Graciela I. Sanchez

Graciela I. Sanchez

Graciela I. Sanchez is a San Antonio, Texas activist.

Bio

Born and raised in San Antonio's Westside, Sanchez returned home upon completing her BA at Yale University, to found the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center `San Antonio, TX` with other young women and men, who, like her, see that the cultural expression of large segments of our community, including women of color, poor people, lesbians and gays, remain excluded from the city's cultural institutions.

In the 1980s Sanchez and the Esperanza fortify the link between art and social justice as they challenge the city's homophobic, sexist, racist, and classist politics and policies. Under Sanchez's leadership, the Esperanza, has consistently employed art and cultural expression to sustain a clear oppositional stance against city policies that are destructive of the environment, oppressive of any group, destructive of the history of the people of this city, and/or unconstitutional. . . .Esperanza set historical and legal precedent in her suit, which she won, against the city for violations of 4th Amendment rights, and for its homophobic politics".

Tribute to San Antonio communists

The People's Weekly World of May 20, 2000, carried a May Day Supplement. On page B, San Antonio activists paid tribute to contributors to the "worker's cause" - all Communist Party USA members Emma Tenayuca (1916-1999), John Inman (1896-1996), Manuela Soliz Sager (1911-1996), James Sager (1902-1979), Luisa Moreno (1906-1992).

Signatories included Graciela I. Sanchez.

Communist Party MLK tribute

On January 19, 2002, the Communist Party USA newspaper, Peoples Weekly World published a signed tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr..

We salute Dr. King’s courage and vision. He saw and struggled for an America and world that can be. We pledge in his memory to work to reorder our nation’s priorities “so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.”

Signatories included Graciela I. Sanchez, . Almost all signatories were confirmed members of the Communist Party USA.

Mother's Day for Joanna Stanford

2009 Mother's Day Greetings and Love to the multi-talented Joanna Stanford — now in hospice care — whose life has combined love of family with distribution of the People's Weekly World and predecessor papers, and with the struggle for a world of peace, justice, freedom, art, dance, dolls and handicrafts.

Signatories included Graciela I. Sanchez and Amy Kastely.

Comrades

Graciela I. Sanchez, with Communist Party USA leaders John Stanford and John Bachtell, circa 2013.

San Antonio Free Speech Coalition

In March 2010, the San Antonio Free Speech Coalition learned oral arguments in their case against the city and its revised parade ordinance would be heard by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, located in New Orleans. Callie Enlow attended the group's meeting on April 1 to see how the exhaustively active group would handle the April 27 one-hour-plus hearing. It couldn't have been a better meeting for a neophyte like me to get briefed (albeit one-sidedly) on the history of the contentious parade ordinance and its implications for free speech.

The 
Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, the primary protagonists in this particular battle, hosted the event and provided the bulk of the 30 or so attendees. According to Enlow "others included the proud octogenarian member of the Communist Party to my left and his friend, Susan Ives, the leader of the local Peace Center to my right" . Amy Kastely, the lead attorney for the Free Speech Coalition, launched into her clients' grievances with a Star Wars-like beginning: "The long saga of this challenge that we're bringing begins many years ago ... "

"When we've gone to court here in town, we've packed the place," said Graciela I. Sanchez of the Esperanza Center. She hopes they'll do the same at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, even if it's just for an hour.

Free the Cuban 5

In 2009, over 100 Texan activists wrote a Letter from San Antonio Activists Supporting the Cuban 5 to President Carter:

We actors, artists, writers, teachers, cultural workers and other activists in the struggle for peace and justice in San Antonio, Texas, have read the letter that twenty Actors and Artists United for the Freedom of the Cuban 5 wrote you on April 8. We agree with the contents of that letter, which we have copied below, and we wish to add our names as signers to that letter.

We are sending a copy of this letter to President Barack Obama, to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to the five Cuban anti-terrorists who are in U.S. prisons, to the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, and to the U.S. office of the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5. Signers included Graciela I. Sanchez, 
Esperanza Peace and Justice Center

Appeal to 5th Circuit

According to Graciela I. Sanchez of the San Antonio Free Speech Coalition: We chant Las Calles No Se Callan! The Streets Will Not be Silent, prior to press conference announcing our appeal to the Fifth Circuit. July 27, 2009. Friends present are Rhett Smith, Johnny Martinez (hidden) Jessica O. Guerrero, Enrique Sanchez, Rosalyn Warren, Brenda Davis, Marissa Gonzalez, Justice, Isabel Sanchez, Maria Berriozabal, Mariana Ornelas, Michelle Myers, John Stanford, Gloria Ramirez, Larry Fabiola Torralba, and Amy Kastely.

Esperanza Peace and Justice Center

As of December 2014, the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center of San Antonio, Board consisted of;

• Brenda Davis
• Araceli Herrera
• Rachel Jennings
• Amy Kastely
• Kamala Platt
• Ana Ramirez
• Gloria A. Ramirez
• Rudy Rosales
• Nadine Saliba
• Graciela I. Sanchez