Esteban Torres, a son of East Los Angeles who emerged from the Chicano civil rights motion to turn into an eight-term congressman who pushed for social and financial change to assist empower Latinos, has died at 91.
A former union chief who served in President Carter’s administration, Torres died of pure causes Tuesday, in line with a household assertion.
“Torres was a pathbreaking public servant and a lifelong fighter for the frequent good,” U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla stated in an announcement. “Torres’ satisfaction in his working-class, immigrant roots and his perception within the American dream drove his dedication to labor activism and neighborhood organizing.”
Janet Murguia, president and chief govt of UnidosUS, recalled working with Torres to guard employees and improve funding in border communities through the debates over the North American Freedom Commerce Settlement, the pact signed by Mexico, Canada and the U.S.
“From the second he took workplace, he made bettering the lives of Hispanics in our nation a prime precedence,” she stated. “He performed a vital function in each the passage and later the implementation of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Management Act, which gave authorized standing to greater than 3 million folks.”
As a baby, Torres lived in a camp in Arizona the place his father labored within the copper mines.
Ultimately, the elder Torres was deported together with greater than 1,000,000 different folks of Mexican descent by the “Mexican Repatriation program,” although many have been U.S. residents.
Torres by no means noticed his father once more.
Early in his activism, Torres advocated for employees rights as a labor organizer and chief of the United Auto Employees union, which might finally assist launch his political profession.
He was additionally an anti-poverty activist. In 1968, he co-foundedthe East Los Angeles Group Union, a neighborhood improvement group, his household stated. He served as its govt director till 1974 when he first ran for Congress, a race he misplaced.
Torres returned to the UAW as its assistant director for worldwide affairs and was appointed by President Carter because the U.S. consultant to the United Nations Instructional, Scientific and Cultural Group in Paris. He additionally served as a White Home particular assistant for Hispanic Affairs till the tip of Carter’s time period.
The next yr, he was elected to Congress, the place he served eight phrases representing the then-newly drawn thirty fourth Congressional District, which included a lot of East Los Angeles, the place he was raised.
In Washington, throughout his first time period, Torres spearheaded the primary complete examination of West Covina’s BKK Landfill, one of many nation’s most hazardous. He additionally pushed for an overhaul of the nation’s shopper credit score reporting insurance policies and helped draft laws to make sure that low-income victims of pure disasters obtained full federal help.
Torres additionally helped safe tens of millions of dollars for public transit initiatives in Los Angeles County and past. From 1989 till 1991, he was chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
“I've reached the head of success in my very own eyes,” Torres instructed The Occasions when he retired in 1999. “It’s time to let the youthful technology succeed.”
Esteban Edward Torres was born in Miami, Ariz., on Jan. 27, 1930. In his father’s absence, he moved to East L.A. together with his mom and grandmother. After graduating from Garfield Excessive College, he enlisted within the Military and served within the Corps of Engineers through the Korean Struggle.
After his discharge, Torres continued his schooling, attending the Los Angeles Artwork Middle, East Los Angeles Group Faculty after which Cal State Los Angeles. He additionally took graduate stage programs on the College of Maryland in economics and the American College in Washington.
In 1955 he married Arcy Sanchez and began a household. To help his rising household, he labored the meeting line on the Chrysler plant in Maywood. It was right here the place he grew to become energetic within the United Auto Employees union, rising rapidly by the ranks.
After retiring from Congress, Torres served on the California Transportation Fee and was a visiting professor at Whittier Faculty and UCLA.
Together with former L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina, he was a founding father of LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, a museum in downtown Los Angeles that explores the cultural affect of Latinos within the metropolis.
“I knew that years in the past once I had seen him in East L.A. he talked a couple of Latino or Mexican American cultural heart, how we have been erased in historical past and the way it was essential for us to inform our tales,” Molina stated. “So once I was trying into placing collectively the Plaza de Cultura y Artes, he was definitely one of many first ones I wished to work with.”
Torres additionally was an achieved artist, his work displayed at galleries all through Los Angeles, and admired by his colleagues in Congress.
In 2010, a newly constructed highschool in East L.A. was named for him, an honor extra usually bestowed after somebody has died. Torres loved stopping by the campus and talking about his rise from East L.A. to Congress.
In 2020, in recognition for his notable contributions to his neighborhood and his service in Congress, Torres obtained the UCLA Medal, the very best honor bestowed upon a person by the college.
As a part of a digital tribute, he thanked those that had nominated him for the award, together with Xavier Becerra, now secretary of the Division of Well being and Human Providers.
Becerra stated he recalled working up the steps of the Capitol when he was a congressmen and feeling Torres seize him by the shoulder. Go searching, Torres stated.
Becerra stated he seen the Supreme Court docket, the Library of Congress and the Thomas Jefferson Constructing.
“Xavier, always remember the place you’re about to enter, as a result of only a few People particularly these like us, have ever had that chance.”
Torres is survived by his spouse, 5 kids, 12 grandchildren and 7 nice grandchildren.
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