although we were at the height of the Vietnam War, I was not sent there. Instead, I was trained at Fort Polk, Louisiana, and at the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio of Monterey, California. I served in the Panama Canal Zone where I used my skills in Spanish and Portuguese. I was honorably discharged in the summer of 1969 and started college that fall.
While in the Army, I heard Robert Kennedy speak at the Monterey Airport in June of 1968. His words of peace and social justice moved me deeply. He was killed soon thereafter in Los Angeles, but I had already decided to devote my life to achieving the dreams he had inspired in me.
I graduated from the University of Arizona in 1972 with a degree in Political Science and started immediately at the University of Arizona College of Law, but as an undergraduate I had done organizing work for the farmworkers, the law did not seem then to provide the answers I was looking for. I felt the need to actually be doing something to help instead of just sitting in class. I traveled and work six years for the famrworkers. I graduated from law school in 1982.
I first work for the farmworkers in 1971. I took off the Summer and Fall semesters of that year to do organizing work in Pinal County. In 1975 I traveled to South America, and upon my return, I went to work full-time for the Maricopa County Organizing Project (MCOP) in an organizing drive coordinated with Cesar Chavez. I worked for the farmworkers because their working and living conditions were simply subhuman. Many were living under citrus trees with no running water. If they were injured, they were not treated, and were fired; they had no bathrooms, and had to drink water contaminated with herbicides and pesticides. They were paid meager wages without regard to minimum federal or state standards for safety, child labor, health, sanitary conditions or amount of hours worked. Those who lived in town, did not fare any better. Elementary age school children joined their parents at two in the morning, and worked until seven when the school buses picked them up for a full day of classes; contractors would not even pay the cost of longer handles for their hoes, so they had to work bent over all day long. Field bathrooms were non existent. Many who were undocumented, were sold in the interstate market as indentured workers, from Arizona to Florida, Idaho, Texas and elsewhere. I wanted to help change those conditions. I just had to.
I remained with the farmworkers for five years until 1982. During that time, I worked in Arizona, Florida, Texas, and in several states of Mexico. I organized workers of many nationalities and races, including Jamaicans, Haitians, Cubans, and Mexicans. We were successful in changing many of the field conditions, and in obtaining the prosecution of several contractors and growers for violating the civil rights of the farmworkers, including the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlaws slavery and involuntary servitude. It was very rewarding work.
Part of my job with the farmworkers involved assignments to lobby in Washington and in Mexico City. I met with Presidents Portillo, De la Madrid and Salinas in Mexico, and with President Carter, as well as with many Senators, Representatives and Ministers from both countries, While lobbying in D.C., I worked teaching paralegal students at the Antioch School of Law, and I was named a Commissioner of Latino Affairs by the D.C. government.
Since 1982, I have continued working and meeting with many of these same and other people, and I have developed very strong links with the business and political communities in Sonora and other states of Mexico. I have also worked with several organizations in defense of human and civil rights, including La Mesilla Organizing Project, Derechos Humanos, Coordinadora 96, and others here and in California, Texas, Florida and other states and in Mexico. I have been invited by the Mexican government and political party officials like the late Luis Donaldo Colosio to participate and discuss issues of vital importance to this area such as trade protection, violations of human rights, environmental destruction, and the right of certain indigenous Nations to dual citizenship.
I returned to law school in Tucson in 1982 because I believed that I could do a lot more to achieve my goals with a law degree. I have worked in the legal field since 1983, primarily working in civil rights litigation dealing with abuses by police and federal agents. I have filed many cases against the Border Patrol, Customs, and the local police for gross violations of the rights of citizens, legal residents, and illegal immigrants. Some of the main cases I have tried include the U.S. Border Patrol Agent Elmer case for murder of an undocumented person; the U.S. Border Patrol Agent Selders case, for rape of several civilian women where the victim obtained a verdict of $750,000. I am proud of the cases I have won, and of the difference that their success has made both for those who were directly affected by them and for those who, because of them, learned to defend their rights.
I have also worked on produce and commercial cases dealing with the border and with several states in Mexico. I have been a partner in a legal office in Hermosillo, Sonora, which at the time was only the second United States legal office in Mexico. I have also represented the Mexican Consulates of Nogales and Tucson in many cases since 1987.
I love nature, and I am committed to its protection. My favorite hobby is walking. I have hiked for days in the Andes to the Machu Pichu; in the Pyrenees from France through Spain in the Camino de Santiagol; in the Sierra Nevada, and in the Sierra Madre.
I have always approached my work and life sensible of the words spoken by Bobby Kennedy on that June morning of 1968. Two of my favorite books are On Liberty, by John Stuart Mills, and Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Kennedy and the books deal with the same issue: Tolerance and freedom under fire, to me that is the essence of America, and an intrinsic part of my heritage.
I am now 54 years old. For me, running for Congress is the next natural step, a way to proceed to a position where I can be a forceful and zealous advocate, not only for civil liberties, but for economic development, environmental protection, health, and education, all of which are critical to the residents of District 7. I approach this task with a great deal of humility, fully conscious of the enormous responsibility that it entails. But I enjoy hard work, and I have a deep conviction in the importance of what needs to be done and of its successful outcome.
|
|
 |
| Date | Firm | Approve | Disapprove | Don't Know |
 | BOOKS |
 |
|
| Title |
Purchase |
Contributor |
|
| Date |
Category |
Headline |
Article |
Contributor |
|
| INFORMATION LINKS |
|
|
|
