ASU professor emeritus, historian Vega dies at 89
Dr. Santos Vega, an Arizona State University professor, novelist and historian specializing in Hispanic issues, died on January 2 at 89 due to complications from COVID-19.
Vega was born in Miami, Arizona, on Sept. 6, 1931, where he was raised before being illegally deported despite being a U.S. citizen.
Daniel Valenzuela, Vega’s nephew, said Vega eventually returned to the United States and joined the U.S. Air Force where he served between 1950 and 1954.
After exiting the service, Vega married Edilia Garnica with whom he had nine children.
Valenzuela said Vega later attended University of Arizona where he earned a master’s degree in education.
According to an ASU profile of Vega, he was a teacher at Florence Elementary school between 1959 to 1969. He then taught English and Mexican-American history at Central Arizona College between 1969 to 1975.
He later attended ASU where he earned a Ph.D. in Education in 1975.
Frank Barrios, a close friend of Vega, said the two met while working at the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, which was formed in 1929 by Hispanic veterans of World War I who sought to end discrimination against Latinos in the US.
Barrios said Vega wrote numerous books on Mexican culture and MexicanAmerican history while working as a professor emeritus at ASU.
Barrios worked with Vega and several others on a Hispanic historic property survey, which involved interviewing scores of people to help determine buildings of historical significance and should be preserved. But one of his biggest passions was sharing stories of Mexican-American history.
“What he’d like to do is tell the story as it occurred,” Barrios said during a phone interview with The Arizona Republic. “And he was very, very good at it. He was a wonderful writer (and) wonderful historian. That was his talent.”
Vega’s funeral is scheduled to be held at 10 a.m. Jan. 19 at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church at 2121 S. Rural Road in Tempe He will then be buried at Holy Hope Cemetery in Tucson on Jan. 20.