Vickie Castro
{{short description|American activist}}
{{Use American English|date = March 2021}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2021}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Vickie Castro
| image =
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| birth_name = Victoria Castro
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1946|08|20|mf=y}}
| birth_place = Los Angeles, California, US
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| education = California State University, Los Angeles (BA)
University of California, Santa Cruz (MS)
Pepperdine University (MS)
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Victoria "Vickie" Castro (born August 20, 1946) is an American educator and political activist known for her work with the Young Citizens for Community Action, Brown Berets, and the East L.A. walkouts. Castro went on to work for the Los Angeles Unified School District, and eventually ran for office becoming a member of the LA School Board.
Background
Born in Los Angeles, Castro attended Roosevelt High School.{{cite web | url = http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/lausd/board/castro.html | title = Victoria Castro | publisher = Los Angeles Unified School District | work = Board Member | access-date = 2004-12-16 }}{{cite web | url = http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/latinashistory/castrovictoria.html | title = Castro, Victoria M. "Vickie" | work = Latinas in History | year = 2008}} After graduating from Roosevelt, Castro went on to attend California State University, Los Angeles. While in college, she had a political awakening going from a predominantly Mexican-American world to one where they were almost non-existent.{{cite web | url = https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-04-17-me-62401-story.html | title = Reflecting on Ironies of an Activist's Life | first = George | last = Ramos| date =1996-04-17 | work = Los Angeles Times}}
With David Sanchez, in 1966, Castro was part of the Annual Chicano Student Conference at Camp Hess Kramer, where a group of high school students discussed different issues affecting Mexican Americans in their barrios and schools.{{cite web | url = https://www.lataco.com/forgotten-foodways-east-l-blowouts | title = The Forgotten Foodways of the East L.A. Blowouts | first = Gustavo | last = Arellano | date = 2018-03-01 | access-date = 2018-03-03 | work = lataco.com}}{{Cite book |last1=Castro |first1=Sal |url= |title=Blowout! Sal Castro and the Chicano Struggle for Educational Justice |last2=Garcia |first2=Mario T. |publisher=North Carolina University Press |year=2011 | page = 136|jstor=10.5149/9780807877913_garcia |isbn=9780807834480 }} These high school students formed the Young Chicanos For Community Action, which eventually became the Brown Berets.{{cite web | url = http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=7922 | title = Chicano Movement in Washington: Political Activism in the Puget Sound and Yakima Valley Regions, 1960s-1980s | work = HistoryLink}}
As a founding member of the Brown Berets, Castro played a key role in the organization of the East L.A. walkouts on March 6, 1968. Her car was used to pull down a fence surrounding Roosevelt High School. After college she began working as a teacher for Frank Armendariz at Hollenbeck Junior High School, eventually becoming the principal at Belvedere Junior High School.
After 25 years with the Los Angeles Unified School District, and she ran for office in 1993, becoming a member of the LA School Board, the second Latina on the board after Leticia Quezada. In 2001, she left the board to become the principal of Hollenbeck Junior High School.
References
{{reflist}}
Further reading
- {{cite news | title = Chicano! The History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement | type = Video | publisher = NLCC Educational Media| year = 1996 | url = https://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol3/chicano/chicano.html}}
- {{cite news | title = East L.A., 1968: Walkout! The day high school students helped ignite the Chicano power movement | first= Louis | last = Sahagún | date = 2018-03-01 | newspaper = LA Times | url = https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-1968-east-la-walkouts-20180301-htmlstory.html}}
- {{cite book | url = https://www.jstor.org/stable/3347162 | title = Grassroots Leadership Reconceptualized: Chicana Oral Histories and the 1968 East Los Angeles School Blowouts | first = Dolores | last = Delgado Bernal | quote = Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies | volume = 19 | number = 2 | work = Varieties of Women's Oral History | year = 1998 | pages = 113–142 | publisher = University of Nebraska Press | doi= 10.2307/3347162| jstor = 3347162 }}
External links
- {{cite web | url = http://www.laaae.org/?page_id=19 | title = Board of Directors | access-date = 2020-09-21 | work = Los Angeles Academy of Arts and Enterprise}}
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Category:American community activists
Category:American politicians of Mexican descent
Category:Activists for Hispanic and Latino American civil rights
Category:American civil rights activists