Roberto Alonzo

Template:TOCnestleft Roberto Alonzo is a State Representative from Texas.

Crystal City radical

According to Texas Communist Party USA member Gene Lantz.

One never knows what enriching experience might be had at a UAW Local 848 retiree luncheon. On January 10th, our regular 2nd Thursday meeting, we found out that Trini (Mrs Rudy) Vaquera had come from Crystal City, Texas, where militant Chicanos carried out an insurrection in the early 1970s.

Trini was nice enough to share some of her story with us. She was born into one of the poor Chicano families on the “wrong side of the tracks” in the tiny agricultural town of Crystal. Anglos owned all the land and controlled all the politics. The Mexican Americans who, long ago, had been proprietors, worked in the fields for long hours and low wages. Trini’s own mother would be gone throughout the spring and summer months, because she had to follow the harvests all over the western half of the United States.

But Trini managed to get an education and then went home to become a schoolteacher in Crystal. Around 1971, a young radical named Jose Angel Gutierrez roused the Chicanos of Crystal to become active politically. They swept all the local elections. Jose Angel became the County Judge, the highest office of Zavala County. A young high-school student was elected to the school board. His name was Roberto Alonzo, and he is currently the Texas State Representative serving the part of Dallas that includes our union hall.

Supported Progressive Health Care Reform

In late 2009, Roberto Alonzo was one of more than 1,000 state legislators to sign a letter entitled "State Legislators for Progressive Health Care Reform". The letter was a project of the Progressive States Network and was developed in consultation with national health care reform advocates, including the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, Community Catalyst, Families USA, Herndon Alliance, National Women's Law Center, Northeast Action, SEIU, and Universal Health Care Action Network. The letter reads in part,

"Failure to pass national comprehensive health reform now will further jeopardize state and local budgets, undermining public services like education, public safety, and transportation infrastructure... We, the undersigned, call on President Obama and the Congress to enact bold and comprehensive health care reform this year – based on these principles and a strong federal-state collaboration – and pledge our support as state legislators and allies in pursuit of guaranteed, high quality, affordable health care for all."

JwJ May Day event

On Saturday, August 31, 2013, Jobs with Justice and the Worker Rights Board hosted a Labor Day action: “Can’t Survive on $7.25!” which included the first Annual Dallas Labor Day March and Rally since the 1940s. The purpose of the actions, which included a discussion panel involving state and

national representatives as well as representatives from the AFL-CIO and OURWalmart, was to bring to attention the plight of workers with minimum wage jobs. The members of the panel Congressman Marc Veasey, Texas House Representative Roberto Alonzo, the AFL-CIO’s Education Director Rick Leavey, and OURWalmart organizer Colby Harris, along with the moderator, Professor Dr. Joerg Rieger, discussed this issue and offered some insights.

Texas House Representative Roberto Alonzo, who talked about economic justice, immigration reform, and creating awareness about economic issues. He told the audience that the best way to move economic justice issues such as equal pay forward is to be supportive and persistent.

References

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