LULAC turmoil troubles longtime activist
Brad Veloz was looking forward to returning to San Juan, Puerto Rico, in July for the annual convention of the League of United Latin American Citizens. He was especially looking forward to a LULAC convention free of crisis.
But a COVID-19 diagnosis kept Veloz and his husband home in San Antonio.
It was a sign, he says now. The nation's largest and oldest Latino civil rights organization held another chaotic meeting, which ended with a court order that blocked elections to choose a national president and other officers.
The temporary restraining order left president Domingo Garcia, a Dallas lawyer and former state representative, in place, perhaps for another year. The state district judge in Dallas who issued the order will hold a hearing in the case Friday.
Those who petitioned the court for the order claimed that a pro-statehood party in Puerto Rico had hatched a plot to pack LULAC with fake new chapters and new voting members to take over the organization.
To Veloz, it looked like a preplanned crisis meant to disrupt an election that may have denied Garcia another term.
Other LULAC members feared the allegations in the petition order were true — that statehood advocates had created “paper councils” to pack the ballot box.
Many felt dismay that LULAC has had so much trouble keeping its house in order.
Veloz, a retired federal executive and a former Navy man, used a lot of colorful language when we spoke about his history with LULAC.
His family's ties to the organization go back to when he was 11 and are intertwined with grassroots activism and South Texas history.
LULAC was founded in his hometown of Corpus Christi in 1929, when discrimination against people of Mexican ancestry, U.s.-born or not, was blatant and often violent.
His home was like every other in his neighborhood. Its living room had two portraits, one of Jesus, the other of President John F. Kennedy.
His family held fundraisers in that home, serving up enchilada dinners so that LULAC Council No. 1 in Corpus Christi could elect the local Reina de la Feria de las Flores, a title that recognizes prowess in raising charitable money for scholarships.
Council No. 1's first queen was Abbie Piña, who later married a handsome boy across the street from Veloz's childhood home.
He was Ramsey Muñiz, a football star and Chicano activist who later ran unsuccessfully for Texas governor under the Raza Unida Party banner. He later served time for a narcotics conviction.
Next month, several figures from that third-party movement will gather in San Antonio to mark its 50th anniversary with a reunion and conference.
Veloz's memories of LULAC intersect with all that history.
His parents were involved in successfully petitioning Catholic leaders to build a church in their neighborhood. After the reforms of the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65, when his parents left the church and became Mormons, they worked to build a new temple for the Spanish-speaking Mormon community.
Then the Mormon leadership assigned the temple to an Anglo congregation, relegating his family to an older place of worship.
“My parents were outraged” and left the faith, he recalled.
He talks about his father's name, which was changed to “Bradley” by a boss who couldn't pronounced “Braulio.” He talks about an older sister, who was expelled from school for speaking Spanish and held back a year.
“A lot of my ganas,” his desire to succeed, is rooted in such experiences, he said.
They fueled him to fight discrimination. They also drove him to succeed.
In the Navy during the Vietnam War, he served as a viceadmiral's translator. It was sheer luck.
Though the admiral knew some Spanish, Veloz was the only full Spanish-speaker on board a ship destined for the Caribbean and South America.
He wasn't yet 20 when he translated, in real time, the intricate orders and instructions required for the ship to be refueled by the Peruvian Navy.
Veloz never finished college, but he went on to a successful career in federal human resources, including a stint at the Pentagon.
His civil rights work continued.
He advocated for LULAC'S inclusion in federal outreach programs to recruit, hire and train Latinos for federal jobs.
Veloz also became involved in gay rights organizations that at one point blended with LULAC. It didn't go well at first. He heard homophobic comments from fellow league members.
Those attitudes have changed over time, which is evident in the growth of LULAC councils that identify as LGBTQ. Veloz has been a member of a local council called Orgullo de San Antonio — San Antonio Pride.
It was named council of the year on the district, state and national levels.
Veloz mentions all this to say that he's staying in LULAC but is saddened “by what's happening,”
He thinks the organization's internal strife will worsen until structural changes are made to clean up elections.
I don't think change will happen until funders stop writing checks to LULAC.
Either way, Veloz remains part of group that doesn't give up easily, perhaps especially when the injustice comes from within.